If you’re reading this and stressed, just breathe. Let go of the timelines you’re used to with event planning in the US and know that even though everything feels last minute to us, they know what they’re doing! Our wedding felt like a dream and movie rolled into one.

Cheryl, Shea and Mia from Yellow Umbrella Events kept me sane during what should’ve been a more stressful planning process.

We arrived on Wednesday with some family members ahead of our Friday wedding. Check in was smooth and we were immediately greeted by our amazing butler Ricardo. I highly recommend getting a junior suite since it comes with a butler and it was plenty of room for several people to get ready with hair and makeup artists. Ricardo and his team constantly checked in via WhatsApp and took care of anything we could think of. I printed out pictures with each guest as their place card. There were 2 that we missed and our butler Ricardo printed them out within a couple of hours.

We tipped him throughout and then again at the end.

Wednesday night a group of 10 of us got a dinner reservation for Las Cuevas through our coordinator Melanie.

Thursday I had my hair and makeup trial with Cassandra Cassou. We had a quick rehearsal at Caleta Fuego then met everyone for welcome cocktails at Playon Espiral. Thank you to the people who have previously mentioned potentially having to pay a tax while going through customs because of welcome bag items. Because of you, I was prepared with receipts of everything we brought when we were charged 19%. We covered our inspection tag but they still pulled us aside. We had A LOT of bags for that welcome reception. We didn’t plan an official dinner after the welcome cocktails. We told everyone they could make reservations somewhere if there were places they wanted to try or come with us to the Mercado buffet. About 50-60 of us ended up at Mercado and there was enough room toward the back for us all to sit and we were able to walk around and mingle.

Friday it rained and delayed the start of our ceremony at Caleta Fuego. Melanie asked early in the day if we wanted to move it inside but I couldn’t bring myself to bail on the vision we’ve had and I’m so happy we stayed the course. Everything was perfect once the sky cleared. We bought minimal decor through Corazon because the outdoor space is stunning on its own. After the ceremony, guests were taken to the lobby to wait for private transportation to the park while my husband and I took pictures. The hotel team got them to the park seamlessly. I audibly gasped when I walked into the reception at La Isla at Xcaret Park. Nothing was setup during our site visit 6 months earlier so it was hard to truly know how it would look but it was dreamy perfection. I asked for candle heavy center pieces hoping to save a little money on florals. The real splurge was the mushroom lighting that stole the show. We created a dinner and party playlist for the DJ Julian. He did a great job mixing what we gave him and when we ran out of songs, he continued the vibe perfectly. The dance floor was full all night. 3 rounds of transportation were provided for the people who wanted to leave before midnight. No after party.

Saturday, we met people at the Fuego rooftop pool. Then we mingled with others on the kid friendly side before dinner at Ha. It’s an extensive tasting menu that costs extra. Delicious but allow 2.5 hours for the whole experience. After, we met people at the bar upstairs from Cantina as a final nighttime meetup since most people were leaving the next day.

Sunday brunch at Las Cuevas is a must if you’re staying in the Fuego building. I travel a lot and I’ve never seen such an expansive spread of food before in my life. Get your reservation requests for that in early. Melanie helped us get a table for 10 people. After, we lingered in the lobby bar for some final goodbyes before leaving for our honeymoon.

Other notes:

We rented a scooter for a family member who walks fine but can get tired easily. We used a third party and I’d highly recommend it if you have a similar situation. Some areas of the resort would be prohibited for people who can’t use stairs so keep that in mind.

I sent monthly emails for almost a year leading up to the wedding to keep people on track with payment deadlines and updates. Once we were in Mexico, we used a WhatsApp group to let people know where we were, what restaurants everyone liked etc. The group chat seemed to be really helpful for real time information.

Cheryl and her team were amazing helping us navigate the wedding contract side of things and being the point of contact for travel related things. I would’ve lost my mind without them.

I highly suggest doing a site visit well in advance of your wedding. We did one 6 months out and it helped answer a lot of questions far in advance. We also were able to meet with Melanie from Xcaret and Martha from Corazon in person to go over details and questions. They both gave us their Whatsapp information and from there communication was more efficient. Not perfect, but better than it was only via email.

Communication with the resort wasn’t the best until about a month before the wedding. We had our vendors locked in already and all the big things done. But it was a bit stressful not being completely clear on some things earlier on. Having said that, our wedding day went flawlessly and if there were major issues, we didn’t notice them. We had 3 days surrounded by our friends and family and I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. This group and these reviews were very helpful for me so feel free to ask anything.

The content creators were amazing and turned everything around in 24 hours. They captured the beauty and emotion perfectly. Being able to see it played back so quickly just elevated the post wedding excitement.

We signed our wedding contract when the external fee for photo/video was $1000/vendor. Julie doesn’t offer videography services but has a great working relationship with Lux Like Art. For vendor purposes, she put them all under her company when they came on property and we paid one fee. For makeup, we signed when it was $100/artist.

Below I’ve posted a mix of Julie’s sneak pics and pictures from the content creators. We had content from the Jhankarlo team in less than 24 hours and Julie sent sneak peeks 3 days after the wedding. I’m obsessed with everything and all photo/video teams were lovely to work with. They didn’t seem to step on each other but each played their respective role well.