Our Unforgettable DIY Mexico Beach Wedding in San Pancho
Discover how we organized our DIY Mexico Beach Wedding in San Pancho, Nayarit
In 2021 we were sitting on the northern end of Playa San Pancho discussing places we could get married.
Kelli is from the US, I am from Australia, and we met in Europe. With friends and family scattered all over the globe, we knew we would need to pick somewhere pretty special, to lure them all in.
The Mediterranean perhaps? No, we haven’t spent enough time there to know the lay of the land. Maybe South Carolina or somewhere in Georgia? Too expensive and not exotic enough. Australia? Too far!
We fell silent. Sitting under a palm tree, we had the beach all to ourselves. We stared dejectedly out over the sparkling Pacific coast, a gentle breeze taking the bite of the warm Mexican sun, listening to the waves crash gently against the shore. Why couldn’t we think of the perfect place to get married?
Slowly it started to dawn on us, the answer had been under our toes the whole time.
It was our second time in the small coastal town of San Pancho and it was already one of our all-time favorite places in Mexico. A charming coastal village set amongst the jungle with the ideal mix of laid-back beach vibes, and plenty of amenities for visitors to enjoy a comfortable vacation.
With the destination decided and the date set for nine months later, we began planning our Mexican beach wedding in San Pancho.
Our DIY Mexican Beach Wedding in San Pancho
If you follow the blog you can probably guess that our ideal wedding wasn’t going to be a large stuffy affair in an all-inclusive resort, but rather something small, unique, and meaningful to us that we built from the ground up.
We also decided, with friends and family coming from as far as Australia, that we wanted to have a few days before the wedding in San Pancho where we could spend time with our guests and let everyone get to know each other before the big day. We wanted to be able to show off one of the best beaches we’ve traveled to and spent time in, so we created a five-day itinerary for guests to participate in if they wanted.
The Venue
Wanting to comfortably host multiple events and spend as much time with everyone as possible, we decided to book a large home that was able to act as a base that could hold several gatherings including the wedding ceremony for our guest list of around 50 people.
This way some of our friends and family could stay with us and we wouldn’t need to pay for a separate venue. We asked people to pay to stay at the property but we subsidized some of the cost as we planned to use it for wedding events as well.
To find a house, we made a short list of properties that suited our needs and was within our budget using Booking.com . Then, we started to contact the property owners or managers to ask them if the owners were open to us hosting events at the properties.
In the end, we settled on the spectacular Casa Flor de la Vida. They were incredibly helpful and open to our requests to host events, as long as we respected the home, followed the house rules, and followed the rules of the gated community “Las Olas” where it is located.
Our Mexico Beach Wedding in San Pancho Itinerary
With people coming from as far away as Australia we tried to treat our wedding as a holiday as well as a wedding. We wanted to plan enough activities so that we could spend some quality time with friends and family that traveled to be here.
Day 1: Day of the Dead Bachelor and Bachelorette Party
We decided to kick off the festivities with a joint bachelor and bachelorette party which just so happened to coincide with the Day of the Dead, one of Mexico’s most important and festive cultural celebrations.
We chose to have the party in the nearby town of Sayulita which is known for its annual Day of the Dead celebrations as well as its vibrant nightlife.
We booked a sit-down dinner at Sueños Creative Cuisine and Cocktails in Sayulita. An upmarket restaurant and bar with a private dining room, open plan kitchen, and absolutely stellar food and drinks.
After dinner, we headed out to soak up the atmosphere of the Day of the Dead celebrations taking place in the center of the town.
Day 2: Relaxation
With festivities well into the night the day before, Day 2 was all about relaxation. We arranged to have massages at the house. Many people dropped in to say hello but also had time to explore the town on their own.
In the evening, we took our families out to dinner at Ikan Cocina Marina, for modern Mexican seafood. From there we went for a beer at the Cerveceria Artisenal, San Pancho’s very own craft beer pub.
Day 3: Sunset Hike and Welcome Drinks
This was the day that many people arrived from the US. Given that people were likely to be arriving in the morning, we kept the morning free and scheduled a hike in the late afternoon hoping to catch a glimpse of the sunset.
We had planned to hike the trail to Sayulita but damage from the hurricane made this more difficult. Instead, we hiked on the jungle road north out of town toward the Buddha statue but only made it as far as the northernmost end of San Pacho beach.
After the hike, we welcomed everyone at the house in the evening for a welcome drink and pizza from Pizza El Punto. Things were kept casual and people could drop in as they wanted throughout the night.
Afterward, we headed out to Punto Las Olas a food hall and bar which has an upstairs area that was suitable to hold everyone in our party.
Day 4: Activities
Day 4 of the wedding itinerary was jammed pack. We had activities from sun up to sun down as we wanted everyone to be able to spend time together, get to know one another, and take in some of our favorite things to do in San Pancho.
First up was yoga at the villa. We had a local yoga instructor come to the house and take a session in the beautiful palapa on the property.
From there we took a surf lesson. We used a company in Sayulita, but if I did it again I would use the local company Nativa Surf Shop which can organize lessons, boards, and transport for your group.
After surfing, it was down to the Playa San Pancho for a beach party. Music, colorful umbrellas, and coolers full of drinks were hauled down so we could spend an afternoon soaking in the sunshine on the beach.
Around 4 pm, it was time to head in for showers and get ready for our welcome dinner.
We had chosen La Perla for its delicious, unpretentious, authentic Mexican seafood, and of course its perfect location. The restaurant, right on the beach under a palapa with perfect views of the sunset over the Pacific Ocean is one of the highlights of San Pancho.
We had dropped off some decorations earlier in the day, large white papel picado which the owners had generously put up for us. We had settled on a set menu in the weeks leading up to the wedding of guacamole, pico de gallo, bacon-wrapped shrimp, coconut shrimp, agua chiles, ceviche, and finally whole grilled fish served with warm tortillas, beans, rice, and salsas. We served margaritas and ice-cold cervezas and the occasional celebratory shot of tequila.
The welcome dinner was a huge success, the food was wonderful, the sunset magical and Kelli and I were able to welcome our guests very much in our personal understated style.
Once dinner was concluded it was off to the local bar El Gallo for salsa lessons and to enjoy an evening full of music, dancing, and, of course, more tequila.
Day 5: The Boda
The big day began with pilates to get everyone warmed and limber for the festivities ahead.
After that, everyone was free to enjoy their day and slowly get ready while we put the finishing touches on the house and garden before the wedding.
Garden furniture and audio equipment were delivered, the florist appeared with flowers, and family and friends helped us decorate with festoon lights and more papel picada.
Kelli’s family, devout college football fans, watched the biggest game of the season (GA vs TEN) as Kelli got ready, the Bulldogs won comfortably, a very good omen.
We had our ceremony in the backyard of the house with Kelli’s brother, Rob, acting as the marriage officiant.
A local musician Andrea Olivet, who we had heard playing at the local bar Cerveceria Artisanal on our previous trip to San Pancho, played at the wedding and during the ceremony.
Rather than use a wedding caterer, we chose to approach one of our favorite restaurants in San Pancho, Su Pancha Madre, and ask if they would be up to it. Despite, not having catered an event before the owner Mao was very receptive to the idea and delivered a wonderful dinner and drinks service. We didn’t have a sit-down dinner but rather had a self-service-style dinner.
After dinner, we had speeches on the lawn and danced in the large palapa.
Finally, around 10 pm the wedding ended and taxis arrived to take late-night revelers to Sayuliuta to party at beach bar El Patio.
Day 6: The Recovery Brunch
The recovery brunch was kept simple. Breakfast was delivered to the house by our favorite local cafe in San Pancho, Dough Jo, which specializes in delicious donuts and American-style biscuits and sandwiches loaded with breakfast favorites.
We had coffee and fresh juice for those needing to make their flights and mimosas and cold beer for those staying.
With nothing to do, we lazed by the pool soaking up the last bit of our perfect DIY Mexican beach wedding in San Pancho.
Our Mexico Beach Wedding Cost
We had a budget of $20,000 USD which we were able to make go a long way in Mexico through careful planning and organizing all the events ourselves. We were pretty surprised that even in Mexico just mentioning the word “wedding” or Googling for wedding-type services made prices a lot more comparable with what we would expect to be paying in the United States or Australia.
For example, if we wanted to book the nearby (and luxurious) beach club in San Pancho for an evening, it was going to set us back thousands and thousands of dollars, not something we were interested in doing. Instead, we approached local businesses, many of them who hadn’t done weddings before, and asked them to cater to our private accommodation. Many optional individual events like surfing, and massages we asked guests to pay for.
Here is what we spent by category:
Tips For Saving on Mexico Wedding Costs
Obviously, there are many different ways to plan a Mexico beach wedding. Some choose to get married at an all-inclusive resort where wedding costs are fixed. We chose to organize it ourselves to reflect our personal style and keep a handle on costs. These are some of the best ways to manage costs.
1. Book a Large House for the Wedding and Share the Cost with Friends and Family
One of the best and easiest ways to save on wedding costs is to rent a large house and invite friends and family to stay with you. We rented a large house where we held three of the four official “wedding functions”, the welcome drinks, the wedding, and the recovery brunch. Although we paid more, having people stay there for the week with us allowed us to share some of the financial costs, as well as give us the opportunity to spend more time with friends and family.
2. Reach Out to Local Businesses for Catering
In our experience, food at weddings can be lackluster and expensive. After we had decided to have our wedding in San Pancho, we decided to avoid traditional wedding catering services and instead approach local restaurants we knew and loved to provide the food and drink. Not all the restaurants we approached were able to help us but in the end, we worked with several businesses in the town to deliver key wedding events. Notably:
- Su Pancha Madre who catered the wedding
- La Perla who hosted our official welcome dinner on Friday night
- Sueños Creative Cuisine and Cocktails in Sayulita
- Pizza El Punto who catered our welcome drinks at the house on Thursday
- The Dough Joe who catered the recovery brunch
- We also visited El Gallo, Punto Las Olas bars, and El Patio in Sayulita which hosted our large group for drinks after the main events
3. Skip the Wedding Planner
You may think we are crazy with this one, but you got this. Having someone to actually plan your wedding is in our personal opinion an unnecessary expense, especially for a smaller DIY wedding where you will likely need to decide on and organize most things yourself.
That being said having someone on the day to run point may have been a worthwhile investment as we were the ones that had to manage caterers and remember all the bits and pieces on the day.
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Hopefully, we have been able to provide a little bit of insight into our DIY Mexico Beach Wedding in San Pancho! It was an amazing week that we will never forget and we are so grateful we got to spend it in such an amazing place with so many of our favorite people!
If you have any questions about holding your own destination wedding in Mexico, let us know in the comments below or send an email to thevanabonds(a)thevanabondtales.com
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