Umami

A lot of my family and a lot of my husband's family were concerned and those with concerns we couldn't assuage stayed home. The folks that did come (we got back Friday) were impressed at how far off the mark the media has been, at least with the area we were. We stayed in Soliman Bay, Valladolid and Xpu-Ha and well, it was as we knew, beautiful, friendly and without any problems. If you go looking for problems you will find them. My greatest article I sent to people though, to answer folks directly was from the US government's website: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_970.html AND there are travel warnings out for Europe, but I bet if you were having a wedding in Europe no one would say anything even though there has been an increase in violence. The sheer number of folks that visit Mexico versus incidents that happen is actually really low and I agree with all the folks who try and put the crime in perspective. If a murder happened in Charlotte, NC I wouldn't be concerned about violence in my town in Waltham, MA. If you think about it, it behooves the US Government to push US Citizens staying home and spending tourist dollars at home rather than abroad. Also, since we just got back we didn't see any abnormal military movements either. They were spot checking cars more often than the last time we were there so you may want to keep your passport on you if you're driving around. Not for anything bad, just tell them where you are going and that you're visiting.

Update!! El Pez ended up being intractable, contrary and expensive! They had a very hard time with a gluten free diet. This should not be a big deal if you prepare your food from scratch and we've noticed that restaurants/caterers that freak out tend to use a lot of premade food, whether or not that's true I don't know, but they were not accomodating. Instead we opted for Casa Marcaribe in Soliman Bay! Caterers, florists and partying all up next!

It is going! lol. Malisa's working things with El Pez. We need to get more info on the menu since Pete is a Celiac, so little things like making sure ALL the tortillas are corn and that flour isn't used as a thickener in sauces. For the most part though its hard to add flour to things like Ceviche and guacamole Malisa is also working with an intrepid baker on a gluten free wedding cake. This is less important to me and Pete because it will have a MUCH shorter shelf life than its gluten counter part and may be difficult to have come out well if you don't have the time to bake it the day before, plus the idea behind a wedding cake is supposed to be a wheat product to represent fertility and prosperity, since it will be wheat free...it kind of loses its meaning and in that case a tasty dessert works just as well. We had a great time and everything was beautiful! By the third day my face hurt from smiling

I also wanted to add my review. Malisa helped us take a scouting trip down to Tulum and ran our tooshies off, but in a very good way. If she put that much effort into a quick 4 day trip I know we'll do well for a whole wedding. You can read everywhere she had us go here. And you can just tell that she was trying to give us a sample of EVERYTHING without dictating what we should or should not like. This is great, now if I can just save up enough money for fire spinners

Hi All, I haven't posted much, because well I haven't had a lot of information to contribute. I did want to add a post about our scouting trip. I've read through a whole slew of scouting trips other folks have gone on and found them, at this stage of the game, extremely helpful. The scouting reports gave me a list of places to look at online and to ask about. You never really know what places are like until you go there, and I highly recommend biting the bullet and going down and actually seeing the places in which you are interested. I have a full scouting trip review on my wedding blog and we have a couple of albums of pictures (Tracy and Pete) and I'm more than happy to share more in depth information to anyone. Very briefly I want to go over where we went and who helped us. First almost the whole trip was organized by Malisa at Destination Scout, she pretty much booked all day every day we were there, we actually rolled over some places to our "day off" to get them all in. Also Pete (the groom) is a Celiac and you know what, Mexico is great for Celiacs! We're working on a place to make us a cake/cupcakes, BUT given what you choose you can even bake something yourself. I may end up baking off cupcakes the day before the wedding, because I do a bang up job and well 50 cupcakes is like nothing. This is my own aside, but don't let food allergies dictate where you go and what you do! Day #1. We went to Soliman Bay, which for us is likely going to be where most people end up staying. These are luxury Hacienda's complete with private chef, maid, AC, spacious areas, private beach fronts, and amenities like kayaks that you can take out for snorkeling. We did not get to go inside any of the Hacienda's, but given what we could see through the windows and the pictures on LocoGringo you will get a really good idea of what places look like from the photos on Locogringo and I have links in my review on my blog. Along with prices, and right now this is going to likely be the most affordable luxury accomodations you'll find. The hacienda's we saw were Buena Suerta, Hacienda Kass, Casa Yardena, and Mar Caribe. Buena Suerta would be a great property to stay, but NOT for a wedding. It has plenty of space, but no areas where people can easily mill about and chat, you would end up with pockets of people and not a lot of free flowing movement. This is important to us that people can easily move about and not feel cramped. Hacienda Kass is a beautiful property and depending on when you have your wedding it may be a good option for an actual wedding location. The property is huge, and for me for the time of year we're getting married in (October 2011) there were so few people that we wanted, well, I wanted, a more open property. This one has a row of palm trees separating the house from the beach. This may actually be a really good idea if you are getting married in high season, you may want to cut off people taking their evening run from your party. Mar Caribe right now needs a paint job and some cleaning. But the property itself you can easily picture how you would set up a wedding. The beach is right in front and you can see the home in the back, you can move from a ceremony on the beach to a cocktail party on the roof and balconies, then you can have dinner set up around the pool and dancing in front. It was a surprise I didn't actually think I'd like this property at all, but it would work really well. Casa Yardena--we didn't see much of this property as there were people staying here. They loved it, and I believe them. I liked Hacienda kass and Mar Caribe better, but for a large property to put a lot of people this would be great. There are also two more buildings going in, so this time next year there will be two more places for folks to go see. We also had lunch at Sahara Cafe in Hotel Jashita. There are links in the blog to this hotel. This is a great hotel. On the pricey side, but each room has AC, nice bathrooms, balconies, and there will be a spa (mainly for massages) on site. The honeymoon suite has a HUGE jacuzzi and will have a shaded area for hammocks. We are seriously considering this place for our honeymoon after the ceremony. The owner Miss. Monica (who is really a Mrs.) is lovely and is all about taking a balanced view of the world. The hotel itself would hold a very classy wedding and you can easily picture a very chic affair. Day #3. We visited a lot of properties in the Sian Ka'an. I highly recommend just reading my blog on these properties. They are gorgeous. Their drawback is that your guests would have to make their own food or take a trek into town for restaurants. This is fine, except if say it has been raining. The road is not paved and is sometimes fine and sometimes you would be afraid the road will eat your car. Day #4. We visited El Pez, La Luna, Las Ranitas, and Ana Y Jose. There are links and pictures on the blog, but quickly. We chose El Pez, just for our wedding and reception. This is a small hotel (6 rooms), clean, open floor plan, nice beach, with a pool, pretty substantial deck, lounge area, and an industrial kitchen. I have more pictures than I put in the blog, so if you are interested let me know and I'll send you more. You can easily see how you can make this your own. The rooms do not have AC, but truly you don't need it. The water pressure is good, the views are lovely. This is also pretty central for anyone staying near here, say you have folks at Ana Y Jose they can just walk to your wedding and walk back at the end of the night. Same with a slew of other hotels right near here. La Luna was great and is our runner up. We're a bit afraid of being cramped if it rains and in October rain is a serious thing. The layout is cool, the cabanas are excellent (clean, airy and comfortable), and the food was great. You have the option of renting the whole property for a week, or just a room for a few nights. For a wedding I think they would want you to rent out more than half of the cabanas, but I didn't ask. Las Ranitas would be great for a large group (50+), and it has a good flow, you have your interior for food/dinner, deck for cocktails and the pool area for cocktails, a good stretch of beach for a ceremony and I did like the rooms. They were clean, comfortable and the larger suites have a private pool to boot. What I did not like is that for a wedding you have to (or this is what they told us) rent out at least 15 rooms. The entrance is actually really beautiful and very green. Ana Y Jose is a fabulous property, though expensive. For our budget this is just right out, but not out for folks wanting to stay at a place like this. We saw the honeymoon suite which is huge, with a minibar, AC (I believe ac, they told us that they had AC), nice bathroom, and great views of the ocean. This was not where we wanted to spend the rest of our time, but if you have picky guests send them here. Day #2 you may have noticed was not mentioned. Ths was a day that Malisa set up for us for local vendors and you can make it as packed as you need or not. We have a ton of time, really, and so I will periodically update with our progress, since our wedding is in October 2011...we are in no huge rush. I expect I'll have a really good idea of what the whole thing is going to shape up as by March. Good luck everyone. Tracy

Hi Ladies, I'm pricing out places and am interested in AyJ, and this forum hasn't had much activity in a while (I agree with Lauren on that). Has anyone used a wedding coordinator with AyJ? Was it worthwhile? Any feedback or suggestions would be awesome You all can email me at tap236 at g mail dot com, I'd love to hear and get any advice. I have lots of time though we picked the last week of October 2011 and are visiting Tulum the first week of October 2010 and any other places I'd love to know about. Tracy

I'm glad you posted and a few other ladies have on tripadvisor as well. Blue Tulum was on our list until we ran across this, and I couldn't make reservations for it.

Hi all, Clearly new, name is Tracy (umami most places) and as of today wedding date not officially chosen, but likely October 2011. It seems reasonable given other weddings going on next year. We'd like to get married in Xcaret Eco Park, but it seems like its expensive not to go through a 3rd party wedding coordinator and regardless of cost we're now going through and figuring who that wedding coordinator should be--I don't speak spanish beyond ordering food or where is the bathroom, so...someone who does speak spanish would be super duper. Anyway, we'll be visiting Mexico early October this year to check out the location and make sure it is what we think it is. Also we'll be staying at the Occidental (and will be comparing that to Xcaret for location for a wedding) which we want to make sure is indeed family friendly but not off putting for couples only. We'll have predominately couples or families with children in their late teens so we don't want throngs of kids, but if we're having a destination wedding we don't want to say you can't bring your children. That seems restrictive on top of please buy a plane ticket and hotel room. Anyone that has gotten married at Xcaret or the Occidental please let me know how it went and I'd love to know who you used for a wedding coordinator and photographer.