Mauricio Ureña

Contact Mauricio Ureña

Welcome, thank you for stepping by and appreciate my work. I am a Boutique Portrait & Destination Wedding Photographer based in San José-Costa Rica but also serving Destination Beach Weddings and Elopements at Guanacaste, Tamarindo, La Cruz, Conchal, Nosara, Flamingo, Papagayo Peninsula, Manuel Antonio, Jaco, Esterillos, Dominical, Santa Teresa, Uvita areas and/or wherever your love story deserves to be captured locally or abroad.

My main purpose as a Costa Rica Portrait & Destination Wedding Photographer is to respect and honor your dreams. I'll do this by capturing your emotions, feelings, essence, and love in a very organic and discreet way, maintaining the authenticity of each moment and, of course, by adding my personal touch. Nothing moves me more, and nothing is most rewarding than the emotions, and happy messages I get from my clients. Serving you, knowing that my artwork will have a special place in your hearts throughout your life, earning your trust and appreciation means the world to me!

If you are planning to visit our beautiful country either for your Wedding, Elopement or simply a vacation trip and want a Couple Portrait session or a Family Portrait session at any place of our country, do not hesitate to contact me. I'll be glad to be your host and capture wonderful moments for you and your relatives.

Where are you located? Do you charge a travel fee for weddings not in your location?

I am based in San José, Costa Rica but able to do destination weddings around the country or wherever you dream your wedding to take place. Set a call to talk about travel fees.

How long have you been in business? How many weddings have you photographed as the main photographer?

I have been photographing Weddings for 10 years, we use to shoot around 40 weddings per year.

Describe your "style" of wedding photography.

My photography style has been crafted and developed through the years. I like to take photojournalistic and candid images that capture moments, but also there are times in which you need to apply a more classic and posed style. As you may noticed in my portfolio I love natural and vivid colors, perfectly light subjects and with accurate skin tones, as well as classic black and white images.

What's the typical wedding coverage package that you offer? What is the price?

Our core Wedding coverage service include:
* Lead Camera (M.A.U.G.)
* 2nd Shooter
* Lighting & Production Assistants
* Online Gallery & personalized App for your smart device
* Signature Editing process
* Full resolution & web-optimized images
* Wedding Timeline consultation
* Pre Wedding Day scouting and talk through session
* Wall Art & Album design consultation
Destination Weddings starts at : $1.900

You can add to your coverage: Wedding Albums, Cinematography, day before/after shoot, rehearsal dinner coverage and/or early delivery. Contact us for more details about our services.

Do you have a studio where we can meet in-person?

You can reach me in Skype as user PhotoByMAUG.

Is there anything else you'd like to share about yourself?

We love to know new people, know their story and make new friends. You can expect from us a very kind and friendly staff serving you to get the most wonderful memories of your Wedding.

More...

Portfolio

Photos of the Week

More...

7 Recommendations

Highly recommend Mauricio Ureña, incredible experience! We found Mauricio from seeing his photography of other weddings at our venue, and we knew instantly that he had to be our wedding photographer. His style is completely unique - it was vibrant, artistic, dramatic, happy and emotional. His style is able to capture moments perfectly, and his photos are able to not only capture our feelings in that moment, but also our movement. He gave prompts that made us laugh and cry in the most genuine way, and we couldn't feel more comfortable working with him. Mauricio also took the time to have two Read More long calls with us before the wedding to get to know us as individuals and as a couple. This really helped him show our personalities and our relationship on camera.

We hired Photos by Mauricio and his team for nine hours on our wedding day and were absolutely blown away by the experience. They arrived early, moved carefully and efficiently through the different shoots, and got tons of photos while working within the wedding timeline. The team did a great job of directing everyone for the portraits and showed an incredible ability to bring out the emotions in everyone they were photographing. Once the reception started Mauricio and his team were capturing everything. They got incredible action photos of not only everyone dancing but also the emotions in the room. The photos turned out beautifully and perfectly memorialized the joy of the night.

Mauricio is a true artist. He was a key component in making our wedding as special as it was. He was able to get us a preview of his work after just 2 short days, and the pictures were breathtaking. We can't wait to see the rest. We can't imagine working with any other photographer and couldn't be happier with our decision to go with Mauricio.

JUDY + BRETT

Seriously. Stop looking for anyone else. He and his team are the absolute best you will find. Thoughtful, extremely creative, and attentive to your specific style and comfortability. It was like having your biggest day photographed by a close family member. Mauricio was prompt to answer any questions we had, provided fantastic scouting and insight, and was truly a pleasure to be around on what can be a very stressful day. We couldn't recommend him any higher. And the photos! Out of the gate, one of our photos was nominated for an editors choice and best of the week award, then added to the Read More best of the year collection for a global photography directory. You will not be disappointed with Mauricio. A delight both personally and professionally from start to finish.

JOSIAH + MELANIE

World Class Photographer - My now husband and I hired Mauricio for our wedding at Zephyr Palace on July 30, 2022.

Mauricio was one of the best investments and decisions that we made for our big day. From start to finish he was consistent and attentive with accommodating and creative ways to submit deposits internationally to hearing our vision and incorporating his own into our pictures.

His technical side with his ability to relate to the photography subjects shows his undeniable skill level. When we met prior to the wedding, he coached us on how to pose and move together to get the Read More perfect shots. This is important when you do not know how to be in front of a camera on such a critical day of memories.

Every team member of his was clearly talented and both my husband and our guests were impressed with the photography gear they traveled with. I’ve been to plenty of weddings but I’ve never seen, nor did I expect, the special touches with lighting and communication that surrounded us.

To speak to his character, Mauricio is so fair, honest, and caring. You can feel that you are not just another client to him and it is clear that he loves his job. He stayed in touch with me after the ceremony to make sure our experience in Costa Rica was amazing. When your photographer checks to see if you arrived safe home in the states, you know you are working with an amazing soul.

Mauricio’s gorgeous bold images are not on accident. He is educated and continues to push his limits to be the best. If you select him I promise you are making one of the best decisions for whatever event you have planned.

My husband and I could not be happier. We adore him and cannot wait to see more of what he captured on our wedding day.

CASEY + BRIAN

More...

Mauricio was our photographer for our “wedding pictures” after we eloped. His work speaks for itself, but I can promise you that if you chose him you will not regret it! If you don't believe me, just skip right to pictures and know we only told him we wanted to be in the forest.

Now for the details: Words cannot describe the incredible experience we had with Mauricio and his team. Lets start with the fact that we weren’t even in the country (Costa Rica) through ALL of the planning process; which makes things infinitely harder. Mauricio kept in constant communication with us and was very Read More timely in his responses. He was professional from the moment we found his website and he was willing to work with whatever we were throwing at him: we wanted a wedding photoshoot in a literal forest and that is what he delivered and more! He had the foresight to to look into to look into the conditions of where we wanted to take the pictures and offered suggestions which proved invaluable (we would’ve gotten soaked if we didn’t take his advice!).

Mauricio is also willing to go the extra mile in ever aspect of your shoot; we were in a very remote location, at a very early start time in the middle of the forest! He handled everything with the utmost professionalism and with the best energy and a huge smile on his face! I also asked for a few pictures early so I could gift them to my grandmother and he sent them within the hour!!!!!

Mauricio is the type of person to listen to your vision and make that a reality in a way that you didn’t think was possible. We are very awkward people by nature, but Mauricio immediately put us at ease and guided us through all the poses with patience and understanding. He even gave us a crash course in posing before we started which was extremely helpful. Not only is he a professional, but he makes you feel like you are too! We felt like models in a photoshoot, which is saying a lot from people who usually only take selfies. He is also fully bilingual which was great since I speak Spanish but my husband only speaks English. I didn’t need to translate at all which took some of the workload off me!

Mauricio and his team hiked approx 2 km in the forest to make our vision a reality and we could not be more grateful!!!!!!! I could’ve never imagined the pure MAGIC that resulted from his technique and eye for composition. This is not someone who relies on filters or edits; he fully understands what needs to be done to obtain the pictures of your dreams!

In short, Mauricio is the photographer you have been looking for. He will surpass your every expectation and you will make unforgettable memories!!!!!

JOHN + CARLA

Mauricio is an artist! From the beginning Mauricio took time to learn about us as a couple, our interests, and style. Despite the distance, Mauricio and his team traveled to our somewhat remote location. He laid out the process very clearly, and made the day of the wedding and photo shoot go by smoothly and stress free. The photos Mauricio delivered are breathtaking, and captured our special day and our love so vividly. We couldn't be happier with choosing Mauricio.

MICHELLE + AMIR

The best photographer/team you will ever work with. Working with Mauricio was such a pleasure!

When we did our wedding at Hotel Villa Caletas, the venue recommended Mauricio, and we are so glad they did so. Mauricio impressed us many times during the entire wedding process, from the planning beforehand, the day of the wedding, and the editing process afterwards.

Before the wedding, Mauricio had multiple zoom meetings with us, where he took a lot of time to get to know us and what we wanted from his services. Some of the questions he asked us during the initial interview were very deep Read More and thought provoking, which was impressive. The nights before the wedding he made sure to zoom with us again and go over all the details and schedule of the wedding day so we would be on the same page. He really helped take a lot of that stress off our shoulders.

The day of the wedding, Mauricio and his team were nothing but spectacular. There were so many different aspects of the wedding that the team got great photos of. They really captured the preparation with the wedding party, individual portraits of bridesmaids and groomsmen, family photos, the ceremony (of course), speeches, the dinner, and the wild afterparty. The photos were so candid and well captured that we could actually hear the volume through the photos.

One aspect of Mauricio's skill as a photographer on the wedding day which really stood out was his ability to improvise. The wedding did not go exactly as planned: bridal party preparation took longer than expected, certain locations which we had planned for photos had to be moved, but every time something changed, Mauricio and his team adapted and got it done without coming off as stressed or stressing us.

After the wedding, Mauricio was very communicative about the editing process and timelines to get us our photos. He was able to send us a few key photos very soon after the wedding which was nice to have as an appetizer. After a few months he delivered the photos to us and we were SO happy with his work! We're not professional photographers so we can't speak to the composition, but there was a healthy blend of dramatic, artistic photos as well as natural, candid photos. Every single one of our friends and family who we have shown the photos too have said over and over again what an amazing photographer he was and how they looked like vogue shoots.

Mauricio and his team were beyond impressive, and I would absolutely recommend him to anyone. We feel so absolutely lucky to have been able to work with him, and have our wedding captured in these memories so beautifully.

MONA + SCOTT

Class A+ person and professional, amazing results and experience!

It all started with our engagement session. At first, we immediately noticed Mau's genuine interest in finding out who we are, what drives us, etc. Building this rapport was crucial since having a good relationship helps a lot in getting the best results. During the sessions themselves, he was very accomodating and easy-going but still super professional. This translated into both enjoying the moments thoroughly and a set of awesome photographs (which of course include Sally, our beloved Westie!).

Before the wedding Read More itself, we had a very useful sync session, where he gave us tips to get the best photos possible. Also, he scouted the locations a couple days prior, which was crucial as he found out some of them weren't as neat as expected. This played to our favor in the end... keep reading :)

Finally, the day came and Mau and his team were on-site in a timely fashion. We had our theme set of photographs (we're both Star Wars fans so it was a blast!) and then on to the ceremony, all the critical moments were captured in detail.

Once that was over we had a surprise waiting for us (remember the location which wasn't up to snuff?)... well, we got access to the hotel's golf course instead! It truly seemed like it was out of a movie -- we rode golf carts (in full wedding attire of course) with Mau following us, taking picture and documenting it all. He then proceeded to take absolutely breath-taking, phenomenal pictures on the greens... Mau's composition, technique and on-the-go location finding are second-to-none. Honestly, these are some of our best photographs... ever! And of our family members and friends agree 100%.

The night came and during the dinner and other activies Mau and team were fully engaged, making sure that everyone was part of the pictures. We also had a brief session, just the two of us, where he did a very neat lens trick under a huge chandelier... it ended up being one of the best photos. Finally, the ceremony ended and we parted ways with a heartfelt hug and a big thank you for all the excellent and hard work.

Overall, he has both: photograper skills (good eye, technique, gear, crew) _and_ he's an amazing human being (well-mannered, keeps thing fun while still being productive, empathethic, etc.). We believe he's a master at his craft and recommend his without any reservations whatsoever. Do we plan to contact him again in the future for more photographs? Absolutely.

Thanks Mau (and team) for giving us memories that will last a lifetime.

PAULA + DAVID