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Are you considering a destination wedding in Costa Rica?
It’s an amazing place to get married, but it can be difficult to plan a wedding in another country.
However, have no fear! We got married on the beach in Tamarindo in 2018 surrounded by family and friends who traveled from the US and Germany. We have done the whole planning thing and are happy to help you out!
We discovered that it was a whole lot cheaper to arrange things such as flowers through small local companies. The companies that cater towards destination weddings tend to be a lot pricier and not necessarily any better.
The local florist we hired was half the price as the destination wedding florist and she did an amzaing job!
We think that getting married in Costa Rica is amazing BUT it can be difficult if you have aging relatives or friends and family that can’t afford to travel. Sometimes it is just better to have your wedding near all your people.
However, a destination wedding in Costa Rica is so fun! You can get married on a pristine white sand beach, in the jungle next to a waterfall etc.
We created a complete guide to deciding on if a destination wedding in Costa Rica is the right choice for you.
It can be difficult and expensive to conduct a legal wedding ceremony in Costa Rica. If you would like a legal ceremony you will have to hire a lawyer to officiate your ceremony and file all of the paperwork in your home country.
Instead, most people get legally married in their home country ahead of time and then conduct a symbolic ceremony in Costa Rica.
You can then hire anyone to conduct the ceremony or have one of your guests be the officiant for your special day. 🙂
With so many jungle and beach destinations it can be difficult to select the perfect wedding location. When planning your wedding it is important to consider how close your wedding location is to an international airport, how easy will it be for guests to travel to other places after, how easy will it be for you to find vendors, and more!
Would you like to get married on the beach in Costa Rica? There are so many beautiful beaches that it can be difficult to select the perfect one.
Below, we listed the most popular beach wedding locations. These towns are great because you will have many options for vendors such as caterers, rental companies etc.
Check out our 12 favorite Costa Rican beaches for more ideas!
This is where we got married. There are plenty of wedding venue options here including beach front restaurants, all inclusive resorts, and private villas directly on white sand beaches.
This is a good option if your guests can fly in to Liberia, Costa Rica rather than San Jose.
There are not many beach front wedding venues in Manuel Antonio, but there are plenty of villas and resorts located on cliffs overlooking the ocean.
Manuel Antonio is a great location because there are plenty of things that your guests can do nearby and because weddings are popular in Manuel Antonio there are plenty of vendors that can help you prepare your celebration.
Jaco is probably our least favorite beach town in Costa Rica, but it is not a bad place to get married. The number one perk of getting married in Jaco is that it is only a 1.5 hour drive from the big international airport in San Jose. It is also a great jumping off point for your guests to travel after.
There are tons of super nice resorts and luxury houses in Jaco that you can rent out with an ocean view.
Want to make a little money to help pay for your destination wedding? Sign up for an account on Booking.com.
Once you sign up you will get a link for referring friends. This link will allow you to make $15 off of every booking and your guests will get a 10% discount.
You can then put this link on your wedding website and you and all your guests get something out of it. Score!!!
There are so many venue options in Costa Rica! In fact, when we planned our wedding it took us about two months to just decide that we wanted to get married in a villa. Here are some of your wedding venue options in….
Resorts: Resorts often have a designated wedding planner as well as wedding packages. This will take a lot of stress off of you.
Villas- With a villa, you will have complete control over everything. You can select all your vendors individually.
Restaurants: There are many delicious restaurants and beach bars that could be a great spot for your destination wedding.
Alternative Venue: Some interesting ideas are coffee plantations, animal sanctuaries, waterfall parks etc.
For more info on Costa Rica wedding venues check out our guide to choosing the perfect venue.
It is definitely not the easiest to plan a wedding while living in a different country. Sometimes the best thing to do is to hire a wedding planner.
We personally did not hire a wedding planner (to save costs) but, there is also something called a day of the wedding coordinator. A wedding coordinator is hired just for your wedding day. This person will ensure that everything runs smoothly.
We also did not hire a day of coordinator, but I really wish we had. This would have taken a lot of stress off of us and given us more of an opportunity to really enjoy our day as bride and groom.
Organizing all of the little details is an important part of wedding planning. Who are you going to hire to do everything? Here are some things you need to think about….
Caterer – There are many catering companies in Costa Rica but it is often usually possible to get a restaurant to cater your wedding as well.
Florist – The cheapest floral option here is tropical flowers. You can hire a wedding florist to arrange your flowers or just contact a local florist.
Furniture rentals – Depending on your wedding venue you may need to rent things such as tables, chairs, speakers etc. There are many event rental companies located throughout the country.
DJ – Do you want to hire a DJ or do all the music yourself? We hired a DJ for the reception and it was such a good decision!
When planning your wedding you also need to consider your guests guests. Costa Rica is probably a new destination for a lot of your guests. The probably have a lot of questions.
We dealt with this by sending them straight to our website. We linked to our site through our wedding website (you can create one for free on The Knot). This worked our perfect!
If you would like to make your planning process a bit easier we suggest that you also just send your guests to our site. They will probably like our destination guides, our step by step guide to planning a trip in Costa Rica, and our rental car discount.
Not only is Costa Rica a great wedding destination but it is also a great place to have your honeymoon. There are plenty of adult only resorts throughout the country or you could have a honeymoon of hopping around the country to see all the sights.
For more info, check out our Costa Rica honeymoon planning guide.
We hope this helped with planning your dream wedding in Costa Rica. If you have any questions please leave them in the comment section below. We are happy to help you out!
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