Our Dreams Riviera Cancun Wedding I am not exactly sure how to organize this review. I guess I will start by saying that we always knew we wanted a destination wedding. Multiple friends of ours had one and we loved them. We didn’t know we were going to go to DRC, though. My husband plans huge events for a living yet he left the research and planning up to me. We were going away to Riviera Maya last year and planned to look at various resorts. DRC was one. The resort we were staying at, Ocean Coral & Turquesa [horrible!!] was another. We also planned to see The Royal Cancun and Azul Sensatori. Once we got to Mexico last year we knew immediately that OCT was awful but we made the best of it. A few days in we decided to go check out DRC. We had set up an appointment with the then-manager, Ana. When we arrived Ana greeted us with Jorge and introduced herself. Jorge took us on a guided tour which we video taped. If you missed it, here are the videos: www.youtube.com/belcantoragazza Immediately we knew that DRC was the right choice. It was head and shoulders above the resort we were at and everyone looked like they were having a blast. We reserved our date in person immediately. Fast-forward a year to the day we arrived at Dreams. I will say I was panicky a few days before leaving because my coordinator had changed from Yamina to Lorena and I hadn’t had any communication with Lorena. When we arrived we were with 10 other people. They whisked us away from them to the preferred club area to check in. We had been booked in the honeymoon suite because we reserved 20 rooms for our guests. When we arrived though, Dennys in the preferred club upgraded us to a Master Suite!! Our bags were brought to our room immediately and we were given our first drinks and a cool towel. It was heavenly after traveling from 3 AM. We went up to our room, unpacked, changed and went down to the pool for some drinks. Overall, it was a very easy and relaxing travel day. Wednesday morning we had plans to meet with Lorena. As soon as I met her I knew she would make our wedding a DREAM! We brought all of our welcome bags to her and they were distributed later that afternoon. One thing I wish the resort did better was delivering the bags in the morning instead of waiting until people checked in. We had important information for that night in the bags and some of our guests didn’t get it right when they should have. That would be one thing I would stress. They say they don’t deliver before check in because sometimes people change rooms, etc. Anyway, we went through all of the details with my parents and paid for the wedding right then. Lorena said we could bring back all of the supplies Thursday morning for them to set up on Friday. Afterward we just went and hung out by the pool until our guests arrived. Wednesday afternoon I did a hair and make up trial in the salon. I 100% recommend this and if you need an appointment I would make it ASAP. I think I saw the email address for the spa floating around somewhere. I had Rosa do my hair and make up. I showed her a picture and while it looked nice, my hair looked nothing like the picture. By the end of the night I decided I didn’t want this for my wedding hair because it was way too teased on top and did not feel beachy at all. My make up on the other hand was PERFECT! She did exactly what I asked and I felt like I was glowing! Wednesday night we planned a welcome cocktail. Really, it was very informal. We put in our welcome packets for people to meet in the lobby at 7:00 PM to mix and mingle. We all had some drinks, my husband made a toast, and then we dispersed for dinner. A bunch of us ate at the Seaside Grill and others went to Portofino. Having it informally was no problem. The lobby wasn’t crowded at that time and when people did start to come we had already taken up a lot of the space around the bar so it worked for us. We had Kevin’s sister whistle loudly when we wanted to make the toast. Thursday was awesome! We hung out by the pool all day, played volleyball, and relaxed. We arranged a 4:00 rehearsal with Lorena, Jorge, and Linda the minister. We were very nervous at the rehearsal because Linda hadn’t looked at our script yet. We also had Kevin’s dad play guitar for our ceremony and we couldn’t hear it so it was hard to get our cues. I will say Jorge was amazing at this! He cued all of my girls and signaled us out when it was needed. I do feel pretty confident that even without the rehearsal, the wedding would’ve gone perfectly! We planned the semi-private rehearsal dinner for El Patio right when they opened at 6:00. The servers were not quite ready for us at 6:00 so we were all congregated in the lobby when Lorena and Evangelina came to find us. Instantly, I was worried but for no reason! They came to tell us that they were upgrading us from the Master Suite to the Presidential Suite!! That meant I could walk down the aisle from our room!!! It was an awesome surprise. They asked us not to say anything because there were A LOT of other brides at the resort [including another one on our day] who were not upgraded. There is more than one presidential suite though, and I found out one of the FOUR [yes, four] brides from Saturday’s wedding ended up in the one next to us. Ours was the one where the stairs go straight down though. The others have side stairs. We were told we’d be moved the morning of the wedding. Friday was like a dream. I was a little upset in the morning because the people communicating with us about the moving of rooms were not the wedding people so there was some mixed communication. They did not want to move our room until 1:00 PM, which was completely unacceptable. My husband called and they moved us at 11:00 AM but not before I had a heart attack. Haha. So they moved us down there and all of the girls hung out at the plunge pool until the spa. We had spa appointments for 1:00 and 3:00. I went first along with my maid of honor, mom, and mother in law. The other three girls went when we finished. The same girl does your hair and make up and they have a book to choose styles from. I told Rosa I changed my mind about my hair and pointed out a bridesmaid’s hair from the other wedding and told her I wanted that. She did just that and I ended up loving my hair! All of my girls were thrilled with how they looked at the wedding! The actual wedding itself was incredible. We got ready in the room, ordered room services and champagne. I am not sure what my husband did because he was with the guys but we did not walk down the aisle until 6:00. At 4:30 Mike Cantarell from Cancun Wedding Video came to see us! He began by first filming things around the suite, then me opening my wedding gift from Kevin, then my mom opening a gift from me. Anel arrived around 5:00 and took photos of me getting ready, my dress, my lingerie, etc. They worked so well together! Mike is not a resort vendor and he worked so well with Anel and vice versa!! I was super nervous because up until 20 minutes before the ceremony they decorations they had our for our set up were pink!!! I was panicking because our colors were green and blue. My maid of honor called and nothing got fixed so my mom called and the fixed it last minute. It was a miscommunication for the other wedding. It made me nervous but then again, I had a ton of nerves anyway just because of the fact that it was our wedding day! Once they fixed it everything was perfect. I could see the guests getting seated from all of the windows in our room. I could see Kevin standing with the guys, checking his watch, etc. It was great. I kept peeking out and then at 5:55, Lorena lined came in and lined up our mothers, brothers, bridesmaids, and finally me and my dad. Kevin’s dad played guitar and it was SO GOOD that we got the sound system!! We needed it. Jorge cued Lorena by radio and she told the moms and girls when to start walking. When it was our turn she said, “Take a deep breath, smile, this is your moment, walk slowly!†My dad and I walked down the steps from the presidential suite. When we got to the bottom step we looked at each other, smiled, and jumped off of the last step. I hope someone recorded that because it was one of my favorite moments. From then on, things were a blur. The ceremony was light hearted. Linda was great! She is an amazing speaker. The crowd laughed, we laughed, everything was perfect. It was windy though and my maid of honor had to hold my veil a lot of the time. After the ceremony, everyone got champagne and took a big photo on the beach. We took portraits while our guests were lead to the cocktail hour. We missed almost the entire cocktail hour but everyone loved the mariachi trio and food. We had welcome cocktails passed which were blue mojitos to match our colors! I will say for as windy as it was on the beach, we chose the hottest night of the year! Perfectly sunny and beautiful but we were SWEATING in the Seaside Grill. So much that we made an announcement for people to go change if they wanted. No one did though. The three hour reception flew by but it was a blast!! A huge dance party. I cannot say enough about the staff and vendors. They took great care of us! DJ Mauricio played all of our songs and kept the party going. He was wonderful. Saturday night a family member rented the wine room at Bordeaux for us. It was AWESOME!!! Awesome food and service and we were thrilled with that too. Everything was amazing!!! We loved every minute of our trip and wish we could go back to Dreams this instant! The resort has so much to offer and being there with your closest friends and family is a dream come true. 2013 brides, if you are worried about lack of response from coordinators try to relax. This place is a wedding factory and they run it like a well-oiled machine. Once you arrive, everything gets taken care of. They treat you like gold and you truly feel like a VIP guest. My husband and I joke that we will never have it that good on vacation again and that is probably true. Dreams was truly a DREAM and we don’t regret any bit of our decision to have our wedding there. Our guests cannot stop raving about it. We can’t stop missing it!! It was everything we imagined and so much more. The little hiccups along the way were totally forgotten when we saw each other on that day at the foot of the sea. Anyway, I apologize if this is jumbled or confusing! I wanted to tell it like a story. It was the best trip of our lives! If you have any questions I’d be happy to answer them and I should have my slideshow this week from Anel in time for our at-home wedding so I will be sure to share that too! Thanks for all of the love and support for the past year!!
