orionandmari072510

Hi everyone,

I've been extremely busy since I've returned, but I wanted to write my review while things are fresh in my mind. We had a ball in Mexico! All of our guests keep thanking us for having it there. They seem to have had just as much fun as we did. Let me start with the pictures.

Lenita & Andre

Photography: Jill Higgins and Josie Martin (Charleston Wedding Photography by Jill Higgins - Childrens Portrait Photographers)
Jill and Josie did an amazing job on our photography! We love our pictures. It captured everything we'd hoped. We met them the day before to do a get to know you shoot. They were really nice and funny! The morning of my wedding, they met me at 8:00 am to take pictures of me getting my hair and make-up done. They were full of personality to keep me calm and laughing on what could be a stressful day. Once things got rolling I forgot they were there, but the pictures reveal that they didn't miss a thing!

Moon Palace Golf & Spa Resort:
We were pleased with the resort. The rooms were clean and the service was great. However, the resort is so big we didn't get a chance to see everything. We stayed on the Nizuc side and never made it to the Sunrise side. The restaurants that we tried were all good. My favorite was El Manglar which is the Italian restuarant. A couple of people also recommended the other Italian restuarant by the golf course but we never made it.

We chose the "free" package and purchased add-ons once we were at the resort. Upon arrival, we received a welcome letter from our wedding coordinator, Carolina, informing us of our meeting with her the next morning. She was well organized and I soon realized that I stressed for nothing. Everything was taken care of. We did the civil ceremony which lasted about 5 minutes and then my cousin who is a minister took over for the religious ceremony. Before I get ahead of myself, I would have to recommend the horse and carraige. I loved it! They had everything timed perfectly. We went riding and when we came around the corner where the gazebo was all I heard was "Awww" from our guests and flashes from the cameras. My father rode with me in the carraige.

Immediately after the ceremony while we were taking pictures, the cocktail hour began with the Mariachi band. We had it in the garden area near the gazebo and everything was set up beautifully. Next we moved to the private dinner reception held in the Laud ballroom. We had a DJ, but this is where I would have saved some money. We didn't need it. The sound system is great, so we had our iPods and one of our friends acted as the MC. For those who are getting married at Moon Palace, you may want to assign someone the tasks of hosting and MC. Once Carolina had the DJ announce us and passed out our favors, we didn't see her again. My friends took over and kept things going (announced first dance, garter toss, cake cutting, etc.).

Videography: We used the resort's videographer. We upgraded to the DVD and it turned out nice. They use your ceremony music on the DVD, which is a nice touch.

Ceremony music: I made a list of music to be used during the ceremony and gave it to Carolina during our meeting. I've attached our wedding songs just in case anyone is interested.

Flowers: They will give you a book of flowers and centerpieces to choose from. I was so nervous about not liking my flowers that I decided to use fake flowers. They looked, felt and even smelt real. This saved us some money. However, it was a real pain traveling with them. The centerpieces were real and were provided by the resort.

Cake: The cake came from the resort as well. I emailed Carolina a picture of what I wanted and they were able to create it. It looked good, but didn't taste that great. The only time I ate it was during the cutting of it.

Salon services: The day before I had my nails done and the day of I had my hair and make-up done. I took a picture with me, but after I realized how windy it was I ended up having to pick a picture out of the book. This was what I was most nervous about. I even had Josie (the photographer) translate some questions that I had for the stylist. He didn't speak much english, but knew what he was doing. I was happy with the way both my hair and make-up turned out.

Welcome bags: I think I'm the only lazy person on this forum...lazy enough to order our bags. We ordered them from Swell Sweets (www.swellsweets.com). I told them how much I wanted to spend per bag and they presented some options. They were really easy to work with and they arrived early. I posted a picture in another thread, but would be happy to share if anyone wanted to see.

Shoes: I love my shoes because they were custom made by my friend Candra of Artyce Designs (www.artycedesigns.com). I posted a picture of my shoe in another thread as well. When I began designing my shoe, I didn't know what I wanted, but that soon changed. I enjoyed working with her and I loved the end result. They were comfortable too. I kept them on the entire time.

OK, I think that's about it. I am a huge fan of destination weddings and couldn't be happier with the way things turned out. Hopefully, someone will find this review helpful. I know I probably forgot something, so if anyone has any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

This is the cake I am doing. The WC said they can do this kind of cake and I requested for green cymbidium orchids instead of the white ones. Bottom tier will be chocolate, second tier will be lemon, and the top one will be tres leches.

Palace Resorts gives you either one tier or two tiers depending on how many people are coming at your wedding. However, you can request an extra tier for a certain price.

Here is the cake provided for the complimentary package.


The cake provided for the Emerald package.


Amethyst package.


And I think this one is optional for $220-280.

here's the one I'm doing...just a basic one from Dreams

Here is the cake that I want and have been told they can do it but I have to provide the people. Our wedding is on the beach so it's perfect for us!

Ok I found it, hope this helps.

• Large, secluded beach resort located on 123 acres, 10 minutes south of Cancun

Distance from airport: 10 minutes
Distance from town: 40 minutes from downtown Cancun
Distance from attractions:

• 20 minutes from hotel zone
• 40 minutes from Playa del Carmen
• 40 minutes from Xcaret
• 60 minutes from Tulum

Local transportation: Taxi, scheduled transportation to Cancun's Hotel Zone. Check with hotel upon arrival for schedule.
Car rentals: Available on-site
Parking: Free

Josh and I at our dinner

Our Cake...cute:)

My dress from the back:)

Our wedding party but no baby

The flower girl...

Ring bearer and flower girl

We kiss heavy:!

Hi, ladies!

I am new here...only discovered this site a few weeks before my wedding. Since I was able to get lots of good information, I thought I would return the favor and post my experiences. Hopefully it will help someone.

This was our 2nd marriage, so we wanted very simple. We booked through Palace Premier (PP) membership, so no dealings with a travel agent or Miami coordinators.

Our on-site coordinator was Lily Sanchez. She was very helpful both by email and once we were in Cancun. I left everything in her hands and was very pleased with the results.

I will try to breakdown everything here, but feel free to ask me about anything else you want to know. This was my first time at Moon Palace and was quite nervous having the wedding there, knowing very little about it. There was absolutely nothing to be nervous about...at least not for us!

Room--we stayed in the Sunrise section. Since it was booked through PP, we were guaranteed an oceanview. It was beautiful, but my one complaint was that it also overlooked the miniature golf course. No one paid any attention to us on the balcony, but it did get a little loud at times. We peeked into rooms at both Nizuc and the new Grand section. Nizuc rooms looked older and had a more colorful, tropical feel than our neutral room. If I had to do it over again, I would have stayed at Grand. It was gorgeous. The oceanview rooms are limited and it is a further distance from everything going on, but that can be a good thing. The pools are not as crowded (infinity pools!) and it was much quieter....totally different feel than the rest of the resort.

Restaurants--the buffet food was what you would expect...definitely hit or miss. We ate there for breakfast and a few lunches but skipped them for dinner. In Nizuc, there are 4 a la carte restaurants...Arrecifies is a brazilian restaurant for meat lovers. The servers bring you one meat after another, on huge skewers. They keep coming until you flip a card over indicating you were full. They also have a large salad bar, but it was buffet food quality. The restaurant is fun but service takes a long time. My WC suggested this as an option for the wedding night dinner, but I am glad we passed on it. The outside terrace overlooks the pool and all of the tables along the windows have a full view of it. Not as private as I thought, based on what I had read on here. The second a la carte is Los Caporales. This was a fun Mexican place, but nothing spectacular when it came to the food. We were hoping for more authentic, but this was Americanized mexican. The last two restaurants are the Palapas, located poolside. One serves sushi and the other seafood/steak. They are both outside.

There are 3 sit-downs at Sunrise. My absolute favorite was MO-MO-NO-HA-NA. I would've eaten there every night, if the rest of my party had been bigger sushi/japanese fans! Everything we had was great. I highly recommend this place. The other 2 are the Palapas, again pool side. They were both indoors though. One is a very limited menu with just 2 entrees...all seafood or surf & turf. The other palapa is mainly steak. It was a hit with the meat eaters, but my mom and I both ordered vegetable lasagna and were shocked...it was just vegetables with a layer of cheese on top. No pasta, sauce, etc. Thank goodness we didn't pay for it.

Grand has 2 sit downs. One is a caribbean place. The menu looked good but we never made it back to that side to try it. We all liked Los Tacos. It is hard to find, but well worth it. I am not sure if they serve dinner, but we went there for lunch and sat poolside. (That is a very secluded pool with nice cabanas..good place to hide out!)

The golf course also has 2 restaurants. We did not try Bambu (again, never made it back that way). La Trattoria is where we had our wedding dinner. It was much more upscale than any other restaurant. The clientele is also much different there..mainly older. Seemed to be the people who were staying at the golf villas. There was a long wait when we arrived (the only place we ever saw a wait). If you book your wedding dinner there, you have a reserved table so you obviously bypass everyone else.

Spa--We had a spa package included in our stay. This is standard when booking though PP. It included a massage, manicure, and pedicure. I definitely recommend doing this at the end of the trip. It was so relaxing. The prices are crazy, if not included.

On to the wedding...
We had our ceremony at the Bugambilia gazebo. We originally wanted to have it on the beach, but it seemed to be too windy and I didn't want to worry about that. The gazebos all have gorgeous views so I am glad we went that route. Since we were going simple, we took the complimentary package. I chose hot pink roses and was absolutely stunned at how gorgeous they were. Lily (the WC) put a matching ribbon on the altar and on the chairs, even though we didn't pay for anything extra. When I arrived at the gazebo, everything was done and all I had to do was walk down the aisle. She had 3 other people helping her with various things...pretty good considering there were only 4 of us at the wedding!

We went with the prepared ceremony, with the exception of writing our own vows. Honestly, I don't remember much of what the officiant said, but my parents said it was pretty After the ceremony, Lily and her staff brought us all champagne and the cake. (We elected to do the cake cutting right after since we didn't have a traditional reception, but wanted pictures of it.) The cake was the only disappointment of the entire experience. I asked for a square white cake with a hot pink ribbon, similar to what is in their package photo. The cake was leaning to one side and had horrible pink frosting flowers on top. I would have been really upset if I had a bigger wedding and/or paid for the cake. At least it tasted good!!!

Photographer...this was my BIGGEST concern. I had read so many postings on this site about using resort photographers. I expressed my concern to my WC and told her how important it was that we get good pics. We didn't have the budget to hire someone outside, considering you have to pay for them to stay overnight at the resort. We decided to take our chances with the resort photographer. I really wanted a TTD session and negotiated to have that done right after the wedding, which saved us close to $300. Definitely go that route if you don't have to wear the dress the rest of the day. If not, they will do the TTD session the next day for an additional cost.

Our photographer (I can't remember his name but will get it to add on here) was wonderful. He did everything we asked and was very creative. I was so pleased with the final result. The pictures look like they should be in a magazine! We ended up paying $505 for the session which included a nice leather book with 70 prints plus a CD with nearly 400 other pictures. I am too new to post them on here, but would be glad to share with anyone who is interested in seeing them.

Again, if there are any MP brides out there with questions about the resort or a simple ceremony, let me know. I would be more than happy to help!

Heather

i LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the reception set up. Definitely something I am beginning to think about for our Moon Palace wedding.

SUMMARY


Room Block: Nizuc Side
Mexico Wedding Coordinator: Kalena Arroniz
Ceremony: 3/19/10 Playa Capilla Beach 4:00 p.m,
Reception: Verranado (I think that was the way you spell it) Terrace

Overall Experience: Simply perfect!!

CHECK IN:
Our check-in time was 3:00 p.m., we arrived at noon. They greeted us with a carnation and a wet cold towel. The bell hop got our bags and took us to a table where the check in took place. We were unable to get a room until about 2:30pm. So, we basically ate at the buffet restaurant in the Nizuc lobby and wondered around the resort until then. The rooms are beautiful, they are all renovated, we had a king sized bed, with an Ocean View, #6124. There was a big flat screen TV, with a fully stocked bar. We found out that room service is included and it is 24-hour. In the Nizuc lobby they had a coffee/ snack bar that was open from 6am-1am, which was great for when we came back from Andromeda Disco! They offered coffee, tea, hot coco, virgin margaritas, different sandwiches, and desserts. All of the staff at the resort was very nice, and polite, they were very helpful (we did a lot of tipping).

Steam Dress/Suit:
The wedding department sent someone to our room to get the dress and suit and took care of that, I think in total it cost $52. They got the dress back to me the day before the wedding.

Meeting w/ Wedding Coordinator:
When we met with Kalena she was very pleasant and sweet. She went over EVERYTHING, and was very thorough. I had my own planning binder with all emails and everything wedding related with me. She showed me every option possible regarding the ceremony setup, reception, flowers, cakes, photo packages, EVERYTHING. We went with the free ceremony on the Playa Capilla Beach and a reception with a menu that I had already sent her. Kalena gave me a break down of the costs. At our meeting, she asked us to choose from a breakfast menu for our wedding breakfast the day after the wedding and the time the breakfast should be delivered to our room.

At the meeting, we went over the details of the ceremony, i.e. who was the maid of honor, bridesmaids, groomsmen, so that she would know how to time their entrance. She also let us know that my wedding ceremony was set to begin at 4:00 p.m. I had to be out the door by 3:45 (arrive at my room) and the guests should be at the wedding location by 3:40. Kalena gave me a map of the resort and marked where the wedding and reception would be, I asked for copies of this and she made 20 copies so that I could distribute them to my guests.

Since we were having a private reception on the terrace, the cost per table is $400 (and each table fits 10). We did two round tables and had a small table for the bride/groom. We asked to extend the reception by an hour, so they added an extra $120 to the total. The only issue we had was that one of our guests is a DJ and asked to dj the reception. We emailed Alex, the DJ person, to ask if there was a charge for him to DJ or if there are special stipulations, after several emails back and forth it was decided that our DJ would bring most of his equipment and Alex would provide the speakers. After several more emails from our DJ asking for the cost of the speakers, Alex would not put down a price, just that he would provide speakers. Once we got to the resort they tried to charge us $850 for the speakers, and I quickly nipped that in the bud!!! After some haggling, we got the cost down to $178 for two large speakers. We did not add any flowers or special decorations, as I brought my own. We also opted for the Horse drawn carriage for my entrance, which cost $136.
At the meeting, we took a small suitcase, with the following items for her to use:

1. Guest Book w/ pen
2. Champagne Glasses for the bride and groom
3. Petals (I bought about 160 cups of white w/ purple petals)
5. Thank you cards
6. Well wish card book
7. 50 Lavender chair sashes
8. 10 Lavender Table Runners
9. 20 small candles
10. 4 medium sized Hurricane glasses
11. Small glass bowl
12. 2 packs of Lavender (thick) napkins
13. 2 CD’s of music for the ceremony

I asked Kalena to have some petals for our flower girl to throw, and the guests to toss at the end of the ceremony. When we had our meeting Kalena informed us that they had split our guests up between the Sunrise and Nizuc sides. I asked that all of the guests be put on the Nizuc side and she made it happen. The resort is HUGE, so some of my guests were near us in the 6000’s and others were still on the Nizuc side, but in the 7200’s…..and that was a far walk.
WEDDING COORDINATOR DURING WEDDING:
Kalena (with her assistant, forgot her name, sorry!) stayed at our wedding the entire time, she directed the ceremony, made sure everything was in order, she had her assistant help out with the petals and making sure I got out of the carriage ok. She did an outstanding job.

DAY PASSES:
We had 2 guests that stayed of site and they had no problem getting onto the resort or to our room and the wedding.

SALON SERVICES:
As you know from the pictures, I am African American, my stylist was very nice, but she did not do a thorough job. She blow dried my hair and that was it. It was “straightâ€, but not smooth. I asked her to put it in pin curls because my mother was going to style it. By 3pm my mom ended up having to curl my whole head, so that truly was a waist of $42. I had a 9am appointment and was out by 10am.

THE CARRIAGE & CEREMONY ENTRANCE:
The horse and carriage along with Kalena arrived at my room about 3:40 to pick up me, my father, and our flower girl. Kalena took my mother and MOH to the ceremony in the golf cart. It was like a fairy tale, riding around the resort in the carriage. People were taking pictures of us and video. It was beautiful, all of my guests were surprised and said it was a nice touch. Kalena called our carriage driver and gave him the okay to come around the corner.


BOUQUETS:
We opted to take the free bouquet/boutonnière, we got the white lilies. Kalena stated that they could wrap my bouquet with Lavender ribbon. When she arrived with my bouquet my mouth dropped…..it was simply beautiful! Kalena made sure to place the groom’s boutonnière on his suit.

CEREMONY:
This was held on 3/19/10 at 4pm at the Playa Capilla Beach. I did not give Kalena any specific instructions as to the huppa setup, but it was beautiful! She used the chair sashes on the end chairs and 4 table sashes; she wrapped those around the huppa posts. It was really nice. The ceremony went smoothly, our justice of the peace was a little Mexican man, and he did a great job. His English was great and he said a short poem. We had to sign 3 different forms as well as our 4 witnesses and we also had to do fingerprints. The ceremony lasted about 25-30 minutes from start to finish. I gave Kalena 2 CD’s with 5 songs on it for the ceremony and it worked really well. They had 2 people manning the stereo system, the song for the signatures did not last long enough, so they played an instrumental to a nice slow song, and nobody even realized that my song was over. At the end, we did a champagne toast and glasses were handed to all of the guests and they gave our flower girl a glass of sprite. Kalena lined our guests up and gave everyone a handful of petals. The guests threw them as we walked down the aisle.



Resort Photographer: Enrique
A++++++
I was a little scared because after reading reviews on this site, all you read is to get an outside photographer, well this was not originally in my budget and I am happy that I went with my gut feeling. He was great, he engaged everyone, fun, he even told me to just do what I wanted and be a “divaâ€! He asked me if there were any shots that I wanted in particular, and I got pics with my MOH, my daughter, specific family and a great group shot. I think my pics came out really nice. I received the photo book about 3 days after the wedding, and it is beautiful! I also got his CD, with about 250-300 pictures on it. I paid $505.



Reception:
Our reception was at 6-9 pm, which we thought gave people time to go grab a drink, and allowed us to take pictures, but stay close……well besides the old people; everyone was late to the reception. We had it buffet style and there was so much food!! We had our own bartender and he was very nice. Our attendant/waiter was on the ball, he was re-filling drinks, taking plates, he thought of everything. The food was great and the setup beautiful. The tables were decorated beautifully….but it was super WINDY! I am surprised that nothing fell over! Our cake was vanilla with vanilla frosting; they put a lavender ribbon around the bottom….it tasted really good! We also had a couple of other desserts like Tiramisu and strawberry napoleons. The fruit cocktail was really good because it was fresh fruit.




Photos, Marriage License:
We picked up all of our decorations, marriage licenses, and pictures on Monday (our wedding was on a Friday, so that was a quick turn around)!

The restaurants were very tasty, my husband and his parents said they didn’t like the food (they only eat fish). The other 19 guests had no problems with the food. We ate and ate….. And drank and drank. We also visited the resort disco, Andromeda, it was fun. They played great music, but there were a lot of drunken St. Patty’s day spring breakers! We went there a couple of nights to dance off all of the food we ate. We also went to Wet N’ Wild, which is the resorts water park. We had fun, because our Palace wristband included the entry price and all drinks and food. They also run a free charter bus throughout the day to Wet N’ Wild, Sun Palace and Cancun Palace in downtown Cancun and back. Another person on the bus said that this is the first year that they did the charter bus. Overall, I, along with all of my guest, loved the resort. They showed us great customer service and the wedding department was thorough. Although they do several weddings a day/week/month, not once did I feel like a number or just another couple getting married. They took care of every detail and personalized the experience.

***Oh yeah- before we left we downgraded our room to a deluxe, when we arrived they upgraded us to the ocean view deluxe room. The room had a fruit tray in the room and a bottle of champagne on ice for free! And Moon Palace offers free international calls, so that was definitely a plus!!!Thanks Moon Palace!
I had a lot more pictures in the original post, but it limited me to 10.

Some more pics:

Bouquet:



Godiva Chocolates. The starfish I bought on eBay and the Godiva store were sweet enough to tie it for me free of charge. (Of course, we had bought the chocolate box with the ribbon.)



DIY Name Tags:



More pro photos (from ship):

WOW - wow WoW!!! Loving the photos! Nate did an amazing job. Your TTD ones are my favorite but I think that's because i'm bias and am obsessed with TTD shoot myself

Congrats! I can't wait to go back to Las caletas!

Oh and I also updated your thread title to include pics

OMG! LOVE IT!

I am such a sapp I totally tear up at every LC review I read!

SOOOOO glad everything went well for you!

Can't wait to see more pics!

I love the feeling and excitement you got when you saw your flowers on the boat! for me that was so cool to see them there too! I was so excited when I saw the box of flowers on the boat!!!!

I love that your guests loved it all too!

awww I know what you mean about leaving Kelly at the end of the night! I felt the same way when I had to say goodbye to Nicole too I just felt so close to her after all the planning and I sure hope I can see her again too!


CONGRATS MRS!!!!!!!!

be sure to share your pics!

Thanks! Here are some pictures!
Our Wedding April 28 2010 pictures by bellandbake - Photobucket

Sorry that it has taken me so long to post the review - I have been so busy at work and home that it's been tough. But finally here it is....

Arrival – The ride from the airport to the hotel was only approx 15 minutes.



Check in
As soon as we got off the shuttle, upon arrival at the hotel we were greeted with mimosas and cold washcloths. Considering the heat we were very grateful for both of these. We were escorted to the front desk for check in where Angel so graciously briefed us on the hotel and all of the amenities, without even having to ask we were upgraded to a honeymoon suite …Yaaayyyy for us!

The room
We arrived in our room which was absolutely awesome and it was right next to the main pool, we had a garden view which was fine with us because we were facing the back of the building and did not have to hear any noise from the pool area. The only issues with our room was that we could not get the air conditioning to cool down the room to our liking and the refrigerator in the room also was not cooling enough. We did call maintenance the next day and they came in fixed the A/C and switched out our refrigerator. No more issues after that!




Wedding Coordinator
The day that we arrived we met with Yeisy, the wedding coordinator. I have to say that although I did start my planning process with Melani and she too was great, Yeisy was amazing!!!! From the point where she started working at the resort and took on my wedding she was on top of things. Anytime I emailed her she emailed me back the very same day. I sat with her for about 45 minutes to go over the details of the wedding and basically everything I wanted was done without any questions. She even told me what extras not to spend money on because it was not worth it. She took care of making my appts at the spa for my hair and make-up, and ensured that my hubby got a separate room the night before the wedding. This girl is very detailed, hard working, and most of all very sweet. If you have the luck of getting her as your WC you will have an amazing wedding!!!!! Make sure to tip them afterwards, these girls work so hard day and night to make sure that you have the wedding of your dreams.

The Spa
I went in for my hair and make-up appt the day of the wedding and was so relaxed just by walking into the spa, the aroma therapy alone did it. The young lady who did my hair (sorry can’t remember her name) did a phenemonal job. I had a picture of what I wanted and she did exactly that. Now, unfortunately for me the girl who does the make-up was off so my hair girl did my make-up. She was going to attempt to put on some pretty funky colors on me but thank God that I had my own make up with me. She didn’t do a bad job by any means but just not what I’m used to, it was a little too intense for me. I didn’t want to make her feel bad so just smiled and said thank you. Once back in my room I took the tissues and just rubbed some of it off and it was perfect. I would recommend you bring a picture and your own make-up.

The Ceremony:
What can I say here….. AMAZING…..A DREAM……..everything was perfect. I had a beach wedding near the Seaside Grill. The weather that day was perfect not too hot, not too sunny, just perfect. The person who introduced hubby and I is a dear friend and we asked her to perform the ceremony and marry us. After the ceremony, we set up a cocktail hour on the beach for the guest while hubby and I went off to take some pictures. The theme of the wedding was Damask print with tiffany blue, the Italian restaurant has Damask seating so we asked Yeisy to arrange for us to take pictures there. The restaurant opened for us so that we could do so. I love the pics, I could not have planned it better if I tried. After taking the pics at the restaurant we returned to the beach and took pictures with our guests, did our champagne toast , took our cutting of the cake pictures, some beach shots and then off to dinner.






Dinner
We did not do a private dinner/reception as we had 45 people at the wedding. Instead Yeisy reserved an area for us at the World Café. We ended up with our own waiters, private area and they even decorated the tables. The cake was brought to the restaurant from the wedding site and after dinner we cut the cake, which was delicious - everyone had a piece. Dinner although buffet was delicious, they had seafood, steaks, chicken, whatever the guests wanted. No regrets on having the dinner at the buffet restaurant.




After dinner party
After dinner we all went back to our rooms to change and freshen up. When hubby and I got back to our room we had a surprise waiting for us. I won’t ruin this for future brides just know that it was awesome!  We met all of our guests back at the disco around 10ish and partied our butts off. Since I had so many guests it seemed like our own private reception party. The resort’s entertainment team was great, they got to know us all and partied with everyone.


The resort
You will not be disappointed the pictures you see online is exactly what you will see when you get there, the pool, the restaurants, everything is just as you see it. The entertainment team especially, Julio and Gasolina are the best. They make sure to keep you smiling and active. Hubby made new BFF’s while there (he’s now Facebook friends with them). Our group was between the ages of 2-68 and there was something for everyone. The kids had a blast, our parents want to go back, and the single group loved the pool bar.


The restaurants
I was able to try all of the restaurants and I have to say that my favorite was the Seaside Grill. The food was delicious and being next to the ocean gave it a nice ambiance. I liked all of the other restaurants as well, did not have one bad meal. Oh another of my favorites was the Coco Café, they serve coffees and pastries which were an excellent little snack in between. I gained 6 pounds from all of the eating while there. Oh well it was worth it.

Excursions
Don’t let the guys by the pool fool you by telling you that the horse back riding or dune buggy excursions take 20 minutes to get there. We decided to go horseback riding and it took 45 minutes to get to the place. The horseback riding itself was about 2 hours which was awesome with the exception that the horses looked a little mal-nutritioned. But then to get back in a car for another 45 minutes sucked! If you have 4 hours to spare than it’s cool but if not don’t bother.



Spa
Hubby and I did a couples massage in the Spa and it was very good. If you like massages go for it, it is well worth it.

Make sure to go to at least one of the shows that the entertainment team puts on every night. They are hilarious and something different to do.

BTW – I used HDC photography which took amazing pics and were very reasonably priced. If you chose to use Tropical Pictures (the resorts photographer) I would recommend them as well I saw some of their pictures and they do very good work, it’s just more expensive.

I think this is it, if you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Wedding Day
Ceremony: The ceremony was very nice. The minister was very nice and put together a lovely service. My sister wrote a poem for the sand ceremony, which added a little something extra. Overall, it was very touching and special.

Room – A+

Because we had so many people staying at the resort (about 100), we were upgraded to the Presidential Suite. It is absolutely gorgeous with a beautiful view. The word had spread about how nice it was, and several of our guests came over just to check it out. The terrace is huge, and it has a jetted tub on it  Even if you don’t get the Presidential Suite, all of the rooms there are really beautiful.

View from the terrace




Guest Check-In & Welcome – B

We had too many guests to do an all-out OOT bag for everyone, so we just got monogrammed travel mugs and printed welcome letters for everyone. We really wanted them to be handed out when they checked in, but Nicole (the WC) didn’t trust the front desk to do it right (maybe from bad prior experiences), so they were delivered to their rooms after check-in instead. Most people got theirs, but there were a few who didn’t. The welcome letter had been tucked inside the packet with the info from the hotel, so some people didn’t see it. The mugs seem to have been popular though, so we’re glad we did it.

We requested that everyone be put into wing 3, which is closest to the wedding site, and they did a great job of doing that. One thing you should let your guests know though is that if they arrive prior to 3pm, their room probably won’t be ready, even if your travel agent notifies the hotel of their arrival time. This was the case with most of our guests, but since we warned them ahead of time it didn’t seem to be a big deal.


Welcome Cocktail Party – A

We had our welcome cocktail party on the night that most people arrived (Thursday) on the lobby balcony from 8:30 to 10:30. We loved this location because it overlooks the pool, which is gorgeous at night. We brought our own DJ, and Nicole let us use the DJ equipment at no charge, which was really nice. The lobby bar is just inside from the balcony, so our guests were able to go inside for their drinks. They also had a bartender that came over and was taking our guests drink orders and bringing them their drinks, which we didn’t expect at all. So we were able to have a fabulous get-together with drinks and music for no charge. Can’t beat that Everyone seemed to have a great time and it gave people a chance to meet each other.

View from lobby balcony at night

We paid $1600 for four hours. That was kinda the middle of the road package. There were cheaper packages with less time, and longer ones as well. I think we paid $200 additional for the DVD negatives. I don't regret one penny of that. Photography was really important to me, and I LOVE our photos!
~Lynnea

Reception: A+
The reception site was just perfect. We were set-up right behind building 4. The resort marked off the wrong location with yellow caution tape in the morning but Yanna was on top of it and went down there and had them move it to the correct location. I gave Yanna most of the details for the tables, and my sister just finished up with favors, LED lights for the paper lanterns and the food for the smores. I got the silver menu and the food was great. We got the assorted Assorted Dominican Appetizers; Dominican “Sancocho†(warning has big pieces of bones in it); Chicken Cordon Blue in a Pomodoro Sauce & Broiled Beef Tampiqueña Style; Pineapple “Volteado†with a Rum-Raisin Sauce and chocolate for the wedding cake. Yanna stay around during the reception and would come over every once in a while to ask if everything was good. Once we cut the cake the bonfire was lit and we had our first dance near it. And then made s’mores!! Overall there was too much food; I only had a little bit of each course. I thought we should have ended at 10:30 since we started at 7:30 but Yanna wasn’t there so we kept going till a little bit after 11. The workers were patiently waiting for us to end so they could clean up, so once we saw that we moved it along to wrap things up. The other wedding was at the SSG and I could hear their music a couple of times but it did not affect us at all and was only really during our softer songs. But if we would have been at the pier for the reception it would have been more of an issue. We did have some onlookers but it didn’t bother me, the resort did put up a private function sign but that didn’t stop some people. We even had a women asked to take mine and DH pic so she could show her niece. But once again I didn’t mind at all.

for better pics see the link at the bottom of this post for the pro teaser pics

Reception set-up


Table set-up (a little dark)




Cake


Seavis: A++
So glad I found Seavis, Alexander is very quick to respond and open to ideas if you want to do something a little different. Plus he reorganized a couple of things so they could fit us in. Since we had ppl coming and leaving on all different days we just had 8 of us go on the Hookah Catalina half day Tour on Friday. The staff is great and we all had so much fun. My dad stayed in the water forever we almost had to pull him out of the water so we could go back. If you’re planning a trip for your group book it with Seavis. Also they are still collecting items for Haiti, they have a truck go over every two weeks, and the day before we left we dropped off the items we had for them to take over.

My friend using the hookah


Beach at Catalina


Photographer - Elisabeth Millay: A+++++++++++++++++++
Photography was the most important item of the wedding for DH and I. I love Photojournalist style and really couldn’t find what I was looking for in the DR. So I went to wpja.com and looked at all the photographers in NJ (30 plus!) and cut down the list to my top 5 and contacted all of them. Elisabeth responded very quickly and with such a cheerful tone and like she really wanted to travel down there and shoot our wedding; where as some of the other photographer I contacted it sounded like more of a hassle. She was a little out of our budget but worked with us to make it work. Plus Jonathan Young (from Love Captures) would be coming as well as our second photographer and his work is just as great! Our first meeting with Elisabeth went so well; we talked about our ideas for the wedding and colors; she is so easy to talk to. Whenever I had any wedding related question during my wedding planning she would lend me her expertise. The best piece of her advice was to build in extra time to cool off in the AC, which helped sooo much. It was amazing to have someone I trusted so much to just do her thing and know that it would turn out perfectly. Like I was running late at the spa and I left out all of my wedding stuff so when Elisabeth got to my room she just started taking pictures and setting up all the little stuff for some really great shots, this really helped to make-up some time. We did our first look at the pier, and my dress got pretty dirty and when I went back to my room to cool off before the ceremony Jonathan took the chalk from my sister so she could help my mom finish-up getting ready and started to work on hiding the stains, thanks again Jonathan! They were such great people to have at the wedding; they had tons of great ideas and were open to ideas as well. Below is the link to the teaser picture I just got from Elisabeth and words cannot even describe how overjoyed we are with them. It brought a tear to my eye and that is something really hard to do! When I look at her pictures all the little bumps and things that annoyed me that happened that day are completely forgotten and I just remember all the great things from the day!!! My co-workers even commented that they look like they are from a movie! I can’t wait to see the rest of the pictures!

Teaser pics from Elisabeth!!!

Tips
-Hire a BDW TA
-Hire an amazing photographer (ie Elisabeth and Jonathan)cause when it’s all said and done it’s all you have to remember the day
-Get your room in building 5 if using the spa and gazebo so you will not melt in the walks over.
-Build in extra time before they ceremony, I thought I would be on time but so many little things pop up and in-laws did their own thing that pushed back the timeline
-Sharing items, if you must have those items you are sharing you should be the first maybe second person to use but being the 3rd person things went missing or were not in the best condition. For me in the end it did not save me any money but live and learn.
-Assign someone to go over the reception and ceremony locations so everything is set up the way you want (if it’s important to you) & to make your instructions for the WC as clear as possible (I even drew a reception layout on PowerPoint that was very easy to follow)

Feel free to ask any questions!

Reception: A+
The reception site was just perfect. We were set-up right behind building 4. The resort marked off the wrong location with yellow caution tape in the morning but Yanna was on top of it and went down there and had them move it to the correct location. I gave Yanna most of the details for the tables, and my sister just finished up with favors, LED lights for the paper lanterns and the food for the smores. I got the silver menu and the food was great. We got the assorted Assorted Dominican Appetizers; Dominican “Sancocho†(warning has big pieces of bones in it); Chicken Cordon Blue in a Pomodoro Sauce & Broiled Beef Tampiqueña Style; Pineapple “Volteado†with a Rum-Raisin Sauce and chocolate for the wedding cake. Yanna stay around during the reception and would come over every once in a while to ask if everything was good. Once we cut the cake the bonfire was lit and we had our first dance near it. And then made s’mores!! Overall there was too much food; I only had a little bit of each course. I thought we should have ended at 10:30 since we started at 7:30 but Yanna wasn’t there so we kept going till a little bit after 11. The workers were patiently waiting for us to end so they could clean up, so once we saw that we moved it along to wrap things up. The other wedding was at the SSG and I could hear their music a couple of times but it did not affect us at all and was only really during our softer songs. But if we would have been at the pier for the reception it would have been more of an issue. We did have some onlookers but it didn’t bother me, the resort did put up a private function sign but that didn’t stop some people. We even had a women asked to take mine and DH pic so she could show her niece. But once again I didn’t mind at all.

for better pics see the link at the bottom of this post for the pro teaser pics

Reception set-up


Table set-up (a little dark)




Cake


Seavis: A++
So glad I found Seavis, Alexander is very quick to respond and open to ideas if you want to do something a little different. Plus he reorganized a couple of things so they could fit us in. Since we had ppl coming and leaving on all different days we just had 8 of us go on the Hookah Catalina half day Tour on Friday. The staff is great and we all had so much fun. My dad stayed in the water forever we almost had to pull him out of the water so we could go back. If you’re planning a trip for your group book it with Seavis. Also they are still collecting items for Haiti, they have a truck go over every two weeks, and the day before we left we dropped off the items we had for them to take over.

My friend using the hookah


Beach at Catalina


Photographer - Elisabeth Millay: A+++++++++++++++++++
Photography was the most important item of the wedding for DH and I. I love Photojournalist style and really couldn’t find what I was looking for in the DR. So I went to wpja.com and looked at all the photographers in NJ (30 plus!) and cut down the list to my top 5 and contacted all of them. Elisabeth responded very quickly and with such a cheerful tone and like she really wanted to travel down there and shoot our wedding; where as some of the other photographer I contacted it sounded like more of a hassle. She was a little out of our budget but worked with us to make it work. Plus Jonathan Young (from Love Captures) would be coming as well as our second photographer and his work is just as great! Our first meeting with Elisabeth went so well; we talked about our ideas for the wedding and colors; she is so easy to talk to. Whenever I had any wedding related question during my wedding planning she would lend me her expertise. The best piece of her advice was to build in extra time to cool off in the AC, which helped sooo much. It was amazing to have someone I trusted so much to just do her thing and know that it would turn out perfectly. Like I was running late at the spa and I left out all of my wedding stuff so when Elisabeth got to my room she just started taking pictures and setting up all the little stuff for some really great shots, this really helped to make-up some time. We did our first look at the pier, and my dress got pretty dirty and when I went back to my room to cool off before the ceremony Jonathan took the chalk from my sister so she could help my mom finish-up getting ready and started to work on hiding the stains, thanks again Jonathan! They were such great people to have at the wedding; they had tons of great ideas and were open to ideas as well. Below is the link to the teaser picture I just got from Elisabeth and words cannot even describe how overjoyed we are with them. It brought a tear to my eye and that is something really hard to do! When I look at her pictures all the little bumps and things that annoyed me that happened that day are completely forgotten and I just remember all the great things from the day!!! My co-workers even commented that they look like they are from a movie! I can’t wait to see the rest of the pictures!

Teaser pics from Elisabeth!!!

Tips
-Hire a BDW TA
-Hire an amazing photographer (ie Elisabeth and Jonathan)cause when it’s all said and done it’s all you have to remember the day
-Get your room in building 5 if using the spa and gazebo so you will not melt in the walks over.
-Build in extra time before they ceremony, I thought I would be on time but so many little things pop up and in-laws did their own thing that pushed back the timeline
-Sharing items, if you must have those items you are sharing you should be the first maybe second person to use but being the 3rd person things went missing or were not in the best condition. For me in the end it did not save me any money but live and learn.
-Assign someone to go over the reception and ceremony locations so everything is set up the way you want (if it’s important to you) & to make your instructions for the WC as clear as possible (I even drew a reception layout on PowerPoint that was very easy to follow)

Feel free to ask any questions!

I went to a wedding with a putting green and a pinata. It did not go over well and it was literally the only form of entertainment.

I also went to a wedding that served pumpkin bread and some kind of pineapple fluff. That was about it. My family all went out to Outback afterwards. We traveled 4 hours to get to that wedding which included an overnight stay. The least they could've done was feed us!

A very good friend of my ex bf - after the rehearsal dinner, we went to Golden Corral. The future bride and groom were late so we all ended paying our own way for buffet food. We then went back to bride's parents house for a little after party.

Groom gives speech and says - I'm so glad that others felt you weren't good enough to marry so that you were there when I came along. WTF?!? He alluded to her being "a little big" " a little boring" etc and all the while she had tears of JOY in her eyes when he was giving his speech. Hell, what do I know, they have like ten cats between them and play online internet games all day and night long. Seriously, they are both pasty white from no sun!