MsBlissMpls

Thanks for the upgraded flower info., who knew it would take a month to get a quote? I suppose it would not matter if the budget does not matter, but we are looking to get an idea of the flower/decoration cost before we get there. I'm guessing we will stick with whatever the resort has to offer being we are not set on one specific look...and I love all flowers - so why not make them affordable. Good info! With 20 people we are doing one straight table, but I thing we can pick between the long straight, horseshoe & round tables - or anything else you can come up with using the equipment that they have at the resort. One thing I found that I LOVE for storing ideas for the wedding coordinator is Pinterest. Here's a link if you are interested in a board to collect photos you like. I think The Knot has something similar. http://pinterest.com/msblissmpls/wedding/

Hello Shannon - I emailed you the items this morning. The resort requests your choices for everything 1 month before your wedding (and I've been told not a minute sooner I've been making a list and pasting example photos into a word document that we will send to the resort 1 month before. I am hoping they can give me a price quote based on our choices and upgrades so that we know how much we will be spending before we get there. -Amanda

I agree that weeks 2-3 at the hotel have booked up. Right around December all of the bookings happened in about 1 week. I know becaue I've been watching like crazy to make sure my guests could get their rooms- then sudeenly there were no more base level rooms. Originally we were told that those weeks in April would be 40% occupancy for the hotel (which is why we picked this date) and now my TA told me that the place is almost 100% booked. We have 16 booked/confirmed guests for our date on April 17th and we don't plan on our numbers going up by much more. We've seen the prices jump from $4,000 (direct flight and base level room) in October, to currently $6,400 (same flight but forced to upgrade room because the base level rooms are all booked). I believe I have the most updated flower/gazebo/meal options/extra's lists for the hotel - I just got them a couple of days ago. Please DM me your email and I will forward the info to you if you are interested. I have to say that I am surprised at how expensive everything is. Not sure exactly why I am surprised, but I am. We are not going with a DJ just because our group is so small (although we went back and forth about it), we plan to do an Ipod dock thing for the reception (bringing all from home so we do not have to rent it) and head to whatever entertainment the resort has that evening after the dinner. Again, because our group is really intimate, it just does not justify having an MC when we can talk normally and have every one hear us Also, dancing at the disco will satify our small group and save money. That's all for now.

Thanks ladies! I would love to sample some of the food when we get there and then pick the items, but I also want to make menu's ahead of time and brink them down with us. We'll probably just pick our favorite options, make the menu's and hope for the best. Sounds like they will all be good choices. Thanks for the confidence on the tasty food! It's so nice to hear positive feedback on choices like these. 83 days to go Oh, here's a link to the company that our TA is using to book our group outing in case you are interested. http://www.lomas-travel.com/cancun/tours/Adventure/2 Happy Planning!

I really love the detail! Thank you for taking time to share with us. I LOVE your wedding day card with your baby and I will be copying this idea (with our kitten) - if I can get him to sit still long enough to take a photo. I also love your cake topper with the pup. Thank you for sharing.

Does anyone know which meal items are the best? Also, the Cocktail hour food items? I've read a few places that certain foods were dry or really really good, but I can't remember where I read those things. We are deciding between the two packages and would love some input from anyone who has already had their wedding at this resort. Also, does anyone hae photos of the reception dinner at the Spice Terrace? Thanks so much!

Welcome K! Just like Sharon99, I am having my makeup and hair done at the resort because it comes with the package. You can contact the spa direclty and ask them if they use MAC products. I've emailed them a few times already and they have been quick to respond. Good luck with your dates! It's so fun to make the date official Quote: Originally Posted by k032379 Hello everyone I am K A Newbie......Lol Happy, excited, scared all at the same time. Great info on photography. I have just been looking at different resort reviews for months and LOVED Del Sol's work. I want to cry that he is no longer available.......but I guess no need to cry over spilled milk. Adrian's work is nice also. I have finally decided on EPM. Getting with my TA to find out about my dates. Wish me luck brides. And Congrats to all of the 2012 brides!!!! Does anyone know of a great makeup (that uses MAC) & hair stylist (that is great on ALL hair types) in the are? I am EXTREMELY PICKY when it comes to those two. Thank you in advance :0) K

We are planning an AHR 3 weeks after we return from Mexico. Our location is a private events room at a newer Mexican restaurant to the area. It has an old world Mexican feel to the room with lots of window and a beautiful chandelier. We chose this place because of the cool atmosphere, easy ample heated parking next to the restaurant and the minimum food & beverage is $2,500 (which includes the free room reservation, 3-4 servers for our event & no extra fees) compared to $6,000 + fees at all the other places we looked at. We are hoping to keep the cost at $5,000 - so far we are on track! The plan is for eveyone to arrive at 6:30pm (adults-only). Everyone will be welcomed at the door with a drink from the 3-4 servers that will be providing tapas & drinks butler style. We are hosting wine, beer, sangaria's and margaritas (with a cap at $1,500-$1,800 or so, then turning to cash bar) At 7:00 we will have a celebratory toast and do a slideshow of wedding photos for about 5 minutes. After the slideshow on a huge projector screen the projector screen will go up and we will have hundreds of wedding photos playing on a flat screen TV to on the side wall for the rest of the evening. Also after the Celebratory toast we will have a taco bar open to everyone as well as additional passed tapas & drinks. We found center pieces at TJMaxx/Homegoods and are having a friend's company do red up-lighting and a gobo with our names and wedding date. Those were our two splurges. We plan to have tres leches cake from a local bakery. To keep the cost down we are buying a bunch of regular sized cakes and then having the pieces butler passed around 8:00 that evening (rather than buying a special wedding cake which can get expensive). One round cake with our cake topper from the Mexico celebration and an elaborate cake stand will be displayed at a table with flowers & candles and a little sign that says "Cake will be enjoyed at 8:00" - or something like that so people will know that dessert is coming later in the evening I plan to have a little table with "to-go" cake available after the inital serving of the cake, if there are left overs. I'm also thinking of having little programs welcoming everyone that tells an approximate timeline of events for the evening - just so people know what to expect. In general people are kind of used to a full sit-down reception with chicken and mashed potatoes, so I don't want people to think they will not be fed when they walk into our cocktail-style reception with no place settings. Everything is pretty much figured out. Now all we have to do is wait for the RSVP's to come in so we know how to set up the tables. Oh, we sent save the date magnets 4 months before the reception. The magnets came in a holder that announces that we will be married in Mexico and are excited to celebrate with them at our Mexican Fiesta, it also has our wedding website and asks people to visit the website to RSVP. The holder also said that we will send an RSVP email reminder 1 month before the reception. We do not plan to send out additional invitations - we would if it was more formal, but it's a Cocktail Fiesta, so I'm okay with just an email reminder to RSVP. - plus we only invited our close family and friends, so they do not mind the "informal" RSVP reminder and they all LOVE the magnet. - actully lots of people have already RSVP's "Yes". We are SO excited to throw a party celebrating our wedding! Sometimes I forget that we GET to go to Mexico & get married before the AHR! Hope that helps anyone who is thinking of a cocktail style Mexican Fiesta.

We are working through a travel agent. We have not blocked any rooms. Our guests are just booking as they decide to commit to the trip & out TA is taking care of everything.

It has been really hard to get information on a Mayan Ceremony for this resort. We were told a price and that they could do it, but we were not able to get a website of the exact vendor they will be using (which is a deal breaker, because some of the photos we've seen are kind of cheesy- and we want it to be authentic). We are super bummed about it because we really love the idea of having an authentic local ritual done to celebrate our marriage. Has anyone else done a Mayan Ceremony at EMP? Thanks!

Good question! I hadn't thought about that part yet. I've been reading articles about the suggested amounts just for a reference. Here's a link to a blog that I found helpful for a general idea on tipping. http://www.weddingbycolor.com/stefanie13 I think things will have to be adjusted a tiny bit because we are doing an all-inclusive package - so there is no breakout of food/beverage/hair&makeup, etc for a % of the bill. With all that said, we will probably tip based on the service provided and what we feel in our hearts, not a pre-determined number. We will probably bring white envelopes from home and around $250 in cash for the tipping part of our day. The highest tip being around $100 and the lowest tip being $10-15 - All depending on service and the amount of time they spend with our group helping make our day awesome. April 1st is coming soon! Very exciting!

Below is the description we put on our website only (no mention of any gifts or Wishing Well in the invitations). If our guests wish to gift us something to celebrate our day, we are asking for a contribution towards a Trash the Dress session with Del Sol Photography. The cost of the photography is quite large and any contribution to help offset our cost would be most amazing & appriciated. We opened a Honeyfund account and it was really simple to use. We actually already received our first "honeyfund" gift of $200 and the guest said it was really easy to use. Paypal takes 3% but that is relatively low compared to some of the other site fees, and the funds go directly to your paypal account - you don't have to transfer from Honeyfund. This is how we worded it and a photo that we added to the description on our The Knot website. It worked great because Del Sol took this photo and it goes with our theme of "Wishing Well" WISHING WELL Our lives have been Divinely lead and truly blessed. We have been graced with the best Family, Friends, and complete home full of Love. We are living our dream together every day and by having an intimate wedding in Mexico with an exciting Fiesta with our closest family and friends upon our return home to Minnesota. Your Prayers, Energy and Excitement are what will help make our day and life together solid, centered and complete. If you would like to wish us well in an additional way we would graciously welcome your contribution towards something that will forever remind us of the start of our life together - Amazing Photos with Del Sol Photography. Details on our gift registry below: http://www.honeyfund.com/wedding/ xxxxxxxxx

I just signed up for this site, waiting on the invite! This is such a great idea! I've been copy & pasting photos to an excel spreadsheet but this seems like it will be way easier. Thanks for the Pinterest introduction

I'm so excited to find mudcards! I just sent her my inspriation photos. We are getting married in Mexico and my fiance keeps joking that he is going to wear a Mariachi outfit (and I keep saying how nice those linen suits look I am going to surprise him with a cake topper with him in a Mariachi outfit (outfit inspiration below). Our new kitten Sampson will be in the topper with a little sombrero on and I'll be in it with my dress w/ bouquet. This is going to be a super fun surprise for him. I'm also buying him an acoustic guitar that I am going to surprise him with as a wedding gift in Mexico, so maybe I'll ask her to add in the guitar as well - not sure about adding that to the topper yet. This is going totally towards a silly and fun cake rather than those romanic looking ones that I've been drawn towards, but its such a fun idea I have to do it. I'll post it once I get a photo of it. These are the images I sent her for reference:

We just booked with Adrian for our wedding 4/17/12. Would any of you who previously booked with him be willing to share your photos? I'd really love to see some more of his work So excited only 4 1/2 months away! Thanks! Amanda

After much back and forth and tons of reviews we just booked Adrian Herrera of Victor Herrerra Photography. Thanks Laura! Here's what I found: With Del Sol as the gold standard (in my book), we also loved Adrian Herrera, Moments that Matter and William Sanchez all of these three have amazing work online and I personally contacted all of them and their response time is amazing. I was surprised that I would hear back from each of them within the hour of my questions. So basically you would be doing yourself a favor by hiring any of these photographers! Moments that Matter is $600 per hour ($4,800 for 8 hours, all the good stuff included - spends lots of time on images after the fact & you can tell he loves his job) Love Lincoln's work. The coloring and emotion are great in these photos. There's not much more to say about it and he's a really really cool guy who got back to me right away with all questions. My only concern is that with the resort fee of $500 we would only be able to have him for a few hours, definately not 8 hours. William Sanchez is $2,800 for 8 hours (all photos retouched, jpg, online gallery, slideshow), someone had written previously that he was $1,800 for 8 hours in 2010! To me that says, he is a great photographer and demand has increased his fee, even tough back in 2009-2010 people were asking about this "new" guy and trying to find samples of his work. We love the coloring and emotion that are captured in his photos. Simply beautiful. Adrian Herrera $1,800 for 8 hours (all photos retouched, High-Res on DVD, online gallery) In the end I felt that Adrian is kind of like what William was last year (when his pricing was $1800 instead of $2800). Beautiful photos but kind of hard to find lots of his work. Nice coloring, great at capturing the emotions of the day and on top of it I found this link brettbutterstein.com/blog/2011/08/07/cancun-private-workshop/ where you can see the whole Herrera clan & William Sanchez at a workshop together learning about photo journalism in wedding photos. In my book continuing education is super cool! I feel that Adrian Herrera is the "new guy" who has great work (which makes it hard to find samples), however, for a lucky few of us we will get to have him capture our day at and amazing value before his prices increase 55%! So Excited!

I know the last post to this thread was amost a year ago but I've just contacted William becasue his photos are truly beautiful and I was excited about his price of $1,800 for 8 hours (posted previously). Unfortunately his pricing has increased dramatically and most likely out our our budget. His demand must be crazy to be able to increase his prices 55% in such a short time! Good for him... bad for us Here's some updated pricing for anyone interested: 8 hours is $2,800 USD all images retouched DVD of hi-res images online gallery online slideshow 6 hours is $2,200 USD 200-250 retouched images DVD of hi-res images Online gallery online slideshow 4 hours is $1,600 USD 100-150 retouched images DVD of hi-res images Online gallery online slideshow

Hello Laura, Thank you for your input. I just contacted their studio and their prices are really reasonable compared to the others that I have been looking into. AND I love their photos!... AND I love that they will be there for 8 hours. I never thougth we would be able to have a full 8 hours. I just need to get an email confirmation from EMP- that we can have them as a photographer (just for our records) and then we are ready to book! Hopefully we can get a confirmation soon. The resort has been REALLY slow in getting back to us in the past couple of weeks. Has anyone else had a hard time hearing back from the resort lately?

cole379 it is very nice to kind-of meet you! We have no idea if we will hire a DJ or not (but thanks for the pricing) - I do love that light-up floor and know what you mean about creating an atmosphere. We are open to doing it but I think it all depends on how many of our invited guests get to make the trip. Either way we love that we do not have to start thinking about anything until a month or two before the wedding. It makes it so relaxing! I think I'm just going to have my coordinator send the resort coordinator the photos of what we want and just trust that the best will manifest for us. Easy and relaxing. Keep me posted on your plans and any updates you hear from the resort Before you know it the holiday's will be over and we'll be on a plane to Mexico! Quote: Originally Posted by cole379 Hi, I am also getting married on April 17 at EPM! Lucky day for sure! I was quoted 1200 for the DJ for the reception and that included all of the equipment and everything. We were also quoted $200 for the cold fireworks which is something that I really want...it looks AMAZING in photos. We have not 100% decided on if we should have the DJ or not. I know that they can really add to the atmosphere and as an event planner myself, I konw that they can really make a difference in the party. My concern is that we have some really specific songs that we want played and tone we want to keep for the event and I am worried that they will not play from our list because it reduces their ability to be creative. decisions, decisions...

So excited. We just booked Del Sol Photography for a Beach & Cenote Trash the Dress session on the 20th - 3 days after we get married! We are getting the best of both worlds Excellence for our wedding and Del Sol for some photos and a fun all day excursion. Everything is falling into place so nicely.

I have not heard the pricing of the DJ. We were just confirmed for April 17th and are very excited! Now on to invitations....

I think the $500 fee is new. The first email my coordinator received from EPM last week simply included a link to the in-house photographer, but the second email yesterday had an additional note that any outside photographer would include a charge of $500 (which is not a day pass and would not include any meals). Being I'm just getting started this will be my cost, but for those of you who booked your wedding under a different assumption, it would be most fair of EPM to honor your original arrangement. Please let me know how it works out for you.

Well congradulations and may you continue to have only pure happiness in all of your planning and life! I think we are picking a 3 pm date today, sometime in the week of the 14th.... then praying for a slightly cloudy day so the head does not overwhelm the ceremony Ideally we would have a 5pm start but that is not what is available for us. I'm learning quickly to just go with the flow.

Thanks for the info. that was the first I heard about he $500 fee. We are trying to get in the week of the 14th. We had a few followup questions so still no confirmation. When is your day? Congratulations!

Thanks for the informaton. I received that email wilth everything EXCEPT the portion about the $500usd fee. Clearly I do not know how resorts work down there. This is good information to have before I make the final confirmation. It's looking more like I'll be having my photographer friend take some shots of the wedding and reception and then hire Del Sol for a trash the dress session afterwards. Maybe the most money friendly and best way to get what we want without unreasonable fees. Thanks jvnase!