amberm410

Quote: Originally Posted by aubry For those of you that have been there, what did those using an iPod do for first dance, etc. I love the Bose idea, it's super small, but no mic. Just wondering how you handled those things. Also, on my group contract, it said private check-in, and "welcome cocktail". How did that work? I tried to set up the cocktail and was told it wasn't an event. Not a huge deal, but I thought it was a group perk. Also, what did you past brides think of the officiant? I'm worried about a really strong accent. Also, for my faith, I'm more comfortable with a male officiant - just my image of my wedding day, I guess. Anyone know if there is a male officiant available? Thanks! We had a guy marry us there. He was great! There was a definite accent though but it just made getting married in Mexico the real thing. We still kid to each other about how he said "love" he kept pronoucing it "Lub". LOL We will never forget this.

Quote: Originally Posted by cathyandchin Surprises of surprises... Ana emailed ME last week! she said she needed a head count and sent me back an updated contract. I've decided to drop the dj we will only have about 18 people including us so it doesn't really justify the cost. I already had an extensive list of music that I wanted the dj to play but I'll just throw it on an iPod and the special songs on a cd. For those ladies that were married here... how did you pack your dress? I have a full size dress (not a "destination" dress) and I'm thinking of just putting it in a suitcase and sending it back with my parents. Did you just take is a a carry on or pack it up? I'm so excited! we leave in 42 days... Congratulations! Your wedding is not very far away! We carried my dress along with my FI suit on the plane. We had a connection so one one of the flights the flight attendant hung them in the cock pit and the other flight we had to lay them across bags in the overhead. After the wedding I sent my dress and his suit back home in my mother's suitcase.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kat&Dan Hi Everyone I have a quick question, to those brides out there that have already had their wedding. Did anyone experience any problem with the service? We contacted a TA and she gave us the pros and cons of DRC. She mention some of her clients complaining about the service and many of them felt the need to tip just to get someone to serve them. She also mentioned the public areas being very crowded. My fiance and I are feeling a little overwhelmed nailing down a reosrt. There are so many pros and cons and opinions. I really like DRC from what I have read. So any advice from someone who has been there would be much appreciated. Thanks My wedding was in April during a very high occupantcy time. There were a lot of people, long waits for the restaurants after 6pm and it was very hard to get chairs at the pool and on the beach. My wedding was beautiful and everything turned out wonderful but I did experience the issues your TA mentioned about service and feeling like I needed to tip a lot even though that got us no where. I have even heard about the hotel doing cool things to the bride and grooms rooms for their wedding night and we did not get this. We spent a ton of money at the resort arranging private dinners and such but I believe due to the time of year we went there were quite a bit of hiccups on their part. But with that said I have spoken to so many people that were there on different weeks and did not have any of these issues. I think if you go during the fall, or very early or late spring you will not experience this. We were there the week after Easter which a lot of kids were on spring break. Don't go around this time. However, I will mention that I stayed at a Palace resort the day after my wedding for another week and experienced the opposite as far as service. The Palace resorts really went out of their way to make the experience wonderful and we did not feel like we had to tip there even though we did. Dreams is probably one of the best resorts in the area as far as food, and overall ammenities. I would recommend DRCduring an off peak time.

Quote: Originally Posted by tsgnatko Can you take down your own fake flowers with you for your wedding party? I did! I ordered shavons wedding silks and carried them in my carry on. Even people watching the ceremony didn't know they were fake. LOL They look real!

Quote: Originally Posted by aj42781 Hello, thank you for the info, i am using a travel agent that goes through apple...she never mentioned how i can just pay per person for room and get seperate airfair..thats a good idea im gonna email her about it right now. I do like the idea of not having to pay right smack upfront....very helpful...thank you I also booked my travel through a agent who is affiliated with Apple. We had 10 others flying down for our wedding and each package was calculated differently to get the best deal possible. I paid for our flight seperatly upfront and was able to get a way better deal than having apple arrange the flights with my package. Most of my other guests it worked out good being lumped together.

Quote: Originally Posted by reaganlane Ok, so whats the final say with the roses? None at all on the beach, even if you purchase them from Ana? I'm confussed on this issue... I think the rule is that you cannot have fake rose petals on the beach due to Mexican law. I looked into this before my weddng because I thought about having my wedding on beach as well as wanted to have lots of pictures on the beach and I went with the natural touch flowers that are silk based. I was told I could have my bouquet but scattering rose petals would be against mexican law due to not being able to gather all of them after we are done. I was told it was harmfull to the fish/environment if they couldn't be completely cleaned up. I would ask Ana about this if you are getting married on beach. I think you can use real flowers.

Quote: Originally Posted by lorijfletcher I have a dilemma about the photographer. I am doing the Ultimate wedding package and so I don't know if it makes sense to hire Juan Navarro. His work is amazing, but I think the resort does a good job too. Below are some facts and questions I have about each. Can anyone help me out? Those of you who are hiring him, are you doing the Love or Ultimate wedding package? Juan Navarro: 3 hr time limit gives you more photo's? (I've heard they are the same but it looks like Juan gives you more) Gives you ALL photo's taken?? charges extra for TTD - but you get more photo's for the extra money, too. Resort photographer: no time limit (they told me) no extra charge for TTD fewer pictures?? only 50 included in package $15 per photo after the given 50 Help please!!! I had Juan as my photographer and I had the free wedding package that did not include photos so she had me choose which package I wanted from a list she gave me. I was under the impression both the resort photographer and Juan was the same price. I had chose package #4. I believe it was $1040 USD and we recieved about 96 4X6 photos in a book along with about 6-8 8X10's and maybe about 5-10 5X7's. He did color, black and white, sepia, and black and white with color added in. They were truly amazing. Of the photos he choose and printed for us he made us a cd that has all rights to make whatever copies etc... When they met us to give us our photos they also showed us all the rest of the photos which totaled about 1300 photos and offered us to buy the complete set on cds with all rights to making copies etc... we opted to purchase the extra cds because there were just so many great pictures. Good Luck!

Quote: Originally Posted by jstock311 Thanks! I will request him then. So is he not included in the photos that come with the wedding package? Is he considered an outside vendor that I need to contact on my own or can I just tell Ana I want to book him? Thanks again! Ana will take care of it if you just tell her you would like him. You could also e-mail him to see if he is available on your date. I did both. The pricing should be the same as the photo packages she sends you. It's kinda weird because of things I have read and from my own experience it seems that Ana doesn't like it when people contact the vendors on their own for pricing etc.. probably because Dreams puts a mark up of some sort on it.

Quote: Originally Posted by jstock311 Just wanted to thank all of you for all the wonderful information. It is a bit stressful waiting for Ana to respond to emails and a lot of my questions have been answered by all of the posts! I've tried to read through as much of the posts as I can so if I'm repeating questions, I appologize. Just wondering if anyone has used Juan Navarro, the hotels photographer? I think I'll choose him since his pics looked pretty good on his website. Also, does anyone know if we can mix and match the sit down dinner menu? We are having the Gold menu which has 3 options but I'd like to pick and choose between the 3 if we can. Thanks! I used Juan Navarro and he does such an awesome job! He is not the resort photographer though so you need to request him. The resort photographers are different. I heard good things about them too but just looking at the differences I liked Juan's creativity. Sorry I don't know about the sit down dinner options as I reserved the wine room and was able to order off the French restaurant menu.

Quote: Originally Posted by AlisonJimmy I requested those flutes about 2 months ago! Never sent them! Pretty annoyed by that. I requested them a while ago also and have not heard a thing. I also noticed that the packages have changed on line since I booked my wedding back in August of last year. I have a e-mail of the package from Ana that includes my flutes but I notice now on the basic wedding package it does not list them. I hope I still can get them. Ana told me to go online and request them after the wedding so I did. Another concern I have that I have seen on the facebook page was that one girl who was married back in November at DRC still has not received her marriage license yet from the resort. They say it takes anywhere from 1 month to 4 months but I have friends that were married at other resorts and they had all their paperwork within a month after. Its only been about 5 weeks for me so its still early but have any of the other brides that were married at Dreams recieved their paper work?

Quote: Originally Posted by reaganlane Ok, so another random question to throw in the mix. My wedding isn't till 4 and I'm trying to find something to keep the fiance and the men entertained till it's time for them to get ready. There will only be a small group (like 5 men) so I was thinking maybe they could do the golf that is offered. Does anyone know how far away from the Dreams resort the other resort that offers golf is? Also, if they do a really early tee time, think they would be back in plenty of time to get ready? Me and the girls will be hitting the spa...so no problems for us! My wedding was at 3 and origionally I was thinking the same thing too but we realized that there is a extra fee for early tee times and the free golf is about an hour away. So you figure if they went really early then maybe they would make it back on time. We didn't chance it and the guys didn't think it was worth the extra fees. Also, our wedding was April 10 so it was a very busy time for the resort so we could not get the additional room for the grrom the night before. So we ended up just hanging with everyone all day hitting the spa etc... The spa is awesome! After my hubby to be took his shower he went to someones elses room to finish getting ready while the girls were in our room. They ended up at the lobby bar for a bit before the ceremony and it was perfect!

Juan was also my photographer at Dreams Riviera Cancun in April 2010. If you go to his blog you will see some of our pictures under Amber and Jeff Dreams Riviera Cancun April 2010. He did such a fabulous job! I highly recommend Juan and his team. They truly did capture every moment and was very creative. I have so many great family photos now from our wedding.

Quote: Originally Posted by FutureMrsRobart I'm torn about this. Figure maybe it will be easier after the site visit. This is what I wanted for the beach b/c it was just so pretty but I do like the gazebo too. Did you ever see it decorated with anything but florals when you were there? Mind you you probably can't go wrong with either I guess. They both are pretty settings in their own way:- My gazebo wasn't decorated at all but I saw pictures on line somewhere that people had it all dressed up with floral and then I saw a really contemporary look with benches etc... That looked really rool and I would have done tbhhat if i had the big wedding with friends coming etc.. I did not see a beach wedding while there at dreams except they set up for one down the beach a little at another resort. It was done all up in white curtains and looked pretty but it was also very basic.

Quote: Originally Posted by AlisonJimmy Hey Girls!!! Does anyone know a good site to order some beach totes that can be used as OOT bags? I am getting married in August and I need to start getting this together. I checked out the ones from amazon but the are sold out and don't know when they are getting more!! Those were awesome...but now I need another option!! Thanks everyone! I did ones from Lands End. I did the second from the largest size with a zipper. It held so much! They worked perfect as a carry on for the plane and then people carried them all over.

Quote: Originally Posted by aubry I've been out of the loop a few days and there are so many great posts! Thanks for the review, pics, and oot bag info. This forum has been a lifesaver for me! Anyone been there lately and keep the resorts lists of activities and times? I'd love to see that to get a better idea of what happens when. Tell me if I'm crazy - I like sparkles and heels. Maybe it's to help me feel feminine after all my mom chores, but I love these heels. My mom said the nude wouldn't work for the wedding, but I'm not sure. Are they too much? Aqua Crystal Flower Platform Heels-Sz. 5-11 - Unique Vintage - 2010 Prom Dresses, Cheap Prom Dresses I'm doing the oleg cassini ct326 that's T-length in front and long in back. I wanted a shoe that will work for the "blue" in the "something old, something new..." I'm keeping things a little on the casual side, too. I love these!!! I would definitly wear these!

Quote: Originally Posted by FutureMrsRobart and PS - I love heels and a little sparkle too. So much so, I'm actually reconsidering getting married on the beach and moving it to the gazebo since that area is concreted and both myself and the bridesmaids can wear a cute heel. LoL This is why I did the gazebo as well. Then we just kicked off the heels walked on the beach for pics then put them back on for the rest of the eve.

Quote: Originally Posted by allisoncarr Has anyone who has been married already, had their dinner on the beach, We have 11 adults and 3 children staying at DRC and attending our wedding in July 2010. We would like our dinner on the beach, our wedding is at 3pm and wondering what is the best time for dinner. Should we have Hors D’Oeuvers between wedding and meal? My wedding was at 3 and my dinner was 6:00 which was perfect timing. We really didn't finish pictures till about 5:30. We had 10 adults and 2 children so kind of similar. Ours was all imediate family so they were all included with the pictures we did on the beach. So right after the pictures most of us went to our rooms to refresh a little and then met at the wine cellar for dinner. If you have people not included in pictures after then I would say that maybe some hors d'oeurvers would be nice on the deck as people are arriving for the dinner.

Quote: Originally Posted by cathyandchin Thanks for the review! So would you say that upon arriving at the resort we should check in first with Ana? I'm getting sooo excited! I think you still need to try to check in with the regular folks but I would insist they call Ana to let her know you have arrived unless Ana has already set up a meeting with you at a particular time. If your room is not up to par, I think Ana will do everything she can to make it right for you.

Quote: Originally Posted by noonie thanks so much for the review, im getting married next wednesday:) Congratulations!

Sorry for al the typo's. I should have read it before posting it. Another thing just for your info. Even though I felt like they were expecting tips all over the resort, I truly feel like these people work their butt off and deserve any extra tip you can give them. I do not think they make very much for what they do and a few bucks here and there really helps them. Happy planning!

Ok so here is my full review. I will try to rememeber everything. I will start out by saying I really enjoyed DRC and would probably return in a few years but they do have some kinks to work out with service etc.. but overall the resort is awesome, food is the best I have ever had at a all inclusive, and the rooms and grounds of the resort are beautiful. I really did have an awesome wedding there. Check in: ok so this is where the kinks started. We were booked for a perferred club room and apon checking in with two other rooms of my family members in the perferred area check in the concierge there didn't seem to know what she was doing. From the start we had to wait about 30 - 45 minutes in this perferred check in area for them to call are name to check in. Once we started to check in with her I informed her that I was getting married at the resort and was supposed to check in with Ana when arriving. I had to remind her to call her once she was finished checking us in and then she couldn't reach her so she said she would have Ana call us. The concierge didn't seem to care about anything I had said. Anyways, once we went to the room we realized out of the 3 rooms that checked in that we had recieved the worst view on one of the outsides of the resort. A few hours later we ended up getting a call from Ana to arrange our meeting and things were fine. Ana had our room moved within 2 days to a lot better view overlooking the resort. The rooms: While I could see the privacy issue with the bathrooms etc being a problem for some people we really didn't have the issue. I am a very private person and it did not bother me at all. The bathrooms and bedrooms were beautiful. The only issue I had with our room which was a perferred honeymoon suite on a corner was the lighting in the bathroom. My family had all complained of the issue as well. Bring a really good makeup mirror with a really bright light. I brought a makeup mirror but the light on it wasn't bright enough so it didn't help at all. The closet space and drawers were adequate for us. We had two weeks worth of clothes and we are both big clothes people and it was fine. The pool/lounge chairs/beach: The infinity pool was awesome and the swim up bar was our favorite spot to hang. The drinks are the strongest at that bar. The swing bar on the beach was very fun in the evenings. The beach was very nice and don't see why people would complain about seaweed etc.. its natural. Food: AWESOME!!!!! The french and asian place was our favorite. The french place had always had diff things on the menu and each thing we tried was phenominal! The asian place had great food and their outside patio is really cool. Usually during the mornings and lunches we had the seaside grill out by the pool and they had really good taco's and nacho's and all sorts of stuff. I cannot say more about the food at this place it was delish! I have stayed at two other all inclusive top rated resorts in Cancun area and this by far was the best food. Wedding: It all comes together once you meet with Ana and or Yasmin. You can tell how busy they are. Once we met with her she really took care of everything within an hour. our wedding was at the gazebo and I'm telling you girls this is the place to have it. Surprise its pretty cool being out there in the middle of everything going on. Our wedding was at 3pm and she had me walk up around one of the sides and everyone was watching and cheering when we were done. I thought I would like it to be more private but it is pretty cool. I did not have chairs set up since our was so small (my choice) but I could see if you had more than 15 guests having chairs set up would make it more private and intimate but it is really cool having everyone watching. That night and the next day I had so many women come up to me remembering my wedding and saying how cool it was. We had our dinner in the wine room which is off od the french restaurant and it was perfect for our small 12 people. Only 2 small quirks about the eve... we arrived for our dinner and they had only set up for 10 people so there was a communication issue even though Ana had confirmed with me the 12. Also, they brought my cake out to the gazebo and we wanted it at the dinner in the wine room so I asked her to have it then and she said no problem it would be there waiting for us. After dinner they brought out a half eaten choc square cake for us. we looked at it and laughed and said this isn't our cake because ours was a round milk cake (which by the way is so so good. It was recommended by Ana as the best and it was). Also we had not even cut into our cake so obviously this was someone else cake. LOL They fixed it right away and brought us our milk cake. Our photographer was Juan Navarro which did an outstanding job which I mentioned in my previous posts. This was the best part of my wedding besides being married to the best man on earth. The downside: Really like I said everything was great I just think they have some major communication kinks at this resort compared to the others I stayed at. On the first day we waited and waited around in the lobby area to try to schedule something for the concierge for my mothers birthday. The same clueless gal who checked us in also tried to make a reservation for us at the tapenake tables and totally screwed it up. I just felt like I was always being lied to by her and kept having to follow up with her instead of her getting back with me. At first after about 3 hours we were under the impression we had a reservation with the restaurant for 6:30 or 7 on Thursday but she would confirm the time with us in a few hours. The next day after not hearing from her we followed up and she said we didn't have a res but would get back to us. We never heard from her until 5:30 pm on Thursday. She then confirmed it but at that point snce we still hadn't heard from her we already made plans for everyone to go eat in Playa de Carmen. It just seemed like she really had no cust service skills at all. I could tell it also seemed like she was expecting a tip for setting it up. I kinda felt like they are expecting tips all over the resort but didn't get this feeling at the 2nd resort we went to the following week. Another comm issue was that I had contacted the reort about 2 1/2 weeks prior to our arrival to find out about golf. We were told to e-mailthis certain e-mailt to set up a tee time. Well no one replied at all and my brother also had the same response. I think they just need more concierge people and need a little more training. There was one concierge and I cannot remember his name but he seemed to have his stuff together and was able to get us a timely reservation on the patio at the asian place and was able to set up a birthday celebration, beach dinner and cake on the pool deck for my mother. Everything was wonderful except that we were supposed to get the cake at 8:30 for the birthday on the pool deck and we ended up waiting around till about 9 pm with no drinks or anything. I had to ask about 9pm where the cake was and where the bottles of wine we had bought were. They kept telling me it was coming. They brought out the alcohol very soon but I finally had to tell them to forget the cake becuase it was so so late. We had a 8 and 4 year old falling asleep. They insisted the cake was coming. It was about 10pm before getting the cake. Overall things were good and I hope they get the communication issues worked out soon.

Quote: Originally Posted by ebernard4985 I already confirmed with Juan and was just looking at your pics last week! They are beautiful! The one with the 4 of you running on the beach is AMAZING.... you definitely need to blow that one up How much did the CDs of the pictures cost and how many hours did you have Juan for? CONGRATULATIONS (sorry should have said that first!!) Thanks! I love that pic too! We are having it stretched onto a canvas for our living room. In may last post I added the package details but I believe we had him for 2 hours. My wedding was at 3 and we finished pictures at about 5:30. So really he was there longer than the package said. he was really good and knew what he was doing.

Quote: Originally Posted by alisonpaige I don't quite understand how using Juan works. Did you have him booked far in advance? Did you then have to pay for his services since he is no longer the resort photographer? I love his photos compared to the resort photographers but I am trying to keep my cost down. Thanks and Congrats I LOVED your Dress! So beautiful! Juan Navarro is actually a DRC resort approved photographer so once I let Ana know I wanted him she booked him for me. She actually gave me him as an option but I know sometimes she doesn't mention all the options sometimes so if you just ask she can arrange him for you. Another girl had him as her photographer the day after mine. I just paid the resort and they paid Juan. I believe (can't remember) it was the exact same price as the resort based photography company. I stuck with the package 4 which was $1050 USD and we received a book with about 96-100 photos as well as some 8 X 10's and some 5 X 7s. We also got a cd of all these pictures. Then on top of that we paid extra after the wedding for cds that had over 1200 pictures on them with all rights for us to print as we need etc.. It was a really good deal and they did an awesome job.

Hey girls! I just returned from my wedding there on the 10th! I will post a full review later in the week but have no fear once you get there everything comes into place! Ana and her assistant Yasmin are on top of it. The best part of my wedding is the awesome pictures. I would highly highly suggest Juan Navarro. His crew did an such a great job capturing every part. I have 3 cd's of pictures. Some are color, some black and white, some black and white with just flowers or somehting in the picture being color and sepia photos. So creative. We had so much fun. Here is a link to a few of the pictures on his site. JEFF & AMBER DREAMS RIVIERA CANCUN 10 APRIL’10 Juan Navarros Blog Also if you just go to his site you can check out his work. www.juanphots.com Full review of the resort and wedding etc.. to come within the next few days! Happy planning!

What a great mom! I wish my mom was like you. I could use the help! I am getting married on April 10th at the Dreams Riviera Cancun and was only given 11am and 3pm as my options. Personally I felt 11am was early due to getting ready and such and wanted to do more of an evening dinner so I chose the 3pm time slot. I feel like it will probably be really hot at both times (mid 80's). I just checked weather.com and currently at this moment which is close to 11am there it is 80degrees. I spoke to other brides who were only given a choice of 11am so this could be what happened with her. The wedding will be beautiful either way but if you have a lot of guests I think the fans are an excellent idea. I should look for some of those.