amysteele444

Quote: Originally Posted by lilmisssunshine Amy- your wedding photos are beautiful! I love your dress, just perfect. Do you mind if I ask where you got your bridesmaids dresses? They are just what I had in mind and are really cute! Bridesmaids dresses came from JCrew. It worked out great b/c both of my bridesmaids live out of state.

Quote: Originally Posted by Mrs.StephP.2Be Amysteele444: Thank you so much for sharing with us. What a beautiful wedding! I too have a question if you don't mind sharing some more...where did you get your shoes? I love them! I want to be barefoot for our beach ceremony but I am having a hard time finding something pretty and flat for the reception. Thanks again beautiful bride! My shoes were from Blue Tux. I got them at a store in Chicago but I know you can find them online. They had extra leather padding inside and rocked on the dance floor.

Quote: Originally Posted by pepper55 Amy your pics are great, thanks for sharing! I'm also wondering how many guests you had, I'd heard from Carolina the Gazebo would only accomodate 20. Congrats!! We had 34 guests including wedding party and us. 28 seated.

Quote: Originally Posted by pepper55 Amy your pics are great, thanks for sharing! I'm also wondering how many guests you had, I'd heard from Carolina the Gazebo would only accomodate 20. Congrats!! All of our photos can be viewed below. _G7D4631 on Flickr - Photo Sharing! My ghetto review THE GOOD. Carolina from Azul and Gilberto for Lomas took awesome care of us. Caribe Photo (specifically Jose) was creative and amazing. We now refer to him as the camera ninja b/c we have no clue how he got the shots he did. I requested that he take a casual approach to our day. Our flowers (all red roses, my fav.) were gorgeous and lived for an entire week following the wedding. The spa was spectacular and I loved my hair and make-up. The spa staff were the most friendly and well trained. Milton the food and beverage manager (whom we named El Padrino/The Godfather, this guy is huge and everywhere)was extra attentive and our meal/cake were delicious. There are a couple of pics of me talking with him and you will see what I mean about the whole El Padrino thing. THE BAD. The resort was beautiful but I wish they staff (except wedding and spa) had been a little better trained. Some glitches included restaurants not being open due to the resort not being at capacity (this was upsetting b/c we had all paid in full to be there) Confusion when ordering and an overall feeling of chaos (mostly in the restaurants) The most frustrating thing was that when you would ask for something or complain, the staff would just smile and nod, yet do nothing to solve the problem. I was also turned off by the amount of garbage that was left laying around the resort (room service carts with old food for 24hrs next to the elevators). We never had our room decorated on the honeymoon night and also never received our breakfast the following morning. We were lucky if the room service would show up before dinner and turn down service didn't exist. There were many other things that really got to me but not worth re-hashing or stressing you all out over since they will most likely be worked out by the time you get there. I may have been a bit hyper sensative due to the occasion but do feel I had many valid concerns as well. I almost called the destination weddings emergency # b/c I was so angry with the resort one day but the front desk manager stopped me and convinced me to calm down and promised to get back to me later that day with some resolve (we never heard from him) The following day,I once again complained to a different front desk manager who then handled things more professionally. They upgraded us to a casita suite at the El Dorado for our honeymoon, so in the end I felt satisfied. I regret having been so overwhelmed and upset for most of the visit due to the lack of service/professionalism. It was tough to hear that our guests were being moved from room to room b/c of bad plumbing, gross water ect.. I felt bad for hosting people who had traveled so far and then had these kind of issues upon their arrival. I know this is not much of a review but I don't want to get to detailed and cause you all undue stress. As I mentioned I know this place will be dynamite within another couple months (if that). To end on a happy note. We are back home in Chicago (I ordered an Italian Beef as soon as we walked in the door) and married. I would be happy to answer any other questions for you guys. Pls. email me at [email protected]. It's much easier for me to respond from there. Take care and happy planning:)

amysteele444 - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Okay. Let me know if there is any issue with this. Sorry for the mass of photos but I figured to many was better than not enough. As you can prob. tell we had a red and pink wedding (everything was and had to be red and pink) notice my sunglasses and shoes. I will post the rest from the reception later this week. I am super wiped out and buried in laundry.

Hi All. I'm finally home from towards the end started to seem like a long 12days in Mexico (I'm a really fussy eater) Anyways I all ready have my disc of proofs from Caribe Photo but there are far to many for me to post, due to my lack of points. If one of the full members would like me to email the file to them I would be happy to do so. This way everyone will see. I will also hit you guys up with a review just as soon as I unpack and somehow make it back to the office today I will say that the wedding was beautiful and I was more then pleased with everything. Hope you all are well and are hanging in there okay.

Quote: Originally Posted by milejilo My travel agent just sent my pics ... you'll love them... http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...621#post590970 I also received those pics and am so excited to see something real. I was also sent some great photos of people checking in to the lobby and many of their restaurants during operation. I would love to post them but simply don't know how. Would someone let me email them to them and post them for me?

Quote: Originally Posted by tsashamia Is anyone doing OOT bags, and how are you delivering these to your guests. It says there is a $charge for deliveries to rooms, do you think this is per room? Otherwise, I'm thinking of having a "welcome" party instead of a rehearsal dinner and having them there for everyone. I am doing OOT bag and just paying the $4 per room del. charge. I think there is something nice about your guest being welcomed immediatly. We are also having a private beach front welcome party that evening for everyone to meet at which time we plan to give a little speech also expressing out gratitude for everyones time and travel. Our welcome bags turned out really good. I included a little note that welcomed everybody and had a little rundown of events. We also included a self addressed/stamped post card for each of our guests to writes us at the end of their stay. Once we arrive home I plan to have them nicely bound into what will act as our guest book. I plan to take a pic of all our inserts and what have you to post at the end of the month for you all.

Where did you find out about the Chairs? - Its seems like all the information is just trickeling in from the Wedding Planners at Karisma. tell me about it !!! personally, i had to ask nancy for the quote on the chivary chairs and i got the same price, $14 per chair. however, i requested quotes on the following and still haven't gotten any answers, if any of you have the pricing pleeeeeeeease let me know. lounge area set up centerpiece other than the ones on LOMAS website... linens other than white.... supposedly this is on the Lomas website but I can't find it anywhere I just emailed Nancy to let her know I would like to switch to chivary chairs. The chairs I originally chose were $12each and an additional $5 for the pink organza ribbon tied on the back. I'm not concerned about the money, I just prefer the chivary and would have never known about it w/o lenkas word. Lomas is doing themselves a HUGE disservice by not posting all of the options/amenities and I am personally super annoyed with the whole situation. I just want to be there and married all ready so I never have to wait hopelessly for another email from these unprofessional jerks again.

Quote: Originally Posted by emaya77 I know for the ceremony they charge $10 per uncovered chair. If you want the chairs covered and a bow, it's $12 per chair. Ceremony might start out with 12 chairs or so...so, after that you pay per chair. Not sure if they charge for reception too. You are only charges for the chairs once. They are then used at the ceremony and the reception. We are having all of our tables set for 8, but I'm not sure if thats the rule. Wedding in 2.5 weeks

Hi All, I am starting to go a little crazy with our wedding being 2wks away. I keep thinking that our IPOD is not going to work with the system provided down there and we will be w/o our orginally planned ceremony music. Can anyone confirm with me that the system is 100% IPOD compatible. I have even purchased a back up IPOD, just to be safe. I would convert to CD but Itunes does not allow for it. The date is getting so close and I am barley sleeping at all these days, I never thought it would be like this.

Quote: Originally Posted by mexicanbridewithquestions Can't wait to hear what you find out. THIS IS GOOD NEWS! Amy I have been in correspondence with Ed Cotton from Destination Weddings about your concerns. I can only assure you that the resort will be fully functional and receiving guests as of October 31st. The last thing I or our company wants to do is cause you stress when you should only be looking forward to a wonderful day. I once again want to tell you your day will not be ruined, and the resort will be happy to welcome you and your guests. Regards Ken Krams Managing Director- Wedding Department Karisma Hotels

Quote: Originally Posted by Polina Has anyone used DestinationWeddings.com to book their rooms? I am using them and they are pretty good. Hi Polina I am using destinationweddings.com (Joani) and they/she is great. She just informed me that one of her colleagues was down at the hotel and progress was looking"iffy" for Nov. Being that our wedding is Nov. 14th I went a little psycho and called Berwick travel to ask what they knew (they seem to have to most info online) I actually got to speak with steve (the dude from all the utube videos) and he said that as far as he knew they would be ready. Long story short we really won't know anything until the day comes. Totally sucks but really helped me put some aggression into my personal training session this morning.

Quote: Originally Posted by andrea110808 amysteele444, How many guests do you have coming? jennrenn, How about you? all together we are a group of 36. I also wanted to let you know that I paid my balance yesterday via CC/Fax. It's on now. I've decided to let it go and be happy with whatever it becomes. There is nothing I can do to change this and it is my only wedding day. Did you ever get your exel sheet from Fabio?

Quote: Originally Posted by andrea110808 Hi Amy, We are getting married on the 8th of November 2008 just a week before you and I just wanted to let you know that people at Karisma are talking right now about moving our wedding to another resort...because it is NOT going to be open on time. Thought you might want to check with your TA if you haven't already! I am the most dissapointed bride right now!!! Hi Andrea, Thanks so much for the warning. I have been in touch with my TA and she has assured me all is going well with the progress and that the wedding is on for the sensatori location. I've really been having a hard time in knowing who to believe anymore. Fabio swears up and down that it will be ready and Joani is also saying it will be okay, but then I get messages like this and my trust sinks. Do you think that your TA is just being extra cautious in telling you that? I guess we won't really know until Oct. 31st. what the real scoop is. Nothing is more annoying then people jerking you around about your wedding day? Hang in there.