Day of the Dead and Lots & Lots of Lovely Balloons

July 28, 2010

Beatriz & Ricardo got married early this month in Cartagena, a colonial city on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Born here, Beatriz knew she wanted to return back to this special place to get married. They had a gorgeous civil service a few days before the wedding. “Weddings tend to be so cookie cutter and sooo traditional, we were sure we didn’t want that” the bride told me. “The first tradition we broke was not getting married in a church, we decided to just have a civil ceremony; but a friend of us told us that civil ceremonies were so plain and that we should do something special, so we decided to go to the notary to get married in Bogotá a few days before the actual wedding in Cartagena and to have a very special ceremony.”

On the wedding day itself, the pair had another ceremony down by the beach followed by a fabulous beach party where they played Cuban music and served seafood, cocktails and cupcakes. “The initial inspiration of the wedding was the Mexican day of the dead cake topper that a good friend used as her cake topper in her wedding” Beatriz continued. “After watching the wedding in The Hangover, I fell immediately in love with the black accents in the dress and in the whole decoration, so we decided on having a black, red and white wedding. Because it was going to be on the beach we decided to use the most “beachy” flowers we could find, and the flowers you most see all over Cartagena are Ixora and Bougainvillea, which will also would give the red touch we wanted in the decoration. Of course the cake, HAD to be red velvet cake, which is not a common cake in Colombia and which I had to fight for.  Seeing your site I knew I had to have balloons, so we had 50 of those gigantic balloons in red, white and black and 50 more in the shape of hearts. When the guests arrived to the club we gave them fans in the shape of a heart that had the same figures that were on the invitation with the words “Thanks for being with us” and the date.”

Thanks to Beatriz & Ricardo for sharing their unique day with us and yey for all those balloons!

Credit: Efeunodos
Venue: Club Naval Santa Cruz de Castillogrande, in Cartagena, Colombia
Bride’s Dress: Maia Novias y Coctel
Bride’s Shoes: Vivienne Westwood
Bride’s head piece: Ban.do and Entreamores
Hair and makeup: Rebeca Nuñez
Groom’s shirt: Benetton
Groom’s tie and pants: Zara
Groom’s shoes: Converse
Flowers and decoration: William Baena – Florarte
Cake: Elsy de Figueroa – Ideas Dulces