AshManahan

My FH and a few friends are from Dublin---if I left them without Guinness for a week there would be some sort of uprising in Mexico! It is called the Buganvillas and is on the Lomas website. Here is the description and the link. Category Miscellaneous - List of products - Weddings in Cancun & Riviera Maya by Lomas Travel Filing of all documents. Justice of the Peace or non-denominational Minister. Professional services of an onsite wedding coordinator. Decoration of wedding location including red carpet, chairs for 12 people and table with white linen. Copy and Translation of Wedding certificate via Fed Ex (for Legal weddings only). Fresh floral bridal bouquet. See more options* Groom’s boutonniere. See more options* Blood test (on Legal Weddings only). * if your choice is a Minister wedding, you will receive a $150 usd credit on amenities. * Package available at All Karisma operated Hotels, any hotel category.

In case anyone wants to know today's Karisma facts (quotes) of the day... Guinness beer...$4 a bottle There is a new wedding package as well, though Tiffany seems purtubred and clueless about is. It is $1700 and basically skips the dinner, breakfast in bed, candlelight dinner, etc. Seems like a good call to me. I am lazy but don't need dinner for 40 at spoon and $800 for a beachside dinner for two and breakfast in bed. Though, I do reccomend the dinner for two, it is quite romantic, but you can buy it for $150!!!

Happy Sunday everyone. Checking in from Atlanta with a planning status update... Dress--still no dress! Rings--bought both of our bands. I have to leave my engagement ring here for two weeks though. My honey was extra sweet and is adding two bands to it with another 2.5 carats DJ--Went to the W hotel bar last night, awesome DJ was mixing. I was definitely overserved but recall him telling me that he would DJ our wedding for $500, plus his flight and hotel. I think it may be worth it! Spent the whole day with MOB and managed not to fight!!!!

Hey ladies...no clue why the picture isn't visible. I am traveling without my own laptop so I thought I would post a link to a picture. Only difference on this one is that the candles are not clear oil candles, which look a bit more romantic. I am in Atlanta, came here to go to the merchandise mart to buy our wedding bands (love wholesale jewelry)....there is a HUGE bridal show going on. We are talking like 1000 vendors. Got a guys card last night at dinner that said he could find me the Carolina Herrara dress I want at a discount...hope neither one of us were drunk! http://www.weddingdayaccessories.com...enterpiece.jpg

I am buying the centerpieces from the hotel. They are $85 for each cluster of 3.

Hope this works....

Ok, someone has to tell me how to post pictures again, I think I need an account of sorts or something.

Tiffany got back to me earlier. Said that the only fee is to hang or assemble, so no fee for the napkins. I can bring my own napkins and they will use them. Hmmm I wonder if they iron Not sure what you ladies are trying to budget for centerpieces but I am doing some awesome ones for $85 a piece. If anyone is interested in seeing them, let me know. They are a cluster of 3 sizes of vases filled with rocks, green orchids and floating clear flower candles.

Allisa--tell us about thes dolphin shaped air freshners, is it spray or what? Where did you get them? I wasn't being so nice yesterday and went back to Tiffany and said, if I buy my own colored napkins for $1 and bring them down, let me guess you will still charge me the $50 set up fee to have someone put them out even though you would do it for free with the regular white napkins....no response.

The beach itself is actually fine for a few hours a couple of times a day after they plow it with the tractor. Then the seaweed washes back up. I don't suspect they will do anything much with the rocks. The area is great for snorkel and scuba, just not wading in the water. If you want the best beach, check out the El Dorado Maroma--WOW best beach ever! The resort is awesome and quiet, and the food was also great. Great beach area for weddings---they just don't take kids.

On the family matters....my maid of honor told me yesteday that my mom is paying for my sister and her daughter's plane tix to come. Apparently this is because my brother is being a jack@ss and won't bring his kids. Moral of the story is that it wouldn't be a wedding if at least half of the family was uncooperative or not attending. MY FI's parents doesn't understand how we can get married (they are crazy old Irish Catholics from Dublin) and his brother told him "I am out of Time Off from work, can you move it to next year"? Now onto my wedding coordinator/pricing funnies of the day. Who wants to know how much napkins are? $5 a piece. That is worse than the chair bows! Tablecloths--$30. My favorite is the band who plays in the mojito lounge who quoted us $1,000 for 4 hours---Lomas Travel wants $2,800 for 2 sets of 45 minutes.

Ok, here's the thing ladies. I saw Bree's post last night and was like, oh, I could do that and move, too. But then I was like, oh, I'm still going to be stuck paying Lomas crazy reception prices! So who cares. Reviews on TA have gotten better the last few days. Two weeks from today, I will be waking up at Sensatori for vacation. I promise if anything even remotely seems bad, I will let you ladies know. Also, I will bring my laptop for live posting!!! So, everybody change their karma to positive or something!!! I still have no wedding dress, but going to Atlanta in 2 days, so keep your fingers crossed.

I read in a magazine last night and just remebered (I had Sangria for dinner) that some people are putting English to Spanish dictionaries in their bags. Also in terms of drinks, these guys keep a notebook at the bar for all of their recipes. I added a few to them on my last trip!

I haven't settled on my bags quite yet. I'm leaning towards a plain tote bag. I'm going ot have each side done in a different design. The first side will have a picture of a knocked over or empty margarita glass and will say "Thirsty". The other will have something like a "Do Not Disturb" sign on it. The air freshener is a great idea. Because of the humidity and sulphur it can be a bit stinky, nevermind the rotting day after tequilla and beer!!!

I haven't found bugs to be a problem, except maybe in February/March in the morning. I'm sure I remember a few bites here and there but nothing out of the usual. Good idea though. What is Emergen-C? Us States girls don't have the same stuff over here. I'm thinking a few improted Sulpadene tablets would be a good idea, though

This will make you guys puke, but our single guests rooms are $555 for 3 nights! My singles can drink that alone in Patron for 3 days!

Our wedding is November 27th, 2009. I can't figure out how to get it to appear in my info. This website needs to hire a useability specialist! My list of stuff so far has things like cards, pool floats, sunscreen, immodium , hangover pills, breathmints, pashminas, etc. I feel like I am missing some cute ideas. I'm having beach bags printed up that on one side say "Thirsty" and the other say "Do Not Disturb". I haven't figured out what kind of designs to put on them yet.

I decided to go with the lower rates. My guest are extending their reservations lot and I just didn't feel good about passing higher rates on to them. We decided to change most of our rooms to premiums. They are only $304 a night now for 2 people. My reservation person at Karisma is Catherine, but she can't do anything. However....the manager that makes all of the decisions is Alberto Fernandez. I would give your TA his name. Your TA may be hesitant to make the changes though because she will lose her 10% commission I bet. So, let's start a new happy discussion! Who is working on welcome bags for their guests, and what are you putting in them? I've got a list of about 15 things so far but need to narrow them down and get a move on!

Well, here's the scoop. They gave me two options. Keep my existing rates which give me about 60 amenities or think of it as couples massages for every one of my guests and about $8000 of wine credits. Option 2 is to take the lower rates. For my 30 guests it seems like this will reduce our room rate by about $5,000. The wine is marked up ridiculous. All of my guests are foodies and wine snobs so I can't cheap out in that department. So, I think I am going to risk it and take the cheaper rates and hope for less wine consumption. If I order less than $5k I've saved money. That is crap about the last rooms though. When I booked in July they claimed only 5 adults only jacuzzi juniors were left. Well, guess what, there are tons now! Uggh. This is getting difficult. I wish I never had looked at the price reductions. I think it was those chair bows that put me over the edge!

For example, 2 adults in a premium room is now $304 a night. Booked in July through Karisma directly with 15% discount was $433. Shandalier, it will not be legal, unless your friend lies and says it was performed in the city you live in.

Shandalier, I expect to hear back from them today. The way I see it, I can break my contract and rebook, but still save about $7,000. What really concerns me more is that we booked this resort because the prices were high enough that it ensured a certain class of people would not afford to travel there. Now, that is not the case. Also, How is it possible to cut your prices by 80% and maintain the same quality of food, liquor, and staff. The only thing keeping me going is that we are getting married the day after Thanksgiving which is historically very quiet in this area.

I am not sure if I should be happy or throw up...I just checked on the room rates because I have a guest who wants to stay an extra week. I thought I would check Karisma's website for yucks! Their room rates are almost $150 less a night than what I was given from my coordinator at Karisma, with my group discount. WTF I can't wait to see what they come back and tell me next.

27 dresses---you should ask Karisma for a $3000 credit towards a stay there or better yet at El Dorado Maroma which would be great for a honeymoon. Good luck with whatever you work out!

Just in case anyone was working with Fabiola at Karisma on all of their reservations, I just found out that she is no longer with them. My new contact there is Catherine Rojas.

I've been reading the reviews lately and I have found most of them to be pretty honest. I'm going to preface this with the fact that my FH and I travel constantly. We mostly stay at Marriott's and Renaissance in suites. We are total foodies (we live in Chicago and I don't cook so we eat out constantly). I stayed at Azul last Thanksgiving for a week. Here's where I think the reivews are correct. I was there a month after it opened and some of the furniture wasn't doing so well in the rooms. I chalked it up to poor color choice in the brown furniture. No biggie. The food is good and ok. I hated the Tapaz, we had a great time though. We spit out some food if we didn't like it, then had a second dinner in the Mexican place, which I found to be great. Le Chicque was awesome, but I saw people leave in the middle of dinner. The beach is not the greatest. Twice a day it is pretty clean and soft. The water is awful. But, it is a beach. You sit at the pool and look at it or listen to it. The water does stink, but not unusual for resorts in the area. I will say I am concerned about the stuff about the green swimsuits and scum in the water. The staff is awesome with the exception of the check in people. The time share welcome people are annoying, and are present at every hotel in the area. The hotel is in the middle of nowhere. There is basically nothing to do at night unless you make your own fun, which is totally easy to do. In a nutshell, this is not a 5 star resort, nor do I believe anyone is paying 5 star prices. a 5 star all inclusive resort will set you back over $1000 a night. This is less than half of that. You get what you pay for. I looked everywhere for the perfect resort, and were willing to pay substantially more than we are. I still think this is the best spot for a long weekend wedding and we are so looking forward to it. If you have the right expectations everything is fine. Now, I am going down to Azul for a week in September, so if anything has changed I will let you guys know!