Wedding Villas: Punta Mita Caps It, Vallarta Does Not

The first thing to read on a villa listing, if there is a wedding in this, is not the bedroom count. It is the event line.

It is usually three lines from the bottom, in the part nobody reads, and it will say one of four things: a number of guests, a condition, a fee, or nothing at all. On one of our houses it says no events or weddings, which saves a couple a very expensive misunderstanding.

Here is what ours actually say.

The houses that can hold a real wedding

Thirty-nine of our Punta Mita and Puerto Vallarta houses carry an event policy on their own page. Seven of them publish a number, and the range is enormous.

Hacienda Las Flores above Puerto Vallarta is the largest by a distance: its listing describes weddings and events of up to 450 seated guests, supported by a commercial-grade kitchen and dedicated additional restrooms. That second clause is the one to notice. Four hundred people is a catering operation and a plumbing problem, and a house that has thought about both is a different proposition from a house that has agreed to let you try. Ten bedrooms, twenty-two sleeping, chef included.

Villa Mandarinas takes up to 200, and its page names the three places you would use: an oceanfront terrace, a bonfire lawn and a private pier. Sixteen bedrooms, thirty-four people — so a good share of the wedding can also sleep there, which is the thing that quietly decides budgets.

Casa Karma in Conchas Chinas also takes 200, for cocktail-style receptions, and describes itself as one of the city's only private beachfront venues — three event terraces stepping down to the sand. It is a smaller house, eight bedrooms for sixteen, which makes it a ceremony-and-party address rather than an everybody-stays-here one.

La Villita has a dedicated event area for a hundred seated or a hundred and fifty standing, and fourteen bedrooms underneath.

Then the smaller, clearer ones: Casa Cosmos permits events up to seventy-five; Villa Las Puertas up to thirty, upon request.

Punta Mita: the gate cuts both ways

And now the part of this page that matters most, because the slug says Punta Mita and the honest answer is not what people expect.

Punta Mita largely does not do big weddings, and that is deliberate. Casa Koko's own listing is explicit: social events are only allowed for the number of people staying at the house, and the resort's noise policy must be observed. Casa Koko Iyari says the same thing in almost the same words. Casa del Faro accepts events to a maximum of sixty-five people including overnight guests.

Those are not the house being difficult. They are the rules of a gated resort community whose entire proposition is that nothing ever becomes a scene — the same rules that make the peninsula so quiet the rest of the time. You cannot have both.

So the shape that works there is the one the houses are built for: the whole party sleeps in the house, and the wedding is the size of the house. Villa Punta Pacifico Estate — seventeen bedrooms, thirty-eight people, the chef in the rate — describes itself as one of the few addresses on the peninsula able to hold a group that size, and offers event planning and coordination with it. Thirty-eight people at a long table on the Pacific is a real wedding; it is just not two hundred.

For two hundred, cross the bay. That is the whole verdict, and Vallarta against the Riviera Nayarit sets out the rest of the difference.

The terms that differ, and why to ask early

No two of our event policies are shaped the same way, and the differences are worth asking about at the enquiry rather than at the contract.

Villa Yvonneka states that any gathering with guests not registered in the villa needs prior approval, carries an event fee equal to one night's rental, and an additional security deposit. Las Villas sets its fee by total attendance. Villa Estrella Mar requires a five-night minimum and prior approval. Villa Kismet needs owner permission. Casa Kalika, Casa Yeiya and Casa Todos Juntos all permit events on request. Casa Morada allows small weddings.

And Villa Ventana says no events or weddings, which is the line that makes all the others credible.

We print no figures here, because the terms are the owner's and they move. What we would say is that the event line, the fee basis and the minimum stay are three questions, and all three have written answers.

What the house does, and what it does not

A staffed villa gives you a chef, housekeeping, a house manager and, in most cases, somebody who will coordinate. What it does not automatically give you is a catering brigade for a hundred and fifty, a marquee, a sound system or a licence.

Some of our houses include event coordination in their own list of services; some simply permit the event and leave the rest to you. The gap between those two is where weddings go wrong, and it is answered on the listing rather than by us.

The practical order, which the advisor will push you through anyway: settle the guest number first. It reduces the shortlist from thirty-nine houses to three or four in one move, and every other decision — coast, bedrooms, month — gets easier after it.

Where to start

Count the people coming to the wedding, then count the people sleeping. If the first number is over a hundred, you are in Puerto Vallarta. If the two numbers are nearly the same, Punta Mita opens up and is the better week.

Houses for large groups goes through every house that sleeps twenty or more; of our Vallarta houses, nine do, and forty-nine of fifty-four come with the chef in the rate, which is the other half of a wedding week nobody plans for — the four days either side.

Start with our staffed houses in Puerto Vallarta, tell Rocío the guest number, and ask her for the event terms in writing before anything else.