chickky311

Our whole group is staying at the Cozumel Palace, but my wedding and reception will take place on the beach at Mr. Sanchos.

I'm getting married in Cozumel too. We will be staying Cozumel Palace, but the wedding will be off site at Mr. Sanchos. They have a great beach there, and after sundown you can have their entire restaurant area for your reception (they close it to the public). I'm working with Cozumel Wedding Planners and they have been great!

Also, I totally agree with you on this. But part of the problem is that everyone else wants to be there and do a big celebration at the time of our legal ceremony and thats not what we want. If its just him and I, we can do the legal ceremony and it won't have to be some big production. I would much rather do all the celebrating in Mexico!

Thanks for all of your comments. The part that I'm having a problem with is that we want to do the legal marriage part before the wedding in Mexico, but we want that legal part at the courthouse to be just us BECAUSE we are not going to be dressing up or celebrating on that day. We want it to be a nice quiet moment with just the two of us. But family members have expressed that if we do get legally married somewhere other than in Mexico, that they want to be there for that too. So I either give up on how we want things and let other people come to the courthouse, or we do it in secret and lie to my parents and everyone and just pretend that we are getting legally married in Mexico. Thats the part that I'm having a hard time with. Do I do what I want and risk hurting their feelings, or give up on what I want and let them do what they want, or just lie to everyone?

I've been really struggling with this issue lately, so I hope somebody can give me some advice. We are getting married in Cozumel on 11/6/13. After finding out about all the hoops you have to jump through to do the legal ceremony in Mexico, we decided to get married at home in the courthouse prior to our wedding in Mexico. Of course our friends and family will all be there in Mexico and we are really looking forward to celebrating with them. The problem is that we kind of want our little courthouse ceremony to be a special moment for just the two of us, no family or friends. My parents and family members have all been under the assumption that we are getting legally married in Mexico, and I never told them that we were thinking of doing otherwise. I'm sure their feelings would be hurt if they knew that we got married without them being there, but I don't like the idea of lying to them either. My mother just called me at work today to tell me that her hairdresser told her that he has been to many destination weddings where the couple got legally married before the actual wedding, to avoid all the hassle of paperwork and blood tests, etc. She said she wanted to give me the info in case we hadn't considered that yet, it was something we should think about. I wasn't really sure what to say so I just told her that it was something that we had already considered. And I left it at that. But then my Dad was in the background saying that if we got married before the wedding in Mexico that they would want to be there. Shouldn't I be able to get married the way that I want though? I'm feeling very torn now between what we want and what everybody else wants. I feel like no matter what somebody isn't going to be happy and unfortunately I feel like that's probably going to end up being me. Any advice?

Hi, I'm getting married in Cozumel in November. We are doing our wedding (ceremony and reception) off-resort, at a beach club in Cozumel. I did not like any of the wedding packages that the resort was offering (we are staying at Cozumel Palace), and I wanted more privacy for us and our guests. The resort weddings tend to be less private, with many onlookers wandering around and staring. I feel like I have many more options to customize things exactly how I want them, and that was very important to me. Good luck with your planning!

No problem!

Are you working with a wedding planner? They can help with things like that and take a lot of the stress off your shoulders! I'm getting married in Cozumel in November 2013, and I'm using Cozumel Wedding Planner. They have been great to work with so far. www.cozumelweddingplanner.com

I don't know why that went through twice, sorry!

You can have a legal ceremony and a religious ceremony together. Or you can just have the religious ceremony, which most refer to as the "symbolic" ceremony, and that can be done by anyone, Catholic or not. You can always get legally married at home before the wedding in Mexico. That's what I'm doing...the legal requirements for marrying in Mexico are crazy!

You can have a legal ceremony and a religious ceremony together. Or you can just have the religious ceremony, which most refer to as the "symbolic" ceremony, and that can be done by anyone, Catholic or not. You can always get legally married at home before the wedding in Mexico. That's what I'm doing...the legal requirements for marrying in Mexico are crazy!

Those pictures are wonderful....and you look so happy!! Congratulations!

I am getting married in Cozumel at a beach club, and I have a wedding coordinator there handling stuff like that for me. I have the option to have a 5 piece mariachi band there for one hour for $375. I don't know if the mariachi band they hire is exclusive to Cozumel, but I'm sure you can contact them and ask since the price is so good, and Cancun is so close. I wouldn't know how to contact the mariachi band directly, but here is a link to my wedding coordinator, and I'm sure they could give you the info. http://www.cozumelweddingplanner.com/

I've just hired Ivan Luckie as my photographer for my TTD. Does anyone have any experience with him that they can share? I guess I just want reassurance that I made a good choice to spend all that money on! Any pictures anyone can post would be awesome, thanks!

Anyone have any experiences doing a TTD in Cozumel? I've seen so many wonderful pictures posted on the forum, it has really made me want to do it too! We are getting married at Mr. Sanchos in Cozumel in Nov 2013. I've been to Cozumel before but at the time I wasn't scouting out wedding locations. Anybody have recommendations for a TTD? We are having a sunset ceremony, so I assume that any TTD photos we do will have to be the next day.

Jennifer, Can I ask, where in Cozumel did you have your wedding? We have ours booked at Mr. Sanchos, but I'm just curious about other brides' experiences with other locations. I ended up choosing Mr. Sanchos becaus I've been there and I liked it alot for a wedding, also I didn't like the fact that our resort didn't have any secluded/private area for the wedding ceremony. Thanks!

One thing that the TA offered that I liked a lot is that the deposit I would have to put down for the block of rooms is much less with her than what the resort quoted me. (Booking directly with the resort they wanted me to pay for my own room in full as the deposit for all the rooms….versus with the TA I only have to put down a 10% deposit on the total # of rooms). She also told me that with a TA, my guests can pay for their rooms in installments, instead of one lump sum payment up front. I’ve done some research on packages (resort + airfare) and I haven’t found anything quite as cheap as the group rates I can get by reserving a block of rooms. The TA told me that she can bundle the group rate with airfare at the time of booking, if that’s what my guests want to do. So unless somebody here has any other recommendations, I think that’s what I’m going to do. Secure the block of rooms at the group rate, and give my guests the option of booking the flight with their room or separate. Does this sound like a good plan? There’s so many decisions that I never considered before…I wish I knew if I was doing the right thing.

Hi everyone! I am in the beginning stages of planning my wedding, which will be held at Mr. Sancho's in Nov 2013. I have already hired Cozumel Wedding Planner and we have the ball rolling on that already. We will be staying at Cozumel Palace, and this is where I need some help! I've been communicating with Palace Resorts group booking department, and they have quoted me group prices which I can secure with a deposit, and the deposit would be the cost of my own room paid in full to reserve the rest of the rooms. I got an email from one of the TA's on here (Teresa at Vacations 4 Less), with an offer to help me with my travel bookings. She quoted me basically the same prices, with the difference being that I would have to pay a percentage up front for all of the rooms as a deposit, instead of paying for my room in full like Palace Resorts was asking. I really have no idea which option is better. What exactly can the TA do for me that I can't do for myself, if the prices aren't any different? My other question is this: how far in advance did you brides start booking things like hotels and airfare? I know that airfares are not published until 330 days in advance, so I'm wondering if I should hold off on sending out the hotel info to my guests until the airfares are published, so that they can look at package deals (hotel + airfare)? Or are we better off informing everybody now, and just going with the group rate at the hotel and leaving the guests to find airfare on their own? I want to get the best rates for my guests, but at this point I don't know if there will be good deals a few months from now on packages, or if we should just start the group booking process with the hotel now? Or should I let the TA do the booking for me? Has anybody on here used a TA for booking group travel? Did you go with reserving a block of rooms at your resort?