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I found the vendor reviews on this site super helpful and wanted to post a few reviews of my own...except that a lot of my vendors don't have listings on the vendor review page! But hopefully this will help any of you Tulum brides who are still in the planning stages. Good luck, and have fun! Photographer - Vincent Guihard of Lucidum Photography - http://www.lucidumphotography.com/ I originally contacted Del Sol, but they were completely out of our budget and kindly recommended Vincent, who had worked for Del Sol before he went out on his own. He was really fantastic, and we are so happy with how our pictures turned out. We didn’t want a bunch of cheesy photos of us gazing into each other’s eyes—we wanted our photographer to capture the atmosphere at the wedding and get some good shots of our guests. And Vincent and his assistant really delivered on that front! He was also great at getting my mom to smile—she always has this fake looking smile in posed pictures, but he managed to get a few genuine smiles out of her during the family photos! Décor - Katy of Love and Lace - @@MrsHK I found Katy through these message boards, and she had exactly the type of rustic, vintage-y décor that I was looking for. We rented bud vases, tea light candle holders, LCD candles and a few other small decorations from her. Katy has a great selection of super cute items, keeps things reasonably priced, was great about responding quickly and really just made the whole process super easy for me. We picked everything up from her in Playa del Carmen on our way down to Tulum, and she had everything wrapped and ready for us in suitcases. I also had Katy buy some colorful market tote bags for me to give to my bridesmaids as welcome/thank you bags. Katy picked a bunch of cute colors, and I was so glad that I didn’t have to go shopping for them myself (with an impatient, hates-shopping husband in tow) when we got to Mexico! Hair - Cristian of Cristian and Dahena - http://www.cristian-dahena.com/ Cristian was great! I had read on these boards that hair and makeup was the one area where everyone had total sticker shock. But Cristian was reasonably priced and did a fantastic job with my hair and my bridesmaids’ hair. I didn’t have a trial and just showed Cristian a few pictures of the types of styles that I liked, and he picked the one that would work the best on my hair and in the humidity. I also really liked that (1) they didn’t charge more for my hair because I was the bride (I mean, what’s up with that?), (2) they didn’t require that a certain number of people had to have their hair done, and (3) they didn’t require me to have a trial. Florist – Cherry Blossom Flowers - http://www.cherryblossom.com.mx/ing/index.html The ladies at Cherry Blossom were wonderful! They were quick at responding to emails, which was so helpful since I emailed them at the last minute (2 weeks before my wedding!) to ask for quotes (see complaints below re coordinator). They had the best prices of anyone I spoke with and were also great about making suggestions for types of flowers that were cheaper than the ones I originally asked about (like peonies—I had no idea they were so expensive). I ordered my bouquet from them and also had them deliver 6 dozen unarranged roses that my bridesmaids cut and arranged in bud vases that morning. It’s a great way to save money on flowers if you’re able to task someone with this job. DJ – Omar from DJ Music Service Cancun This is one of the few vendors that my planner recommended, and if I had to do it all over again, I would have gone with one of the DJs that had been positively reviewed on this site. He played a number of songs that were on our Do NOT Play list (and we didn’t even have that many!), and I don’t think he played any of the songs on our Must Play list, which was only 4 or 5 songs long. It turns out he didn’t even have some of the songs on our Must Play list, but he didn’t say anything to us about it. At the end of the day, everyone still danced and had fun, but my husband will forever complain about the DJ playing the Black Eyed Peas at our wedding. Wedding Coordinator – Angelina Cardenas There are a lot of glowing reviews of Angie on this site, and when we first met her during our scouting trip, I thought I understood why—she’s very sweet and had some really cute ideas. But after we signed our contract, everything went downhill. When she sent us a revised budget after we had sent her our deposit, it was 25% higher than what she had originally estimated. Communication was pretty terrible—I had expected response times to be slow from reading the reviews on this site, but it was even worse than I had expected. It really wasn’t until about 3 weeks before the wedding that emails picked up and I started getting any answers. At that point, I had already started looking for my own vendors. I relied heavily on the many helpful reviews on this site to find my own vendors, and I ended up being much happier with the vendors that I found. It was so much easier (and MUCH much faster) to be able to communicate directly with the vendors about what I wanted, and it was also easier to negotiate prices on my own. I also never felt like Erika/Angie were actually trying to negotiate prices down for us—on the contrary, I usually felt like I was being ripped off. In the end though, the slow communication was actually a good thing since it forced me to take things into my own hands for the better. There were so many other little things that were extremely frustrating, but here are the things that really got me peeved. Bait and switch. We originally met with Angie. At some point in April, we started getting emails from Erika. At that point, I really couldn’t have cared less who was emailing me or who was in charge, I was just happy that someone was emailing me back. But still, I found it incredibly unprofessional that Angie didn’t even email us to let us know that Erika would be taking over. We figured out later that Angie had another wedding that same weekend. Incorrect, EXTREMELY VITAL, information. When we visited Tulum for our scouting trip, we told Angie that we were expecting 100-125 guests. Our venue was on the smaller side, but she assured us that they would be able to handle up to 100-125 people, so we signed the contract and sent the deposit and the planning began. Three weeks before the wedding, Erika emailed us and said it was very important that we give them a final headcount because 90 people was the max number of people that our venue could accommodate and we might have to figure out how to convince the manager to let us STILL HAVE THE WEDDING THERE!!! Luckily for Angie/Erika/my sanity, we had 87 people total, but that could have been a real disaster. Transportation. This was probably the most frustrating part of the process. Angie’s fee was about 9% of our original budget, but we decided that the fee would be worth it since (among other things) she would help our friends and family with transportation from Cancun to Tulum. She said she could keep track of everyone’s flight info and then would group people who had flights arriving around the same time together so that they could share a shuttle and save on transportation costs. The trouble started when I asked her for estimates of how much transport would cost so that I could put it in the info sheet that we sent to our guests. She kept being evasive about the cost and never really gave me a straight answer. Then she gave me the email address of a travel agent in Tulum and said that my guests should email the travel agent directly to set up transportation. When I emailed the travel agent to ask about the estimated cost, I also asked if she would be keeping track of everyone’s flight info and grouping people together, and she said that she wouldn’t do that. So I emailed Angie, and this task got punted back to her. Angie said to tell my guests to email her, not the travel agent, and that Angie would take care of it. So, I sent Angie’s info to our guests, and then I started hearing reports that she wasn’t responding to emails. This was still 5 or 6 weeks out, and these complaints were some of my more Type A friends and family, so I basically told my guests to chill the eff out and reassured them that there was no shortage of shuttles and that Angie would eventually respond to them. When Angie (actually it was Erika at this point) finally got back to one of my bridesmaids, the quote was way more than what I had told everyone to expect (which was based on the estimate from the travel agent). When my bridesmaid asked about sharing a shuttle, Erika responded and said that “this service was not available.” It was yet another miscommunication, but by then, I had had enough. So I ended up telling our guests not to go through Angie for transportation. I collected everyone’s flight info, matched people up and then told them to book through USA Transfers (which has a SUPER helpful website, is reasonably priced at $100 for a 10 person van one way, and I didn’t heard any complaints from our guests about them). To end this review on a positive note, we LOVED the ice cream vendor that Erika and Angie recommended. My husband had also requested tacos al pastor for the tornaboda (late night food), and I think Erika ended up bringing in a separate vendor for that too. I’m not totally sure of those details (originally Erika said the chef didn’t do tacos al pastor), but whatever Erika did to make the tacos al pastor happen was awesome—the tacos were delicious and were really the big hit of the night. At the end of the day, I’m glad Erika was there the day of the wedding to oversee everything and deal with the rain-related issues (and to make tacos al pastor happen). My advice though is that if you wouldn’t have hired a planner for your wedding in the States, don’t let people convince you that just because you’re getting married in Mexico, you need a planner. You probably don’t!

@sandall7--I will send you a PM! I'm planning to get some colorful Mexican markets totes for my bridesmaids (like these...http://www.shoplatitude.com/red-frida-market-tote.html). Does anyone know about how much they cost at the markets in Tulum? I'm assuming they might be cheaper at markets in Playa?

@@sandall7 - I definitely, definitely do not think hiring an external planner is worth it!! Communication with my planner was frustratingly slow until about a week ago (only 4 weeks out!!!). I was starting to get antsy (and I started having wedding related nightmares!), so I ended up using this forum to price out some my own vendors, and frankly many of the ones I contacted on my own were cheaper than the vendors that my planner has recommended. Plus, having some quotes helped in negotiating some prices down. We're actually using the maracas as our place cards too...I'm just tying a little card to the handle of the maraca. I'm planning to have a guitarist to play for the ceremony--the quote our planner got us for Camilo Nu (he was recommended on some of these boards but I totally haven't listened to any of his stuff) is $350 for 45 minutes. We are getting married on Piedra Escondida--it's one of the smaller hotels at the beginning of the stretch...across from Mateo's. Starting to get excited now that most of the planning is coming together!

Hi ladies! My Tulum wedding is only 3 weeks away! I'm so ready to be on the beach like...now. @@sandall7, we are using maracas as place settings. I'm tying a little hangtag to each maraca and writing each guest's name on the hangtag. We ordered the maracas online from Amol's...I actually found them through old posts on these forums, and they were fantastic. They were the cheapest non-plastic maracas I could find and their customer service was amazing. They have plain (colored) ones too if you're planning to paint a design on them. I was originally planning to bring down mason jars...but with 90 maracas already filling up one entire suitcase, I decided against it. I was also nervous that they would break in transit! KatyHK, who has posted on this forum about her own Tulum wedding, lives in Playa and has a lots of mason jars and other assorted glass containers that she rents out. We are going to rent some items from her to cut down on the things we have to bring down. I probably would have done WAY more DIY if I didn't have to think about how to get stuff down to Mexico...I can't decide if that's a blessing or a curse! @@HoyaBeth, I'm a little jealous that you are bringing down your own linens! I gave up weeks ago on trying to figure out how long the various tables are...I'll just have to be content with plain white tablecloths. @@Ella2015, Angelina is our coordinator. If you haven't been able to get in touch with her yet, send me a PM and I can send you her email address. Has anyone looked into getting one of those cute wooden welcome signs that you stick in the sand? There are a couple pictures on here http://www.destinationweddingstulum.com/gallery/set.php?id=72157626925507912&title=Details#. The quotes we've gotten are a little ridiculous considering what it is...something else I would've DIYed if we had room!!

Hi everyone! I'm also getting married this May in Tulum! We're getting married at Piedra Escondida, which is a lot smaller than the other hotels in Tulum but we loved that it was private--there are rocks on either side of the property so no one can walk through during our ceremony/reception. Does anyone have affordable DJ recommendations? I've gotten a range of quotes--anywhere from 800-1500 for 4 hours. We're really looking for someone super basic--as long as they've got enough Top 40 and 80s music, I will be happy. Our dance floor is going to be in the sand, so we don't want any strobes or fancy lighting or cold fireworks. For everyone who is still trying to decide on venues or hotels for their guests, I found this website super helpful: http://www.alltulumhotels.com/. It's just a map of all the hotels along Boca Paila. When we did our scouting trip, I printed it out, and we walked along the beach and checked places out. Thanks!