Heart & Truth Series

There’s a certain kind of quiet that comes when you look back through old wedding photographs. The ones I took myself, back in the days when I carried both the timeline and the camera, capturing love through a lens that felt as natural as breathing.

As I scroll through them now, years later, I can still feel the air of those days. The nervous laughter during vows that bubbled out of nowhere. The single tear that slid down a groom’s cheek before he could catch it. The bride who kicked off her shoes, waded into the water, and just stood there, not for a photo, but because it felt right in that moment.

I remember them all. Every couple. Every day. Not because I tried to, but because something about each wedding etched itself quietly into me. These weren’t just events. They were tiny chapters of real life – lived, breathed, and witnessed.

When I started New Zealand Dream Weddings almost three decades ago, the world was a very different place. There was no Instagram, no reels, no hashtags. Just trust, word-of-mouth, and long-distance calls across time zones. Then came the storms – SARS, the Christchurch earthquakes, COVID, moments that stopped the world and tested the strength of every small business.

But somehow, love always found its way back. Couples still dreamed, still travelled, still whispered their vows against the wind. And I stayed, quietly, steadily – helping them do it.

Over the years, new names have appeared in this industry – younger, faster, full of modern flair. I smile when I see them. There’s room for us all. What time gives me, what experience carves, is something quieter. It’s instinct. It’s knowing when to step back and let the emotion unfold without staging it. It’s the art of holding space, not taking it.

People sometimes ask how I’ve kept going this long. The truth is, it was never about the money. Of course, it’s a business I have a family, a life, and responsibilities. But deep down, it has always been about peace. That feeling that comes when everything aligns, when two people stand together in stillness and I know their day has gone exactly as it was meant to.

And as I sit here now, surrounded by years of captured laughter and tears, I realise how much I miss being behind the camera. That quiet space where I once saw love through my own eyes and lens – raw, unposed, alive.

So today, I will keep that promise many years ago: I will pick up that part of me that has been tucked away for far too long – my camera. Not for business, not for show, but for the joy of seeing again. For the art of noticing what makes this world and the people in it, so beautifully real.

The spaces between then and now are filled with change, challenge, and countless love stories. But through it all, my heart remains the same – quietly, faithfully, still in love with love.

What a beautiful day!
Donna x