starlitk

Quote: Originally Posted by courtney_b00 Wow I love everything that you did. Truly amazing...I hope you don't mind, I might have to "borrow" the little quotes you used for the OOT bags & first aid kits. Oh and your dress was absolutely beautiful! Please, borrow away! I can even send you our templates if you'd like. They're in Microsoft Publisher. Just PM me your email address! I am so happy to share!

Starlitk’s Dreams Tulum Review This review is crazy long! I found everyone’s so helpful, that I wanted to be as detailed as I could in an effort to give back.  I can’t believe it’s already over. Wow – does the time fly by! Thanks to everyone on this forum for all of their help. I honestly do not know what I would have done without this forum. Special thanks to Tammy and Sunbride! I hope my review will be helpful to brides-to-be out there who are planning. Best of luck! DREAMS TULUM RESORT: Overall B - Dreams Tulum was my first experience with a resort, so I don't have anything to compare it to besides my expectations. CHECK-IN: A Check-in for us was great. A waitress came and brought us champagne while we were at the front desk, and a bellman gave us cold wet hand towels to cool off. There were no problems with our reservation. We asked to get upgraded, but were told there were no ocean front rooms available. When we were done at the desk, a bell man took us on a golf cart to our room with our luggage. Our guests did have more problems (e.g., rooms not being ready, 1 king instead of 2 queen beds, etc.) ROOMS: A Our Dreams section garden view suite was very nice, almost all marble. Everything in it worked just fine (a/c, safe, clock, etc.) We were in the building closest to the SSG and the wedding gazebo, which was very convenient. We could kind of see the ocean from our balcony, which was very nice. My only complaints about the room are probably that the water pressure is not that great, and the beds are not that comfortable (i.e., very firm mattress and only decent linens). The pillows are not comfortable at all. The air conditioning blows right on you in bed (this is a deal-breaker for me), but we found that if you kicked up the a/c before bed, we were fine just shutting it off for the entire night (even in late June). Our room was missing a few things (robes and slippers), but did receive them when we asked for them later in the week. ROOM SERVICE: D Horribly slow. With one exception, every time we ordered we waited over an hour to receive what we needed (even things that you don’t have to cook like a wine corkscrew and bottles of water). A few times, room service never even came and we had to call again and ask for our stuff. The menu/food available is okay, but definitely does not compare to what you can get in the restaurants. STAFF/SERVICE: A Overall, the staff is really great. The entertainment staff is very inclusive and they work their butts off! They are at the resort for 12 hour+ days, and still seem happy at 11pm when they are doing shows. Housekeeping service was great, and the resort is extremely clean. Bar service is kind of slow, but only because they are constantly making complicated, blended drinks. The poolside service is very good – they come around often and keep the area clean of used drink glasses, etc. Everyone is extremely friendly! Almost everyone you pass says “hola†with a smile. Overall, the entire staff (waiters, room service, bellmen) also did not seem to expect tips (i.e., they didn’t wait around for it), which was nice and made you more happy to give them! FOOD: A We loved the food. Some restaurants were better than others, but overall, we really liked almost everything we got! Himitsu: The Asian restaurant was our favorite. All of the appetizers and entrees we tried were terrific. Gohan: The sushi was surprisingly good. Portofino: The wait was long – especially if you went with a party larger than 4 people. The hosts were a little slow in seating people. The food was good – the appetizers were especially good. Bordeaux: This is the most romantic restaurant at the resort. Seaside Grill: This restaurant has a great view of the ocean, good lunch options, and quick service. I didn’t get a chance to eat there for dinner, but I heard that they fancy it up and serve some great steak options for dinner. The Patio: The service here was incredibly slow (even when they are not busy). Both times that I went, it took over an hour to get our food (one time I had to leave before my food came b/c we had a wedding appointment). The food was okay, but not great. The Buffet/World Café: The food was terrific – so many options. I simply loved breakfast every morning, and it was also very good for dinner. BEACH: D The beach is VERY rocky and really hurts to walk on it. Definitely pack water shoes! They are a MUST! We really only went in for one day b/c of how much it hurt our feet to walk in. In hindsight, I wished I had told my guests to pack the shoes. POOLS: A The activity pool is very active and often pretty full! The adult/relax pool does have children in it, but was still relaxing. They were great! GYM: C- I had read that the gym was disappointing, so I was prepared for it. The weight equipment is outdated, but they have most of what you would need, so I was able to get by fine. The cardio equipment, on the other hand, was bad. There were three treadmills, and one was broken. The stair stepper looked somewhat dangerous, and was also broken (the manual knob to adjust the tension didn’t work). The bike worked, but the pedals slipped, so you couldn’t stand (even though it is a spinning style bike). There is also a crazy looking elliptical style thing that is also broken. THE RESORT'S RAIN PREPAREDNESS: F It rained pretty heavily while we were there, and it really did seem to impact the resort, which kind of took away from its high quality/luxury feel. - The World Café ceiling collapsed inside after a storm, and it was closed from Sunday on (we left on Friday, and it was still closed). They ended up setting up the buffet in the Veranda, and the selection of food was much smaller at first (but got back up to normal size after a few days). - Quite a few of our guests’ rooms had the ceilings leak and drip onto them in bed, and others on the ground floor were slightly flooded. The resort relocated these guests (some were upgraded, others were not), but that was really not ideal and kind of embarrassing for us, who had chosen the resort. - The power also seemed to be affected (although I do think this happened before the rain even began). Basically, the power kept going out at the resort. A few times, the lights just dimmed, but there were a few times that they went out completely. One time this happened at night while we were outside, and the place went pitch black, which was kind of scary to some of the people we were with at the time. This also kept causing the clock in our room to reset, so I never had a clue what time it was while I was there. THE SPA: A+ Outstanding! We loved our couples massage so much that I went back for a neck, back, and shoulder massage a few days later. It is a very pretty spa and feels luxurious and relaxing. We never had any problems with our appointments. WEDDING RELATED STUFF Experience with contacting the resort/wedding coordinators: D- We had problems with planning our wedding at DT from the very beginning. My fiancé and I had chosen DT right before they were closed down by the Mexican government for their environmental infractions during expansion. (There is a BDW thread about this if you want more info, but basically, they expanded on protected land without doing an environmental impact study). We had done so much research on resorts and felt like we finally found a luxury resort that would not be extremely expensive for our guests, so we stuck it out and waited for them to reopen. Luckily, they finally did, and we thought we were through the worst of it. Ha! During the closure, communication was extremely slow, and we chalked it up to them being extremely busy helping current brides. We remember waiting 3 weeks for them to confirm our wedding date, and other communication was also very slow. Post-closure and until our wedding, this poor communication did not change despite my hopes. It took the WCs an average of 2 weeks to get back to us regarding any questions we sent – sometimes longer and sometimes shorter (but never really faster than 1 week). Then, when the swine flu hit, they were still very slow about communication, and did not have any solutions to provide to us. Even when it was the month or even week before my wedding, they still did not respond quickly, which left us doing things last minute or not at all! Thankfully, I had the BDW girls to answer my questions – I would have been completely lost without them! One of the things we liked about DT was that they only took 2 weddings per day. After we got to the resort, we found out that there were THREE weddings scheduled on our day. This led us to have almost NO options for venues. Originally, when we booked, we had scheduled the beach for our venue, but over time decided that this was not what we wanted. The logistics of not having a dance floor and it being extremely windy when we got there led us to want something else. We had requested the Seaside Grill months and months ago, and were told that they would confirm whether we were able to have this location 30 days before our wedding, because they only let you have it if the resort is booked at less than 70% capacity. However, they would NOT confirm this for us, and finally told us the day before we left for our trip that it was booked for another reception. When I complained, they clarified that they were leaving it open for the resort guests. Weird. I hadn’t booked anything else because I thought I would have plenty of options once I got there b/c there was only one other wedding on our day. Well, that did not turn out to be the case, so when Anabel (who kept calling me by the wrong name, btw) showed us the relax pool, told us this was our only option aside from the beach and convention center, and then mentioned that there would be another wedding on the terrace of El Patio, I was angry. These two venues are so close that I knew I would see and hear their reception during mine. Plus, I felt it was poorly lighted. I kept asking about the Seaside Grill, and she just kept saying they couldn’t do it. When I asked what they would do about rain locations for all three weddings, Anabel said she was thinking, and then changed the subject! She couldn’t even answer my questions! Then she said not to worry, that she didn’t think it would rain. (Preview: It rained at my wedding reception). They literally had NO rain plan for all of these weddings. She said we would probably go to the convention center, which the idea of alone broke my heart. Next, we discussed cocktail hour options, and Anabel explained that there were no indoor options for our cocktail hour (as I had requested over email ages ago). We could have it on the beach (which I didn’t want), or all the way at the Convention Center terrace at the other end of the resort. This threw me over the edge, and finally I started really complaining. This led Anabel to bring me to Landy, who was slightly more helpful, but still did not solve all of our problems. She still refused to give us the SSG, assured me it wouldn’t rain, and convinced me of the CC terrace for cocktails (which turned out lovely). I expressed how disappointed I was with their taking 3 weddings, and that I felt their resort was too small for that many. She told me that “they†want them to start taking FOUR WEDDINGS a day, and said they never said they just take 2 weddings/day. I distinctly remember being told I couldn’t have our original requested date (6/20/09) because there were already 2 weddings. Anyway, to make me happier about the venues I was basically forced to choose, she assured me that the Relax Pool would be well lighted (they provided floor bag/candles and tiki torches for free), and extended our cocktail hour to 1.5 hours and the mariachi band (which we didn’t get in the end) to play for one full hour instead of 45 minutes. These concessions made me feel slightly better, but I was still unhappy that my reception was going to overlook another wedding, and that I had no real rain options because they refused to close the SSG. Overall, I just felt like we were being treated like we were not a priority, despite the fact that we were the largest wedding that day, and brought 44 guests to their resort. I felt like it didn’t matter at all to them. Overall, this resort is TOO small for three weddings. It seems like they are willing to confirm locations for some people ahead of time, but not for others. So, when you get to the resort, you are at their mercy to accept whatever options they give you. If the weather for our day had turned out fine, this would have been ok. But – it didn’t, and they were busting at the seams because of this. Another thing that was wrong was our contract. There were so many mistakes in it –they had definitely just taken someone else’s contract and didn’t change it adequately. We were being charged for things that we didn’t have (e.g., bridesmaids bouquets) and not charged for things we should have been (e.g., meals for our guests beyond the 20 in the package). When we showed Anabel these mistakes, she came back with another contract that still had mistakes. Look at it with a fine toothed comb! Lastly, they were just disorganized when it came to our wedding details. I would recommend printing out all of your communication with the wedding department. They just didn’t seem to have anything that I had sent them ahead of time. We basically made and re-made all of our decisions there, despite my efforts to do things ahead of time. They will not remember anything you’ve already told them – so cover EVERYTHING again, even if you feel like the matter is closed (Preview: see my ceremony section of this review). WELCOME DINNER: A I had told the wedding coordinators a couple months before our wedding that we wanted to do a welcome dinner for all of our guests, and Aurora recommended setting up tables at the resort’s Caribbean party the night before our wedding. It was a great time. They reserved the front tables for the 42 of us, and we were right up front for the show later in the night. The food was great and there was a huge selection of dishes. The party entertainment included an extremely long children’s show (I swear it lasted an hour+), followed by a fire show, which was awesome (also about an hour). The fire dancers were great –they did some really cool stuff (e.g., hula-hooping with fire rings). Our guests really enjoyed it! I would definitely recommend this option for a Welcome Dinner to other brides. HAIR (A), MAKEUP (D), & MANICURES (B+): My wedding was scheduled for 5pm, and we were taking pictures beforehand, so I made my first appointment for 11:30 – first a manicure, then hair and makeup. They told me to allot 2 hours for hair and makeup, and 30 minutes for nails. My manicure was good enough from a distance, but up close was flawed. I made manicure appointments for 4 of my friends while I was there, and was told that their manicures did not last very long at all (approx. a day). Angelica (I think) did my hair and makeup. I had brought in pictures of hair that I liked and showed her them. She didn’t seem to speak very good English because she didn’t say much about them, and just started styling my hair. Anabel delivered flowers for my hair to the spa while I was in the chair, so her timing was great. I chose little orchids - a great option compared to a lily b/c I do not have a lot of hair. In the end, I really liked my hair and was impressed that they could do so much with it even though it is only shoulder length. In hindsight, I wished I would have insisted that she cut my bangs (she said they’d be fine) b/c I ended up having to pull them back – the wind kept blowing them in my face and they were too long for that. The rest of it held really well in the wind. I was very disappointed with my makeup. I told her that I wanted it to look natural, and when I got up to look at it in natural lighting, it was 80’s pink all over my eyelids (from my lashes to brows). Then, I noticed that she had already put her next client (someone’s bridesmaid), in my chair and had already begun working on her before I had even given the ok! I still had her try and fix it. It ended up less pink, but just much darker overall than I normally wear. My dark circles were also not well covered. I kind of felt rushed considering that she had already given my chair away, so I ended up leaving without really liking it. I tried to fix it in my room, but I wasn’t really equipped to do so. This is one of the things that I am most annoyed about in hindsight, and regret not speaking up more in the spa. FLOWERS/CENTERPIECES: A I had emailed pictures of my ideal bouquet and centerpieces to the WCs ahead of time in the wedding information form and they didn’t do anything with that until I got to the resort. Anabel told me that the flowers I was asking for in my bouquet were expensive, so I told her that the florist could use whatever was closest. I ended up really like my bouquet, but it was a bit smaller than I was planning for. My centerpieces, however, I LOVED. We wanted them to be more plants than flowers, so we also told Anabel that the price of $65 for a centerpiece of mostly grasses was outrageous, so she got another quote from the florist of $35 each. The groom’s boutonnière looked great, too. WEDDING CEREMONY: F- This is another example of the wedding coordinators’ poor communication and struggle with the volume of weddings they take. We contacted the resort ahead of time to obtain a copy of the symbolic ceremony script because we had heard that it is very religious and my fiancé and I are not very religious at all. We were told to contact the minister Francisco Flores (Kiko) by email. We did so, and had an entire email conversation with him. He suggested that we write our own ceremony. We went to a bookstore all day, looked through a ton of books, and created our ceremony from scratch. We loved it – we felt that it represented us really well, and included our guests (it had a declaration of support from them, and also thanked them or coming, etc.). We also wrote our own vows. We put everything in an email and sent it to Kiko. He replied with “The program is beautiful, we will honor it just as it is. If there are any changes, please let me know.†Well, we brought a copy of the ceremony to the resort with us (just in case). When we told Anabel we had written our ceremony, she didn’t request a copy of it. Since we had discussed it with our minister directly, we didn’t think anything of this. Well, when we got to our ceremony, our minister (who we later learned was not Kiko) opened with a prayer and proceeded to deliver a highly religious ceremony! We had no idea what to do. We just kept looking at each other, and looking at him and finally we decided to just roll with it. What I don’t understand, however, is that this man knew that we wrote our own vows (which, THANKFULLY, we did have with us). I can’t figure out how he knew that we wrote our own vows, but not our ceremony. So, instead of hearing the highly meaningful, personal ceremony that I waited 10 years (yes, that is how long I’ve been dating my fiancé) to hear on my wedding day, I got there and listened to a ceremony that couldn’t have been LESS representative to our relationship. At least we got to say our vows, which were highly meaningful to us. When it came to the rings, he handed us the microphone as if we had a special pre-written message for these, but we had no idea what to say b/c we hadn’t brought that with us. At this point, I told him that we wrote our own ceremony, and he said he had no idea. Then, I told him that we didn’t have anything with us to say during the rings and he didn’t do anything. Finally, my fiancé grabbed the microphone and made something up, “I give you this ring as a sign…†and I just repeated it when it was my turn. As you can imagine, this is the thing that I am most upset about regarding our wedding. One of the reasons that we decided to have a non-traditional wedding ceremony is that we are not very religious people. At one point during the ceremony, I even considered stopping the minister and running out of my wedding ceremony to my room to get the copy of our script. The only reason I didn’t is because I felt like people would think I was a run-away bride! My point is that these are the thoughts that I was having during my wedding ceremony – which is just about the last thing you want to be thinking about while you are standing there with your fiancé, in front of all of your friends and family. COCKTAIL HOUR: A– We had our cocktail hour on the convention center terrace, which turned out to be an amazing location despite its distance from the ceremony and reception. It is beautiful and private (b/c it is a pretty secluded part of the resort). It is also a good rain location for cocktails (if you need one) b/c it is covered. Even though I loved it, I should mention that it was essentially the only location option we were given (as the other locations were taken by other two brides who were all having their events around the same time as us). We had requested an indoor venue with air conditioning for the cocktail hour to give our guests a break from the heat and were told that there were no indoor options. However, Anabel promised that she would have the air conditioning in the convention center turned on so that guests could go inside if they were too hot. Of course, we got there and the a/c was definitely not on. I suppose this is one time to be happy that our day wasn’t sunny, but still - it was another problem. My husband and I had also had the mariachi band scheduled for our cocktail hour, and were very excited about this. Of course, when we got there, we had the Caribbean trio instead. When I told Anabel that they were supposed to be the mariachi band, she seemed totally confused about this - despite the fact that we had talked at length about the mariachi band during our wedding planning session with her and Landy. During that meeting, the mariachi band had come up a few times, including when we discussed extending their play time, and another time when I corrected the fact that our contract said Caribbean trio. Another thing to mention is that they only served champagne. I didn’t know that it was a champagne only reception, so this was slightly surprising to me. Our cocktail hour was extended to 1.5 hours. This was a concession on Landy’s part because we got so upset during our meeting with Anabel about the fact that there were three weddings, no available location options for our events, and that we were being treated like our wedding was not a priority in general. So, our timing was such that we had our wedding at 5, our cocktail hour from 6-7:30, and our reception from 7:30 to 10:30. This timing was great for our time of year because at 7:30, the sun was beginning to set and sky was gorgeous. So, we left our cocktail hour a little early in order to get some sunset pictures on the beach without having to miss any of our events. Lastly, we had brought our own photographer, so we chose to have the resort photographer during our cocktail hour to focus on pictures of our guests. This was a great venue to get a group picture and to get photos of you with your guests without having to feel like you are being pulled in a lot of directions instead of just enjoying the moment. This also allowed us to get pictures of our guests and the event after we left with our personal photographer. So, I would recommend doing this if you have two photographers. WEDDING RECEPTION: Set up: A+ At 4:00 (before my 5:00 wedding) Anabel called my room to get my confirmation on whether we wanted to set up our reception in the convention center b/c it looked like rain was imminent. I just couldn’t do it b/c it made me so incredibly sad to plan a destination wedding for a year and then end up in a banquet hall that looked like it could be in the Chicago suburbs, so we chanced it and had her set up our only other location option they had given us – the adult/relax pool. Anabel did a terrific job setting everything up exactly the way that we had explained it all and it really did look beautiful. One of my initial concerns with this location was that there was nowhere to hang the paper lanterns we had brought, but they found a way and it looked great. We had also brought menus, namecards, table numbers, and a few other things, and everything made it to its place perfectly. For our paper lanterns and table numbers, we had brought semi-“throwies†for lighting (diffused LED lights, and CR-2032 batteries taped together and binder clipped together) that needed to be assembled. We had planned to assemble these ourselves, but Anabel told us that she could do it, and surely enough, she had done it exactly right – which was a lot of work! We were very appreciative of this. We had also expressed our concern with the lighting of this location because it is very dark. So, the WC had bright lights in the trees shining down (which our photographer hated, as they caused big shadows), paper bags with lights in them on the ground, and our paper lanterns. Overall, it was a bit darker than I wanted. Food: A+ All of the wedding food was delicious – the best food I had at the resort. We chose the Gold menu’s bruschetta with proscuitto, the citrus salad, the surf & turf and the salmon (we had 2 entrees), and the fruit tart for dessert. Our chocolate cake wasn’t very pretty, but it tasted great. Dinner: C Because of the coming rain, Anabel said that she would tell them to serve dinner quickly but it still took over an hour, and they waited to start serving everything until people had sat down, so it went a little bit slower than we wanted. The bride and groom had also not received our meal when most of our guests had finished eating, which delayed us getting our dance started early. One of our guests had to go ask for us to get our meals. It drizzled a couple times during dinner, but we kept on because it went away quickly. Finally, it just down-poured right after we finished our first dance. The rain stopped after about 10 minutes, but it had destroyed our paper lanterns (although the LED lights were still glowing) and put the sound equipment at risk because there were exposed cables and power strips involved. (We had just been using our own ipod, but the resorts sound equipment). So, we were told that we couldn’t continue if it kept raining, but that another wedding taking place in El Patio was wrapping up, and we could relocate in there. Well, that wedding was taking longer than Anabel expected, so our party was kind of split at that point for awhile – some of us were in the Sugar Reef bar, and some of us were back by the Relax Pool dancing a bit more. They started to clear our wedding stuff (tables, etc.) away, but never put everything (e.g., sound equipment) in El Patio even after the other wedding had left, so really everything was just shut down. We eventually went to the disco. Despite the chaos of all of this, we were having a great time. Some of our guests jumped in the pool, and we were just eating the cake right off its platter with forks (one of our guests had saved it from the rain). Overall, we know that we chose to brave the rain, but would have liked to be more apprised of the rain plan. In hindsight, we also would have probably done our first dance earlier if we had known that dinner was, indeed, still going to go slowly. The disco: A We had a great time in there. They let us put our ipod in and play some of the music that we had brought for our reception. The music they were playing was great, too. The bar service there was really good, and we all just danced the night away. PHOTOGRAPHERS Josh Stephenson of Leografia Images leografia Images : Experience working with him: A++, Picture rating still to come! We hired our own photographer because we really wanted a good photojournalist. He was with us on Friday for the Welcome Dinner in addition to the entire day of our wedding (from my manicure appointment to after midnight at the disco). We have not gotten our pictures yet, but our experience working with him was outstanding. He was incredibly nice, so flexible, funny, and friendly during our entire experience working with him. All of our guests enjoyed him and commented at how good at being invisible he seemed to be. He worked his butt off – especially when our reception just turned into chaos! We felt so comfortable with him and are just so excited to see our pictures! We’ll post them as soon as we have them. He has impressed us from our initial of our inquiry to him. One of the things that sold us on him was how he discussed that he prefers coming in the night before a wedding so that the bride, groom, and guests get comfortable with having him around and therefore, allow for more natural photos on the big day. We really liked that insight, and booked him. Frederico the Resort Photographer: A for entertainment value, B- for pictures We were told that we could not exchange the value of the resort photographer in our ultimate wedding package for anything else. We wanted to use him for a trash the dress session, but were told that such sessions are so “artistic†that they cannot possibly give us that value for the package price. Ridiculous. So, we just used him for the cocktail hour. Josh met with the resort photographer beforehand and hashed out the details of what we wanted – Josh was to focus on pictures of us, and the resort photographer was to focus on pictures of our guests. Again – Josh was so great for handling that for us. It was one last thing I didn’t have to deal with on Saturday. In the end, Frederico was very entertaining. Some of my favorite pictures so far are the ones my guests took of him photographing others. He was very engaging to our guests and since our friends are a ton of fun and able to roll with this kind of thing, we got some funny pictures. In general, the pictures he took were pretty good – we like them well enough. It was a lot of posed shots of our guests and a few candids. It was nice to get them before we left. They were totally unwilling to negotiate on prices beyond what was in our package (50 pics, digital and printed), so we just stuck with that. RESORT VIDEOGRAPHER: B We didn’t have much time before the ceremony after we were finished taking our professional photos, so the resort videographer doesn’t have all that much good footage of us. The first 10 minutes of our wedding video is footage of the resort, which is cloudy and wet, so we knew it wasn’t stock footage.  The rest of it is shaky and just shows us getting ready to leave for our ceremony, including some cheesy pans from our feet to our heads. He didn’t speak very good English, so my fiancé had to talk to him in Spanish to understand what he wanted us to do. His coverage of the ceremony is fine – you can definitely see the surprise in our faces during the sermon. He was also a little close for comfort during it. The sound is good, though. The editing of the video is okay; it’s a little choppy, and the music is hilarious. It goes from a rock song to Ave Maria, to Jason Mraz. Overall, the video is what we expected based on other reviews. It was a little cheesy and of decent quality. We’re happy to have a video of the whole thing, though. GROUP TRIP TO TULUM ( and APPLE VACATIONS (F): We wanted to plan a trip for our group to go to the Tulum Ruins on Sunday (day after our wedding). When we got there, we talked to an AMResorts rep about our options for a group trip. She was salesy, and said she really couldn’t get the trip to less than $34usd per person. This was WAY more than we wanted to spend, so we ended up talking to the Apple Vacations rep also. We talked to one Apple guy there, Fernando, who was helpful and quoted us a better deal. We told him that we’d get back to him. Then, the next day, I got a call from a different Apple rep at the resort (Sustenance) who said he could get me a good deal. We were confused by this because we had already talked with someone, so we stopped by just to see what he was talking about. Sustenance said he could get us a better deal and would check with his boss about quotes. We were supposed to stop by and see what the quote was. We didn’t end up going back because we decided we were probably just not going to organize something formal. Well, the next day, we found out that from one of our friends that Sustenance had Apple put messages under our guests’ doors saying that WE organized a group trip to the Tulum Ruins through Apple for $51usd/person and that they should come RSVP to Sustenance directly and submit payment! This infuriated us for a number of reasons. We DID NOT plan that, would have never given into that price, and planned to cover the cost of the trip for our guests, anyway. This was horribly annoying. Thankfully, a few of our guests who had paid the fee were able to get it back. The weather was horrible on Sunday, so we ended up with a smaller group at the ruins (about 30). My husband and I just paid for all of our guests to take cabs there to the site and then our guests just paid the entrance fees. We had to wait for awhile for cabs and vans for our size group, so the group ended up arriving at disparate times, and therefore walked around in smaller groups, and people just left when they wanted to. It was ridiculously hot there, but the ruins were cool and the beach there was lovely and not rocky at all. Doing the trip this way was a lot cheaper (its about $14 round trip for a cab (that holds 4+ people), and it only cost 51 pesos (about $5usd/person) to get in. So, I would recommend skipping the formal organized trip. They just seemed way overpriced. CONCLUSION For all of the hard work that we put into our wedding, I’m not sure that I would pick DT again. Between the closure, the swine flu, the disorganization, and poor communication with and between the wedding coordinators, planning was extremely difficult, and I really would have liked fewer things to go wrong on our actual day. I knew not to expect perfection, but it was almost comical the number of things that went wrong. They really didn't bother me on the day-of, but now that it’s over, I really do wish that things had gone more smoothly because it was so much work and it goes by so quickly. That being said, overall, despite the things that went wrong, I still had an absolutely *incredible* day. I was so happy to be getting married to my wonderful fiance amongst our amazing friends and family that my face actually hurt so much from smiling, so nothing was really going to be able to get me down that day. DT, despite its problems, is a beautiful backdrop for a wedding and everything was gorgeous. I still had a dreamy destination wedding, and will look back on it all well. That’s all! Feel free to PM if you want any further info, I’m happy to share. Here are some pics!

Quote: Originally Posted by amyc Starlitk, I just checked out your planning thread...LOVE your welcome bags and the setup! Everything looked beautiful! For my flowers I want a similar look...all white mixed flower bouquets with green accents. I emailed Aurora to find out if they can do green cymbidium orchids but of course I haven't heard back...grrrr! I sent her pictures of bouquets I like but am nervous that I'm not going to like the flowers. Did you send her pics before? Did they turn out similar to your pics? They look really pretty in the pics! I'm so glad to hear that your wedding is the only one scheduled for your day. I think that should totally ease your mind of worries regarding the things I encountered! Thanks - I'm glad you liked our planning thread! I found those to be so helpful. I had emailed our wedding coordinator the pics of my preferred bouquet (below) in my wedding form, but they really didn't do anything with this info. When I showed Anabel the copies that I had brought during our meeting, she seemed to be looking at the for the first time and hadn't contacted the florist by that time or anything. She told me that the flowers in my bouquet pic were very expensive, so I just told her that they could use whatever flowers were local and in season, but to try and mimic the bouquet pic as much as possible (particularly the colors). I really liked it in the end, but wish it had been a tad bigger. We didn't have to pay any extra beyond the package for it, though, so that was good. I know there were some type of small orchids in it - the small ones that you can see on my husband's boutinneire and in my hair. She never called them by their actual name - just "small orchid" - so I'm not sure exactly what they are. Here are some better pics of the flowers in my hair, and in the bouquet. As for the private event fee - I think you're right, but I can't speak from experience because we didn't face any of that.

Quote: Originally Posted by jerzygirl85 Oh wow!! Sorry starlit and mixie. This news defintely has me on edge. Last time I emailed with Natalia, she mentioned there was another ceremony an hour before mine. the wedding guide mentions that only 2 weddings would be held per day. Hopefully the resort will stick to what the guide says in the future. Too many things can go wrong and mistakes on someone's wedding day are completely frustating. Thanks everyone! You guys are so supportive! I was reluctant to mention this, but I feel like I should because it is the reason I believe they will never go back to limiting days to two weddings: When I met with Landy and told her that this resort was not big enough for three weddings a day, she said "they" wanted them to hold 4 weddings per day. I'm assuming "they" is AMResorts or at least DT upper management. To be clear, she did not say they were going to start actually doing that, but her even mentioning that seemed to mean that there was pressure around the idea. My only response to her on that was that it was crazy.

RECEPTION SET-UP We had our reception by the relax/adult pool. We got our paper lanterns from Paper Lantern Store Round Paper Lanterns. 3 - 16" White Even Ribbing Round Paper Lantern 8 - 12EVP-WH 12" White Even Ribbing Round Paper Lantern 6 - 12" Light Lime Even Ribbing Round Paper Lantern 6 - 16" Light Lime Even Ribbing Round Paper Lantern We also had 6 turquoise 16” lanterns from Hobby Lobby because Paper Lantern Store was out of that color. We lit these by using info on throwies (without magnets, though) that we found on this forum and in other places. This ended up costing us about 30 cents per lantern, which was awesome. Here are the sites we used to figure it out: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t37079 throwies, led, weddingbee - Google Search If Only I Had Majored In Event Lighting Instead of Biology Weddingbee The Wedding Blog We ordered the diffuse LEDs and batteries from ebay, and got the binder clips to hold them together from Office Max. We also made our own table numbers. We got the info from this site: Candle Table Numbers | Your DIY Wedding. For some reason, I was able to open the pdfs as images in publisher, change the color to black, and then shrink them to fit my vases. We laser printed the images on velum and then used fishing wire to wrap the vellum around the candle because I didn’t like the way the tape looked (you could see it when it was lit up. Then, we dropped an LED throwie with two bulbs inside the vase. We also lined the inside of the vase with two sheets of tracing paper to diffuse the LED. Our centerpieces were mostly plants and a few lilies. We made our own menus and namecards using Publisher. Anabel put the namecards in sand on the table so that the wind wouldn’t blow them away. As a guestbook, we used a clear plastic jar that I got from Walmart, cut up different colored pieces of cardstock, and laid out sharpies. We framed a message reading, “write down a wish or piece of advice for the newlyweds and drop it in the jar.” This turned out great! People wrote sweet and funny stuff that we enjoyed reading and will later put in a scrapbook. For music, we just used our own ipod. Our first dance was to Barry Louis Polisar’s All I Want is You, and the groom danced with his mother to the Over the Rainbow song from 50 First Dates. I think that’s it!

CEREMONY We used chair ribbons from efavormart www.efavormart.com - Satin Sashes after seeing them look so great in DeniseL’s photos! We also gave sandalwood fans from this website, I think: Sandalwood Fans - Buy Now! to give away during our ceremony. We also made our own programs using MS Publisher. We walked into I’m Yours by Jason Mraz, and walked out to Barry White’s You’re My First, My Last, My Everything. COCKTAIL HOUR SET-UP

Starlitk’s Dreams Tulum Wedding Planning thread I found such an incredible amount of useful information in other brides’ planning threads that I just had to post my own. Thank you so much to all of you brides who blazed the trail with terrific ideas and a generous willingness to share them! ATTIRE My dress was an Allure, and the groom’s suit was from the Banana Republic Outlet – tailored to fit him perfectly. His tie was a Calvin Klein from Nordstrom Rack. My shoes were Coloriffics from zappos.com, which I had dyed to match his tie. I LOVED my shoes, but they were pretty much ruined from the rain water around the resort before the wedding even began. (Dyed shoes can’t get wet). OOT BAGS We had 42 guests and assembled an OOT bag for each room (approx 24 bags). All of our ideas came from the BDW forum. Thank you! Here’s what we included: A. 2 tote bags – one designed for women and one designed for men. The men’s bags had the seal of Mexico and said our date in Spanish. The women’s bags had a lyric from our song on it. One was the bag holding everything in it. The other was wrapped with a ribbon reading “To have and to hold… your stuff on the beach.” I designed everything in Publisher, and then used iron-on transfers. Using these transfers for 44 bags was a nightmare. If I could do it again, I would spend the extra $100 and just have them screen printed. I broke our glass table and burned myself doing these things! We sought to design these so that people would want to reuse them in the future, and figured that something with just our names or wedding logo might be less likely to be reused. In the end, the transferred images didn’t withstand water very well, so I’m not sure that they’ll be reused at all. B. First aid kit in a baggie, tied with ribbon reading, “in sickness and in health” consisting of: -2 hand sanitizers (approx. 20 cents each from Costco) -A sleeve of 6 pepto bismol tablets -A 24 pk of Walmart Ibuprofen (94c each) -Roll of Alka seltzer tablets -4 bandaids -2 alcohol wipes -2 Off! Bug repellant wipes C. Fun stuff tied with ribbon and a note that said, “in good times and in bad”. It included: - A deck of cards (we got 2packs in the dollar spot section of Target) - 2 water guns (we got 4 for $1 at Dollar Tree) - A booklet of Spanish phrases – a template that we altered to include some stuff including, “Lo siento, soy gringo” and other things. - A stapled booklet of crosswords and games we made and others we copied from game books. We figured this would come in handy on a rainy day. The ones we liked were a bride and groom trivia crossword (for which we gave a prize to the first one to finish). It was sufficiently hard enough that you had to talk to other guests (from different aspects of our lives) in order to solve it. We hoped it encouraged mingling among our guests. We also made a word search with all of our guests’ names. D. Our welcome letter with an agenda of the weekend’s events, and a map of the resort where we wrote in the locations of our events. We attached the letters with a ribbon to the bag’s handles with a note that said, “to love and to cherish… our friends and family.”

Quote: Originally Posted by amyc Wow...thanks for the honest reviews. Definitely not what I want to hear but at least I have a heads up before I go. My wedding is in 13 days and I still don't have confirmation on the wedding or reception site...grrrrrr! I emailed Aurora over a week ago trying to get things finalized and still haven't heard back. I told her I needed the information so I could include it in the itinerary I am printing for the guests. I had to go ahead and print it so I hope it's correct! Sorry to be the bearer of bad news right before you left, but I figured you guys need the heads up! We also had no idea where or when our cocktail and reception was going to be when we left, so we just left blank spaces on our welcome letter. When we got there and met with Anabel, we added times to our welcome letter and then labeled locations on our maps by hand. It didn't look super professional, but it turned out ok. This might be an option in case you have to change things when you get there. We were quoted $1usd PER COPY if we had wanted to print things there, so we just decided against that. Another thing I'll give you the heads up on is that our contract was totally wrong - so be sure to look at it closely! We were being charged for things that we didn't have (like bridesmaids bouquets) and then not being charged for other things (too few guest dinners). Feel free to PM me if you have any questions! And don't worry - even despite the things that went wrong, we had a beautiful wedding and I'm sure that you will too!

Quote: Originally Posted by northernflasher Starlitk.. Sorry to hear you're feeling a bit worked up, I totally agree about all the stress caused by inconsistencies and lack of communication. Im prob going to be exactly the same when my time comes .........However, please be re-assurred by all the honest, wonderful reviews on this forum, very rare do we see a bad one. For peace of mind be as organised as you can be and thats the most you can do, the rest is mind over matter. Most important of all ENJOY IT. Even if the worst happens (and it wont) the wedding is only a few hours out of the rest of your life with the man you love. Have a wonderful day. Thanks! You guys are so supportive! Thanks for the beach towel info Blkatz!

Quote: Originally Posted by Blkatz Ok-when I was there just over a month ago they had all of my emails. She even printed out my pictures for the flowers. Natalia had everything together. I also brought all my emails just in case but I didnt need them. Also, they keep the places open based upon the ocupancy of the resort. There are some other great places including the beach or the pools. I wouldn't stress you will see, once you get there everything falls into place. Remember, these ladies do this all day everyday. When I was there I kept thinking to myself wow, these ladies work their behinds off! Thanks! That is really comforting to hear. Does anyone know if we need to bring beach towels? I've never been to an AI before, so I'm not sure if DT provides towels you can use on the beach, or whether we should bring our own. OMG - I would be so lost without this forum!

Quote: Originally Posted by maxwell123 Does anyone have any suggestions for wedding favors for guests? Also for those who brought decorations for their reception tables, what type of things did you bring and did you pre-mail them down or take them in your suitcase? We're giving sandalwood fans to our guests during the ceremony, and that will act as our favor. We are also doing canvas OOT bags for our guests with goodies, too. I have found a lot of great info on this kind of stuff in the threads on the general forum, where a ton of brides have posted a lot of great ideas. Be sure to check it out!

A few FYIs for other brides: I am now being quoted $600 for 15 minutes of fire dancers. Supposedly, the vendor raised their rates and the resort has to pass that cost along to us. I was also just told by Carlos, the concierge, that they no longer do bike rides to the ruins because they have a new dangerous highway and it isn't safe to bike there anymore. Carlos also did not answer any of my other questions about the ruins, and instead is passing me along to a tour operator. So frustrating. Does anyone know answers to these questions? 1. is it free to get into the ruins? 2. how much is cab fare? is it difficult to get cabs for a big group? Also, friends of ours who got married at DT said that when they arrived at the resort, they found that the wedding coordinators had not saved a single email from them and they had to remake every decision. It is starting to look that way in my case, as they never remember my requests. I've seen the opposite of this in some of the other DT bride reviews. But, to be safe, print out everything you've sent them and bring it with you! Also, I was told 2 days ago (11 days before my wedding) that we are unable to have the SSG because they are leaving it open. So, a warning to SSG hopeful brides: you definitely may not get that 30 days of notice they tell you they'll give you. I have no idea where my reception will be now, and we leave on Wed. Sorry for the daunting post, but I am really getting frustrated with the inconsistencies with promises and pricing for things and thought I would give everyone a heads up! Hopefully, things will go more smoothly when we get there!

Quote: Originally Posted by BellaBeachBabe Hi everyone, I just got an e-mail from Aurora stating that the reception only last 3hrs? Is this the case with all of you? She told me my reception would start at 6:30 and finish at 9:30? Ummm...that is a bit short no? Especially when I have a DJ booked until 10:30 I believe our reception is 7 to 10:00 also, but I have heard that other brides have successfully gotten it extended a half hour or so. Has anyone else who is getting married at the end of June had really slow communication with the coordinators this month? We emailed Aurora on June 2, 8, and 11th and have not gotten a response from her. This is so frustrating because we leave on the 24th, and need to wait for her response to finish some stuff - including a mass email to our guests who have been asking us questions we don't have answers to. Plus, they have STILL NOT confirmed whether we have the Seaside Grill, and now we are less than 2 weeks out. Ugh.

Quote: Originally Posted by clinicalgal In terms of your post, how come you don't know whether you're reception will be on the beach or at Seaside Grill? I "reserved" the beach for my reception, but does that not mean that i am guaranteed to get it?? My understanding is that the reason that we do not know whether we are going to get the SSG for our reception is because they will only let you have the SSG if the resort it is booked at less than 70% capacity. If it is, they want to leave the restaurant open to other guests. I had originally been told that they would be able to confirm whether we can have SSG one month in advance (as it said in the wedding guide, also), but now they are saying 2 weeks. Of course, when I inquired about this changing, they ignored that part of my email. In an unrelated matter, I thought you girls would want to know that we've also been told that we cannot hold a bonfire. They do not allow bonfires over the summer because it is nesting season for turtles. Denise - thanks for the info on lanterns!

Hi everyone! I have a few questions about paper lanterns. We are planning to use the really helpful post I found on BDW http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t37079 to DIY our paper lanterns for the reception. I can't decide how many we think we'll need. We don't know whether we are going to get the Seaside Grill or the beach for our reception until 2 weeks before the wedding (ugh), so we'll need to be prepared for either. So, do any former brides know how many paper lanterns you used to decorate either a Seaside Grill or beach reception? If so, can you direct me to any pictures you have? Has anyone strung Christmas lights around, also? If so, how many did you bring, and where did you use them? For decorating a beach reception, I've seen pictures of other receptions that have used paper lanterns them by stringing them between large poles (you can see some at a DT wedding here: Craig Wolfrom :: Wedding Photography :: Idaho, California, Mexico, and Beyond: January 2009). Does anyone know anything about these poles? Are they already set up, or would we have to set those poles up? Is this a certain part of the beach that I would need to request in order to get this? Any help you have would be great! Thanks!

Quote: Originally Posted by jerzygirl85 This is for any upcoming brides and past brides....I am allowed to offer my guests two entrees. I am using the ultimate package so I am supposed to pick my two entrees from the gold menu, however, I really want the chicken from the silver menu and the surf & turf from the gold menu. Has anyone been allowed to do this? Choose one item from the silver menu even though you have the gold menu?? I have been emailing Landy, Natalia, Aurora and Anabel and none of them have given me a straight answer!!! It's getting to be frustrating since I think this is a very simple question. I am VERY glad to hear that you are able to have two entree options. I emailed that particular question to Aurora, our WC two weeks ago now, and we have still not heard back on whether we can do it. I was really hoping they would speed up on the communication now that we're less than two months away. Who gave you the ok for 2 entrees? In case Aurora tells us that we can't, it would be helpful to have the extra info! Thanks for letting us know!

Quote: Originally Posted by wahmsuzanne It's going to be so fun! We get in on the 26th and leave on the 2nd ... we need to see if there's a time we can meet and have a pic taken of all of the BDW brides who are down there ... *huGs* Suzanne Definitely! We'll have to get a picture! We'll be there June 24th through July 3.

Quote: Originally Posted by Denise L We purchsed our satin bows from wedding linens direct home page and they were perfect!!! Loved them and they worked out to be $60 USD for 40. The BM's wore yellow dresses and we used turquoise bows and they were stunning! FYI - The satin chair bows on weddinglinensdirect.com are on sale right now! We just ordered 50 and it was $60 - including shipping. This was definitely the best price that we had found in our search.

Denise - Your pics are beautiful! Do you remember who did your hair and makeup? I love the way your hair looked, and would like to try and book that particular stylist! Also, I loved your chair bows - thanks for sharing the link and for your uber-detailed review. Chantal and Suzanne - It looks like we'll all be there at the same time! There are so many of us Late June brides! How fun!

Congratulations! Thanks for the review. You looked beautiful!

Quote: Originally Posted by SunBride I'm so happy to hear you have decided to join in. It makes me sad think that there are probably hundreds of brides participating silently in our thread, I want everyone to speak up and introduce themselves and then share their pictures and reviews when they get back. Thanks, Sunbride! I definitely will post a review of DT when I get back! One of these days when we get all of our stuff together, I also hope to create a planning thread - I have found reviews and planning threads to be terrific sources of information and I want to give back.

Quote: Originally Posted by Mixie23 Hey Starlitk, What time is your ceremony? Looks like I'll be seeing you there :-) Hi Mixie - Yes, we are date twins! We'll have to grab a drink together after all that we've been through with this destination. Right now, I think our wedding ceremony is at 5 pm. How about you?

Hi everyone - I just wanted to post and say thank you to all of you - especially Sunbride who is a ROCKSTAR - for all of the incredibly helpful information and great ideas that you've shared on this forum! I have never really posted before, but have turned to you guys as a reader for awhile now - first through our winter closure, and now with the flu situation and other general planning (now that I'm really kicking it into gear on general wedding plans). I wanted to drop a special note to Blkatz - I've learned so much from your posts, and was so sad to hear about how the flu has affected you. I'm glad to hear that your wedding was great despite everything that has happened to you in the past couple weeks. Anyway, here is my info: Username: Starlitk Date: June 27, 2009 Wedding package: Ultimate Wedding extras (and cost): Bonfire the night before Type of ceremony: Symbolic Coordinator: Anabel and (recently) Aurora have been our main contacts Number of guests: 45 approx. Ceremony location and time: Beach Cocktails location and time: Not sure yet Reception location and time: Hopefully Seaside Grill – if not – the beach Photographer: Josh Stephenson leografia Images Videographer: resort

Hi everyone - Ever since the swine flu news outbreak, I've been reading this forum looking to you other brides for guidance. I just wanted to post and say how glad I am to know that I'm not alone here! I have also loved seeing all the support you're giving one another - it's quite a comfort. Also, thanks to everyone who posted letters they sent to guests about the flu. MarieSam - I definitely used a good portion of it for an email we just sent to guests this weekend - thanks for offering to share it. I didn't even know where to begin when writing it, having yours made a horrible thing easier. As of right now, we're on, but I'm not sure how many of our 46 guests will be with us. In our letter, I asked our guests a few questions to gauge their current thoughts on the matter (copied below in case any of you want to use it) so that we could make an informed decision as things progress. So far, I've gotten mixed reviews and am quite frustrated with the non-respondents! Sorry, had to vent. Anyway, thanks everyone! Questions asked of guests: When we first decided to hold a destination wedding, one of our greatest reservations was that we may not be able to share our wedding with all of our cherished family and friends. We couldn't even begin to describe how happy and excited we have been to hear that each of you were planning to join us; your RSVPs have been one of the greatest sources of excitement for us. Therefore, as we consider our options, we would like to have your input on a few things. 1. Please let us know how you are feeling about this issue and if it will impact your decision to join us should we more forward as scheduled to Tulum. Please keep in mind - while it is important to us that you share in our day - your health and safety are of the absolute, utmost importance to us and we will completely understand and support whatever decision you are planning to make. So, please feel comfortable being truly honest with us (even if you think it is what we do not want to hear). 2. One of the potential options that Dreams is presenting to wedding parties is to move the wedding to one of the Dreams Resorts in the Dominican Republic. We have only begun to consider this option, but are interested in what your thoughts are on this issue should this option become a last resort. Would you be willing to join us in the Dominican Republic? If so, would a change in the date make it impossible for you to go? 3. Please remind us which travel company and airline you booked through. If you booked through our travel agent, ***, we have this list. However, if you booked through Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, etc. please let us know which one it was. We would like to stay apprised of the cancellation/change policies that these companies are offering. We know that most of these companies are offering to waive fees for cancellations and changes for Mexico travel through May. We want to make sure that we know which companies our handling our guests, and what they are offering. 4. If you are contacted by your travel company regarding their policies in the future, please forward this information on to us.