Venue Guide
Your Wedding at
AVA Resort Cancun
Cancún
AVA Resort Cancun is a 1,600 room all-inclusive that opened in June 2024 at the far southern end of the Cancun hotel zone, about ten minutes from the airport. Every room faces the Caribbean, and weddings here happen on oceanfront terraces and in panoramic ballrooms rather than on an expanse of sand.
Check your dateWhat couples ask first
4 figures, each with the caveat that comes with it.
- 1.1Outside photographers
- AVA charges $1,500 USD per outside vendor, per service, per day, and each vendor needs a day pass for property access.
- 1.2Capacity
- Ceremony spaces run from about 20 guests on the small terraces up to roughly 400 on the AVA Terrace, across more than 90,000 square feet of event space.
- 1.3Best months
- October through December is the corridor's strongest window, with May and October good shoulder months.
- 1.4Airport transfer
- About a ten minute drive from Cancun International Airport, one of the shortest transfers in the corridor, which makes a same day welcome party realistic.
What couples choose it for
- 2.1
Every room, suite and villa faces the Caribbean under what the resort calls its Oceanfront Promise, so no one in your room block ends up wondering who got the good view.
- 2.2
The drive from Cancun International Airport is about ten minutes, one of the shortest transfers on the whole corridor, which makes a same day welcome party genuinely realistic.
- 2.3
It is one of very few properties in the region that can seat a ceremony of roughly 400 and then move that group into a cocktail for close to a thousand without leaving the resort.
- 2.4
The property opened in June 2024, so the terraces, suites and public spaces still read as genuinely new rather than recently refreshed.
- 2.5
AVA Bay, a 2.8 acre saltwater lagoon built with Crystal Lagoons technology, gives guests calm swimmable water and kayaking on days when the open sea is rough.
- 2.6
A planner who toured the property rated it strongly for accessibility and for families, citing an intuitive layout, elevators and ramps, and activities that hold toddlers through teenagers.
Where you would actually get married
Ceremony
3.1AVA Terrace400 seated
The largest ceremony space on the property, holding roughly 400 guests, with cocktail capacity running close to a thousand.
3.2Panoramic Terrace
An open air terrace seating about 200 to 240 for a ceremony, with wide ocean views.
3.3Lobby Terrace
Seats roughly 180 for a ceremony and takes up to about 300 for cocktails, looking out over AVA Bay with the sea behind it.
3.4North Bay Terrace and South Bay Terrace150 seated
A matched pair of mid sized oceanfront terraces, each taking somewhere around 120 to 150 guests.
3.5Altamar Terrace80 seated
A smaller terrace for about 80 guests.
3.6Sunburst Terraces and Dez Terrace20 seated
The intimate end of the range, around 20 guests each, suited to an elopement or a small family ceremony.
Reception
3.7Panoramic Ballroom 1 and 260 seated
Two indoor ballrooms with floor to ceiling windows, taking roughly 100 to 150 and around 50 to 60 guests respectively.
3.8Gala Ballroom200 seated
An indoor reception room taking around 200 guests, sitting between the panoramic ballrooms and the full convention scale of the AVA Salon.
3.9AVA Salon
The flagship ballroom at 52,068 square feet, with a built in stage, green rooms and division into sixteen sections, seating up to 5,000.
3.10Panoramic Terrace450 seated
Doubles as a reception space for roughly 300 to 450 seated, or up to about 600 standing for a cocktail.
3.11Dez Patio and Altamar Patio120 seated
Two patio spaces for smaller receptions and cocktail hours, in the range of 100 to 120 guests each, with an open air feel at a more contained scale.
When another venue fits better
Every point is drawn from the venue's own published terms and documented weddings. None of it makes this a bad venue.
- You want your spaces locked when you book.Your specific ceremony and reception spaces are not normally confirmed until roughly 60 days out, once final payment clears and an on-site coordinator is assigned.
- You want to lock a space early anyway.You can, but the resort charges a per person deposit to do it, which is then credited back against your wedding balance.
- You want a separate room for each part of the day.Couples are generally allocated two spaces, one for the ceremony and one shared between cocktail hour and reception, so the guest flow has to be designed around that from the start.
- The barefoot beach ceremony is the whole point.Sources disagree on whether a true feet in the sand ceremony is available here, so get a written answer from the resort before you build a plan around a beach ceremony.
- You are planning seating off published capacity numbers.Published capacity figures vary between booking agencies by as much as a hundred guests for the same space, so treat every number as approximate until it is written into your contract.
- You are arriving the day before.For a symbolic ceremony the couple needs to arrive at the resort at least two business days beforehand, and a mid afternoon arrival may not count as one of them.
The honest considerations
- Ceremony and reception spaces aren't normally confirmed until roughly 60 days out, once final payment clears and a coordinator is assigned.
- You can lock a preferred space earlier for a per person deposit, credited back against your wedding balance.
- Couples are generally allocated two spaces, one for ceremony and one shared between cocktail hour and reception; plan guest flow around that.
- Sources disagree on whether a true feet-in-the-sand ceremony is offered here, so get a written answer before building a beach ceremony plan.
- For a symbolic ceremony the couple must arrive at least two business days ahead; a mid afternoon arrival may not count as a full day.
- Published capacities vary between booking agencies by up to a hundred guests for the same space; treat every number as approximate until contracted.
Arrival, and where you get ready
- 6.1Fly into
- Cancun International (CUN).
- 6.2Then drive
- About ten minutes, one of the shortest transfers in the corridor, which makes a same day welcome party realistic.
- 6.3Arriving at
- The far southern end of the Cancun hotel zone.
- 6.4Tell guests
- Weddings here happen on oceanfront terraces and in panoramic ballrooms rather than on an expanse of sand. Say so before anyone packs for a beach wedding.
- 6.5At the airport
- Ignore anyone offering a ride between the arrivals door and the curb, however official they look. Only pre-arranged and federally authorized transport may pick up at the terminal, and the walk-up offers are where the overcharge stories come from. Ride-hailing apps work for the trip back to the airport but are unreliable for arrivals, so do not plan a pickup around one.
- 6.6Book the drive before you fly
- Reserve a private transfer in advance: the driver meets you with a name sign, at a fixed price agreed up front, and tracks your flight if it runs late. We use Private Driver Cancun, WhatsApp +52 984 132 3989, mixofcultures.com. USA Transfers and eTransfers are two long-established operators for larger guest lists.
Where you get ready
Details below are venue-published.
- Private Suites for Brides & GroomsWithin Beauty at AVA, the resort's beauty salon.
- Beauty at AVA11 stations.
What to ask the wedding office
- 6.7
In writing, is a feet-in-the-sand ceremony available on our date? Sources disagree, and one states the resort won't offer a beach wedding location.
- 6.8
The per person deposit to lock a preferred space early, and how it's credited back against our balance.
- 6.9
The seated capacity of whichever spaces we're allocated, written into our contract rather than quoted from an agency page.
- 6.10
The outside vendor fee: 1,500 USD per vendor/service/day, waived for photo/video/hair/makeup at 3+ nights in our block; REPSE registered?
How the light works at AVA Resort Cancun
The ceremony terraces are open and largely unshaded, so an early afternoon ceremony puts everyone under hard overhead sun. A planner who toured the property recommends pushing the ceremony later into the afternoon and putting fans, parasols and chilled water at the seats. This coast faces the Caribbean to the east, which means the sun comes up over the water and there is no over-water sunset to build a ceremony around, so the usable light lands soft on the oceanfront terraces early in the morning and again in the last hour before dark. The glass walkway leading into the ceremony area is the property's signature frame and works well for first looks and portraits, and the pink accented lobby is a strong interior fallback when the light goes flat.
The best time to start your ceremony
Arch's own rule for this coast is to begin the ceremony about 90 minutes before sunset, which leaves the vows in soft light and still keeps time for portraits afterwards. Start times are rounded down to the half hour. Cancun hotel zone, Quintana Roo. UTC-5 all year: the state left daylight saving in 2015. Times are town level, so they run within a couple of minutes of the property.
- 4:30 pm
- January, October, November, December
Sunset around 6:00 pm - 5:00 pm
- February, March, September
Sunset around 6:30 pm - 5:30 pm
- April, May, June, August
Sunset around 7:00 pm - 6:00 pm
- July
Sunset around 7:30 pm
Planning a wedding at AVA Resort Cancun?
We are based in Playa del Carmen, so there is no travel fee anywhere in Cancun or the Riviera Maya.