Our Wedding in Mexico (Part 2)

If you’re just joining me for our wedding in Mexico series, catch up with the first part of this post, Our Wedding in Mexico (Part 1)

Once we picked our venue, set a date and designated a room block at the quaint and quirky boutique Cabo Surf Hotel, I was ready to get planning. I’m not a last-minute kind of girl and I didn’t want to leave anything until then. 

I quickly found out that planning ahead isn’t how it works – or at least not in Mexico. My planner had probably 20 or more weddings in the year leading up to mine, so I compiled my thoughts and inspiration on Pinterest to bide my time. 

In September we heard the news that Hurricane Odile had hit Cabo San Lucas. Having been through a hurricane in New York City, we were sympathetic and optimistic, hoping for the best for a wedding in Mexico.

A couple months later, we knew that the wedding could go on as usual and although many of the hotels and venues in the vicinity had been severely damaged and some wiped out, our chosen venues made it through and were back in business in no time.  

The Ceremony

Even though we were having our wedding in Mexico, we chose Flora Farm for our venue, we didn’t want to get married on a beach or at the farm. I googled “Catholic Church in Cabo San Lucas” and found Mision de San Jose del Cabo Anuiti.

It was everything.

And when I physically saw it, it was even more. I knew we would get married there and it would be perfect. I was right.

The church had a beautiful, simple holiness to it.

However, I wasn’t expecting the many challenges a Mexican church wedding would present.

First, finding a priest in NYC who was willing to help us with the paperwork needed to have a wedding in Mexico was close to impossible. Our first and second attempts failed and finally Father Hayes at Church of St. Andrew in Lower Manhattan, was gracious enough to help us get everything we needed to make our wedding Catholic Church-official.

Of course, this was a slower than slow process, one that required several calls and visits on foot (one of which ended with me getting locked inside the church kitchen alone on a Sunday afternoon for 30 minutes) to check on the status of things. Churches don’t work fast or over email so the process took 6-8 months from start to finish. 

Around the time of our planning trip in November, we were informed by our planner that the parish priest in Mexico might not approve our Saturday wedding date because it fell during Holy Week, the week before Easter Sunday. It was disappointing and by the time we got the final no, it was January. This final detail held up our invitations. Our planner presented a number of options to us, but ultimately we decided to change the date to Friday. We informed our guests via email and moved on with getting invitations sent out behind schedule. 

The final snafu is that once the paperwork was mailed to Mexico and received, the Church in Mexico misplaced it. We had to scramble to get everything sent again just weeks before the wedding. Yes, there were times when I wondered if this wedding in Mexico would even happen. 

After our planning trip in November, things did start falling into place, but the real stress came with tying up details and loose ends just two months out from the wedding. Looking back, I would have hired a personal assistant for this purpose alone. It would have been worth anything to me to have someone else deal with the back and forth between vendors and planners. 

Check back next week for the third and final post which will bring it all together and cover all the wedding details, including dress, flowers and more!