Words by Lanie Anderson
Photography by Jessica Hill

Imagine a wedding with a center aisle carpeted in leaves and colorful rose petals, gift bags woven by local indigenous women and stuffed with organic body products, ocean waves that welcome the processional, and an outdoor patio made ready for dancing with Chinese parasols hanging just overhead. More like a fairy tale than a reality, this is Larissa Banting’s standard for weddings in Costa Rica and those standards have made her wedding planning business an international success.

Launching a wedding planning company for the first time would have made most sense in her own backyard of Toronto, Canada. Unless you know Larissa. During the summer of 2001, she trekked with an Alberta-based film production company to Costa Rica and fell in love with Roberto Leiva, a Costa Rican actor. A year later she moved to be with him and in 2003 they married.

What her friends and family in Canada deemed crazy—Larissa didn’t know anyone in Costa Rica besides Roberto, had no job, and couldn’t speak the language—she considered adventurous. “I loved the weather, the people, and the country,” Larissa explained. “I wasn’t flighty. Something resonated with me that this was the right place to be.”

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