20 Unique Wedding Venues for Your Melbourne Wedding
Sick of seeing the same old locations in your friend’s wedding photos? Be unique and check out these fun and unique wedding venues for your Melbourne wedding.
In days gone by, picking a location for a wedding was pretty simple. You just got married in the local village church, where your parents got married, and your grandparents, and your great grandparents, back for hundreds of years.
It is a different story today! Now, everybody wants a unique, exciting location for their wedding.
That’s all well and good, but actually finding a venue that checks all those boxes can get heckin’ overwhelming.
Planning a wedding is stressful enough without having an existential crisis over the location. That’s why I’ve put together this list of 20 unique wedding venues for your Melbourne wedding.
1) The Wool Mill
161 Donald Street, Brunswick East, Victoria
You probably wouldn’t want to have your wedding in a present-day industrial warehouse. It’d be pretty noisy, not very aesthetic, and filled to the brim with factory workers getting in the way of your wedding — and that’s not even to mention the grueling occupational health and safety protocols that you’d be subjected to; imagine having to walk down the aisle in hi-vis? Isn’t getting hitched already hi-vis enough?
Thankfully, none of those problems occur when you have your wedding at a beautiful, old, decommissioned warehouse like The Wool Mill in Brunswick east. Yes, it’s not just ‘called’ The Wool Mill — it was a wool mill. Inclusive, chic, rustic and filled with Melbourne charm, it’s the perfect location for a unique wedding. There are super high ceilings, and there’s immense possibility of putting your own mark on the place with your own design and creativity.
Honestly, you’d have to have gone a bit wool-y in the brain not to get excited about this place.
2) SEA LIFE Melbourne Aquarium
Cnr King & Flinders St, Melbourne, Victoria
Okay, hear us out. Yes, for some people, getting married at the aquarium probably doesn’t sound like a good idea. Indeed, you might even think there’s something a little ‘fishy’ about that idea (please pardon the pun, the offending writer has been removed from the building).
Some of the reasons you might want to avoid a wedding at the aquarium might include, but are not limited to:
If somebody in the wedding party is extremely afraid of aquatic life
Or, if some of the people you’d like to invite to the wedding are known to have horrifying, persistent dreams about tragic aquarium-accidents
But otherwise, having your wedding at the aquarium is actually a really great idea. It’s unique, wonderfully catered, massively exciting, and something your guests will never forget.
3) Melbourne Zoo
Elliott Ave, Parkville VIC 3052
It’s easy to forget how incredible zoos are. Sometimes we might take for granted that Melbourne has a massive, extravagant zoo, but then if you stop to think about it, goodness gracious, these are the most beautiful and stunning animals in the world.
Lions, tigers, monkeys, zebras, giraffes, seals, all sorts of birds, all brought together in one location, where a team of expert scientists look after them and find out more about how to protect them. Is it possible to find a better location for your wedding than a zoo? Maybe. But how about a more unique location? We think not.
4) Montsalvat
7 Hillcrest Ave, Eltham VIC 3095
‘Fairy tale’ is an overused word when people are describing their dream weddings. Also, have you read any fairy tales? They’re pretty horrifying. People are always transforming into pumpkins or having curses put on them, or being imprisoned in a high tower. Why on earth would you want to live in a fairy tale?
But, of course, if you absolutely do want to have your wedding in the fairy tale aesthetic, you’re going to want to go to Montsalvat. This place was set up in the 1930s and its an artists’ colony in Eltham. It is really stunningly beautiful, full of old world charm. If you love old buildings made of big stones and lush, European-style gardens, and all that magical fairy tale-type stuff, Montsalvat really is Melbourne’s absolute best.
5) Overnewton Castle Receptions
51 Overnewton Rd, Keilor VIC 3036
Continuing with that ‘fairy tale’ theme, this place is, like, literally a castle. I mean, just look at those vines crawling over the wall. That’s a fairly unique level of vine coverage. You couldn’t get more fairy tale type locations if an actual fairy appeared and started telling you a tale. Good golly, this is a fairy tale style in the extreme. If you’re not careful a small man will try to abduct your child and force you into a macabre scenario where you have to guess his name.
(Hey, don’t worry about it if it does happen. His name is Rumpelstiltskin. Just don’t let him, we told you).
6) State Library of Victoria
328 Swanston St, Melbourne
Most libraries are pretty boring. They’re full of boring books, boring people, and boring librarians telling you to shush. But the State Library of Victoria isn’t ‘most’ libraries: it’s the most spectacularly beautiful library in the country. Honestly, there’s probably not another library in the world that gets put on Instagram as often.
The State Library of Victoria wouldn’t just be a unique place to have a wedding, it's also really well set up to cater to the needs of a wedding party. There are heaps of rooms that can accomodate parties of many different sizes, so whether you’re planning on a wedding that’s big or small, the bookworms down at the SLV can take care of you.
7) National Gallery of Victoria
180 St Kilda Rd, Melbourne
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV for short) isn’t just a building south of the river where lots of beautiful works of art are kept. The building is a beautiful work of art itself. There’s that big window out the front that always has water running down it — man, that’s a splendid part of the building. And then there are the big reception rooms that are perfect for a unique wedding location.
8) The George Ballroom
127 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda
The Victorian era was pretty uptight and stuffy, with uncomfortable dresses and ridiculous moustaches — you know, you couldn’t even have table legs that looked too much like ankles, or people would get too aroused. That might be a myth, but it feels true. That’s how uptight those people were.
But here’s one thing the Victorians did get right: architecture. The George Ballroom is from the Victorian era, and boasts a huge assortment of stunning details and accouterments. And, you know, just because the people of the Victorian age were uptight when they built the ballroom, that doesn’t mean you have to have an uptight wedding there. Get loose. Get silly. Do things that would make the Victorians blush with horror, like showing some ankle. Oh my!
9) Luminare
Cnr Browns Lane & York Street, South Melbourne
Right smack bang in the throbbing heart of the city, you’ll find Luminare. ‘Sophisticated’ is putting it lightly. This is a real classy joint with maybe the most impressive view of Melbourne’s skyline you’ll ever find. If you’re looking for a wedding location where your guests will say, ‘jeez louise, look at that skyline’, this is the place you want.
10) Emu Bottom Homestead
Homestead Way, Sunbury
Some homesteads in Victoria can lay claim to being very old. The proprietors of those homesteads will say, with a twinkle in their eye, ‘Yes, this is one of the most ancient homesteads in all of the state of Victoria’. But do you know what? Who cares about a homestead about being ‘one’ of the oldest? The only thing that counts, when the chips are down, is whether or not the homestead is the singular oldest homestead in the state.
Emu Bottom is unique, because it really is Victoria’s oldest homestead. All the other old homesteads can go suck a lemon — they’ll never be as old.
11) Jack Rabbit Vineyard
85 McAdams Ln, Bellarine
OK, we know, a wedding at a vineyard — that’s not unique, in and of itself. Everybody is getting married at vineyards nowadays. It’s absolute chaos for people trying to work at a vineyard. There you are, stomping on some grapes, and the father of the bride is just looking at you, throwing you off your grape stomping form.
However, Jack Rabbit Vineyard is a bit different. This vineyard has incredible ocean views. And, frankly, having incredible ocean views at your vineyard wedding is pretty special and unique. Usually, guests at a wedding in a vineyard are expecting to look at people stomping on grapes, but at your wedding, they’ll be looking at both the ocean and people stomping on grapes.
12) Eureka 89
Level 89, Eureka Tower, 7 Riverside Quay, Southbank
Heaps of people get married on the ground floor. You’d have to think that, on average, the vast majority of people are married there, on the ground floor. Certainly, some people probably get married in basements. There’s not a great view but, statistically, it must happen. And then a few people might get married on the first floor, or the second floor. The third floor? That’s probably starting to be rarer and more unique. But most unique of all? That might be the 89th floor.
Not many people get married on the 89th story. Most buildings don’t go up that high. Indeed, many cities don’t even have a building that is that tall. Thankfully, if you’ve got your heart set on a wedding at 89 stories, Melbourne has you covered with Eureka 89.
13) Old Melbourne Gaol
377 Russell Street, Melbourne
Sometimes, marriages are described as a form of imprisonment. Many times one has heard a husband refer to his wife as the ‘ball and chain’. Conversely, it’s not all that rare to hear a woman talk about feeling ‘trapped’ in her marriage.
That sort of gaol talk usually only comes a few years into a marriage, after the honeymoon period has worn off. But why wait? By getting married at the Old Melbourne Gaol, you can start feeling as though your marriage is a prison right from the get go.
Vitally, though, the Old Melbourne Gaol doesn’t look anything like the bleak and sad contemporary prisons they’re building nowadays. It’s actually a bit of an architectural wonder, and is really quite lovely. Indeed, it looks nicer, and is more desirable for weddings, than many ‘normal’ wedding locations of the modern day. And isn’t that a damning inditement on modern architecture?
14) Zinc Fed Sq
Cnr Princes Walk & Russell St Ext, Melbourne
Isn’t modern architecture great? And it doesn’t get much more modern than Fed Square, with glass, metal, unusual angles — everything that modern architecture fans love, and more. People use Fed Square for all sorts of reasons, from watching live sport and breaking world events on the big screen, to the Melbourne Writers Festival. At Zinc, a top-notch entertainment space for wining and dining, you can also have a very unique wedding.
15) Luna Park
18 Lower Esplanade, St Kilda
Insert marriage is like a rollercoaster quote here, but seriously, if you have your wedding at Luna Park, your marriage won’t just be ‘like’ a rollercoaster — it’ll literally be starting out on an actual roller coaster. Plus, getting married at Luna Park means you can get all dressed up in the best clothes you’ll ever wear and then have a photo taken under the big mouth at the entrance. Have you got any idea how unique a thing that will be?
16, 17, 18) Melbourne Museum, Scienceworks, and the Immigration Museum
Museum Spaces can facilitate weddings at three of Melbourne’s most iconic museums; Melbourne Museum, Scienceworks, and the Immigration Museum. Museums are full of fascinating things that people want to study, so in that sense, they’re the perfect location for your unique wedding. Once you’re married, people are forever looking at you, saying, hey, how did those two get together?
19 ) Your local pub
There are great, bold, exciting venues out there for your wedding, but what about your very own local pub? It’s the place you go with your mates, where some of your best memories are, and by choosing them for your wedding, you’re putting money back into your beloved community. Is it, necessarily, ‘high-class’? No. But it is unique, and that is the important thing.
20) Your very own backyard
Photo by Shaun Montero
It doesn’t get much more unique and local than the local pub, except for one location: your own backyard. If you’ve got chill neighbours, wedding venues don’t come simpler and better than the patch of turf behind the house where you live.
And if you don’t have a suitable backyard at your own house (hey, who knows, maybe you live in a very small apartment), you could always try hitting up your parents and asking if they’ll let you have the wedding at their place.
