Civil Wedding

Civil weddings are celebrated differently in different cultures. In certain countries of Latin America such as Ecuador, the civil wedding is a separate event from the religious wedding. Usually, it takes place a week or maximum a month before the religious wedding. Nonetheless, as we all know, the beautiful thing of weddings is the fact that you get to plan your unique experience, mixing both old traditions and new elements that work for you as a couple. In our case, we wanted to get legally married in the US, which is where we both live, and take our time to plan the religious wedding in Ecuador.

Considering that both of our families were travelling such a long distance to be with us in this event, we decided to plan a civil wedding weekend. We wanted a plan in which logistics would be easy for our families to have a good time without worrying about hotels, food, transportation and entertainment. The best solution we could think of was to plan a cruise to the Bahamas! Both of our families arrived from their respective countries on Thursday, April 14 th, because the next day, the adventure would begin.

We departed from the Miami port on Friday, April 15 th in the afternoon and we came back from Bahamas the day of our civil wedding, Monday April 18 th . Needless to say, the Bahamas trip was a success, we all had a blast visiting Atlantis Resort, eating delicious food and speaking a mix of French, English and Spanish… It was crazy good!

It was all a mix of sensations, we were happy to see our families together, excited about the upcoming event and expectant of everything going according to plan. All of these emotions combined with the motion of the sea were the perfect mix to create a very “dreamy” mood. We all felt like walking over clouds and like any minute we would wake up from a beautiful dream.

But the best was yet to come, the first event in the book of our wedding celebration and casually the day of our first anniversary as well. At 4:30 pm we were all ready for the pre-civil wedding pictures, we had family and friends that travelled from the US and Latin America as well as friends leaving early from work that started to arrive around 6:30 pm.

Everything from this moment on went so fast! I know I sound like every bride in the world, but wow… I had to take a time to savor every moment and take a mental picture because the shared emotions and micro minutes were so special and went so fast. After greeting all of our guests, the civil ceremony began around 7:30 pm, shortly after, Kévin proposed a toast and next thing I knew we were eating and dancing.

All I have to say is that words will never be enough to describe the immense happiness of sharing such a special event with people that love you so much and that you love so much as well. Our civil wedding was truly a memorable event and we cannot wait to celebrate our religious wedding in Ecuador next March!