Do any of you wonderful wives and moms out there have any experience with destination weddings or vow renewels. We are interested in Mexico. Any information about your experiences and how you went about setting it up would be great! Also anywhere I should avoid? Sny thoughts on Puerto Vallarta?
I would recommend going to this website: www.weddingsmayanriviera.com The wedding coordinator is from the DFW area.
Hi S.
We just got married in Cancun on Oct 28th at Dream Cancun Resort. We would love to do it all over again, the whole experience was amazing. 60 of our closest friends and family joined us - it was so much fun and incredible scenery, beautiful pictures. We choose this resort due to it's location (on a point with a gazebo overlooking the ocean)and distance from the airport. We wanted to make it as easy as possible for our guests. Also, it was all-inclusive and no one ever had to leave the resort if they didn't want to but could if they wanted to do activities or shopping, etc.
Most resorts in Mexico have wedding planners as part of your package and help work out all the details. Additionally, we used a Travel agent to allow people to book airfare and hotel. There is a great website - which is a forum where destination brides discuss planning and different sites. It was extremely helpful for me to learn about location & tips, tricks, etc. There is a TON of information. http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/
Please feel free to contact me if you have questions
A.
My best friend and a cousin both got married at the Moon Palace in Cancun/Mexican Riviera. I think they both had great experiences. They both used a local travel agent. We attended one of these weddings, and it was very nice.
My best friend does destination weddings and she is the best priced in the DFW area. I would highly recommend at least emailing her for some information. Be aware you will need more time to plan than if you were doing the wedding stateside. Her name is Alison Slaton and her email is: ____@____.com She is out of town through this saturday checking out some new destination sites, but she will get back to you when she gets back. Congratulations and good luck!!
My husband and I did a Weddingmoon at the Sandals resort in the Bahamas. HIGHLY recommended! It was WONDERFUL and no stress! I have a friend that got married at their Jamaica resort and loved that one, too.
My husband and I just got back from Costa Rica and the resort we stayed at had a lot of weddings. We stayed at the Paradisus Playa Conchal which an all inclusive resort. I know there are other all inclusives around that help off set the total cost of travel. Costa Rica is a safe place and the dollar still has a lot of value there.
We got married in St. Kitts (part of the West Indies) almost 12 years ago. It was a fairly easy process as long as you fill out the appropriate paperwork and meet the residency requirements. Anyways, back then it was a pretty unknown island but now it has a port for cruise ships. It was beautiful and amazing. The pics were fabulous and all was very reasonable, at that time. Our package included travel to/from the wedding location, flowers and a cake. We had dinner at our hotel that night and had friends of ours take pics for us (that was the only unreasonable piece $800 for 36 pics..we figured for that price we could bring in our own photog and we did). I would still highly recommend it, though. As others have said, the hotel that we went with had a coordinator and I assume it is still the same. St. Kitts is a little off the beaten path from Mexico but if you are looking for something different it is a great alternative!
As a sidenote, when we finally had kids we wanted to get them baptized but we had to get "remarried" in the catholic church since we were not married by a priest in St. Kitts. It was a bit of a pain, but something to consider when selecting a destination wedding.
Good luck!
My husband and I got married in Jamaica at a Sandals resort. They are all inclusive so everything was taken care of. The cake, flower and even a 5 course dinner. It was absolutely perfect. Check out the sandals website. They have a section just for the weddingmoons. They are all over the Bahamas and Jamaica. Enjoy!
My husband and I married in Playa del Carmen at the Riu Palace. The resort is gorgeous and the ceremony was beautiful. Typically each resort has it's own coordinator that you will work with. I would suggest checking out the resort's website for wedding info. The first link is the resort we stayed at but since they've built a new resort which is the second link. If you need a travel agent, Glenda with Joyride Travel arranged all our travel plans as well as our 50+ guests. ____@____.com
http://www.riu.com/index.php?hotel=753
http://www.riu.com/index.php?hotel=757
My husband and I were married in Mexico at Iberostar in Playa del Carmen. Our travel agent made arrangements for the wedding. It was very nice and very easy. I would highly recommend it. The only decisions we had to make were what kind of wedding -- Mexican (very colorful) or Traditional (all white), what type of cake, and at which restaurant to have our reception. We went with traditional. There was someone at the resort who did video and someone who took photographs. The flowers were beautiful. In Mexico, you still have to have blood tests to get married. It takes 2 or 3 work days to get the results before you get married so plan to be in Mexico a few days before the wedding. There was actually someone who came to the resort and took our blood the first day we were there so it was not a hassell.
S.--my sister was married several years ago in Antigua. The hotel set up everything and included the "rehearsal" dinner for the entire wedding party, bride's cake, photos/video and even a 4-place setting china set. The bride gets her own personal attendant the day of the wedding and gets salon treatment with a massage. It was absolutely beautiful! Her wedding was in November, so there weren't as many tourists, and after the wedding party left, they went scuba diving, water biking & sailing and had a lot of fun. Only piece of advice, watch out for jellyfish in November!
If you choose Mexico and are taking your 2-yr old, go to Crown Paradise Hotel. It is all inclusive, and they have a daycare in the hotel where the little ones play and do arts & crafts. We went there with my nephew and had a blast. He had more fun in daycare than shopping with us. There are 5 pools, and an indoor putt-putt type golf course. You can even make all of your reservations on their website-but I would talk to a tour place (like Apple Vacations?) to make sure you get the best deal!
My brother just got married about a month ago at the Azul Beach Hotel in Puerto Morelos (between Cancun and Playa del Carmen). He and the bride did a LOT of research before choosing it, even traveling to Mexico to check out locations first, and they decided this one was the best. We had a GREAT time at the wedding, and the place was beautiful. I liked that it was kid-friendly but not kid-centric -- although there were children around, it wasn't a "Disney" atmosphere. It was all-inclusive, and they even had "beach butlers" who came down to your lounge chair at the beach to bring you drinks, towels, etc. I felt very pampered. It is a smaller "boutique"-type resort (I think it has fewer than 100 rooms) as opposed to the much larger places like Moon Palace, etc.
The ceremony itself was gorgeous. They didn't want a religious ceremony, so they had a Mexican Justice of the Peace, but it wasn't clinical or cold at all. She gave a beautful little speech about love and remembering to see the positive in each other and stuff like that. And of course the view was breathtaking!
If I ever get married again, I think that's the kind of wedding I'll have. It was great. Good luck!!
