TULUM BRIDES 2012-2013

Sandy Planner · July 9, 2012

Hello , we were last week on scouting for a Tulum wedding and found several beautiful places and for different budgets , this picture is the view from the wedding location at Las Ranitas , you can appreciatte the size of the beach , I love Las Ranitas , their staff is super friendly!!

Sandy Planner · July 9, 2012

THIS IS THE POOL AREA

mandjphoto · July 13, 2012

Whatever venue you choose ask about their backup plans for if it rains. Many venues are under big palapas but sometimes the rains comes in sideways from the beach. Some places have plastic rolls that can be dropped and some have sliding glass windows. We recently shot at a location that didn't have anything in place and where the staff was not prepared when the rains came and they reacted too slowly - they put up tarps but all of the tables were already soaked by the time they got them up. They had to rearrange the table settings two times and finally had to place them in the entry way of the hotel when the rains came in sideways since that was the only place that was not open to the elements. So make sure you ask what their rain plans are!

Jennifer

truchis · August 5, 2012

Hi all! My fiance and I just got back from visiting different sites in Playa del Carmen and Tulum. On our visit we discarded the venues in Playa del Carmen, and absolutely fell in love with Tulum. We only visited Akiin and Las Ranitas in Tulum. Both are beautiful places! Prior to my visit I had been in contact with Karla from Akiin, and she is great! I was almost sure my wedding was going to be in Akiin, until I saw Las Ranitas!

Las Ranitas is now our #1 choice and Akiin #2. One thing we know for sure after this trip is that we definitely want our wedding in Tulum and not Playa del Carmen.

We hired a wedding planner for our site inspection. She was great and had lots of helpful information. We loved her! Now I must decide whether to hire her full-time to plan our wedding. After reading how great Angelina at Las Ranitas is, and being in communication with Karla, the coordinator from Akiin, and considering our budget, I don't know if I really need to hire an outside wedding planner?

Are you other Las Ranitas brides hiring a wedding planner aside from Angelina?

Congratulations to all the brides! I hope to make a decision soon on the wedding planner and on the venue. Thank you all for the valuable information! Keep sharing!

essandpea · August 5, 2012

Hi Truchis, Hooray for you two and Las Ranitas! Akiin and Las Ranitas were on our short list, too, and we're getting married at Las Ranitas in November. I still remember the feeling I had when I first stepped foot onto their palapa... Whenever I get stressed, I try to channel that feeling :-). I can't speak for communication with Akiin, but if you go with Las Ranitas, you don't need an additional wedding coordinator. Angelina is on site, knows Tulum very well, and has relationships with people in Tulum. She would be both a planner and a day-of coordinator. I should share though that we do have an additional person, though - someone Angie brought in when we did our site visits in other cities along the Riviera Maya. But we are having 150 guests and many pre-wedding events and activities and needed a lot more attention/coordination throughout the planning process than the average couple, so having a second person has been helpful. But other folks on the forum have worked solely with Angie and had no problems. Hope this helps!

truchis · August 7, 2012

Essandpea,

Thank you so much for your quick response! We are planning for at least 100 guests, but maybe up to 125. I'm going to start without a planner. I first want to have a set date and venue. Then, if it gets too overwhelming, I will consider hiring an outside planner. We will want to plan a welcome party, and tours for all our guests, so that's when the planner might be necessary, like you said.

My family is freaking out about Las Ranitas not having a/c in their suites. We are wanting to have our wedding in July, and we were just down there this July and experienced the hot weather. We didn't stay in Tulum this time; we stayed at an all-inclusive (with A/C) in PDC. I know that many hotels in Tulum do not have a/c, and my fiance and I are okay with that, but I'm worried that many of our guests won't.

Soooo...we are also now considering Ana y Jose hotel. We thought about moving the date to October because we really loved Las Ranitas, but we are both teachers and many of our friends are teachers too, so having it in July would be so much easier for us.

Hopefully, we figure this out too so that I can move on with the planning!

essandpea · August 7, 2012

Oh wow, we're in the same boat then with a really big group in Tulum! Yes, I think you'll be fine going without an extra coordinator for now, and I'll be able to help a lot more after we finalize things in November :-). It's been really challenging trying to find places with the capacity to host 100+ people for pre-wedding dinners and parties at a reasonable rate. And transportation (we're doing a day trip to the ruins in the morning and a cenote in the afternoon) has proven to be really expensive as well.

We also considered Ana y Jose - in fact, we were negotiating a contract with them at one point, as they offered a really nice, affordable dinner and did not have an exorbitant site fee. But we got really nervous when we didn't hear from them when trying to get a countersigned contract, so went back to our first choice of Las Ranitas. (Please don't let this deter you from considering Ana y Jose; when we did communicate with them they were very professional and gracious.) I completely understand guests and their A/C needs (many of ours are worried about that as well), but we're hoping that the milder weather in November won't require A/C. Plus we hoped that the extra holidays around Thanksgiving would make it easier for folks to travel.

Feel free to send any questions my way -- it's nice to have another Tulum couple on here! Love your photo, by the way! Reminds me of the gorgeous redwoods just north of here in San Francisco.

jello · August 8, 2012

Truchis, I have my wedding booked at Ana y Jose Hotel for June 2013. I have a smaller group than you, about 60-70 people, but please let me know if you have any questions about AyJ! AC was a dealbreaker for us too.

mksymes · September 21, 2012

Hi everyone,

This thread has been really helpful for me in starting to wrap my head around planning a wedding in Tulum. My fiance and I are thinking about a November 2013 wedding and I wondered if anyone on here had experience with Novembers in Tulum. I know it's the end of hurricane season and can still be rainy. Are there venues you would recommend with back-up locations that provide shelter in case it rains sideways? Right now, I'm most interested in Ana Y Jose, Cabanas La Luna, Las Ranitas, and maybe La Zebra. It's so hard to really tell what the pros and cons are of each place based on their websites, and I won't have the opportunity to actually visit before our wedding. We were down there for vacation in February and had lunch at Las Estrellas which is why I'm considering Cabanas La Luna as one of our potential venues. I'm looking for places that feel very authentic but have some modern comforts, like outlets in the rooms and 24-hour electricity. I'd like to stay in the same place where we are getting married, just to keep it simple. Good food and drink are our number one priority. Of course everyone's website says they have the best food in all of Tulum, so again, if anyone has first-hand experience and knows where to find the best taco on the beach road, I'd be hugely appreciative. My second priority is the look and feel of the place. From the website pictures, Ana Y Jose and Las Ranitas look perfect, La Zebra looks a little too brightly colored, Cabanas La Luna looks great if maybe a little too bohemian chic maybe?, and something like Be Tulum, for example, looks much too sleek for my taste.

We are planning for 100 to 130 guests, which also rules out some of the smaller, more quaint places.

Really I'll welcome just any thoughts or recommendations on wedding dates and venues in Tulum. Thank you!