Adventurous Brazilian Wedding

“It’s funny how we create expectations on important events in our life. Since I was little, I always dreamed of a perfect wedding, a princess dress, and a huge party with elaborate and impeccable decoration. But life always proves that no dream or thought can create something better than what it was supposed to happen. I couldn’t imagine it was going to be like this, because I could never imagine that it could have been so perfect. The only thing I got it right is that it would be with the most amazing man in the world.”

Adventurous Brazilian Wedding

These are words from our adventurous bride Erika. I have been struggling to write something that can do justice to what spending 3 days with Marcelo and Erika documenting their adventurous Brazilian wedding was like. But she said it all and her words couldn’t have been more truthful to the whole experience.

They went through a lot a week before the wedding, had to do a million things and continue to work on top of that. They arrived late at night in the city we were sleeping in and still had to organize our bags and all the food for our trip. We had to wake up really early the next day, and the weather forecast was predicting rain for the rest of the week. Anyone else could’ve complained about all these things and more. But not them.

At 6 am the next day I stumbled on to Erika’s smiling face in the bathroom, putting her contacts on and brushing her teeth, beyond excited. She sat on the floor, made her bouquet and wrote her vows while Marcelo’s uncle, bless his heart, made us a coffee. We started our hike at about 10 am and five hours, some rain and some sunshine later, we arrived at the hut we were gonna sleep in.

Marcelo announced to all the other hikers that he was getting married at the top of the mountain the next day, at sunrise, and whoever wanted to wake up was invited. After a poor night of sleep, being woken up by someone snoring crazy loud, we were all up and ready to go by 5 am no problem!

There wasn’t going to be an epic sunrise, and we knew that. But that didn’t bother any of us. Still wearing winter clothes, hiking gear and headlamps they hugged each other one last time before the ceremony and went their separate ways to get ready. The sun lit them through the fog and, at the top of the mountain, barefoot, cold and happy, they spoke some of the prettiest words I’ve heard. With impeccable timing, the rain waited for the end of the ceremony and for us to take pictures to come pouring down, blessing their marriage.

By the time we got back to the hut, all the hikers were up and outside cheering the newlyweds. They were received with applause and genuine hugs from people that they met the night before. Everyone wanted a picture with them and the energy that filled that space was like no other. I have to say, only in Brazil, you get to celebrate your intimate mountain elopement with people that you’ve never met before, and that were as excited about your wedding as you.

Erika didn’t have a big party. No fancy dinner or crazy decoration. But she had the wedding she wanted to have. This adventurous Brazilian wedding was the first one ever at Pedra do Sino. They couldn’t stop smiling, and we couldn’t either.

Elopement weddings are becoming more and more popular, in Brasil, and all over the world! If you want to learn a bit more about this type of wedding, check out: