deeSG
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Posts posted by deeSG
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Originally Posted by Tatiana
deeSG this collection included the beach ceremony and the reception? cause they told me I have to pay 300$ per table on the reception
The collection I had was only for the ceremony. The reception was extra. The resort has an incentive where if your guests book more than 75 nights (through their group link they provide you) then you receive unlimited private functions. Since we surpassed the 75 nights, we did not need to pay the $300 per table for the reception.
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Originally Posted by luluj0518
deeSg - what dj did u use??
We used the HRPC DJ. The company is called J&S Audio Visual. We had no complaints about them. They weren't amazing, but they were very good. I had lists and CDs given to them with any specific songs I had wanted to be played.
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Originally Posted by Davis girl
Thank you DeeSG for all the information you have provided. I have no idea who my onsite coordinator is so no idea who to contact! I am doing OK with my planning though (I think ) - pray everything goes smooth on the big day!
Do you remember how many people sat at each reception table? I'm not sure if we get to decide but I thought I read it was 8 guests per table plus a separate table for the bridal party?
I'm trying to figure this out as I am bringing some of my centerpiece decorations with me so unsure of how many tables we will need. Did you bring your own toasting flutes or were they provided?
Thanks again,
Jen
Jen - the tables at the reception are set for 10 people. I had 61 people at the reception, so we had one table of 11 and five tables of 10. My husband and I had our own small table. I received toasting flutes for my bridal shower and brought them down with me for my husband and I. The guests all were given flutes for the toast.
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Originally Posted by Davis girl
DeeSG~
I'm being told that my onsite coordinator will not contact me until 30 days prior to the wedding date, does that seem correct to you or anyone who has already gotten married? I hope I have the choices that you had, sounds like you had a good experience...
They told me the same thing. Because my husband and I went for an onsite visit in December, we met with Jacqueline, our wedding coordinator and went over a lot of things for the wedding. Since we had already met and I knew who my coordinator was, I took it upon myself to continue communicating with her the wedding details and decisions we were making as we made them. I will say, even though I was in touch with Jacqueline, she did not contact me regarding any details. I was always the one emailing her and then she would just confirm everything and answer any questions. You definitely need to take a proactive role with them. Hope that helps!
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Originally Posted by MelandEd Wed
Oh one more the DeeSG...the chairs in your reception are different than the ones I noticed before. Are those from Creative Punta Cana, how much were they per chair?
The chair covers were from HRPC, reserved them with Jacqueline. They cost about $7.50 each (that includes tax).
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Originally Posted by MelandEd Wed
DeeSG...
Your pictures are gorgeous!!! Thank you so very much for the time you took to share with us!
Seems like overall you had a good experience:)
Question, when you said you paid $2700, is that all together for reception decor and ceremony or was that just for the ceremony?
Melissa
Melissa - The $2700 was for the Amethyst wedding collection which included everything for the ceremony. The total cost that we paid for the actual day of the wedding (not including the private events we had on Wednesday and Thursday) was about $10,200. This does not include HDC photography.
Let me know if you have any more questions
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Here is a better picture of the reception room with the star drapery and white panels from Creative
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Originally Posted by Vane23
Beautiful Pictures!!!
Question Did HRPC provide the cake? Did you bring your own decor for the cake? They are telling me they can only give me a plain cake with white icing? Were you in contact with Creative Punta Cana yourself? Or did you go through your WC?
Thank you so much for you review! So helpful! I'm getting married on October 12, of this year and the communication is horrible!!
Thanks again!
Thank you! I had been in touch with my wedding coordinator since December from my onsite visit. I did everything through her and she was on the emails with me to Creative. I dealt with Celeste from Creative on the centerpieces and drapery for the reception. Everything else, I discussed with Jacqueline. The cake I was able to choose from a picture list of about 15 cakes. I choose the one I wanted and they just added the real flowers that matched our decor. I have to stress, Jacqueline was great - I emailed her everything and she set it all up. Was very responsive in answering any questions I had throughout the process.
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Originally Posted by Davis girl
WOW ~ your pictures are beautiful..I have the Diamond Collection and haven't found any real wedding pictures yet! I too will be getting married on Isla beach, reserved the Element Terrace for the reception (as long as the weather holds)! Did you have additions made to your cake? Who did your centerpieces? I am working with Creative Punta Cana to see what they can do for me.
Congrats and best wishes to you
Thank you! I didn't have any additions to the cake. My wedding coordinator gave me an option of having a two or three tier cake. We opted for three tier. No additional charge. The centerpieces were from Creative Punta Cana - I sent them a picture of a centerpiece I wanted and they recreated something similar. I wanted a more fuller top with flowers, they were a little small on top, but at that point there was nothing I could do. Overall, they were nice. Just wanted more lol.
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I figured out how to show the pics! LOL -- PS HDC is the photographer. AMAZING!
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Originally Posted by cheroody
WOW - you review and feedback is amazing. I am getting married in Feb 2013. Once I read your review I contacted the groups department to find out who the manager is so on our site visit, Labor Day Weekend, we can sit down with them and go over details. lol - I don't know why I can't open your pictures - can you please send me your pictures? I would love to see them... [email protected].
Thanks again for all of your information.
I emailed you the photos. I posted them and I can't view them myself. You have to have a certain number of posts to view attachments or pay the $30 fee. I should have just paid when I joined a long time ago lol. Do you know who your wedding coordinator is yet?
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The guitarist was part of my Amethyst wedding package. But we paid him for an additonal 45 mins during the cocktail hour since we had it on Isla Beach. The cost wasabout $440 for the 45 mins additional. We had the ceremony & cocktail hour on Isla beach and the reception in the fillmore ballroom.
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Hi everyone! Ok, I am going to try to give a FULL review on everything I can in regards to the Hard Rock Punta Cana. Our wedding was on Friday, July 27, 2012. My husband and I got to the resort on Sunday, July 22nd. We booked the wedding back in August of 2011 and chose the Amethyst package. We had to pay appx $2700 for the collection; the first half we paid for and the second half we used the resort credit to pay the remaining balance of the wedding collection. I made all original plans with Marlyn Tobon from the Miami office. She was ok – when I needed something or had any questions, she was fine to deal with. I booked an on-site visit for the first week of December 2011. There I met with our wedding coordinator Jacqueline. I have to say, she is amazing! Honestly, everyone I dealt with in the wedding office on-site was great and always accommodating, but Jacqueline has been beyond a pleasure to work with the past 8 months. Miami office told me the wedding coordinator would contact me three months prior to the wedding in order to make all the plans. However, since I had already met with Jacqueline in December, I had continued to email her any questions and decisions we were making in regards to the wedding. She confirmed everything as I emailed her items. Always a pleasure to speak with! Melina, the manager of weddings, was amazing also! Melina and Jacqueline were the ones who took care of any issues I had and were ALWAYS available to help me and fix any problems that arose.
Rooms/Group Check in: We had over the 75 nights required for unlimited private events booked by our guests for the wedding. My husband and I received 7 free nights stay (we stayed a total of 7nights, so our room was free) and since our room was paid for before getting to the resort, on the day before we checked out, we already had the credit for our stay. We used it towards the wedding fees we had to pay. Group check in was terrible! It was the one thing that had us going crazy all week. So many of our guests had problems with their rooms in regards to which building they were in and the type of beds they got. We were all supposed to be in the same building – as promised to us – and the resort did not deliver. They had some guests all the way on the other side of the resort. We were under the assumption when booking a group wedding contract that all the rooms would be in the same building. My husband and I were in building 5B and had guests in building 1A and 8A (opposite sides of the resort!). Then we left welcome bags for our guests every morning with the group check in for whoever was checking in that day and so many guests didn’t receive them. I would have to go back, get the bags and deliver it myself. They do not communicate over there and make empty promises. Group check in actually had me crying one morning because one of the employees was giving me attitude! Not what we needed to deal with. I tried to be understanding that it was a very busy time for them and they were 97% full, as I was told countless times. My biggest complaint would be the lack of communication in group check in.
Welcome Bags: Our welcome bags included the following items: Bag, itinerary, disposable camera, activity book or deck of cards, monogrammed cup, key holder, and survival kit. The survival kit included a first aid kit, aloe vera, shout wipes, pepto, advil, off! wipes. The advil was the most used item. Plenty of our guests had hangovers throughout the trip!
Private Events: Wednesday, July 25th we had a private moonlit pool party for our guests at the Eden pool from 8pm to 11pm. We had hors deourves and cocktails served. We surpassed the 75 nights, so we had unlimited events. We paid only for an ipod player and speaker so we could have music. This was amazing! All of our guests had a fabulous time and the set up of cocktail tables was so nice! It really surpassed my expectations.
On Thursday, July 26th, we had a White night lounge party on the element terrace from 7pm-10pm. It was a buffet dinner and cocktails. The food was excellent. We had the BBQ buffet, which overall was very good. We had the DJ play for three hours from J&S Audio Visual which is the resort DJ. The décor was an extra cost of $3,828 and the food was no additional cost because we had unlimited private events. Another hit! All the guests enjoyed the party and the view!
Wedding Day: The day of the wedding was wonderful. Perfect weather and mostly everything went as planned. I had my hair dresser and makeup artist with me, so I got ready in my room with no problems. Jacqueline had the tram car vehicles ready to pick up the groomsmen and bridesmaids to bring them to Isla beach where we were having the ceremony. Then there was a golf cart to bring me there last once they were all set up. We had the guitarist playing at the ceremony. Everything was great. The cocktail hour was on Isla beach also. Some of the guests didn’t like it outside, but there was a very nice breeze so the heat wasn’t bad. After the ceremony we took photos on the beach, first with all of our guests and then my husband and I. So by the time the guests finished taking photos, there weren’t at cocktail hour for that long. Then Jacqueline had the tram cars available to transport most of the guests to the reception, which was in the Fillmore ballroom.
Salon: Many of the girls had their hair/make-up done at the salon for the wedding, and overall, great results. One or two girls didn’t like the style, but for not being at home, I think everyone’s hair was really done well. And they were all on time!, which is important. I had a polish change and pedicure done the day before the wedding and they really are very organized and do a great job in the salon.
Décor: The décor was provided by Creative Punta Cana. The drapery was perfect! They did an excellent job! We had one wall (behind the bride & groom table) with the star drapery and the rest of the room in white drapery. The centerpieces were beautiful, even though I would have wanted the actual flowers to be fuller/bigger, but it was already done, so couldn’t worry about it.
Food: We chose the International buffet. I had originally wanted the reception indoors so we could have a sit down dinner (can’t accommodate sit down dinners if you choose to have the reception anywhere outdoors). BUT, for the sit down dinner, you can only choose ONE appetizer, ONE entre, ONE dessert for ALL of your guests! Obviously we cannot force everyone to eat the same meal. So we went with the buffet. It was fine. Throughout this process in planning a destination wedding, I realized I would have to choose my battles wisely lol.
J&S Audio Visual: We had the same DJ for our white party and reception. We really had no complaints about them. Besides the MC at the reception, the DJ was good. The MC was all over and was more worried about being social than being somewhere when I needed him. I provided them with CDs of Albanian music (I am Albanian and my husband is not) which they played well and mixed into the music for the night. For specific slow dances and any specific dances we had, I put all the music on a CD for them, just to make sure we had it. They wrote everything down and it worked out well.
HDC Photography: We decided to go with an outside vendor for photography and videography. THE BEST DECISION WE MADE! The resort charges $500 for an outside vendor, WELL WORTH THE MONEY! Side note: With our wedding package came a photo book with 36 photos from the resorts photographer. Since we had HDC for the wedding, we used them at our white party. The photographer was too busy drinking by the bar and I always had to call him over for photos. Then I just received my photo book from them in the mail the other day, straight from Shutterfly! And they did a tacky job with the layout. From my experience, STAY AWAY FROM HARD ROCK PHOTOGRAPHER! Now back to HDC. Milan was the photographer and he was amazing!!! HDC was worth every penny. They have sent me the photos already so I can download and then can order or print them. But with my package came 300 prints and a coffee table book, which I am in process of choosing the photos for. The pictures and moments that Milan was able to catch are amazing! And we barely noticed him throughout the reception. Milan and the videographer were in all the right places at the right time. Still waiting for the video, so I can’t comment on the quality of it yet.
Oro Nightclub: Went on Saturday night and paid a $40 cover. Lucenzo was performing. The cover was high, but we had a group of ten people who wanted to party one more night before leaving. We had a blast. The DJ was ok, but we had fun with our group. So it all depends on who you are with and what you want to do while at the resort.
I hope I gave a detailed enough review on everything. I will try to upload pictures for everything. Any questions, let me know! Good luck to all the future brides!
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Hi! We are getting married at the Hard Rock in 16 days! Things are hectic but one thing I will say is that our wedding coordinator is Jacqueline and she is AMAZING! Rene from the Miami office contacted me on July 5th to go through the details. Really?! 22 days before my wedding you think any bride will be ok with planning their wedding just 22 days before? I have been in contact with Jacqueline since the beginning of December. She is wonderful! Will post details once we get back from the wedding!
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Also, anyone know how the DJs are from the resort? When we were there for our on-site inspection in December, it didn't cross my mind to talk to someone there about it! lol
Thank you!
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Originally Posted by Lh Sunnie
Dee,
Do you have the price list info. for the others? I personally don't think their smile market is worth it. Their pictures from other brides aren't the greatest. I feel my family could do pictures like that. So I am trying to look else where. HDC is on my possibility list.
Lh Sunnie,
Here is what Michael emailed me from Caribbean Emotions. I contacted HDC, but no one has gotten back to me in a few days, so I think I am going to go with Michael. He stresses that he will work with us to customize a package that we need, so I will contact him to work one of these packages to fit us for what we are looking for.
Gold Package
-Coverage by one Photographer and one Videographer
-one hand-painted picture (24X16 inches),
-one professionaly bound and printed wedding book (Coffee Table book) with 30 pages, 12x24 inches
-one professional DVD(Real Movie) with music of about 30-40 minutes (after editing);
-a CD-Rom (DVD) with all the images taken during the wedding in high resolution more than 500 photos all pictures Edited)
Printed pictures
1 set of 70 printed pictures in 4 x 6 inches / 1 set of 40 printed pictures in 5 x 7 inches / 1 set of 20 printed pictures in 6 x 8 inches /
1 set of 10 printed pictures in 12 x 18 inches
2100$US
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Silver Package
-Coverage by one Photographer and one Videographer
-one professionaly bound and printed wedding book (Coffee Table book) with 30 pages, 12x24 inches
- one professional DVD (Real Movie) with music of about 30-40 minutes (after editing);
one CD-Rom (DVD) with all the images taken during the wedding (in high resolution more than 500 photos all pictures Edited)
Printed pictures
1 set of 50 printed pictures in 4 x 6 inches / 1 set of 30 printed pictures in 5 x 7 inches / 1 set of 10 printed pictures in 6 x 8 inches /
1 set of 5 printed pictures in 12 x 18 inches
1500$US
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Multymedia Package
-Coverage by one Photographer and one Videographer
-one CD-Rom (DVD) with all the images taken during the wedding ( in high resolution more than 500 photos all pictures Edited !! )
-one professional DVD(Real Movie) with music about 30-40 minutes (after editing)
1100$US
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Caprise Package
-Coverage by one Photographer
one professionaly bound and printed wedding book (Coffee Table book) with 30 pages, 12x24 inches
one CD-Rom (DVD) with all the images taken during the wedding (in high resolution more than 500 photos all pictures Edited)
Printed pictures
1 set of 40 printed pictures in 4 x 6 inches / 1 set of 20 printed pictures in 5 x 7 inches / 1 set of 10 printed pictures in 6 x 8 inches /
1 set of 5 printed pictures in 8 x 10 inches
1000$US
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Royal Package
-Coverage by one Photographer
one CD-Rom (DVD) with all the pictures taken during the wedding ( in high resolution more than 500 photos all pictures Edited !! )
700$US
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Honeymoon or Love Story Session/ Family Photo Session
-Coverage by one Photographer
• 4 hour Photo Session (on a private beach , not in your
Hotel,Transport is include !!
one CD-Rom (DVD) with all the pictures in high resolution (more than 250 images all pictures Edited)
500$US
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Media Package
-Coverage by one Videographer
-one professional DVD(Real Movie) with music about 25-40 minutes (after editing)
These prices include the possibility to have your Video taken already 1-2 Hours before the wedding when your are getting ready and dressed. It includes the whole ceremony and 1h with the bride and groom after the ceremony , but it does not include the reception (the reception is 300$ Extra ).
350$US
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Trash the Dress Session
-Coverage by one Photographer
4 hour Photo Session (usually the day after your wedding on a private beach , not in your
Hotel,Transport is include !!
one CD-Rom (DVD) with all the pictures in high resolution (more than 250 photos)
200$US
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Online Services
-online gallery for 1 Year with music telling the story of your wedding day
-Photo slideshow(youtube) with music telling the story of your wedding day
100$US
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These prices include the possibility to have your Pictures taken already 2-3 Hours before the wedding when your are getting ready and dressed. It includes the whole ceremony and a photo session after the wedding for family pictures, pictures of the bride and groom, etc., but it does not include the reception (the reception is 300$ Extra ).For your information, such a session normally consists of more than 500 professional images .
Payment: You must to pay 20% Reservation Deposit ( Pay Pal ) and the rest with the delivery
of the photos. I do not accept credit cards for the rest Payment ,only cash !!
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Lh Sunnie, I haven't had the chance to sit down and fully do the numbers, but looks like with the outside vendor fee, the price is almost the same for both vendors. I will have to see which package offers more for the money, but I also want great pictures, which is more important. Seems like I can find more reviews on Caribbean Emotions than the resort vendor.
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The Hard Rock offers a photographer that they have onsite. I was there for an on-site inspection in December and met with the person who puts together the photography wedding packages and the company is called Smile Market, which has just become Ocean Photo Studio from what I understand. I saw photo albums of past weddings on the resort and the pictures look very nice, but their packages seemed a bit expensive. If we go with the resort photographer, the most expensive package is about $2,000 not including taxes and includes about 200 pictures and 3 hours of reception coverage. When looking at prices outside, I have only been in contact with Caribbean Emotions, Michael Weiler, and for almost the same price (INCLUDING the day pass for him) we would get about 500 pictures and he would be there all day with us throughout the ceremony and reception. I am just trying to figure out if I should stick with the hotel photographer or look outside. Still undecided!
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I am getting married at the Hard Rock on July 27th and I just emailed my wedding coordinator this morning regarding the outside vendor price. She said any outside vendor is $500. May2013brides, where did you find out that HDC doesn't apply? They are one of our options for photography that may be the deciding factor!
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Thank you so much for the info! I have emailed her a few times and she hasn't responded. I will try to give her a call.
Thanks again!
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Thank you LaLaJ! I am dealing directly with the resort. I tried to start with a travel agent, but felt it was a little quicker doing it myself. The woman has been very informative and has answered all my questions so far. I am just about to fax the group contract back to her, hopefully before the end of the week.
Who did you speak with in reserving the on-site inspection? I can't seem to get a hold of someone to book the nights. Also, when you were there for the on-site, were you able to make decisions on any wedding details?
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Hi Ladies!
I am new to the forum - I have just confirmed the date for our wedding! July 27, 2012 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Punta Cana. It's been a little nerve wracking witht he planning and getting information from them. I just signed and faxed the contract this morning, so I'm just waiting on the next few steps. Any one know what that will be? lol. I know they do the planning 3 months before with the WC, but what about the website and other things? My fiance and I wanted to go for an on-site inspection the first week of December. Does anyone if the HR gives any discounts or incentives since your wedding will be held there? I have tried emailing them for info, [email protected], but still haven't heard back from them yet.
Any info is greatly appreciated =)
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
in Destination Weddings in Dominican Republic
Posted
Laura -
I was recently married there and posted a full review in the discussion called "Hard Rock Punta Cana." Hopefully that will help you!