Julie and RJ handed their Riviera Maya weekend to Diana Romo Weddings, and the plan came back with a barefoot beach ceremony at the water line and a jungle reception that flips from candlelight into a full rave. Diana and her team mapped it down to the smallest cue, from the violinist who led guests off a sunset rooftop into the trees, to the fruit and pearls stacked across the tables, to the custom bonfire the hotel dug out of the sand at the end.
Location: Riviera Maya, Mexico
Style: Romantic, Ethereal, Tropical
Time of planning: 1 year and 1 month
Number of guests: 70
Setting: Beach and Jungle
Season: Winter
The whole thing started at a technology conference in Las Vegas in January 2020, right before the world shut down. Julie and RJ ended up standing next to each other for four days straight, talking about everything, and somewhere in there they realized they both lived in Cincinnati. They never traded numbers. A few months later they ran into each other at a bar back home, and that was that.
The proposal came engineered like a magic trick. The two were designing their engagement rings together, so Julie assumed nothing could happen until that ring was finished. RJ quietly had a second travel ring made and booked a Northern Lights excursion during a trip with friends through the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Sweden. The one thing outside his control was the weather, which crashed to a record forty below. He hid the ring under eight layers and proposed beneath the aurora anyway. Julie was so caught off guard that she told him to stop joking before it clicked that he meant it.
Welcome Day
The weekend opened with a welcome party at Chablé Maroma, and the couple treated it as its own event rather than a warm up. The centerpiece was a Toast and Roast open mic, where guests could get up and either toast the pair or roast them, solo or as a couple, since everyone in the room had played some part in the love story. Handwritten notes waited inside every welcome bag.
For their looks that evening, Julie went with a cornflower blue chiffon gown that caught the beach wind, and RJ paired a cream jacket with brown trousers. The two of them walked the sand with the palms bending behind them, dusk doing most of the work.
Bride's Morning & Fashion
Julie does not usually do white. She tried a few gowns anyway, and nothing landed until The Remi by Moira Hughes. She skipped the crystals and the lace and let the shape do the talking. The color came in from the feet up, a pair of Reformation Natasha pumps in wine patent with a wraparound ankle strap, matched to the maroon running through the flowers.
Her hair went up for the heat and for the more bridal version of herself, and the Zoe Elizabeth team kept the makeup soft, with a spritz of Diptyque Do Son on top. The earrings are where it turns personal. Her statement pair was gold set with pearls, and the stack climbed with meaning from there, diamonds, opals for RJ’s parents who married in October, and blue topaz for her own parents who married in December, plus RJ’s name and their initials worked into the metal. Her rings and bracelet were custom from Lane & Kate.
Groom’s Fashion
RJ went black tie with a custom suit from Hyde Park Tailors, sharp and dark, finished with Allen Edmonds Fifth Avenue oxfords. His boutonniere pulled the deepest bloom in the room, built by Grisel Serrano.
Two accessories carry real weight. His ring was custom from Lane & Kate, designed alongside Julie’s before the engagement ever happened. Then there is the gold rope bracelet Julie gave him that stands in for tying the knot, which became one of the pieces he cares about most. A few pumps of Diptyque Orphéon rounded out the look.
Ceremony
The ceremony sat on a shaded, tucked away stretch of beach right at the water line. The couple centered the entire thing on two families becoming one, and that idea shaped everything from the order of entrances to the vows themselves. Julie chose to walk herself down the aisle. Before that, she had found a quiet hideaway in a wine fridge, cold and out of sight, where she could watch friends and family arrive and pick their seats, and she has said she ended up throwing a thirty second dance party with herself before her turn.
The florals told you where the thought went. Grisel Serrano built an asymmetric arch that loaded all the blooms onto one side, deep maroon orchids and waxy anthurium spilling against the palms, with amaranth left to drip toward the sand. Guests sat on bentwood bistro chairs from Archive Rentals, each one tied with a soft white bow at the back, the whole aisle laid over a round woven mat. The palette held in the crowd too, wine and burgundy tones with a few off notes threaded through.
One of the most personal moments came when Julie and RJ surprised their mothers mid ceremony, inviting them forward for a last first kiss and handing each of them roses. Their officiant, Christian Carballo, kept the tone squarely theirs, funny and warm and specific to the two of them. The music was mapped down to the beat, instrumental before and after the vows and songs with lyrics the moment things officially started. They closed it out the way they wanted, with a personalized shotski and tequila shots for everyone, and then the kiss.
Moments Together
This is where Soul Lovers really flex. Federica and Guillermo shoot part editorial and part documentary, with film in the rotation, and the portraits from the day carry that weight.
Cocktail hour ran its own arc. Guests were brought up to a rooftop looking over the beach at sunset, and midway through a violinist appeared out of nowhere and led everyone down into the jungle in a pied piper style walk toward the reception.
Reception
The reception moved into a jungle palapa at Chablé Maroma, and the design leaned all the way into moody. Candlelight everywhere, low dramatic lighting overhead, and tables dressed by Grisel Serrano in layered textures, sculptural florals, fruit, and pearls. Little cordless lamps with pleated shades sat on the tables, the exact object that turned restaurant dinners into a whole look this past year, dropped here in the middle of the trees.
The fruit and pearls were not styling for its own sake. The couple folded them in on purpose, fruit as a nod to their Greek and German heritage and a way to make the tablescapes interactive for guests, pearls as a thread back to the beach ceremony from earlier in the day. The room leaned into a romantic Greek feast energy, rich and a little theatrical, the kind of setup you settle into for a long dinner.
Then it flipped. After the first dances and the speeches, the lighting shifted from romance to full rave, and the whole space turned into a party, exactly the transition Diana Romo Weddings built the night around. Mike Montaño ran the DJ set, a live saxophonist climbed on top of it, and the energy went vertical. To close the night, the hotel dug a custom bonfire out of the sand for a final round on the beach, margaritas and s’mores included, with a fire show from Everbloom to send everyone off.
"Diana and her team are incredible in every aspect. The most important note, is no wedding they do will ever be the same. Everything is completely customized and tailored for the couple. The team works with you on completing your dream wedding."
Advice from the couple:
• Make your wedding intentional. Every decision should reflect your relationship, not expectations or traditions that don’t resonate with you.
• Be present. Trust your team, trust your planning, let go of control on the day, and truly experience every moment. It goes by fast, but if you stay present, it will exceed all
expectations.
PLANNER Diana Romo Weddings | PHOTOGRAPHY Soul Lovers | VIDEOGRAPHER Jesica Talento | VENUE Chablé Maroma | FLORALS Grisel Serrano Florals | STATIONERY Wedd Creative Lab | MAKEUP Zoe Elizabeth Team | DRESS Moira Hughes | BRIDE’S SHOES Reformation | BRIDE’S PERFUME Diptyque | RINGS Lane & Kate | GROOM’S SUIT Hyde Park Tailors | GROOM’S SHOES Allen Edmonds | GROOM’S COLOGNE Diptyque | OFFICIANT Christian Carballo | LIGHTING & SOUND Event Technology | RENTALS Archive Rentals | FIRE SHOW Everbloom | DJ Mike Montaño
