MKEbride2be

I posted some photos from our table set up in my review (about halfway through): http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/reviews/r/3780-now-jade-riviera-cancun/ Hope it helps!

We had 30 people at our wedding and had our reception in the Bamboo room. I didn't think it felt empty. We did a long rectangular set up for the dinner table, had a cake table, a table with reception cards/guest book/photos from our legal wedding and then the DJ. All of that takes up a fair amount of space but left room for dancing. I would imagine using round tables or even just separate square tables would take up even more space and make the room feel even less large. For a June wedding, the AC was a plus once we all started dancing

We uploaded our video from the resort Videographer to share with our family. You can see it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXCD9IwqAxQ Overall, I thought they did a nice job and worked well with our outside photographer.

If you have the Divine package, the sound system for the ceremony is included. You can move your musician to the cocktail hour without needing to pay extra for your music to be played at your ceremony. At least this was how it worked for our wedding in June. Not sure about how this works with any other package. We had the guitar player for the cocktail hour and it was really nice--he was able to play for much more than we would have used him at the ceremony and it made for a nice ambiance.

We didn't have a card box at our reception and multiple people were looking for a place to put cards (we had also made it evident that the presence of guests at the wedding was present enough, but some still wanted to give a gift and others wanted to give a card to commemorate the day). One of my friends ended up collecting the cards, but a box would have been nice. We had OOT and then just a small wedding favor at the reception.

I posted my review of Del Sol Photography, who we used for our June 5th, 2013 wedding and TTD. Absolutely loved working with them and the photographs are amazing (there are a few posted in the review). My only regret is not hiring them for longer on the wedding day--I wish I had used them for our salon photos rather than resort photographer--the Del Sol photos are just so stunning. We needed to change our budget to work Del Sol into our plans, but I am so incredibly pleased that we did! http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/products/del-sol-photography/reviews/7595

The 11% Tax and 15% service fees are both charged for items for which there will be servers (eg extra dinners, champagne, cake, extra reception time). Only 11% tax is applied to other items such as additional flowers, DJ, sound system (if not included in your package), lighting. There is no additional tax on items in your package (the tax is already included in the package amount). I do not believe there was any tax or service fee on day passes or set up costs. Hope this helps.

We tipped $50 to the wedding coordinator (Pilar) and also to our assistant coordinator (plus tips to the usual service folks you would tip at a wedding). We weren't sure what was standard to tip coordinators in a package wedding situation and basically made up this amount--hope we didn't err on the low side! Unrelated note--We received our video from the videography included with the divine package and were very, very happy (much better than the photos included with the package). I think a lot depends on who is working your wedding. Claudia did our video and was great at capturing details and working with our outside photographer to get some nice shots after the ceremony in between our couples photos.

Hi Ironman! We had a few people get sick with Traveller's diarrhea at the resort, which responded quite well to Ciprofloxacin (I'd bring some along). We actually had a bigger problem with a number of people (myself included) becoming ill (gastritis + diarrhea=no fun) on returning to the US. A few of these people tried antibiotics and they actually were sicker longer than the rest of us, so we think it may have been something viral going around. Who knows-we might have even picked it up on the plane. In general, I felt that resort was good with hygiene-they want you to enjoy your vacation and leave with a good impression. I'm not sure exactly which recipe they used for Purple Rain at the resort, since there are a few out there, but it involves Blue Curacao, gin or vodka, something lemon-limey and I think grenadine. When we originally went to the resort for a site visit, we asked one of the bartenders to make us some purple drinks and this was our favorite. We had it blended and served with an orange slice (to match our purple and orange theme) and it looked nice in the martini glasses it was being served in. Overall, a very refreshing drink that went down smoothly (maybe a little too much so--I had two and was quite happy by the time of the reception!). Good luck with your planning!

Hi all! I have posted my resort review from my June 5th, 2013 wedding. I hope it is helpful! http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/products/now-jade-riviera-cancun/reviews/7436

Thanks for the information, chrisdior! I was getting the impression that they really don't recommend the beach for a reception location, but I'm glad Pilar was able to give it a reason. We decided to go ahead a put a deposit down for June 5, 2013 at the Jade. We're going to try to go visit this summer and make sure we like it! I think at this point I'm considering having our reception at the pool terrace if it doesn't seem to windy when we visit or on the oceanview terrace if the wind nearer to the beach seems too much. I hope your own planning is going well!

Sorry to post twice (forgot to click the quote button). I've asked them to include some photos of this at the webinar this weekend, as I haven't been able to find photos of a beach reception either, even after asking Pilar for them directly.

I haven't been too successful with finding these either. I even emailed Pilar and she ended up sending me photos of the pool deck and terrace. I've requested this information to be included at the webinar this weekend, so hopefully they will have some photos after that...

I would like to know about decorations that are allowed (table centerpieces, use of candles/luminaries, pergola decor) and associated set up fees above what is included in the wedding packages. Thanks!