Choosing to hold your destination wedding at a private villa is a fantastic alternative to holding it at a commercial hotel. However, the decision to do so and the process of selecting which one are both a bit more complicated. This series of articles gives you all the information you need in order to make the best decision possible for your wedding.
Here in this series of articles published weekly we offer you the inside scoop on the financial and “strategic” aspects of renting a private villa for your destination wedding:
- PART ONE: How and why villa owners price their properties, and when those prices change.
- PART TWO: What all the costs are involved with renting a private villa.
- PART THREE: How those rental costs are normally divided among the group staying there.
- PART FOUR: How to negotiate with your friends and family for their part of the booking price.
- PART FIVE: How to save money and protect yourself financially on your booking.
- PART SIX: The actual price range of our event villas in the Mexican Caribbean.
PART FIVE: Best Strategies for Saving Money and Reducing Financial Risk in Private Villa Rentals
Simply put, renting a private villa for your destination wedding is not a bargain. It’s not meant to be. It’s a splurge, let’s face it. But even having said that, there are ways to maximize your wow factor while minimizing your financial risk. Here we outline several strategies to protect yourselves when making such important decisions.
Tip #1 – Rent a full week, even if the minimum nights is less. In some cases, villa owners may waive an event fee if you book their house for a full seven nights or more in low or shoulder season. Their minimum may be 4 or 5 nights, but if you negotiate with them, and have your group stay in their house up to 7 nights, they may agree to waive or at least lower their event rental fee.
Tip #2 – Buy travel insurance, and make sure that the policy you buy includes villa rentals to private owners. Just in case of anything happening that jeopardizes your event, or even postpones it, can risk a significant financial hit to you, because only a fraction of villa owners will give refunds, especially if the cancellation occurs relatively soon before the rental dates. This risk is significantly larger than normal travel plans, so it’s definitely worth investing in.
Tip #3. Rent the smallest villa you can get away with and still have the perfect venue. Whether you’re right on the beach, a few steps away, on a cliff overlooking the ocean, or even in the middle of the jungle, your first priority in choosing a villa should be that it’s the perfect venue for your event. But right after that, all other things being equal, it’s better to rent the villa with the fewest number of bedrooms, because that puts you the couple at the least financial risk possible. There is always some chance that your friends or family whom you plan to stay in the villa’s bedrooms and help you pay for the villa rental may not be able to attend. So it’s always better to choose a smaller house that still has sufficient grounds for your event.
Tip #4 is directly related to #3. Rent the villa with the lowest number of minimum rental nights, again because it puts you at the least financial risk possible. It is always easier to get people to agree to spend fewer nights and less money. IF you and your guests can meet the villa’s minimum room nights AND decide that you want to stay on more nights, even better (see Tip #1). But your financial risk is less with fewer nights as a minimum.
Tip #5. Don’t automatically choose low season just because it seems cheaper. Shoulder season or even high season could work out to be cheaper in the long run.
As responsible wedding planners, one of our main jobs is to minimize the risk of something going wrong during your event. Therefore, should you be tempted to want to save money by booking your private luxury villa during the off-season, we will then dog you constantly to invest in a tent (assuming, like 99% of couples, that you want your ceremony and reception outdoors), because there’s a reason the off-season is the off-season! It can rain and thunderstorm and even host a hurricane here in Mexico in the summer and fall months. So we don’t at all recommend running the risk of an uncovered venue, unless there’s an obvious covered space big enough to seat everyone to act as Plan B for both the ceremony and the reception.
Thus, it will most likely turn out to be cheaper in the end to pay the higher prices in the high season or shoulder season to avoid the expense of renting a tent. As counterintuitive as it sounds, you have to think of paying for your entire event experience, and the villa rental is only one part of that puzzle. Rental tents here can be quite expensive, and villa owners typically hate them because of the wear and tear on their properties. And let’s face it, peering out through tent walls to the ocean while it’s raining isn’t nearly as romantic or delightful as looking up at the romantic stars on a moonlit night when people you know at home are freezing their tails off! So, bottom line, it’s best, and typically a bit cheaper, to schedule your wedding in the winter high season or shoulder seasons than in the rainy low season. Your guests will probably pay a little more, but they’ll enjoy it more. And you will most likely wind up paying slightly less for the overall event.
