La Paz · Mexico · Elopement Curator
La Paz
24.14°N · 110.31°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 on the Sea of Cortez.
La Paz is the quietest good idea in Baja. It is a working city on the Sea of Cortez with an airport twenty minutes from the middle of it, almost no destination-wedding industry, and the calmest, clearest water on the peninsula. Balandra is the photograph everybody knows: a shallow turquoise lagoon inside a ring of low cliffs. What is less known is that it is a protected area with timed access, a visitor cap of about 450 a shift, and no published mechanism for booking a ceremony in it, so I treat it as a place we visit rather than a venue we own. The other thing to plan around is wind. The Coromuel comes up in the afternoon and turns the exposed beaches choppy, which is why almost everything here happens in the morning.
Best monthsNov to Apr
The curationEnd to end
Packages from$7,300 USD
Guides on file4
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.
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 La Paz.
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.
01
4 dispatches on fileThe Directory
The Mexico groundwork for a La Paz elopement, and the Sea of Cortez's own dispatches. Start with the country guide, then write to me about the bay.
02
Four days I photographed on the CortezReal Elopements
Four elopements from the La Paz archive: the couple who wanted Balandra as a venue, the morning the tide turned it into sandbars, and the November honeymoon that was not built on whale sharks arriving. Open any card to read the full story.
03
Three tiers · all-inclusive*, priced in USDThe Packages
One person plans, books, styles, photographs, films, and delivers your La Paz elopement. A curated experience rather than photography hours. Three collections, each all-inclusive* of what I run on the ground, and each with its own album. The price is the same anywhere in Mexico. What is different here is that the protected areas set the clock rather than me, and I would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
Three ways to elope in La Paz. 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
$7,300 USD
One day, above & below the water
The Keepsake Album · 20 pages
- ✓One designed elopement day, start to finish
- ✓Symbolic ceremony, celebrant and styling
- ✓The municipal event permit, filed and paid
- ✓Photography with film, shot by me alone
- ✓Personal flowers, and hair and makeup for one
- ✓Planning, a local fixer and the driving
- ✓A reserved restaurant wedding dinner for two
Tier II · Recommended
Signature
$8,900 USD
Two days, your choice of adventure
The Signature Album · 20 pages, layflat
Everything in Essential, plus:
- ✓A second day, so the water and the town are not the same morning
- ✓A longer film, cut by hand, with your vows recorded
- ✓Richer florals and ceremony styling
- ✓A 20-page layflat album
Experiences woven in
- ·Your choice of one private charter: a boat on the Cortez, or a helicopter over the bay
- ·Espíritu Santo, by authorised operator
- ·Balandra at the top of the morning shift
Tier III
Honeymoon
$11,400 USD
Three days, made for you
The Heirloom Album · 30 pages, fine-art
Everything in Signature, plus:
- ✓The elopement and the honeymoon woven into one three-day journey
- ✓The bay, the island and the East Cape, with the crossing between
- ✓A 30-page fine-art album
Experiences woven in
- ·A private candlelit beach dinner with a musician
- ·Whale sharks in the bay, in season and if the season has opened
- ·The East Cape, which is the empty half of this coast
Signature locations in La Paz
Balandra, inside a visitor shift · Espíritu Santo, by authorised boat · The malecón and the old town at first light · A private beach club on the bay · Tecolote, early, before the Coromuel · The East Cape, an hour and a half south
*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.
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 La Paz, Mexico.
Take the Elopement Compass →04
What you will actually doThe Experiences
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.
The Experiences
Click arrows to turn pages
Protected area · timed entry
Balandra on the Morning Shift
A shallow turquoise lagoon held inside pale cliffs, and the single most recognisable piece of coastline in Baja. It is a protected area under CONANP with two access shifts, roughly 08:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 17:00, and a cap of around 450 people a shift. There is no published wedding fee, no exclusivity mechanism and no ceremony capacity separate from the ordinary visitor cap, so I will never sell you Balandra as a private venue. What I will do is get us in at the top of the morning and work quickly.
Signature & Honeymoon
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.
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.
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 La Paz, chasing the light I have already mapped.
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.
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.
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.
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 Mexico Elopement Guide
Before the Sea of Cortez, the bigger picture. I wrote the complete guide to eloping in Mexico: the six regions I work in, one national price, what the civil registry asks of two foreigners, and which coast gives you which light. It is the same thinking behind every day I design, in one place.
Read The Mexico Elopement Guide →
05
A sample plan, counted backward from your dateThe Timeline
A La Paz elopement is planned against a tide table and an afternoon wind, and the protected areas are booked as visits rather than venues. I handle the permits, the authorised operators and the running order. This is how it goes.
The shape of it
Dates and collection. November to April is the window, and CONANP itself recommends October to March for Balandra. June through September is genuinely hot, commonly into the high thirties, and August to October needs a tropical storm contingency. If whale sharks matter, tell me now.
The base and the ground
I tell you where to stay and why, and you book it. La Paz is compact and the airport is fifteen minutes out, which makes this one of the easiest places in Mexico to arrive into. I book the celebrant, the fixer, the styling and the driving.
Permits and protected areas
The municipal wedding permit covers ceremonies on beaches and on private property, with a published fee and a one business day turnaround once the file is complete. Balandra and Espíritu Santo are CONANP protected areas with their own per-person daily fees, timed shifts and visitor caps, and Espíritu Santo can only be reached through an authorised operator. I book those as visits, not as private venues.
The legal side
The ceremony is symbolic. A binding Mexican civil marriage goes through the Registro Civil with apostilled and translated documents, a medical certificate and witnesses. Most couples marry legally at home and keep this day for the vows.
The design
Florals, styling, the charter choice on the upper tiers, the table, the film. You see the day written out hour by hour, built around the morning rather than spread across it.
The tide and the wind
This is the one that sets your running order. I read the tide for Balandra, because low water turns the lagoon into sandbars, and I plan the boat and the exposed beaches for the morning because the Coromuel comes up in the afternoon from about two through the warmer months.
You stop deciding
The old town at seven, the boat before the wind, the bluff at the end of the day. I run all of it.
What you keep
Preview photographs within 72 hours, the full hand-edited gallery within four weeks, the film within eight, and the album that comes with your collection.
06
The ones couples ask firstQuestions
The questions I hear most often from couples planning a La Paz elopement, answered plainly. If yours is not here, it will be in my first reply when you reach out.
07
Mexico dispatchesFrom the Journal
Longer reads for couples weighing the calm side of Baja against the Pacific: the complete Mexico guide, the Todos Santos comparison, and what the civil registry really asks.
Guide
How to Elope in La Paz
Balandra has a visitor cap and no wedding permit, the tide decides your photograph, and the Coromuel ends the afternoon. The honest version.
14 min read →
Guide
How to Elope in Todos Santos
The Pacific side of the same peninsula, ninety minutes away, with the sunset over water that the Cortez coast cannot give you.
14 min read →Guide
The Mexico Elopement Guide
The whole country in one place: the six regions I work in, one national price, and what the civil registry asks of two foreigners.
8 min read →Tell me about your morning on the Cortez.
Share your date and I will come back within 48 hours with availability, an honest estimate, and the tide, the wind, and the beach I would point you toward.
Est. 1999 · Travelling worldwide · Priced in USD
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