Tulum · Mexico · Elopement Curator
Tulum
20.21°N · 87.46°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 Tulum, cenotes and all.
Tulum is the most searched elopement name in Mexico and the one I am most careful about, because a lot of what it is sold on does not survive contact with the place. The coast faces east, so the sun rises out of the Caribbean and sets inland behind the jungle: there is no ocean sunset here, whatever the mood board says. The beach carries sargassum through roughly April to August. And the ruins are an INAH site, which means a professional shoot there is an application with a fee and a lead time, not a decision made on the morning. What Tulum does have, and what nothing else in Mexico has at this density, is the cenotes. Freshwater caves in the limestone, lit from a hole in the roof, private and quiet at seven in the morning. That is the day I build here.
Best monthsDec to Mar
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 âphotographerâ 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 Tulum.
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 Tulum elopement, and the Caribbean coast's own dispatches. Start with the country guide, then write to me about the cenotes.
02
Four days I photographed on this coastReal Elopements
Four elopements from the Tulum archive, written the way I remember them: the sunrise that had to move, the cenote before the vans arrived, and the June couple who got a better day inland. 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 Tulum 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 changes here is that the underwater cenote session is built into every tier, because on this coast it is the thing worth travelling for.
Three ways to elope in Tulum. 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
- âOne designed elopement day, start to finish
- âSymbolic ceremony, celebrant and styling
- âA two-hour underwater portrait session in a cenote, photographed by me
- âPhotography with film, shot by me alone
- âPersonal flowers, and hair and makeup for one
- âPlanning, cenote access, a local fixer and the driving
- âA 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:
- âA second day, so the coast and the cave are not the same morning
- âA longer film, cut by hand, with your vows recorded
- âRicher florals and ceremony styling
- âA 20-page layflat album
Experiences woven in
- ·Your choice of one private charter: a yacht from Puerto Aventuras, or a helicopter from CancĂșn
- ·A second portrait day on the beach or the reef shelf
- ·A cenote at seven, before the day trips reach it
Tier III
Honeymoon
$11,400 USD
Three days, made for you
The Heirloom Album · 30 pages, fine-art
Everything in Signature, plus:
- âThe elopement and the honeymoon woven into one three-day journey
- âYour charter and the underwater session, both
- âA 30-page fine-art album
Experiences woven in
- ·A private candlelit beach dinner with a musician
- ·A day on Isla Mujeres, or the quiet west side of the reef
- ·A second cenote, chosen for the light rather than the name
Signature locations in Tulum
A private cenote at seven in the morning · The beach at sunrise, which is the only sun the coast gets over water · The reef shelf, shin deep at low water · A jungle clearing back from the road · The boat, from Puerto Aventuras · Isla Mujeres and the sheltered west side
*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 Tulum, Mexico.
Take the Elopement Compass â04
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
Underwater · first light
The Cenote at Seven
This is the reason to come here rather than anywhere else on the Mexican coast. A freshwater cave in the limestone with a hole in the roof, and for about an hour after opening it is yours. I photograph you in the water for two hours, which is genuinely part of the coverage rather than an add-on, and the light comes down in one column and does the work. There is no statewide cenote permit in Quintana Roo: every site is negotiated with whoever owns or holds it, many are private and some are ejido land, and a photography fee on top of entry is normal. I handle that, and I tell you which cenotes are worth the fee.
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 Tulum, 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 cenotes, the bigger picture. I wrote the complete guide to eloping in Mexico: the six regions I work in, what the civil registry actually asks of two foreigners, the sargassum months nobody advertises, and what each collection includes. It is the same thinking behind every day I design, in one place.
Read The Mexico Elopement Guide â
05
A sample plan, counted backward from your dateThe Timeline
A Tulum elopement is planned against a sunrise table and a sargassum calendar, in that order, and the cenote access is arranged site by site months ahead. I handle the permissions, the fixer and the running order. This is how it goes, from the first decision to the alarm going off in the dark.
The shape of it
Dates and collection, and the honest month conversation. December to March is the dependable window. April to August carries the sargassum probability the municipality publishes, and June through November is inside the Atlantic hurricane season, with the worst of it August to October. Tell me your constraints and I will tell you what the month can actually deliver.
The base and the ground
I tell you exactly where to stay and why, and you book it. The beach road is slow and a hotel at the wrong end of it costs you an hour of the morning. I book the fixer, the celebrant, the styling and the driving.
Cenote access and permissions
There is no statewide cenote permit. Each one is negotiated with the owner or the operator, some are private and some are ejido land, and a photo fee on top of entry is standard. If any part of the day touches the archaeological zone, that is INAH, which is a separate application on form INAH-01-001 filed at least ten business days ahead with a published daily fee, and drones are not permitted over the protected polygon at all.
The legal side
The ceremony I photograph is symbolic. A binding Mexican civil marriage goes through the Registro Civil and asks for apostilled and translated documents, a local medical certificate and witnesses, and Quintana Roo can require four of them rather than two. Almost every couple I work with marries legally at home and keeps the day here 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.
Sunrise and the tide
Your ceremony time comes off the sunrise table, not preference, because the water light here is in the morning. If the reef shelf is in the plan it comes off the tide table as well, and the two have to agree.
You stop deciding
The beach before six, the cenote at opening, the boat or the helicopter, the table on the sand. I run all of it and you are told where to stand.
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 Tulum 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 deciding between this coast and the rest of the country: the complete Mexico guide, what the civil registry really asks, and why the sunrise is the only sun this beach gets over water.
Guide
How to Elope in Tulum
The coast faces east, the sargassum has a season the brochures skip, and the cenotes have no single permit. What eloping here actually involves.
15 min read âGuide
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 â
Field
Symbolic or Legal: Marrying in Mexico
Apostilles, translations, a medical certificate, and why Quintana Roo can ask for four witnesses. The case for marrying at home first.
9 min read âTell me about your day on the Caribbean coast.
Share your date and I will come back within 48 hours with availability, an honest estimate, and the sunrise, the tide, and the cenote I would point you toward.
Est. 1999 · Travelling worldwide · Priced in USD
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