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Published: September 12th 2009
Rags and socks
I had to try something!Stress and Vanity
The disliked dress, a bad dress modification, the red-orange hair situation and then the case of an unuseable hair iron all built up to an unhappy bride-to-be the night before. The first 3 issues had been mentally dealt with or fixed to some degree, but the pending situation of a bad hair day took the cake for me. Dan did well to ride the emotional rollercoaster and going to sleep was the only way for me to deal with the situation at 10:30 in the evening. Vanity is every bride's curse and as much as I thought that I had got over the first few image issues, another one smacked me in the face!
Needless to say, at 2:30am I had an epifany and cut up an old shirt, tied the rag lengths to some socks and curled my hair the old fashioned way using the rags technique. I used the socks to make the curls bigger than by using the rags alone. Much is to be said about watching u-tube videos to learn new tricks! For some reason I had seen the rag curling idea months ago online. By 4am, I had completed the massive
do and tied it all up with my scarf to keep it all intact whilst I slept. I heard Dan wake up with a fright when he saw my elephant sized head in the morning after he switched the alarm off. But I was happy to sleep in, due to my late night activities I was still quite tired.
As a wonderful attentive groom, Dan went and organised with reception for a curling iron to be arranged from the nearest town of Puerto Jimenez at 5am. His broken Spanish was sufficient for the male receptionist to understand and arrange help. When I woke up, my mood was more relaxed surprising Dan when he arrived back from his 2nd trip to the main hut that morning. Our photographer was due to arrive at 8am, so we headed up to the restaurant to have breakfast and meet him when he got here. I felt like a wierdo walking around with socks in my hair covered by my scarf, but I got over the looking wierd feeling.
Local wildlife
Near the pool area just before we got to the main hut, we saw a coati, a racoon-like animal, just sniffing
Wedding card
Made by Bronwyn around in the garden. He didn't seem too bothered that we were there watching him. It was our second animal sighting now without our camera!
Meeting with the photographer
Richard arrived slightly earlier than we thought and we had breakfast together getting to know him and to plan the location and timing of the ceremony and photos. We let him know about the risk of high tide in the afternoon and we discussed his photography style which is exactly what we were hoping for. He takes photos in a story telling way and gets people to interact naturally and not too poised for the photos.
The manger on duty brought her hair straightener and curler to work with her. She happily offered me the use of her tools, much to my relief, as I really didn't have faith in the sock curls that I had hastily put together so early in the morning!
Room decoration
The staff at Lapa Rios had been exceptional. They were attentive during our whole stay and even added their own special touches to our room for our return after breakfast. The bed was decorated with flowers and some beautifully smelling
white orchids were placed on the bed side table.
Playa Pan Dulce (Sweet bread beach)
After Richard checked-in to his bungalow, which was only 3 huts away from us, Dan showed him the track which we would walk down to get to the vehicle that would take us to the beach. I was happy to let the boys head to the beach and decide where the best place would be for the ceremony, whilst I stayed at the bungalow writing about the activities of the night before and having time to start getting ready for the day.
Dan and Richard returned from the beach having decided on the location and confirmed the time that we were to head down there. They both thought it would be good to go down and take some photos whilst the tide was low. The tide was indeed very low, much lower than I had seen it on the last 2 occasions that we were there. Dan and I wandered around the shallow waters looking for crabs and small fish at one end of the beach before checking out the rocks at the other end. We had a bit of fun walking
Only photo we have of the dress
Relaxing in the hammock outside our room after the wedding and before changing for dinner. around for an hour or so with Richard taking photos, before deciding it was time to start getting ready for the event of the day.
Lunch
In Costa Rica, by law, a lawyer needs to be present to officiate the documents required by marriage law at a wedding. Our celebrant and lawyer, Marcelo, arrived at Lapa Rios around lunchtime and we all met up to enjoy a meal and have a chat about the proceedings of the afternoon. All of our official documents were ready for the ceremony and we confirmed the outline and timings of the ceremony with Marcelo and Richard, before heading off to get dressed (and put my makeup on). Just as we were about to leave the restaurant area, we were approached by Mark, the father of Bronwyn, a 5 year old that went hiking with us on the Waterfall trail the day before. She had created a wedding card for us, with a drawing of a bride and groom on the front with a lovely message written inside. We were very touched at her thoughtfulness.
Let the photos begin...
Richard arrived close to 3:30pm and shot off a few photos of
our bungalow and our final touches of getting ready, before we met up with Marcelo for the walk down to the gate. We were to meet our chariot, the Landcruiser that we were picked up in at the airport, to take us to the beach, as it was too far and too muddy to walk in wedding gear. High tide was due at 5pm, so we thought we had an hour before the surf dumped high up on the sand. Two of the staff from the ecolodge took down a Champagne stand with a bottle on ice and glasses for us all. They also generously offered to be our witnesses. We found the tree with the crazy roots that we chose for our location and were ready to start the ceremony when some guests arrived for the celebration. Three spider monkeys had made an appearance in the trees in front of us. We hope that Richard was able to get some good photos of them!
Dramatic afternoon
The ceremony started off well with Marcelo welcoming us in Spanish and continuing the ceremony in English. The waves were quite close and one went past our feet taking out a
mini recorder that Richard had sitting on the sand between us. When Dan was questioned with the 'I do' section, he was finding it hard to get his 'Si, accepto' ('Yes, I accept' in Spanish) out as he was watching an enormous wave that was building up, before it came crashing down and forcefully made its way towards us. The wave was so strong and it came with such a splash seeming to come out of no where. Richard ran after the esky lid that went floating off, and I managed to save the Champage bottle and my thongs (flip flops) from being carried away. Two of the champagne glasses started to be swept out to sea, when Marcelo successfully recovered them from the shock attack. I thought all was well, until I realised that Dan was jumping around in the waves down at the normal shoreline, as he had lost both thongs and was out to recover them! Nothing like a bit of action to stir up the moment.
Once we organised all of our items to sit in the tree and off the sand, we went back to the spot where we had left off and Dan
was more readily able to accept the statement of consent. We continued on with a little bleary-eyedness at the vow section and successfully offered the rings in Spanish to each other. We were very happy with the readings that we had chosen and Marcelo's thoughtful delivery of the proceedings. But our fun was to continue after the offical part was done. The clouds had darkened and the water was rising quite fast. We were already wet from the constant laps of the water reaching us during that last 15 minutes and so being pushed around by the waves as they increased in size only added to the intensity of the moment. Dan and I had a fun time mucking around on the beach and we got to see some cool lightening in the distance. We saw a fisherman, who was standing in the water, knocked over by the waves and a local surfer, that was walking past, came and got his photo taken with us. Richard is very skilled in his craft and we didn't feel corny at all being his subjects for the afternoon. We did walk down different sections of the beach, but never felt like we were
posing too much. Marcelo was a great assistant with the flash, when the light had started to fade and our driver Nelson, was very patient, whilst we stretched every little bit of light out of the afternoon. Drops of rain were the sign that it was time to leave.
Surprise gift
We realised that someone had been in our room, when we first entered our bungalow and to our surprise the desk was beautifully decorated with flowers and an ice bucket with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in it.
Drinks before dinner
We were very pleased with our choice of photographer and celebrant, as both the guys were interesting to talk to and fun to hang out with. We learnt technical tips about photography from Richard and had great discussions with Marcelo about nutrition and his role as the president of the vegetarian society in Costa Rica. We changed out of our wet clothes before meeting them both for drinks, before our private dinner beside the pool. They introduced us to the local drink called Michelando, which is lemon juice on ice topped with beer and served in a glass with a salt rim. It would
have been fun to continue the evening with them both, but our private table had been set up, decorated with flowers and candles, and the waiters were ready to serve our meal along with our chilled champagne gift.
The day was fun. We hung out with interesting people, our surroundings were perfectly chosen for what we wanted and the weather was extremely kind. We couldn't have asked for more on our special day.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Congratulations from Kirstin and family. Your wedding day sounds that it will never be forgotten.