Nonnie

Oh, another thing:

 

I had about 19 people for my wedding and not a lot of money to spend, but I still wanted a semi-private dinner. Carolina set us up under a thatched roof area outside on the patio of La Arrecife and it was perfect! Just the right size for us, beautiful location and no one else within sight! No extra charge! We were going to have a beach party, but then it started to rain a bit, so we moved the party under the same thatched roof, Carolina's team just moved all our tables over. It was great, lots of people danced and it was much easier then dancing on the sand

 

Also, a word of advice:

A few people in my wedding party saw other weddings at the resort during their stay and mentioned that Carolina seemed to go the extra mile for me in terms of decorations, etc. I can't say for certain why this may be, but I work in a similar job to her (I'm a Stage Manager) and I am considering going into weddings. I treated her like I would want to be treated, I recognised that she was dealing with lots of weddings and that my email about my wedding in 3 months was not her priority, the 2 weddings taking place that day needed her focus. I used the resort photographer (which make sher job easier), was patient, did not make crazy requests and was pretty much the opposite of a Bridezilla.

I had a beach wedding at the Palladium this past December and my ceremony was at 4pm. The beach was still quite crowded and yes, we did have lots of people watching in their bathing suites (including men in speedos), but It was fun and I would not have done anything different. There is a security guard to keep people from standing right behind you and getting in the photos and the resort photographer we used (Andres) did a great job editing out anyone the security guy missed.

 

It's important to realise that you are getting married in a place that is full of people, even the gazebo weddings attract a bit of a crowd. Everyone loves a wedding, my hubby and I got quite the applause for our first kiss.

 

We had a couple of kids in the background on a few shots making sand castles, but that was actually kind of cute.

 

Mind you I have never been the type who is overly traditional, elegant or Martha-Stewart about this type of thing. Seems to me that the only way to have a completely private each wedding is to spend a lot of $$ and part of the reason I did a Destination wedding was to save money.

This sort of happened to me, but it ended up working out even better

 

Fortunately another bridal shop moved in and arranged for all the brides to get their dresses at wholesale cost from the manufacturers. Since my mom had also put the deposit down with her Mastercard, which has deposit insurance, we were able to get the deposit back.

So in my case I got my $300 dress for $160. These brides should try to look into getting their deposits back, as long as the company has filed for bankruptcy and they had the coverage, they will get it back.

 

I hope it works out as well for them as it did for me. I remember how upset I was when I heard about my dress, I was bawling for a good couple of hours, and I still had time to go get a new dress

I got the fabric at Fabricland, and my mom (a talented sewer) made them, I go the starfish at a "going-out of business" sale in a women's garage

 

They are SOLD

cheating? hehe, I think you mean treating

It's all pretty much the same as before, which is good since things were good enough then for us to want to get marrried, lol. He's grown a beard though....

One thing that I strongly recommend is that you ladies have some wedding pics with you at all times, I am getting a lot of people asking to see them so I really need to bring my digital album to school and work sometime, even the ladies who work at the office of my aparment building want to see them

Regarding flowers

 

Carolina has a massive binder of different options for you to see when you get there, so I am sure you guys will find something you like (I sure did ;-) )

 

In the feedback form she gave me I urged her to put that and other visual material etc into pdf files to show to brides, but I guess she has not done that yet

I paid the $9 per person and the $200 for DJ and I saw another beach party as well.

 

due to weather we had to move our party from the beach, to under a thatched roof area (same area I had dinner), which worked out extremely well.

 

You get some decorations, varying depending on what you supply them with. They set up some beachy-themed cut outs of a sun, some surfboards etc for us on the beach. The bar comes with a waitress as well as the bar tender and you get the same stuff the bars usually have, ie Pina Colada, Rum Punch etc.

 

The DJ has a sound system and will have his own music (RandB, Carribean) I strongly suggest bringing any first dance music on CD or ipod, don't put it on a USB drive since it is hard for him to navigate that. If you are bringing Rock and Roll he may struggle with it a bit since he is not used to it. It was amusing watching my New Husband have a bit of culture clash with the DJ regarding the music.

 

There is also a security guard who prevents crashers

 

I think 9$ per person is a steal of a deal for what you get, $200 for the DJ is also recamennded so you don't need to worry about your ipod speakers being loud enough, or give someone the responsibility of controlling the music

I strongly recommend bringing a couple of sarongs, I wore mine every day

Bavaro, Punta Cana and Palace are Basically the same as I could see, same restaurants, same beach, same wedding Coordinator

 

I was in the Bavaro and I thought it was the nicest of the sections to be in. The rooms are in 8-9 suite villas, and decently spaced out with lots of vegetation. There also seemed to be less people bothering you on the closest section of beach to buy excursions etc. The Lobby seemed more active then the other lobbys and you are very close to Carolina's office and the Disco

Regarding Wrist Bands

 

This is what Carolina told me:

 

The Bride and the Groom can remove their wristbands for the day of the wedding. You ust keep it, and then exchange it at the deck for a new one

 

If your guests remove their bands, it is a $35 fee to replace them

 

My hubby forgot to remove his band, but it was black (Air Transat Imperial club) and did not look odd. My mom, MOH, etc bought some thick shell bracelets to cover the bands

like this: http://www.youpearl.com/images/shb/s...t-shb103_m.jpg

that worked well, in fact if you know what your female guests are wearing in terms of colour (and you find a good deal) something like that would be a good OOt bag item. Otherwise maybe consider getting one for your bridesmaids

there are lots of resort photographers wandering around trying to sell their services, so finding one to do your TTD is as easy as laying on the beach, literally, they find you

I don't know what they had for prelude music, Once I arrived the trio band was playing. I can ask my hubby, but that day went by like a blur for him

We did not have dinner music, if you are in a restaurant there will be the usual music. We were outside so we had some faint music from the nearby restaurant, but that was it. I didn't feel like music was necessary though,

Carolina will have a blank page in a big official looking book for you to sign. I never got a look at this, I just used a certificate thing my mom made (it looked terrible). If you want fake papers I would suggest you bring something you make up yourself, have it on good quality white paper (I had tan and it looks a little silly in the pictures).

 

I had no problem getting my sand down there, or taking it home. customs and Security at the Punta Cana airport is hardly strict, the thing they are worried about is drugs. I used a white glue-sand mix to seal the top of my vase. I think I put it too much glue, and all in all used too much of the mixture, but it is a reliable solution, you just might want to find a way to test it first

I never signed anything either. Just make sure you have confirmed the day with her and asked for a time (if legal, confirmed a time). I never had to put down a deposit. Mind you, I did a symbolic wedding

I'm just taking a look at the website, I paid less for the silver renewal of vows package, the trio band, and the DJ. Also the included cake serves way more then 8 ppl, I'd say any less then 35 and you'll be fine. Maybe they think us North Americans want huge slices

 

Oh, I saw the horse and carriage. Last I heard the hose had died, but they got a new one. A beautiful white horse and a white carriage

A few answers

 

Carolina's new email ( I got this right before I left, so early December) [email protected]

 

The resort photographer: There is a company called Bazaar and Co. That run the shops, and photography at the resort. The photography company is also called "Jalu". The guy in the office is Jose. There are several actual photographers, some more experienced then others. The two that I know do weddings are Andres Cantera (my photog) and Peter Reilly.

 

How you are feeling pressured right now by this HDC guy is similar to the way you will be pressured by all the vendors in the area, the excursion sellers, the shop owners etc. I even found the non-wedding photographers to be pushy, however in the Bazaar and co shops they are not pushy. Andres, Jose, Peter, our Videographer, all not pushy.

 

Hope this helps

Resort photographer's prices

 

Gold: $450usd, 30 pictures (6x in album, 50 on CD (non originals, the 30 in album need to be on the CD too). an extra picture costs $12

 

Platinum $750 USD (I used this): digital personal book (12x12) 15 pages very nice! Cd with 90 photos (originals included) every extra printed picture is $9

 

platinum plus $1000usd: digial book (12x19) with 15 pages, cd with 150 pics (originals included) every extra picture printed is $6usd

 

Royal wedding $1500usd, digital book (12x24) 20 pages, cd with 250 pics (originals included) every extra picture printed is $3. This includes a video (value $400usd)

 

We gotthe remaining 20 pictures he had on the cd (we had 110 total) for $60usd

They threw in 10 printed pictures for free

 

that's the ceremony set up for the beach

 

you can see more pics here: Flickr: Nonnie31's Photostream

I'd prefer them to be sold together

the sashes are 2 meters long and about 10 inches in width

 

for the sashes only I'll take $50 plus shipping

I AM DROPPING MY PRICE!!!

$60 (plus shipping and handling) includes the sashes, extra fabric, little tablecloth, 17 Starfish AND I am throwing in a copy of "Destination weddings" for dummies no extra charge

the star fish are not attached, I used clear elastics to bunch up the chair sashes, then secured the star fish to them as an accent. I found them at a closing out sale of a gift shop in my home town.

*sorry, double post

 

then as a favour the guests got to take their star fish home

This is a more far away picture of them on the chairs

wedding on the beach on Flickr - Photo Sharing!