Mari & Alberto

How did you meet?

We met at my friend’s beach house in 2013. My friend brought her girlfriends and new bf, and the bf brought his guys, and Alberto was there. I was actually dating another guy at the time so we just talked. He says he liked me from that day but couldn’t show it because I was seeing someone, but I think he just tells me this now because I like hearing it haha 😍 We saw each other from time to time after that and then met again for the same friend’s birthday, Nov. 2014, I was single and this time he gave me his number and casually mentioned “we should go on a hike”.

When did you know they were the one?

We moved to Barcelona in 2016 for me to get my master’s, and he worked, and it was the first time for both of us to move in with someone as a couple. Everything was exciting, new country, new people and classmates from all over the world, a lot of parties and travelling, and a lot of studying. I saw that a bunch of my classmates had the same love/living situation as me, where they moved there with a partner for the program, and as the year went by they all broke up, and I just kept thinking to myself that I would never be able to live without him and that there was no turning back. We openly spoke about it and we both just felt the same way. We wanted to build a life together. I just didn’t know we were going to get engaged there.

What are your three favourite attributes of your partner?

I love his sense of humor and his take on life. He makes me and everybody around him laugh everyday and we have even learned to resolve issues between us using humor, to not take us to seriously.

He’s passionate about everything he does and he’s a very social person, has a ton of friends. When he surfs, he needs to train really hard to go to places like bali, he also rock climbs and he’s always looking for the best places and rock in the world to go, he’s training right now to do a 50km trail run actually. Same with his job, he really enjoys it, and is always working extra just because.

Where did you fall in love with your dress and why?

I had found you guys on IG and loved all of the dresses, but since I don’t like all the attention on me, I wasn’t sure about getting married in white, it was “too princess/focus on me”. I loved loved Stevie, it’s more relaxed. So I went to NY to one of your stockists on a girls trip to my sister’s house. My mom, my aunt, grandma and two sisters were there with me. We tried on maybe 6 dresses, and tried on Sadie “just to try”, and it was one of our favourites the minute I put on, the simplicity is just so elegant, it would never go out of style. I still wasn’t sure about Stevie though, with the whole relaxed vibe I wanted, and I feel they’re completely opposite, but then we tried the Stevie veil on my Sadie dress and everyone went quiet. I looked around at my family for feedback and they all had tears in their eyes, so it was a quick decision. I feel like it’s timeless.

Who proposed and how?

He proposed on the last weekend we had in Barcelona before returning to Costa Rica, dec. 2017. He asked one of my friends to take me shopping to get me out of the house, and my friend kept telling me she wanted to walk through a park that was a weird route to take to where we were going. She was leading me to him, he had a picnic set up, and I just panicked haha I knew what was coming and I got super nervous, I even told him “you better not have a ring in your coat or I’m freaking out”. He said it was just a farewell picnic for Barcelona, so we ate, went for a walk, and then back home. When we were about to go into our building he asked me to go to the supermarket to get a couple of things without him and I went just thinking to myself I was crazy for thinking he was going to propose. When the elevator door to our floor opened on my way back, I saw the hallway covered in flower petals and the door halfway open, and I panicked, again. I didn’t go in, I just stood in the doorway and opened it fully, and he was in our empty apartment (we were leaving so we didn’t have furniture anymore at that point), with candles and roses everywhere, and he kneeled down and asked me to marry him. I just dropped the bag of eggs I was holding, cried, and kept asking if this was really happening. Of course I said yes 2 seconds later.

Where did you go to Honeymoon?

We went to Japan in April! It was awesome! We have both traveled quite a lot, and we love to stay in places for a long time, we don’t like to be typical tourists doing touristy trap stuff. So we picked a place that neither of us had been and decided to take off an entire month to really get to know the place. We did the main cities of course but we also took a week off to go into the mountains, visit small country towns, and hike a part of a the kumano ko do trail. And we ate like crazy! Had a ton of fun!

Details.

MWL Design:

Sadie + Stevie Veil

Venue:

The wedding took place at the Costa Rica Marriott Hotel Hacienda Belen, they have a small chapel next to the golf course so we used it as the backdrop. Both the ceremony and the party were at the golf course.

Wedding Planner:

I have a wedding planner friend who helped us out the day of the event (since all the planning was done by the in-laws), and she’s also one of the best wedding planners here in CR, her name is Erika, @simplyperfectcr.

MUA:

She’s really an artist! Her name is Diana and she took such good care of me, she even stayed at the wedding in case I needed a touch up, even though I didn’t ask her to. @dmt_mua

Flowers:

I had a flower wall as the ceremony backdrop and it was jaw-dropping. My father-in-law owns a wedding flower shop/decorating company and they took care of planning everything, they’re actually pretty big doing weddings down here @eventoscarlosgil. Everything they do ends up looking amazing! He’s the best in the business! And my sister in law works with him and she was in charge of my wedding, did an amazing job.

Bridesmaid Outfits:

I didn’t have bridesmaids! We have very big families and I have a lot of close friends, if I picked one or two, I had to tell them all to be my bridesmaids haha so we just had our best friends three year olds as flower girls. Sending a pic of them, really cute!

Rings/jewellery:

My engagement ring was actually designed by a good friend of my husband. She’s a Costa Rican jewellery designer based in Italy, and she made a gold ring with a raw ruby stone, her name is Catalina @catalina_brenes_jewellery. Our wedding bands were designed by my husband’s cousin who is also a jewellery designer based in Costa Rica, she normally doesn’t do this type of rings, but made an exception for family. Her brand is @lolitamiacr.

Photography:

My photographer was @rawshoots (photos on your IG are theirs 😍) and for the video we used @forever.wf. They were both game to doing fun stuff instead of the traditional photos/videos.