MsBlissMpls

Here's a link to the Esty seller that I purchased the bags from: https://www.etsy.com/transaction/73922024 They were $8 per bag, but we only gave out one bag per couple (or one bag per person for the couple of individuals that come on our trip). If you are interested in this bag take time to read my review on the Esty site. There were a few hiccups, but in the end because of those hiccups I got the bags for only $4.00 each! The closest thing I could find for a similar customized bag was around $22 per bag, so even at $8.00 I felt they were a good find - at $4.00 we were over the moon excited to give them as gifts. My sister (21 yrs old) loved her customized bag so much that she is now using it as her purse.

Thank you! Yes, the stickers are permanent and waterproof. I purchased them from Esty seller DavetDesigns. She was wonderful to work with and customized the colors and everything that we wanted. The price was not bad either at $11.99 for 24 stickers (which included many many emails and design changes). I used the design from her proofs for our pre-travel brochure and some other items as well. Here's a link to her site: https://www.etsy.com/transaction/72527393

Thanks! Our guests really loved that part as much as we did. We stood (both having a hand on the sand cermony frame) and each couple came up at the same time to pour their sand. Not a dry eye in the house Here's what the sand cermony frame turned out. I love it! You can see the sand that they poured forms the triangle on the bottom

We tried to get the $500 resort fee down, but there was no wiggle room there. I seriously hope any of you future brides can find a way to get that fee down. If you do, please share because it is ridiculous.

We did not negotiate because the $2,000 for 8 hours was the best price that we had found after much searching. I think his prices just went up - photographers prices typically go up each year. I saw William Sanchez (who we really liked) posted on a boards for WAY less than what we were quoted only 1 year later. I think the demand for him just skyrocketed and his prices increased over $1,000 in 1 year. I think it's how the business works. Sara's photos also seemed really beautiful.

Here are a few photos of our simple welcome bags. Everyone really loved them and we couldn't be happier with how they turned out and how easy it was to transport them. We only had a couple of items in them but the bag itself was a part of the gift as it was a cloth beach bad with their last name embroidered on it Here are the other items that we included: 1) Two mugs 2) Underwater camera for the excursion 3) Sand ceremony card with sand from the beach 4) Welcome Letter 5) Wedding Day timeline & timeline with map 6) Godiva Chocolates 7) Gym class schedule from the resort gym (our guests really like to workout) Here are a couple of photos, I'll add more as I get them

Flickr is great, but if you are looking for privacy it is not the best. Any comments or captions would show up in a Google search. I have a personal Shutterfly account, but I'm not really happy with the quality of the photos that I have recently purchased off of the site. They are really low quality color, etc. So I'll be uploading my photos to the Kodak site to order photos.

We are using WikiAlbums and it is working really well. Our main concern was privacy and it is perfect with not showing up in any Google search. www.wikialbums.com

Everything will fall into place! I just know it. If you let your WC know that you HAVE to meet on Sunday, they will come in on their day off. N. came in for us on Sunday because we were going to be gone all day Monday on an excursion and our wedding was on Tuesday. Everything will be wonderful. Order room service That makes everything better!

Amanda, We waited for a couple weeks at a time and the info trickled in as we specifically asked for it. If you don't ask for it they do not tend to send it your way. Which is a bummer The stuff that I posted if everything that I ever received. May be if you ask for each of these items in one email they will send you everything that you will need WEDDING PLANNER FORMAT.xlsx 01-Bouquets.pdf 02 SILVER & GOLD DINNERS.pdf 00-Price List.pdf 01 COCKTAIL HOUR.pdf 03 WEDDING CAKES.pdf 03-Boutonnieres.pdf 04-Ladies Corsages.pdf 05-Hair Flowers.pdf 06-Centerpieces.pdf 07-Gazebos.PDF Excellence Playa Mujeres Price List 2011-2012.pdf MX PRICE LIST PYROTECHNIC CATALOG.pdf PYROTECHNIC CATALOG JPG-BODAS.pdf

As promised! These things at the beginning of planning make all the difference and are totally worth the $20 or what ever it costs to be able to download from this site Prices change, but at lease you will have an idea of prices and options. Also, the wedding planer format is for the Silver package. I do not have the Gold one. Front Spice Terrace (for a smaller reception) Main Spice Terrace Also, I woudl totally do the AGAVE inside terrace for a reception if I had known about it ahead of time and if that restaruant would have been available on our night. The restaurant is decorated so amazing and the dinner we had on the terrace is the most romatic one of our trip! WEDDING PLANNER FORMAT.xlsx 01-Bouquets.pdf 02 SILVER & GOLD DINNERS.pdf 00-Price List.pdf 01 COCKTAIL HOUR.pdf 03 WEDDING CAKES.pdf 03-Boutonnieres.pdf 04-Ladies Corsages.pdf 05-Hair Flowers.pdf 06-Centerpieces.pdf 07-Gazebos.PDF Excellence Playa Mujeres Price List 2011-2012.pdf MX PRICE LIST PYROTECHNIC CATALOG.pdf PYROTECHNIC CATALOG JPG-BODAS.pdf

Sounds fun! I'll pray for sunny weather! I love a good passed appies. They are so cute and I love giving and getting the variety of foods.

Love the photos. Looks like a great party with lots of smiles Contragulations!

We just got back from Mexico and our amazing wedding at Excellence Playa Mujeres and we are not ready to stop celebrating! We are SO happy that we chose to do a AHR to contiue the wedding fun. I'll post photos and plans soon, as we are just finalizing all of the RSVP's and details. I'd love to see photos of any other brides AHR and all the fun that you had. Also, I'd love to hear positive comments about your planning an AHR or how awesome your AHR was!

Here was the menu we chose. Everyone had the same apps etc. but got to choose if they wanted chx or salmon. The chx people had a green crystal on their name tag and the salmon people had a pink crystal on thier name tag. I had to throw this together 2 days before we left (and a little work on the plane ride to Mexico) because of not hearing from the WC until then! The salad was not very good (probably the only not so hot thing on our trip), so I would not pick that again. I'd ask for the caprese salad instead. We asked them to not bring out the creme brulee because we were all so full and ready to dance (so that was kind of a waste, I hope they did not make it ahead of time - they said it was not a problem). The soup was really good! It was only warm so it was a good & refreshing temp for a hot Mexico night. Our cake top tier Tres Leches - WISH the whole cake was this flavor it was AMAZING. However because it is so delicate you can only have it as a top layer or as a flat cake. We chose a top layer, but after tasting it was wish we had a flat cake of it. When we go back for our anniversary we are ordering this cake! Second layer was chocolate, it was good and bottom layer was white with strawberries. There was so much cake we had to-go boxes, but the restaurant has typical to-go boxes if you do not want to bring them and still want to send cake home with your guests. The leftover cake we gave to the servers and they were SO happy to share in our wedding cake. I told them they could box it up and bring it home to their families, but I heard later that they all enjoyed eating it that night with each other They really loved the vanilla with strawberries the most.

Thanks Jass7! You get to completely pick the time that you want the cocktail hour to start. Below was our rough timeline that we put in the welcome bags, and even though we left some time after the ceremony to take photos with everyone, the cocktail hour was ready for us immediately after the ceremony but did not start until our first guests arrived to the X-lounge at approximately 4:15. We are getting married on November 23, 2012 @ 4:00 and was looking for some advice from past and future brides. What are you doing for photography using the photographer provided (pricing?) Here's what I recieved from the resort: Our in-house photography service is VIP Wedding Photos (www.vipweddingsphoto.com), please let me know in case you would like to be contacted with information about their services and packages. or are you using an outside vendor? We used Adrian Herrera of Victor Herrera Photography, When we booked his pricing was $2000 for 8 hours and all photos and the resort charges $500 to have an outside photog visit the resort. (which is crappy, becuase VIP just does not want anyone in their territory taking their business, so they get $ for doing nothing- considering we would have never used VIP they did not lose any business, but just recived $500 because they have a contract with Excellence) Adrian was still less expensive than hiring the resort photographer for the same amount of time. We thought we would bring our own sound system to save some money, what has worked best in the past? My biggest concern is making sure that it is loud enough. We used a Bose dock for the ceremony at the gazebo and for the reception. It was definately loud enough for both, but if you want to have loud music when you walk down the aisle just ask them to set up the system that comes with the package for your ceremony. I also e-mailed the wedding coordinator and waiting to hear back about the following: What are the options and pricing for a rehearsal dinner? I'll upload these docs soon. You will have to be a member of this site to upload them, but I think it's worth it because it may take awhile to hear back from the WC. What are our options for the cake? Design and Flavor? Same as above, I'll upload. What are the location options for the dinner? I'll upload this pdf as well. Do we need to choose this ahead of time? You can reserve a space ahead of time but they will not confirm it until 1 month before your date. Does each guest need to make meal selections ahead of time? Yes, We then did name tages with different colored rinestones to let the servers know who was getting chicken vs. salmon. They had no problem getting each person their chosen meal this way. We did not need a seating chart by doing it this way as well. People just took their name tags and sat where they wanted. We had 20 guests so it was easy for our small group to do this. However our menu was not finalized until 2 days before the wedding, so don't stress about this to much. Just have an idea of what YOU want and let them know your plan. When they confirm it, your good to go and get meal choices from your guests. I know that we have one hour with hors d'oeuvres, how long does the reception last? 3 hrs. Each additional hour is charged per person (not sure of the amount but it was stated on this board earlier) Do hair and make-up application appointments need to be made ahead of time? Yes do it online ahead of time to get the slot that you want.Hair and Make up is in the spa, You can go to the website right now and schedule your appointment. I did this months ahead of time and they had my appointment scheduled no problem. I'd say it took about 1 hour for hair and 1 hour for makeup. I have long hair and she curled it all, so it probably took the longest of any hairstyle out there. I also made a made a map of the resort with all the times and places that people should be, just for those that need the visual help to get places on time It's kind of beat up, but here was the sand ceremony card we put in the welcome bags for everyone to participate with us during the ceremony. Here's my unprofessional photo of how our sand ceremony frame turned out. I LOVE it. Unfortunately it settled a lot on the plane ride home (even though we packed the remaining sand in there tight), so the right side is blended more than in this photo, but it now looks like the ocean rubbed up on it and it kind of looks cool? ... I cried when I saw it but my husband was trying to tell me how neat it looked with the airplane adjustments: I wish it would still look like this photo. You can see our guests sand forming the bottom triangle. And just for fun! The morning after our wedding ROOM SERVICE! Oh, how I miss room service.... You ladies are in for a treat! On our last day our favorite guy Edgar & I want to say her name is Marissa, but there are so many awesome ladies and I'm bad at names... Crying the day we had to leave I raided the mini-bar for some chocolate comfort, and came home with this in my carry-on...It's now on a platter in our dining room

Love your story and contragulations on your happy honeymoon surprise!! Your wedding was beautiful!

It was mentioned before and I just want to highly suggest again that any future brides have someone appointed to check out the ceremony & reception site before hand. I believe the ONLY reason everything turned out so great for us is because my husband was there to move chairs around and have things set up property for the ceremony, and then when it rained he went with someone to check out all of the possible "backup" reception locations, rather than just let them pick it and set it up for us. If he would not have done that there were countless details that would have been missed and we would have been disappointed. Luckly he was all over it, but looking back I am sad that he did not feel Taken Care Of by the wedding coordinator the morning of our wedding. It makes me sad that he was not able to relax and be calm and taken care of wth no worries. The details and things that he did are things that I would consider the "wedding coordinators" tasks on the morning of a wedding. Because of this I would also suggest the (if it's in your budget), to hire a day-of coordinator to come and be the organizer for your day - this way you can go over all the details with one person and they will be there for you to take care of everything, especially the details. Like I said before our day was wonderful, but still there were things that were off, here are a few for future brides to look out for: 1) To many chairs set up at the ceremony even though we went over the numbers at least 3 times and they were in the planner. 2) We requested the Audio setup for the ceremony and it was not put up for us my husband decided that morning ot not make a big deal of it and we just used our Bose system with the iPod, which made it very intimate, but it was a disapointment because I could not hear the music as I was walking down and if I had I would have walked faster to be 'on cue' with the timing we wanted. 3) Flowers were really late in coming to the room and to the guys. 4) We had 20 people for our dinner (which included our photographer & assistant), their 2 chairs were not set up at the table, so we had to take the cake table and extend the table for them. This was dissapointing because we rented 2 extra tiffany chairs for them and the table decorations were not set up correctly once the extended portion of the table was added. Why would we rent 2 random extra chairs?!? - this was a detail that the WC should have been on top of. In the end it worked out, my main concern was that we really wanted them to feel welcome and this bump was kind disappointing. Things that were extra awesome: 1) Adrian and his assistant. They were so sweet and everyone LOVED them. At dinner they told us they had taken over 2000 photos and the night was not over yet! 2) Edgar (the head waiter) at our reception. He made sure we had everything before we even though of it. If you can I would totally request that Edgar and his staff of waiters be at your reception. Their service was THE MOST AMAZING part of our reception. We love him and miss him already. He is also the head server for the breakfast and lunch buffet at Toscana. Definately request Edgar's team for your reception. You will not be disappointed. 3) N. hooked us up with some extra flower centerpieces and great pricing on our decoraitons (way less than stated in the brochure - or free for some of the decorations for our ceremony & reception) This could have been because of the mess-ups but I think it was because she is really caring and wanted to match our inspiration photos that I gave her. Either way we are grateful for the extras that she hooked us up with. She is really sweet and I really liked her a lot, but I think she is just over booked. They just had 3 helping coordinators quit on them in the last few weeks which is why they are so behind on emails, etc. It's not her fault, but they need to hire some help ASAP. 4) Our final bill. Like I mentioned in #3 we received some complimentary items which was super cool and when going over the final bill everything was perfect. No translation or anything needed. I did request our final room bill (which is where they put your wedding charges) a few days before we left, and while my father-in-law (who is fluent in spanish) left the resort. I didn't even need his help in reviewing the invoice because it was all pretty clear to me. I divided all the amounts by 12.5, the exchange rate, and it was all perfect. I am so grateful for those of you who gave things to "look out for" because I was SO on top of those things, however our own things to "look out for" came up - which is why I'm posting this, and I'll add things as I think of them. I'm excited to post photos as soon as we get them!

We ended up hiring Adrian Herrera of Victor Herrera Photography. After looking at VIP photos, not feeling their work would capture our day the best, and having to pay a $500 outside vendor fee to VIP just to have an outside photographer come to the resort we were so disappointed that we just ignored the 24 VIP photos that came with our package. It's absolutely absurd that VIP should get $500 because they want to discourage outside photographers from coming to "their territory". We then did a TTD with Del Sol 2 days after our wedding. The ONLY reason we even picked this resort was because of the AMAZING Del Sol photos we found online, taken from a time when they were allowed on the resort. If Excellence knows what is best for them in the long run they will open the doors to Del Sol & La Luna again soon. Everyone just wants to be happy with their photos and have a beautiful resort, time to get rid of the politics. We feel like we got the best of everything being we get our Del Sol photos and we didn't have to work with VIP. I hope Excellence resorts looks at their contract with VIP and sees that it is not in their best interest to have a so-so photographer as their In-house photographer and have such a crazy fee to make VIP happy.

Congrats all of you upcoming brides!!! It's so much fun. I wish we could do it again. We just got back from our 10 nights at EPM and although I love being home we were spoiled so much I wish we could go back. I just hung our "just married" door sign from the resort on our bedroom door, that's how much I miss it

lciz! I see Adrian has some of your photos up on his site! OMG they are so amazing! You have some super cute photos I wish that we would have taken, but because of the rain we did not get some at the wedding gazebo at night. WOW. That one is my favorite! You two are such a beautiful couple.

We had one whole suitcase full of OOT stuff and decorations. Then I hit the RED button which means that a Mexican agent goes through all of your bags. We did not have any problem with anything. They looked through our bags and I told them that we were getting married and we were on our way. It was just inconvenient to hit the RED button. That was our experience.

Thanks LCIZ! I cannot wait to get our photos from Adrian! Also we did a TTD with Del Sol the the other day and we are over the moon with how the day went! I did go check my invoice for the wedding and it all looks good. I wanted to have my father-in-law check everything over before they left which is why I asked the front desk to print out our room charges (which includes the wedding related items). The only thing missing from the decorations that I gave to N. are a couple of the paper lanterns that I provided (maybe they were ruined when taken down?) and some of the LED lights that I gave with the paper lanterns. Otherwise N. has delivered everything to our room.

We did tres leches on the top tier, chocolate in the middle and white with strawberry for the bottom. It was amazing. We are trying to get some more tres leches for our last couple of days here because it was so amazing and I didn't get a whole piece because we were visiting to much. We ended up on the Toscona Terrace instead of the spice terrace because of rain. It was beautiful and it was still outside, but protected from the rain. They will close down restaurants and really put your reception first if there is rain.

Here's a quick rundown of our wedding I used the hair and makeup from the resort and it was awesome! I just brought in photos of what I wanted and she did an amazing job. I was a little nervous about it all and did not do a trial run, but everything was perfect. My hair is long and I knew my fiance (now husband) wanted to see me with my hair down and curly. I had my laptop and showed the lady a photo from my Pinterest collection of hair styles the moment just before she started. It worked perfectly. We really wanted to do a beach wedding, but when it came down to it the gazebo was the winner. It was less windy, we could actually hear each other talking and everything about the gazebo was great! We used the curtains, a runner with roses, the rocks/candles and rented tiffany chairs. It was beautiful. We did ask that the fountains be turned off because even though they were beautiful they were very loud. N. had them turned back on after the ceremony ended. We also requested that champagne be waiting for us and our guests right after the ceremony so we could hang out in the gazebo, have a toast and chat before heading to the beach for group photos. N. had everything timed out perfectly. The X-lounge was perfect for the cocktail hour. We had a Bose system following us around with music that we picked and it really set the mood. It was definately loud enough. The reception was supposed to be at the Spice Terrace, but with an 80% chance of rain they moved it to Touscana restaurant on the terrece. They were able to put up my paper lanterns which looked awesome!! The waitstaff here are the most amazing that we have ever had. When we would think of something that we needed they would already be there with it. I would definately do Touscana Terrece for the reception just for the service they provided. They are also the same servers that provide the breakfast and lunch buffet. LOVE them! Our cake was cute, and I did make a few changes to it before everyone saw it - like turing the cake topper around to a prettier side of the cake and adding some flowers from our centerpieces and moving the plates and cake cutting knife off to the side for photos. It was really amazing and N. and the staff was great. I actually only saw N. three times, once for our initial meeting, once before I was going to walk down the aisle and at the end of our ceremony waiting with the servers who had the champagne. She was really sweet and always made sure that someone was taking care of us and was a point person for whatever we needed at each of the different locations. Basically if you think of it, they will bring it to you. Everything is so perfect.