Last year, my fiancée and I excitedly planned our dream wedding. Though many plan lavish affairs, our vision was simple: my future bride and I wished to exchange our vows casually on the beaches of Costa Rica, devoid of stressful planning and hassle. Understanding this, our travel agent sought to bring this to fruition, hiring a Costa Rican wedding planner for $1000 who would supervise both our nuptial and legal needs. We felt this money was well spent and believed it would eliminate any stress. All that was left was to enjoy our trip to the sandy alter.

Costa Rica Travel Tales — A Costa Rica Wedding

En route to Central America, we made a pit stop in New York City at the Costa Rican consulate office to authenticate our wedding documents and application. This was done for a fee of $120 and the documents were then forwarded to our planner. Typically in Costa Rica the bride and groom sign a Spanish document book to verify their marriage. My fiancée and I requested an English version of this which would enable my soon-to-be wife to begin the name changing process.

Our wedding turned out perfect. Surrounded by my two sons and their wives, along with one close friend, my bride and I exchanged our vows against the backdrop of roaring surf and tropical flowers. Complete in shorts and my wife in a simple, yet elegant dress, wedding photos were taken on the sand as other beachgoers enjoyed the Costa Rican shores around us. A beautiful, surprise reception followed the ceremony, as we dined on lobster and champagne with our loved ones at the villa. Our dream had come true; we had a memory for a lifetime.

Once back in the States however, the bureaucratic red tape began. My wife’s first stop was at the Social Security office where she was able to change her last name with no difficulty. This changed drastically at the Department of Motor Vehicles though, when she was suddenly informed that the English copy of our wedding certificate was not an official document, regardless of its notarization. Not only was the English version unacceptable, so too was the Spanish.

A DMV employee proceeded to tell my wife that without an “official” English translation she would be unable to receive a new driver’s license, an integral step in changing all other forms of identification. The employee then explained that that the Spanish wedding document had to be transcribed into English and registered in Costa Rica again, a process that would cost both an additional fee and four months. Those four months turned into thirteen, a period in which all pending name changes were placed on hold. Though our destination wedding had been beautiful and stress free, its repercussions certainly were not.

With the thirteen-month waiting period finally over, my wife drove back to the DMV with the official document and a long-awaited sense of relief. Speaking with a DMV supervisor, she was told that no, in fact, our wedding document was not official, as it must be translated by a state-specified translator in order to gain a seal of approval. Enraged and shocked at this missing piece of information, my wife asked why this had not been mentioned thirteen months prior. Regardless of this error, she was then forced to hand over another fee of $85 for a state-specified translator. Our wedding document became official two days after my wife spoke with this supervisor; the previous year we had spent waiting was all in misinformed vain.

I am relaying my experience not to discourage those who dream of destination weddings from doing so, but rather to strongly emphasize the importance of knowing the specified requirements of both your state and your destination. Without the correct information a dream wedding can turn into a bureaucratic nightmare, resulting in lost money, wasted time, and tainted memories.

[Kip is still happily married and occasionally returns to Costa Rica to attend to his rental properties: rentvillacostarica.com]

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Filed under: Reader Opinion & Stories on November 12th, 2007