Married abroad - Kookospalmun alla

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Our beach wedding in Cape Verde was full of excitement, joy, laughter, music, dear people and delicious local food. A beach wedding abroad is certainly a dream of many and for us this was also a natural choice, because our home island Sal offers a truly fairytale-like setting for a beach wedding and several beautiful locations by the turquoise sea.

OUR STORY

My husband and I met in March 2022, when I traveled to Cape Verde for the first time from my previous country of residence, Portugal, to meet my friend who worked in Sal as a tour guide. At first, mostly my husband and I just said hello to each other on the street and exchanged some quick words. After traveling to the island again a few times, in the summer something special happened between us and the pieces just fell into place.

I strongly believe in fate and that everything that is meant to happen will also happen when the time is right. The purpose of my summer month-long trip was to get to know the island more deeply and see if I could enjoy living in Cape Verde even longer, because I wanted a change from Lisbon‘s city life.

In August, it was time to move to Sal and my husband had promised to pick me up from the airport. All the time I was away from the island in Europe, we kept in touch and called each other daily.

When I then stepped out of the airport on an August night in Sal, my husband was waiting for me and from that moment on, we have been an inseparable duo, and I wouldn’t change a day of this time.

DREAM WEDDING ABROAD

It all started when one December evening in our home in Santa Maria, my husband asked if I really wanted to marry him. We had spent the day with work and a normal day at the beach, and in the evening, while watching a movie on the couch, he brought it up for the first time and asked the question. Without a moment’s hesitation, of course I answered “yes“.

We had talked about marriage things before, but only as a thought. Now it was real and no longer just a possibility or a thought.

On the anniversary of our relationship in December, we went to celebrate us at a restaurant owned by our friends, and there was a table decorated with candles and red roses waiting for us. After a few encouraging sips of drink, my husband grabbed the microphone, got down on one knee and proposed in the sweetest way, while being more nervous than I’ve ever seen him, he was literally shaking!

ORGANIZING A WEDDING IN CAPE VERDE

For me it was obvious that I would at least want my mother to attend our wedding. I knew that from my side hardly any family or friends would make it, because the flights are long and expensive. However, my mother had already booked a trip to visit us in March 2023, so we decided to organize the wedding while she was here.

The wedding venue was clear, because my dream wedding has always been a beautiful and intimate beach wedding, and we live on an island full of beautiful beachline so this made it pretty easy. Neither of us belong to a church, and a church wedding has never even been in our thoughts so for us that was never an option.

The first thing to do when getting married abroad is to get all the necessary information about the required documents and how to organize the wedding in your desired country. Of course, it is also important to take into account whether your partner is local or whether both halves come to the destination country from elsewhere just for the wedding celebration. The first thing to do here in Cape Verde is to get a list of the necessary papers from the local registry office, which must be taken care of in order to get married. These required papers certainly vary a bit from country to country and things may also change over time, so when organizing your own wedding, you should primarily seek up-to-date information from the authorities of both your own and the destination country and follow the instructions received there, for this reason I will not list the necessary documents here.

Cape Verde has some companies offering wedding planning services and many hotels and restaurants also offer good wedding packages. The price level varies a lot depending on the place, the content of the wedding and the number of guests. Our wedding venue was the beach restaurant Funana Casa da Cultura, where the lovely owner took over everything and organized our wedding.

Our wedding venue was a restaurant, so of course the food and drinks were automatically taken care of through this. The owner of the place, with the help of her contacts, also took care of the wedding cake, decorations, wedding car and music for us. The marriage ceremony took place on the beach in front of the restaurant, so we didn’t need separate permits or people to decorate the ceremony place. If you want an official ceremony at the location of your choice, and not at the registry office, you have to pay a little extra for this. It is also possible to do the official part at the registry office without additional costs, after which you just do a blessing ceremony at the desired ceremony location, for example on the beach. We ourselves wanted everything to happen from the beginning to the end in our beach ceremony, including the official parts.

WEDDING DAY FULL OF LOVE AND JOY

Our wedding was exactly like us. After entering the wedding venue, I saw for the first time our cute little white convertible decorated with blue and white ribbons and balloons, I saw our friends and the owner of the wedding venue and it all felt so real. Inside, our magnificent three-tiered, blue-white, beach-style wedding cake was in the center of the hall, and for the first time I got to see how all the decorations had been made. Everything looked really beautiful.

The feeling that I felt when I started to walk towards the beach and the ceremony was something I had never experienced before. When I saw my husband on the beach, handsome in his blue suit, waiting, I cried and I have never smiled more than in that moment and that day.

The ceremony was wonderful and exciting, there were only dear people that are most close to us. My mother walked me down the aisle and my husband’s niece was our ring girl.

The wedding was also filmed for the local television and after the ceremonial part it was time to take photos on the beach and move to the party venue. The party was full of great moments, fun, talking, delicious local food and drinks and good music. We didn’t want a lot of special activities, but of course the bouquet throwing and garter tradition had to be a part of our wedding too. The garter throwing is not a part of the local traditions here, and my husband was also a bit uncertain about this at first, but he managed to do it in good style and it was so much fun. Here the local tradition is to go for a drive with the whole wedding party, driving around the city and at the same time honking the horn so much that everyone will definitely hear and pay attention to the wedding party and the ongoing wedding, and above all the wedding couple. This was fun!

I couldn’t have wished for a better wedding and I am forever grateful for all the help and all the arrangements and all the people who were involved in this day (also remotely).

GETTING MARRIED ABROAD – CHECKLIST

Find out the country’s required official documents for marriage
Find out about your country’s required official documents for marriage abroad
Get all necessary documents and official translations required for them
Wedding arrangements: Place, time, wedding ceremony, decorations, food and drink, cake, activities, wedding car, guest list, invitations, flowers…
Wedding dresses and suits (for example, Cape Verde does not offer a very rich and high-quality selection of dresses, so if possible get the dresses in advance elsewhere)
Patience and a positive attitude, because everything abroad doesn’t always work as you might be used to in your country
Be prepared for curious wedding crashers..