Vetted by hand,
from the peninsula.

Why we started here

The Samaná peninsula has the venues. Villas you rent in full with the pool looking out over Cosón. Restaurants on Playa Bonita that already know how to plate a hundred covers in the sand without the butter melting. Twenty-room boutique hotels where the owner is in the kitchen. And it has the vendors: photographers who live here (not the ones who fly in Friday), caterers who know how to cook a whole fish, planners who know the weather month by month because they've run plan B plenty of times.

What it doesn't have is order. The good information lives in people's heads, not online. To find the right person you have to know someone who knows someone — and if you're flying in from abroad, that's a lot to ask.

miboda is that someone. A directory where every listing passed through our hands before going live. If it's here, it's worth writing to. That's the whole promise.

How we vet

Before we publish a vendor, we do four things:

1. We confirm they're real. We visit the venue, look at the portfolio, and talk to the person who will answer your message.
2. We confirm they deliver. We ask for references from real weddings — not from a catalog. We talk to couples who already got married with them.
3. We confirm they're available. If they don't take weddings on the peninsula, they don't get in. If they only work big groups and you want something intimate, we tell you.
4. We confirm the photography. Every image in the gallery belongs to the vendor, with their permission. We never pull photos from Instagram without asking.

How we charge

We charge you nothing. You don't pay to use miboda — not to browse, not to request information, not to book. When a couple books a vendor through our request, the vendor confirms it to us. That's our only success metric. Whatever happens after that is between you and the vendor.

For now we don't charge the vendor either. We're focused on making the directory work before thinking about how it sustains itself financially. If that changes, we'll say so here first.

Who we are

miboda is run by a small team based in Las Terrenas. Marvin, the founder, comes from hospitality on the north coast (Sienna, ETNO, Atlantique Sud) — that's where he met most of the vendors who are in the directory today. Ana, partner and operations director, coordinates the directory's day to day: vetting vendors, looking after couples, and following up on every request. She brings more than 20 years of experience in events and in the food and hospitality industry, and she's the reason every listing you see here has already passed through a real filter.

To write to us directly: hola@miboda.do. If you want to meet the people who sign our Journal articles, stop by Who writes for us.

Why only Las Terrenas and Samaná

Real curation means knowing the area. Knowing which villas look best at five in the afternoon and which only at midday. Knowing which planner answers on a Saturday and which doesn't. Knowing which photographer leaves for Europe in July. You can't do that by ear. We started where we can truly vet — the peninsula — and we only move when we can hold the same standard in a new area.

Is your wedding somewhere else in the DR? We can still suggest a planner we trust. Just write to us.