This was an incredible day from start to finish! Lauren and I were delighted to feel the love and happiness flow as we documented Allyson and Neal’s wedding day at the beautiful Grand Velas Riviera Maya Resort near Playa del Carmen, Mexico. From the bride and groom’s amazing “first look” to the gorgeous ceremony on the sand and the beautiful moon lit reception this destination wedding was truly a joy to photograph.

Of course it did not hurt that some of our very favorite wedding professionals were on Allyson and Neal’s team. We just loved working with wedding planner Maria Elena Galicia of Playa Wedding! Thank you, Maria Elena for all your help and consideration throughout the day! And of course we have to give a shout out to Adrian and the team of Styling Trio Riviera Maya, because when we see Adrian we know the day is off to a great start. Charming hand painted Mexican tile collateral c/o Laura Hooper Calligraphy.

Loved, loved, loved the flowers that Allyson chose to decorate the reception tables! So much color and perfect with the colorful Mexican tile details.

All images (c)2013 Elizabeth and Lauren Medina. Elizabeth Medina Photography is Mexico’s premier wedding photography studio photographing events in the Riviera Maya, Cancun, Yucatan, Puerto Vallarta, San Miguel de Allende, Los Cabos and throughout Mexico.

Gemma and Carlos traveled half way around the world with a large group of fun-loving friends and family to be married in a chapel in the town of Puerto Morelos.  Just thinking back to the sight of this oh so international couple and their group enjoying the Mayan Riviera really brings a smile to my face! Great energy! Here are just a few of the couple’s happy moments and a tiny sample of the thoughtful details from the day. Gemma and Carlos, thank you for being so much fun, it was a joy to photograph your Mexico wedding! And of course a big thanks to event coordinator Maju and her team from Leanne Marie Weddings!  All photographs (c)2012 Elizabeth and Lauren Medina.

The rings and a few bride and groom getting ready photographs:

Gemma looked amazing and everyone was so excited to see her marry Carlos. I think it is fair to say that her wedding look knocked the socks off her bridal party!

The bride and groom were so much fun, it was great to see everyone notice the “help” message on the soles of Carlos’s shoes.

Married! The celebration begin on the steps of the church!

Wedding party photos on the beach of Puerto Morelos…

The reception was held poolside at the Hacienda Tres Rios resort… it was a very private and lovely setting for an amazing party!

Ah, the power of deadlines! As busy as editing the final (amazing each and every one!) weddings of 2012 has kept things I just had to drop everything and blog one more from the November stash before 2013 arrives! 2012 was such a year for lovely weddings and happy, happy couples. Elaine and Jerry totally captured our hearts, Lindsey and I loved being able to tell the story of their destination wedding at Azul Sensatori through photographs. Here is a glimpse of the day’s festivities. Warm New Year’s wishes to all!

Part Two of Jessica and Mark´s Mexico destination wedding at the Rosewood Mayakoba.  This beautiful Playa del Carmen destination wedding was featured today on Style Me Pretty! Our last post featured photographs of the getting ready and ceremony parts of the day at the Rosewood Mayakoba. Here are bride and groom portraits and photos of the intimate, relaxed beach reception.

All photographs (c)2012 Elizabeth and Lauren Medina. Event planning and day of coordination by Amber and Nira from Los Angeles wedding planners at Amber Events. Floral design by our friends at Planner 1.

One of my favorite aspects of destination wedding photography is creatively highlighting the couple´s natural and unique dynamic while at the same time showcasing the setting under the changing lighting conditions the moment provides. The exciting (and challenging!) part is that unlike editorial or commercial photography this all happens in what can feel like a speeded up version of real time, wedding moments are so precious they often seem to move much more quickly than any others.  Here are a few bride and groom photographs of the very happy Jessica and Mark overlooking the waterway of the Rosewood Mayakoba.

Bride and groom rejoined the guests at the beach to celebrate. The rustic vintage decor was just lovely… I am such a fan of the string lights, and the very personal table of picture frames was a showstopper!

If you´ve read part one you know that Jessica is a silhouette artist, here are Señor and señora  silouttes on the couple´s reception chairs.

Elizabeth Medina Photography is Mexico´s premier wedding photography studio, photographing amazing couples in beautiful locations throughout Mexico.

Shab and Randall’s wedding photographs were some of our all time favorites. The couple was so much fun and for Lindsey and I it was one of those days where every thing just seems to click (no pun intended there!). Of couse we must tip our hats to the planning team at LUXE Destination Weddings and the lovely venue. It was so cool to see this destination wedding written up in Grace Ormand Wedding Style. Click on the image for the feature, with more photos, wedding details and comments from the couple.

Happy New Year’s! A little holiday break from shooting has meant time spent editing 2011′s final weddings. I loved noticing how the last events of the year represented so perfectly a cross section of the variety of weddings photographed all throughout the year. Very different in setting, style, number of guests, degree of formality and type of ceremony, held in different geographical locations and including people from different parts of the globe, somehow all of the events seemed to be defined by the same set of key common elements; amazingly happy and laid-back brides and grooms, relaxed good times (hey, its Mexico, comes with the territory!) and of course (and hopefully our blog readers will forgive us if we do say so ourselves) some pretty sweet once-in-a-lifetime photographs to remember them by! Coming soon to the blog as we wrap up 2011 editing: beautiful events in Merida, Yucatan, Playa del Carmen, and San Miguel de Allende. To get the ball rolling, Xochitl and Israel’s lovely, long awaited Playa del Carmen wedding at the Xcaret Eco Park. Xochitl and Israel were married in what has to be one of Mexico’s most spectacular venues and incorporated colorful Mexican elements. We were able to photograph the couple on the grounds of the park, the Catholic mass and then the  beautiful ocean side reception at the Las Posas area of the park.

Xochitl and Israel, it was a joy to finally be able to meet you and your beautiful family! On behalf of team Medina congratulations, we wish you all the best! We truly hope the wedding photographs will be a special part of your family history!

All photographs (c) 2012 Elizabeth and Lauren Medina.

The Xcaret park has a small Mayan ruin, we were photographing the bride and groom when I saw something move behind them! We had a visitor!

I think everyone, wedding photographer or not, will probably remember how they spent November 11, 2011. I really hope that everyone’s 11-11-11 was as “lucky” as ours! Trisha and Jeff were such a fun, happy couple, a joy to photograph, their wedding photography in Playa del Carmen included getting ready photographs at El Taj hotel, a Catholic mass at Nuestra Señora del Carmen Chapel on the Quinta Avenida and a reception at Las Palapas, also in Playa del Carmen. We could not help but especially appreciate the beautiful weather for our Playa del Carmen beach photographs after a near brush with rain. (I think that I actually felt 11 tiny raindrops before the weather blew over and the afternoon turned absolutely beautiful!) I would have liked to celebrate this special date by posting only 11 photographs to the blog… but of course it would be impossible to narrow down! Trisha and Jeff, congratulations, we wish you all the very best! All photographs Lindsey and Elizabeth Medina.

A really tough thing about being a destination wedding photographer can be meeting a really fun bride and groom like Nikki and Larry and having a great time with them and their families and friends, not to mention seeing firsthand the kind of party they can throw, but knowing that distance totally rules out dropping by their place just to say hello or a casual hint for an invite to their future celebrations. Sad for us but probably a really good thing for Larry and Nikki since being stalked by the wedding photographers sounds a little awkward! At least we have our memories… not to mention a whole lot of photographs from the wedding and the amazing TTD session at sunrise the next morning! Larry and Nikki, it was so great to spend time with the two of you, thank you so much for your trust and for going the extra mile for your photographs!

Larry and Nikki chose to see each other prior to the ceremony for a first look and bride and groom photos. This worked out perfectly, the first look was awesome, we got to shoot in different areas than time would have permitted after the ceremony and also Nikki and Larry were able to spend quite a bit of cocktail hour time with their guests! I have often heard that some people do not wish to see each other beforehand because they think it will take away from the impact of seeing each other as bride and groom for the first time in the ceremony… this has really not been what I have witnessed, the ceremony meeting seems to be a whole new experience possibly even more emotional for couples who have already started to share the day together a bit earlier, scroll down and I think you will agree this was the case for Larry and Nikki!  Lauren rocked the next image from the first look.

I have come to realize that our editing process is basically the opposite of the norm (like quite a few things around here, now that I think of it!)…. rather than sensibly choosing “teasers” for the blog and slide show and editing this smaller group of images our custom has always been to first edit the entire set of images to taste and then when at last all of the photographs are ready finally go back and pick out some favorites to share on the blog. This “backwards” process is probably not the most expedient but we feel it results in a full set of images that we can be consistently proud of.  Unfortunately It also makes choosing images for the blog very, very difficult because once they are ready I can’t help but want to share them all! As much as I promise to keep the blog selections at a minimum I know I am fighting a losing battle. In the case of Sarah and Ed’s Catholic destination wedding Mayan Riviera’s Maroma Paradise Marina despite the best of intentions the first pass yielded 140 blog images! Even this photographer knows that is way to many for a blog post!

Sarah and Ed are a delightful couple, and their group of friends and family were very obviously loving the destination wedding experience. The wedding was every bit as joyful as it was beautiful! I hope this narrowed down (but still too numerous, sorry!) collection of images will give a little glimpse of the photography from this memorable and beautiful destination wedding.

Pre wedding photographs from Dreams Riviera Cancun…

A big shout out to Adrian Guerra who helped the beautiful Sarah with her amazing wedding look….

Shabnam and Randall were married in a joyous and very beautiful late afternoon ceremony at The Tides Riviera Maya. Times like this I am grateful that my task is to document with images and not words since I have a feeling that if I tried to tell this fantastic couple’s story with any language other than the camera´s no one would even believe me!  It really did happen though and fortunately I have lots and lots of photographic proof… I hope you enjoy this small sample of the day’s photographs.

The Tides is located in the jungle on a gorgeous stretch of beach and basically captures the essence of Mayan jungle-chic.  A few getting ready details from the bride’s bungalow:

One of the aspects of wedding photography that I truly love is collaborating with my clients and album designer to create flush mount albums. I will confess that often when I am shooting I am imagining juxtapositions and how the images can work most expressively in a wedding album. I think that the two getting ready photos would make an awesome album spread!

Blue sky, turquoise water and the ceremony location, I loved the very light and organic yet elegant feel. Ceremony details and moments… A quick shout out here to the lovely Rebecca Elias from Luxe Destination Weddings : working with the wedding planners from Luxe is such a treat, thank you Rebecca for your great wedding day energy!

The Persian sugar ceremony…

El beso!

Fantastic second shooting from Lindsey… I loved the candid moments she captured throughout the day…

Bride and groom portraits on the beach at sunset… wow.

A few reception details and some of the fun…this was a great dance party!

Shabnam and Randall’s first dance…

Playa del Carmen wedding photography by destination wedding photographer Elizabeth Medina.

Best friends. Sunny day in paradise. Perfection. Jannae and Ryan, thank you so much for letting us be part of your very unforgettable day.

Jannae and her flower girls before the ceremony…so much excitement and anticipation during this part of the day! The time always seems to fly by.

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The girls were not the only one with colorful footwear!

The bride looked amazing! I just love it when there is enough time for a few bridal portraits before the action begins.

Time to go! Jannae and Ryan were so excited to see each other before the ceremony!

After the big reveal we were able to do some photography on the grounds of the Riu Palace, it was a very warm and bright day and I really appreciated the bride and groom being such good sports.

The bright maraca wedding favors were custom painted in Puerto Vallarta by Mishka Designs. I dare any Mexico wedding guest to try not to have a good time with these!

Kind of like parades or fireworks destination weddings are spectator sports!

A few post ceremony beach photographs of the new husband and wife….

La fiesta started off with a mariachi band…

Sahar and Matt’s wedding was held on the beach at one of my favorite Mayan Riviera beach wedding locations, Le Reve in Playa del Carmen. This beautiful  beach location seemed just perfect for this couple, relaxed but also elegant.  I knew the second I met Sahar that she was high energy all the way! There was seriously never a dull second, the day flew by. Thank you Sahar and Matt, for being so fantastic! All photographs by Elizabeth and Lindsey Medina.

I loved Lindsey’s next shot!

The girls look fabulous!

Following the beach ceremony and cocktails Matt and Sahar had a Persion ceremony. Somehow I ended up photographing while perched in a tree…love the photos though!

The Persian ceremony started off with a bit of dancing, the next photo is Lindsey’s.

This wedding was a lot of fun to photograph! Britni and Joshua’s wedding and trash the dress session at the Royal in Playa del Carmen, Mexico had liberal doses of both bright bright sunshine and pouring rain that seemed to alternate all day long! Britni and Joshua really went the extra mile and never lost cheer despite the changing weather. These two are so great together, it made for fun day of shooting and lots of photographs!

This has to be one of my all time favorite wedding details ever! Britni chose to wear a pair of blinged out Toms shoes for her wedding day! (at least for the portions of the day that she wasn’t a barefoot bride!) These shoes are really special because for each pair that is purchased an pair is given to a needy child. So fantastic.

I had to include this next one so you could see what great sports Josh and Britni were! We were like the mail service, and a little rain was not going to stop us!