About
Who writes this guide
Wānaka Weddings Guide is written, maintained and funded by Wedding Machine Group, the group founded by Cristian Batista. Wonder Weddings, the planning and photography brand enquiries from this site go to, is one of its brands, alongside Heli Elopements and Eureka Films. Every photograph you see here is a real image from our own cameras, never AI generated.
Why it exists
A planning resource, not a brochure
Most wedding content about this region is written to sell. This guide is written to answer questions: what to decide first, what a venue should be able to tell you, what the light does in April, which steps have a legal deadline.
It is funded commercially, and we say so plainly on every page where it matters. That funding is exactly why the guide can afford to be honest about trade-offs, including the ones that lead couples to a smaller wedding, a different season, or a different supplier.
Where a fact can change, a fee, a lead time, a drive time, we publish the source and the date we last checked it. Where we have not verified something, we say so rather than filling the space.
Founder
Cristian Batista, CEO and founder
Cristian Batista is a technology founder based in New Zealand. He builds and runs the wedding brands inside Wedding Machine Group, including Wonder Weddings, Heli Elopements and Eureka Films, and signs off the factual review of this guide.
That combination is the reason this site exists in the form it does: the questions answered here are the ones couples actually ask before they commit, cost structure, season, access, permits, written by people who have run the days themselves rather than researched them from a distance.
More about his wider work is published at cristianbatista.co.nz.
Corrections
Tell us when we are wrong
If something here is out of date or inaccurate, we want to know, and we will correct it and note the change. Use the contact page to reach us.
Reviewed by Cristian Batista, CEO and founder, Wedding Machine Group on .
Want a person to help with this?
Wonder Weddings plans and runs weddings in Wānaka and the wider Southern Lakes. If you would rather talk it through than read another guide, start there.
Planning and photography by Wonder Weddings, in the same group as this guide.
This guide is written, maintained and funded by Wedding Machine Group, founded by Cristian Batista. Enquiries sent from this site go to Wonder Weddings, the planning and photography brand in the same group, and some readers become its clients. Heli Elopements and Eureka Films are also brands within Wedding Machine Group, sister companies, not independent recommendations.