Mateo Wants No WiFi. I'm Not Ready.

Amiga, let me paint you a scene. We're sitting at our favorite taquería in Condesa, Mateo sketching something on a napkin the way he always does when he's thinking, and out of nowhere he says — completely tranquilo, like it's the most obvious thing in the world — "For the honeymoon, I want somewhere with no WiFi. Maybe no signal at all." And I just looked at him. Me quedé sin palabras. The man who has spent the last three years watching me photograph every hotel lobby, every sunset, every impossibly perfect ceviche for @jets.etsofia looked me in the eyes and said: no WiFi.

De verdad, I understand the impulse, cariño. We are planning a wedding for ninety guests at a boutique resort in the Riviera Maya, and the logistics alone have consumed approximately forty-seven spreadsheet tabs and a running thread of 200-plus messages with our planner Renata Cabral that I am not emotionally ready to count. The idea of two weeks where nobody needs an answer from me? Genuinely hermoso. But also — and I say this with full awareness of how it sounds — my whole job is being online. The honeymoon will be content. It has to be content. ¿Verdad?

This is the negotiation nobody warned me about. Not the flowers, not the venue fee (though trust me, that one also caught me off guard), not even the seating chart. The real standoff of our engagement is this: Mateo wants a forest, a beach with no other humans, and probably a hammock. I want a villa with strong signal, a terrace with good light before 10 a.m., and at minimum a backup hotspot. We are, as they say, en proceso.

The Case Mateo Is Making, Which Is Annoyingly Compelling

Here is the thing I will not say out loud to Mateo but will absolutely say to you: his argument is not wrong. He works in boutique hotel design — he has literally spent years thinking about what makes a space feel like an escape versus a set — and his pitch for the honeymoon is essentially a design brief. "We spend every day curating," he told me. "¿No quieres un descanso?" Don't you want a rest? And I sat with that for a minute because, honestly, it landed.

His shortlist leans toward places that are intentionally remote. We're talking a private island situation off the Belizean coast, a jungle lodge in the Lacandón that has solar power and a satellite phone for emergencies, and one property in the Yucatán peninsula that markets itself — and I am quoting directly from their website — as a "connectivity-free sanctuary." ¡Increíble! They say it like it's a selling point. Mateo says it like it's a selling point. I am surrounded.

His actual case, stripped of the romance: we are going to spend the six months before fall 2027 in full wedding-planning mode. By the time we get to the honeymoon, I will have sent more emails than I care to think about — I already know from what booking the venue alone involved that this number will be humbling. Mateo's point is that the honeymoon should be the one part of this whole process that belongs entirely to us, not to the grid. Y la verdad — I keep almost agreeing with him, which is its own kind of unsettling.

The Case Sofía Is Making, Which Is Also Valid (I Promise)

Okay, amiga, let me be honest about what "no WiFi honeymoon" actually means for me, practically speaking. It is not vanity — or, fine, it is a little bit vanity, but it is also logistics. I have brand partnerships that run on a posting schedule. I have an audience on @jets.etsofia that has been following this engagement story since Paris, since the seventh trip, since the ring. They are going to want honeymoon content. That is not me being dramatic; that is literally how this works. ¡Ay, la realidad!

My counter-proposal has gone through three drafts in my head. Version one: we pick a property that is remote but has WiFi, I batch-post everything in two scheduled windows per day, and Mateo gets 22 hours of fully present Sofía. He said that sounded like a work trip. Version two: I hire a social media manager to handle the feed for two weeks while I go full desconectada. This version costs real money and also requires trusting someone else with my aesthetic, which — no. Version three, which is where we currently are: we agree on a destination that is genuinely beautiful and secluded but within range of a signal if I need it, and I commit to leaving the phone in the room until after breakfast every single day. Mateo said that was "a start." ¡Qué negociador!

The other thing I keep coming back to, de verdad, is that this is the one part of the whole wedding weekend I am not rushing. Every other decision has a deadline — the venue deposit, the florals from our Mexico City studio, the paper goods from the Oaxaca letterpress — and I have felt that pressure on every line item since we started. Just understanding what the venue fee actually covers took me two weeks and a very patient email from Renata. The honeymoon is the one place where nobody is chasing me. So maybe the fact that Mateo and I are still arguing about it is actually — fine? It means we're paying attention.

Where the Shortlist Actually Stands Right Now

We have four destinations still alive on the list, which I know is too many for people who are getting married in fall 2027, but cariño, we have time and I refuse to be rushed on this one. The connectivity-free jungle lodge is still on there because Mateo put it there and I am being a buena novia about it. The private Belizean island is on there because the photos are genuinely breathtaking and I think I could survive three days without signal if the light is that good. The other two are more Sofía-friendly: a boutique property in the Maldives with overwater villas and, yes, WiFi, and a small design hotel in the Azores that Mateo actually suggested, which I think was a peace offering because it has both incredible remoteness and a fiber connection in every room. ¡Qué detalle, mi amor!

Renata has already told us, very gently, that if we want peak-season availability at any of these places for fall 2027, we need to start making calls by early 2027 at the latest — deposits for the kind of properties we're looking at run between $1,800 and $3,500 USD just to hold the dates, and that's before flights, transfers, or any of the actual room costs. La verdad, after going through everything that goes into booking a full wedding weekend, I know better than to assume the headline price is the whole price. The honeymoon will have its own version of "chairs cost extra." I am mentally prepared. Mostly.

For now, the deal Mateo and I have shaken hands on — literal handshake, very formal, we are ridiculous — is this: he gets to veto any property that feels like a content set rather than an actual place. I get to veto any property where I cannot get a signal within thirty minutes of the room. That leaves us with two options still standing and one very fun argument to finish having. Honestly, amiga, it is the most romantic thing we've done since Paris. ¡Increíble lo que te hace el amor!

Bride in progress, amor en construcción.
— Sofía

Bride in progress, amor en construcción.
— Sofía