Hello! My name is Vanessa and I am getting married on 5.19.12. at DRC. I have been following this thread for a while but have now decided to post and share with everyone my experience! My FH and I Did ALOT of research before finally deciding to spend money on flight and hotel to go down to DRC for on onsite inspection. As a previous wedding planner in Miami and having experience planning a destination wedding for my sister, I knew we had to be very organized and had to have a plan as well as a back up hotel for our on site visit that only consisted of a 2 day visit. I first contacted Ana, made sure the date was available and then requested a meeting date with her and ALL the vendors involved in the ultimate package before we booked our flight and even gave a deposit. I new deep inside based on all the research we did that this place was going to be right for us. Upon arrival, we had Amastar DMC pick us up and it was perfect! The hotel is isolated but we really felt this was going to work for us since we really don't want our guests out and about in Mexico with all the travel warnings. DRC is about 45 min to 1 hour from the busy hotel zone but it is near some great attractions (Xcaret and Cenotes). When we arrived at the hotel and walked into the lobby, I immediately got that feeling that this was the place and so did my fiancé! He immediately told me to cancel our on site inspection with our back up hotel! DRC is beautiful, intimate, new and exactly what we wanted. Although I do agree with there not being much to do at night, we are planning to have a welcome party on the Friday night before our wedding (location pending). We then met with Santiago from Adventure photos! Their studio is conveniently located on the property and is very nice. We have decided to use the pictures offered in our package for the welcome party and also have decided to go with their complete wedding package for the wedding day. This package includes a beautiful coffee table hard cover book and that really sold me. My fiancé really liked Anel's style so we have requested her to be our photographer and she has already agreed! Before making the decision of going with Adventure Photos, we also met with Juan Navarro. I love his style, he knows what he is talking about, and is a quick responder BUT after asking around, many people told me to go with adventure photos because they were on location, and changes could be easily taken care. Adventure photos also had a faster turn around time for the pictures and offers the hardcover book that Juan currently doesn't have. Also, to go with an outside vendor, it is additional. We did our on site tour with Jorge from the wedding department and he was awesome! Having experience in the wedding industry and also being a total control freak , it is not easy for me to trust someone but with Jorge and Ana I felt 100% comfortable. During our walk through, we choose our ceremony location to take place on North beach at 5:30, our cocktail in the Desires Terrace since it is private and the reception on the Beach Deck. Jorge also showed us the back up locations just in case it rains and walked us through the spa. We even asked him 177493836474838 questions and every time he provided us with a quick and accurate response that I later checked with Ana. Finally, the next morning we had our meeting with Ana and Mauricio from Visual sounds. We were not able to meet with Blue Channel, the videographer for the video offered in the ultimate wedding package, but we did see a sample of their work and it was great. Since we are going to upgrade to have a DJ at the reception, we did spend some time with Mauricio and he was super helpful! He has a great playlist and has the equipment to download a song he might not have on the spot if requested by a guest. He also told us that the DJ upgrade includes not only the DJ equipment but also the light up dance floor, microphone, and MCservice. We will be bringing a CD with our songs and back up playlist just invade but I feel confident we won't have a problem. For the ceremony, we are going with the sound system and for cocktail we are going with the Caribbean trio offered in the package. Jorge said the Caribbean trio offers more variety that the Mexican trio and is also more popular. Right before finishing our meeting my FH gave a deposit to Ana and confirmed our date, locations and vendors!!! I am more than a year out but I a super excited! I know this post is long but I hope you all find it helpful! The only concern I am having is that people won't come because of the situation in Mexico but another reason we went down their was to see if it was safe and it 100% was! Are any of you have this problem? Also, are you doing a room block directly through the hotel or with a travel agent? FH thinks we can get a better deal creating a package on a travel site.
Hi Sarah! Congrats! My wedding is May 19th! So we are weekend twins! I have decided to obtain group rates directly from the hotel instead of going through a travel agent. The reason for this is that each guest can book directly through the Dreams website using a group code and avoid going through a third party. I have spoken to Anabel (after trying to contact Jorge for 2 weeks) and she has stated that the only penalty is that the rooms in the room block that DO NOT get booked by the deadline, which is a month before the wedding, just get released back into the hotel inventory. This way our guest have more than enough time to compare the pricing on the Dreams website with various travel websites before making a final decision. My Fiance and I are counting down the days to when the flights become available.I believe flights only get posted 330 days before the expected travel date. Quote: Originally Posted by Sarah80 Hey there, When are you getting married? We are getting married May 18th and we haven't booked room rates yet. My travel agent wants me to but I want to wait until you can look at the flight info first. A lot of times you can find a cheaper rate (like on expedia) booking room and flight together and then hopefully the travel agent can match it. Are you using a travel agent?