An Elegant Garden Wedding at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens in Cleveland, Ohio

Samantha Walters (28, a postpartum doula) and Mario Castellon Ibarra (31, a health administrator) both worked at the same hotel in Costa Rica when the first met. Mario was in a relationship when they were introduced, but when Samantha came back from visiting her family in the United States, he was newly single. They dated for about a year when they found out that Mario couldn’t get a tourist visa to visit the United States, and since Samantha was planning on returning to the United States for school, they decided to have a small ceremony in Puerto Rico and then have a larger one a year later in the United States. The couple got married at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens in Ohio, where there were beautiful outdoor space as well as an indoor Costa Rican rainforest. They based their color palette off what they considered a Costa Rican sunset, which included shades of oranges, blues and greens. The vibrant colors worked toward creating a tropical, elegant wedding theme for the day, decorating the linens, centerpieces and flowers. At the ceremony, the couple blended their cultural backgrounds even further through readings in both English and Spanish by friends and family members.