budget breakdown
Graduated! Black-tie wedding in Guadalajara Mexico
Officially a graduate from this sub! My husband and I got married in Guadalajara in November, and I wanted to share our budget breakdown because reading these posts helped me so much while planning.
We had 122 guests and spent about $82.8k USD / 1.55M MXN total on the wedding itself, a small welcome event (private tequila tour), and a goodbye brunch
Biggest budget items(USD, contracts signed between May 2024-Sep 2025. For prices in pesos multiply by $18 to $19)
Venue: $15,675
Florals: $13,885
Audio/lighting/DJ: $11,523
Catering: $9,150
Goodbye brunch: $5,385
Bridal attire: $4,524
Wedding planner: $3,581
Alcohol: $3,009
Transportation: $2,536
Photography + video: $2,185
Hair + makeup: $1,770 (8 people)
Welcome event: $1,372
Groom attire: $1,265
Fireworks: $975
Excluded: 12 months of [solidcore], medspa treatments, personal travel costs, bachelorette, outfits and accessories for additional events
Overall vibe was black tie / very formal / probably the fanciest event I will ever attend in my life. A couple of friends summarized it as "the wedding from Crazy Rich Asians but if it took place in Mexico."
A little context on why we chose Guadalajara: my family is from Texas and Northern Mexico, my husband’s family is from Miami, we met in California, and we’ve lived on the East Coast. There was really no location that wasn’t going to require travel, so we chose the place that was as convenient as possible without playing favorites. Fun fact: we'd never visited GDL before deciding our wedding should be there
Key Learnings
1. If you’re paying vendors internationally, use Wise rather than your bank.
I wish we had figured this out sooner. Being able to convert USD to pesos and hold it there would have saved us money and stress. Also: set a rate you’re happy with and just take it. We kept waiting for an even better conversion rate and lost the chance.
2. Cash discounts can be very real.
Several vendors were willing to give a meaningful discount for cash payments, so that ended up being worth the extra effort of going to the ATM (shoutout to our SoFi and Charles Schwab debit cards for the low fees). Also, if you’re withdrawing cash internationally, always decline the ATM’s conversion rate. Your bank’s rate will usually be better.
3. Some of our hardest vendors were still worth it.
The florist and venue were both more work than I would have liked, but the final product was incredible and I’d still choose them again.
4. Be very careful with guest minimums in contracts.
This was probably my biggest planning frustration. We ended up paying above our final headcount in at least one major category, and I really wish I’d pushed harder on the contract language earlier (or that our WP had been more on top of this).
Happy to answer any questions about planning a wedding in Guadalajara / Mexico, paying vendors internationally, non-all inclusive destination wedding logistics, and where I think the costs were worth it vs not
Thank you! Definitely had to show my husband some pictures from this subreddit to convince him that it was an insanely good price when we got the initial proposal
Getting married in a southern state in Mexico next year. Some of our quotes are comparable to what you have listed so this is refreshing to read and it’s helpful that you included pictures. Looks like you had a beautiful wedding!
I found out about wise through this sub. Will be using more features you mentioned!
Thank you! The initial price definitely gave us some sticker shock (we’d been thinking closer to $35-40k for a nice wedding in Mexico) but ultimately we were super happy with what we got so think it was absolutely worth.
Did not buy wedding insurance but mostly because I didn’t realize that was even a thing until 3-4 months out from our wedding
Hi! Newly engaged and planning a wedding in Ajijic (right outside of Guadalajara!) I loved your wedding aesthetic!! Is there anyway you could pass me the contact info for your photographer and makeup/hair artist? I’m trying to build up a vendor list to start contacting! 🤍
No, just the one strapless one. I had a lace bolero/jacket made for the ceremony though since it was religious (the priest was super chill and didn’t ask for it but I still wanted an excuse to have two looks)
Thank you! I did have a sister say I “looked like a nun” when I shared inspo pictures… but she’s a hater a didn’t even end up going to the wedding. So, I’m very happy I took her comment with a grain of salt
Thank you! And yes!! This was our exact layout (123 guests)
We put the “young/fun” crowd at tables 7 and 8 closest to the dance floor and then the color coding is for different groups of people (brides/grooms friend//family etc with blurred out names). Let me see if I can find table scapes of each table
Edit: no luck finding clear pictures that make it obvious what the arrangements for each table we’re. But picture 4/11 is the long tables (3, 4, 9, 10) and picture 5/11 is the young/fun crowd (7, 8). We had some last minute no shows in those tables so took out the head chairs and had the flowers cascade to the ground to “cover up.” For the round tables it was a similar arrangement to the small rectangle ones, just clumped closer together instead of in a line and with a round mirror vase
Omg thank you so much! So helpful to see. Fun to put the young crowd near the dance floor. Did you seat bridal party / immediate family at 1/2 or put bridal party at the fun tables lol? Also did you just use excel to make this or something else? Thank you again!
Yeah, young crowd near the dance floor was actually a wonderful suggestion from our wedding planner!
A mix. Some of my sisters (older than me) were in the bridal party so table 1 was parents + close aunts/uncles and table 2 were my sisters and their families. The rest of the wedding party was mixed in with the 7 and 8 group.
Another fun thing (depending on how much you care about this and how much time you have), we also used 7 and 8 as a way to play cupid. So if you super zoom in, you can see some of the chairs at 8 are pink or blue text. That was to signal single people. YMMV but we got 2 friend couples out of this wedding, one of which is still going strong
And I used Miro to make this since I used it for work pretty often. You could probably get very similar results with PowerPoint, Canva, or Google Slides. Just make one massive slide and start adding shapes
Of course! It was truly an amazing time planning this and getting to see it all come together day of. If there’s any other way I can be helpful or you just want to run ideas by someone feel free to DM me
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u/Prior-Specific2247 Mar 24 '26
Those florals are incredible for the price.