Contents
The first half is the dream: seven corners of Costa Rica worth the flight, the story of each, and what is actually possible there. The second half is the machine behind it: how one person builds the whole trip, and what it costs.
Celestial Celebration on Earth
Most photographers hand you a gallery. I hand you a wedding.
I shot weddings for almost 12 years. The anxiety of misalignment and the fear of pictures not turning out great do exist, and the cost is this: (1) how you feel during your wedding day, exhausted, not in the moment, force-fed a bunch of poses so your pictures would turn out great, which, by the way, they don’t, is conveyed in every single photograph; and (2) you’re putting on a show for others to enjoy while you, despite being the center of attention, are aware of only 10% of what’s happening, because your mind is pre-occupied with a billion other things.
An elopement is not a smaller wedding. It is getting rid of all the unnecessary and focusing on the core of every marriage: to celebrate a union so divine that earth, sun, and moon play a role in it. But someone has to build that trip: find the waterfall, read the tide table, charter the catamaran, book the jungle villa, hire a florist in a language you do not speak, time the light. Most couples try to do all of that themselves, from a spreadsheet, in a country they have never stood in.
I do it for you. You tell me how you want the days to feel. You tell me your budget. From there I design the whole experience, book every piece of it in my own name, and stay beside you from the first phone call to the final frame: the guide, the planner, the fixer, and the photographer, all one person.
Think of it the way you would think of an architect. You do not hand an architect a pile of lumber and ask them to nail it together. You hand them a feeling and a number, and they return a home. This is that, for the beginning of your marriage.
I am The Architect. Elopement Architect.
Twelve browser tabs in a language you don’t read. A vendor who answers at 3am your time. A tide table you discover too late. A viewpoint that looked better in someone else’s photos. You become the project manager of your own wedding, an ocean away from it.
A single person who has stood beneath that waterfall, knows that skipper, holds that park permit, speaks to the vendors in their timezone, and keeps the whole trip running while you do nothing but be married and be present.
American wedding
elopement, travel included
paperwork left to you
The wedding and the trip of a lifetime become the same purchase, and the difference stays in your account.
The Legal Question
Here is the good news, and it is unusually good: Costa Rica is one of the easiest places in the hemisphere for foreigners to legally marry. No residency requirement, no waiting period, no blood tests, and no registry office you must appear in. A licensed attorney-notary can perform a legally binding ceremony anywhere in the country, then files it for you. It still shapes the plan, tides, permits, timing, so it is the first thing I settle with you, and either way, the paperwork is mine to carry.
One national civil registry, and it works. You bring passports; I bring the bilingual attorney-notary and the witnesses. The ceremony is legally binding the moment it ends, on a sandbar at low tide, at the foot of a waterfall, on a hanging bridge in the mist. The apostilled certificate follows you home a few weeks later, recognized in the US and Canada.
Ten quiet minutes at your county courthouse before you fly. Then the real ceremony, real vows, exactly where you dreamed it: the mouth of a waterfall, the tail of sand between two tides, a bridge floating in cloud. No one will ever know the difference, because there is none.
Find Your Landscape
Guanacaste
Guanacaste is Costa Rica’s sun-struck northwest, a coast of gold-lit bays and dry tropical forest that stays rainless from November to April. The Papagayo Peninsula folds calm, swimmable coves into headlands of forest; Playa Conchal’s sand is literally crushed seashell over water the color of glass; Tamarindo runs on surf, and just across its estuary, Playa Grande is one of the last great nesting beaches of the leatherback turtle, seven feet of ancient animal hauling ashore in the dark from October to March.
Why I would bring you here: the gentlest logistics in this whole guide. Liberia’s international airport sits thirty minutes from the coast, with nonstops from most American hubs, and this is the driest, most reliably golden corner of the country, a sunset straight into the Pacific every single night. Legally, Costa Rica makes it effortless anywhere: a bilingual attorney-notary marries you on the sand, no residency, no waiting period. I bring the notary and the witnesses.
The Papagayo Peninsula
A forested finger of land folding calm coves into the Gulf of Papagayo: still, swimmable water, monkeys in the trees behind the sand, and the country’s most secluded hideaways at the water’s edge.
Flamingo & Conchal
White-sand Flamingo with its marina of sailboats, and Conchal next door, a beach made of crushed seashells over turquoise. Vows here at golden hour need almost nothing added to them.
Tamarindo & Playa Grande
The surf town and its wild sister across the estuary: long walkable sand, gentle learner waves, and from October to March, leatherback turtles nesting in the dark, watched in silence with a licensed guide.
Horseback through the dry forest at sunrise, howler monkeys announcing the day. A slow afternoon on Conchal’s shell sand, then vows on a private cove as the light goes gold, the notary’s signature making it real on the spot. A catamaran picks you up from the beach for champagne straight into the sunset.
Nosara
The Nicoya Peninsula is one of five Blue Zones on earth, the places where people routinely live past a hundred, and Nosara is its barefoot capital: a surf town hidden behind a protected strip of jungle, where no building rises above the treeline and the roads are still dirt on purpose. Playa Guiones breaks gently for seven kilometres, morning and evening, all year. And forty minutes north lies Ostional, where on the nights before a new moon the arribada arrives: tens of thousands of olive ridley turtles coming ashore on a single beach at once, one of the rarest spectacles in the natural world.
Why I would bring you here: this is the slow wedding. No production, no marble lobby, just board wax, jungle birdsong, and a place that has made unhurried living a science. The rough final stretch of road is a feature, it keeps the crowds away, and I handle every kilometre of it. Vows on Guiones at golden hour, legally binding if you want them to be; the notary is as barefoot as everyone else.
Playa Guiones
Seven kilometres of jungle-backed sand with one of the most consistent gentle breaks in the Americas. No buildings over the trees, no lights on the beach, and a sunset that empties the water into applause.
Ostional & the Arribada
On the dark nights before a new moon, tens of thousands of olive ridley turtles arrive on one beach at once. We go with a licensed local guide, at dawn or in the dark, and stand very still.
Sámara & San Juanillo
A gentle half-moon bay south of Nosara, pastel fishing pangas on the sand, and the tiny double cove of San Juanillo in between, white sand, clear water, and usually nobody at all.
A slow surf at first light, just the two of you and an instructor on a gentle break. Breakfast under the almond trees, a hammock through the heat. Vows on Guiones at golden hour with the whole beach glowing copper, dinner from a Blue-Zone kitchen, and a bonfire while the stars come out over the break.
Arenal & La Fortuna
A near-perfect volcanic cone rises out of the rainforest above a thirty-kilometre lake, and everything around it runs on the mountain’s heat: rivers warmed inside the earth spill through the jungle into pool after natural pool, the La Fortuna waterfall drops seventy metres into a swimmable emerald bowl, and hanging bridges carry you through the canopy at toucan height. Ninety minutes away, the Río Celeste turns an impossible powder blue where two clear mountain streams meet and their minerals collide.
Why I would bring you here: this is the adventure elopement, and the most cinematic inland day in the country. Vows at the foot of a waterfall in the morning, a hot-spring river to yourselves in the evening, and a volcano on the horizon of every frame. February to April brings the clearest views of the cone; the rest of the year, the mountain makes its own weather, and the hot springs are even better in the rain.
The Volcano & the Lake
Trails over old lava fields with the cone filling the sky, and Lake Arenal stretched out below: horseback along the shore, kayaks on still water, and the classic portrait with the mountain behind you.
The Falls & the Hot Springs
La Fortuna’s seventy-metre ribbon into an emerald pool, reached down five hundred jungle steps at opening, before anyone else. Then, after dark, a naturally hot river under the canopy, lit by lanterns.
Río Celeste
In Tenorio’s cloud forest, two clear streams meet and turn powder blue, a color that looks invented. A morning hike to the falls and the confluence, timed before the trail fills.
The waterfall at opening, mist rising off the pool, vows at the water’s edge with seventy metres of falling water behind them. A long lunch with the volcano out the window, a canopy walk in the afternoon, and after dark, a lantern-lit hot-spring river to yourselves, champagne on a stone ledge.
Monteverde
Monteverde is a forest that lives inside a cloud. Strung along the continental divide at 1,400 metres, its trees wear coats of moss and orchids, the mist arrives on schedule like a tide, and hanging bridges carry you a hundred and fifty feet above the forest floor, level with the canopy, inside the weather itself. This is the home of the resplendent quetzal, the bird the Maya worshipped, and the place where the zipline was invented, because there was no other way to see a forest this vertical.
Why I would bring you here: the most otherworldly ceremony in this guide. Vows in the middle of a suspension bridge, cloud drifting through the cables, the forest breathing underneath you, are unlike anything else I photograph; the mist does the work of a fog machine that took ten million years to build. It is cooler up here, sweater weather at night, and the air smells like rain and coffee from the farms on the slopes below.
The Cloud Forest Reserve
The original reserve on the spine of the divide: trails through moss-cathedral forest, hummingbirds at arm’s length, and at dawn, with a good guide and some luck, the long green tail of a quetzal.
The Hanging Bridges
A chain of suspension bridges through the canopy itself, mist moving through the cables. Booked privately at first light, the middle of the longest span becomes the most surreal altar in Central America.
Santa Elena & the Farms
The little mountain town below the reserve, and the family farms on its slopes: coffee roasted over wood, sugar cane pressed by ox-drawn mill, and chocolate from bean to bar at one long table.
A quetzal walk at dawn with the reserve’s best guide. Then the bridges, held privately, vows on the longest span as the mist drifts through, the forest breathing under your feet. A farm lunch of wood-roasted coffee and cane sugar, one flight over the canopy for the brave, and dinner by candlelight inside the cloud.
Manuel Antonio
The country’s smallest national park is its most beloved for a simple reason: nowhere else does the jungle walk so casually into the sea. Sloths hang over the trails, capuchins work the treeline, toucans cross between headlands, and the forest runs unbroken down to white-sand coves where the water is warm and calm. Around the point hides Playa Biesanz, a pocket cove the crowds never find, and inland the Damas estuary floods at high tide into a mangrove labyrinth you drift through by boat, monkeys at eye level.
Why I would bring you here, and an honest word: this is the most famous corner of Costa Rica, and famous means crowded by mid-morning. The difference between a postcard and a parking lot is the first entry slot and a private naturalist, so I book both, keep the afternoons for the hidden cove, and put the ceremony on a catamaran or at Biesanz at golden hour. The logistics are soft: a twenty-minute flight from San José, or one easy coastal drive.
The National Park
At first entry with a private naturalist and a scope: sloths, capuchins, toucans, and then the reward at the trail’s end, a white half-moon of sand with rainforest to the waterline.
Playa Biesanz
A pocket cove down an unmarked jungle path, calm as a pool and usually near-empty. The golden-hour ceremony site I use most on this coast, set with flowers, candles, and nothing else.
The Damas Mangroves
At high tide the estuary floods into a green labyrinth: a slow boat through tunnels of mangrove, monkeys and herons at eye level, and light that falls in stripes through the canopy.
Into the park at first entry, sloths still moving from the night, a swim at the cove before the day warms. A long lunch over the water, a siesta. Then vows at Biesanz at golden hour, barefoot in a cove that feels rented for the evening, and a catamaran home under a copper sky, dolphins if the sea is kind.
Uvita & the Costa Ballena
Some coincidences are too good to invent. At Uvita, a sandbar reaches out from the beach and, at low tide, opens into the perfect shape of a whale’s tail, and the water around it hosts the longest humpback season on earth: two migrations a year, southern whales from July to October, northern ones from December to March, mothers teaching calves to breach inside the marine park. An hour inland, the Nauyaca waterfalls drop forty-five metres in two tiers into a swimming hole the size of a plaza, and down the coast, the sea has carved arches through the rock at Playa Ventanas.
Why I would bring you here: the tide-timed ceremony. Walking out onto the Whale’s Tail as the ocean opens the path, saying vows on a ribbon of sand with water on both sides, and being back before the sea closes the door, is pure choreography, and choreography is my job. The tide table sets the schedule; whales, waterfalls, and sea caves fill everything around it.
The Whale’s Tail
Twice a day the ocean pulls back and a kilometre of sandbar opens in the shape of a whale’s fluke. We walk it as it emerges, vows at the tip with water on both sides, and the sea closes the aisle behind us.
Nauyaca Waterfalls
Forty-five metres in two tiers into a pool the size of a plaza, reached by horseback or 4x4 through family land. At first light it is empty, and the lower falls make a ceremony wall like nothing else.
Dominical & Ventanas
The loose-limbed surf town up the coast, and Playa Ventanas below it, where the sea has carved cave-windows through the headland that you can kayak through at slack tide.
Horseback to Nauyaca at first light for a swim beneath the falls before anyone arrives. Whales mid-morning in season, mothers and calves inside the marine park. A siesta through the heat, then the main event: the tide opens the Whale’s Tail at golden hour and you walk out to the tip to say your vows, ocean on both sides, and dinner above the bay as the sandbar disappears behind you.
Osa Peninsula
In the far south, a fist of rainforest punches into the Pacific, and inside it lives a measurable share of everything alive on this planet. Corcovado National Park protects the last great lowland rainforest on this coast: scarlet macaws in pairs over the beach, tapirs asleep in the creeks, four species of monkey arguing overhead. Offshore, Caño Island rises from clear water over coral, and around the corner, the Golfo Dulce, one of the few tropical fjords on earth, runs so calm that humpback mothers bring their calves inside it to rest.
Why I would bring you here, and an honest word: the Osa is earned. You arrive by small plane over the treetops or by boat through the Sierpe mangroves; the lodges run off-grid on solar and rain; luggage is soft bags and there is no marble anywhere. That is exactly the point. This is the elopement for couples who want the wildest version of the promise: vows on a beach with no footprints, in a place National Geographic called the most biologically intense on earth.
Corcovado
By boat to the ranger station at dawn, then hours on foot with a naturalist: macaws overhead, tapir tracks in the creek sand, and the feeling of a forest that has never once been quiet.
Caño Island
A protected island reserve in open water: reefs of white-tip sharks, turtles, and rays under water so clear it hardly seems to be there. Dolphins usually find the boat on the way out.
The Golfo Dulce
One of the few tropical fjords on earth, glass-calm between the peninsula and the mainland: resting humpback mothers in season, and on dark nights, a kayak wake that glows blue with bioluminescence.
A boat into Corcovado at dawn, macaws crossing the bow, hours in the wildest forest in the hemisphere. Caño Island’s reef at midday, back for a siesta in a rainforest lodge. Vows on a beach with no one’s footprints but yours as the sun drops, and after dark, a kayak on the Golfo Dulce, every paddle stroke glowing blue.
Signature Experiences
These are the moments couples remember for the rest of their lives, and the reason to hire a curator instead of a photographer. Not every experience is possible in every place or season. Part of my job is matching the dream to the coast, the month, and the tide.
The Waterfall Ceremony
Arenal · Costa BallenaLa Fortuna or Nauyaca, reached at first light before anyone else. Vows at the edge of the pool with the falls as the wall behind them, then a swim in the ceremony itself.
Vows on the Whale’s Tail
Uvita · Low TideThe ocean opens a kilometre of sandbar shaped like a whale’s fluke, and you walk it to the tip: vows with water on both sides, timed to the minute against the tide table.
A Bridge in the Clouds
MonteverdeA hanging bridge held privately at first light, mist drifting through the cables, the canopy breathing below. The most surreal altar in Central America, and it is legal here too.
Humpbacks, Twice a Year
Costa Ballena · Jul–Oct & Dec–MarThe longest humpback season on earth: two migrations meeting in one marine park, mothers and calves breaching close enough to hear the crash. We go with the best skipper on the coast.
The Arribada
Nosara · Aug–DecOn the dark nights before a new moon, tens of thousands of olive ridley turtles come ashore at Ostional at once. A licensed guide, first light, and one of the rarest sights in the natural world.
Dawn in Corcovado
Osa PeninsulaA boat under the cliffs at sunrise into the most biologically intense place on earth: scarlet macaws in pairs, tapir tracks in the creeks, and a forest that has never been quiet, the morning after your vows.
Río Celeste’s impossible blue · bioluminescent kayaking on the Golfo Dulce · leatherbacks at Playa Grande · ziplines above the cloud forest · Caño Island’s reefs · sunset catamarans at Papagayo · sloth-tracking walks · coffee & chocolate farm tables · surf lessons for two · mangrove boats at high tide · hair and makeup on location, anywhere. If you can dream it and the season allows it, I will find the operator and book it.
How It Works
The model is simple, and it is the whole point. You give me one budget, and I turn it into an entire journey, in addition to photographing and videographing everything. Not a deposit toward a gallery, the real number you want to spend on the whole thing. From there I allocate it across every piece, book each one in my name, in Spanish, in the local timezone, and account for all of it in the open.
“Like hiring an architect. You hand over a feeling and a number, and I return a wedding, anywhere in Costa Rica.”
One honest number for the whole experience. I tell you right away what it can and cannot reach in your chosen corner of Costa Rica.
Flights, lodging, activities, permits, legalities, florals, the notary, transport, dining. Sourced, negotiated, and paid, each vendor vetted and booked in my name.
You arrive to a finished plan and a full itinerary. I run the days, keep time, translate, fix, and photograph all of it. You carry nothing but your passports.
Why controlling everything makes the images better
The reason I run the whole trip is the same reason the pictures and films look the way they do. When I control the location, the timing, the light, and the pace, the camera never has to fight the plan. Nothing is rushed, nothing is handed to a vendor who does not know your story, and every frame is anticipated hours before it happens. You stay present, and the coverage looks effortless because I removed everything that usually goes wrong.
Complete coverage in my cinematic style, hand-edited and delivered as a full gallery.
Motion coverage of the days, cut into a short cinematic film.
Aerial coverage where each site legally permits it, and a fast sneak peek within days.
Every package includes a printed album, designed to match the package you choose: the Blueprint album, the Signature album, or the Heirloom album.
The Three Tiers
One ladder, each tier all-inclusive of everything I curate and run on the ground: full planning, the legal navigation, a symbolic ceremony, styling, activities, permits, local transport, and my photography and videography with drone where each site permits. What changes is how many days the journey runs and how much I carry. My own travel is already inside every number. Your airfare and accommodation are not included, and because the ceremony is symbolic you complete the legal marriage at home. All pricing in USD.
Every Costa Rica elopement begins at $9,900 USD. From there the destination and the tier set the number, and it is always written down before anything is booked.
A traditional wedding often runs past $33,000 for a single evening. This is a curated elopement in Costa Rica, planned, run, and filmed end to end, for the two of you.
Investment by Destination
Prices move by destination because the real costs do. Every figure is all-inclusive of everything I curate and run on the ground, with my own travel inside. Your airfare and accommodation are the only things not included, and the ceremony is symbolic. The numbers rise with lodging tier, how remote the setting is, and the season. All figures USD.
These are where I work most, not the edge of the map. If your dream sits somewhere else, I scout it, price it honestly, and build it the same way.
Every tier is all-inclusive of what I curate and run on the ground. The base tier stays close to flat because my travel is already inside it. Higher tiers add days, coverage, and stronger lodging and activities, which is where the destination-to-destination differences come from: flight access, nightly lodging, and how remote the setting is.
Worth saying plainly: every number is written down and approved before a single thing is booked.
“From” is a realistic starting point. Your final number depends on the exact region, lodging, activities, and season.
Not included: your airfare and accommodation, which you book yourself, plus additional guests, meals outside the planned dining, and travel insurance. Everything else on the itinerary is booked and run by me.
What I Handle
Everything below is sourced, vetted, booked, and coordinated by me, across coasts, park offices, and tide tables. You approve, I execute. This is the difference between a photographer and a curator.
Location scouting and matching, the legal-versus-symbolic decision, the bilingual attorney-notary, park and beach permits, registry filing, the apostilled certificate delivered to your door, and witnesses when it is just the two of you.
Flights and connections, lodging from jungle villas to cloud-forest lodges to off-grid eco-lodges, drivers and transfers, small planes and boat crossings, every reservation timed to the itinerary and confirmed in writing.
Catamarans, pangas, whale skippers, naturalist guides, surf instructors, canyoning teams, and turtle-watch permits, booked with vetted local operators, with backup plans held for every weather-dependent moment.
Styling for both of you, from what you wear to tux and dress logistics across a border, plus florals, hair and makeup on location, private chefs and dining, cake, keepsakes, and a cohesive aesthetic tuned to you and the landscape.
A custom day-by-day itinerary, packing lists tuned to climate and terrain, tide and weather monitoring, currency and tipping guidance, and a ready plan B for every key moment.
Full photography in my cinematic style, motion coverage and a short film, drone where each site permits it, a fast sneak peek, and a complete edited gallery.
Working Together
I love elopements. They’re the barebone of what a marriage ceremony is. No 200 guests to take away the attention from your soul-binding celebration. No loud music to dance to. No family members that you have to keep happy.
In essence they are the purest form of making your vows, out in the wild, as opposed to inside a concrete building.
I did weddings for 12 years. Traditional weddings often become performances for everyone except the couple. Elopements bring the attention back to the vows, the place, and the experience itself. And a destination elopement is not a photoshoot abroad. It is an international logistical event, with marriage law, permit timelines, seasonal windows, tide tables, and weather most couples are navigating for the first time, in a language they do not speak. Doing it well takes someone who is good at running an expedition, not only at photographing one.
That is the whole idea here. I go far beyond the shoot: straightforward from the first message, handling every detail so you do not have to, and genuinely easy to have around while I do it.
One person carries the vision, the logistics, and the camera, across any border, so nothing gets lost in the handoffs, and the days simply feel like yours.
From a vague idea to a once-in-a-lifetime journey, without you managing a single vendor.
A free call. You tell me how you want it to feel, roughly where in Costa Rica you are drawn, and your budget. Vague is fine, most couples start with nothing decided.
I design a custom proposal: destination, experience, itinerary, the legal path, and a clear budget allocation, refined with you until it is exactly right.
A retainer holds your dates. Then I book everything, flights, vendors, lodging, activities, permits, paperwork, and keep you updated as confirmations land.
A finished itinerary is waiting when you land. I run the days and photograph all of it, then deliver a sneak peek within days and the complete gallery within two weeks.
Why Couples Choose Me
The guide is one thing. What it feels like to actually work together is another. Here is what couples have said after their day, in their own words.
I take on a small number of curated elopements each year, so every couple gets the attention this work demands. Destination dates book furthest out: whale season on the Costa Ballena, the arribada windows in Nosara, quetzal spring in Monteverde, and the dry-season winter everywhere go first.
Tell me how you want it to feel. I will take care of the rest, all of it, anywhere in Costa Rica.
@iarmanarai
WhatsApp +1 (604) 900-7876
