Tiffany Lanier first came to Isla Mujeres in 2001 to help a friend from Minnesota plan her wedding. She moved to the island in October 2002 and founded SunHorse Weddings that year, after a career in IT contracts and project management at the Mayo Clinic. The difficulty of reaching vendors in Mexico and the language gap, which she met while planning that first wedding, shaped the company: an English-speaking planner on the ground who bridges expectations between North American couples and the island.
Alex Petrila joined in 2009 and runs the back-end office organisation. Gabriela de León and Kai Creamer coordinate on the wedding day and Citlali Morales leads a five-person set-up team that designs and installs the décor. The team lives on Isla Mujeres full time and the company deliberately limits the number of weddings it takes on, so each couple works directly with the planners from the first call to the last dance.
“I plan weddings based on if I were the customer. How would I like the wedding experience to be? What would I expect from my planner?”
Tiffany Lanier, founder
Weddings are held at private beach clubs and rental villas that the company rents exclusively for the couple and their guests, on a private stretch of sand with only friends and family present. SunHorse is not tied to any resort, so couples choose their own venue, and may bring outside vendors or a friend or family member as officiant. The company also keeps a list of trusted photographers, videographers, florists, hair and make-up stylists, dessert carts and fireworks providers and manages each of them for couples who book through it.
The style is relaxed, colourful and Caribbean: round arches of flowers on the beach, long wooden tables, papel picado over a garden reception, mariachi on the sand, marquesita and churro carts and late-night dancing. Beyond the wedding day the team plans the whole week, including welcome and rehearsal dinners, catamaran snorkel and sunset cruises, golf cart scavenger hunts, yoga and spa days, and advice on where guests should stay.
Weddings planned by SunHorse have been featured on blogs including Style Me Pretty, WeddingWire and The Knot. Tiffany Lanier was profiled in Claire Cook's book Never Too Late: Your Roadmap to Reinvention.
