Umami
20th November 2011, 08:26 PM
I believe Margo may have prefaced this week in some detail :) She was a large part of my wedding week.
I've actually originally typed most of this up on my wedding blog, which you can check out here. (http://tpsweddingventure.blogspot.com/) I'm going to break it up the same way I did on the blog and simply, slowly, update day by day. For background Pete and I went on a cruise in 2009 to get a feel for places in the Caribbean, we visited Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel. We didn't actually stay in Cozumel we did the Tulum ruins tour. When we walking around after the official tour we both said "wouldn't it be nice to be married here." In 2010 Pete proposed and we started working on getting married in Tulum.
We ended up married in Soliman Bay for a couple of reasons, but made use of a bunch of Tulum folks, so it all works out :) In the fall of 2010 I contacted Destination Scout, LLC. (http://destinationscout.com/) and immediately felt I had found my wedding coordinator. I had been chatting with other folks in the Tulum area, which was a benefit for them, since Destination Scout works out of the US. However, Malisa was responsive, had an attack plan, up front about her costs and for a modest fee would set up appointments for your scouting trip. I agreed to that, I mean that was definitely a no brainer, and in the end we saw a ton of the area. We also got to meet Margo.
Over a 5 day trip we had a tour of the Sian Ka'an (which now that everyone's been to the area they would enjoy), Tulum, and Soliman Bay. We had originally chosen El Pez as our wedding reception site, but the owners of El Pez were not clear on what direction they wanted their property to go nor were they comfortable dealing with a someone who has Celiac's (Pete). Celiac's is a gluten intolerance, so Pete cannot have any wheat flour, barely, rye, semolina, spelt, any relative or protein homologue of wheat. Our second choice was actually one of the houses in Soliman Bay. All of our guests (or folks who were supposed to be guests) voted for air conditioning despite Pete and I working very hard to wrap folks heads around enjoying the lovely breeze that graces the area. The reason we didn't opt for one of the Sian Ka'an houses was because I felt it would have been a little to far removed, as is I caught a lot of flak for saying the road into Soliman Bay was a road (it's totally a road). So nice house it was, AND my Mom is not a strong swimmer and I felt that the gentler water and good snorkeling would go far.
Over the course of the next year Malisa from Destination Scout, Pete and myself worked out all the minutiae of the wedding and we ended up doing a LOT on our own (in terms of making stuff). If anyone needs help making boarding pass invites I am your gal, or making day of the dead centerpiece skulls...the best laid plans always have a way of getting changed. This also is my Karma, but I think this went a lot better in the end then the skunk that showed up on my 30th birthday.
Our wedding week was October 22-30th and the honeymoon week was the 30-November 4th. I had known that it had been rainy on the Yucatan, so rainy it made world wide news about mudslides and flooding, I did have that in the back of my mind when we boarded the plane. In hindsight starting the week with the wedding would have allowed all the plans to take place, but we had constructed it so that there was a slow build up to Friday. Pete and I were not sharing a room, it was going to be a spectacular and triumphant end, it would be brilliant! And it was, just it took some doing.
On Saturday Malisa, Pete and I all arrived. Actually Pete and I got in about 5 hours before Malisa. We had quite the luggage...first of all we probably had 20lbs of acrylic skulls that were gifts and for decoration (centerpieces). We had 5" tall ones with flowers embedded in them and 3" ones that we hand painted all sorts of colors.
781
On top of this we had $300 worth of lights, pool lights, outdoor lights, white Christmas lights, AND 4.5kg of gluten free flour for our caterer. Boy customs was fun. Actually it was fine. We were searched, I had receipts for everything and I wrote "No Para La Reventa" on EVERYTHING. I highly recommend that, that worked well. 
Then we went to Costco, spent a fortune and waited for Malisa in the airport parking lot. It was a weird afternoon. Then we grabbed dinner in Playa Del Carmen. We had booked a night at Casa Ticul (http://www.casaticul.com/) which is a super cute boutique hotel in Playa. It is on 5th but where you can drive on it, so it isn't right in the middle of the drunken mess of Playa. We enjoyed our stay, but solidified the feeling that we're not overly in love with Playa. I live near 5 colleges, I get to see drunken stupidity pretty regularly, so when I'm on vacation I'd rather not see it. The hotel itself was great to us. The rooms were clean, comfortable, and the water had good pressure. They made us heart shaped pancakes in the morning, which only I could eat, but that was ok. They didn't know Pete couldn't have them.
That's it for Saturday. Sunday will be next!
I've actually originally typed most of this up on my wedding blog, which you can check out here. (http://tpsweddingventure.blogspot.com/) I'm going to break it up the same way I did on the blog and simply, slowly, update day by day. For background Pete and I went on a cruise in 2009 to get a feel for places in the Caribbean, we visited Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel. We didn't actually stay in Cozumel we did the Tulum ruins tour. When we walking around after the official tour we both said "wouldn't it be nice to be married here." In 2010 Pete proposed and we started working on getting married in Tulum.
We ended up married in Soliman Bay for a couple of reasons, but made use of a bunch of Tulum folks, so it all works out :) In the fall of 2010 I contacted Destination Scout, LLC. (http://destinationscout.com/) and immediately felt I had found my wedding coordinator. I had been chatting with other folks in the Tulum area, which was a benefit for them, since Destination Scout works out of the US. However, Malisa was responsive, had an attack plan, up front about her costs and for a modest fee would set up appointments for your scouting trip. I agreed to that, I mean that was definitely a no brainer, and in the end we saw a ton of the area. We also got to meet Margo.
Over a 5 day trip we had a tour of the Sian Ka'an (which now that everyone's been to the area they would enjoy), Tulum, and Soliman Bay. We had originally chosen El Pez as our wedding reception site, but the owners of El Pez were not clear on what direction they wanted their property to go nor were they comfortable dealing with a someone who has Celiac's (Pete). Celiac's is a gluten intolerance, so Pete cannot have any wheat flour, barely, rye, semolina, spelt, any relative or protein homologue of wheat. Our second choice was actually one of the houses in Soliman Bay. All of our guests (or folks who were supposed to be guests) voted for air conditioning despite Pete and I working very hard to wrap folks heads around enjoying the lovely breeze that graces the area. The reason we didn't opt for one of the Sian Ka'an houses was because I felt it would have been a little to far removed, as is I caught a lot of flak for saying the road into Soliman Bay was a road (it's totally a road). So nice house it was, AND my Mom is not a strong swimmer and I felt that the gentler water and good snorkeling would go far.
Over the course of the next year Malisa from Destination Scout, Pete and myself worked out all the minutiae of the wedding and we ended up doing a LOT on our own (in terms of making stuff). If anyone needs help making boarding pass invites I am your gal, or making day of the dead centerpiece skulls...the best laid plans always have a way of getting changed. This also is my Karma, but I think this went a lot better in the end then the skunk that showed up on my 30th birthday.
Our wedding week was October 22-30th and the honeymoon week was the 30-November 4th. I had known that it had been rainy on the Yucatan, so rainy it made world wide news about mudslides and flooding, I did have that in the back of my mind when we boarded the plane. In hindsight starting the week with the wedding would have allowed all the plans to take place, but we had constructed it so that there was a slow build up to Friday. Pete and I were not sharing a room, it was going to be a spectacular and triumphant end, it would be brilliant! And it was, just it took some doing.
On Saturday Malisa, Pete and I all arrived. Actually Pete and I got in about 5 hours before Malisa. We had quite the luggage...first of all we probably had 20lbs of acrylic skulls that were gifts and for decoration (centerpieces). We had 5" tall ones with flowers embedded in them and 3" ones that we hand painted all sorts of colors.
781
On top of this we had $300 worth of lights, pool lights, outdoor lights, white Christmas lights, AND 4.5kg of gluten free flour for our caterer. Boy customs was fun. Actually it was fine. We were searched, I had receipts for everything and I wrote "No Para La Reventa" on EVERYTHING. I highly recommend that, that worked well. 
Then we went to Costco, spent a fortune and waited for Malisa in the airport parking lot. It was a weird afternoon. Then we grabbed dinner in Playa Del Carmen. We had booked a night at Casa Ticul (http://www.casaticul.com/) which is a super cute boutique hotel in Playa. It is on 5th but where you can drive on it, so it isn't right in the middle of the drunken mess of Playa. We enjoyed our stay, but solidified the feeling that we're not overly in love with Playa. I live near 5 colleges, I get to see drunken stupidity pretty regularly, so when I'm on vacation I'd rather not see it. The hotel itself was great to us. The rooms were clean, comfortable, and the water had good pressure. They made us heart shaped pancakes in the morning, which only I could eat, but that was ok. They didn't know Pete couldn't have them.
That's it for Saturday. Sunday will be next!