Uvita · Costa Rica · Elopement Curator
Uvita
9.16°N · 83.74°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 whale coast of Costa Rica.
Uvita is a sandbar shaped like a whale's fluke on a coast where two entirely separate humpback populations turn up at opposite ends of the year. The tail only exists around low water, so the ceremony here is booked against a tide table rather than a calendar. It rains a great deal more than in the north and the landscape is rainforest rather than dry forest because of it, and an hour south the Osa Peninsula begins, which is as wild as Central America gets. 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$10,200 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 Uvita.
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 Uvita elopement, and the Costa Ballena's own dispatches. Start with the country guide, then write to me about the bay itself.
02
Four days on the whale coastReal Elopements
Four elopements from the Uvita archive, written the way I remember them: the hour of tide, the whales on both sides of the year, and the beach on the Osa with no road to it. 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 Uvita 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. The upper tiers here buy two specific things: a private boat for the whale morning rather than a shared one, and the Osa Peninsula, which is an hour south and is the reason a four-day itinerary in this region is worth more than two days twice.
Three ways to elope in Uvita. 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
$10,200 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 sandbar at low water, or the headland above 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
$21,200 USD
2 elopement days · all-inclusive*
The Signature Album · 40 pages, layflat
Everything in Essential, plus:
- ✓A second day, planned against the tide rather than the calendar
- ✓A cinematic film of the day, cut by hand
- ✓Richer florals, hair and makeup
- ✓A local fixer with you throughout
- ✓A private boat for the whale morning, not a shared one
Experiences woven in
- ·A morning on the water, whales in season
- ·The tiered falls before the day trips arrive
- ·The sandbar walked at the bottom of the tide
Tier III
Curated Adventuremoon
$28,000 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
- ✓The Costa Ballena and the Osa Peninsula, with the crossing between
- ✓Upgraded photography, film and design moments
- ✓Full fixer support across the whole trip
Experiences woven in
- ·Corcovado, by boat from Drake Bay
- ·A night on the Osa with nothing around it
- ·The mangroves at Sierpe, on the way south
- ·Scarlet macaws over the beach at first light, which is simply what happens there
Signature locations in Uvita
The whale-tail sandbar, at the bottom of the tide · The headland above Marino Ballena · The tiered falls inland · The sea arch at the end of the tail · The Osa Peninsula, an hour south · A boat offshore, whales in season
*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 Uvita, 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 · low tide
Vows on the Whale's Tail
A sandbar runs out from the beach and opens into a shape that is, from the air, unmistakably a whale's fluke. It exists only around low water and disappears entirely at high, so this ceremony is booked against a tide table rather than a calendar. You stand on sand with the Pacific on both sides of you and a drop of a few hundred metres of nothing behind.
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 Uvita, 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 bay, 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 wet green one with the whales in it. 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 Uvita elopement is planned against a tide table and a whale calendar, in that order. I handle the reservations, the boat, the permissions and the running order. This is how it goes, from the first decision to the bottom of the tide on the morning itself.
The shape of it
Dates and tier, and the whale conversation. Two separate populations use this bay at opposite ends of the year, so tell me whether whales matter and I will tell you which months to look at.
Lodging and the ground
I book the lodging on the ridge or the coast, the transport, the fixer and the vendors. This is the wetter half of the Pacific, so the plan is built with indoor and forest fallbacks from the start.
Park entry and permissions
Marino Ballena is a national park and the sandbar sits inside it. A commercial shoot inside a SINAC protected area needs authorization arranged in advance; personal photography does not. I work out which yours is and file it. Corcovado, if you are going, is booked and guided separately and well ahead.
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 boat, the table, the film. You see the day written out hour by hour.
The tide table
This is the one that actually sets your ceremony time. The sandbar is walkable for a window either side of low water, roughly twenty to thirty minutes each side, and I build the entire day backwards from it.
You stop deciding
The tail at the bottom of the tide, the falls before eight, the boat in season. 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 Uvita 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 two whale seasons, and why the tide decides your ceremony time.
Guide
How to Elope in Uvita
A sandbar shaped like a whale's tail that exists for about an hour, humpbacks from both hemispheres, and a ceremony time set by a tide table.
14 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 on the whale coast.
Share your date and I will come back within 48 hours with availability, an honest estimate, and the tide, the season, and the light I would point you toward.
Est. 1999 · Travelling worldwide · Priced in USD
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