CarlySR

Hi Girls, There is quite a bit of information on they're website www.mangowedding.net, not sure what the name of the package is I did but it was $2300 and included 4 hrs of photography and videography between 3-9pm, album with 150 prints, 1 hr edited dvd, cd of all photographs and original footage of videographer. Well worth the money, it is the best Wedding video we have ever seen and our guests have ever seen. I was a bit pensive at first as I hadn't budgeted much for this but i'm so glad we splurged, we can re-live that day for the rest of our lives! Carly x

Quote: Originally Posted by DestCabo10 Hey carly, congratulations on your wedding! I was wondering if you were required to pay a deposit when renting the disco and steak house in advance? Nope! I didn't pay a penny for anything until I got there!

Quote: Originally Posted by Ethan's Mommy Hi Kristen So happy to hear that Nelly has been in touch. I have been pondering the English Patio as well, I just want to make sure we are able to have our first dance together as husband and wife, and a couple of other dances for the family. We actually went down to Panama a few years ago for my friends wedding and they just did their first dance and a couple of other dances right in the restaurant so to save some money we might just do it this way as well. We are just going with the free wedding package, the only thing that I really wanted was a good photographer, so we decided to go with Alec & T, and I am so excited, they take beautiful pictures and I can not wait to work with them. I to am getting very excited for the wedding, now that we are in the planning stages. This forum is so great, it is so nice to have people to talk to who are going through the same things. Just wanted to give you my feedback on the English Patio as I was considering it all. It is very pretty and nice and private, what I didn't like is you still have to pay for a DJ and bartender on top of the $500 site fee, it is ourdoors so if it is as hot as it was on my day (at least 100 degrees) you need some relief from the heat and you can only have it until 10pm. I decided to go with the disco as we could have it later, still private, cheaper and air conditioned!!! You cannot have music or dancing at any of the restaurants unless you rent the whole restaurant but then you might as well go with the English patio or the disco. Hope this helps! Carly

Hi Ladies! Just wanted to mention, make sure you check with Nelly that they kept my Tulle, I don't want you to bank on it being there and then it isn't! Carly x

Quote: Originally Posted by Kelly C Carly Congrats now were wedding twins. But as you can see I brought home a special suprise from our wedding moon. LOL Ha ha! No pitter patter of little feet for me! However James' Brother and Wife conceived on our Wedding night! Hopefully in the next year or so though! I hope you enjoyed your one year annviersary and celebrated in style! Carly x

Quote: Originally Posted by Girly Girl Great review Carly! Congratulations! You're pictures turned out great, i love all the thought & detail you put into your wedding. It looks like you really customized your big day. Thanks for all the information it will come in handy. By the way I recognize one of your bridesmaids Carrie, I went to high school with her. Small world eh! Hope you are enjoying newlywed bliss Tina That is hilarious! I will have to tell Carrie about that! Thanks for all your kind words! Carly x

I was in touch with Nelly for quite a while before the Wedding as I am a bit of a control freak but only for quick questions regarding cost of extras, locations for reception dinner and things, we we're really going back and forth daily. She was great, she replied to me right away. I think if you email her and tell her you want to start planning now she will be fine with that! If not, don't worry, it is very well organized when you get down there, we finalized everything then, the only thing I did well in advance was book the steak house terrace and the disco so no one else could book it! Carly x

Well Girls, here it is, my Wedding review. It’s kind of long but I want to get as many details in it for you as possible! Sorry it’s late, I wanted to wait until I had photographs and videos for you! Firstly, let me start with the hotel, immaculate, beautiful, clean, big and a great location. Lots of atmosphere and personality! We walked through the Palace and it was nothing compared to the Santa Fe, it was like a ghost town, there was nothing going on there, no one at the bars or even in the pool! Cabo is gorgeous, by far my favourite place in Mexico, from the sights to the night life. I splurged quite a bit considering it was a destination wedding but I wanted everything to be perfect. The guys had Calvin Klein beige linen pants and white linen shirts, I made James wear a matching jacket as I wanted him to look different than the Groomsmen and it looked amazing, although he was melting and he took it off as soon as the ceremony finished! My bridesmaids and I were all in Watters/B2 dresses and they’re dresses were all slightly different yet similar and all in different shades of blue as I wanted it to look like the ocean. Since flowers are not cheap in Cabo I decided instead of bouquets to get them yellow parasols and they looked great! I had made welcome bags for everyone that they could use as beach bags. I made a wedding logo and ironed it on, I had insulated travel mugs for everyone with our wedding logo on it, personalized match books and flip flop key chains. We had a group of 20 people, we met with Aurore as Nelly was on vacation, on day 2 to finalize all the arrangements. Aurore was amazing and such a sweetheart! We had the Royal package which was $2450 and we spent $2300on photography, there were a lot of friends and family who couldn’t make it and we had a reception planned when we got back so we wanted to make sure that the picture were perfect. This included 4 hours of photography and videography between 3-9pm, 150 prints in a leather album with the CD of all the pictures and an hour long fully edited DVD with the original footage. The best decision we made, they turned out amazing. The hotel just partnered up with a new Company, Mango Weddings, so the packages they offered were much better than the ones the hotel originally had. The Wedding Day: My bridesmaids, Mother and myself all went to Suzanne Morels Spa to get our hair and make up done. They were amazing, we all looked like movie stars! We were there a full 5 hours! I had a white orchid in my hair and the girls had little yellow flowers which really finished off the look. We got back to the hotel around 2.30 and the wedding was at 4pm. James and I spent the night before apart, so the girls got ready with me in building 7 and the guys got ready in building 4. The photographers were coming at 3pm to film us getting ready and all we had to do at this stage was put our dresses on. We were waiting for a phone call at 4pm to tell us they were ready for us and to head down to the beach. I was surprised how calm and relaxed I was, I usually cry at weddings so I thought for sure I would be a mess at my own! But I was just happy and excited to see it all come together! We got the call and headed to the beach. It must have been the hottest day yet! Even with a light dress I was sweating buckets!! We waited by the pool bar for our song to start, I walked down the aisle to “Somewhere over the rainbow†by Israel Kawakiwiwo’ole which was the perfect song. As we started walking everyone in the infinity pool started to cheer which was nice. As I turned the corner on the beach I thought I would lose it but I was fine and my Dad and I were laughing and joking the whole way down the aisle. The ceremony location looked beautiful. I took down my own tulle as I wanted an aqua/seafoam colour and they didn’t have it, but I couldn’t find a lot of material. Only enough for the arch, the tables and the aisle chairs. I left it down there and told them they can use it as lots of people want blue, so ask them for it if that’s your colours. The ceremony itself only lasted about 10 minutes, which was perfect. James had a hard time understanding the coordinator and had to ask her to repeat a few things which was funny and the judge had a gold tooth and crazy lip liner which we couldn’t stop laughing at! We were pronounced husband and Wife to “I’m Yours†by Jason Mraz and I had about 8 songs on my CD and they played the whole thing which was great as they told me they only play three. After the ceremony we signed the papers as we were having a legal ceremony and you have to give thumb prints which leaves your thumb black, so make sure someone has some wet wipes with them to wipe your thumbs! You don’t need black thumb prints all over your dress! We had to improvise and we used tequila from the bar!!! Then we spent the next hour taking pictures on the beach which I think is what having a destination wedding is all about, they look amazing!! We had had some crazy weather when we first got there and the waves were pretty big and had washed up tons of jelly fish! They were everywhere! So we had to be really careful when down by the water so we didn’t step on them! At one point the photographer asked us to write our names in the sand and since we weren’t paying attention we got soaked by a rogue wave which did not please me! Also, there were these two topless women and their boyfriends frolicking in the ocean right where we were taking pictures which annoyed me so the photographer asked them to move. I don’t want fake boobs in my Wedding pictures! Then we headed up to the pool bar for a drink, it was about 5.15pm by this point so we had until 6.30pm for dinner. We decided to go back to building 7 where we had 10 rooms next to each other to cool down a bit, plus James and I had something to practice, which I will get into later! My hair was destroyed by this point. I had it half up and by the time we’d been outside an hour and a half it was completely straight instead of curly, wet and sticking to my back, so my bridesmaids had re-do my hair so I could put it up, they did a great job! So my advice to you is, have an up do! We had our reception at the Steakhouse which is by far the best location. It is the only restaurant by the pool and the ocean and the only place where you can see the sunset. I took a lot of things with me to decorate the table, we had a U shape formation so everyone was facing each other, I made my own menu’s, place cards, shell place card holders, had blue petals, blue glass starfish candle holders, seafoam dyed real starfish, shells scattered all over the table and the flowers from my bouquet as it fell apart! I also had big blue paper pompoms that I got from Michaels and we hung them on the inside of the tables and pinned them to the tablecloth. It looked great! For favours I had little bucket candles (blue of course!) and for the guys a souvenir mini bottle of tequila that we bought in town. I got most of the stuff online. The food was amazing, we did the speeches right away in between courses which working out really well as we were on a schedule, we had the disco rented 8-11pm for a private party. So we had to skip dessert and do the cake cutting in the disco, so our cake was the dessert. Which was a good decision as the dessert at the restaurant was not very nice. We had a carrot cake with light blue icing and it was delicious!!! I decorated the cake with just some shells. Renting the disco was the best decision we made, otherwise, what do you do? Plus, it’s air conditioned so it was really refreshing to be cool for a change! The disco is a perfect size, it’s really retro looking which I loved and I did my own playlist on my ipod and told the DJ just to play the whole thing so we had our own music the whole night. After the cake cutting we did our first dance. Our song is “This I swear†by Nick Lachey and we had actually been taking dance lessons 4 weeks prior as we didn’t want to just stand there and sway to the music and this was a big surprise to our guests! After the wedding we went to the room to practice in my dress as we have a lift at the end and it was challenging! My dress was so long and he kept stepping on it, so we were a bit worried about how it would turn out and decided just to wing it. So we attempted it and it was a disaster! It still looked okay to everyone else but we knew it wasn’t and I decided at the end not to do the lift! But he kept standing on my dress and I kept standing on his flip flops but it gave us a good laugh! Then we partied all night and it was so much fun! It was a great day and night, everything went according to plan and looked amazing! See for yourself! Carly and James's Wedding Album | The Wedding Lens access code HJDS7C. I also have two videos posted on you tube, here are the URL’s: YouTube - Carly & James' Wedding, Oct 17th 2009, Riu Santa Fe, Los Cabos, Mexico This is the getting ready footage. YouTube - Carly & James' Wedding, Oct 17th 09, Riu Santa Fe, Los Cabos, Mexico Ceremony This is the actual ceremony. YouTube - Carly & James' Wedding, Oct 17th 09, Riu Santa Fe, Los Cabos, Mexico beach footage This is just James and I after the ceremony. YouTube - Carly & James' Wedding, Oct 17th 09, Riu Santa Fe, Los Cabos, Mexico highlights This is a movie montage of the whole day! Any questions please don’t hesitate to ask! Carly x

AAhhhh, 1 week today!!! We leave on Monday, excited, not really stressed, too late to change anything anyway so what will be, will be! Will give you all a review as soon as I get back. Thanks for all your help and advice Ladies, it made the whole process ten times easier having a group to bounce ideas off! Bye for now! Carly

I was a little rushed with my paperwork also, only because I didn't realize how much was involved and how long it would take. All good though! In terms of clothes, I hear gets cooler at night, but your cooler down in Florida and my cooler up here in Canada are probably completely different!! I'm taking summer clothes, lots of dresses, but little sweaters to wear over the top for the evenings. Nelly just emailed me and told me she is going to be on holidays for my Wedding! Argh! October 11th-27th so I won't even get to meet her! Aurora is going to be my WC on the day, hope that isn't going to cause any problems!!! 5 days til I'm in Cabo...can't wait!!!

Quote: Originally Posted by RachelCaboBride Awesome!!!! I'm getting so excited I hope everything goes well, Did you pick out your cake yet? I'm still deciding what, I wish I could taste everything then make a decision. So, far I'm the only wedding on the 24th. What type of flowers did you get? We're having the ceremony on the beach at 6, then eating at the steakhouse at 7:45. Since there are only like 15 of us, we'll probably end up at a bar afterwards in the resort. I'm not really sure what to expect from the resort. I went with Carrot Cake, I sent a picture of a cake I liked, so they could do something similar. As for flowers I stuck with the bouquet that comes with the package, it's quite nice! I chose yellow gerba daisies to go with the white roses as my colours are blue, gold and yellow. Since the bridesmaids bouquets weren't cheap, I got them yellow paper parasols and my Mum made them corsages. Our ceremony is at 4pm, James and I met on a cruise ship (staff not passengers!) and the cruise ship is docked that day, so I made our ceremony 4pm so the ship is in the background. Dinner is at 6pm at the Steakhouse too, and we rented the nightclub 8-11pm as we all like to party! After that we will probably chill at the bar too! I know a few people who have been to the resort and they just loved it! I've travelled extensively and I think it's going to be one of the best hotels I've been too! See you in Cabo! You'll know our group as we all have matching beach bags!!! Carly

Quote: Originally Posted by RachelCaboBride Hey everyone I've used this website to basically make all the decisions regarding my wedding. I'm getting married October 24, 2009 at RIU Santa Fe at 6pm. It's so close and I'm so excited. I'm still trying to decide on the cake and flowers. I'll still be there! We go home on the 26th, we are staying an extra week for our honeymoon!

Quote: Originally Posted by Christine H Dance lessons for your first dance is such a great touch! I was just at a friends wedding and they surprised the guests with a great first dance. It was beautiful! I would need more than a few weeks to get my guy to get it straight though! Sounds wonderful though!! I hope you have an awesome wedding! Ha ha ! It's nothing too fancy, we just took our song to a Dance School and they made up some very basic moves, I think it's a foxtrot! I thought he would be terrible as he is not really a dancer but he did really well! I think having a routine has actually improved his dance moves!

Quote: Originally Posted by bride2becabo K, so did you guys have to get an apostille? Nelly has not been explaining it well to me and Id like to know how you went about doing this Yes we did! I literally googled apostille services and it came up with a bunch of agencies that do this, I'm in Ontario though, but it should do the same for you. It isn't cheap, about $300 and they also get it your birth certificates legalized by the Mexican Embassy in your Province. You will need a long form birth certificate to do this. All in all, the process took me about 4 weeks, to get the long form birth certificates, send it to get apostilled and legalized and sent back to me. To translate the birth certificates took 2 days, I again just googled translation services and found lots of agencies. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask! p.s. James and I had our first dance lesson today for our first dance, it's a surprise, no one knows but I just had to tell some one! It went well!

Quote: Originally Posted by ally&ben2010 Carly, You are a month away from your wedding!?!!! that is so exciting! Are you all ready? I can't wait to see pics. I am all ready! I am a bit anal when it comes to this sort of thing! Thanks goodness as my other half is not! I excited now to see 10 months of hard work come together! I went a little overboard on favours and gifts for all the group but I felt like I could afford to since we weren't having the big lavish Wedding. Will definitely post pictures as soon as I get and write a review for you all, I know how much they've helped me through the planning stages. Enjoy it!

Hi Ladies, I'm on countdown now! Just wanted to reach out to all the former brides on the forum, l am looking into table set up and I was wondering if anyone has posted any pictures of how they did the table at the dinner. If you have, can you point me in the right direction where I can find those pictures!

Quote: Originally Posted by Bali83 Has anyone had any dealings with Aurora Delware? I think she may be a new WC at the Riu Santa Fe. I think Aurora is another WC or Nelly's assistant, she always emails me whenever Nelly is out the office.

I've been asking the odd question here and there from the start, I like to be prepared! Especially when it comes to getting all the paperwork ready if you are doing a legal ceremony, you need plenty of time to sort that out! But she won't mind if you start now! Carly

Quote: Originally Posted by Nanner431 Here is what I put in our bags althought we handed them out to everyone a month before the wedding hoping to get everyone excited for it. Hi There, Thank you for posting your welcome letter, that's brilliant! I see that you had a dance at the nightclub on the resort, I am doing the same and I was wondering do you have many photographs of the disco as I haven't seen many? If so, could you post them or email them to me at carly_s_r@yahoo.com that is great, thanks! Carly

Anyone got very far with a welcome letter for the OOT bags? I don't really know where to start! Any help our advice would be great!

Quote: Originally Posted by RikkiLynn hi carly! our ceremony is october 16...perhaps we'll see you around too! i have to agree, nelly has been awesome so far, has got back to my emails within 2 days...really put my mind at ease Hope you don't mind if I watch your ceremony from the peanut gallery! We should definitely keep and eye out for each other!

Quote: Originally Posted by bride2becabo I have spoke to the new coordinator. Her name is Nelly. She has been awesome! I had more information in her from 1 email then I had from Erika in the past 3 months! Im happy Me too! She's been great so far!

Quote: Originally Posted by Kelly C We just stapled them down the center like a book. Lisa, I will email it to you... hey there Kelly! Not long now for your 1 year anniversary!! I was wondering if you could email me your welcome book? I'm having difficulty on what to include and I was hoping to take a closer look at yours? Would you be ever so kind as to email it to me at carly_s_r@yahoo.com? Thanks Doll, that would be brilliant! Carly

Quote: Originally Posted by bride2becabo I am so excited to see RIU Sante Fe. Since this resort is so new its hard to find anybody who has been there yet Wedding Date: October 23, 2009 Ceremony: On the Beach Colors: Neon Purple & Silver Bridesmaids:5 Groomsmen:5 Renting the disco Hair: Bring my own stylist Guests: 80+ We will be staying October 17 - October 31st So soooon My Wedding date is October 17th, I will be there the 12-26 so I might see you around the resort!

Quote: Originally Posted by melinda234 I just want to share that we visited the RIU Santa Fe while staying at the RIU Palace. It is amazing! The landscape and decorations are wonderful, the only difference is the service. we had breakfast there one morning, and the service was terrible. The service at the Palace is much better. I think it all depends on what your used to. Most reviews of the Palace compared to the Santa Fe say it is a bit stuffy! My crowd are more laid back and go with the flow, I guess if your guests are used to high end 5 star they may be better with the Palace. My group would probably get kicked out of the Palace!!! lol!