WaterLili

Hi Ladies, This forum has been a great help in planning my wedding. Thank you all so much for sharing your comments and review. I wanted repay the favaour by sharing my experience as well. Here is a complete review (pros and cons) of all vendors I used at my wedding in Playa Del Carmen. I had 41 guests. We were not interested in staying at an all inclusive resort so we ended up having the ceremony and reception in different location than where all the guests were staying. My guests and the wedding party all stayed at the small resort - Shangri La Caribe Venue for ceremony & reception: Wicky's Restaurant & Beach Club Pros: 1.Food was great! We had a choice of filet mignon, rib eye, fresh fish and chicken for $55/person 2.Waiters were attentive and very good. 3. The north deck were we had the reception was beautiful and perefect if you are looking for an outside seating area overlooking the beach 4. Close to 5th avenue and great for your guests if they want to go out and continue partying after the wedding Cons: 1. Ceremony was to be held at the beach infront of Wicky's at 5:00 PM. The beach was very crowed and we had to delay the wedding by 30 minutes to allow the beach to clear a bit. Although we knew it was a publich beach the sales coordinator had failed to mention how busy the beach would be when we were planning what time to have the ceremony. 2. The sales coordinator - Linda . She was very responsive to email and helpful during the planning stage. She has a blackbery and responds to emails very quickly. However, she had alot of weddings going on she often confused the details between the different weddings. 3. Be aware that the next door restaurant also may have live band playing and will drown your dinner music. Somthing the sales corrdinator Linda failed to mention. DJ Discomovil Ricardo from Discmovil was very sweet and professional and attentive, reasonably priced. He showed up early, even did a site visit to make sure he had all necessary equipments before the wedding. I would totally recomend him. We gave him a playist and that worked great. Guitarist Alfonso I had found good comments regarding alfonso de malaga on this forum and decided to hire him to play during the ceremony. However Alfonso did not show up. He claimed he was sick and in the hospital and simply forgot. If you are planing on hiring Alfonso, I would recomend that you call him and make sure you follow up with him. Shangri La Caribe Pros: This was the hotel we stayed including all my guests. Hotel is goregous it is on the priest stretch of beach. Breakfast and lunch or dinner is included in the rate which worked out great as we like going out and exploring all the eatiries in Playa. Cons: The check-in process was very inefficient and error prone. It was annoying after a long travel when they did not have the rooms ready or the rooms you requested. Cake Turtlebay cafe: The cake was from Turtlebay cafe. It was delicious and beautiful. The owner Jennifer Smith was great to work with. Officiant Petra www.minister-petra.com Pros She wrote a beautiful ceremony and she was very responsive and helpful during the planning Cons: During the ceremony it was very hard to hear Petra. She spoke very softly and it was kind of frustrating espcially for people sitting in the back - they could not hear her at all. She need to project more.

FI and I are considering Costa Rica as a possibel location for a destination wedding. (guest 15 max) Need help in deciding wich area in CR- Tamarindo sounds good but seems a bit overrun? Considering Carribean side - seems harder to get to?? Ideally would like to avoid the big resorts. Any suggestion on boutique hotels? Looking for something a bit more unique and personalized for guest 10-15. Are there hotels with access to semi-private beaches? Any help will be much appreciated!!