Manuel Antonio · Costa Rica · Elopement Curator
Manuel Antonio
9.39°N · 84.14°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 where the rainforest reaches the sea in Costa Rica.
Manuel Antonio is rainforest running straight down to a turquoise cove, and it is the smallest national park in Costa Rica with more animals in it than places ten times the size. It is also busy after ten in the morning and closed every Tuesday, which is why the whole day is built around the first hour and the last. Sloths overhead, a cove calm enough to walk into, mangroves behind the beach. The legal marriage needs no residency and no waiting period, so the paperwork stays small and the days stay the part that matters.
Best monthsDec to Apr
The curationEnd to end
Packages from$10,400 USD
Guides on file3
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 Manuel Antonio.
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
3 dispatches on fileThe Directory
The Costa Rica groundwork for a Manuel Antonio elopement, and the central Pacific's own dispatches. Start with the country guide, then write to me about the coast itself.
02
Four days on the central PacificReal Elopements
Four elopements from the Manuel Antonio archive, written the way I remember them: the empty hour, the closed gate, and what the forest put above our heads. 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 Manuel Antonio 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. What the money buys here is access and timing rather than more hours: dated park entry held months ahead, a start before the gate opens, a boat in the last light, and the mangroves at an hour nobody else is on the water.
Three ways to elope in Manuel Antonio. 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
$10,400 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: the headland above the cove, or the beach below it
- ✓Photography with videography, shot by me alone
- ✓Planning, park reservations, a local fixer and transport
- ✓A curated, hand-edited gallery
- ✓Available add-on: The Studio Editorial, from $2,500
Tier II · Recommended
Curated Signature
$21,500 USD
2 elopement days · all-inclusive*
The Signature Album · 40 pages, layflat
Everything in Essential, plus:
- ✓A second day, so the park and the coast each get their own
- ✓A cinematic film of the day, cut by hand
- ✓Richer florals, hair and makeup
- ✓A local fixer with you throughout
- ✓Dated park entry held well in advance, in both our names
Experiences woven in
- ·The park at opening, before the tour groups land
- ·A boat out along the coast at golden hour
- ·The mangroves by kayak, early, when the birds are working
Tier III
Curated Adventuremoon
$28,200 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
- ✓The park, the coast and the rainforest behind Quepos
- ✓Upgraded photography, film and design moments
- ✓Full fixer support across the whole trip
Experiences woven in
- ·A day south into the wilder coast toward Uvita
- ·Sunrise from the headland with nobody else on it
- ·A night in the forest canopy rather than on the strip
- ·The waterfall behind Quepos, on the way back inland
Signature locations in Manuel Antonio
The headland above the turquoise cove · The beach inside the park, at opening · The mangrove channel by kayak · The jungle stream where it crosses the sand · The coast road viewpoints at golden hour · The forest above Quepos, in any weather
*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 Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica.
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
The ceremony · first light
Vows Above the Cove
The headland drops away to a cove the colour of a swimming pool, and at first light there is nobody on it. That is the whole trick here: this is one of the most visited corners of Costa Rica and it is completely empty for the first hour. We are in position before the gate opens, and the ceremony happens with the sea below and the forest at your back.
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.
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 Manuel Antonio, 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 Costa Rica Elopement Guide
Before the coast, the bigger picture. I wrote the complete guide to eloping in Costa Rica: two coasts running on opposite calendars, the cloud forest, the volcano in the north and the whale coast in the south. It is the same thinking behind every day I design, in one place.
Read The Costa Rica Elopement Guide →
05
A sample plan, counted backward from your dateThe Timeline
A Manuel Antonio elopement is decided by two things: the park calendar and the clock. I handle the reservations, the permissions and the running order so the day happens in the hour that is worth having. This is the order it runs in.
The shape of it
Dates first, and the first thing I check is that you have not chosen a Tuesday, because the national park is closed on them. Then the tier, and where you actually sleep: the ridge road and the beach are two different holidays.
Lodging and the ground
I book the lodge, the transport from San José, the fixer and the vendors. It is about three hours from the airport, so arrival is its own day and the ceremony never sits on it.
Park entry and permissions
Manuel Antonio runs on dated online tickets through SINAC and each one is valid a single time, so these are held early and in the right names. A commercial shoot inside a protected area needs authorization arranged in advance; personal photography does not. I work out which yours is and file it.
The legal side
No residency requirement, no waiting period, no blood test. A notary performs the civil marriage with two adult witnesses. If either of you is divorced or widowed, tell me now rather than later, because one of the rules can move a date.
The design
Florals, styling, the boat, the table, the film. You see the day written out hour by hour and we argue about it until it is right.
Tides and timings
The mangrove paddle and the cove both depend on water, so the final running order is set against the tide table for your dates rather than a generic plan.
You stop deciding
In position before the gate opens, out before the crowd, and the afternoon somewhere shaded. I run all of it.
What you keep
A sneak peek within the week, the full hand-edited gallery after, the film on the Signature tiers, and the album that goes with your tier.
06
The ones couples ask firstQuestions
The questions I hear most often from couples planning a Manuel Antonio elopement, answered plainly. If yours is not here, it will be in my first reply when you reach out.
07
Costa Rica dispatchesFrom the Journal
Longer reads for couples who want the whole country in view before choosing a coast: the complete Costa Rica guide, the park calendar, and which water you can actually get into.
Guide
How to Elope in Manuel Antonio
The park closes on Tuesdays, which makes Tuesday the emptiest day on the coast. Timed tickets, the headland, and the mangroves at first light.
13 min read →Guide
The Costa Rica Elopement Guide
The whole country in one place: the two coasts and their opposite seasons, what the legal marriage actually involves, and what each region costs.
8 min read →
Guide
How to Elope in Puerto Viejo
The Caribbean runs on the inverse calendar, so September here is the fortnight that drowns the Pacific. The cheapest of the seven, and the least like the rest.
14 min read →Tell me about your day above the cove.
Share your date and I will come back within 48 hours with availability, an honest estimate, and the hour, the tide, and the light I would point you toward.
Est. 1999 · Travelling worldwide · Priced in USD
Is this the right city for you?
Find your Costa Rica match
Three quick taps and I’ll point you to the elopement in Costa Rica that fits you best, Manuel Antonio included.
Your dream backdrop?