We signed our contract one year before our wedding and had Yellow Umbrella Events as our travel agent. If you’re considering having your wedding at Xcaret, please hire them. I’m sure you have heard that the resort can be tricky to navigate when it comes to communication, it’s all true! So Yellow Umbrella was there for me when I had questions about the resort. Believe me, I asked very specific questions and they were able to help since they have sooooo much experience with this resort!
Next thing we did was starting to contact the vendors from the internal vendor list that was provided by the hotel when we signed our contract. I was very excited to contact the entertainment companies because we wanted to have tons of entertainment. We wanted to talk to them first because we knew exactly what we wanted and wanted to consider how much money we needed for our priorities before hiring anyone else. Well, their vendor Musik Entertainment is TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE with communication. In fact, I emailed, called, texted, tried to get the help of the resort to contact them… nothing worked. I was able to get a hold of them 3 weeks before my wedding.
What I had budgeted for entertainment wasn’t enough for what we wanted but at the end we didn’t want to spend more money. If I was able to contact them from the beginning my wedding would have been more like I envisioned since the beginning.
I quickly realized that services were very inflated, which I wasn’t expecting at all. I’m Mexican and lived in Mexico until I was 24 so I know how things cost. So I got into this process thinking things should be not so expensive and they were shockingly as expensive as where I currently live in the USA.
This bring us to the first vendor we hired, the flowers and decor. We had a call with the two in house vendors for this services and I wasn’t impressed, very expensive for what they offered. I wanted something that I hadn’t seen them create and I was so afraid they’d promise they can do it and on wedding day they create something completely different. So I kept looking and came across Pri.ola. They had done something similar to what I wanted and their communication was a breeze. They even gave me a demonstration of what my tables will look like. I wasn’t expecting that at all but gave me so much peace. And the prices were better for the quality of flowers and the size of the arrangements compared to the in house vendors.
If you have to hire the in house vendors I’d advise to negotiate a mockup table in your contract! You’re paying a lot for decoration and flowers, you deserve to see exactly what they will give you!!
Then I realized that I needed someone to help me coordinate all the vendors and advocate for me with the hotel coordinator. So I hired an external wedding coordinator. Long story short, do not hire anyone that hasn’t worked at the resort before and knows how it operates…This is extremely important!! One of my complaints is that I wanted her to make sure things were running on time. I made a timeline that she agreed to, and I asked her to just focus on having dinner take less than one hour and everybody be on time at the chapel.
Everybody was late for the chapel and dinner was 1.5 hours… I really don’t know what she did that my hotel coordinator wasn’t already doing.
Also be very careful, the external coordinator recommended a dj and some vendors for audiovisual. We had a meeting and they discussed their prices and explained how services at Xcaret are very inflated, according to them up to 50% more expensive than doing the wedding at a non resort in Cancun. So after this conversation I thought I was about to get a great deal..nope. Same prices and didn’t brought everything I hired. Since these vendors weren’t familiar with the resort, they didn’t plan accordingly and they couldn’t fit everything I hired in the space. So please be careful with external vendors. I felt like they took advantage.
We also had planned a Catholic wedding and didn’t realized how long it takes to do the paperwork. Please start the process as soon as you sign your contract.
I did all the design for the layout, the dance floor, the menus, stickers, etc. it was sooooo fun, I’d love to do it again.
3 months before our wedding we got our first hotel coordinator. Then 2 months before we got another coordinator and finally we got our third one 1.5 months before our wedding.
We didn’t do much anyways so I didn’t mind having this situation but it could be very stressful!!
My coordinator was very kind and patient and help me more than my external coordinator. She also seemed to care and I appreciated her advice.
The week before our wedding we were at the resort and had our meeting with the wedding team. I was soooo opposed to having my wedding in a ballroom if it rained but the new ballroom at Hotel Xcaret Mexico 2 is amazinggggg!! We ended up having our reception at Caleta Fuego and our Cocktail hour at the mini beach on top of Caleta Fuego and it was beautiful but soooooo HOTTT and humid I was dizzy. It also smaller than I thought and with 65 people and a dj stage we were crowdeddddd. My husband and I said that if we were to do it again we would do it in a ballroom with ac 
the new one would have been absolutely perfect.
the new one would have been absolutely perfect.The day of the wedding I had sooo much support from the butlers!! The resort assigned us 3 butlers and they were able to help even when I asked them if they could find me soles for my high heels. They went and asked a coworker that was about to star his shift and he got them for me. Please get the room with butlers is life changing!!!
Lastly, I read sooo much about how the service was declining and how the resort is not the same anymore. Me and all our guest had an incredible experience not one complaint, and believe me I was ready to hear them all because I know my family
A few pictures from our sneak peak
Photography by Tulum Wedding Photographers
