Venue Guide
Your Wedding at
Barcelo Maya Palace
Riviera Maya
The flagship of a five-hotel Barcelo complex on the Puerto Aventuras coast, with 756 suites, ballrooms seating close to 300 and two kilometres of white sand. It is built for a big guest list.
Check your dateWe have photographed 1 wedding at Barcelo Maya Palace.
What couples ask first
5 figures, each with the caveat that comes with it.
- 1.1Outside photographers
- USD 500 to 750 (reported).Barcelo permits outside photographers, videographers and hair and makeup artists, and charges a vendor fee per service.
- 1.2Capacity
- Wedding groups are quoted from 2 to 200.
- 1.3Wedding packages
- USD 0 to 14,000 for the package, covering 25 to 50 guests.Published rate. Confirm with the venue.
- 1.4Best months
- Late November through April brings the clearest beaches and driest weather.
- 1.5Airport transfer
- About 50 miles south of Cancun International Airport, roughly an hour by road on Highway 307, on the Puerto Aventuras stretch of the coast.
What couples choose it for
- 2.1
Every room category here is a suite or junior suite, so there is no awkward gap between what your parents book and what your college friends book.
- 2.2
Palace guests get free-flow access to the restaurants, bars, pools and beaches of Barcelo Maya Beach, Caribe, Colonial and Tropical, which keeps a week-long wedding party from running out of things to do.
- 2.3
The resort fronts roughly two kilometres of white sand with several separately bookable stretches, so your ceremony is not competing with another wedding for the only good piece of beach.
- 2.4
Three indoor halls seat 270 to 290 guests, which means the rain plan is a real reception room rather than a hallway with chairs in it.
- 2.5
Barcelo publishes a laddered set of named wedding packages, including dedicated Hindu and Indian packages, so you can compare exactly what each tier includes before committing.
- 2.6
Catholic, civil, symbolic, multicultural and same-sex ceremonies are all standard here, which matters when you need a rite the coordinators have run many times before.
Where you would actually get married
Ceremony
3.1Gazebo Palace
An oceanfront gazebo at the water's edge, used for ceremonies only.
3.2Coco Beach
The largest of the named beach sites, listed for ceremonies of up to 300, and able to carry the cocktail hour and dinner on the same stretch of sand.
3.3Coral Beach
A white-sand ceremony site for up to 100 that also takes a cocktail hour and a beach reception without moving your guests anywhere.
3.4Barcy Beach
A smaller beachfront ceremony option for up to 100, usually paired with a cocktail hour on the same sand.
3.5Oaxaca Beach
Another 100-guest beach site that also takes a reception, useful when another wedding is already holding one of the other stretches.
3.6Chapel
A chapel seating about 100, with Mayan-influenced detailing, for a religious ceremony held indoors and out of the midday heat.
Reception
3.7Tule Hall
A climate-controlled ballroom for up to 280, and the space most couples fall back on when weather moves the party indoors.
3.8Chac Halal Hall
A ballroom seating up to 290 with high ceilings, sized for grand celebrations that need staging and a long programme.
3.9Quetzal Hall
An indoor hall for up to 270 offering complete privacy, for couples who want the party sealed off from the rest of the resort.
3.10Coral Grill
An indoor restaurant space with terrace views, seating up to 300 for dinner or cocktails.
3.11Rooftop Terrace100 seated
An open-air terrace for cocktail hour, capped at about 100 guests, and a genuine alternative when the sand is not cooperating.
3.12Beach receptions
Coco Beach, Coral Beach and Oaxaca Beach are all set up for dinner on the sand with a dance floor brought in.
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 are booking photography and video from separate companies.The vendor fee is charged per service, so booking a photographer and a videographer from different companies can mean paying it twice. Price it in before you choose a package.
- You are counting on the vendor fee disappearing because your photographer is staying on site.That arrangement reduces or removes the fee at many Riviera Maya properties. Whether it does here is a question to put to the coordinator in writing, not an assumption to build a budget on.
- You want guests able to walk out to a town for dinner.This is a five-hotel compound rather than a single hotel, with no walkable town outside the gates, so guests cover real distances on foot and need a taxi to reach Puerto Aventuras or Playa del Carmen.
- You want the dry season and a quiet resort at the same time.The resort is at its busiest from December through April, which is the same stretch that gives you the driest weather and the cleanest beaches.
- You want the ceremony to yourselves.Beach ceremonies here share sand with other resort guests, so which stretch is reserved for weddings has to be asked rather than assumed.
- Your date falls between May and October.Sargassum is heaviest from May through October on this coast. Crews rake the sand before breakfast, but a late spring or summer date needs a photographer who has worked around it before.
The honest considerations
- The vendor fee is charged per service, so a photographer and videographer from different companies can mean paying it twice; price this into your package.
- Ask in writing whether the fee applies if your photographer books a room as a registered guest; that often reduces or removes it locally.
- Guests walk real distances and need a taxi to Puerto Aventuras or Playa del Carmen.
- The resort is busiest from December through April, the same stretch that gives the driest weather and cleanest beaches.
- Beach ceremonies share sand with other resort guests; ask the coordinator which stretch is reserved for weddings rather than assuming it's quiet.
- Sargassum is heaviest May through October; crews rake before breakfast, but a late spring or summer date needs a photographer used to working around it.
Arrival, and where you get ready
- 6.1Fly into
- Cancun International Airport.
- 6.2Then drive
- About 50 miles south, roughly an hour by road on Highway 307.
- 6.3Arriving at
- The Puerto Aventuras stretch of the coast. Barcelo Maya Palace is the flagship of a five-hotel complex, so guests should book and give drivers the full hotel name rather than Barcelo Maya.
- 6.4Tell guests
- There is no walkable town outside the gates. Anything beyond the compound means a taxi to Puerto Aventuras or Playa del Carmen.
- 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 come from planners and photographers who have worked the property, not from the venue's own material; confirm with the wedding office.
- Bridal SuiteIn the U-Spa at the Barceló Maya Grand Resort complex, of which Barceló Maya Palace is one of the hotels.
What to ask the wedding office
- 6.7
The vendor fee per service in writing, and whether photography and video from two companies is charged twice.
- 6.8
Whether the fee still applies if our photographer books a room and attends as a registered resort guest.
- 6.9
Which stretch of the two kilometres of beach is reserved for weddings on our date.
- 6.10
What covered alternative we can hold for a May to October date, and what the sargassum routine is the morning of our wedding.
How the light works here
The beaches here face east onto the Caribbean, as most of this coastline does, so the sun rises straight out of the water and sets behind the resort over the jungle. That geometry works in your favour late in the day: with the sun behind you and the sea in front, nobody squints and the water holds a clean blue instead of going blown-out and white. The strongest window for portraits is the 45 minutes before sunset, which is why a ceremony set two to three hours before sundown almost always photographs better than a midday one. The most useful ground on the property is not the open sand but the palm-lined promenade set back behind it, where mature coconut palms throw dappled shade and give a portrait real foreground, and a sea grape hedge screens out the loungers while keeping the water in frame. It is windy here most afternoons, so plan hair, veils and any light fabric accordingly.
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. Riviera Maya, 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 Barcelo Maya Palace?
We are based in Playa del Carmen, so there is no travel fee anywhere in Cancun or the Riviera Maya.