Michael & Nichole
Above the World

There is a moment at the top of Coromandel Peak when the helicopter lifts away and silence falls in completely. The wind off Lake Wanaka. The Remarkables sharp against a late-March sky. And two people standing there, in wedding clothes, slightly giddy, exactly where they chose to be. This is what a Japan and Queenstown destination elopement photographer gets to witness, when couples decide to do it properly.

As Queenstown elopement photographers with a second team based in Japan, we work with couples who have a very specific picture in their heads and the confidence to follow it. Michael and Nichole are exactly that kind of couple: they plan their lives the way most people plan their weekends: with a specific shortlist, a strong instinct, and no wasted energy on options that don’t feel right. When they decided to get married, a large traditional wedding was never on the table. What they wanted was New Zealand. The mountains. A moment that was entirely theirs.

They had visited Japan to see friends before the elopement, and when they discovered our Japan team offered pre-wedding shoots in Tokyo, they booked one on the spot. That shoot, on a cold November afternoon moving between Tokyo Station, Hoppy Street in Shibuya, and the old stone paths of Hibiya Park, turned into one of my favourite afternoons of the year. They were relaxed, they were funny, and they moved through the city like they belonged in it.

Four months later, they flew to Queenstown for the elopement they had spent more than a year imagining.

The getting-ready images always tell me more than the couple realises. There is a Jo Malone bottle on the windowsill beside Nichole’s rings: the diamond catching the morning light, the beaded bracelet draped across the wood. She is sitting on a yellow couch, already smiling, while Michael straightens the off-shoulder neckline of her gown. She is putting in an earring. He is already ready and waiting, which is classic.

Nichole’s makeup was done by Ikuko Miyata, who has an extraordinary talent for making women look completely like themselves, only with better skin. The gown, off-shoulder with a full cathedral veil, held its line all the way through the helicopter ride and the wind on the mountain.

Coromandel Peak sits at 1,443 metres above sea level. By helicopter from Queenstown, that is about twelve minutes. By the standard hiking track, it is two and a half hours one way. Michael and Nichole took the helicopter.

There is no ceremony backdrop in New Zealand that competes with what you see from the summit of Coromandel Peak: Lake Wanaka stretching south, Roy’s Peak ridge across the valley, the sky so cleanly blue in late March it almost reads as saturated. Our Queenstown photographer Ayaka had been up there the previous week to check light conditions and timing. She knew exactly where the shadow would fall and exactly when it wouldn’t.

The ceremony was led by Sarah Noble, who has a particular gift for writing vows that don’t sound like they came from a website. Michael read from a small book. He did not rush. Nichole listened with her whole being. The best frames are not the kiss. They are the fleeting little moments right before and after.

After the ceremony they took their shoes off. The bouquet went on the ground. They waved at the camera like two people who had just done exactly the right thing and could not be bothered pretending otherwise.

The black helicopter sat on the grass below the ridge and at some point Michael posed in front of it alone, boutonnière perfectly straight, with the expression of a man who is fully aware this is an excellent photograph and is fine with that. They are both like that: self-aware without being self-conscious. It is a rare combination and it makes photographing them completely effortless.

Michael and Nichole did not elope because they had no one to invite or nowhere to celebrate. They eloped because they knew exactly what they wanted, and it was this: a mountain above a lake, a celebrant who knew their story, a photographer who had already spent a November afternoon with them on the streets of Tokyo.

They flew to Queenstown with a clear picture in their heads. The helicopter, the vows, the wind, the light. The photographs will show their children. The photographs will be on a wall somewhere for the rest of their lives.

That is what we make here. Not memories. Evidence.

Congratulations, Michael and Nichole. It was a privilege to be there twice.