You know when you're going through Instagram and you're looking at these elopement photos and you're like "this is just insane I don't even know how they found such a beautiful location out in the middle of nowhere. It's so remote, so beautiful, so cool, how do they even do that?!" 

Well I'm here to tell you how!

Who am I?

To start off, I’ll introduce myself - I'm Roo I'm an adventure Colorado elopement videographer and photographer based out Boulder and I do a lot of elopement planning for my couples, especially on helping couples choose their elopement location.

Before doing elopement photography and elopement videography, I worked as a guide traveling all around the U.S. and abroad to lead trips for people in the outdoors and, believe it or not, a lot of the same sort of principles apply for planning trips for people wanting to elope!

So, in this blog, I have a ton of really good resources for you to help plan the best elopement ever!

Instagram Geotags:

If you see an  photo that was absolutely beautiful and you were wondering where it was taken you may want to check if it was geotagged. A lot of us elopement photographers and videographers won’t typically tag our exact location since we don’t want to overcrowd any areas (Learn more about that here) but sometimes you may get lucky and find a general zone to start looking at. You can also take this one step further while you’re on Instagram and start searching through hashtags such as #elopement #coloradoelopement or any hashtag related to the area you want to elope. Keep in mind that if you find a lot of elopement photos tagged for one specific area that likely means it’s an elopement hotspot and likely pretty overcrowded with other people getting married there (*cough, cough - Garden of the Gods). These locations can be beautiful but set your expectations so that you understand other people may be eloping there on that day as well.

Instagram is a really great start to finding a good location for your adventure elopement but to go a little deeper and find those true gems you may have to venture off of Instagram and into some more hiking specific resources.

All Trails:

AllTrails is my first go-to recommendation for people wanting to look for a spot that’s beyond just a drive up, overlook area. AllTrails is a hiking app that has millions of hiking trails listed on it all over the world! I’ve used it in planning Puerto Rico elopements, Colorado elopement videos and helping couples elope in Utah. There are endless amounts of things to explore there and this is really where finding those locations gets to be pretty great! AllTrails has a great app where you can go through and basically just shop hiking trails and you can find hiking trails in the area you want to go. It'll tell you how long it is, how much elevation it is and often people will give reviews if they've done the hike before. This way you can see how the hike may be at a certain time of year. AllTrails is a super good resource and definitely an amazing option for searching for where to go!

Typically, most of my elopement planning location searching stops here. Most of the time, I’ll be able to find a perfect location, hike and area for activities by using Alltrails but if you still haven’t found something you like and want to dig even deeper, I actually use a tool that we use in our daily lives but forget it can be awesome for elopement planning too!

Google Earth / Google Maps:

If I couldn’t find anything with Instagram Geotags or Alltrails, my next step is Google Earth and Google Maps. This often takes the form of me zooming to an area or a town that I think the couple will want to visit and I’ll just scroll around. I’ll look at a mountain here, a river there, a beach walk near their hotel or a lake nearby a fun restaurant. This is a pretty adventurous way to choose your elopement location but all the gems I’ve found and ended up cherishing came from Google Maps and Google Earth. If you have the chance to visit the town in Colorado or the city in Hawaii you were looking at on Google before your elopement, that’s the best because you can pair local’s knowledge and insights with the research you did online.

Caltopo

Usually Caltopo is a way to plan a specific hike or view mileage after finding a location on Google Earth / Google Maps but is also a great exploratory tool for planning your adventure elopement in the mountains or at the beach. I won't go super into the nuts and bolts of Caltopo but essentially it’s a planning website  where you can put different points on a topographical map and it will calculate a ton of useful statistics for you such as elevation or the distance between where you start and end up.

Caltopo is kind of the finishing touch if you want to be super professional and prepared for going into the wilderness but it’s not necessary to know anything about it to plan an awesome backcountry elopement. As a wilderness first responder and former guide, I take planning pretty seriously since sometimes crazy things can happen in the outdoors and being prepared just gives me a piece of mind knowing that we can have an awesome day, get great photos and make an amazing elopement video without having to think of which trail to take or ho far we’ve gone.

Get the Correct Permits

Once you have your location, my final tip for choosing the best location for your adventure elopement is just making sure you’re getting the correct permits for wherever you end up going. Some places don’t require permits but if you’re camping, in some state or all national parks you will have to do some paperwork on where you’re going and what you’ll be doing.

The nice thing is these permits are never too pricey and waaaaay less expensive than a typical wedding venue. Permits will cost anywhere from $5 - $250 depending on where you go so just double check what you’re needing for your location.

Finally, following the Leave No Trace guidelines by leaving the place nicer than you found it so people can enjoy it after you is just as important as finding your perfect elopement ceremony location. Every place deserves to be treated with respect so that people can enjoy it for years to come. If we do a good job at protecting these awesome outdoor spots, our kids will be able to visit your elopement location someday and think, “dang, this is just as cool as my parents said it is!”

I really hope this provides some value for you. If you liked this post and want to learn more check out the other things I’ve written here on the site or just reach out to me regardless and we can talk all things elopements :)

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hello@castlehousevideography.com