Heli Weddings Explained

What a heli wedding actually is

A helicopter wedding is a scenic flight to a private mountain top, glacier or hidden valley, where you marry with only your celebrant and photographer beside you — up to six people in total. It’s the most breathtaking way to elope in New Zealand, and it’s my speciality.

How the day flows

1. We plan your location together in advance.
2. Hair and makeup at your accommodation, if you’d like it.
3. A private driver brings you to the helicopter base.
4. Safety briefing and weigh-in at the base.
5. The scenic flight to your landing site.
6. Your ceremony, with the mountains to yourselves — typically 45 to 60 minutes at the landing site for your vows and photographs.
7. Photography in that extraordinary light.
8. The flight back — or an optional second landing.

Safe hands, always

Every landing is approved through a DOC concession, operator approval or private-land permission, and flown only by operators meeting New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority standards, with full public liability insurance. If weather stops the flight, the helicopter portion is refunded within 24 hours (less any fee for an on-ground location we use instead). You can read more on the permits and insurance page.

Considering any planner for an alpine wedding? Three questions worth asking anyone: Is the landing site actually permitted? Is that through a DOC concession or private permission? And is the operator approved to fly there? You’re welcome to ask me all three — I love answering them.

What happens if the weather won’t let you fly

Helicopter flights are always weather dependent — that’s true of every operator in New Zealand — and it’s the one part of your day none of us controls. Safety comes first, every single time.

The pilot has the final decision on whether it’s safe to fly, and the helicopter company makes the final weather check about 30 minutes before your scheduled departure. That can feel late when you’re dressed, ready and waiting at the base, but it’s the only point at which the conditions are genuinely known rather than forecast. Alpine weather moves quickly.

By then you’ll already know exactly what happens if the answer is no, because we’ll have chosen your alternatives together during planning — months ahead, rather than in a hurry on the morning. Depending on the day, that might mean:

• adjusting the timing, and flying in a clearer window later that day
• flying to another approved landing site, often a lower and more sheltered one
• or holding your ceremony at one of the ground locations we picked together.

Your wedding still goes ahead. A change of plan for weather is not a cancellation — and if the flight doesn’t take place at all, the helicopter portion of your package is refunded within 24 hours.

This is also where keeping weddings small quietly earns its keep. I specialise in intimate weddings for the two of you and up to four guests — six people in total — and a group that size can actually move. Two people and a photographer can be somewhere beautiful within the hour. Thirty guests can’t.

If you’d like the full answer — who decides, why the call is left so late, and what happens to your flight — I’ve written it all out in what happens if your helicopter can’t fly on your wedding day.

Where you can land

Signature landings include Cecil Peak (The Ledge), Coromandel Peak, Fog Peak, Lookout Hill, Lake Lochnagar, Tyndall Glacier, The Remarkables and the glaciers of Aoraki / Mount Cook. Tell me the feeling you’re after and I’ll match you to the perfect spot.