This post is about what it actually felt like to plan and live a destination wedding in Tulum, and how that experience reshaped how we work with every couple we photograph and plan for today. SOLAYA is a destination wedding photography, cinematic filmmaking, and planning studio based in Tulum, Mexico, founded by Zack and Vayle after their own Tulum wedding in March 2025. We know both sides of this.
In March 2025, we stood in the middle of the jungle and said our vows with twenty-three of the people we love most on earth.
We were not yet photographers-for-hire in Tulum. We were not yet planners. We were a couple who had moved from Seattle six months later, who had fallen so hard for this place that we decided to get married here before we even lived here. We coordinated everything from across the country, navigated the permits, researched the venues, argued over florals, and spent weeks agonizing over a timeline that would work for guests flying in from five different states.
And then we stood there. In the humidity and the golden light. And we felt everything we had missed while we were busy planning.
That experience is the foundation everything at SOLAYA is built on.
Why Planning a Destination Wedding Is Different from Planning a Wedding
When you plan a wedding at home, the logistics are annoying but manageable. You can drive to the venue. You can walk through the space again when something feels off. Your florist can drop by with samples.
When you plan a destination wedding in Tulum, you are coordinating across a time zone gap, a language barrier, and a venue you may have only seen in photographs. Most of the decisions that shape the entire week happen months before you land.
That gap between what you imagine and what actually happens on the ground is where things go wrong. Not because anyone is careless. Because nobody told you what to expect.
We know what to expect. We lived it.
What We Got Right (and What We Wish We Had Done Differently)
One thing we understood from the start: Tulum does most of the design work for you. The light here is unlike anywhere we had lived before. The cenotes, the jungle, the open-air venues like Sfer Ik or Ahau or the intimate garden terraces tucked behind the hotel zone, they carry a visual weight that no floral arrangement can replicate or outperform.
We kept our design minimal. That was the right call. We have since watched couples spend enormous amounts on elaborate floral installations at venues that serve dinner family style, which means the florals come off the table entirely when the food comes out. The investment disappears mid-reception. In Tulum, restraint is elegance. Let the place be the backdrop. Put your resources into the experience.
What we would do differently: document more of the small moments. Not the ceremony, not the portraits, but the afternoon before, when everyone gathered at the pool. The morning of, when Vayle's mother helped with her hair and nobody was performing for a camera. The late-night walk down the beach after the reception with two friends who had flown in from the east coast. Those are the moments we reach for now. They are quieter than the ceremony and more true to what the week actually felt like.
We build time for those moments into every wedding we plan and document now. Not because it makes a better film, though it does. Because it makes the whole thing more real.
Why Your Tulum Wedding Is a Week, Not a Day
If you are reading this from your couch in California or Texas or New York, here is something worth sitting with: the couples who remember their Tulum weddings most vividly are almost never talking about the ceremony when they describe it.
They are talking about the cenote swim the day before. The mezcal tasting that turned into a three-hour conversation. The sunrise that nobody planned but everyone witnessed from the rooftop. The dinner where your college roommate met your childhood best friend and they stayed up talking until 2 a.m.
A destination wedding is not a one-day event. It is a week-long gathering that happens to include a ceremony. When you plan it that way, something shifts. The pressure releases. The moments that matter stop feeling like they have to happen between 4:30 and 5:15.
We plan our couples' full weeks, not just their ceremony days. And we document the whole arc of it, the arrivals and the dinners and the long lazy afternoon before everything begins, because that is where the real story lives.
What a Coordinated Team Actually Changes
The other thing our own wedding clarified was this: the quality of your team determines how present you can be.
When every person working your wedding, the planner, the photographer, the florist, the caterer, understands the vision and communicates with each other before the day begins, you feel it. There is no moment where someone pulls you aside with a question. There is no gap between the ceremony ending and the next thing happening. The day moves like it was always going to move that way.
When that coordination is missing, you feel that too. You become the project manager of your own wedding. You are answering texts at 6 p.m. when you should be watching the sun go down.
We offer photography, cinematic filmmaking, and planning together for exactly this reason. Not because it is a convenient service structure, but because integration changes the outcome. One vision, one communication channel, one team that has already talked through every contingency before you arrive.
That is not a luxury. For a destination wedding being planned from another country, it is the most practical thing we offer.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Do I really need a planner for a destination wedding in Tulum?
For most couples planning a Tulum wedding remotely, yes. The permitting process, venue contracts, and local coordination require someone on the ground who has existing relationships and knows how the logistics actually work here. A planner does not just organize the timeline; they translate between your vision and what is actually possible in a specific space, in a specific season, with a specific team.
How do you coordinate everything when couples are planning from THE US OR ABROAD?
We work primarily through structured Notion boards and scheduled video calls, with clear milestones set well in advance of the wedding week. Every decision gets documented in writing so nothing lives in someone's inbox or memory. Most of our couples are surprised by how manageable the remote process feels when there is a clear system and a team that communicates proactively.
EWhat do most couples wish they had documented that they didn't?
Almost universally: the quieter moments outside the ceremony. The morning of, when the group is still loose and unhurried. The evening before, when everyone is finally in the same place for the first time. We plan documentation time for those moments deliberately now, because they are consistently what couples reference when they talk about what the week actually meant to them.
How far in advance should we book a Tulum wedding photographer and planner?
Most Tulum venues book out eight to fourteen months in advance, and a strong creative team books at the same pace. If your date is in the November through April dry season, which is peak season here, plan to secure your team at least ten to twelve months out. Waiting until six months before significantly limits your options.
What do you regret or wish you had done differently at your own wedding?
Honestly: we wish we had slowed the morning down. We had planned every detail of the evening and almost nothing of the hours before. The ceremony was exactly what we wanted. The week was extraordinary. But the few hours before we saw each other, those felt rushed in a way that the rest of the week did not. Now we build protected, unscheduled time into every morning-of timeline we create for couples. That lesson came directly from our own experience.
The couples who leave Tulum most changed are rarely the ones with the most elaborate weddings. They are the ones who were present enough to feel it.
We know because we were those people once, standing in the jungle, realizing that everything we had planned was just the container. The thing inside it was something else entirely.
Let Us Tell Your Story
If you are in the early stages of planning a destination wedding in Tulum, we would love to hear what you are envisioning. Reach out to start a conversation about your wedding!
