Wedding August 2012 - Cabo San Lucas!! I have no clue where to start! Help!!

Hi everyone!

My name is Paula and I am newly engaged.  My fiance (I just typed boyfriend and then remembered thats not quite the right term anymore!)   I am from New Zealand originally and Alex is from St Louis, Missouri.  We wanted to get married somewhere in the middle as a compromise for our families and I have always wanted to go to Mexico! 

I would so love any help/advice/guidance from you all.  I have quickly skimmed through the posts on here and everyone is just so helpful with great tips.  Its also especially important as we won't be able to get to the venue or to Mexico until the week before we marry, so recommendations are crucial for us.

We would like between 60-70 guests and we are thinking about a beach front ceremony.  We would then like to have the reception and party afterwards in a villa, unless anyone has recommendations for other ideas!! We are trying to keep costs down by bringing in our own caterers and buying our own booze, and I think we thought that hiring a villa would allow us to do this.  However, I have seen some amazing venues and just want to get some ideas from you all really!

Thanks so much and I hope you can help me out, I can't say enough how much I would appreciate it!

Thanks

Paula

Welcome! 

We first considered Mexico for our DW.  There are tons of amazing resorts, especially in the Mayan Riviera.  What helped us immensly was to sit down and make a list of what was important to us, such as resort size, resort amenities, price, wedding packages ect.  That helped us eliminate some resorts.  From there we took a list of resorts to a travel agent who helped us further narrow down our search until we finally found our dream resort.  Good luck!

Welcome and happy planning!!

Congrats on your engagement and happy planning!!

Congratulations and welcome to the forums! Best of luck with all your planning for Cabo. If you need any help with local information... you should contact Dino Gomez who is another phtographer on here that is local to Cabo.

Best of luck!

Lincoln

Congratulations and welcome to the forum!!  There should be lots of reviews and info on this site to make you feel comfortable with your choice.  

Warmest wishes,
Lori

Paula..it sounds like you are wanting to have the same type of wedding as my daughter. She has always wanted a destination/beach wedding and after spending Christmas with us in Cabo...they decided that was THE place. We are going down on 9/1 for site visits and she has really done her research. We love the Pedregal area of Cabo because of it's proximity to the marina area.

We are planning on renting a villa in Pedregal...in fact it will probably be Villa Buena Vida.We are expecting around 50 guests. The villa sleeps 22 and we will offer the villa to the closest family and friends first.It comes with a cook/caretaker, so we are planning on making it like an all-inclusive for the guests that want to stay there. Costco and Walmart are there, so we figure we can stock the villa with food and beverages that the cook can use or the guests can serve themselves. For the additional guests there are condos called Portofino that are located in the gated community. We have stayed at the Portofino condos and they are beautiful. For those that really want to be on a budget there is the Cabo Paraiso Hotel. I am sure that some guests may even choose an AI resort and make it their vacation.

The wedding will be 7/7/2012.so we are just about to send STD's to the list of those that will be invited. We plan on having an AHR about 6-8 wks after we return.

My daughter is a wedding planner here in Dallas, so she has set up appointments with caterers, florists, etc. Not only for her benefit, but also for the company she works with as they will be getting into destination wedding planning.

She won't be using a wedding planner in Cabo since the owner of the company will be at her wedding and will act as day of co-ordinator. She has found an awesome photographer..who came highly recommended by someone we met on our last trip. She wants the wedding on the beach..then we will  have the reception back at the villa.

We are planning a welcome dinner/rehearsal one night. It was going to be on the Tropicat, but we may change it to Medano Beach Club.

I am sure we will have so much information when we return, so if you need any input feel free to ask.

Good luck in your planning...

Congrats on your engagement!

I attended a wedding at Dreams in Cabo. It was amazing and convinced me to have a DW myself! Dreams is an all-inclusive resort, so it's different from your villa idea. However, my friend told me that because it's all-inclusive, she didn't have to pay for the guests' alcohol at the reception! The price was already factored into the AI rate that the guests were paying for the room. (The only things that I did NOT like about the resort was the the sand is so rough that it's painful, and the beach is not swimmable in that area).

Good luck with your planning! I'm sure the girls on the site will be able to help!

Hello Paula

Congratulations on your engagement.

Considering your families are scattered all over the place, I think it is a very wise decision to hold a wedding in the middle and accommodate them all. I am sure your family and friends appreciate it!

Don't feel badly that you are a little lost at this point. That is so common!! Even narrowing down your destination to Mexico leaves a lot to be decided- Where in Mexico? Resort vs. Villa? All Inclusive or not? Wedding at the resort or off site?

Instead of feeling like there is a long list of decisions to be made, just look at it as a wide open world and you can literally have anything you want, you just need to decide what is most important. If you are having a lot of trouble finding resorts the best advice I can offer is that you look into hiring a wedding groups travel agent to assist you! They will have industry insite and could open you up to a world of possibilities you may not have even been aware of. They will learn about you and base their recommendations off of what you envision for your wedding. Also if you have a travel agent on your side, they will be able to negotiate group rates, deal with your guests and liaise with the onsites at the resort on your behalf. You will really be able to enjoy the planning process and it will be fun instead of stressful.

Whatever way you decide to go, I hope your wedding is all you've ever dreamed and more!

Happy Planning.

Kielah

Blue Petal Destination Weddings

Congrats and Happy Planning!!!