Heart & Truth Series

Over time, I began to notice a feeling I couldn’t ignore.

It showed up quietly, usually at the beginning – when couples arrived through wedding agents and only made direct contact with me once they were already on New Zealand soil. By the time they reached out personally, expectations were already formed. Certainty felt borrowed. Assurances had been given that hadn’t yet been spoken between us.

Through those first conversations, I would realise I was hearing parts of their story for the first time, even though decisions had already been made on their behalf. Sometimes things had been promised that I knew nothing about until that point. Sometimes they had paid a marked-up price, without receiving anything more personal in return.

None of it was dramatic.
But it didn’t sit right.

What troubled me most wasn’t the idea of agents themselves – it was the realisation that something deeply personal had been shaped too early by people who didn’t truly know New Zealand, hadn’t stood in those places, and hadn’t experienced the regions in person. Decisions were being formed from research, second-hand information, and basic details I had shared, rather than lived understanding. The beginning was already wrapped up before the people living it, and the place it would happen in, had been fully known.

I don’t believe there was ill intent in that.
But intention doesn’t always protect what is personal.

I’ve learned that when something meaningful is decided too far away from the people, and the place, it belongs to, it loses warmth. It becomes efficient instead of attentive. Neat instead of human.

I couldn’t stand in front of people, or speak with them, and pretend I had shaped something that had arrived already finished.

So I chose to step back from working with agents. Quietly. Without drama. I chose to work directly with couples from the beginning, before decisions hardened into assumptions. Before money changed hands without clarity. Before stories were edited down to something tidy and impersonal.

I chose presence over efficiency.
Warmth over structure.
Conversation over delivery.

Some moments need space before they need certainty.
Some beginnings deserve to stay open a little longer.

That choice has made everything feel lighter.
And more honest.

Donna ♥️