Is it standard to pay more at riviera maya venues if you get quote in dollars?

JessiTaylor · February 2, 2012

Ive been talking to a beach club about having my wedding and reception there, and i found another bride to be looking at the same place. As she was chatting about an attachment they sent her regarding tables and other furniture i asked her to send it to me. She wrote all of her emails in spanish and got spanish versions of the documents

Out of interest...i looked at the spanish version of the other info and ive noticed that the prices given in pesos seem to be much lower. The basic wedding package works out to be about 1150 dollars when you convert it...and the price quoted in the english version is just under 1500 dollars. And i mean thats one aspect of the wedding, so with reception, decor etc if everything is marked up it will work out to be a lot

Is this standard practice? Have i been shooting myself in the foot by communicating in english rather than letting mexican fiance handle everything (i understand and can read spanish, but my grammar is pretty shaky so for clarity i took the easy way out and wrote in english) If so im passing all planning and research onto my mexican fiance! We're living in north mexico on mexican salaries so saving money would be helpful

Can i just simply ask to pay pesos - and they will give me the price on the price list. or do you tihnk there is a chance they would try to convert my inflated price into pesos?

Thanks for your thoughts!

starchild · February 3, 2012

Wow that's a good question! I've don't have experience with this but maybe someone else has...

JessiTaylor · February 3, 2012

I emailed the venue and said my fiance wanted to read the wedding information in his native language. so now we "officially" have the price list in pesos =P and they didnt change the price from the documents the other bride had(thats my cynical mind at work, worrying im being scammed!) My fiance said it might be because for dollars they typically go on a 10 pesos to a dollar exchange rate rather than the official one (around 13 pesos)

I checked my banking fees and to make a transfer in a foreign currency (so i would pay pesos) simply requires a one off small fee. so it makes far more sense financially to do that. I can't imagine that any (or at least many brides) would have the prices in both currencies so if it is common then nobody would ever know! im thinking of making a little experiment and having my fiance contact all the places that already sent me quotes so see if its standard practice or not. If it is, then total markup could total to 1000 dollars or more (as 20 min wedding set up alone has 350 dollars or more) and i dont know anyone so rich they can afford to do that if they dont need to and theres an easy solution/

Ill post what we find out....if it is standard practice, it might be worth other brides specifically requesting prices in pesos, or even having a friend write an email in spanish for the initial contact. I suppose if you are having a travel agent organise things it might not work out so well