I adore this wedding so much that even after featuring it in the Grace Ormonde Wedding Style 2010: Fall/Winter issue, I still felt compelled to share their video with you today. Their love story, that gown, the decor and those toasts. This video shows the love of Olga and Jose surrounded by all 1,200 of their guests, and it ended with a huge celebration. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Olga Mari Garcia & Jose Antonio Garrido III
Married in Miami, Florida on February 19, 2010
Olga Garcia envisioned a “quaint and small wedding, but Jose has many cousins,” she says, explaining how their celebration burgeoned into “a huge event” attended by 1,200. Amid the revelry, the two never lost sight of each other—or of the day’s momentousness.
Although Miami-based law student Jose Garrido III had been urged to meet Olga by his best friend and roommate, who was dating Olga’s college roommate, the couple encountered each other entirely by chance at a Miami bar in July of 2006. “That night, he said, ‘I’m going to marry you,’ so I found him a little bit interesting,” remembers Olga, who was visiting from Tallahassee. “We became great friends on the phone,” Olga says, and their first date in October “sealed the deal.”
Over Memorial Day weekend in 2009, the intensive care nurse had just completed three exhausting shifts when she headed to Jose’s with wet hair, no makeup and a sandwich craving. “I sat down to eat my baguette,” says Olga, “and midway through one bite, he gets down on one knee. I thought he was looking for the remote control.” When Jose professed, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” Olga “almost fainted.”
She was similarly overcome when Jose’s gift arrived as she prepared for their Friday evening nuptials at Miami’s Church of the Epiphany. “He listens; he loves me,” she thought when she beheld a tennis bracelet—a future heirloom she’d wished for.
When he saw Olga, Jose says he “wanted to run down the aisle.” During their Catholic-Cuban service, they were draped with a mantilla by their godmothers and exchanged 13 gold “arras (coins),” symbolizing “what’s mine is yours,” he explains. Jose works for his family’s Latin American food distribution company but admits his Spanish is “a little broken.” When the priest unexpectedly switched languages, Jose’s recitation “was so bad, I started laughing, and the entire church started laughing,” remembers Olga.
Following an island-flavored cocktail hour with acrobats, dancers and a steel drum band at Jose’s aunt’s sister-in-law’s adjacent property, stilt walkers led guests to Jose’s aunt and uncle’s plantation-style Coral Gables home, where maps helped them locate food stations, dessert tables, an illuminated bar staffed by 36 bartenders, an ice bar, tobacco roller and many, many restrooms.
Despite the party’s enormity, as the newlyweds ducked beneath sparklers and danced in the glow of suspended lanterns, Olga recalls thinking, “It’s just me and you. There’s no one else. It was a big production, but it was very intimate.”
The couple honeymooned in St. Lucia, San Francisco and Napa. Although his business requires travel and her long hours necessitate separations, at their wedding, a multitude of well-wishers couldn’t keep them apart. Olga confesses, “I was worried I would lose him, and I’d be alone on my wedding day.” Instead, “We spent all five hours dancing together.”
> Written by Kim Knox Beckius
Cake: Edda’s Cake Designs, Miami, FL; Caterer: Mena Catering, Miami, FL; Day-Of Coordinator: Divine Details, Miami, FL; Entertainers: Superb Artists, Hollywood, FL; Florist: Florana Flowers, Miami, FL; Ice Bar: So Cool Events, Miami, FL; Illuminated Bar: Ronen Bar & Furniture Rental, North Miami, FL; Lighting: J.M. Design Lighting and Fabric, Sunrise, FL; Tuxedo: Manny’s Formal Wear, Miami, FL; Wedding Gown: Oscar de la Renta; Photography: Ray Santana Photography, Miami, FL; Videographer/Cinematographer: Diego Pocovi Event Cinematographer, Miami, FL
We wish you countless years of happiness Olga and Jose and a big thank you to Diego Pocovi of Diego Pocovi Event Cinematographer for letting us share this video with our viewers!
