How Far in Advance Should You Plan a Destination Wedding in Puerto Vallarta?

By Robert Schley, Mexico Event Design

You just got engaged. Congratulations! Now someone has asked you when the wedding is, and you realized you have absolutely no idea, because you’ve never done anything remotely like this before and you’re not sure where to start.

Here’s the short answer: for a private villa destination wedding in Puerto Vallarta, start twelve months out. And here’s the longer answer, with everything that happens between now and the wedding day organized into a sequence that takes the overwhelm out of it.

Step One: Choose Your Venue and Date — Up to 18 Months Out

If you’re planning a private villa or boutique hotel wedding in Puerto Vallarta, the venue decision comes first and it’s time-sensitive. The most sought-after properties book up at least a year in advance for peak season dates — December, January, and February are typically gone well before the prior summer. The earlier you secure your venue and date, the more choices you have and the less pressure you’ll feel about everything else. Villa contracts are looking for a 50% deposit to book, by the way.

We receive the majority of our new inquiries approximately a year before the couple’s desired wedding date, and that timing is no accident. Couples who start that early get their first-choice venue. Couples who start six months out are often choosing from what’s left.

Step Two: Choose Your Wedding Planner — At the Same Time

Some would argue the planner should come before the venue, and there’s a reasonable case for it. A local planner with established relationships at your preferred venue can often give you honest intelligence about the property — its quirks, its event policies, whether a particular date is likely to be available — before you commit to anything.

Either way, the planner decision should happen at essentially the same time as the venue decision. Your planner is the hub of the local vendor network you’ll be drawing from for every other element of your wedding. The sooner they’re engaged, the sooner you have access to that network — and the sooner the best vendors get your date on their calendars. See our blog post about What Questions You Should Ask a Wedding Planner before You Hire Them for more information about this process.

Familiarity between your planner and your venue is also a genuine asset. It’s not a strict requirement, but a planner who has worked a dozen events at your specific villa knows things about how that space operates that no amount of site research can replicate.

Step Three: Book These Three Vendors — 9 to 12 Months Out

Once venue and planner are confirmed, there are three other major decisions to move on quickly:

Photography and Videography. The best photographers in Puerto Vallarta work alone or with a single primary assistant — they can only be at one wedding at a time. There’s rarely a “B team” covering a second event on the same day, and frankly you wouldn’t want the B team at your wedding regardless. The photographers whose work you’re admiring in other couples’ portfolios book out nine to twelve months in advance for peak season dates. Get on their calendar early.

Hair and Makeup Artists. The same logic applies. A talented hair and makeup artist can only be in one place on a given day. Trial runs are typically scheduled during the site visit (more on that below), but securing the date happens long before then.

Catering. Some catering companies can mount more than one event simultaneously; others cannot. Caterers in Puerto Vallarta also tend to finalize their event pricing closer to six months out, so there’s a practical reason to get in front of them early — not to lock in a final quote, but to confirm availability and establish the relationship before the budget conversations begin in earnest.

Step Four: The Site Visit — Six Months Out

If there’s a single piece of advice in this entire post that we’d ask you to take seriously, it’s this: come to Puerto Vallarta for a planning visit at least six months before your wedding date. We call it the site visit, and in our experience it is the single most effective thing a couple can do to reduce planning stress and improve the quality of their event.

In one long weekend, you can:

Attend one or two catering tastings and compare menus across multiple providers
Do a full hair and makeup trial so there are no surprises on the day
Visit the decor and equipment warehouses and literally design your table settings in real time — seeing actual linens, actual glassware, actual centerpiece vessels — rather than hoping online photos translate correctly to the space
Meet your florist in person and walk through every detail of the design concept together, with the ability to have a sample arrangement prepared
Walk the venue at the time of day your ceremony will take place so you can see exactly where the sun sits, where the shadows fall, and where you want your guests positioned

The difference between a couple who did the site visit and a couple who didn’t is visible in the final event. It’s also visible in the couple’s stress levels during the final months of planning.

If your schedule makes a six-month visit impossible, come as early as you can. It’s better to come at four months than not to come at all — but six months gives the most runway for adjustments.

Also, for best results, it’s also a fantastic idea to plan an even earlier site visit 12-18 months prior to your expected date, this time to check out venues and interview potential wedding planners. We talk more about both these visits in a related blog post here.

Step Five: The Main Contract and Deposits — Six Months Out

The site visit and the wedding contract are closely linked. Our goal with every client is to have almost all the major decisions made by the six-month mark so that we can finalize the main wedding contract and begin the formal deposit process. And you can make so many decisions at and following your site visit that it really facilitates that process.

Getting deposits into your key vendors’ hands does two important things: it locks your date on their calendars so it can’t be claimed by another couple, and it locks in their current pricing. Vendor costs — particularly catering — can shift between an initial quote and the event date. The sooner you formalize the relationship and pay the initial deposit, the more price certainty you have.

Step Six: The Final Six Months — Refinement, Not Stress

Here’s what the period between the six-month mark and your wedding day actually looks like when the earlier steps have been done properly: calm. The major decisions are made. The vendors are confirmed. The design is set. What remains is the refinement work: guest list confirmations, final headcount adjustments, timeline polishing, communication with your group about travel logistics. And it happens at a much more relaxed pace than the early planning sprint.

We keep this period structured and connected with two simple tools: a monthly Zoom check-in call throughout the planning process, and a group WhatsApp chat during the final six months for anything that needs a quicker response. Neither is burdensome, and both make the process feel manageable rather than like something happening to you.

The Full Timeline at a Glance

12–18 months out: Choose venue and secure your date; engage your wedding planner
9–12 months out: Book photographer/videographer, hair and makeup artists
6–9 months out: Caterer conversations and preliminary quotes; begin detailed design planning
~6 months out: Site visit to Puerto Vallarta for tastings, trials, and warehouse visits; sign main wedding contract; initial vendor deposits
Final 6 months: Monthly check-ins, guest confirmations, timeline finalization, the enjoyable parts

The couples who start early and work through this sequence rarely describe their planning process as stressful. The couples who start late and try to compress twelve months of decisions into four or five months almost always do. The timeline above isn’t arbitrary — it reflects what actually works, built from years of watching couples navigate this from thousands of miles away.

If you’re at the very beginning of this process, the best first step is our free planning guide — Before You Book Anything: Six Essential Truths About Planning Your LGBTQ+ Wedding in Puerto Vallarta. It covers venue selection, guest list strategy, the real costs, and what working with a local planner actually looks like.

Get your free guide and start planning →

Or reach us directly at info@mexicoeventdesign.com or (737) 212-2165.

Mexico Event Design is a gay-owned boutique wedding planning and design agency specializing in private villa LGBTQ+ destination weddings in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We plan a small number of weddings each season intentionally — so that every couple gets our full attention.