I just recently got back from our wedding at the RIU Palace Mexico on Feb 7th. It was amazing and so stress free! We were very happy with how everything went. In case anyone is planning or considering a wedding there, hopefully this will help.
Location: we chose the gazebo, and were very happy with our choice. We had only seen one other wedding htere in the two weeks of our stay the others were on the beach. The beaches are quite crowded as there isn't much left to them.
Flowers: We didn't get anything on top of the added fake flowers they set out for every wedding. For my and the bridemaid's bouquets I chose orchids. There was an extra charge but they were beautiful. I kept the smaller bouquet in my room for a week and a half after the wedding and it still looked great.
Reception: we chose La Bodega. I wouldn't recommend this if you have vegetarians because most of the meal is meat. They bring it out on large skewers and cut your portion directly onto your plate. It was a closed off room that we had mostly to ourselves. A few other tables were occupied by people we didn't know but they left before we were done dinner. We then had the room to ourselves to do the cake cutting, bouquet throwing and even a dance. We brought our iPod and stand and plugged it in the restaurant with a playlist we'd prepared for our wedding dance.
Cake: we chose chocolate with vanilla icing. The cake isn't anything special. We had a cake for 35 people (36 people came) and we had well over half left over. I wouldn't recommend paying extra for the cake. And I didn't reall ylike the chocolate cake at the resort either, it wasn't chocolatey enough for me! lol.
We got married in Canada prior to going to Mexico because we didn't want the extra hassle of vblood tests and paper work. We brought a copy of the ceremony we did at home and gave it to our wedding coodinator. You don't actually get to meet the minister until the ceremony begins and he did a wonderful job. His English was great as well. We used a playlist we'd prepared as well fo rthe ceremony and they hooked it up to their sound system, worked out really well.
Hope this info helps. I'm still trying to figure out how to add pictures, so they may soon follow.
Candace
Here's the link to the photographer that we used: Weddings http://web.mac.com/image_life/Weddings There's a bunch of albums on it with weddings at different locations so good to see if you are still considering that. As for the other questions, we didn't book any extra musicians, nor did I see any other wedding. I'm sure they can hook up any type of music player you bring. We'd brought a CD as well in case the iPod didn't work but didn't have to rely on it. In between the ceremony and cocktails, the rest of the guests took pictures themselves and then had a drink (or a few) in the lobby bar which is right there as well. No one made any comments about there being too much down time. The La Bodega restaurant has a salad bar to begin your meal with so there are a lot of other options. We didn't know what to expect for the meal so I think a lot of people were very conservative on the salad bar not knowing the rest would be pretty much meat only. El Patio is open so its less private. I was glad we had the privacy we had after the dinner.