Nosara · Costa Rica · Elopement Curator
Nosara
9.98°N · 85.65°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 Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica.
Nosara is seven kilometres of surf beach with a jungle behind it and a town that has refused to build on the sand, which is the only reason it still looks like this. It is the most expensive region I work in Costa Rica and the roads in are the worst, and those two facts are directly related to why the beach is empty at dawn. Howler monkeys at five in the morning, turtles up the coast in numbers, and Santa Teresa at the far end of a very bad road. 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$11,200 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 Nosara.
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 Nosara elopement, and the peninsula's own dispatches. Start with the country guide, then write to me about the coast itself.
02
Four days on the peninsulaReal Elopements
Four elopements from the Nosara archive, written the way I remember them: the empty dawn, the road in, and the night the beach moved. 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 Nosara 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. Nosara is the most expensive region I work in this country and I would rather say why than hide it: land is scarce, everything arrives on a bad road, and the vehicle and driver are held for your whole stay rather than for the day. What you get for it is a beach that is genuinely empty at six in the morning.
Three ways to elope in Nosara. 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
$11,200 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 beach at Guiones, or the headland at either end of it
- ✓Photography with videography, shot by me alone
- ✓Planning, permissions, a local fixer and 4x4 transport
- ✓A curated, hand-edited gallery
- ✓Available add-on: The Studio Editorial, from $2,500
Tier II · Recommended
Curated Signature
$23,500 USD
2 elopement days · all-inclusive*
The Signature Album · 40 pages, layflat
Everything in Essential, plus:
- ✓A second day, so the beach and the jungle each get one
- ✓A cinematic film of the day, cut by hand
- ✓Richer florals, hair and makeup
- ✓A local fixer with you throughout
- ✓The 4x4 and driver held for the whole stay, not just the day
Experiences woven in
- ·Dawn on Guiones before the surf schools
- ·The jungle tracks behind the beach, on horseback
- ·A sunset at the north end where the cliffs start
Tier III
Curated Adventuremoon
$30,000 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
- ✓Nosara and Santa Teresa, with the peninsula road between them
- ✓Upgraded photography, film and design moments
- ✓Full fixer support across the whole trip
Experiences woven in
- ·The drive south down the peninsula, which is the trip rather than the transfer
- ·An arribada at Ostional, if one is running while you are here
- ·Santa Teresa's cliffs and the sunset off them
- ·A morning learning to surf badly, on purpose
Signature locations in Nosara
Playa Guiones, seven kilometres of it · The headland at the north end, where the cliffs begin · The jungle tracks behind the beach · Ostional, when the turtles are running · The river mouth at the south end · Santa Teresa, down the peninsula
*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 Nosara, 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 · dawn
Vows on Guiones
Playa Guiones runs for about seven kilometres and the town behind it is legally prevented from building on the beachfront, which is the single reason this place still looks the way it does. At dawn it is empty apart from a few surfers a long way out. You can walk ten minutes in either direction and be entirely alone on it.
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 Nosara, 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 peninsula, the bigger picture. I wrote the complete guide to eloping in Costa Rica: two coasts running on opposite calendars, the cloud forest, the volcano country, and this, the one you have to work to reach. 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 Nosara elopement is decided by two things that sound mundane and are not: the road, and the tide. I handle the vehicle, the access and the running order so neither becomes your problem. This is the order it runs in.
The shape of it
Dates and tier, and an early conversation about how you want to move around. Nosara's roads decide more about your week than the hotel does.
Lodging and the ground
I book the house or hotel, the 4x4 and driver, the fixer and the vendors. Liberia is about two hours away and the last stretch is gravel, so arrival is its own day.
Access and permissions
Beaches are public here, but public access is not the same as permission to run an organised ceremony, and anything inside a protected area needs authorization in advance. I sort out what each location needs. Ostional in particular is managed and cannot simply be walked onto during an arribada.
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, raise it now.
The design
Florals, styling, the table, the film. You see the day written out hour by hour.
Tides and turtles
The north-end beach depends on low water, so the running order is set against the tide table for your dates. If an arribada looks likely, I start watching for it.
You stop deciding
Dawn on the sand, jungle or horses in the middle, the cliffs at the end. 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 Nosara 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, why this corner costs more, and what the roads actually do to a week.
Guide
How to Elope in Nosara
Seven kilometres of beach at the end of a gravel road the community has never fixed. Why it is the most expensive city on the Costa Rica list.
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 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 →Tell me about your day on the peninsula.
Share your date and I will come back within 48 hours with availability, an honest estimate, and the beach, the tide, and the light I would point you toward.
Est. 1999 · Travelling worldwide · Priced in USD
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