Wedding at Karekare Beach, Auckland, New Zealand

Elopement / Karekare beach, NZ / NZ / 0 Comment / September 8, 2019

Juliane from Germany and Rafael from France, after 5 years of saving together went for a one year around – the world trip.

They decided to get married in the middle while in New Zealand. It was a gorgeous ceremony at Karekare beach (west Auckland) and I felt very privileged as photographer (and witness!) to be part of their elopement.

The atmosphere was very relaxed while getting ready : Juliane did her own hair and make-up, while Rafael was chilling and helping fix her hair piece with a fantastic super glue bought while in Japan!

Karla, who is a kiwi celebrant from Belgium married them at this scenic beach and organised a sand ceremony (they both mixed sand in a bottle). Finally we had the most incredible sunset for their photo session.

These are their words :

Why did you choose to get married in New Zealand?

We always had the idea to get married overseas because we are a German-French mixed couple and both our families don’t speak our respective languages. So that’s why we liked this idea.

We left for a trip around the world in August 2018 (Asia, New Zealand and America). So we looked into the different countries where we could get married and it’s quite easy to get married in New Zealand.

It takes only 3 days to get the license and we can get married anywhere. So we thought “Why not?”. That was a good opportunity and it made our tour around the world even more exciting!

Why Karekare beach?

We saw it on Anais’ blog and thought it looked stunning. We also really like black sand beaches and after we Skyped with Anais we had the confirmation that it is a gorgeous location.

Which memories do you keep from that day?

First I remember the rain! It was raining all day and we were scared that it would’t stop. But we got lucky and as soon as I started to get ready the rain stopped. Then we mainly remember that incredible beach, which had the perfect vibe for our wedding and we had a beautiful sunset, which made the photos even better. Everything went exactly how we had dreamed it would.

What advice do you have for someone who is getting married in New Zealand?

For French people you need to get your publication ready, which we did a bit late and it was hard to organize from overseas. Fortunately my brother, who was in Germany helped us, otherwise it would not have been possible. So we recommend to organize your documents early : at least 3 to 4 months before the wedding.

For German people it’s really easy!

How was your experience with the photographer?

Really good! Anais was there to advice us and to direct us during the photo session. She was also really discrete at the same time. Before the wedding the contact was great. She was very reactive and she also gave us the contact with Carla our celebrant, with whom we were also delighted. Most of all we asked Anais to be one of our witnesses so thank-you for that!

Anything to add?