Rainbow Lake Elopement Snowy Mountains – Rhys & Anita
This Rainbow Lake elopement started the way the best ones do – with someone producing a carrot at a closed ski resort.
The resort was still, the lifts were quiet, and there was nobody around for what felt like miles in any direction. Just deep, heavy snow covering everything. And then Anita found a carrot somewhere, and before I had any idea what was happening, the two of them were on their knees in the middle of Perisher Valley building a snowman – carrot nose and all – on the morning of their wedding.
That spontaneous half hour told me everything I needed to know about Rhys and Anita. They weren’t here to perform anything. They just wanted to be somewhere wild and cold and beautiful together, and let whatever happened next happen. This winter elopement in the Snowy Mountains took place in early September 2022, and it remains one of the most atmospheric days I’ve had behind a camera.
Rhys & Anita
Both of them are creatively driven and genuinely fashion-conscious – not in a performative way, just in how they move through the world. Rhys wore a classic countryman-style woollen jacket in warm brown tones with a standout hat that looked like it belonged in the mountains. Anita came in a white dress with colourful purple monkey gloves, which is a combination that should not work as well as it does and yet absolutely does.
Their family had made the trip down from Queensland to be there – a small group willing to brave the cold and the drive for something that mattered to two people they love. That kind of support is worth something.
Why Dainers Gap Is Worth the Drive
Most people think of Kosciuszko National Park as a summer destination – wildflowers, blue skies, long hiking days. That version is genuinely beautiful. But the winter elopement Snowy Mountains experience is a completely different thing, and in my opinion it’s the more compelling one.
In September the snowfields are still blanketed, the resort infrastructure is quiet, and the light sits low and soft all day. Everything has that muted, cinematic quality you can’t recreate in post. Dainers Gap – the mountain pass on Kosciuszko Road where the chain bay sits, where you pull over to fit snow chains on the drive up – is one of the most photogenic stretches of alpine country in the park, and almost entirely without crowds in the off-season. The rolling snow-covered hills that stretch out from that pullover are enormous and almost completely quiet when the resort is closed.
As a Kosciuszko National Park elopement photographer, what I love most about this circuit is that the landscape does the heavy lifting. Further into the park, Charlotte Pass sits as another option for couples wanting to push even deeper into the alpine zone, but the Dainers Gap chain bay area through to Rainbow Lake is where I’d build most days – the variety of terrain and ease of movement is unmatched.
Rainbow Lake in September is frozen and still. It doesn’t hold the deep blues it shows in warmer months – instead it carries this moody, atmospheric quality that makes the whole walk feel genuinely removed from the everyday world. The surrounding heath and scrub in their winter browns and silvers have a texture and colour palette that photographers dream about. As a location for a Rainbow Lake elopement, it consistently delivers something that feels more like the European Alps than regional New South Wales.
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The Ceremony at Dainers Gap
The conditions on the morning were exactly what you’d hope for on a moody alpine day – bitterly cold, heavily overcast, fresh snow on everything. The kind of morning that makes you pull your jacket tighter and feel awake in a way that’s hard to replicate.
Their celebrant Jo – a Snowy Mountains local – brought real warmth and familiarity to the vows. Small group, big landscape, cold air, genuine words. The ceremony looked out over rolling snow-covered hills and the expanse of Perisher Valley below.
After the ceremony there was a small celebration with the family, and portraits on the hillside overlooking the mountains before we made our way to the next chapter of the day.
The Snowfields
Before the ceremony, the group had made their way up to the Perisher snowfields. The resort was completely closed for the season, which meant the whole place belonged to us. That’s when the snowman happened – no prompting, no direction from me. Just two people in wedding clothes, laughing in the snow, building something ridiculous and genuinely perfect.
Rainbow Lake Elopement Portraits
Before the walk began, Anita changed into a second outfit – a Tyrolean-inspired, European-style look. The change was immediate and completely right. The warm palette against the muted browns and silvers of the winter scrub was one of those combinations that makes you feel like a lucky photographer.
The walk into Rainbow Lake is easy and short and feels entirely disconnected from the rest of the world. In September, the lake surface was frozen over – still and dark and atmospheric, with the surrounding scrub reflected in the ice at the edges. There were no other people. There was no sound except the wind and occasionally Anita’s gingerbread men being unwrapped. The whole place felt like somewhere in the European Alps that had been quietly relocated to southern New South Wales without telling anyone.
This stretch of the day – the Rainbow Lake elopement portraits among the frozen heath and scrub – is where the visual logic of everything they’d brought together clicked into place. Their outfits, the light, the landscape, all of it earned.
The Letters
At the lake, Rhys and Anita took out letters from their grandmother and read them.
I stayed back and let that moment belong to them. Some things you photograph and some things you just witness – this was both. Afterwards we shot the detail images: the handwritten letters, their rings, Rhys’s hat, Anita’s jewellery, the gingerbread men. Small things that told the rest of the story quietly.
The walk back was unhurried. The cold had settled deeper and the light was beginning to fade, and the whole day had this quality of being genuinely complete – not rushed toward a finish line, just naturally arriving at its own end. As Rainbow Lake elopements go, this one was compact and deeply personal, shaped entirely by the two people at the centre of it.
If you want someone behind the lens who gets out of the way and lets the day be yours – I’d love to be that person.
If you want someone behind the lens who gets out of the way and lets the day be yours – I'd love to be that person.
Start the conversationMy Favourite Moments from Rhys and Anita’s Day
- Anita producing a carrot at a closed ski resort and the two of them immediately knowing what to do with it
- The ceremony at Dainers Gap – small group, enormous landscape, Jo getting it exactly right
- Anita’s second outfit arriving at the Rainbow Lake trailhead and making immediate visual sense
- Rainbow Lake frozen over and moody in September, feeling more like Austria than New South Wales
- The grandmother’s letters at the water’s edge – the most personal moment of the whole day
- The gingerbread men
Vendor Credits
Ceremony location: Dainers Gap, Kosciuszko National Park Getting ready: Jindy Inn Celebrant: Joanne Terlich Florist: West Row Botanica Coat and sweater-vest: Labour Union Shirt: Tender Compass Trousers: Freenote Cloth Shoes: Red Wing Shoes / Kathmandu Socks: M.J. Bale / Birkenstock Hat: Coup De Tete Jewellery: Clocks and Colours / Crooked Howlet Designs / Karen Walker Belt: Nigel Cabourn Veil: Honey Birdette Stationery: Lamy / Pilot Wedding rings: Jens Hansen
Planning a Winter Elopement in the Snowy Mountains
The winter season in Kosciuszko National Park runs roughly June through September, with conditions varying year to year. Early September hits a sweet spot where the snow is still heavy and the days are beginning to lengthen slightly – you get the atmosphere without the deepest cold of July.
The Dainers Gap corridor and Rainbow Lake circuit are accessible throughout winter provided the roads are open, but conditions change fast up here. Checking road status the day before and building flexibility into your timing is worth doing.
The big thing I’d tell anyone thinking about a snow elopement in the Snowy Mountains – don’t wait for perfect weather. Overcast, moody, and cold is the aesthetic. That atmosphere is the thing you came for. Rhys and Anita didn’t get a single patch of blue sky the whole day and every image looks like it was shot for a film. Trust the mountains to hand you something better than sunshine.
If this kind of Rainbow Lake elopement is what you’re dreaming about – wild, cold, intimate, with nobody else around – I’d love to hear from you.
