savvybride2010

Hi Jlynne, I haven't been on here in a while, but I got married last October and used Gabi of planner1events as my event planner. She was awesome to work with over e-mail and phone (very responsive!) and got every last detail down for what I wanted. Her staff is very familiar with Ceiba and they work well with Ceiba's staff to make your day just perfect. I was not involved at all with the setup, other than some custom stationary and favors that I passed off to them. They handled every detail from ceremony, cocktail, to reception. All I had to do was get ready and show up on the pier, which made for a very stress free day! I would highly recommend using an event planner, although Ceiba's wedding coordinator Paola is wonderful and helpful, you will still have to arrange vendors for everything yourself (decor, flowers, musicians, etc.) An event planner just streamlines that for you by going to one person for everything. Plus I do believe you get better rates from an event planner than you do trying to outsource everything yourself. Or at least that was my experience working with Gabi. Also, there is another thread on here that is a little more up to date on Ceiba brides. Check it out, its under "ceiba del mar hotel and spa"! Good luck with planning your perfect day! Quote: Originally Posted by jlynne Hey girls! I haven't picked my resort yet but I really like all the information I have read so far from you guys! And the pics look beautiful! The only thing I am really worried about is the fact that you have to bring in your own vendors. For those of you that have had your weddings already did you have to set anything up or does the hotel staff do it? I was also wondering if you hired an event planner or picked all the vendors yourselves? If you did use an event planner was the cost reasonable? I would really like to use this resort I am just concerned that all the costs will add up quickly and it will be too expensive. I also don't want to have to worry about setting anything up! Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks so much!

Congrats Theresa! You make such a beautiful bride (and an adorable couple)! I'm so glad everything went perfect for your group! It's funny cause our friends keep asking if we're going to renew our vows anytime soon, EVERYONE wants to go back! Ceiba is really just the best place for a stress free and fun wedding. Thanks for sharing your pictures and happy wedded bliss!

Hi Tracy, Yes we were married on the pier and it was windy out that day, but I don't remember hearing any static from the mic because of the wind. There sound equipment was nice quality and we were very happy we used it. Hope that helps!

Hi Joda, We used DJ Mannia who was not on their list but got approval ahead of time. I think the list is a suggestion, but you do need to get approval from the hotel with all of your vendors. As for our photographer, we brought our own. Since the photographer was a guest we were able to get any outside vendor fee waived. Hope that helps, good luck!

Ceiba has the speakers and microphone for rent, the sound was excellent. I think they provided the table for the ceremony too.

Hi Tracy, Sorry, we didn't have live music for the ceremony, we just used the resort's sound system ipod/cd player. We used a mariachi band the resort recommended for our cocktail hour and DJ Mannia for our reception. I would recommend both of those if you are interested, otherwise I don't have any info on Javier. Sorry I'm not more help, good luck!

Since we didn't rent a car, we took the bikes into Puerto Morelos and picked up some snacks at the local convenience market there. You will probably get a better deal at Walmart if you can get there, but the convenience store had plenty of chips/pretzels/crackers etc. Also, Ceiba does provide complimentary coffee, tea, juice, sweet rolls, in your room every morning you just need to be sure to fill out the card with your selections and hang it on your door in the evening. It is a very nice perk! Also they provide tons of bottled water in the room so don't worry about that. I'd just focus more on getting some late-night snacks.

Hi Brenner, The bugs are only a problem at dusk (we were married in October, so roughly 5-7pm), but definitely bring bugspray with deet! Not knowing this, I wound up with about 20 bites per leg after the first night there, ouch! Which reminds me, bring benadryl too in case you do get bit. It helps you sleep and eases the itch at nights.

Tweets, Wow that's a great deal, the conveniences of NYC living! We did sarongs too, but I ordered mine through this website (looks like styles have changed a little) prices were reasonable because they were on clearance and we mixed up the colors so everyone had something a little different to wear. The quality was very good, very soft and light weight, all the ladies loved them and wore them! http://www.dikiwearables.com/catalog/model/35 We did one bag per room (most were couples), and they handed them out to our guests at check in. I certainly don't think you need one for every guest. Love the polkadots too, very fun!

Hi Tracy, congrats on your upcoming wedding! 1) For our menu we started with the melon proscuitto salad, the main courses were Angus Steak, Sea Bass, & Stuffed Chicken, and then creme brulee for dessert. The salad was the perfect blend of refreshing and filling, I would highly recommend it! My husband and I both ordered the Sea Bass (we LOVE seafoood! lived in Seattle for 9 years) and honestly it was just ok. I think the problem was that 24 of our guests ordered the Sea Bass as well, and I think it is really difficult to get fish done correctly in mass quantities. That said, everyone who ordered the steak (about 18) RAVED about it. The quality of the Angus steak was excellent for those of you concerned about beef in Mexico. Side note, I do not recommend the ground beef/burger at the pool bar, very gristly. My Mom ordered the chicken, I had a bite of hers and was really surprised that it was a very good dish as well. The creme brulee was perfect as well, great consistancy and not a hint of egg. For our cocktail hour the chef picked some mexican flavors to be passed around poolside. Everything was tasty but nothing remarkable, felt more like bar food apps. Hope that helps! 2) I was afraid of wearing heels on the pier in fear of getting stuck in the boards, but I'm only 5'4" and needed a lift so I went with Tommy Bahama's carved wedged flipflop, they were super comfortable all night and gave me an extra 11/2" I was hoping for. They have some taller sandals too if you are looking for more height! http://www.tommybahama.com/TBG/Women/Sandals/PRD_W5354/Carved+Wood+Wedge+Heel.jsp 3) The bonfire is a great time to hang with your guests casually, definitely recommend! There is almost always a breeze on the beach so I think you will be fine as long as you do it later in the evening. 4) Here is a link to our beach bags we did as welcome bags. They are good strong canvas quality, low minimum and reasonably priced. http://www.worldwide-usa.com/16oz-cotton-canvas-print-beach-tote-bag-p-77953.html Happy Planning!

Hi Brenners, Our TA did all of our negotiating with the hotel and was able to get us comps and upgrades that we felt were an awesome savings. I would highly recommend using a TA, it was the best thing we could have done! I'm happy to give you my TA's name if you don't have one yet (don't worry, no kick backs and she is a godsend!). That said, we had booked the master suite, but were told if there was availability, they would upgrade us to the penthouse suite. Since we were going in the off-season (late October) they called us a week before and let us know we were getting the penthouse suite, plus many of our guests were upgraded as well from deluxe to masters. So we felt like our group got a great deal! Depending on when you are going and what their availability (7 penthouses) I'd say you may not need to book the penthouse, unless you absolutely can't live without it! I will say it was really nice to have the penthouse, but the master suites were super nice as well!

Wow, love, love, love your dresses!! They are both gorgeous but totally different, I can see the dilemma! I would totally recommend going back to both and taking a ton of pictures of you in each dress, hair up, down, jewelry, etc. Then go home and look at each, its amazing what looking at a picture of yourself in the dress will do. I thought I was in love with one dress in the store, which looked great on, but when I saw the photos of myself, I fell in more love with what ultimately became my wedding dress. I realized from looking at the pictures, that that dress captured best what I wanted for our day. Good luck, I'm sure you will make the right decision for you!

Hi Maritza, I was originally planning my wedding with Azul Beach but two and a half months prior to our wedding they started acting funny and my TA discovered that they were overbooked and weren't going to be able to accommodate our entire group (about 50 people and this was off-season). They came back to us and wanted to move some of our guests to their sister hotel Azul Sensatori. We were furious since we absolutely did not want to spllt up our group. Thankfully our TA was able to cancel the contract and rebook us at Ceiba. Needless to say I was completely freaked out about re-planning a wedding in 2 months, and more than a little concerned about the lack of night life there, but it was positively the best thing we did! If your group likes to party, trust me it will be a party every night! We did a bonfire on the beach one night which was a lot of fun, and the penthouse patio is a great place for after hours drinking, it really is what you and your guests make of it. Good luck with your planning! ps: we invited 120 people and only expected about 30, we got 47. More people than you think want a good excuse to go to Mexico!

Hi ladies, Sorry I have been MIA, life threw me a curve ball involving a 12 day hospital stay and I have just been recovering at home the last two weeks now. Luckily i have the most wonderful husband to look after me I just wanted to post a link to our wedding photos from Ceiba finally, we are thrilled with them! Thought you would enjoy looking at some of the sites and decor as well as the numerous places onsite that make amazing backdrops! http://brookwhitney.zenfolio.com/f952193815 Happy planning!

Hi Ladies, We packed two duffles full of OOT bags each 50lbs (my husband was rolling his eyes the whole way!) and travelled with them ourselves. They gave us a little bit of a hard time going through customs in Cancun, they just wanted to make sure we weren't selling things since there were so many of the same thing. But it worked out great for us because once they were empty we were able to combine the two into one and put my dress and his suit in it for our friend to take back so we didn't have to lug that stuff on to our honeymoon. We used DJMannia from Cancun, they were very professional and really read the crowd well. They kept everyone dancing! Plus they were one of the more reasonably priced DJs in the area. I would highly recommend getting a quote from them. We used Pam Lopez for our ceremony, she is very sweet! We wrote our entire ceremony and were happy with her. She definitely has an accent but she speaks slowly and clearly so she worked well for us. I'm sure Ceiba could give you a few recommendations as well. Good luck! Sorry to hear about your car getting stuck in the snow, ugh! I can't complain, Denver has been unusually warm and sunny this winter, it has only snowed once in town so far!

Thanks, have fun with it!

Hi Tracy, I think our sunset time was an hour earlier 6:15pm or so, and the bugs were out about 5:30-7. So maybe with the later sunset time you may not run into a problem until later? I think the Yaxche terrace is the one next to the beach on the far left of the hotel. You will probably be ok there for the reception, I would just try to avoid the sand at dusk. Welcome cocktails at the sushi lounge might be a challenge at 6pm since you are overlooking the brush area, just come armed with bugs spray and you should be ok! Hope that helps!

KPSouthie, We had our rehearsal dinner at the restaurant in the front, it has more mexican fare but was very good too. They did a prefix menu for us that we chose ahead of time. I'm glad we had ours there, it felt more intimate eventhough it wasnt private and the bugs are not bad there at all. I probably preferred the restaurant by the ocean better, but that's just because I love seafood!

Sorry, I forgot to address the cocktail hour! We did ours by the pool at about 5:30pm. I couldn't tell if there were bugs because my dress was long and they really just hover from about the knee down. Our reception wound up being indoors due to thunderstorms forecasted that evening. But the first night we met with Paola on the Sushi deck lounge it was dusk and we had to leave because we were being eaten alive! I would say definitely use citronella candles wherever possible out there.

Thanks! We put a lot of time into it to make it ours. So happy we did it ourselves, definitely worth it! It was really difficult to find a meaningful yet not overly religious ceremony. We both believe in God, but foremost our committment was to the Love between us and that's what we wanted our ceremony to be about. The sap I am would love to see some more ceremonies shared, don't be shy ladies!

Hi Ladies, Good idea KP Southie! I posted the cupcakes in my profile and I added our christmas card photo (us with the donkey) the only picture I have received from my photographer as of yet! She's a good friend though, so I don't really want to press on her too much about it. I'll post a link as soon as I get them though! lshaef is right, there are no mosquito's during the day, but they are really prominent at dusk (5-7pm) around the beach, beach restaurant (including sushi lounge which is on top of restaurant), and pool area. You really should bring your own bugs spray. Let your guests know too, unless you plan on bringing enough for everyone, they will thank you! Spell check, who uses spell check here? It's a forum, not a job! Have fun ladies!

Oops forgot it didn't pick up the attachment, here you go!

We did a three course dinner (app, dinner, dessert) after passed canapes and cocktials, so we went for cupcakes instead of a traditional cake since everyone was already getting a dessert, and treated it more of a post dancing snack. They turned out great! We did Margarita and Chocolate carmel. Other than the flavors I didn't specify what I wanted them to look like, but I think they came out nice. Here's the picture if you didn't catch it before.

Hi Ladies, Paola arranged the bonfire for us, we didn't do anything fancy as far as seating/decor or music. They just put one of those metal pits in the sand and built a nice fire, then pulled up the wooden loungers so it was like we had benches around the fire. The bonfire was on the beach off to the right of the oceanfront restaurant so everyone just walked up to the bar there for beers. It was very relaxed and a great way for everyone to meet each other and catch up. I think it would have been great if someone had brought their guitar down but we didn't want to ask anyone to travel with it so we just relied on the ipod. We brought a cordless ipod player speaker and all just hung out and chatted til midnight. It was a lot of fun! FYI, WEAR BUG SPRAY, preferably with deet! I got bit a ton that night. I used the onsite salon for my updo. Since I got married on a Sunday, they didn't have their regular stylist working so Paola arranged for two guys from Cancun to come down to do me, my mom, and mother-in-law's hair. I think it was about $75 for just an updo no wash, or another $20 if you wanted a wash and blow dry. They did a great job, but unfortunately they weren't the regulars there. The make-up I did myself. I'm not a big make-up girl, but I sucked it up about a month before the wedding and went to the Trish McEvoy counter at Nordstrom's. They were great at doing a very natural look, and had a handy little self-application step-by-step book. Then I practiced at home several times. Theresa, I checked out the Aerialistpress website, how cool and really good pricing! I wish I had known about them for us, I would have totally used them! We used ModernGirl Invitations, which were fantastic customer service wise, great customization and their pricing was very reasonable, but just flat not the letterpress which really adds a richness to invitations. Happy Planning ladies! Lauren

Hi KP Southie, Congrats and Welcome to the group! We used a local travel agent to do the group rate negotiations with Ceiba so I didn't really deal a whole lot with Diana personally, but we were really happy with everything while we were there. The onsite coordinator Paola Sanchez was absolutely great, she was very attentive our whole trip and very good via e-mail planning too. We used Gabi from Planner1 for all of our decor needs. She was super helpful, very prompt in her responses, and everything was exactly as promised. I highly recommend her and her team! I'm hoping to get my professional pictures back in the next week or two and I will post a link here once it's up! I was lucky enough to have my dear friend (and amazing photographer!) spend the whole trip with us, so there should be some pictures from the bonfire, rehearsal dinner, etc., included too. Our group really likes to party so I wasn't too concerned about what DJ we picked. I figured they would have to be really bad for us not to have fun, but to our delight DJ Mannia was awesome! I brought a CD of songs that I wanted them to play plus they also asked about what genre's we liked and what not to play. They were very good at reading the crowds vibe and quickly picked up on what was keeping everyone moving. I believe it was $900 for 4 hours including lights, cold fireworks (aka sparklers), effects etc. Just an fyi, there's not a lot of e-mail communication ahead of time, which made me a little concerned. But if you come prepared (cd of songs you want played, they had a lot but i'm just an indie girl at heart and didn't want to risk it!) and allow about ten minutes before you head to the reception to go over songs you want for specific events (they have a list, entrance, 1st dance, father daughter, cake, etc.) then they will take care of you. Good luck with the planning! Lauren