Choosing the right venue for your LGBT destination wedding celebration in Mexico is the first and one of the most important decisions that you’ll be making during your planning process, along with the lodging options for your guests. It is typically a very complex decision to make, based on many different factors. We have found that most of these factors depend more on your guests than on you the couple! Surprised?
Well, taking good care of your guests should be right up there among your top priorities when contemplating and planning your destination wedding. After all, you’re asking a lot from them—an international trip, probably 4-7 days of their time, relatively expensive accommodations, perhaps new clothes, maybe even a wedding gift! Of course, you’re also giving them the opportunity of a wonderful vacation and a beautiful event in Mexico. Yet you still definitely want to make their wishes and needs a high priority in your planning process.
In the list below, we break this complex venue situation down into a more manageable set of choices, based on a priority list that we have used with previous clients. Hopefully it will help you as well when choosing the perfect venue for your big night!
- Sand or no sand? All our venues are at or overlooking the ocean, but not all actually have sand. More than half of our couples are looking for sand, but not all. Which category do you fit into?
- Complete or partial privacy for your celebration? This is closely related to #1. All beaches in Mexico are public, so there’s nothing necessarily stopping someone else from watching what’s going on. This is especially prevalent at larger hotels and all-inclusive resorts, where it’s virtually impossible to be on the beach without other hotel guests rubber-necking. The majority of our properties are beachside or waterfront, and have roped-off areas next to or above the actual sandy beach, so many couples choose to have their ceremony on/in the sand and the banquet/reception in the more-private area. Which would you prefer?
- You must FALL IN LOVE with your venue upon visiting it! No kidding! We are always looking for a visceral and emotional “wow” reaction from our clients when we visit sites with them. You want to be proud of the venue you’ve chosen and want to show it off to your family and friends.
- Lodging in same place as venue. This is both a preference and potentially a financial issue. Depending on the size of your group, it is sometimes possible to get a free or discounted venue for your wedding ceremony and party if enough guests are staying enough nights there as well. This can work at hotels of all sizes and even sometimes with private luxury villas. Each venue and situation is different, so please contact us for more details.
- Size of your group of guests. Most couples prefer their ceremony/reception venue at the same place where most everyone is lodging, so if you’re in this category (see #4), it’s important to factor in the size of your group because it greatly affects the type of lodging you’ll be looking for. For instance, small groups could get lost and overwhelmed within a big hotel or resort, while large groups would never fit into a private villa.
- Should everyone stay together in the same place? For some couples this is very important, while for others it really doesn’t matter. Where do you fall? Is it important, for instance, that the two families get lots of opportunities to interact throughout their joint stay? Or would you like your families of origin to spend lots of time with your social friends? Smaller and more-intimate places like boutique hotels and private luxury villas are typically more conducive to this type of interaction. And we have even seen couples rent two neighboring villas and put his family in one and his family in the other, or the venue villa houses all the wedding party and a nearby boutique hotels acts as the HQ for the other guests and the welcome party and the recovery brunch the day after the wedding. There are millions of possibilities!
- Any guests with special needs? Differently-abled? (wheelchairs and sand don’t mix)
- How active are your guests during the day? Are they going to want to just lie by the pool all day sipping cocktails, or are they going to want to get up and out to be on tours or excursions? Or a combination? If we’re talking sloths, it’s o.k. if the lodging location is relatively isolated, but if they want to be running around, either on tours or on their own, they may need to be based centrally, hopefully within walking distance of interesting and urban things.
- How active are your guests at night? Are they in bed by 10:00 p.m., or are they wanting to be carousing somewhere into the wee hours? Again, if the former, it doesn’t matter so much, but if they’re the party-hearty types, it’s important that they’re within easy striking distance of some good bars and/or nightclubs. Otherwise it could cost them some serious money to get home in a taxi at night, because they sure shouldn’t be driving any rental cars.
- Fear factor. Many of our well-traveled clients sometimes feel “limited” by their relatives and friends who may be leery to travel, especially to “dangerous” Mexico. While we certainly don’t agree with that assessment, it’s important to take their perspective into consideration and take good care of those guests; otherwise you’d risk them not coming at all. We have plenty of venue options with security guards and gated communities, so it’s completely feasible; however, it does narrow down the options if you need to “prove” the security to them.
- Straight friends/family and gay friends/family. Very sorry for making a gross generalization, but it’s another thing that we have found over the years. More gay and lesbian guests share that it’s important to be in or close to more-urban and dynamic locations than do their straight counterparts. So our suggestion is simply to take that into consideration when analyzing the demographics of your guest list—if a majority of the guests are gay or lesbian, you’d be wise to choose their lodging in or close to an urban center, i.e. the Romantic Zone of Puerto Vallarta.
If you have questions regarding the size and “demographics” of your group and how they would best fit into the many lodging/venue options available here in Mexico, please contact us for a free strategy session at info@www.mexicoeventdesign.com or call 737-212-2165.
