Where Do I Start?
You know you want to have a destination wedding, and you’ve narrowed it down to Mexico, and now the research begins.
You Google “Mexico destination wedding” and 14,000,000 search results pop up.
What do you do now?
Where do you go from here?
So you start clicking. More clicking. More clicking.
And before you know it it’s two in the morning and you’re now more confused than ever and thinking about forgetting it all and running to your local courthouse!
You won’t believe how often we hear this story from couples who are looking to plan a destination wedding. You and your fiancé are choosing a destination wedding because you want something easier than an at home wedding or because you want your wedding to be focused on the fun you will have with their friends and family over a 3 or 4 day weekend instead of smashing it all into an 8 hour venue rental in your hometown.
But knowing where to start or how to bring it all together can be so overwhelming!
After helping over 537 couples get married in Mexico, I’ve taken all my best tips on how to start planning your destination wedding in Mexico and put together this blog to help get you pointed in the right direction regarding some things you should consider in the beginning of your search before you even start looking at pretty venues online.
P.S. Looking for even more tips and to hear from other couple planning their Mexico destination Wedding?
Join our free community here where you can ask questions and learn even more from our team on what you need to know to plan your dream wedding!
How many people will be there?
Before you even start looking at options, determining what your actual guest count will be is your first and most important step. The reason this is so important is that a majority of resort venues are not as large as your local venues. The resort itself might be quite large but the event spaces that can be utilized for weddings are often fairly small. So if you determine that your guest count is going to be 150 or more, and you are hoping for an outdoor wedding that isn’t in the sand, there are not that many options.
How do you determine your actual guest count for a destination wedding?
This is a great question and one that most couples struggle with. The number of guests that you plan on inviting is usually very different than the number of guests that actually attend.
Here is a process we typically have couples go through to determine their actual guest count:
Write down the name of every single guest you intend to invite.
Once you have this list you are going to divide it into three parts –
- Hell Yeah
- Definitely not coming
- Maybes
Your “hell yeah” list is going to be people that are closest to you. This would be your parents, siblings, wedding party, and those that travel with you frequently, and/or people that you’re close to that have been waiting for this wedding and are very excited to attend. These are people that you absolutely know are going to be there no matter where in the world you are having your wedding.
Your “definitely not coming” list is going to be the people that you want to invite (or have to invite) but these folks are just simply not going to go to a destination wedding outside of the US. For example, we absolutely love great grandma and we 100% want her to be there but great grandma has not left her home in the last 5 years and as much as we want great grandma to be at our wedding she is not coming to a destination wedding. Or maybe your great great uncle Steve that your mom insists that you invite, and you’ve never met in your entire life and is not likely to pay for a flight + hotel to attend your destination wedding.
Lastly you are going to be left with all of your “maybes”. This is essentially everyone else. You’re not 100% sure they will attend but you’re not 100% sure that they will say no either.
Once you have your three lists you are going to add everyone from the hell yeah list and about 40% to 50% of the maybes list. When you combine this together, you’re going to have a number that is going to be more realistic to the total number of guests that will actually attend your wedding.
Have questions on this or want to get even more insights to planning your destination wedding in Mexico?
How to choose an area of Mexico
You may have already chosen exactly where you want to get married. Maybe Cancun or Playa del Carmen or Cabo? You might have based this on places you’ve traveled before or just seen pretty pictures online and thought it would be really cool to have your wedding there. There’s nothing wrong with either and if that’s how you landed on a particular area of Mexico that’s perfect and our team can absolutely help you find a fantastic resort for your wedding in the area you’ve chosen.
But if you have not already decided what area of Mexico you want to have your destination wedding in, I would start by taking your realistic guest list and looking at the cities where most of the guests will be coming from. With this you can determine the airport that is most likely to be used by a majority of your guests. Ideally you are hoping to find an area in Mexico that has the easiest flights for most of the travelers. For example, if most of your guests are traveling from the Austin TX area direct nonstop flights are regularly available to Cancun and Cabo but flights to Puerto Vallarta are going to involve a layover. While it’s not an absolute necessity to use this method if you are torn between particular areas this might help you narrow it down to the one that makes the most sense for a majority of your wedding guests.
On the flip side of this we have couples that have chosen locations that are harder to get to because they know that a majority of their guests have never been to that particular location or they are trying to minimize their guest count.
Want to see what resorts other couples choose or want to ask us our thoughts on the resorts you are looking at?
Then join our free community here! Can’t wait to see you in there!
Pro Tip
When trying to reduce your guest count choosing a location that's more difficult to get to and/or a higher end luxury resort with a higher price point for rooms will help with this. This is a great way to insure a more intimate destination wedding experience.
How to determine a budget
This is an interesting subject because there is a longstanding impression that having a Mexico destination wedding is pennies on the dollar compared to a US wedding. While this might have been the case 20 something years ago it is certainly not the case today. You can still save quite a bit by having a Mexico destination wedding but not as much as your parents did.
We typically see about a 60% spend compared to what you would spend on your wedding if you had it in the US. For example, if you are planning to spend $100,000 for your US wedding, you can have about the same wedding in Mexico for approximately $60,000. Your dollar definitely stretches further but you’re not going to see a $100K wedding in the US be only $10K in Mexico. If only that were the case!
Couples typically determine their wedding budget in one of two ways:
- They either already have an idea in mind of what they are going to spend (or a cap of where they want to stay under). This could be based on anything from simply what the couple have saved so far or what they know they can afford without pushing their personal financial limits. Or it might be a combination of what their parents are offering to spend on their wedding and what they plan to add to that.
- The couple has no budget in mind because they have no idea what their wedding might cost and they reach out to us for guidance. In this scenario we would review the couples wants and help them determine what the actual spend might be based on that list of wants, their chosen resort, anticipated guest count, and other factors.
Even though there are tons of variables that can impact what you will actually spend on your wedding day we would typically see a cost of a range of $20K to $35K on average for a 40 – 60 person Mexico destination wedding with all the bells and whistles.
What exactly are those bells and whistles? This would be a full wedding event that includes the ceremony, cocktail hour, and full seated plated reception, or whatever is included in the resort’s wedding package + additional floral decor, a full day of photography and potentially videography, DJ, dance floor, overhead lighting, and maybe even a photo booth or some other type of entertainment.
Can you have a Mexico destination wedding for less? Absolutely! But I do want to be realistic about what you are realistically going to spend. I always tell couples that you know you and you know how you behave with your money. If you tend to be an over spender on things in your normal life, then you will likely be an over spender on your wedding. If you are super great about sticking to a budget in your normal life then you will likely be super great about sticking to your wedding budget.
Looking for even more pro tips around budgets?
Pro Tip
You are going to see tons of marketing out there about how you can have your entire destination wedding for only $10K. I'm not for sure where this number has come from or maybe it just seems like a good cheap number that pulls couples in, but there is almost no way in this current market to have a $10K Mexico destination wedding that includes everything you are going to want for a full wedding with an average guest count of 50 guests. (This was barely possible when I started doing this 17 years ago!) Most resort’s basic wedding packages alone are near this price point or over it. And none of the resort wedding packages include everything that you are going to want for your wedding. Most of the packages do not include photography, videography, floral decor (besides a few bouquets and boutonnieres), lighting and more. While it's true that there are tons of wedding packages out there for $10K or less that is absolutely not all you are going to spend on an average destination wedding. But it’s certainly a great marketing ploy that gets clicks.
How do you choose your wedding vendors?
Every resort in Mexico is going to have their own in-house vendor list.
One big mistake that I see a lot of Mexico destination wedding couples make is choosing vendors and sending deposits for vendors before they have selected their resort. All the resorts have their own individual in-house vendor requirements. This means that if you host your wedding at a resort you are required to use only vendors from their in-house vendor list and if you do not use one of those vendors the resort will charge you a fee. And sometimes these fees can be through the roof. For example, if you choose a local photographer that is not on your resorts in-house vendor list you can expect to be charged anywhere from $1,000 USD to over $3,000 USD for the off site vendor fee. This does not include the cost of actually hiring the vendor.
Hiring vendors should be something that you do after you have finalized a resort.
Want more insider info on where to go from here in planning your Mexico destination wedding?
