A Raucous Cusco Wedding With a Stop at Machu Picchu

Omar and Teresa

It’s safe to say that travel is incredibly important for Megan Spurrell and Henry Urrunaga Diaz, both of whom travel the world for a living: Megan is a Californian who works as the associate director of articles at Condé Nast Traveler in New York, and Henry is a Peruvian who films his adventures for his YouTube channel. The pair met through friends in 2014 while spending a few months in Rio de Janeiro around the time of the World Cup. They’ve lived together in Henry’s native Lima, traveled around Southeast Asia in tandem, and logged some long-distance years before settling in New York City in 2019.

“We’re not very traditional,” says Megan of the couple’s marriage; they first wed in New York’s City Hall in January 2020, but they always knew they’d hold a larger wedding later. Doing so in Peru made the most sense for many reasons: Henry has a big family with nine siblings (which would require lengthy visa processes for visiting the US), and Megan was eager to show her own family and friends her husband’s beautiful country after she having spent so much time there. So, in May 2024, the couple welcomed 120 guests to a rowdy, hug-filled weekend (which swelled, for many, to a half-month vacation) in and around Cusco and Peru’s Sacred Valley. Ahead, they share what they learned through the process of planning a Peru destination wedding.

Give in to the location, but not its rules

Though Henry and his family are from Lima, the couple opted to hold their wedding in the city of Cusco for its Incan ruins, colonial architecture, and proximity to the Andes. It was a stunning location that would represent a special, adventurous trip for the majority of their guests. Plus, “Every American who comes to Peru is probably going to want to go to Machu Picchu, so we were just helping them to get there,” Megan says.

From there, they did a ton of research and made two planning trips to the city before formally locking in their venue. The first visit was to get a feel for the area’s venues, and the latter came once they had found a planner, Tie the Knot in Perú, and put down a deposit at their preferred spot. “We were going to look at it and hoped we’d like it, and if we didn't, we had enough time to make another plan,” Megan says.

They needed a lot of room for their large guest list, which could be hard to find in charming, small-scale Cusco—unless they wanted to book a space in one of the city’s international luxury hotels, which they did not. The city’s venues also tended to have limitations on sound past a certain time of night, particularly in the historic center, and the couple knew their rowdy group wouldn't take well to limits on their fun.

Ultimately, they wanted to recreate the vibe of the groom’s family’s famous house parties, which are held at their house for just about every holiday—last year's Christmas eve “dinner” ran until sunrise. They found just the place with Hacienda Canopata, a family-owned, 16th-century home located 30 minutes outside the city’s noise restrictions.

Don’t expect any contracts (or credit card points)

One major issue that a wedding planner helped the couple resolve was deciding which vendors to put their faith in. “Culturally, we Peruvians are really informal in some ways—like there are really no contracts,” Henry says. Enter a wedding planner who “knew the providers for years, and trusted them.” With certain vendors, they still had to push for a written agreement—and after an attorney friend told them a contract was basically unenforceable, “handshake agreements” were the name of the game, Megan says.

Another nitty-gritty aspect of dealing with Peruvian vendors was that they typically preferred to be paid in cash. “I had a vision of racking up credit card points by planning a wedding, but no, all bank transfers,” Megan says.

Make it a once-in-a-lifetime vacation for everyone

Given the distance, many of the couple’s non-Peruvian guests decided to use the celebration as a jumping-off point for a major trip of up to two weeks. The couple’s own plans were to visit Lima the week before the wedding, then visit Machu Picchu the week of the wedding: They took the train to Aguas Calientes on Monday, hiked the ruins on Tuesday before taking the train to the lovely town of Ollantaytambo, and then returned to Cusco on Wednesday for the kick-off to the wedding. When other guests asked for tips about visiting the UNESCO World Heritage site, Megan shared their plans and hotels for others to come along.

“Next thing I knew, it became this caravan of at least 20 people, which to be honest was my dream!” she says. “I never would've asked everyone to do that. But everyone was like, ‘great, then we'll just buy the train tickets for the same time and do exactly what you're doing.’” A wedding-week trip with their nearest and dearest was a deeply special way to lead into the wedding.

Include a multi-day itinerary

With friends and family traveling across the globe, the couple felt compelled to keep everyone entertained for a few days’ worth of wedding festivities. On Thursday, they hosted welcome drinks at Museo del Pisco, a much-lauded bar and exhibition space popular with tourists that’s dedicated to Peru’s favorite spirit. Friday, they organized a day trip to Mountain View, a lodge near the town of Maras that they had initially considered for their wedding day; surrounded by the Andes and with llamas running wild all around, the lodge hosted an Incan-style meal for guests.

“We did pachamanca, an Incan earthen oven, so the experience was like a barbecue but they cook all the ingredients in the ground,” Megan says. “Throughout the weekend, we really wanted to show people Peruvian culture and give both Peruvians and Americans a chance to celebrate that and learn about the destination.” Guests also had the option to stop at another archeological site in the Sacred Valley, Moray, on the way to their lunch.

Saturday was the wedding itself, and on Sunday their loved ones enjoyed a goodbye breakfast at Cusco’s San Pedro market. “Anyone who’s visiting, the first thing I would tell them to do is go there and eat everything,” Megan says. “So we did that. We didn’t organize anything; people could meet us there, then walk through the market and pick out whatever they wanted. It was so fun to have everyone we knew bumping into each other, and reconvening around the same juice stall.”

Celebrate local food

The couple’s wedding menu was designed entirely around local products. “Everything was made in Peru. That was really important to us, again, to show people the culture and to put money back into Peru with our wedding,” Megan says. Dinner revolved around pork cooked in a Caja China, or big roasting box, with pastel de papa, or potato pie ("There's nothing 'more Peruvian than the potato,’ goes the saying,” Megan notes) and local veggies. Dessert was small local doughnuts known as picarones, and late in the night the couple served pizzettas and anticuchos, or grilled cow hearts on skewers. An overflowing table of Andean cheeses and breads was also laid out for grazing.

In addition, their drinks were based around Pisco, local vermouths, and Peruvian wine. “We had cases of Matacuy, a digestif that we served after lunch… and then people ended up drinking from the leftover bottles later at night,” the bride laughs.

Get ready to hug

Though only some of Megan’s guests could speak Spanish, and much of Henry’s family doesn't speak English, the camaraderie was easy and apparent at the welcome cocktail party—particularly after many of the aforementioned drinks. “At the end of the night, people were dancing and they couldn’t speak but they were all hugging. [In Peruvian culture], we touch a lot,” says Henry. “So it was hugging, hugging, hugging. They were surprised just by the hugging, and then you get used to it after two or three days.”

Pack in all the Peruvian traditions

Cultural differences were apparent again when the wedding planner warned Megan that their guests would likely expect to party for at least 12 hours. “I was like, ‘excuse me?!’ And she said, ‘Peruvians love a party, no one’s going to want to leave,’” she recalls.

To keep everyone entertained, the couple brought in salsa performer Jordan Valle, and handed out cigars. They also hosted an hora loca, or crazy hour, to reinvigorate the party, a common tradition in many Latin American cultures. “You can choose a theme, from your favorite soccer team to celebrity impersonators to Disney movies,” Megan says. As another nod to their location, Megan and Henry opted for an Andean theme, hosting dancers in costumes who demonstrated traditional moves—then led the guests in the Macarena and other more modern dances.

Include a nod to home, too

Once the energy was up from the hora loca and the couple started blasting more dance music, they brought out a special prop: foam hats that resembled the crown on the Statue of Liberty, as a touch of their current home in New York. While that was a clear visual marker, one wedding tradition from the U.S. snuck its way into the proceedings: speeches, which they held during the wedding luncheon, so as not to interrupt the evening’s party.

“We had [members of] both of our families speak, and it was amazing to me how many Peruvians came up after to say, ‘It was so nice to hear from your family! We don’t usually do this at weddings!’” Megan says.

Keep your eye on the prize

In the months leading up to the wedding, Henry felt the pressure of plotting such a major occasion. “I was getting in my head a bit, because I have never planned this kind of big thing, and it was really tough for me to worry about letting a lot of people down,” he says. But once he was at the wedding, looking around at friends and family from all over the world grooving on the dance floor, he realized it was all worth it.

“Seeing all my family and her family dancing together, eating Peruvian food, being happy in my country, creating these memories in a place that I really love—that was my favorite part,” he says.

Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler

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