Pueblo Bonito Emerald Bay (Mazatlan) Wedding Review

jnellerose · January 29, 2015

Hi All,

I know this site is lacking info on Mazatlan weddings, therefore I am sharing my delayed review to help any possible Mazatlan brides out there.

I recently got married on 10/12/14 in Mazatlan Mexico at the Pueblo Bonito emerald Bay. It was a completely last minute change of plans, as we were supposed to have our wedding in Cabo San Lucas at the Pueblo Bonito sunset beach. However, due to the hurricane that hit Cabo in September, we were forced to change our wedding location 3 weeks before the wedding.

I expected everything to kind of fall apart, being that we had to change most of our vendors at the last second - but I honestly believe that our wedding turned out even better than it would've, had we stuck to the Cabo location. So here is my review, broken down in categories:

THE RESORT:

PB Emerald Bay is a beautiful place, however to our dismay, there was no beach available for us to use. Though the resort overlooks the water, the beach has deteriorated ànd washed away. This impeded on our plans to have a beach bonfire welcome party. (However, the resort made up for it with the welcome party we ended up having. See below for welcome party details). Other than that, the lack of beach didn't affect us much, as we were aware that in Cabo, the beach is not swimmable anyway.

Also, on the plus side, there was a free shuttle bus that takes you to the sister resort, Pueblo Bonito mazatlan, which did have a nicer beach. You could also eat at the restaurants at this resort if you purchased the all-inclusive option.

Food at the PB Emerald Bay was decent. After 10 days of being there, I definitely started to get tired of eating the same things over and over again. But overall, the food wasn't bad.

A few negative things I can say - although we purchased the all inclusive option, this resort makes you wait for a receipt after you eat or order drinks. It always had a zero balance, but we still had to wait for it and sign the check (and include tip, if we wanted). I guess it's because they have the all-inclusive option, so they do this to ensure that they properly charge people who do not have the all inclusive. I also found that they have annoying rules about ordering room service. We attempted to order room service for a group of 15 or 20 of us, and they had to ask for all of our room #'s, as each room is only allowed 2 items. And on top if that, they charged a service fee.

Furthermore, the all inclusive had an expiration. Apparently, it ends at 11 or 12pm on the day of checkout, regardless of what time your shuttle comes. So if your shuttle comes at 5pm, you need to pay for all food and drinks after checkout. Even for my husband and i, who had a guaranteed late check out, were hassled at 1pm at the pool bar and grill on the day we were leaving. I had to call our wedding coordinator, who had to call her manager to have some strings pulled, in order for us to eat before we left.

We have been to many all inclusive resorts and never had to deal with such strict rules.

Usually, I am pretty easy going about things like this - but this was my wedding week. It definitely was not fun to deal with such annoyances.

WEDDING COORDINATOR:

We worked with Wendy, and she was wonderful!! I cannot say enough great things about her.

For starters, when we first arrived, she made an appt with us and brought us to a rental company in town where we could pick our table cloths and napkins, etc. They even set everything up on tables outside so we could visualize how it would all look together. They did not nickel and dime everything like Sunset beach was attempting to do. We were able to pick any color table cloth at all the same costs, and

we received gold Tiffany chairs at no extra cost. It was so unexpected but so appreciated that she brought us there.

Wendy understood how difficult it was for us to have changed our wedding venue at the last minute. She listened to all our requests and tried so hard to make our wedding up to our standards. When we found out that we couldn't have our bonfire welcome party on the beach, she came up with various options and presented them to us.

She also helped us with non wedding things. When my husband got injured by the pool, we could not find crutches and the front desk did nothing to help. Wendy was able to locate some for us at the sister resort, and she drove over to get them for us.

I truly believe Wendy is the reason our wedding turned out so well. She always went above and beyond and showed how important her job was to her.

WELCOME PARTY:

We ended up having the welcome party indoors at a location surrounded by windows. Wendy had rented lounge style furniture for us, which we were able to pick out when we went to the rental company. They set up a bonfire right outside the doors, and we had brought all the ingredients for s'mores, which Wendy had set up at the tables. She also set up a dj, which was a surprise to us, as we did not request it, and he was great - he broke the ice among all our guests by playing games, such as name that tune. There was also a bar set up and waiters serving drinks, so no one had to get drinks on their own. The service that night was great, and our guests definitely enjoyed it.

CEREMONY/COCKTAIL:

We had the ceremony at the gazebo. It turned out beautifully, however it was definitely hot and humid that dAy. Also, there were tons of misquitos!

We had a violin and guitar duo play, and they did a great job.

Cocktail was at the gazebo courtyard, which we ended up cutting a little short because it started getting dark and the misquitos were definitely swarming.

I can't comment on the food at cocktail hour, as we were busy taking pictures and missed all the food.

RECEPTION:

it was held at the Cordeliere Esplanade, which is basically the terrace rooftop of the Cordeliere restaurant. What a beautiful location!!! Service was great, food was good... it was more beautiful than expected. We just kept our same menu choices from Pueblo Bonito sunset beach, which worked out perfectly.

VENDORS:

MAKEUP: I had Alma Vallejo, who I had booked for the Cabo location. Thankfully, she was already in the Mazatlan area, since she fled there after the hurricane. She flew in her hair person, Mabel, since I was weary about her having someone in Mazatlan (who she was not used to working with) do my hair. They both did a great job! My only complaint it that she did not have her air brush equipment with her, and she did not tell me this until she showed up for my hair/makeup trial. I would've preferred airbrushed makeup, being that it was so hot and humid. Other than that, they were professional and got the job done.

FLOWERS: Ave de Paraiso Florist. They did a good job on such late notice. I had calla lilies for my bouquet. my bridesmaids and groomsmen had rose and lilies in coral and yellow hues. Upon delivery the morning of our wedding, we noticed we were missing a bridesmaid bouquet. Wendy got in contact with them, and they delivered the missing bouquet, however the ribbon wrapping the bouquet was in a different color than the other bouquets. This ended up being fine, as my matron of honor held that one.

DJ: MPI productions. They were by far the worst vendor we went with. We gave them a song list, however we thought they would also play some of their regular song repertoire. Instead, they ended up replaying many of the songs on our list, twice or even 3 tines. (Since we didn't give enough song choices to last all 4 hours). Also, instead of playing the exact songs we chose, they played many "house & ekectronic remix" versions. Also, they played the list exactly as written. My husband grouped all the line dances together, so they played 5 line dsnces in a row. And 10 slow songs in a row - instead of mixing it up. Maybe if we had more time, we could've planned accordingly or had better communication.

on the positive side, the provided us with a cool light up dance floor and under lit tables. They also played our slideshow as requested and made a gobo for us that was reflected on the projector screen throughout the reception.

PHOTOGRAPHER/VIDEOGRAPHER: We had booked Enrique Morales for our Cabo wedding, and he and his team agreed to fly to Mazatlan to continue with our wedding. They did a great job and were extremely fun and professional. Within a week or 2 of our wedding, they had already provided us with a rough draft of our photo book and 5 minute highlight video. They took over 1200 photos, and they did an amazing job capturing all the special moments of our wedding.

All in all, everything turned out wonderfully. It just goes to show that you can plan for things so far in advance, but it doesn't always mean that that's the only way it has to be. We had to be really open minded to enjoy our Mazatlan wedding, but it all worked out in the end.

If anyone is planning a wedding in Mazatlan or at the PB emerald bay or has questions, please feel free to send me an email or private message. I can also provide pics as needed.

Janelle