Scouting for a destination wedding is one of the most important parts of the destination wedding planning process. When asking guests to travel across the globe, we love to find inspiration from the local region and incorporate that culture into the celebrations in an authentic way. Below is a behind the scenes look at how my scouting trips to Mexico City inspired the final event experience and design.
First up, we found these beautiful handprinted pieces of bark at the local market and turned them into invitations. Each piece was an original piece of art, so not only did we give guest a little peek into what they could expect from the wedding, but we gave them a one of a kind gift they could keep forever. 
We fell in love with the locally made baskets and just knew we had to use them for the welcome gifts. In addition, we discovered these beautifully painted bottles of Mezcal and they become a feature inside of the gifts guests received upon arrival to Mexico City.
Fruta Con Limon is one of my favorite refreshing snacks any time I’m in Mexico and we always try to get at least one clean food into our wedding day appetizers. So, we thought, why not an elevated Fruta Con Limon Station at cocktail hour? 
Choosing a go to Mezcal for the bar was way too hard, so we decided to let guests experience all of them by creating a Mezcal tasting station at the wedding.
I’ve always been a sucker for Mexican Pottery and but fell in love with this blue pattern at a local pottery shop. While we didn’t get to use the exact pattern, I was excited to use something similar in our end table design.
We stumbled across this sorbet station on an especially hot day when scouting. It ended up being the perfect treat to offer guests at 4am after they were drenched with sweat from dancing all night. 
You cannot go to Mexico and not experience handmade tortillas at least once and we wanted to make sure guests didn’t miss this experience either. We incorporated a handmade tortilla station where guests could either nibble on them with a variety of homemade salsas or in the form of quesadillas made right in front of their eyes. It was a hit!
I have a hard time not buying up every piece of Otomi I come across in Mexico. So I was beyond excited when we found a way to incorporate this detail into the chairs.
El Moro is THE place for churros in Mexico City and has been since 1935. So, of course, we brought them along to make the after party that much tastier.
And, while I don’t have proper inspiration for the entertainment, we truly tapped the local culture for this detail as well. Cumbia is the sound of Mexico City. We livened it up with the help of Jose Conde and it became the soundtrack for dinner. 
And these 14 foot illuminated puppets better known as Alebrijes Iluminados were discovered at a popular exhibit at one of Mexico City’s many art galleries.
While we don’t have the opportunity to dive so deep into the culture with every destination we create, we always find something inspirational and exciting to share with guests on our scouting trips. We love discovering new artists, local vendors and cultural elements to support and who enrich the end experience.
If you’re interested in any of the elements created for this wedding for your own wedding in Mexico, or would like to work with us to create fun details for any location, we are now offering stationery and gifting design to couples across the world. You can see this collection and our entire portfolio by visiting our shop at www.bethhelmstetter.com/shop.
If you’re an event planner considering entering the destination weddings market, I’m sharing more about this process at The Helm by Beth Helmstetter, my educational platform designed to support event designers and planners as they build their business. Check it out!
