This is us recording a moment when we were genuinely having a really wonderful time.
For this DIY pre-wedding shoot plan, we set ourselves a budget of only NTD 5,000 (about USD 160): renting a men’s suit jacket for NTD 2,500 and buying something vaguely wedding-dress-like for NTD 2,500. Will we actually pull this off?
Why a DIY Pre-Wedding Shoot?
The obvious reason is simple: our budget was limited.
On New Zealand’s South Island, the mainstream way to do pre-wedding photos is to join a shoot tour organized by a Taiwanese photographer, who takes the group to New Zealand once enough people sign up. That’s the high-budget version: airfare for the photographer, shooting fees, retouching, and so on, in exchange for genuinely high-quality photos. A relatively cheaper option is to hire a local photographer there. Depending on the number of shooting hours and photos, that usually costs around NTD 50,000 to 100,000, with hair, makeup, and outfits charged separately.
I think that service is absolutely worth the price. A lot of people would say these are the kind of photos you only take once in a lifetime. If a friend asked me whether New Zealand is a good place for pre-wedding photos, my answer would still be yes.
But I kept having a few doubts in the back of my mind.
If We Shoot It Ourselves, Is It Really Impossible?
I kept looking over finished photos from professional photographers, and this question kept coming up because these were all outdoor photos.
People go to New Zealand for photos because New Zealand is beautiful. Capturing that kind of beauty doesn’t require elite photography skills, and it isn’t that dependent on gear either. Even someone who doesn’t really know photography can tap an iPhone once and get an amazing shot. These breathtaking landscapes don’t require spending a lot of extra money to have them: most of the important and beautiful things in life are free.
We’re standing right inside that scenery.
But after looking at other photographers’ pre-wedding work, I was also sure there were some things we simply wouldn’t be able to recreate. The reasons include:
- Composition: pre-wedding photos often use a wide range of compositions, like close-up shots, long shots, low angles, and so on. We’re limited by two things here. One is the photographer’s understanding of composition itself. A photographer’s sense of framing, cleanliness, order, angle, and how near or far to place the subject is exactly where their value lies. The other is that when we’re shooting ourselves, we also have to be in the frame. That means the viewing angle is constrained by wherever the tripod can be fixed, and some angles just aren’t possible.
- Movement: some pre-wedding photos have a sense of motion, like the couple moving through the frame, running by the sea, that kind of classic wedding-shoot image. To capture that feeling, you need to catch the exact moment in motion. We were shooting with a tripod and a countdown shutter, so realistically, we were not getting that shot.
So if the question is whether you can do a DIY pre-wedding shoot yourself, the answer is: yes, but there will be limits if you don’t hire a photographer. In terms of composition and movement, you won’t get the same richness a professional can create.
Does It Matter If We Can’t?
But does it really matter if we can’t produce photos at that level?
That depends on how you think about pre-wedding photos in the first place.
Thinking back on our experience with photos, which ones feel the most vivid when Google Photos or an iPhone surfaces them as a memory? For me, the best photos are the ones that bring the whole scene back. For example, I have a short video where I toss a Taiwanese shrimp snack into the air, the seagulls in Busan come for it, and I end up getting chased by them:
I absolutely did not plan to get chased by seagulls, but that moment when I turned and ran was exactly the feeling of, ‘I cannot do this anymore, there is a whole flock of seagulls hovering there and staring directly at me for food.’ I can still remember the smell of the sea and the sound of them shrieking behind me. It looks funny, but at the time it really felt like fleeing for my life.
On the other hand, highly prepared photos are often genuinely beautiful, but somehow leave almost no memory behind.
Studio shoots are a good example. In a studio, everything is ready for you and you do not have to worry about lighting or backgrounds at all. After one or two sessions you may still remember what you shot, but after more than that, you realize you just borrowed an artificial set. I once took family photos there after a long gap, and what I remember is basically, “That studio was nice, and there was a decorative tree next to it, but you had to move the tree carefully because it was unstable and might fall over.”
We didn’t have much of a connection to that place.
The photos I love most are the ones where a strong connection between you, the place, and the people in it gets caught by the camera in a single moment.
Maybe I don’t actually want pre-wedding photos in the traditional sense, where the shoot feels like checking off a task.
I want Google Photos to show me one of these later and for me not to say, “Oh, that is just a pre-wedding photo,” but instead, “That was when we…”
If that’s what I want from a photo, then all those bits of movement and composition we can’t create without hiring a photographer…
maybe they aren’t all that important after all.
After all, you can’t have everything at once.
Spend the Right Amount, Get the Best Life Experience
When I asked my partner what he thought about all this, his answer was very practical too:
“If we hire a local photographer, then I’ll want hair and makeup too, and outfit changes, and once you add all of that up, we could probably come to New Zealand a second time instead.”
Money is part of it, yes, but when it comes to travel, the goal I’ve always held onto is this:
To spend the right amount of money in exchange for the best possible life experience.
New Zealand is already not a cheap trip, and the most beautiful thing it offers, the scenery, is completely free.
So with that in mind, if we could spend an amount we could actually afford and still get a beautiful life experience out of it, then yes, let’s try doing the pre-wedding shoot ourselves.
Technique and Gear
Even for a ‘DIY’ pre-wedding shoot, I think some preparation is still necessary. These were the tools and considerations we came up with.
Clothes
The style of pre-wedding photo that first drew me in was the one taken from a high mountain viewpoint, with the shattered-looking lake scenery below and both people dressed in full formalwear.
For a while, I wondered whether we could change clothes on the mountain. But that would mean carrying a suit jacket, shirt, pants, shoes, and even a full large bridal-style skirt. Was that really possible?
After looking into how those photos were actually taken, I realized the answer: people were fully dressed first, then flown straight up the mountain by helicopter for the shoot. In other words, they did not hike up there.
Strictly speaking, hiking clothes and photo-shoot clothes are different by nature. Hiking up in wedding wear is basically impossible.
So in the end, we adjusted our plan a bit.
- For the men’s outfit, we kept it relaxed: pants in a color that matched the suit jacket, a white T-shirt, and the jacket itself.
- For the women’s outfit, it was a white one-piece dress with more functional layers underneath for warmth and sweat-wicking. On top of that went a hoodie or other easy outer layers, basically a full onion-layer setup. Then when it was time to take photos, I could peel off some of the outer layers and switch into the photo look.
Experience Level
By experience level, I mean photography experience.
The challenger in this case, aka me, has about three years of experience using a full-frame camera. I switch between M mode and A mode, and handling ISO, aperture, and shutter speed for proper exposure is not a problem.
Overall, that means I know just a little more about taking photos than the average person.
And I do mean only a little.
Camera and Lens
This time, the camera setup was a Sony A7C full-frame body with a TAMRON 24-200 lens.
That combination was basically fine, but my biggest mistake was not buying an ND filter. Without one, the camera really struggled in bright light. If you have one, I recommend bringing it.
Also, I still don’t know how to use HDR on the A7C. If I did, I think it would have helped in a lot of ways.
Tripod
Compared with the lens and photography skills, the tripod actually had a huge impact on whether this would succeed.
More importantly, a camera plus lens is definitely not light, and mountain wind is no joke, so you really need a tripod you trust. If the wind knocks it over and damages the camera or lens, that cost… will definitely be more than hiring a photographer.
But of course, the more stable a tripod is, the more trustworthy it is, and the heavier it gets. The heavier it is, the more weight you have to carry uphill. So heavier is not automatically better. You still need a balance.
The tripod we used on this trip was from Marsace.
When to Shoot
If you take color and exposure into account, the ideal time is still golden hour, early morning or late evening.
In New Zealand summer, the daylight lasts a very long time. Golden light is roughly the hour around 7 a.m., and again the hour around 7 p.m. If you want evening photos, you can even come after dinner and still have a decent chance at good light. Before planning the shoot, I strongly recommend checking the sunrise and sunset times for that season first, then building a workable itinerary around them.
Apple’s built-in Weather app can show sunrise and sunset times, which is useful as a reference.
Why Roy’s Peak?
Our target this time was Roy’s Peak. The trailhead is only about a 5 to 10 minute drive from the town of Wanaka on New Zealand’s South Island.
Why were we looking for a mountain in the first place? It goes back to my first impression of New Zealand pre-wedding photography. So many of those photos are shot on mountain tops, and while looking for a summit that felt realistically possible, I found Roy’s Peak.
Roy’s Peak itself is a mountain that runs along the lake. Even the drive to the trailhead follows the edge where the mountain meets the water. Once you start hiking and gradually gain elevation, the lake beside you starts to become three-dimensional, turning into layered scenery with mountains rising out of the water. That layered landscape, plus the way the Lookout lets you see the trail stretching toward its end from behind, is the most captivating thing about Roy’s Peak.
On several hiking ranking sites, Roy’s Peak is listed as the third-best trail in New Zealand, with a 4.8/5 rating from 5,089 reviews, behind only Hooker Valley in the Southern Alps and the Tongariro Alpine Crossing on the North Island. I have not been to those North Island spots, so I cannot comment on them, but in my own mind, Roy’s Peak is far beyond Hooker Valley in both trail difficulty and scenic beauty.
In our whole itinerary, Roy’s Peak was the top priority. We gave this hike an entire day.
Trail Conditions and Risk Control
Distance and Elevation Gain
Trail distance: 8 km one way, 16 km round trip on the same route.
Vertical elevation gain: 1,228 meters.
Fee: 5 NZD. There is a box at the trailhead where you can drop the money in. (At the moment, cash only.)
There are toilets near the start and again near the upper end of the route. These are small cylindrical structures with ventilation on top. We did not actually use them, but I assume they are basically back-to-nature pit toilets, we had tried a similar one at another free campsite. They look like normal toilets, but below is just a deep void, and there is usually no water for hand-washing or flushing. Still, when you need one, you need one.
More importantly, the Lookout is right by the upper toilet area.
In other words, if you mainly want the view, 7 km from the trailhead is already a very good stopping point. Whether you keep climbing after that is really up to personal preference. We met hikers who continued upward, but we stopped there.
How Long It Took
The official website says 5 to 6 hours round trip, and in reality that was pretty accurate.
We were a two-person team in our 20s to 30s, one man and one woman. We had hiking experience, but we do not train regularly.
- During the hike, every time we stopped to take photos, we spent about 10 minutes at one spot, and we did that quite a few times.
- There were also stretches where we hurried a bit because the light was getting brighter and we kept saying, “Come on, sunrise is almost here, we need to move faster.”
- At the top section, we only went as far as the Lookout and did not continue higher.
Under those conditions, here is our timing record for reference.
Estimated Difficulty
According to the official website, this is an “Easy: Walking Track” but it also requires “Fitness Required: High” and has a “gradient: Steep.” Some trail-planning sites simply classify it as Hard.
At first glance, that sounds a bit like conflicting advice: “an easy trail, but actually very hard.”
My take is that the ‘easy’ part means anyone can walk it, but the hard part is the long uphill climb. A roughly comparable hike in Taiwan might be Matcha Mountain (抹茶山), a popular trail in Yilan. That trail is 5.27 km one way with 800 meters of elevation gain and takes about 3 hours one way. Roy’s Peak is a bit longer and climbs a bit more, but the overall difficulty feels similar.
Put simply, this trail has no technical mountaineering challenge. You do not need any special tools. If you can walk, you can do it. The hard part is physical: gaining around 1,000 meters over a 7 to 8 km one-way climb. That is what makes it demanding.
Besides fitness, there are two other risks to think about:
Risk 1: Unshaded Sun Exposure
Roy’s Peak is grass the whole way up. There are no trees at all.
A few days before Roy’s Peak, we had done Hooker Valley Track in the afternoon. Even with full physical sun protection, proper hiking hats, and sunscreen on our hands and faces, we still came back slightly red. Prolonged sun exposure and heat do not just make you tired, they also raise the risk of heat exhaustion and heatstroke.
If we only thought about photography, hiking in the afternoon and shooting at sunset would have been the preferred option. But that would not avoid the high heat from long sun exposure. If we switched to a sunrise departure to reduce the hottest hours, we probably would not reach the summit area until around 10 a.m., when the light would no longer be good for photos. We asked a staff member at the campsite whether they had any suggested hiking plan, and they said hiking times vary a lot by person, but some people do start in the middle of the night.
Right, starting in the middle of the night!
It had not even occurred to me as a realistic option, mostly because the trip was already tiring enough and I had not seriously considered waking up that early.
But night hiking comes with its own challenges. First, the route needs to be reasonably safe, so we went to the trailhead the day before to check the path conditions. Second, you need a headlamp. A phone flashlight can work, but to reduce the chance of falling and keep both hands free, a headlamp is the better tool.
Luckily, we had one.
So the plan changed: wake up at 3:00 a.m. to get ready, and start from the trailhead at 4:00 a.m.
Essential item for night hiking: a headlamp.
Risk 2: Hypothermia
The second risk is hypothermia. The official website says, “Hypothermia is a real risk even in summer.”
When you are preparing down on flat ground, the risk of hypothermia is often hard to notice. It shows up when you reach the top, stop doing heavy physical work, the temperature is low, and the wind is strong. From a few hikes, including Roy’s Peak and the summit of Mt. Fuji, I can say that if you are not properly prepared for this, all you feel at the top is that you are freezing and want to get down immediately. You usually cannot stay long.
The temperature on the ground can be deceptive, and it makes it very easy to underpack warm layers and heat-generating gear.
If you’re starting before dawn, bring enough jackets. Be properly prepared for the cold.
Trip Log
Trailhead
The trailhead is a parking lot.
When we came to scout the place at 4 p.m., there were barely any cars here, but after one night, the whole place was packed. The only light came from car headlights. There are no streetlights, so watch out for little wild rabbits suddenly darting across the road on the drive in.
Once we had done a bit of prep, we started walking. It was very dark, and the only light was our headlamp.
Because it was so dark here, we dropped a phone onto the rocky parking lot and lost one phone screen in the process. Value: NTD 15,000. Pain.
But because a lot of people really do hike it at night, if you looked up the slope, you could see the trail traced by other hikers’ headlamps. It was not as dramatically visible as the night climb up Mt. Fuji, but it was enough to know that night hiking here is feasible if you are properly equipped.
Once you start, you just keep moving forward.
Compared with the crowds on Mt. Fuji at night, there were far fewer people here, and we only ran into other hikers now and then.
When the Light Slowly Arrived
When you’re actively hiking, you actually don’t feel cold. (Which is exactly why hypothermia can sneak up on you later.)
Even in the dark, if you looked down, you could make out the shape of the lake because water reflects differently from land. As we climbed higher and the sky lightened a little, the changing perspective from the elevation made the lake’s shape more and more obvious.
But as the daylight became more obvious, my anxiety ticked up too. I started wondering whether we would fail to reach the top around sunrise and miss that light entirely. So I had this backup idea in mind: if we could not make it in time, we would stop somewhere earlier and at least take a few shots there first.
Near the Top
At around 7 a.m., the light had already started becoming ideal, but we still had not reached the top.
According to our earlier plan, this meant we needed to take a few photos first, just so we would have something workable. But this was also the point where we ran into a problem we had not fully anticipated:
Thin white dress-type clothing is really, really cold.
When we were planning, we kept thinking the photo part would only take a moment. We would just take off the extra layers, shoot quickly, and put everything back on. But with 1,200 meters of vertical gain, and using the rough rule that temperature drops 0.6 degrees Celsius for every 100 meters climbed, it was at least 7 degrees colder up there than on flat ground. Add the wind that only really hits near the top, and honestly, not shaking was already an achievement.
So what started as a white-dress look gradually turned into a cute solid-color look instead. (At that point it was too cold to remove any more layers.)
At the Top
Once we reached the toilet area and the Lookout, we were no longer climbing higher, so our activity level dropped and the perceived temperature suddenly felt much lower.
The cold was intense. We could not take off a single extra piece of clothing anymore XD, and the wind was really strong, so in no time at all the shoot turned into hiking photos instead.
The front edge of the Lookout is a small rocky point. The view from that rock is fine, but I think shooting toward the rocky point from the toilet side captures the feel of the path better and is actually prettier.
But because it was so cold, we could not stay there long. Proper cold-weather gear really matters. Do not forget the risk of hypothermia.
On the Way Down
On the descent, the sun was already too high, which made the contrast too harsh and not especially good for photos anymore.
But by then, the problem of not being able to maintain the original styling had been solved by the cold for us, so overall, we still got a few photos we really liked.
Conclusion: Did the DIY Pre-Wedding Shoot Succeed?
If I compare these with the polished pre-wedding photos friends show at their weddings, then… no, these probably do not quite count as that.
If I’m being strict, they would probably need a reshoot.
But I really do love these photos.
When we’ve spent real effort and truly lived through an experience, it becomes a deep memory.
And those memories connect us to that land and that landscape.
The photos left behind are just a reminder: we were there, together, and we had something really wonderful.
