How We Chose Our Destination Wedding Venue

Not going to sugar coat this, figuring out how to plan a destination wedding has been TRICKY. From before we even got engaged, our plan was to have a destination wedding. Now where exactly we would get married… that was a tricky subject! We didn’t have any specific spot in mind to start looking, let alone a specific idea for a destination wedding venue. We knew we wanted somewhere warm, preferably by the ocean, but let’s be honest, that leaves dozens of options.

Spoiler alert: we ended up deciding on Paradisus Los Cabos as our destination wedding venue, but let’s dive into how we got to there!

How We Chose Our Destination Wedding Venue

First Steps to Figuring Out a Destination Wedding Venue

We sat down and talked about all of the places that were important to us and why they were important. Some of the reasons were because we visited a spot earlier in life, others were places we’ve always dreamt of going because of the photos we’ve seen. One thing that didn’t come up for us was somewhere we had traveled together, but this could be perfect for another couple!

As we dove into these places one thing stood out: the ocean. Great! Another theme was multi-dimensional views, think volcanoes, cliffs, mountains. This at least gave us a starting point.

Hawaii was pretty quickly ruled out when we looked at flight costs, as was St. Lucia. If budget for ourselves + our guests wasn’t something top of our priority list, I think Hawaii would be a fantastic place to have a wedding.

No Passport Required

We started looking to places in Mexico, but that was initially shot down by family because of worries abut safety and getting passports. So we started exploring elsewhere: Bahamas, Florida, California. Unfortunately we didn’t have much luck find affordable flights for Bahamas (I’ve personally only been there on a cruise). California, as you can guess, proved to be way out of our price range for venues. Florida we spent quite a bit of time looking into.

With Florida we thought it could be a good idea to get a rental property (or two) on the beach which could double as where we stayed + where we had the wedding. This was fantastic in theory! Sadly nearly every house we picked out on rental sites had strict no event policies because of HOA. We switched gears to property companies and they refused to give us quotes for summer 2020 because “factors change”. Y’all- I asked for BALLPARK price ranges to know if a house was even remotely something we could afford. I was blown away by the lack of assistance they provided us.

At this point we were feeling extremely overwhelmed (and beat down) on how to make this wedding happen. We didn’t want to spend a ton of money on the wedding (10k was the number we had in mind for a budget), but it was starting to feel like that was going to be impossible.

Family Heart to Heart

We were back in Kansas visiting family and we were being asked for wedding updates. I was pretty blunt in the fact that we were struggling. We told them we were trying to keep it cost effective for everyone to attend, as well as for the event itself, but our options weren’t giving us that. Again we brought up Mexico because from the Facebook groups I had joined (great resources!!) it seemed like that would be the best option for our price points. Flights were manageable, Southwest flew to many spots (which is what my family builds their points with), the resorts were all inclusive so there wouldn’t be any awkward splitting checks or asking everyone to pitch in for food and drinks at a house… and from what we could tell, we could do a wedding within our budget.

I was thrilled to find out that everyone was okay with Mexico as long as it was a safe resort and wasn’t happening until summer 2020. Back to the planning board for Austin and I! We both had renewed excitement about planning the wedding, which I can’t put into words how that truly felt. We were getting burnt out on the research and feeling beat down. I was ready to say F it, go to the court house and put off the wedding itself for a few years. Lots of tears shed. Lots of stress.

So, Mexico… Now What?

A huge step in the right direction, we are researching Mexico! I’ve been to quite a few places in Mexico so we were relying quite a bit on my experiences in the various locations. Although I had only been once, one of my all time favorite trips was to Cabo. I started showing Austin some photos and he loved what he was seeing. It was cliffs, dessert, ocean, cactus, palm trees… all the things we loved for the setting of our tropical destination wedding.

We went full speed ahead into researching destination wedding venues in Cabo. I attempted using literally 6 different travel agents in the process and they just made everything worse. Pushing us to places we already said we weren’t interested in for a variety of reasons– it was pretty clear to us it was based off the commission they’d be receiving.

I again consulted the Facebook groups online, as well as my amazing Instagram family to see what people have enjoyed in Cabo. Sandos Finisterra Los Cabos was a resort that came up many times, so we started diving into the details. Photos looked great, there was a beautiful dessert garden that was perfect for a ceremony, prices for rooms were in our ideal guest budget and the wedding packages were in our budget, too. BINGO! We booked a trip for later that year (my only regret here is we didn’t book sooner, but we couldn’t because of work schedules).

First Cabo Trip

In hind site, we should have booked our stays at multiple resorts. Or at least had some meetings planned at other hotels. But we truly thought we were going to fall in love with the resort.

During our trip, we set up a meeting with the wedding planner. We loved getting to chat with her and explore the resort. The spaces for ceremony and reception were aesthetically pleasing. The prices she was sharing seemed reasonable to us. The views were fantastic and would make gorgeous photos. We could both truly see our wedding happening there.

As the stay went on, we started getting a bit turned off. We never really loved our meals except for what we had at the pool bar. Everything was just a little bit on the dirty side, but nothing unbearable by any means. But then the last night we were there we both got horrible food poisoning from dinner. We later found out that friends we made on the trip were also experiencing the same stomach issues.

I am the first to understand that things happen. But that was a bad taste left in our memory and made me super nervous to not only have a wedding there, but ask our friends and family to spend so much money to visit there.

Back to the Drawing Board, Again

We started researching more and more places, mainly in Cabo, but had trouble finding places that fit both budgets. Some places had super low cost wedding packages, but the rooms were upwards of $700 per night. Others had rooms around $200 a night, but the wedding packages started at 10k. YIKES.

At this point we were super close to forgetting Cabo all together and looking at other places that haven’t been explored. Austin and I spent an afternoon doing one last deep dive into resorts. We found three possible destination wedding venues to look into by looking at Hotels.com for rooms in the price range, kudos to Austin for this one. I was all over Pinterest and focusing on wedding venues, but he ended up finding some great options in this simple search. Ladies, sometimes we overthink things and that’s we need a partner.

Simultaneously I had also opened up on Instagram about our struggles with the wedding. A gal named Alexa had left a comment asked if we had used a travel agent to help us. I replied letting her know that we had and I dove into all the issues on my blog post. After chatting with her a bit I realized she was a TA herself. She was never pushy about anything, but offered herself up as a resource for questions and things I was struggling with. I asked if we could set up a call that week to chat and the rest was history- she has been a true angel in the process.

Cabo Visit #2

With Alexa’s help, we started diving into all the nitty gritty via email with these resorts. Alexa was on top of it when it came to getting all of our questions answered. I wanted to have as much information as possible before visiting. There were 2 destination wedding venues that stood out to us at this point (Pueblo Bonita decided they didn’t need to reply to Alexa or I). Alexa helped set up a stay at the two resorts and a meeting with the wedding planners at each. We were moving forward again- YES!

Alexas’s Contact Info: Alexa Spahr – 214-597-5690 – alexa@travelwithalexa.com – web 

My mom and I went to Cabo this time around because limited PTO kept Austin in Texas. First stop on our wedding trip was two nights at Hacienda Encantada! This was the resort that had more “pros” going into the trip. The wedding coordinator was extremely responsive in all communications, the price point was perfect and the photo of the ceremony spot was what my dreams were made of.

The next stop on our visit was to Paradisus Los Cabos. We were staying one quick night and my mom and I planned to see as much as possible in that short window, even if that meant eating 3 dinners that night (which we did in fact do).

To be honest, we loved everything about both visits. After the trip it was time from some pro/con lists.

How We Made the Final Choice

Hacienda Encantada is cheaper for guests to stay at. But when comparing the two wedding packages, it was the more expensive option. However, Hacienda was open to trading things in the package (ie we didn’t need a wedding officiant, but wanted string lights) and Paradisus was not. Paradisus had a swimmable beach, Hacienda did not. Hacienda wedding team was very responsive, while it took multiple follows to get a reply from the Paradisus team. The food quality + options were both better at Paradisus and the service was quicker. The view/background of where we would get married at Hacienda was better, but there is no on site “night life” (everything closed by 10pm). Paradisus resort layout is very easy to get around, Hacienda has lots of hills and some guests would need a golf cart to move around. They both have very different aesthetics.

As you can see, they are strong in different areas and there was no one place that won on paper. I would have been happy getting married at either spot. But, the more I talked about the resorts out loud with Austin, the more it became clear that I thought Paradisus would be a better overall experience for us and our guests. So we booked it!

I’ll dive more into what we’re doing at the resort in another post soon.

Biggest Piece of Advice on Picking Your Destination Wedding Venue

Go with your gut. It’s hard not to listen to everyone else’s opinions, but you and your fiancé know best. At the end of the day remember it is your special day. You don’t want to have any regrets. Good luck finding the destination wedding venue of your dreams!