Catholic Wedding in Costa Rica
 

I am planning to get married in Costa Rica in May 2006. I want to stay in Guanacaste region in one of the all-inclusive hotels. the problem is I was not able to find any information on Catholic weddings in the region. I have contacted individual hotels but they are not much help or have not replied.
How can I find a Catholic church in Guanacaste region & is it even possible to have a Catholic wedding. Please help!
Urszula

Write to Humberto Brenes at

[email protected]

He might be able to find a contact person in Costa Rica for you.

There is a beautiful Catholic church in Liberia, about 30 minutes from the all-inclusives on the Papagayo Peninsula.

Have you spoken to your church here to be sure you meet the requirements? I would think you would need a reference from your local church to any church in Costa Rica that you have completed everything to be married in the church.

Thank you for both replys

I have emailed Humberto & waiting for a reply

I did speak to our family priest and it is up to a specific Costa Rican church to allow us to marry in their church. I would still need to fulfill Catholic requirements in US before going to Costa Rica.

we are planning to get married in costa rica and would like to have a ceremony at a church and the reception at a hotel. thing is that the ceremony needs to be done in english, secondly my fiance is not catholic, but how would anyone know whether he is or not? they just take our word for it?

then, do you need to have a civil wedding prior to the religious wedding? if so, can it be done at the same time as the religious wedding? or does one take precedence over the other one?

i just need some light into planning a destination wedding and seems like i am about to curl into a little ball because i dont know how to research all these questions. so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Costa Rican law allows a Catholic priest, an attorney or a judge to legally certify a marriage. Clergy of any other faith, or anyone you want (say, your brother) can still officiate at your wedding ceremony, but you'd have to have an attorney legalize it, and that would be a civil ceremony in the eyes of Costa Rican law. Costa Rica has complete freedom of religion, but the Catholic church is the state church and has special privileges. The marriage thing is one of them.

Many of the big hotels can help you plan a wedding and will arrange for the attorney to make it legal. Whoever you have legalize the marriage files the marriage license with the Civil Registry, the government body that keeps track of such things, and with your embassy in Costa Rica. Most countries recognize the legality of a Costa Rican marriage.

One other thing: It takes 4-6 weeks for the marriage certificate to be issued.

kandiaisa, also have you spoken to your Catholic church here? The reason they know that you are catholic is they actually require your baptism certificate that will have first communion and confirmation noted on the back of it. It's no big deal that your fiance isn't Catholic but you still need to complete the requirements to be married in the church.

Oh, and so if you get married in a church other than your parish here the church you are getting married in (in this case the one in Costa Rica) will require your home church to forward the paperwork.