Puerto Vallarta Wedding Guide: Old Town Romance, Boat Access Coves, Costs, Seasons, and Planning Tips

Puerto Vallarta is the wedding region where the Sierra Madre walks into the Pacific, and the mountains change everything about how the place feels.

Banderas Bay is forty miles across, one of the largest bays on the continent, and the town climbs straight up from it in cobblestones and white stucco. The crown of the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe floats over the rooftops, the Romantic Zone hums a few streets south, and past the last road the jungle shore continues to coves that can only be reached by boat.

Around the north curve of the bay the mood changes completely — first the all-inclusive towers of Nuevo Vallarta, then the gated luxury of Punta Mita.

What the postcard hides is a real wet season from June through October, humidity that tests hair and paper goods, and hillside stairs and cobblestones that punish the wrong shoes. The civil paperwork has a fearsome reputation too, though as the legal section below explains, on the Jalisco side that reputation is now out of date.

Puerto Vallarta rewards couples who choose it for warmth, scenery, and value rather than polish alone, and who plan the calendar around the dry season.

Quick Answer: Is Puerto Vallarta Good for a Wedding?

Yes. Puerto Vallarta is the best value of Mexico’s big three wedding coasts, with the most dramatic mountain meets ocean scenery, a deep bilingual vendor bench, venues from boat access coves to old town haciendas, and a decades long reputation as the most welcoming destination in Mexico for every kind of couple. The tradeoff is a true summer wet season, so the calendar matters more here than in Los Cabos.

Destination · Mexico

Puerto Vallarta / Riviera Nayarit

On Banderas Bay, the Sierra Madre drops straight into the Pacific and gives Puerto Vallarta the most dramatic backdrop of Mexico’s big three wedding coasts. Cobblestone s…

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A smaller Puerto Vallarta wedding with 30 to 60 guests often starts around $14,000 all in. A full weekend with 80 to 150 guests starts at $32,000. Punta Mita moves the math into Los Cabos territory, and estate weekends there clear $150,000 without trying.

Puerto Vallarta Wedding Geography, and the Two-State Bay

The Ameca River divides the bay into two Mexican states, and that is not a technicality. Puerto Vallarta itself sits in Jalisco; Nuevo Vallarta and Punta Mita are in Nayarit. That line runs through the middle of your planning, and it decides your paperwork, your vendor fees and your budget tier before it decides anything else.

Old Town and the Romantic Zone

Best for60 to 150 guests, walkability, and the most atmosphere for the least money

This is the Puerto Vallarta people picture — cobbled streets climbing from the malecón, red-tiled roofs, and the crowned tower of the Guadalupe church over everything. Hacienda San Ángel is the cluster of restored villas on the hillside above the church, with rooftop terraces looking down over the town and the bay, and it is the most romantic urban wedding setting in Mexico.

Casa Kimberly was Richard Burton's gift to Elizabeth Taylor, now a small hotel with the pink bridge still joining the two houses across the street. Villa Premiere Boutique Hotel sits on the beach at the northern end of the old town. Base a wedding here and guests walk to dinner, to the beach and home again.

The South Shore and the Boat-Access Coves

Best for80 to 250 guests, drama, and a night guests will describe for years

South of town the road climbs into the Sierra Madre and the bay turns into green cliffs dropping into water. Le Kliff hangs off the rock at Boca de Tomatlán with the Pacific directly below the tables, and between December and March there are humpbacks in the frame.

Past the end of the road the beaches have no vehicle access at all. Las Caletas Beach Hideaway is reachable only by boat, and the crossing at golden hour with the whole guest list aboard is genuinely the opening act of the evening rather than a transfer. Garza Blanca Preserve sits on the hillside just south of town with its own beach.

Nuevo Vallarta and the Resort Strip

Best for150 to 400 guests, all-inclusive simplicity, and mixed-budget guest lists

Twenty minutes north across the state line, the coast flattens into a long beach lined with large resorts. Vidanta Nuevo Vallarta is effectively a resort city at the Ameca river mouth and takes the largest guest lists on the bay. Grand Velas Riviera Nayarit is the polished all-inclusive next door. The argument for this stretch is not scenery, it is arithmetic: one wristband per guest, every room on site, no transport plan, and a price per head that guests can see before they book.

Punta Mita

Best for80 to 200 guests, the highest service standard on the bay, and a full budget tier above everything else

Forty-five minutes north-west, the peninsula closes the bay and the water finally turns swimmable and calm. Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita, The St. Regis Punta Mita and W Punta de Mita sit inside a gated development with two Jack Nicklaus golf courses. This is the luxury play and it prices like one — expect a Punta Mita weekend to cost two to three times the same wedding in the old town.

Choose the side of the bay first. That single decision sets your budget tier, your guest lodging plan, your transport bill and — as the next section explains — which state's civil marriage rules you are dealing with. Couples who pick a venue before picking a side end up paying cross-bay vendor travel fees on top of everything else.

Best Time of Year for a Puerto Vallarta Wedding

The season here is unusually clear-cut: November through May is dry, June through October is not. There is very little ambiguity about it.

November is the opening and one of the best months of the year. The rains have just stopped, the hills are still green from them, the humidity has dropped and the calendar is not yet full.

December through February is peak season. Warm dry days in the low eighties, cool evenings, and humpback whales in the bay — according to the Banderas Bay tourism authorities the sanctioned whale-watching window runs from early December to late March, with January and February the densest. Rates are at their annual highest and the best venues book a year or more ahead.

March and April are excellent and slightly quieter, though Semana Santa — Mexican Easter week — fills the town completely and should be checked before any spring date.

May is the last dry month and it is hot. The green has burned off the hills and the humidity is climbing toward the rains.

June through October is the rainy season, and it is genuinely wet: the heaviest rain falls July through September, mostly in the afternoon and evening rather than all day. Temperatures and humidity are both high.

September and October carry the real hurricane risk. Per the US National Hurricane Center the eastern Pacific season officially runs from mid-May through November, and those two months are the peak for both rainfall and storms. Banderas Bay is partly sheltered by its own curve and by the Sierra Madre behind it, and direct hits are uncommon — but an uncommon event on your wedding weekend is still your wedding weekend. If you marry in that window, insure it.

My pick: the last two weeks of November, or the first half of March.

Getting Legally Married in Puerto Vallarta

Most visiting couples marry legally at home and hold a symbolic ceremony here, and for a lot of guest lists that remains the sensible route. But the legal option in Jalisco is far easier than its reputation suggests, and the reputation is out of date.

Jalisco dropped its prenuptial medical exams in a 2022 reform and reduced the witness requirement from four to two. There are no blood tests. The state civil registry currently lists a fee of roughly 1,000 pesos at the office, or about 4,000 to 7,000 pesos for a judge to travel to your venue, and the paperwork typically takes five to eight business days — which makes Jalisco one of the two fastest states in Mexico for a civil marriage.

What you do need: valid passports, your Mexican entry document, apostilled birth certificates translated into Spanish by a certified translator, divorce or death certificates where relevant, a declaration on marital property, and two witnesses with ID.

Nayarit is a different state and a different process. Nuevo Vallarta and Punta Mita fall under Nayarit's civil registry, and according to venue and planner guidance on that side of the bay couples are commonly asked for local medical tests including blood work, four witnesses rather than two, translation by a state-approved official translator, and arrival several business days before the ceremony. Same bay, twenty minutes apart, materially more paperwork.

Rules change and municipal offices interpret them differently. Whichever side you choose, have your planner confirm the current requirements with that specific civil registry rather than relying on a resort brochure or on this page.

How Much Does a Puerto Vallarta or Riviera Nayarit Wedding Cost?

Puerto Vallarta undercuts Los Cabos on almost every line. Old town venues charge a fraction of what corridor resorts require as a minimum, local florals and mariachi cost a fraction of imported equivalents, and the guest lodging runs from hostels to the St. Regis within the same bay — which means a mixed-income guest list can actually all attend.

The hidden costs are the bay itself. Boat charters to the south-shore coves, cross-bay vendor travel fees, and the state line all add up. A Jalisco florist working a Punta Mita wedding will charge for the trip, and so will the reverse.

Puerto Vallarta Wedding Venue Styles

The Boat-Access Cove

Best fordramatic entrances, guest lists that will remember the journey, and couples willing to build the timeline around a boat schedule

The Cliff Terrace

Best for60 to 150 guests, winter dates when the whales are in the bay, and ceremonies that need no decoration at all

The Old Town Hacienda

Best forwalkable weekends, rooftop dinners, and couples who want the town itself in the photographs

The All-Inclusive Resort

Best forlarge or mixed-budget guest lists, and for erasing the transport plan entirely

The Punta Mita Estate

Best forthe highest service standard on the bay, swimmable water, and budgets that can carry it

Three names that recur on almost every shortlist: Vidanta Nuevo Vallarta (to 500 guests) — a resort city at the Ameca river mouth with its own infrastructure. Las Caletas Beach Hideaway (to 250) — reachable only by boat, and the most memorable arrival in Mexican weddings. Hacienda San Ángel (to 120) — hillside villas above the old town with the cathedral tower in every frame.

Getting There, and What the Weekend Costs Your Guest List

Licenciado Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International sits fifteen minutes north of the old town and twenty minutes from Nuevo Vallarta, with nonstop service from around thirty US and Canadian cities plus Mexico City and Guadalajara. For a Mexican destination wedding this is unusually good access, and it is one of the strongest practical arguments for the region.

Winter is when the nonstop map is widest. Several US and Canadian routes are seasonal and thin out sharply between May and October, which matters if your date sits in the rainy season.

Guests need a passport, and the Mexican entry document is issued on arrival. The Jalisco Tourism board and the airport both publish current entry guidance worth checking close to the date. Nobody needs a visa for a tourist stay from the US, Canada, the UK or the EU.

Once here, taxis and rideshare are cheap and plentiful in town. The airport-to-Punta Mita run is about forty-five minutes and worth arranging in advance for a group.

What Guests Will Actually Spend to Attend

Puerto Vallarta is the best value of Mexico's three big wedding coasts, and the spread between the cheapest and dearest way to attend is enormous. Budget roughly $900 to $1,700 per guest for a three-night trip in the old town — $350 to $650 in airfare, $120 to $280 a night for a good hotel, plus meals, transport and a gift.

An all-inclusive in Nuevo Vallarta runs $1,100 to $2,000 for the same three nights with food and drink included, which many guests find easier to budget for even when the headline number is higher.

Punta Mita runs $2,500 to $4,500 and up. If your venue is there, expect that number to shape your guest list whether you intend it to or not.

Almost nobody comes for two nights. Most guests will build four or five days around the wedding, which is worth framing as a holiday when you invite them — and which makes the November-to-April window, when the weather is reliable, more valuable than the saving from a rainy-season date.

Expect 25 to 35 percent of invitations to decline, weighted toward guests without passports — the single most common reason a US guest list shrinks for a Mexican wedding, and the one worth raising eighteen months out rather than six.

Where Wedding Guests Should Stay in Puerto Vallarta

Keep the guest list on one side of the bay. It is the most important lodging decision you will make here.

For an old town or south-shore wedding, base guests in the Romantic Zone or along the southern hotel corridor. Dinner, beaches and nightlife are all walkable, the lodging runs from budget to boutique within a few blocks, and nobody needs a car.

For a Nuevo Vallarta wedding, the resort is the answer — that is the entire point of the all-inclusive model, and splitting guests between a resort and town undermines it.

For Punta Mita, the development's own hotels and rental villas are effectively the only option, and villa shares are how most guest lists manage the cost.

The old town's range is its quiet advantage. Very few destination wedding regions let a guest attend on a hostel budget and another on a suite budget without either feeling out of place.

The Puerto Vallarta Logistics Couples Usually Miss

The state line costs money in both directions. Some Jalisco vendors charge travel fees to Nayarit venues and Nayarit vendors do the same in reverse. Ask about it at the quoting stage rather than discovering it on the final invoice.

Boat venues need a weather call and a hard schedule. A cove wedding depends on a crossing, the last boat back is a real deadline, and a rough afternoon can change the plan. Build the contingency with the venue before you sell the idea to your guests.

Cobblestones and hills are the old town's charm and its accessibility problem. The streets above the malecón are steep and uneven. If your guest list includes anyone with limited mobility, walk the route yourself before committing to a hillside venue.

Rainy-season afternoons are predictable enough to plan around. June through October the rain usually arrives late in the day, so a morning ceremony and an early dinner is a genuine strategy rather than a compromise.

Passports are the guest-list constraint. Roughly half of Americans hold one. Raise it early and give people time, because it is the reason most declines happen.

Final Advice for Your Puerto Vallarta Wedding

Pick the side of the bay first — old town, Nuevo Vallarta or Punta Mita — because that one choice sets the budget tier, the lodging plan, the transport bill and the state whose civil registry you deal with.

Then pick a date between November and April, and tell your guests about passports the day you tell them about the wedding. Everything else here is easier than couples expect, and the old town in particular delivers more atmosphere per dollar than anywhere else in this guide.

Compare it with Los Cabos→

Or read the Cancún and Riviera Maya guide→

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Puerto Vallarta cheaper than Los Cabos for a wedding?

Yes, usually by a wide margin. Old town venues, local vendors and a genuinely wide range of guest lodging keep totals well below the Los Cabos corridor. Punta Mita is the exception and competes directly with Cabo's top tier.

Do you need blood tests to get married in Puerto Vallarta?

Not in Jalisco. The state eliminated prenuptial medical exams in a 2022 reform and now requires only two witnesses. Nayarit, which covers Nuevo Vallarta and Punta Mita, commonly still asks for local medical tests and four witnesses — so the answer depends on which side of the bay your venue sits.

Do guests really take a boat to Las Caletas?

Yes, and it is the best part. The venue has no road access at all. The crossing at golden hour is the opening act of the evening, and the return trip under the stars is the closing one.

What is the best month for a Puerto Vallarta wedding?

Late November for green hills, dry skies and open calendars. February and March trade the green for humpback whales in the bay and the busiest, priciest weeks of the year.

When is hurricane season in Puerto Vallarta?

The Pacific season runs June through November, with September and October the peak for both rain and storms. Banderas Bay is partly sheltered by its own curve and the Sierra Madre, and direct hits are uncommon — but a wedding in that window should be insured.

What is the biggest mistake couples make in Puerto Vallarta?

Treating the bay as one place. Old town, Nuevo Vallarta and Punta Mita are three different weddings at three different price points in two different states, and a guest list spread across them pays for the privilege in transport, vendor travel fees and confusion.