If you’re searching for the best international elopement destinations for 2027, I’m going to give you a slightly different answer than another list of the prettiest places you’ve seen on Instagram. That type of guide already exists in a hundred forms, written by people who have never even set foot in most places they’re recommending.

I could tell you to go to the famous lake. Stand on the famous dock. Hike to the famous viewpoint. And sometimes we can absolutely visit that place. But I don’t think your international elopement should be built around collecting recognizable photographs.

The most photographed spots in the world are not automatically the best places to elope. In fact, for what most of my couples actually want — privacy, presence, a day that feels genuinely theirs — they’re often the worst choice.

I’ve watched this happen in real time. I spent a week at Lago di Braies in the Dolomites this past summer, with a bird’s-eye view of the famous boat dock from sunrise to sunset. Even early in the morning, even with a “private” booking, there were people nearby. Watching. Taking photos. Recording. Walking through something deeply personal because it was happening in a place they’d also traveled to see. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go there. It means you need a real plan, and probably a photographer who’s been there enough times to know what the plan should actually be.

I want you to actually experience the place you chose.

Eat there. Wander there. Wake up slowly there. Ride horses, swim in the ocean, drink espresso, hike through the mountains, or sit around a dinner table for three hours. That philosophy has shaped this entire list.

Every destination I’m writing about here is somewhere personally I’ve worked, scouted, hiked, eaten, and experienced. The recommendations aren’t based on what’s trending. They’re based on what I’ve seen actually work for couples who want a real experience rather than a performance.

What Makes a Destination Worth Traveling Across the World For?

Before we get into locations, here’s the question I wish more couples asked: What do you actually want to DO when you get there? 

Do you love mountains? Ocean? Horses? Hiking? Camping? Incredible food? Architecture? Wild landscapes? Being completely disconnected from the world?

Those answers will tell me so much about you as a couple. Because a destination isn’t just your backdrop. It’s your wedding experience.

And especially when you’re traveling internationally, I want the trip itself to become part of the story. That’s also why I’m such a huge believer in giving destination elopements more than one day. If you’re flying halfway across the world, dealing with jet lag, weather, travel days, and a landscape you’ve dreamed about for years, you shouldn’t have to experience all of it on an eight-hour timeline.

My 2-day destination elopement guide goes much deeper into why I love slowing these celebrations down.

Now…where should we go?!

Best International Elopement Destinations for 2027

Patagonia, Chile

If you told me you wanted your elopement to feel like you’ve disappeared to the end of the Earth together, Patagonia would be very high on my list. This isn’t a place I’d recommend because there’s one famous overlook we need to photograph.

Patagonia is the opposite. It’s about being inside the landscape.

This is a place where the wind is a character in your day. Where you might ride horses with vaqueros through lenga forest at dawn and see a condor overhead before breakfast. Where a puma might cross your trail, or a pair of guanacos stop and watch you from a hillside. 

I traveled here in late February into early March and experienced the kind of wind that will happily take your hat. Late March into April is the window I’d save for an elopement. The summer crowds have thinned. The lenga trees are turning — gold, rust, copper against the granite and ice. The winds that make February and March so wild start to settle. The days are still long and the light is lower, warmer, more cinematic. It’s the shoulder season sweet spot that most people don’t know about.

What your elopement could look like:

Maybe one morning we head out with the horses.

During my own experience here, horseback riding became one of my favorite ways to move through Torres del Paine. Instead of driving to a viewpoint, taking photographs, and getting back into the car, you’re actually traveling through the land.

Wind in your face. Mountains changing around you. Nothing between you and the scale of the place.

You can see exactly why I fell in love with it in my guide to planning a horseback wedding in Patagonia.

Another day might mean hiking, exploring Glacier Grey, watching the weather move across turquoise lakes, eating local food, opening a bottle of Chilean wine, and exchanging your vows when the moment feels right.

This is for couples who genuinely want to disconnect from the world. Who want their wedding day to feel like an adventure that found them, not a production they managed. Who are willing to let the weather change their plan and trust that what replaces it will be better.

If this one is calling your name, my full Patagonia elopement guide covers everything from Torres del Paine locations and lodging to travel, activities, and what I’ve learned from actually spending time here.

I offer just two Stay Awhile Patagonia experiences per year. Reach out if 2027 is your year.

The Dolomites, Italy

I LOVE the Dolomites.

I’ve photographed here. I’ve hiked here. I’ve biked here. I’ve ridden the lifts, watched the weather, studied the crowds, eaten the pasta, drank the espresso, and spent a lot of time figuring out how I would plan these elopements differently now than I did a few years ago.

And that’s exactly why my opinion about eloping here has evolved.

The famous spots — Lago di Braies, Tre Cime, Seceda at sunrise — are famous for a reason. The views are extraordinary. But they are also among the most visited locations in Europe, and that reality shapes your day in ways worth understanding before you book.

I’ll use Lago di Braies as the honest example. I spent a week there this past summer staying at the hotel, watching the boat dock from my window at every hour of the day. Even early in the morning, even with a private booking of the dock, there were people. Standing close. Filming. Taking photos. Walking through something intimate because it was happening in a public place they’d also come to see. Our couple had a genuinely unforgettable elopement there — and I want to be clear about that. But it required a real plan, real flexibility, and a photographer who knew when and where to move.

I found locations that offer the Dolomites — the scale, the drama, the impossible light — without the crowds. I won’t geotag them, because that’s exactly how they stop being what they are. But I’ll share them with my couples.

What the Dolomites actually offers

• Rifugios. Mountain huts perched on ridgelines where you can have espresso at 2,500 meters and watch the morning fog lift from the valley. Some of the most intimate ceremony locations I know are accessible only by trail, with a rifugio waiting on the other side.
  
• Alpine meadows. In August the high meadows are green and wildflower-covered. The light at golden hour here is unlike anywhere else I’ve photographed.
  
• Helicopter rides. This is something I’m genuinely excited about for couples who want the experience of the mountains without a full alpine hike. A helicopter gets you above the landscape in a way that makes everything feel suddenly comprehensible — the scale, the geology, the sheer improbability of these peaks. And it turns the journey into part of the story.
  
• Via Ferratas. For couples who want to climb, these fixed-route mountain paths built for WWI soldiers offer something no viewpoint can: access to places almost nobody else has been.
  
• Slow mornings. A multi-day Dolomites elopement is built around lingering. Breakfast at the hotel with mountains out the window. An espresso before the hike begins. Time between moments instead of a packed timeline. You can see one of those mornings in this Seceda Dolomites elopement.
  
• The food. Northern Italian food in the South Tyrol — which is culturally Austrian as much as Italian — is extraordinary. Wine, pasta, strudel, cheese, cured meats. 

You can explore more locations and everything I’ve learned from scouting here in my guide to the best places to elope in the Dolomites.

Greece

Greece is one of the most asked-about international elopement destinations, and almost every conversation starts in the same place… Santorini. The blue domes. The white walls. The famous sunset.

Santorini IS beautiful. It’s also one of the most visited places in the world, and it is genuinely shoulder-to-shoulder with tourists every evening. If you want a private, intimate elopement where you’re not performing your wedding day for an audience of strangers, the famous Santorini viewpoints are probably not where you want to be saying your vows. The same goes for Mykonos.

I’ve personally spent time in Greece more than once and have location scouted around Porto Rafti, on the mainland outside Athens. There are beautiful coastal areas here that give you the Mediterranean without quite as many people around.

• If your idea of romance involves swimming all afternoon and sitting down for dinner without caring when it ends…look at Sifnos. Sifnos has a deep culinary identity, beautiful Cycladic villages, hiking trails, pottery traditions, beaches, and that slower island rhythm that makes you want to stop checking your phone.
  
• Milos is another gorgeous option. It is volcanic, which gives the island this completely different landscape of sculpted coastline, caves, dramatic rock formations, and beaches in wildly different colors. While I haven’t personally photographed there yet, it is absolutely on my radar.
  
  This is where I’d want to get you on the water. Rather than spending your elopement chasing famous viewpoints by car, rent a boat. Find coves. Swim. Pack lunch. Let the island unfold from the sea.
  
• I’ve been to Porto Rafti twice and location scouted there — and it is genuinely one of the most underrated places I’ve found in Greece. A small harbor town on the eastern coast of Attica, about an hour from Athens, with dramatic coastal cliffs, hidden coves, and a completely different feeling from the islands. It has the advantage of proximity to Athens for a city night, access to ancient history and architecture, and a coastal landscape that photographs beautifully without the price tag or crowds of the Cyclades.

Morocco

Morocco is sensory in a way that’s hard to explain until you’re there. All the colors, tiles, textiles, spices, food and markets. Then you leave the city behind, and suddenly the landscape changes completely.

The Atlas Mountains rise dramatically above Marrakech, and in February the peaks are snow-capped — a genuinely surreal contrast against the desert below. The Sahara is accessible within a long day’s drive, and spending a night in a luxury desert camp under a sky full of stars is one of those experiences that changes the shape of a trip.

One of my favorite Morocco experiences was glamping beneath the Moroccan sky, and I LOVE the idea of building an elopement around that contrast.

February in Morocco is an amazing option. The summer heat is long gone and the tourists who flood Marrakech in spring and fall are mostly absent. And what’s left is the country itself: riad courtyards with orange trees and tiled fountains, candlelit dinners in rooms draped with lanterns, souks that smell of spice and leather and woodsmoke, and a landscape that offers extraordinary variety within a single trip.

Tenerife & the Canary Islands, Spain

The Canary Islands are one of Europe’s most underrated elopement destinations, partly because they sit off the northwest coast of Africa but technically belong to Spain, which gives them a unique quality: dramatic volcanic landscapes, black sand beaches, and a climate that stays warm and pleasant year-round.

I’ve photographed here before, and one of my favorite things about Tenerife is that the adventure can simply be exploring the island together. You can road trip, stop somewhere because the ocean looks ridiculous, grab food and end your day somewhere like Playa de Benijo with black sand beneath your feet.

You can see more from my Tenerife elopement in the Canary Islands, this Canary Islands beach wedding, and one of my favorites, this black sand beach elopement at Playa de Benijo.

Where Is the Most Beautiful Place to Elope?

There isn’t one. Sorry!!! I know that’s deeply inconvenient for Google.

The most beautiful place to elope depends on what makes you feel something.

Maybe it’s standing beneath mountains so huge you suddenly feel very small. Maybe it’s diving off a boat into the Aegean. Maybe it’s a dark lenga forest. Maybe it’s drinking espresso outside a rifugio. Maybe it’s black sand beneath your bare feet. Maybe it’s sitting around a table with the people you love somewhere you’ve dreamed about visiting for ten years.

The best international elopement destination is the one you actually get to experience! If you’re dreaming about Patagonia, the Dolomites, Greece, Morocco, or somewhere we haven’t even talked about yet, tell me what you want the experience to feel like.

We’ll figure out the pin on the map afterward.

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