It’s a beautiful spring Saturday, and finally, spring is showing her face.
I’m sitting outside with my coffee, watching the garden stretch awake again, the young buds trying to show their beauty after the long winter. The Tui are singing in the trees, and even though there’s a gentle chill in the air, the sun feels kind today.

Moments like this always make me think about love, how it comes quietly, how it grows even after the coldest seasons, how it softens the edges of life. Maybe that’s why, even after all these years, I still believe in eloping for love.

When Everything Else Falls Away

After nearly three decades of planning weddings and elopements across New Zealand, I’ve seen hundreds of couples promise forever in their own ways. Yet what still moves me isn’t the perfect photo or the big gesture, it’s the silence before it all begins.

It’s the soft breath before the words “I do.”
The laughter when the unexpected arrival of the wind steals a veil.
The look that says, we did this our way.

Those are the moments that make me believe in love, not the kind you perform for the world, but the kind you live quietly, together.

Eloping for Love – Not for Show

Eloping, to me, has always been an act of tenderness disguised as rebellion.
It’s choosing presence over performance, meaning over noise.
It’s saying, we don’t need an audience to make this real.

When couples elope in the mountains, or beside a quiet lake, they strip everything back to what truly matters, each other.
And maybe that’s the reason I’ve never grown tired of it. Because even in a world full of distraction, eloping for love feels like coming home.

The Magic That Never Fades

Every so often, I still find myself tearing up behind the camera – or at least remembering what it felt like to be there. The weight of the lens in my hands, the breeze against my face, the sound of a helicopter fading into the clouds. I miss it – that quiet power of capturing love in its truest form.

I have the most incredible team beside me now, there’s no denying that. But there’s a promise I’ve made to myself – that one day I’ll return, not only as the owner of a wedding elopement company, but as a photographer and on-the-day coordinator again, just as I was in the very beginning. Because that part of me – the one who feels the moment before she captures it – never really left.

It’s not sadness; it’s awe. The kind that never fades, no matter how many years or weddings have passed.

Because love, when it’s real, still takes my breath away.
And eloping for love – stripped of everything but truth – reminds me why I started this journey in the first place.

So yes, I still believe in eloping for love.
Not for the photos, though they’ll always be beautiful.
But for the quiet magic that happens when two people choose each other completely – without needing the world’s approval.

Happy springtime from NZ – Donna x