msbritbrit57

I actually can't remember his name. We need to e-mail Ivan to find out because we really enjoyed him. He was a younger guy. We did have to somewhat decide when to do the bouquet toss/first dance/etc., but we liked the flexibility of deciding when seemed to be a good time for us. We just had my sister-in-law run up and tell him when we were ready to do a certain event. Granted, we did our dinner playlist, right into the first dance/mother-son/father-daughter dances, so we really just had to tell him when to do the bouquet toss and everything else was pretty scripted.

We absolutely loved working with DJ Doremixx. We gave him a list ahead of time of the music we wanted to play during dinner then gave him a few "must-plays" and "do-not-plays" for the reception. The DJ we had (there is a team of DJs available) was incredible and kept our group of 35 dancing all night. The DJ mixed songs rather than just playing one song after another, so it had more of a dance club feel than just an iPod playing.

We went back and forth on this, but in the end we decided to keep things as simple as possible when it came to the ceremony. I would say it probably depends on how simple your ceremony is (i.e., wedding party or not, extra readings/songs during the ceremony or not). We had neither of those things, so we thought it a little extraneous to give people a program.

LOVED Sarani! We worked with James (photo) and Clara (video). They were amazing to work with and very creative. The video pretty much brings everyone to tears in our friends and family. http://saraniweddingsblog.com/2012/06/08/brittani-travis-cancun-destination-wedding/ Very punctual and very flexible with what we wanted to do.

To add to the recommendations for Gazebo 55, we got married there and it was just gorgeous. You can see some our pictures from the location at http://saraniweddingsblog.com/2012/06/08/brittani-travis-cancun-destination-wedding/ (also recommend Sarani, who is one of the recommended photographers for Lomas and thus has no outside vendor fee). We did our reception at the Mexican Gazebo behind building 5, and it was so perfect. The resort fought us on doing it there, but the wind at all of the locations on the beach was extremely strong during our stay, so the receptions in that area looked very uncomfortable the week we were there. It may be better other times of year, but for our wedding week (mid-May), on the beach for a reception would've been bad. The Mexican Gazebo area also shielded the very light sprinkling of rain we got during our reception as the palm trees over it create a canopy over the tables. It was also very private, and the DJ set up in the gazebo area, creating a sort of stage for the various points in the evening.

We did pretty minimal decorations, and it turned out beautifully. We bought some bags of cheap seashells and sea glass to spread over the center of the table around some cheap aqua-colored candelabras. We also got some table numbers made out of seashells off of Etsy that were perfect. I'm not sure why Valeria is saying that you can't do the setup. That's complete bull. No one at the resort cared whatsoever that we did our own. The DJ, food, and chairs were all set up an hour before (and this is standard!), so you have an hour to set up after the staff is done. As for DJ, we ended up getting Doremixx for our group of 33, and we have no regrets whatsoever. The flow was really great that way, and the DJ's music was so much better than any playlist we were going to put together. I can't recommend the DJ route enough.

Everyone who gave us gifts at the wedding stuck to checks or gift cards. We registered most of our items through Amazon in order to encourage guests to ship to our home instead of trying to lug a gift to Mexico. Nikki - we had a similar experience regarding gifts! We invited approximately 100 guests and have only received 13 (albeit very generous) gifts so far. We certainly don't "expect" gifts from anyone, especially people who traveled all the way to Mexico to celebrate with us, but I did find it a little odd. Like you, my husband and I always get gifts whether we go or not. f we don't go to a wedding, we actually tend to get even bigger gifts to make up for our absence (unless it's a very close friend or family member, of course - another reason to splurge). Most of our close friends and family leave across the country from our home, so everything turns into a destination wedding for us. I know the rule is that you have one year to give the couple a gift, but in my experience, most couples' registries are quite depleted by the wedding date.

I'm pretty sure Claudia is no longer on the list. I believe it was taken off there right before we booked our wedding because we had been interested in Claudia as well before that.

Our wedding had 33 people - there was another there that day that had 30 and another that had 150. Those were the only ceremonies I heard about that day, but there may have been other smaller ones. We were pretty unhappy with how the rain alternative situations were handled. We were originally booked to have our reception at the Mexican Gazebo but were told we may need to move or risk losing our food service if it started raining. At our prior meeting with the WC, she had told us the Health Bar was the alternate location for the reception, which we were totally okay with. Then less than half an hour before the wedding (seriously!), the WC calls my room and tells us that the 150-person wedding is right across the sidewalk from the Health Bar and does not plan to move to its alternate (indoor) location, so we have to move indoors to accommodate them. I told them that was unacceptable, and we would stay where we were unless they came up with a suitable alternate since we didn't have indoor-appropriate decorations to move the wedding to an indoor location (not to mention we didn't want to have our reception indoors). Luckily, my husband and MIL ended up speaking to the WC and informing them that we would be having the reception at the Mexican Gazebo. The rain held off except during the first dance (presenting lovely photo ops), and the weather was great. For some reason, the WCs at Lomas and EDR were extremely against doing a reception at the Mexican Gazebo from the beginning and continuously tried to give us excuses as to why it would be a bad venue. (Of course, they weren't offering any alternatives that didn't involve shutting the reception down at 9pm or moving indoors). Very odd. My MIL decided the reason for all the pushback was that that location was farthest from the kitchen, so food service was inconvenient. We really couldn't recommend that location more though. With only a small, quick rain shower, the only area that even got wet was the dance area (we didn't need to rent a dance floor because the ground was flat). The palm trees served as a canopy over our tables, and the area looked amazing.

The way the "free wedding" package works, it really makes sense to do the 7-night stay in the casitas. We were also worried about being too far from everyone, but when we showed up to the resort, they told us they had upgraded almost all of our guests to the casitas, so it worked out really well. They seem pretty quick to upgrade people if you ask when you check in. One of our good friends actually had booked the lowest level room on the EDR side, and he ended up in the Building 32 (the newest/nicest casitas). His room was even way nicer than our casita. We had stayed in the swim-ups on the EDR side when we got engaged though, so if you decide against the casita, you should totally request Building 55 with a swim-up. It's fairly secluded and has both a swim-up and great ocean view by Gazebo 55. Another reason to go with the "free wedding" (and they may do this with all weddings, I'm not sure) is for the refund back from all of the rooms people use while they're there. We ended up getting $1800 back from our guests' stay. Originally we had heard this had to be put toward credit at the hotel, but we ended up getting it back on our credit card. Also - if you end up being somewhat far from the other side where your guests are, you can rent bicycles to go back and forth quickly or just call for a shuttle. We really enjoyed the short walk over there though, and actually ended up just having all our friends and family come hang out at our casita pool most days.

My (now) husband and I are both attorneys, and we looked into doing everything in Mexico for the legal ceremony. It just seemed like a huge (and very expensive) headache when we could just walk over to the courthouse. I was somewhat hesitant at first as to how to handle it as far as our friends and family (since we couldn't help but tell everyone after we did it), but everyone seemed to understand completely. We did the legal ceremony in the states on my birthday at lunchtime with just the two of us and the bailiffs as witnesses. It was really cool to have the ceremony with friends and family in Mexico but to have done the legal part of it with just the two of us wearing whatever we happened to have on that day. We used Sarani - the price wasn't too high, and the photographer and videographer they sent were really great and very creative with their shots. We also kept decorations cheap by bringing everything with us. We bought all of it at a craft store in town and had our moms set everything up prior to the reception. So long as you're doing things outside somewhere, you really don't need many decorations or any elaborate table setting.

For make-up, I just let Claudia do whatever. She asked what color I preferred around my eyes, so I went with pinks since my eyes are hazel.

Yes - I had my hair and make-up done by Claudia at the Casita Spa. She was wonderful. I was a little nervous about having it done without a run-through ahead of time, but everyone there was doing a wonderful job. Two other brides were in there at the same time as me, and everyone's hair looked amazing.

As for transportation - your WC shows up to your room (or wherever you decide to get ready) to pick up you and two others. The other girls in my room just went over to the concierge who rung for a couple large shuttles to come pick the girls and the photographer/videographer up to take them to the site ahead of them. The WC also coordinated with the other shuttles to be sure all of my guests had arrived at the site before we headed over, as my grandparents were having trouble getting a shuttle from their room. Set-up - Our reception was set up an hour prior to the reception. This allowed my family plenty of time to get our table settings out and set up our picture station for the guestbook. (We bought a new Polaroid camera so that people could take a picture of themselves at the reception, tape it into our scrapbook/guestbook and sign next to it with whatever well wishes they might have for us. It worked out really great! The extra shots from the leftover film ended up being some of the best pictures of the night!)

As for transportation - your WC shows up to your room (or wherever you decide to get ready) to pick up you and two others. The other girls in my room just went over to the concierge who rung for a couple large shuttles to come pick the girls and the photographer/videographer up to take them to the site ahead of them. The WC also coordinated with the other shuttles to be sure all of my guests had arrived at the site before we headed over, as my grandparents were having trouble getting a shuttle from their room. Set-up - Our reception was set up an hour prior to the reception. This allowed my family plenty of time to get our table settings out and set up our picture station for the guestbook. (We bought a new Polaroid camera so that people could take a picture of themselves at the reception, tape it into our scrapbook/guestbook and sign next to it with whatever well wishes they might have for us. It worked out really great! The extra shots from the leftover film ended up being some of the best pictures of the night!)

Here is a link to the short video clip and preview of our wedding pictures from Sarani Weddings: http://saraniweddingsblog.com/2012/06/08/brittani-travis-cancun-destination-wedding/ James (our photographer) and Clara (our videographer) were amazing to work with. They were so creative with their shots, and we had a lot of fun doing all of the pictures after the wedding. As you can see, they came out beautifully. I just adore the video and am able to share it with all of our friends and family who could not attend. The montage of clips and sounds really captures the feel the wedding day had. I'm almost done with our review of everything else! We had such a wonderful time, and (almost) everything went incredibly well for us. It rained the day before and the day after our wedding (and a little bit during our reception), but it was just cool enough that no one got too hot at our outdoor wedding or reception. I really can't recommend the destination wedding route (particularly at EDR) enough. Everything was so beautiful, and our friends and family were just raving about how much fun they had.

We just returned from EDR and our subsequent honeymoon in Merida on Monday - hoping to get a full review up soon. We had a wonderful time (despite the impending worry of torrential rain looming over our big day)!

We just returned from EDR and our subsequent honeymoon in Merida on Monday - hoping to get a full review up soon. We had a wonderful time (despite the impending worry of torrential rain looming over our big day)!

The table numbers (and our last name initial) are from this seller on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/listing/78860750/table-numbers-beach-wedding-burlap?ref=sr_gallery_6&ga_search_query=seashell+table+number&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=US&ga_search_type=handmade Quote: Originally Posted by Jillsepher That sounds so pretty! Do you have any pictures of the table runners? That sounds so interesting!

A quick update on where my FI and I are in our process leading up to our wedding on May 19th: We're planning to do a family only dinner the first night we get in on May 17th for a group of 12-14, but we haven't quite figured out how best to approach this. Should we set it up as just a normal group dinner as though we were all there as guests together? We considered doing a small private dinner, but we certainly don't need 4 hours of service for the meal. The next night, we're doing the "rehearsal dinner" as our group dinner included in our free wedding package with all of our guests (30-35, we have some stragglers that are still "on the fence"). That dinner with be at La Isla. (I'm assuming Cocotal must have been full or something, but I think we will like La Isla better anyway.) The wedding is going to be at 3pm on May 19th at Gazebo 55. We're expecting it to be hot, but we're just planning to have the dress code take that into account (e.g., no shoes, sundresses, lots of sunscreen). I figure there should be a breeze off the water at least. We ended up picking Sarani for our photography and are only going to do pictures for the time before the ceremony, during, and immediately after. We then have some time between for guests to cool off and change before dinner at 6pm. We're having the dinner and reception at the Mexican Gazebo, as there were not many options given to us besides that location. We're okay with it, but Claudia kept trying to talk us out of it due to the heat and bugs (?!) in that area of the resort. The only other options were to do the reception on the beach by Guacamayas (which wouldn't be private at all and would have to be over no later than 9pm) or in the ballroom garden, which also didn't look very appealing. We're going to do the BBQ Buffet (as table service is not available in that reception location for some reason). We bought our own table decorations ahead of time on Etsy and at a craft store. We will have table numbers made out of crushed sea shells, random shells and aqua-colored glass spread out on the table, some blue bottles filled with sand, and some aqua-colored candelabras. For favors, we're going to do crystal seashell bottle stoppers for the ladies and a bottle opener for the guys. We ended up getting DJ Doremixx for the reception as we were getting very anxious about having to control the flow of things ourselves. We're both lawyers and thus VERY type A, so I could see my FI and I walking on eggshells if we had to rely on an iPod all night. Most of our family leaves on Sunday, so we're hoping to do a friends-only excursion that day or on Monday. We're still kicking around ideas on that one though. We're staying in the swim-up casitas for seven nights in order to receive our free wedding. (We stayed in the swim-up suites last time and absolutely fell in love with sitting in the lazy river all day.) After finishing up at EDR, we're going to go over to Merida and spend a few days exploring that city before returning to the real world after Memorial Day. Here's hoping we don't forget too many details!

My fiance and I are getting married at EDR on May 19, 2012!

New EDR Bride here! My fiance and I are a little late to the planning game (who knew DWs could be so time consuming to plan!), so I've slowly been catching up on this thread. My fiance and I are both attorneys and tend to have precious little time to do anything regarding our EDR wedding (particularly since business hour calls don't fit very well into our schedule of no-lunch-working-sunrise-to-sunset), so I'm turning to you all for any tips/help with some issues we're running into. Our wedding is going to be at Gazebo 55 at 3pm on May 19th. So far we have about 30 people who have booked their room and expect a few more. We're concerned it will be a little hot/humid at that time of day, but that's literally the only day/time available that we could do when we booked late last year. Thus, we're planning to have a very casual dress code to deal with the high temperatures. Hopefully the air off the ocean will counteract some of the heat! The reception planning has been quite the fiasco. We were originally promised the Mexican Gazebo (as all of the other locations were booked for that night). We were completely fine with this and liked how private the area was. Since then, Claudia has emailed us stating that that location was no longer an option and that instead we could do the Chapel Terrace or the Ballroom Garden (which appears to be a made up "new" location that clearly is not meant for a reception). The Chapel Terrace would normally be okay except that it's so close to Guacamayas and its nighttime shows, so the reception times available (5pm-9pm) are less than desirable and would have little to no privacy for our guests. We responded to Claudia telling her that the new locations were not acceptable and that the Mexican Gazebo was what we had originally agreed upon with her. She responded telling us that in May that area is too hot and that there are mosquitoes. Additionally, we could only do a buffet (which we'd already planned on doing). We weren't sure how it was possible that the Mexican Gazebo area was significantly hotter than the Ballroom Garden as both are off the beach area. Does anyone have any thoughts/experience with these locations in May? Given that we only have 30-40 people, we're also wondering whether or not to get a DJ. We realize we're late in the process to book one, but we figure we could find someone. I'm not sure if it's worth nearly $2000 for a DJ though given the relatively small group we will have (including maybe 25% family that may not dance much). The rest of the group is pretty rowdy, however, so we had originally planned on getting a DJ. Not sure how out of place it will look in such a small group though. Any thoughts/tips anyone might have with regard to these issues would be great! We've got a to-do list a mile long, but these are some preliminary matters we absolutely HAVE to figure out.

New EDR Bride here! My fiance and I are a little late to the planning game (who knew DWs could be so time consuming to plan!), so I've slowly been catching up on this thread. My fiance and I are both attorneys and tend to have precious little time to do anything regarding our EDR wedding (particularly since business hour calls don't fit very well into our schedule of no-lunch-working-sunrise-to-sunset), so I'm turning to you all for any tips/help with some issues we're running into. Our wedding is going to be at Gazebo 55 at 3pm on May 19th. So far we have about 30 people who have booked their room and expect a few more. We're concerned it will be a little hot/humid at that time of day, but that's literally the only day/time available that we could do when we booked late last year. Thus, we're planning to have a very casual dress code to deal with the high temperatures. Hopefully the air off the ocean will counteract some of the heat! The reception planning has been quite the fiasco. We were originally promised the Mexican Gazebo (as all of the other locations were booked for that night). We were completely fine with this and liked how private the area was. Since then, Claudia has emailed us stating that that location was no longer an option and that instead we could do the Chapel Terrace or the Ballroom Garden (which appears to be a made up "new" location that clearly is not meant for a reception). The Chapel Terrace would normally be okay except that it's so close to Guacamayas and its nighttime shows, so the reception times available (5pm-9pm) are less than desirable and would have little to no privacy for our guests. We responded to Claudia telling her that the new locations were not acceptable and that the Mexican Gazebo was what we had originally agreed upon with her. She responded telling us that in May that area is too hot and that there are mosquitoes. Additionally, we could only do a buffet (which we'd already planned on doing). We weren't sure how it was possible that the Mexican Gazebo area was significantly hotter than the Ballroom Garden as both are off the beach area. Does anyone have any thoughts/experience with these locations in May? Given that we only have 30-40 people, we're also wondering whether or not to get a DJ. We realize we're late in the process to book one, but we figure we could find someone. I'm not sure if it's worth nearly $2000 for a DJ though given the relatively small group we will have (including maybe 25% family that may not dance much). The rest of the group is pretty rowdy, however, so we had originally planned on getting a DJ. Not sure how out of place it will look in such a small group though. Any thoughts/tips anyone might have with regard to these issues would be great! We've got a to-do list a mile long, but these are some preliminary matters we absolutely HAVE to figure out.