Wow where has the time gone. It feels like just yesterday we got engaged (you can read about that here) and now we are 6+ months into married life. As we have been slowly getting pieces of wedding content to our inbox, we realized we never shared any details of our wedding day with you here!
In this blog post, we are going to chat all about our wedding day, including tips for planning a destination wedding in Mexico, as well as a list of all of our suggested vendors in the area!
Destination Wedding Planning
Once we were engaged, there was no doubt in our mind that we wanted to have a destination wedding. the biggest question was where in the world to have it! Being travel content creators, we have traveled to some of the most beautiful places around the world, and it truly took a lot of thought and effort to come up with a destination for our wedding.
Some of the biggest factors we had to consider was the price for our guests, the time it takes to travel to the destination, and if we truly loved the place! All of our guests live in North America, and we ultimately decided to stick to a Caribbean destination for their all inclusive packages, the ease of travel to the destination for all of our guests and a place that our guests would love! Our final choice of location was Playa Mujeres in Mexico for it’s beautiful beaches, private resorts and overall vibe.
Tips For Planning a Destination Wedding
- Find a destination that you believe is perfect for your wedding. At the end of the day it is YOUR day. Things we considered were, the food, the beaches, the activities and excursion options in the area, and the wedding package and venue choices. A huge part of our decision came down to wanting a private venue for our wedding ceremony. We have seen SO many beach weddings with on lookers and we knew we did not want that.
- Consider the costs for your guests. Traveling can be expensive, especially for bigger families. It is really important to set a realistic budget of what the cost of each person should be. We put ourselves in our family and friend’s shoes and thought about what we would be willing to pay if we were doing a destination wedding. From there, we were able to dwindle our lists of destinations and hotels and resorts to match the budget.
- Consider travel time. If you have older family members that you NEED to have there on your wedding day, they may not be able to tolerate a 6+ hour flight like some of the other guests you are inviting. We wanted to keep travel to a minimum and only one flight or a quick connection for some guests that lived more remotely.
- Look at extra fees resorts may have. Doing an all inclusive destination wedding? Some resorts tack on extra “vendor” fees for bringing in vendors like florals, decor, a DJ, even hair and makeup. It is best to read through the contract of the resort you want to hold your wedding at for any hidden fees. Our resort charged a minimum $100 USD to set up decor you bring from home. They also charged a fee for every service a vendor provided.
Our Wedding Resort
The resort we chose was Finest Playa Mujeres. We needed a resort that was teen friendly, had great restaurants (all of our guests love food), and we wanted a private venue to our ceremony and reception. This resort checked all of the boxes!
Finest Playa Mujeres is known for their weddings, and after we went through the lengthy process of securing our wedding date and venues, we realized that they can do up to 4 weddings a day! The wedding department is quite busy and often the communication is slow and delayed as the small crew of wedding planners work through all of the weddings each day.
We decided to hire an incredible wedding planner, Celeste, from Weddings Riviera Maya to help us navigate planning a wedding from afar! Celeste hopped on video calls with us to go over all of the planning details, she navigated a few decor and layout changes that we requested, and the day of the wedding she absolutely knocked it out of the park. I could truly go on and on about Celeste and all of the amazing things that she did for us during the week we were in Mexico.
If you are planning a destination wedding at Finest Playa Mujeres, we absolutely recommend hiring Celeste to assist in navigating the process as it can get quite stressful and she has a great relationship with the wedding department as she does weddings at this resort all the time.
A Disaster Happened..
When it rains it pours, and with destination weddings there are certainly more things that can go wrong. We arrived in Mexico a few days before our guests due to the policy of the resort. The morning our guests are to travel to Mexico, we get panicked calls and texts that their flight was cancelled. We could not believe this was happening! Luckily the airline quickly rescheduled our group on an entirely new flight. Little did we know, the transportation company cancelled the pick up from the airport for all guests without any notification. When our guests arrived, the company had no record of a bus picking up our guests and bringing them to the resort. After an hour or so of delays and people trying to get our guests int o overpriced cabs, Celeste came through and had cars there within 10 minutes of calling her. One crisis avoided!
The first morning after our guests arrived, my voice is gone. Like gone, gone. After a visit with the on site doctor and a few shots of medication later, still nothing. I did not get my voice back until our wedding reception. I had to whisper my vows to Jake! Ha! Still cannot believe that happened, and out of all the things I thought about going wrong on the wedding day, that was not one of them. BUT! I got it back by the end of the night and the rest of the week so very grateful for that.
Wedding Day Details
The Dress(es)
I had the pleasure of wearing two incredible dresses the day of our wedding. One from boutique called Ivory Lane Collective. It was an Enzoani gown. It was actually the very first dress that I tried on and I just knew immediately it was my dress!
My reception dress was from the beautiful Grace Loves Lace. I customized it to make it shorter so that it was easier to dance in, and it was a perfect for a night of celebrating under the stars with all of our favorite people.
Jake’s Suit
Jake wore a Tuxedo from Suit Shop. All of his groomsmen also wore suits from Suit Shop. It was so convenient to be able to order the suits online as all of the groomsmen live in different cities than we do! They also were all reasonably priced and all of our Groomsmen and Jake got to keep the suits.
Bridesmaids Dresses
When I was choosing bridesmaids dresses, I looked for something that was not too formal, would be comfortable in the mid day heat, and were affordable. That’s when I found Birdy Grey! I was able to order fabric swatches so I could compare the texture and colors of the fabric. Then I narrowed it down to two styles, and let the girls choose which dress they would prefer!
Photography
As content creators and photographers, this was one of the most important elements to our wedding. We really did a lot of research on potential photographers and as soon as we saw Monica’s photography, we knew she was the one! Not only did we love her shots, we also loved her editing style. We did an initial call with her, and we immediately clicked. It is so important to feel comfortable with your photographer and Monica does just that. You can check out her photography here! Every photo you see on this blog was taken by her!
Hair and Makeup
Like many women, I am very hesitant about letting someone else do my hair and makeup. I wanted a minimal makeup look with hair that appeared as free flowing but did not move or fall for the entire day. I searched and interviewed quite a few different salons in the area, and that is when I found Prep Tulum. Their style was great, and all of their hair and makeup artists were highly skilled and had a lot of experience. They traveled from Tulum the night before the wedding and stayed at the hotel the day of. It was a great and easy process and myself and all the bridesmaids that decided to get their hair and makeup done as well loved it!
Wedding Rings
If you read our engagement post, you would know that Jake customized a beautiful engagement ring from Olive Avenue Jewelry, and we got our wedding rings from them as well. The team at Olive Avenue is so great to work with, and they made our dream rings come to life!
Wedding Invitations
When we chose a destination wedding, we had a vision on a passport style invitation inviting our closest friends and family to celebrate with us. We found this incredible small business making Passport Invitations, customized to your destination. We got to choose from a variety of different color schemes, we added gold foil, and we also added a cute luggage style tag with a message for all the recipients.
Whether you are a travel lover, or having a destination wedding, and you are looking for incredible custom invitations, then we definitely recommend checking out Here There Weddings!
Decor and Florals
Our decor and florals were all sourced by our wedding planner Celeste. When we had our initial meeting, we went over the decor we wanted and created a mood board. Celeste has so many contacts with various vendors in the area, she was able to bring our wedding vision to life within our budget and it turned out even better than we imagined! We also chose to do a kings table for our reception table since we had a small intimate group with us. We cannot recommend that concept enough!
Personalized Champagne Flutes and Cake Cutting SEt
We received beautiful champagne flutes and a cake cutting set from Elena Honch Weddings. The glasses came engraved with our new shared last name. They were the perfect compliment to our wedding decor, and we absolutely loved them!
If you have a destination wedding, they come well packed in the mail, so keep the original packaging and it will be very easy to travel with them.
Neon Sign
We chose to purchase a neon sign through a company based in Cancun Mexico. They came highly recommended through our wedding planner Celeste, and they did a great job bringing our vision to life. If you are heading to the Cancun area for a destination wedding, then we highly recommend contacting Neon Flex. They were very reasonably priced, and Celeste helped us mail it back to our house after the wedding.
In Conclusion
There truly is nothing like your wedding day! We still cannot believe it has come and gone so quickly. And we are so happy that we chose to do a destination wedding in Mexico. We got to spend an incredible week in the sun with our family and friends in such a beautiful setting and have the wedding of our dreams.
We hope you enjoyed this blog post about our wedding and the details! And we will see you in another corner of the world soon!
