Distrito Capital · Colombia · Elopement Curator

Bogotá

4.71°N · 74.07°W

Not a photographer for hire, a curator for the whole day: I design it, plan it, book it, style it, photograph it, film it, and hand it back to you. A complete companion to eloping in Bogotá.

Bogotá elopement photographer | Arman Arai

Bogotá is the Andean, cultural side of Colombia: Monserrate's white church above the city, the ochre and cobalt streets of La Candelaria, the páramo and its frailejones within a day trip, the salt cathedral underground at Zipaquirá, and Villa de Leyva's great plaza a drive north. At 2,640 metres, the light is harder, cleaner, and more dramatic than anything at sea level.

I do not just show up to shoot. I design the day around you, book every piece of it, the officiant, the florals, the drivers, the access, the dinner, then photograph and film it and deliver the record. One person, start to finish. The ceremony is symbolic, the legal marriage stays simple, and the Bogotá day is only the part that matters.

Best monthsDec to Mar
The curationEnd to end
Packages from$7,800 USD
Guides on file11
Why an elopement, and why me

The Spiritual Union

An elopement is unlike a wedding. Whereas the wedding is purely focused on aesthetics and performance, elopements are about the spiritual merge: the two of you, a place that means something, and a day built to be lived instead of performed. Done right, it is the most honest set of photographs a couple will ever have. Done by committee, it falls apart in ways you only see later, in the pictures.

An elopement day designed and photographed by Arman Arai
Buy a package from a planner

and the day is beautifully arranged, but there is no real “photographer” involved. The pictures come back looking like they were taken on a smartphone. You planned a film and got a receipt.

Bring your own photographer

and you get a good eye with no say in the day. There is a disconnect between what the plan was and what the pictures turn out to be, because the person shooting it did not build it.

Work with me

and you get the best of both worlds. I am a photographer first who plans the entire thing, then brings it home. The person who designs the light is the person standing in it with a camera.

Everyone else plans a day around an activity.
I write a story and play it through one.

It starts with your story, never a location. Before I plan a single thing, I sit with you and listen: how you met, what you are like when no one is watching, the small private details no one else would think to ask for. I write that into a narrative, and then I design the day to play it out. The hike, the boat, the drive up the mountain, that is only the vessel I run your story through, here in Bogotá.

This is why the film and the album land the way they do. They are built to carry your story, beat by beat, so that years from now they still move you. Anyone can film two people doing something photogenic in a beautiful place. Turning who you actually are into a film and a set of stills that mean something is the harder thing, and it is the whole of what separates me from everyone else.

What it means to just be present.

Every extra person on an elopement is a seam. A planner to update, a second photographer angling for the same shot, a small crowd of vendors to be aware of. Each one pulls you a little out of the day, and the pictures inherit that split. The reason I hold the whole thing, the plan and the camera, is so that on the day there is no one to manage and no one to perform for.

Present means you are only ever looking at each other. You are not thinking about the schedule, because I am. You forget the camera is there, and that is the exact moment the real frames happen.

Arman Arai, elopement photographer and curator
01

The Directory

11 dispatches on file

Everything I have filed about eloping in Bogotá, organized by what you are trying to figure out. Start with the planning guide, then come back for the specific pieces as your thinking develops.

02

Real Elopements

Four days in the Andean capital

Four elopements from the Bogotá archive, written the way I remember them: the altitude, the light, what the Andes gave us that day. Open any card to read the full story.

03

The Packages

Three tiers · all-inclusive*, priced in USD

One person plans, books, styles, photographs, films, and delivers your Bogotá elopement. A curated experience rather than photography hours. Three tiers, each all-inclusive* of what I run on the ground, and each with its own album. And because Colombia's on-the-ground costs run well below Mexico or Costa Rica, each tier here carries noticeably more: richer florals and styling, the mountain and the páramo and the old city in one itinerary, longer coverage. The same budget simply buys a fuller day in the capital.

Three ways to elope in Bogotá. Each is the whole experience, designed, planned, booked, styled, and shot by one person, and each comes with its own album. The tier sets how many days the trip runs and how much of it becomes a honeymoon. Everything is listed. There is no hourly meter and no add-on column.

Tier I

Essential

$7,800 USD
1 elopement day · all-inclusive*
The Keepsake Album · 20 pages
  • One designed elopement day, start to finish
  • Symbolic ceremony, officiant and styling
  • One signature location: Monserrate or La Candelaria at first light
  • Photography with videography, shot by me alone
  • Planning, access, local fixer and transport
  • A curated, hand-edited gallery
  • Available add-on: The Studio Editorial, from $2,500
Tier II · Recommended

Curated Signature

$13,500 USD
2 elopement days · all-inclusive*
The Signature Album · 40 pages, layflat
Everything in Essential, plus:
  • A second day, so the story has room to breathe
  • A cinematic film of the day, cut by hand
  • Richer florals, hair and makeup
  • A local fixer with you throughout
  • The Studio Editorial session, included (a Colombia exclusive)
Experiences woven in
  • ·Monserrate by cable car at dawn
  • ·A La Candelaria golden-hour walk
  • ·A Usaquén evening and chef's dinner
Tier III

Curated Adventuremoon

$19,000 USD
4 elopement days · elopement + honeymoon
The Heirloom Album · fine-art, boxed
Everything in Signature, plus:
  • The elopement and honeymoon woven into one four-day journey
  • Upgraded photography, film and design moments
  • Full fixer support across the whole trip
  • The Studio Editorial session, included (a Colombia exclusive)
Experiences woven in
  • ·A páramo day among the frailejones
  • ·The Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral underground
  • ·A Villa de Leyva day on the great plaza
  • ·A rooftop blue hour over the sabana
Signature locations in Bogotá

Monserrate, above the city at 3,150 metres · The colonial streets of La Candelaria · The Andean páramo and its frailejones · The Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral · Villa de Leyva's great plaza · Usaquén and the rooftops at blue hour

*All-Inclusive covers everything I curate and run: planning, the symbolic ceremony, styling, activities, the dining on your itinerary, permits, local transport, and photography with videography. It does not include airfare or accommodation, which you book yourself. I am glad to recommend where to stay, but for legal reasons I do not book travel or lodging on your behalf.

The Elopement Compass: find your archetype
Start here

Find your elopement archetype first.

Before the date, the tier, or the locations, take two minutes and find the kind of day you are actually after. It is where every day I design begins, and it tells me exactly where to point you in Bogotá, Colombia.

Take the Elopement Compass →
04

The Experiences

What you will actually do

This is what you are really paying for. A handful of extraordinary days I design, book, and run for you, each one a chapter of the elopement. Turn the album: the photograph on one page, what it is on the other.

Monserrate at Dawn
01 / 07
The ceremony · above the city
Monserrate at Dawn
The white church of Monserrate stands five hundred metres above the city, and the first cable car of the morning carries you up through thin gold light. Before the pilgrims and the tourists arrive, the terraces are quiet, the Andes stack away to the horizon, and eight million people go about their morning far below your vows. The most commanding ceremony spot in the capital.
Included in every tier
Tap sides · swipe to turn pages
The day itself

How your elopement day goes

Once you have your archetype, here is how the day itself actually goes. Nothing here is your job to arrange. It is already arranged.

Step 01

The slow morning

No rush, no room full of people. You get ready in your own time while I quietly catch the first frames: the note, the shoes, the light coming up.

Step 02

We begin the story

We do not work a shot list. We live the day I designed around you, and I document it as it unfolds across Bogotá, chasing the light I have already mapped.

Step 03

The vows

Your words, out loud, with no audience but the place and me. This is the quietest and the most important part of the day, and I shoot it from a distance so it stays yours.

Step 04

Through the activity

The hike, the boat, the dinner, the drive. This is where the story plays out and the best pictures live, because you are doing something real together, not posing beside it.

Step 05

The last hour of light

I plan the whole day backward from it. When it arrives we are exactly where we need to be, unhurried, with time to spare.

Step 06

The record

It comes back not as files but as a finished thing: a curated gallery, and on the Signature, a cinematic film and a printed album. The day, kept.

The full guide · free

The Colombia Elopement Guide

Before Bogotá, the bigger picture. I wrote the complete guide to eloping in Colombia: the Caribbean walled city, the eternal spring of Medellín, the high Andean capital, how the symbolic ceremony works while the paperwork stays simple, and what it honestly costs. It is the same thinking behind every day I design, in one place.

Read The Colombia Elopement Guide
Eloping in Colombia, near Bogotá, photographed by Arman Arai
05

The Timeline

A sample plan, counted backward from your date

A Bogotá elopement has fewer moving parts than couples expect, because the ceremony is symbolic and I handle the ground. This is the order it runs in, from the first decision to the first cable car.

4 months01

Date, location, and curator

The drier windows, December through March and July through August, book first. Monserrate at dawn, La Candelaria, or the páramo, and me to design and photograph it, are the decisions everything else follows from.

3 months02

Settle the legal path

Most couples sign the legal paperwork quietly at home and keep the Bogotá ceremony symbolic. If you want the marriage to be legally Colombian, this is when apostilles and official translations start, because the notarial route runs on document time.

6 weeks03

Book your flights and stay

El Dorado is the best-connected airport in the Andes, with direct flights from most of North America. Airfare and accommodation are the two things you arrange yourself, for legal reasons. I will point you to the right corner of the city, and I build the itinerary around it.

3 weeks04

Access, drivers, and light

I confirm the cable car timing, the courtyard, the páramo drivers, and the officiant, and I sequence the days for the altitude: gentle first, higher later. Bogotá runs on morning light, so the big frames are all scheduled before noon.

The day05

Up the mountain, into the streets

We take the first cable car, marry above the city, and walk the colonial quarter while the light is still clean. Your only job is to be in it. I bring the Andes home with you.

06

Questions

The ones couples ask first

The questions I hear most often from couples planning a Bogotá elopement, answered plainly. If yours is not here, it will be in my first reply when you reach out.

07

From the Journal

Bogotá dispatches

Longer reads for couples who want to go deeper: the mountain day at Monserrate, the salt cathedral, and the honest calendar for a capital with no summer and no winter.


Begin

Tell me about your day in Bogotá.

Share your date and I will come back within 48 hours with availability, an honest estimate, and the mountain, the streets, and the páramo I would point you toward.

Find your archetype first

Est. 1999 · Travelling worldwide · Priced in USD

The Elopement GazetteBogotá City Companion · Set in Cormorant & Jost · Figures are all-inclusive* of curation, excluding airfare and accommodation

Is this the right city for you?

Find your South America match

Three quick taps and I’ll point you to the elopement in South America that fits you best, Bogotá included.

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