ElDorado2012

Hey ladies, I was trying to post photo's from my wedding but it keeps telling me my file sizes are too large. Any idea how to get around this?

Hmmm. No, not that I recall. Maybe in the water or a few that had washed up here and there, but nothing I recall specifically. Also, Gazebo 55 is raised from the water, so I don't believe any shells would just wash up in that area. I wasn't paying a ton of attention to that though, so perhaps ask your WC?

We didn't rehearse ahead of time. I was a little nervous about not doing it, but most of the people in our wedding party had been in weddings before, so everyone basically knew the drill. Plus the groomsmen were def. antsy to party the entire time we were there and honestly I'm not even sure I would have been able to get them all to show up for the rehearsal lol. It all worked out fine If you are planning on doing something out of the ordinary with your walk down, maybe you might want to practice, but if everyone is simply walking down and lining up I wouldn't worry about it.

Hi ladies, We just got back from our wedding at the EDR and we had a FABULOUS time and event. Everything went pretty smoothly so all I really have are positives to share with everyone. Here goes: Ceremony at Gazebo 55 was perfect. We had great weather, it was hot of course, but it was sunny and didn't rain so we were happy The only complaint I had here was that the minister talked REALLY slowly. We got the ceremony script ahead of time from Valeria and luckily had cut out half of the text, leaving only three pages left. I thought the three pages would only take about 5-6 minutes to read. It actually took 15. It was fine, I was just really happy we had at least shortened it to where it was, otherwise it may have been over 30 min. long. Everything was exactly as we asked it to be set up and was perfect. The reception area (Tucanes Bar) was absolutely amazing. All of the decorations I had brought from home were set up exactly as I wanted. The flowers were beautiful. DJ DOREMIXX was AWESOME. I would definitely recommend him. We actually didn't have Ivan, but another DJ Eliu, and he did a great job. We are super picky with music, so we brought all of the songs we wanted played (for both dinner and the reception) from home for him and he was able to blend the songs together perfectly. We were def. happy with his work. Dinner service was on time and prompt. We got each course right after the previous one. The bar service was great too. We were ordering tons of shots and drinks and they did great. We had brought $40 to tip the bartenders/wait staff, but they were doing so well and working so hard we ended up giving them $60. Our entire group ended up in the pool which was absolutely hilarious. We had so much fun, I was def. sad when it ended. As far the the resort as a whole, it is BEAUTIFUL. I've never seen more amazing grounds (trees, gardens, beach, pools, etc.). We first stayed in an ocean view jacuzzi jr. suite and switched to the Casita side after the wedding. The Casitas are awesome. I def. recommend them if you can afford it, however if you are there with a group and you'll want to come back to hang out with them each day, they are a bit far and def. not necessary as the other rooms are totally nice too. As soon as I have pics I'll send them along!! If you have any questions, let me know!!! You all are going to have an AMAZING time!!! I'm dying to go back!!

Hi ladies! We leave tomorrow for our wedding on Saturday (6/30)! I'm super excited!! I'll make sure to give you all a full review with pics when I get back

Hi there! We are having our ceremony and reception in the same locations as you on June 30. I'll make sure to send over lots of pics when I get them so you can get a feel for the space at Tucanes

The aisle one's are very pretty. Have you asked how much it would be to have them do this? I feel like they might charge you a ton for having to tie the ribbons to the chairs (I guess depending on how many chairs you have...). Something to consider... Quote: Originally Posted by jnitschke Ok... here's the pics I was talking about... hopefully this one will work.

These are so beautiful!! Love the black and white. Keep sending as you get them!!

I couldn't agree with you more. You should in no way be responsible for maintaining the timing/flow of the program. I really can't understand why it's so hard for the onsite coordinator to take care of this, or, for the coordinator and DJ to WORK TOGETHER to do this. Seems like a no-brainer to me. It's not even that much work, it's just watching the clock. Thinking about this is really frustrating me... So, DJ DOREMIXX did bring someone else with him to your event? Did the DJ announce the toasts/dances/etc. or did the other guy announce them? Originally Posted by TheWolferts I just got a response back from Valeria and apparently our onsite coordinator, Martha, reported back to Lomas Corporate that the DJ did not help her manage the flow of the reception. They also told me that its a common thing to happen when the DJ doesnt have another person helping them... first off, DJ Doremixx did have another guy with him helping him quite a bit from what I noticed and my cousin used a "resort approved" DJ for their wedding and it was one guy that basically didnt MC at all and messed up all of the wedding party's walk in songs. It was kinda funny though since they had picked"Kung Foo Fighting" for an asian friend of theirs to be introduced to and their spanish friend ended up being introduced to it haha. Now that I think about it, the DJ acted very annoyed while at the reception, yet was sooo nice during our meeting. I wonder if his demeanor was different because he had a run in with the WC staff prior to the reception? They obviously dont make it very easy for outside vendors to come onto the resort property for weddings. I think Valeria is making a point to say this because 1) she knows I post on this board and 2) they dont want to take responsibility for actually running the event themselves. Regardless, i dont care whose job it was to "run the reception", I just know I shouldnt have had to run it and I would think that if they had questions about who would be running it, the onsite coordinator should have asked me or our DJ who was going to be in charge of it and she could have shown up at our meeting with the DJ that was right outside of the WC's office. If it's not the WCs job to handle the timeline and events at the reception, than whose is it? What if I a bride didnt have a DJ??

TheWolferts - I was just asked by Valeria to request that DJ DOREMIXX bring an MC to the event, because they have seen that, "particularly with DJ DOREMIXX, the dj cannot peform announcements and play the songs at the same time." What was your experience with this? Did the DJ announce when it was time for the toasts, the father/daughter mother/son dance, garter toss, etc.? Did you ask him to bring an MC? Another interesting note I just received from Valeria was: "Please note your DJ DOREMIXX will be in charge of the dinner reception program such as timeline for first dance, father daughter dance, mother son dance, announcements, speeches and then the party time." So she's basically specifying that the DJ is in charge of the flow of the evening and not the event staff/coordinator at the resort. I find this interesting... I know you had a lot of trouble with this, so I'm wondering if maybe Valeria is specifying this to all brides now after hearing of the issues you had with the timing of everything at your reception. Anyways, thought that was interesting. Quote: Originally Posted by TheWolferts Now that I obviously dont need my wedding dress any longer, I am thinking about getting it cleaned and selling it... though I have very mixed feelings about it and I dont know why! I will definitely ever need to wear it again and it does take up a lot of space in my closet, but I also get really sad when I think about not having it in my closet I bought it new for around $1350 and from what I have seen on this message board and others, it has been selling used for about $800. The cleaning looks like its going to cost around $250. While I know I wont make a ton of money off it, part of me thinks it would feel good to sell if to someone that may not have the budget to buy the gown brand new, but loves the dress as much as I did. What else is everyone doing with their dress after the wedding?

$12 to $15 per person is way too much. I paid $5 per guest for set up for the ceremony and reception (price quoted from Valeria). Do you have a lot of extra decorations that you are bringing? I wonder why they'd quote you so high?? I'm only bringing one thing for the ceremony - a sign for the water bottle table, and then I just have the usual for the reception - place cards, menu's, favors, sandbox tray (for the place cards), and then I purchased some antique gold votive holders that I'm bringing with me for each table. For all of those items I was quoted $5 per guest.

I am definitely going to try to sell mine after our wedding

You look beautiful!! That second pic is amazing with the dark sky. If you have any more to share, please do!!

Thank you. Did you guys scope out places around the resort where you wanted to have your photo's taken? If so, do you have any recommendations of places we should look into? Thank you

Oh, boy - we have DJ Doremixx booked for our reception. We aren't going to actually have Ivan, apparently he was already booked for another venue, so I guess I'll just have to pray that whoever we end up with will perform better than it sounds like Ivan did for you... That is such a bummer that you had a negative experience with him. Did you bring CDs with you that you gave the DJ at your pre-wedding meeting? Did you actually meet with Ivan at that meeting, or was it someone else?

Another question... I'm working on a list of things to talk about with our on-site wedding coordinator during our meeting, and I'm curious if there are any questions/topics any previous brides might have thought they missed that would be good for me to bring up at the meeting? Or, perhaps for any of you ladies that are headed there soon, do you have anything you thought of as super important to talk to the coordinator about?? Thank you!!

Really, brides from any location could chime in on this one... I didn't mean from just Tucanes

For any brides who have had or who will be having their reception at the Tucanes Pool/Bar, where will you and your bridal party wait to be introduced at the beginning of your reception? I feel a little nervous about not having this figured out ahead of time. Is this just something we are supposed to scope out once we are there? Or, will the day-of wedding attendant tell us where to go? How will the DJ know when we are ready to be introduced? Any advice/feedback would be helpful. Thank you!

That makes me feel better. I expect it will be pretty hot, but I'm glad to hear there is a breeze and also that the air conditioned alternative isn't too much cooler... I freaked out a little because the AC just went out on my car this past weekend and I was driving home in 85 degree weather the other evening and I was SOOO HOT. I was just imagining that was how we were going to feel at the reception LOL. I'm sure it's going to be hot, but at least it sounds like it (hopefully) won't be so bad that it ruins our time... Our wedding is June 30

By the way - thanks so much for answering all my questions!!!

Perfect. Thanks for the info. and pictures Another question - how hot was it when you had your rehearsal dinner at Tucanes? Was there a breeze? If you had to dance in that area, would you have been dying of the heat? Now I'm wondering if we should have chosen the Salon Dorado for our reception so we could have AC... Do you have any other pics of your reception area you can share (you were at Salon Dorado, right?)?

Thank you! I'm trying to prep myself and our wedding party for the heat... Hopefully everyone will just suck it up!! Great idea with renaming the songs. I'm def. going to do that Do you happen to have any pics of the wooden isle runner? We were going to have it for our ceremony because it looks so nice in the pictures, but after hearing your review, I'm wondering if I should just walk down in the sand and save the $150...? What do you think? Did it add to the decor of your ceremony, or was it nothing special? Thanks!

Wow. Thanks so much for the detailed review, and the pics!!! I am a MAJOR control freak and all of this makes me extremely nervous regarding how things are going to look and go. I really need to try to relinquish control and just go with the flow but it's so hard when you have a perfect vision in your mind... I agree that because it's a DW, everything likely won't be perfect, but considering they do SO MANY weddings at the resort, you'd think they'd have it down by now. I'm sorry you had to deal with all of the disappointments. I love that your guests were so thrilled with their vacation and stay at the resort. That, to me at least, makes everything worth it. Please send along some more pics when you get them!! I'd love to see any more you have of the Tucanes area set up, as this is where we will have our reception. Also, what was the weather like? How hot was it? Were you guys miserable in their suits when you were outside, or not too bad? How did everything go with them playing the music on your ipod during the ceremony? I'm a bit nervous about how that will go... Thank you

So ridiculous. How could they refuse to let you go back to the cocktail party?? And what would be their motivation for that? Do you think they didn't make all of the food you paid for and they didn't want you to get back there and figure it out, or...? I'm stumped! Also, the cocktail party is for the bridal party AND guests. I can't believe they wouldn't let you back over there. Really weird. I'm sorry about all that!

Oh my gosh - sooo beautiful!!! Your hair is so cute - did you have it done at their salon? If so, did you do a trial first? Can't wait to see pics of the reception too