Real wedding
Joy + Hubert, A helicopter landing at Coromandel Peak above Lake Wānaka, with the ceremony and reception at Stoneridge Estate in Queenstown
Both halves of a destination wedding: a private alpine chapter for the two of them, and a full celebration with the people who had travelled to be there.
Coromandel Peak above Lake Wānaka. Photograph: Wonder Weddings.
- Format
- Full celebration
- Guests
- Family and friends
- Season
- Spring
- Setting
- A helicopter landing at Coromandel Peak above Lake Wānaka, with the ceremony and reception at Stoneridge Estate in Queenstown
- Getting there
- Two helicopter landings before the ceremony, then back to the venue by road
How the day ran
The running order
- MorningGetting ready in Queenstown
- Before the ceremonyHelicopter landing at Coromandel Peak, above Lake Wānaka
- Second landingA snow-covered alpine site
- AfternoonChapel ceremony with family and friends at Stoneridge Estate
- SunsetPortrait window in the garden
- EveningSpeeches, reception and dancing
The parts worth copying
Weather, locations, trade-offs
The weather call
Spring holds snow on the peaks while the valleys green up, so the alpine landings and the venue looked like two different seasons on the same day. The heli chapter sat before the ceremony, which is the safer order: if the flight moves, the ceremony still runs on time.
Why the locations worked
Coromandel Peak supplied the Wānaka alpine scale, and a single venue supplied ceremony, reception and guest logistics with no long drives between them. This is the pattern worth borrowing for a Wānaka wedding with guests: one venue that holds the day, plus a short private flight for the couple.
What they traded away
The gathering was based in Queenstown, not Wānaka, so this story is included as a structural example, not as a Wānaka venue recommendation. Adding a helicopter chapter also adds a weather dependency to an otherwise venue-based day.
Talk to a planner
Want a day built along these lines? A planner can tell you honestly what is realistic for your date.
Planning by Wonder Weddings, an affiliated brand.
Film
The day on film
Credits
Who worked on the day
- Planning, photography and filmWonder Weddings
- Helicopter operatorHeliworks
- VenueStoneridge Estate
Next
Guides that go with this story
Published by the owner on wonderweddings.co.nz with the couple's approval; retold here within the same scope. Labelled clearly as a Queenstown-based celebration with a Wānaka alpine landing. Source: Joy + Hubert, Stoneridge Estate wedding with a Coromandel Peak landing (checked 2026-08-22).
Planning something like 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.