LaterStory
Welcome to LaterStory

The world without photography will be meaningless to us if there is no light and color, which opens up our minds and expresses passion.

Contacts
WeChat: LaterStory21
Phone: +61 452 581 002
Email: info@laterstory.com
© LaterStory, 2021-2026. All Rights Reserved.

Jackalope

A design-led Peninsula wedding venue with vineyard views, boutique luxury, and a refined contemporary atmosphere.
Check Availability

Venue Details

Back to all venues

Winery

03 5931 2500
events@jackalopehotels.com
https://jackalopehotels.com/weddings/
166 Balnarring Road, Merricks North VIC 3926

Planning Snapshot

Balnarring
Partial use: 60 seated for plated reception, 80 standing for cocktail. Exclusive use: 135 seated, 150 cocktail with full hotel and grounds access. Counts under 60 fit partial-use bookings without forcing exclusive-use pricing; between 100 and 135 guests require exclusive use to handle the seated capacity. The 135 ceiling on seated reception is the property's working maximum; above this, the wedding moves to cocktail format or to a different venue.
Vineyard-edge ceremonies use Willow Creek's vine rows as backdrop with the contemporary hotel architecture visible from the seated rows. Indoor ceremony format moves into the hotel's main spaces, with the curated art collection serving as the dominant interior context. Rain plans run the ceremony entirely indoors with the curated art collection and contemporary architecture continuous through the day.
From Merricks North the property faces west toward Willow Creek and Western Port, with afternoon sun moving over the vineyard in that direction from late afternoon onward. Sunset behind the western Peninsula hills is fast; the sun drops behind the inland ridge well before the calendar sunset, so portrait timing should track the visible-hill drop. The hotel's black-finish exterior reads strongly against late-afternoon golden light, and the contrast between black architecture and warm sky is the property's most-photographed exterior register.

Why this venue works beautifully

Jackalope Hotel sits at Merricks North on the Mornington Peninsula, an hour and a half south of Melbourne. Jackalope is a 45-room luxury hotel with on-site restaurant, vineyard frontage at Willow Creek, and a contemporary architectural language dominated by black-finish exteriors and curated interior art collections. Wedding capacity runs across two booking tiers: partial use takes 60 seated or 80 cocktail; exclusive use scales to 135 seated or 150 cocktail with the full property at the wedding's disposal.Exclusive use is the meaningful product here. Partial bookings share the property with regular hotel guests, which constrains styling and limits photo access; exclusive bookings give the wedding the entire 45-room hotel, the restaurant, and the vineyard footprint without overlap. Most weddings here run as weekend bookings, not single-day events; the architecture is designed for that timeline, and the on-site accommodation removes the late-night transit logistics that Mornington Peninsula winery weddings normally require for the core guest cohort.

How we’d photograph it

The hotel's black-finish exterior is the property's defining architectural statement. Schedule a couple portrait sequence in the half-hour leading into sunset on the western side of the building; the contrast between the black exterior and warm sky is what most published Jackalope wedding galleries trade on, and timing this window deliberately is the difference between the keeper frames and the also-rans.

Willow Creek's vine rows sit on an east-west axis. Walk the couple 50 metres into a row at sunset and shoot looking back toward the hotel; this composition picks up the vineyard on both sides, the hotel as architectural backdrop, and the western sky behind, giving three distinct visual elements in a single frame.

The hotel's curated art collection is interior context most wedding galleries don't engage with. Schedule a 10-minute couple portrait sequence with the collection visible behind the couple in two or three different rooms; this gives the gallery a contemporary-art register that distinguishes the wedding from standard Mornington Peninsula winery galleries.

Exclusive-use bookings include 45 hotel rooms. Use this access for getting-ready coverage in two or three different rooms across the morning instead of locking to a single suite; the architectural variety inside the hotel produces a richer prep-sequence gallery than single-room equivalents.

The morning after the wedding, the property is still booked exclusively. Build a 30-minute morning-after portrait sequence into the schedule with fresh-light second-look frames; this kind of follow-up sequence is rare in wedding galleries and produces a different emotional register than the wedding-day adrenaline-driven coverage.

Ceremony setup

Vineyard-edge ceremonies use Willow Creek's vine rows as backdrop with the contemporary hotel architecture visible from the seated rows. Indoor ceremony format moves into the hotel's main spaces, with the curated art collection serving as the dominant interior context. Rain plans run the ceremony entirely indoors with the curated art collection and contemporary architecture continuous through the day.

Best light of the day

From Merricks North the property faces west toward Willow Creek and Western Port, with afternoon sun moving over the vineyard in that direction from late afternoon onward. Sunset behind the western Peninsula hills is fast; the sun drops behind the inland ridge well before the calendar sunset, so portrait timing should track the visible-hill drop. The hotel's black-finish exterior reads strongly against late-afternoon golden light, and the contrast between black architecture and warm sky is the property's most-photographed exterior register.

Reception atmosphere

On-site luxury hotel with 45 rooms, contemporary black-finish architecture, and Willow Creek vineyard frontage running through the property's outdoor footprint. The interior art collection sets the styling baseline; couples adding heavy decor that competes with the curated work tend to lose the architectural read. Exclusive-use bookings let the wedding occupy the restaurant, common spaces, and grounds without overlap with hotel guests, which means the styling register stays continuous from arrival drinks through to reception close.
Check Availability

Weddings we’ve photographed here

Real weddings at this venue reveal more than any venue description ever could — the light, pacing, and emotional texture of the day.

We haven’t published a full wedding story for this venue yet.

Planning your wedding here?

If you’re getting married at this venue, we’d love to help shape the visual story with a calm, cinematic, and genuinely personal approach.

Start Your Enquiry