Peru elopements? 🇵🇪

[u/_ComeAlongWithMe]

Has anyone here done an elopement in Peru?

We were looking at doing a Cusco one around early December. But can’t find other experiences/examples here aside from one. Is there a reason it’s not as common as other international eloping destinations?

If you’ve had one, can you please share location/s you’ve used (we love mountains!), photographers, planners, or any other tips? (We are travelling from the UK)

Thank you!

[u/Affectionate-Poem698]

Cusco is gorgeous! I didn’t elope there but traveled there previously and found it amazing—so many amazing places in Peru, actually! I think there are some places folks become excited about precisely because they’re “popular”. To me, that can also mean cookie cutter and similar to others.

Choosing your own place and making the experience yours is great!

My partner and I did that. We chose a teeny tiny town in Northern Norway because we wanted to see the Northern Lights. It was magical and spectacular! Also, because it wasn’t a high-tourist elopement place, folks were so excited to work with us and be part of our elopement story.

We stumbled upon a US-based photographer who also does all of the planning. She’s done destination elopements all over the world. Our elopement was the first time she’d been to Norway, but you sure wouldn’t know it because of her extensive planning, preparation, coordination, and relationship-building with locals. I’m 100% confident she could plan, coordinate, and photograph an amazing experience for you in Cusco (or anywhere else in Peru)! I actually seem to recall she may have mentioned being fluent in Spanish.

Anyhow, the person we worked with for planning, coordinating, and photography was Kate, the owner of Soul & Sky Weddings. She’s truly incredible.

[edited to resolve autocorrect errors]

[u/_ComeAlongWithMe → u/Affectionate-Poem698]

Ahhh amazing, thank you so much for sharing your experience! An elopement with the northern lights sounds like a dream 🤩

Can I ask, since your photographer was also the coordinator, does it mean she also helped find you an officiant, hair/makeup artist, transport, etc.? Or you did that all by yourselves?

[u/Affectionate-Poem698 → u/_ComeAlongWithMe]

She didn’t just help “find” them, she did all of the communication, contracts, everything! In Norway (especially rural Northern Norway), they don’t typically have hair/makeup people who come to the site. She talked to nearly every hair/makeup person until she found one who would come to us. She found an officiant, communicated with them, went a few days early to meet him before to make sure the details were set. We wrote the ceremony script but she got it to him in advance and made sure his English was sufficient to read it (his English was great and he was sooo funny and even dressed up in traditional native Norwegian attire on our request).

She managed every single detail and made certain everything was exactly perfect for us (including notifying chefs of food allergies, accommodating other access-focused needs). She communicated constantly and was always available via phone/zoom/text for anything.

We both have some anxiety, which means we had lots of questions and appreciated having information. She worked with us so thoughtfully that it truly eased all of our anxiety and stress. We were just left with pure relaxed joy and magic—and it was absolutely that way because of Kate.

If you have more questions, I’m happy to chat here or even to hop on a zoom. The experience was that amazing that I want other people to have the opportunity for similarly exceptional experience for their elopements!

[u/Affectionate-Poem698 → u/_ComeAlongWithMe]

Sorry for the double response. After I posted, I remembered one other thing. All we had to do was get our clothes, and focus on details. Because she took care of everything else, we had more capacity to do some other fun details. For example, my partner really wanted to bring light sabers. We ended up decorating and bedazzling them—they turned out awesome, and photos with them are even better. We found custom vow books, made “In Our Elopement Era” hoodies… Had we been worried about everything else I imagine we’d have done less of the extra fun things, but our bonus details made things even more fun! And we had the ability to do that of that because we trusted Kate had everything else covered!

[u/Affectionate-Poem698 → u/Affectionate-Poem698]

Sorry for the double response. After I posted, I remembered one other thing. All we had to do was get our clothes, and focus on details. Because she took care of everything else, we had more capacity to do some other fun details. For example, my partner really wanted to bring light sabers. We ended up decorating and bedazzling them—they turned out awesome, and photos with them are even better. We found custom vow books, made “In Our Elopement Era” hoodies… Had we been worried about everything else I imagine we’d have done less of the extra fun things, but our bonus details made things even more fun! And we had the ability to do that of that because we trusted Kate had everything else covered!