~Kate~

We had the 3 piece mariachi during dinner on one of the nights before the wedding and they were awesome!! Now, they were doing more dinner style music and our guests were getting totally into it, making requests and singing along, so it is hard for me to picture them during the ceremony...if you have a specific style or "feeling" you want, maybe ask Lindsay for a live music suggestion?? They definitely have lots of options. We didn't do live music on the wedding night. For pre-ceremony music while guests gathered by the pool and waited, we had a playlist of my favourite Vitamin String Quartet songs - Aldo played them and it sounded great!! Then we had our processional (Heaven, Bryan Adams cover) and recessional (U2, Beautiful Day - cropped to start at "it's a beautiful day...") played by Aldo as well. During the cocktail hour, Aldo picked funky Mexican feeling lounge type music...and then had nice dinner music once dinner was served. About the price...I had listed on our website the total, then broke down what this included, like the service and crazy high tax. In my pre-wedding welcome brochure, I also stated specifically that service was included in your room rate so no additional tipping was required (for servers and bar staff, etc). Most of my guests had travelled to Mexico before so were aware of the high tax, but I did feel like I had to explain it because it seemed kinda crazy to me.

Quote: Originally Posted by fitnessfi Please can you tell the website where you got the pens? Thanks I got the pens from Oriental Trading Company.

Thanks for all the really nice comments, ladies!!! The song is "Man and Wife" by Michelle Featherstone.

Hi everyone, We just received our wedding slideshow and gallery by Michelle Turner from our 2/6/09 wedding at Playa Fiesta in Puerto Vallarta. Michelle was absolutely amazing to work with (I wholeheartedly recommend her!!), and we did a "True Romance" shoot in Old Town in PV and on the Conchas Chinas Beach the day before the wedding. Here's the link to our slideshow: Kate and Steve You can see a couple of our faves on Michelle's blog at http://michelleturnerphotography.net...iesta-wedding/ Michelle took a million pictures and was extremely professional, friendly, and easy to work with - and her work is just our style!! We're so happy we went with her for as our photographer. Thanks for looking!! Kate

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Love love love the video, Kate!!! Ray did a great job...and pretty quick too....now if only you could get some more pics back!! For you ladies who are using Michelle Turner, she just posted a few teasers of our wedding on her blog at Michelle Turner - I LOVE them!!! I was so excited to see them!!! You'll love the true romance shoot she does...she knows all the great places and we had a blast!

Quote: Originally Posted by Carolyn Great review. How did you get him to do the first dance? My FI keeps telling me that he will not do something like that. I love your first dance great job. Coercion, bribery, threats....the usual Actually, we'd been thinking about doing a crazy first dance for awhile, but everything I showed DH he thought would be too hard. When we thought about doing something like this, he figured we could actually do it since it doesn't require a lot of actual dance skill. We practiced it a bit, recorded ourselves, and when he figured we didn't look too ridiculous, he agreed we could do it and we started really practicing....people absolutely loved it, especially b/c we hadn't told anyone so it was a complete shock!!

Ray did an awesome job, Kate!!! You and Bill look so happy. Hope you get the rest soon!!

Jennie, Kate's right, we also had a friend officiate...this meant we could write our own ceremony and it was very personalized, intimate, and special. I spoke to a bride who used Lucie AND a bride who used Barry and both were very, very happy with them. Do you have a preference for man or woman? This is from the Bride's page on the website: Lucie is a Canadian and she is fluent in English, French and Spanish. Lucie will email you ahead of time to go over the ceremony content and text. She will meet with you the week of your wedding at Playa Fiesta for an additional $100. Lucie is $550 for the spiritual ceremony. Lucie can also assist with a legal ceremony. Her fee to assist with the legal portion of the ceremony is $300USD (not including the cost of blood tests, judge, marriage class, etc). Minister Barry Barry, an American, will not email ahead of time and instead prefers to meet the couple two days before the wedding to go over the ceremonial details. Barry believes that keeping his sermon a surprise gives the ceremony a fresh and lively feel. At your meeting you may suggest things that you absolutely want your friends and family to enjoy and those items you definitely do not want included. Ultimately though Barry won't divulge much and gives each couple their own personal words of wisdom. Barry is $550 for the spiritual ceremony. Barry donates all of his earnings to the homeless children in Puerto Vallarta*

Still L, K8 J now B! Feel better soon!! It's a long weekend here in Canada so I plan on actually unpacking and maybe starting some photo projects Or maybe I should study... Everyone, I just did my review - check it out: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...191#post692780 - although I echo everything Kate already said in hers! Feel free to ask any questions here or in that thread...

Our wedding at Playa Fiesta was amazing and the whole week was the week of a lifetime!! I’ll try to give a detailed review, but please feel free to ask questions! RESORT – Playa Fiesta Playa Fiesta is beautiful. For a very realistic description of the resort itself, see the TripAdvisor reviews (PF is ranked #1 resort in Puerto Vallarta). I’ll keep this review focused on the wedding services. Here’s a few pics of the place: Staff and service: The staff and service at PF are probably the best part of the resort. They will, quite literally, do anything to make you happy. The staff learn your guests’ names on the first day, and they’ll find themselves supplied with their favourite drink without even asking. Positive comments on the service and staff were the most common we received from our guests. Food: Breakfast is included in your package and is a full breakfast buffet with made-to-order eggs every morning. The day after the wedding, we had a post-wedding brunch that was absolutely amazing. A lot of our guests ordered the resort food for lunches and it was consistently excellent and quite well-priced. We did 3 dinner buffets throughout the week– the food was excellent every night. We also did a Mexican coffee one night (coffee with liquor and whipped cream, lit afire!), Mexican fried ice cream one night (to die for), and a cupcake table on rehearsal night. Our guests loved it all. The wedding night, we did a 5 course plated dinner that was, by far, the food highlight of the week, which is saying a lot. I am a big fan of plated dinners at weddings – to me, it just lends a certain elegance that I really like. Plus, since we did buffets the other nights, we wanted the wedding night to stand out. I am very happy with this decision – we had guests tell us that they were full after the pasta course but the rest was just too good not to eat. It was about $40 per plate. Bar: Open bar until 11pm is included on all nights except the wedding. This includes everything except top shelf stuff (Crown, Baileys, Absolut). On the wedding night, we did 5 hours open bar followed by consumption until about 12:45am (so about 7 hours total bar provided to the guests). Again, we just did national open bar rather than premium. The bar was a major line on our budget (it was $10/person/hr). To make the wedding day special, we did signature drinks (bright blue – one of our wedding colours) during cocktail hour and had wine served during dinner. Also, the bartenders (Charlie and Aldo) put all these shot glasses in the shape of our initials, which was pretty cool looking. Hairstylists: We had our hair done by the hairstylists provided by the resort and were VERY happy. I had a trial when I arrived at the resort, and it was even more perfect on the wedding day. Bring pictures with you since their English is not that good. My Mom was the only one who had her makeup done by them, so I can’t say much on the makeup, but she loved it and it looked really good on her. Flowers: I had provided a picture of what I wanted to Lindsay and her florist did a fantastic job. My flowers were beautiful. For centrepieces, all I did was have the large pillar candles that you can order from Lindsay plus rose petals on the table. It looked great and lent a beautiful ambiance. If you’re looking to save money, this is one step I highly recommend. Fireworks: We did the small package of fireworks and they were a HUGE HIT. I can’t recommend them enough, but definitely keep it a surprise for your guests. Mid-reception, we stood on an island in the small pool to give our “Thank You†speech. At the end of the speech, we gave a code word and the fireworks and music began….breathtaking. They usually use “Thunderstruck†by ACDC, but we used “Let Me Entertain You†by Robbie Williams and it worked like it was made to be. Salsa dancing, fire jugglers, and mariachis: As entertainment, after our welcome dinner we had fire dancers and jugglers. They were pretty good and got the party going….although the guy dropped his flaming sticks a bunch of times ☺. The 3 piece mariachi band we had during dinner another night was fantastic – I would totally recommend them! Finally, on our rehearsal dinner we had Victor, the salsa dance instructor. He was hilarious – I loved it! Not everyone was into it, but the vast majority of our guests were up dancing. Price: Playa Fiesta weddings are not cheap. You are paying for privacy and the ability to completely customize your ceremony and reception. It is midway between most villas and an AI, from my basic knowledge, although I’m sure there are lots of exceptions to this. If you’re considering a wedding at PF, get Adam (the owner) to send you his budget worksheet so you can get an idea of how much it will cost you. Takeovers: You need to commit to a partial (20 rooms) or full takeover (30 rooms) for a wedding at PF. If you don’t fill them, you’re on the hook for the empty room space. This was our ONE major stress during the wedding planning and, from other PF brides I’ve spoken to, it is the most common stressor. I would suggest getting as good an idea of how many guests you’ll have before booking as possible, and count on a few cancellations, before you make your decision. My ONE negative: I will mention one negative that slightly took away from our experience. We had booked 2/3 of the rooms at the resort, and a few rooms were taken by outside guests who arrived on our wedding day. During our wedding reception, one of the outside couples came down to use the pool and deck area that we had exclusively reserved for our wedding….and made out in the hot tub. At first, I was pretty disappointed and wondered how this could have happened after paying for a private reception and being guaranteed privacy. After over a year of meticulously planning every detail of our wedding (I might be a little A type), it saddened me that this had happened. When we picked a wedding hotel, we had as our top priority being able to offer an exclusive event to our guests, and this was paramount in our decision to use Playa Fiesta. However, Adam and Lindsay both apologized profusely for the intrusion of the outside guests at our reception, explaining that they had spoken to these guests earlier in the night when they wanted to come down to the reception area and had made it clear that it was a private event. Furthermore, the correspondence between the guests and the resort was very clear that the reception area was off-limits after 4pm on the wedding day. As such, I think the resort did everything they could to prevent this from happening. Future brides, I would not let this dissuade you from considering Playa Fiesta – by all accounts, this has never happened before and I doubt it is likely to ever happen again – I can only imaging that the vast majority of outside guests would respect the fact that this is your wedding and would not intrude. Keep in mind that all outside guests must agree to the “private wedding event†policy on their reservations. Anyway, it wasn’t as big a deal as I thought at first and I bet I’m the only one who was really bothered, or perhaps who really noticed. Overall, this was the best week of our lives, and I will forever thank Playa Fiesta and its staff for making our dream wedding a reality. Still more below... The ceremony site: Here’s a link to our first dance….it was fun! You can see the set-up of the reception site: YouTube - Our First Dance movie WEDDING COORDINATOR – Lindsay Burgess – A+ Lindsay is the perfect wedding coordinator. She is very organized, responds to emails within minutes, and really seems to love her job. During the year prior to the wedding, I had many questions for Lindsay and could rely on an extremely prompt and professional response. She has great excel sheets where you just fill in the blanks, which kept me very organized, but at the same time she is open to your own ideas and really works to make your vision come true. I was concerned at first about using a coordinator who works for the resort and who is married to the owner, thinking that she might try to sell me on unnecessary extras. However, this fear was unfounded – when I needed to trim my budget on certain items, she carefully went over everything and gave me some very helpful suggestions. We had written our own ceremony that included some unique elements, which Lindsay totally took in stride - she ran our rehearsal perfectly, and everyone felt very comfortable with what they were doing. I didn’t worry about a thing on the wedding day, because I knew she had everything under control. Lindsay is worth every penny of her coordination fee. Of our resort expenses, she was our best investment. DJ – Aldo – A+ Aldo is a bartender at Playa Fiesta during the week and the DJ on the day of the wedding. We had brought our own music for before the ceremony, the processional/recessional, our first dance, and some must plays – all of which he used perfectly. I just gave him the music and he took care of everything. He had everyone dancing all night. During our reception dinner, he played nice soft dinner music. We had a wireless mic and people kept going up to answer questions that were part of our “kissing gameâ€. He must have just sat by the stereo all night, because as soon as someone got up to go to the mic, he would turn down the music. Also, one of the questions was “What song is DH’s signature song on Rock Band?†– when the person answered “Creep by Radiohead†and called up DH to do a rendition, within a few seconds, Aldo had the song going on the sound system. Aldo also DJ’ed during our group salsa lessons on our rehearsal night and was fantastic. Because he had been there during the week as a bartender, he knew everyone’s name, which made it much more special. EL EDEN ZIP-LINE TOUR: Our one organized event was the El Eden Zip-Line Tour…almost half of our guests did it and had a fantastic time. The bus (an open air bus that had about twice as many people on it as should have been!) picked us up at the resort and trucked us off to the zip-line place that was 25 minutes away. We did 12 zip-lines each and stopped for a tequila tasting on the way home. Overall, we were out for almost 5 hours…not a bad deal for $55pp! The front desk will arrange any activities for you, but I would recommend pre-booking the zip-line if you want to go, since the pre-booking rate is so much better than the regular rate. Other members of our group golfed and went deep sea fishing, both of which were very successful excursions. PHOTOGRAPHER – Michelle Turner Michelle’s work speaks for itself. I haven’t received any pictures back, so I can’t comment on our pictures, but there were two things I really appreciated about Michelle: one, she does so much work in PV and at PF that she knows all the great spots for photos, both in town and around the resort; and two, she was so easy to work with and non-intrusive that we hardly noticed she was there – she just blended in around the ceremony and reception. She is a high-end photographer ($$) but has special pricing for PF since she does so much work there. I’ll update this after I’ve received some pics. A few pics to end:

Thanks for starting this thread, Kate!!!! I just got married at PF on Friday and it was fabulous!! I'll have lots to say later but just wanted to quickly check in...glad to see so many PF brides on here! Kate L.

Thanks so much for all the well-wishes!! Can't believe I'm back and married!! I'll post a review and pics soon...

Thinking about you and Bill today Kate!!! I can't wait to hear ALL about it!!!

K8!! I've been checking for your thread...I think I've seen all these pics in bits and pieces and have loved it all, but when you see everything together it is STUNNING!! You and Bill are going to have the most fabulous wedding...and you know I'll be waiting to hear all about it!!!!! Know that I'll be thinking of you all next week, especially Friday at sunset You've worked so hard, now go and relax and enjoy and get married....

We're doing that as well - my close friend will perform the ceremony, which we wrote ourselves. However, as our crowd has a lot of lawyers, we can't really tell them she got ordained since they'll know we can't do that here So we're just telling people that we're doing the paperwork here in Ontario (we found someone who will do this without making us do vows or anything) but having our ceremony in Mexico...

They all look great - you have fabulous hair! But the first one is my fave of the bunch.

ooh, happy birthday Melissa!! Big plans?? Have a great one!!

Hey Kathy - you should talk to Yanell, who had her trial there: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t30133 A good friend of mine recommended Blu b/c he knows a few of the people that work there - he even emailed Len for me to ask him about his hair/make-up....but I still think it might be easier to just get the resort ppl to do it...I dunno!! What are the prices like?

haha, I hear you ladies....I think kids are on the radar, but not for at least a few years....for now, we just spoil Cooper l l V

Did I miss a new thread on this or are all the questions going to be in this thread?!? I get confused easily...

Quote: Originally Posted by Mel&B Thanks! We've seen the pics, and it looks beautiful! I don't care if the rocks come back by May (my wedding date), but I have to admit the sand would look really pretty in the wedding pictures. My thoughts exactly, Melissa! Although Kate and I have a better chance of being rock-free since we're [GASP] only 2 months away. of course, as soon as we're back we'll fill you in on all the details!! k, back to studying here (one more exam on Tues and then I'm in wedding mode).

I'll do my best Debbie, but Kate and Melissa can fill in the missing details!! And you'll want to email most of these questions to Adam and Lindsay, who will be able to answer for sure and are super quick on email responses! Quote: Originally Posted by debbie421 Now you've done it! Here are my first round of questions..... 1. Has anyone figured out if you can have a wedding there but not do a partial buyout? I think there is something where you can stay elsewhere and do a Sunday or Monday wedding at PF, but if you want your group to stay there, I'm pretty sure you need to do a partial or full buyout. 2. If people aren't staying there, how much for them to come over and hang out at the pool? You'll have to ask Lindsay for this - she did up an off-site guest quote for me after we'd chosen our dinner and entertainment package 3. We don't have children, but several of our guests do. (Think 5 children under the age of 5.) Is there anything for them to do there? Does PF have babysitting services? No, no babysitting service - just the regular PF stuff for kids 4. Is there an AI nearby for those who feel they have to have one? I think the most common AI close by is Dreams 5. How do you really feel about the rocky beach? I know the rocks are gone now, but my main reason for choosing Mexico is a great beach amd I'm afraid they'll come back. There are three sandy beaches within about 10 minutes, so this doesn't really bother me. It would be nice if the rocks stay away though!! 6. Has anyone done a tasting? Good food is very important to me. Nope, I haven't done a tasting. However, I've spoken to two other PF brides who both raved about the food, especially the buffets. I think if you do a site visit, you can do a tasting. Whew, I think that's it! For now. Good luck!!!

I love it Mishka - thanks for posting!! The Mexican artwork is fabulous...and it really doesn't cost a ton??

We're using Michelle - I just fell in love with her pictures....have you looked through her blog? She's done a TON of weddings at Playa Fiesta and lots of "true romance" (TTD type) shoots in PV.....anyway, we just decided by looking through the portfolios and picking a photographer whose style spoke to us....pictures are super important to us so we knew this would be a major budget item....good luck!!!