Bodas Without Borders
Wedding Bliss
By Debra Martin • Photographs by Danilo Rottigni
Spring-Summer 2003


Fortunately, they happen only once (or so) in a lifetime. Your own wedding, I discovered last December, creates unfamiliar stress, probably because you get precious little practice at planning it. And that’s a good thing, in a strange way. It’s one of life’s ironies.

The lack of experience, though, means you may feel a little disoriented, especially if you’re holding the wedding in a foreign country. Ultimately, you will have to rely on personal taste, intuition and some tedious research to get the job done.

For a marriage in Puerto Vallarta, you might add to that a wedding consultant – mainly to ensure you’ve gotten all the legal documents and translations, and to pull last minute strings around town if the need arises.

A few hours before our ceremony, the wedding consultant frantically maneuvered a permit and the manpower to take down four gargantuan piñatas that had been hung in the Malecon arches just the day before. The piñatas were great for Christmas festivities, but not exactly what we wanted hanging behind us, blocking the sunset and ocean view, while we made our vows.

A consultant might also help curb sleepless nights or, worse, full-length nightmares in the months leading up to the wedding. In one of my own alarming dreams, I was getting dressed for the wedding and realized I had forgotten to send out invitations. Gad! No guests? In another, I had just gotten my hair done when I discovered I had forgotten to buy a wedding dress. Not something you can just order in. And then there was my real-life nightmare, which blew in on Hurricane Kenna and wiped out the Malecon arches where our ceremony was to take place!

My husband recalls a different experience altogether. He slept like a newborn, not because we had hired a consultant but because he “knew that several women had their fingers in the planning” and was smart enough to stay out of it. But he was in the loop on occasion. In fact, he was put on the spot twice when it came to making choices between periwinkle and burgundy for the bridesmaid’s dress and fish and lamb for the dinner. Stressful decisions, indeed.

Besides making aesthetic plans, a few essentials are in order before you are pronounced a married couple in Puerto Vallarta. These include getting legalized copies of birth certificates from a Mexican Consulate in Canada if you’re Canadian or an apostil from the secretary of state where it was registered if you’re from one of more than 50 other countries, including the USA. You will also be required to sit through marriage counseling (a 30-minute video tape at a government office) and get blood tests and a certificate of health within two weeks of the wedding. Then there are fees for the civil judge, the marriage license and processing.

Don’t worry, though. None of this is as painful as it sounds. The video, for example, confirms modern sentiments that men, women and children in families all deserve respect. Not a bad reminder. All of the legally registered paperwork means that your wedding vows are internationally binding. That is, if you’ve had a civil ceremony. It’s surprising that a religious ceremony is not legally binding, only symbolic. So, if you want a religious wedding, you will also need a civil one.

Of course, the wedding day involves much more than papers and signatures. Many frills go along with it. When I started researching, I was advised to get my wedding dress and invitations back in Vancouver because I would have better choices. And I’m glad I did. For flowers, musical entertainment, photographers and reception menus, however, Puerto Vallarta has excellent options.

With d’Rachel at the harp and flute, I was able to walk down the aisle to Pachabel’s Canon – an absolutely dreamy experience. Following the ceremony, a Mexican trio accompanied us as we and our guests departed in a procession that ended at Café des Artistes. Several of our guests said it was the most beautiful wedding they had ever attended. We were pleased to hear it, for people had traveled long distances to be there.

That was our day. But locals along the way made it an authentic celebration as they sat and watched at the arches or called out “Felicidades!” from their balconies and doorways as we proceeded along Hidalgo and Guadalupe Sanchez to the reception.

In a lovely city like Puerto Vallarta, you can create almost any wedding, whether it’s on the Malecon, at the beach, on a boat, in a church or at a hotel. If you can imagine it (and pay for it) you can make it happen.