AnnieWeds

Originally Posted by CriCri 

 

This has been my wedding canopy

 

 

 

Flowers by Mayan Floral

Pictures by Tony Rues and Alex Mel

 

I have just upload some other pictures regarding my  flower arrangments on the beach.

Write me in private to receive the link.

Cristina, your ceremony set up is absolutely beautiful!  I love your choice of colors against the sand and ocean.  Sorry we didn't get to see it in person.  Husband and I were being good hosts and spending time with each guest before they left.  It really is unforgettable.  We were so nervous preparing, but in the end it all worked out and that's how I know everyone else will have an amazing wedding as well.

Hi Jenn,

We used both the resort's decor and paid extra for items from an outside vendor (who was also referred by the resort). Everything was from the resort except for ceremony aisle runner, latterns during the reception, and flowers. I would say though, if you have more than 40 guests I would suggest  using an outside vendor for the cake, because our cake was so tiny..

Hope that helps!

Annie 

Hi CriCri,

It was so great to meet you and person, you and your husband look very cute together. You are right, I did luck out on the weather, it was gorgeous, but at least it was nice and cool on your wedding day, I was sweating bullets the whole time I wish you guys all the best! Happy wife, happy life.

All Bonitas! I recently tied the knot at SMB on 5/12/12 and let me tell you, it was so incredible. I couldn't have asked for a better setting, weather, people, and our coordinator (Cecilia).  I am not a person of many words so let me share my photographers blog with you. The pictures on this post pretty much sums up the amazing time we had! Enjoy

http://www.cameronleungphotoblog.com/2012/05/31/secrets-maroma-beach-riviera-cancun-mexico-wedding-annie-noah/

Hola Bonitas!!

BDW helped me so much during the months that lead up to my wedding that I wanted to return the favor and just share my experience with everyone. I am not a person with a lot of words so here is our photographer's blog. The pictures on their post pretty much sums up the amazing experience we've had at SMB! IT WAS AN INCREDIBLE WEDDING and one of the best days in my life. I will elaborate on my experience there later.... but for now... picture time!

-Annie

http://www.cameronleungphotoblog.com/2012/05/31/secrets-maroma-beach-riviera-cancun-mexico-wedding-annie-noah/

Hi Ladies,

We had our wedding on May 12, 2012 and it was wonderful.  I am excited for all those that are there now and will be going.

You will have a wonderful time.

Cri, it was so nice to meet you.  Receiving well wishes from you and your husband-to-be made us forget the little things and reminded us of the real reason we were there - to begin life together with the one we love and share that moment with our loving family/friends.

I will try and get to a full review later, but for now here are a few quick tips:

Concierge is very useful.  We ordered maracas for the ceremony through the concierge who lives in Cancun City.  Very authentic.

Best food is the grilled dishes and from the steakhouse.  If you are going to choose Gold or Platinum for your dinner reception entrees, I would try negotiating with Cecilia to ask for the steaks from the steakhouse.  If it is included in the resort, why not make it available as a dinner reception item.

If you are using the Sound System for your ceremony, just put all the songs in a single playlist on your iPod and go over it with the technician.  It will go off without a hitch.

The forum was so helpful and I will be posting more in days to come to help future brides.

Please feel free to PM me with any specific questions.

beachbride2012:  Our wedding is May 12, 2012.  Literally days away!  Excited, but so stressed ironing out the final details.  Pretty sure it won't all be settled until we have our sit down in person.

KCDawn: Yes, we are working with Laura and she's so helpful and says she is willing to do that to avoid the fee.  The freight charges for getting things from outside vendors are an arm and a leg though!

For decorations, are there anything that is provided from the Resort directly?

It seems like they just refer you to an outside vendor - Planner1Events.

And to get anything delivered to the Resort is a "freight" charge which in some cases is almost half the cost of the item itself!

Anyone have experiences with this?

I wish I could just go with decor selections provided by the Resort and not have to pay extra.

Makes me wonder what the price of the Ultimate Wedding pays for?

Sorry for all this negativity ladies.  I'm trying my best to stay positive into the last week.

CriCri:  That is beautiful!  Is that included in the Ultimate Weddings Package?  Or are you getting that from an outside vendor to set up?

Speaking of paying $100 for guests to just get in,

am I the only one having a hard time understanding the external vendor fee?

We are getting our flowers from an outside vendor and our outside vendor is charging us a delivery/set up fee which is understandable, but then SMB is charging us a external vendor fee.  What is the point of the external vendor fee if the Resort is not even helping you set up the flowers - centerpieces, etc.

Is anyone else using an external vendor for their flowers and running into this issue?

I also agree it's hard to justify having to pay for a reception at an all inclusive, but our wedding group was too large to get any reservations so we had to.  Hope the food they make available for the private reception are at least a slight difference from what they serve all other guests that night.

It's getting a little frustrating now that it is coming down to the wire and we are working out the "money" details. =T

Originally Posted by amberh1884 

CriCri:  My ceremony is symbolic (the paper work and fees to do it legal in Mexico are outrageous) .  But, I am also doing the sand ceremony.  I just want to make sure we have enough time after the ceremony but before the cocktail hour, which starts exactly 1 hour after the start of the ceremony,  to take pictures.  So, basically I want to have at least 30 minutes for pictures since I only get Juan or one of his team members for 1 hour.  Lol, I am a little nervous that this will all be extremely rushed.  But, we had to do it this way so we could get a reservation in one of the restaurants so we didn't have to pay for a reception.  I just did not want to do that since we already eat for free and now most of our guests have to pay $100 to even get in.  But, that is just me.

And I don't remember the name of the person that suggested the fans, but that is an excellent idea! Thank you

Ladies, regarding the additional $5/person fee for the cake, Cecilia said that if you upgrade the cake from the standard wedding package cake, then you are paying for the cake so there is NO additional $5/per person charge.  I guess that makes sense since the upgrade cakes are all around $150 USD to $200 USD so depending on the number of people you have, it will come out to $5/person at least.

That's a great question.  I'll let you know what I find out.
 

Originally Posted by KCDawn 

Since you're talking cake, there's a question I want to ask Valeria/Cecilia but it wasn't urgent so I haven't checked yet.  Hopefully you or someone else here knows the answer.  We're expecting 30-40 people.  We are being charged $5 per person over 20 for the cake.  There are upgraded cakes that are bigger than the cake included in the package and much nicer looking.  If we just paid to upgrade the cake to one of the bigger ones would we still have to pay the extra $5 per person?? 

 

 

newloves1975, that is a great deal to upgrade the video package!  Thank you so much for letting us know.

Originally Posted by newloves1975 

After my little freak out yesterday I sent Cecilia an email asking about lighting. She sent me an email back with a picture of the reception set up at the gazebo with a light circled in red, (near the pool) if anyone has the "wedding areas" document she sent out the picture is from there. She never verified that the gazebo was dark, but that's kinda what I get from the picture she sent.
She also sent me a VERY helpful document "wedding services price list 2011-2012" this has all the decor WITH prices. She copied and introduced me to someone at planner1events. I guess that's the decorating/setup company they use...? This is extremely helpful! It's making me rethink my budget though!
Cecilia is wonderful, she is always so helpful and quick to respond. I just don't understand why she doesn't send out all the information, pricing, maybe a FAQ list after we put our deposit down. It seems like all of us have to ask her a question, then we get an attachment with pictures etc. Just my opinion, it would lessen her inbox and make things a bit easier for herself.
KCDawn-from what I understood from the attachments she sent me, if there was lighting, candles, etc it was all purchased separately. I wish someone who was married there could let us know. I don't want to make these decisions too early, my goal is 6 weeks before the wedding have everything picked out. Cecilia did say to make the spa apointment for hair/makeup 1 month prior to coming down. I can make a massage apointment when I get there, or before.
Another bit of information that I didn't realize or know until yesterday. The champagne flutes are mailed to your house AFTER the wedding. And if anyone reviewed the video packages, the basic video of the ceremony is included in the ultimate package, but to upgrade to the next video package it's only $108 more. That sounds like a good deal to me.

newloves1975, I'm not sure about the bouquets, but I just so happened to have asked Cecilia the same question about the cakes and she says yes those are the most up to date cakes to choose from.  And the flavors are are vainilla, cheese cake and 3 milk cake.  =)

Anyone have experience and opinions on the different flavors?

Did anyone use an outside vendor for their bouquets?  We have the Ultimate Wedding package and were trying to apply the bouquet included in the package towards an outside vendor flower instead.
 

Originally Posted by newloves1975 

Anyone who's wedding is coming up soon, or already passed can you tell me when you decided on all the little details? Like flowers, menu, decorations? My wedding is 6 months away and this is stressing me out already. Cecilia sent me a ton of pictures of decorations, am I supposed to pick out of them without knowing any of the prices?
Are the only bouquets they have to chose from the ones on their website? Same goes with the cake....
Also anyone who is having their reception at the gazebo what are you doing for lighting? This just occurred to me that the inside of the gazebo will be dark.
I thought I was pretty much set and had everything planned, now I have so many more things to decide on!
@CriCri: Cecilia sent me the wording for the symbolic ceremony.
I would assume that since the sand ceremony is added by you, then you can decide when during the ceremony you want it. I have read a ton of ceremony scripts and its been done at different times during the ceremony. Most of the time it is after the vows and rings. But really It's up to you.
I think that I am doing the hands of the bride and groom reading, and I want it done before the vows and rings.

@KCDawn/beachbride2012:  Thanks for the information.  But what about the dinner reception?  If someone has their wedding ceremony in the morning or afternoon, that can still mean all 3 weddings can have their dinner reception on the same night.  I guess if the dinner reception is around the Pool area - Gazebo Terrace, Poolside Terrace, Barracuda Terrace - then the wedding receptions will not be so "private".  And it will be first come first serve for booking the indoor reception areas I suppose.

@brideRN:  The photobooth idea sounds great!  We actually saw that option too from Cecilia.  But I'm not sure if it is in our budget. =(  We are also thinking of using an instant camera for our guest photos like KCDawn.
 

Originally Posted by beachbride2013 

They also do a 3:00 pm (mine is at 3) and they do an 11:00 am as well because that time was also available. Maybe they switch times depending on what day of the week, or what the first person to choose that day wants.
 

 

@beachbride2013 - I've read some past posts that the name of the DJ is DJ Mannia.  Any other ladies out there know if he/she is the only resort DJ?  I can't imagine he/she is because how does it work when there are 2 or 3 dinner receptions a night?

Speaking of which, has anyone heard how many weddings SMB has at the same time per day?  What if they run out of DJ's and photographers and videographers?  Oh boy, we didn't really think about this until now.  Does anyone know?

Originally Posted by beachbride2013 

I guess what I am wanting is the Gazebo terrace. I was looking through the wedding guide on the secrets website and was getting confused as to which is which.

I talked to FI during dinner and he doesn't really think we need to do pomanders for the ceremony. He thinks plain is fine. lol We still have some time to think about it, I just have no idea how they decorate it, if at all. I think if it is just the white tule, it still looks beautiful.

 

@Annieweds-I agree. We originally were going to do the free wedding and then went up to the next one, and then up again! We are having less than 30 people. We are still waiting for some RSVP's, but it could be 30 including us. I liked the fact that it had the music trio and a few of the other things.

 

Does anyone know who the resort DJ is? We are thinking about booking the DJ, but wanted to see who it was.

I know exactly how you feel about "blowing our budget".  We've gone way past as well.  We decided to go with the Ultimate Wedding package because of the number of guests we have - 42.  Basically, I think if you have more than 10 people attending, it makes sense to do either the Secrets of Love (Silver menu) or Ultimate Wedding package (Gold menu).  We opt'd for the Ultimate Wedding because if we are already jumping from complimentary to $2k for the Wedding package, might as well pick the Gold menu with some extras.  We hope to negotiate better with the Ultimate Package also.
 

Originally Posted by beachbride2013 

I have read that in the past, they did not charge to set up chair sashes and centerpieces. It's very frustrating if they changed this. If they are going to charge per chair sash, I will have someone from my family tie them. I'm not going to pay $2 per bow. We have already blown our budge by several thousand dollars. 

I also read that you would need to double the amount of sashes because they will not transfer the bows from the ceremony to the reception because of time. So maybe this has changed, but I am planning on doubling up on my sashes because of this. I would not want to risk it if you think there is a chance that Cecilia could be misunderstanding what you are asking.

 

I have also read that they DO charge quite a bit to set up lanterns because they have an outside company do it or something like that. So even if you bring your own, they still charge a significant amount (if not the same amount). I would check with Cecilia to be sure but I think someone posted something about this recently.

I agree.  The pictures by the pool is called the Gazebo Terrace.  We are having our reception by the pool and using the Gazebo as our dance floor.

I am a bit confused by pool terrace though.  Maybe that is the same thing?

Seaside terrace is definitely some place else.  Does anyone have pictures of the Seaside terrace so we can see what the difference is?
 

Originally Posted by KCDawn 

I'm pretty sure you're referring to the Gazebo Terrace.  That's where we're having our reception!
 

 

I know how you feel!  I feel the same way, but it looks like either pay for it or don't get it.  Guess they got me too. =T

Does anyone else have experience with being able to bring their own Chinese lanterns?
 

Originally Posted by ckrn 

I'm bringing chair sashes, and maybe some linens.  I wanted to bring Chinese lanterns as well, but Cecilia said there was no way for them to set them up without me bringing the poles.  We opted to get 20 Lanterns...its sooo expensive and its dumb cause their not that expensive to buy..but oh well I guess they've got me and i love the way they look

 

I'm interested in knowing this as well.  Hope it's not true.  I feel we are already overpaying for the other decor items already.
 

Originally Posted by KCDawn 

Do you know if they charge you to tie the chair sashes you bring?  I thought I saw somewhere they charge $2 for each one, but I can't remember where I saw that.  Just wondering if you had asked Cecilia or Valeria about this.  I was considering bringing chair sashes too.  We still have a little while to go. 

 

 

Hi CriCri.  We didn't ask about the sand ceremony since we are not doing that.  I would ask your WC for details on that.  And I'm pretty sure there is no document signing for the symbolic ceremony.

Hi CriCri.  We are having a symbolic wedding as well.  I think the whole process is the same - legal or symbolic.  It is just not legalized in a court of law is all.  We are getting it legalized as home as well.  If anyone else knows different, please let us know.

@ckrn, thank you soooooo much for the review and pictures.  You look wonderful and I'm glad you had such a great experience to put your mind at ease.  We are definitely going to check out Laura at Premium Flores.  We've seen her work in other forums and they look great.  I agree that we'll also have to look at the pricing to see if it is worth it after the vendor fee.  We've also read about Maya Diseno Floral and the owner, Marvin.  Have any of you ladies looked into Maya Diseno as well?  Any experience or opinions?

@Funkydoll: do you mind emailing me the music samples from Cecilia as well - [email protected].  I didn't even know Cecilia could provide something like that.  It will probably be faster getting it from you. =)  Thanks so much!

Yes!  We just heard back today and because she is so close to 18 and my sister, Cecilia said it is ok.  We had to provide a copy of her passport.  She then will send the information to her General Manager.

We were patient to wait for Cecilia to respond since we know we were asking for an exception.  Also, she included a caveat that the resort is adult and there will be adult themes that may be "embarrassing" since the resort guests are couples and newly weds mostly.  We were aware of this and ok with it.  I hope this helps. =)
 

Originally Posted by jfremin25 

AnnieWeds

I was wondering if you heard anything from Cecilia about if the manager will let your sister stay at the resort?

My TA is working on it right now to see if they will let my FI's sister stay. But I confirmed for July 13 but am so nervous.