WEDDING PLANNING TIPS
How To Plan A Wedding In Costa Rica
Your wedding should be as special and unique as your relationship. For a lot of engaged couples, that means favoring the wedding destination instead of the traditional wedding plans.
These destinations offer the opportunity to enjoy a luxurious and exotic locale while making your wedding an intimate event that only your closest family and friends will enjoy and remember. Though it’s not all roses since the planning is a feat in and of itself, the end result is still worth it.
Ideally, it usually takes about one year to plan a single wedding. There’s still a possibility that it can be done in less than 12 months, but you have to be prepared to cough up more money for it. Wedding coordinators and planners prefer at least 12 months before the chosen date when it comes to reservation.
Mostly because they’re fully booked by the time couples negotiate with them.
If you want to get an idea on how you should plan for your wedding, especially if you want it to be in Costa Rica, here’s a guide.
When should you have your wedding?
Since you’ll be having your wedding in Costa Rica, you are fortunate enough to have average temperatures. Costa Rica is renowned for its warm and tropical climate. Temperatures average about 80–85 degrees with a cool and refreshing ocean breeze keeping the heat at bay.
At night the temperature dips into the mid–60s and 70s, which is ideal for watching the beautiful sunset, dining outdoors and enjoying nighttime activities.
Costa Rica, unlike many other tropical locations, is hurricane-free. It is located on the Pacific Coast, below the hurricane zone, protected from Caribbean storms. Since it is in the rainforest, Costa Rica does experience a rainy season in the months of September and October offering usually warm and sunny mornings with afternoon showers and occasional thunderstorms.
For a sunny wedding though, it’s ideal to pick a date between May and August.
There is a transition season with mostly sunny days with only occasional (and refreshing) showers some afternoons. The dry season runs from December to April with little chance of rain.
Although the prospect of an afternoon beach wedding increases with warmer weather, there are numerous advantages to organizing your wedding during Costa Rica’s transitional or rainy season. For visitors, the rainy season also means cooler temperatures, fewer crowds and better rates.
The plethora of venues
Costa Rica has plenty of places you can have your wedding in, such as:
- Tamarindo
- Manuel Antonio National Park
- Papagayo, Guanacaste
- Jacó
- San Jose
- Arenal Volcano
These areas have so many venues you could choose from. Many of them double as convenient lodging accommodations for your entire wedding party.
- Tamarindo Diria Beach Resort
- Riu Palace Costa Rica
- Costa Rica Marriott Hotel Hacienda Belen
- Casa Puros Dieces
- Los 3B’s Villa at Manuel Antonio National Park Estates
- Four Seasons Resort Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo
- Dreams Las Mareas Costa Rica
- Los Suenos Marriott Ocean and Golf Resort
- Arenal Nayara
- El Mangroove, Autograph Collection
Go to each of these places and give them a visit yourself. Ask your fiancé for her own opinions about the venue and take a walk around.
Tips and logistics
While you’re daydreaming about your Costa Rican wedding, be sure your fantasies aren’t shattered by having to figure out how to get a marriage license. Luckily, Costa Rica makes it pretty simple for foreigners to tie the knot within their enchanted borders, even allowing couples to have civil wedding ceremonies that are legal in their home country.
Here is a list of musts to please Costa Rica’s legal Gods:
- An attorney to officiate the marriage
- Copies of your passport, birth certificates, names of your parents and info about any previous marriages
- Two witnesses that neither of you are related to and they have to provide their own passports to the officiant before the ceremony
When you’ve sealed the ceremony with a kiss, your attorney or official will register your marriage with Costa Rica’s National Registry. They will then issue a marriage certificate within 4 to 6 weeks. After you receive the said certificate, your attorney will have it translated to English by an official translator, authenticated by the Costa Rican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and authenticated by your home country’s Embassy in Costa Rica.
To be legally married in Costa Rica, expect to pay between $1,500 and $2,000 for all steps and services. Many couples, however, choose to skip this stage by getting a marriage certificate in their home country before or after their Costa Rican ceremony.
Standard Costa Rica wedding cost
Costs are always going to vary when it comes to weddings. It all depends on your preferences and your number of guests, after all. But if we’re looking for a ballpark estimation, here’s a peek of what it’ll be like to have a destination wedding in Costa Rica with 50 guests and a 4-night stay at a vacation home or resort:
- Average cost of accommodations: $200 per night
- Average cost for the ceremony: $5,000
- Average cost for the reception: $200 to $400 per person
- Marriage License cost: $1,500 to $2,000
- In total, you’re looking at about $17, 550 to $27,550 for Costa Rican wedding with 50 people as guests
The pay-off
After all the expenses, the planning and the stress, if the end result is you tying the knot with the woman you love then isn’t it all worth it?
At the end of the day, a wedding is ultimately how you and your partner choose to make it. If an expensive and extravagant wedding is for you, then you now know the basics of planning for it. But if you two believe that a wedding shouldn’t really define the marriage itself, a simple ceremony should suffice.
It doesn’t matter in the end. Whatever you think a marriage should be depends on you and your future wife. If you need it to be glamorous or not, do what you need to do.
The end goal is to have her wear that gold band on her ring finger. Her smile after you kiss her is already pay-off enough.
