leigh3124

Hey All! Got to Now Sapphire today for our anniversary trip! We were met by Anel and Ramin at check-in and were once again given outstanding service! I love this place! Today everyone was welcoming us home! It really does feel like home! We saw many of our favorite employees from last year including Jorge the bellman and Hugo our favorite buffet server! They actually remembered us! If feeling at home is important to you, you can't go wrong with Now Sapphire. <3 this place!

Aww! Thank you! The flowers on the arch were from the resort's florist. They were about $125 (if I am remembering correctly) and we felt worth every penny. Since we orderd them from the resort, Ramon and his staff hung them for us.

Ramon didn't say a thing! I did use them for the flowers for my cake and chuppah so they did get a little extra money out of me for flowers. Ramon understood that I was watching my budget closely. I just let him know the rest of the flowers were taken care of. It would be no different if I had gone to a flower shop down there, purchased flowers, and arranged them in my room. They just won't let outside people on the resort with out a fee.

Hey Ladies! I finally got off my lazy, happily married butt and wrote my review. Here it is http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/products/now-sapphire-riviera-cancun/reviews/7361 It is rather long, but I wanted to be thourough. Plus, there are tons of photos! Don't forget, I am heading back to Now Sapphire next Thursday to celebrate my 1-year anniversary, so if you guys want any specific photos or anything else, just ask! Happy Planning!

We should meet up for a cocktail! My email is erica.thornbury@gmail.com and cell is 502-727-3221! I'm giddy with excitement!

Hey Ladies! I haven't been on here in awhile! Life got busy! Anyway my hubby just went to our travel agent and booked our one year anniversary trip! We leave for Mexico 2 weeks from tomorrow. I'm so excited! I can't believe it has already been one year and that I am going back! We'll be at Now Sapphire June 20-27. If anyone needs anything while I'm there, let me know!

Hey everyone! I haven't been on in awhile, so I thought I'd chime in on a few topics. We sent our invitations before finding out that we could give two meat options, so our reply cards just said beef or vegetarian. Once we selected the 2 meat options, we contacted our guests that selected meat and gave them the choice of beef or duck. We gave Ramon a seating chart with tables, names, and food choice. On the backs of our escort cards we wrote B, D, or V to indicate it for the servers. I didn't see any food being auctioned off, so I was very pleased. We got special kickbacks from the groups department with the number of rooms we had booked. For each night that we had 5 rooms booked and paid at double occupancy, we recieved the 6th room free for that night (up to 3 free rooms per night). All of our guests arrived and departed on different days, so the number of free rooms we earned varied day to day. Many of you were asking about switching to one of the Dreams properties after the wedding for your honeymoon. We considered that too. We only stayed at Now for 4 nights (Thursday-Monday, with a Saturday wedding). Because we were very tied up doing family things the whole time we were there we knew we would not be able to use some of the inclusions of the divine package (breakfast in bed, couples massage, dinner on the beach, etc.). We asked if we could transfer to the Dreams resorts and take our freebes with us since they are sister resorts. We were denied and told that we not recieve any kind of special upgrades or treatment at Dreams just because we had been married at Now. I was quite offended, so we transferred to a completely different resort in a different parent company for our honeymoon.

I suggest separate. The reception is already set up before the ceremony and there probably won't be enough time between ceremony and reception to make the switch. On tequila terrace your guests will see the reception set up as they are being seated for the ceremony.

For having our wedding at Now, we received up to 2 free anniversary nights with a minimum 7 night stay over our first anniversary. We stayed at Now Sapphire for 4 nights (Thursday-Monday) using the room credit we earned through our group booking. On Monday we went to a different resort (adults only) for a 7 night honeymoon stay. The second resort was an El Dorado property (which I do not recommend). We had to pay for our stay, but found a FUNJET promotion of $1800 for two people for the 7 days. The catch was we didn't know which El Dorado property we were assigned until one week before we were scheduled to check in.

We did not have to pay an additional fee at the resort as he was a guest of the resort. We flew him in for 3 nights and 4 days. We talked to about 20 photographers until we found the right one. Many were interested and willing to do it in exchange for the trip only and others wanted us to pay them on top of it. We became known in the local photographer circle as the "Mexico couple" lol! I suggest going to bridal shows in your area and speaking to photographers whose work you like. The free room promotion we got was through the group benefits in group booking. The promotion was 1 free room for each 5 rooms booked per night with a limit of 3 free rooms per night. The fine print was very confusing, but all in all we earned 8 nights worth of free room credit.

We brought our own photographer with us from the US who has been doing weddings for 17 years. I wanted to have more control over the work and I was scared to use a Mexican company for fear that I would pay them and then never hear from them again once I returned to the US. My photographer took over 2400 photos during the weekend and was with us the whole time and documented every part of the weekend. Our photographer was willing to do our wedding in exchange for the trip to Mexico. With as many rooms and guests that we had booked at the resort we earned 8 free nights at the resort (check your group benefits in your contract). We used 4 of the nights (we spent 7 nights at a different resort for the honeymoon), the photographer used 3 nights, and we got a reimbursement check for the other night once we got home. Basically we brought our own photographer for the cost of a plane ticket. We got rights to all the photos, an engagement session, and a Graphistudio 40 page album. The photographer got to use our wedding for his portfolio (he aspires to make destination weddings a big part of his business) and he got a beach vacation for a few days. It was win-win. Our wedding package included 24 prints from the resort photographer. Since we were denied exchanging the photography in the package for something else all together we decided to have the resort photographer capture cocktail hour. Our photographer was going to miss cocktail hour anyway. To be honest, the photographs weren’t particularly polished. For example, there were pictures of other people taking pictures. Here is alink to the resort photographer's work. You can judge for yourself. http://erikaanddaniel.nowsapphire.adventurephotos.com.mx/#/s7-slideshow-2/

I want to clarify something for those of you discussing the two polls on Tequila Terrace and the hanging of lanterns above the dinner tables. The poles are not stationary and you must rent them at an additional expense. You can hang lanterns above the dance floor area for free if you provide the battery operated LED lights. Here are some photos from my wedding. I had 26 lanterns and ordered them from justartifacts.com They have tons of colors and sizes and are very affordable. I had two sizes and two colors, but had 26 total. I used two lights in the larger lanterns.

Hi Ladies! I've been reading your questions and thought I would chime in. 1. Don't hire the resort DJ. He is terrible. He only plays music and doesn't MC. I had to tell him to play some slow music to get the older people involved. I had to tell him to cut the music for the cake cutting, bouquet and garter toss. I had to take the mic and announce the cake cutting, bouquet toss and garter toss myself. I hired him to help keep the party going and he certainly did not. Thank God I only hired him for 2 hours, but what a waste of my $777! 2. Don't plan on going to the club to party, especially if your wedding is on Saturday night. The whole resort was rocking on Friday night. Everyone was out partying both in the lobby bar (with the live band) and in the club. Saturday night the place was dead, everyone turns in early to pack and get a good night sleep before their flights home on Sunday. This was true for the wedding guests too, fyi. Of course, if you have a large enough group you can bring the party with you wherever you go. By the end of my reception at 10:30, we were down to about 8 people out of the 33 guests we had (not much of party no matter where on the resort property you go). Hope this helps!

Like HeatherViolet, I also used Flowers by Lucy. I loved her and my flowers were beautiful. My guests commented on their beauty and freshness. My centerpieces were like $30 each and bridesmaid bouquets were $20 each.

The restaurants all close at 10:00 PM, but room service is 24 hours a day. Moments Lobby Bar sometimes has popcorn at the bar.

You are too funny! "Go Cards" actually refers to the University of Louisville Cardinals! We live in Louisville, KY. We watch the Reds too (they are sort of our local team). We actually watched the game the other night. Hubby is a huge Yankees fan though (he grew up in Teaneck, NJ)!

Hi Noxx! Thank you for the kind words about my pictures. I am happy to answer the questions you asked about my specific decorations and flowers. Let me begin by stating, that I brought ALL of my own decorations. Chair Sashes: I bought my chair sashes on recycledbride.com (You could try Ebay too). They were about $0.90 each including shipping. The resort charges $5 per sash to rent theirs. Also, some brides have been charged up to $2 per chair for the resort to tie on your own sashes, but I had a great working relationship with Ramon, so he didn't charge me this fee. I had many extra sashes so Ramon creatively used the extras as table runners, tied others around the bottom of the cocktail tables, and even used some to decorate the canopy in the ceremony. Lanterns: I bought the paper Chinese lanterns from justartifacts.com. They have myriad colors and range in price from $0.90-$4 each depending on size. I got battery-operated LED lights from Joanne Fabrics to light them up. I had 26 lanterns and it was plenty to decorate the terrace above the dance floor. Ramon hung the lanterns for me free of charge. Luminaries: I bought white paper luminaries with palm trees cut out from an online company that I would not recommend. The bags were cute, but the shipping was a nightmare. I bought LED tea-lights from Dollar Tree. Ramon set these up around the perimeter of the terrace for free. Votive Candles: I brought votive candles in holders. The holders were custom with our names and wedding date and a palm tree all in purple. You can't see these in the pictures, because they didn't get put out on the tables. I didn't notice until half way through the reception and the tables were decorated enough that it didn't matter. I asked Ramon about them the next day, and he said he didn't put them out because of the wind (tropical depression Debbie was still trying to clear out). Other Decorations: I also brought my champagne flutes, cake knife, sand ceremony set, guest book, and probably other things I am forgetting. We had bubbles, kippot (yalmukes), and program fans handed out at the ceremony. No one used the bubbles, because no one explained to the guests what they were for (and apparently it isn’t as universal as I thought). I brought place-cards and Ramon set them out on a table in a very cute tray of sand so they wouldn't fly away. We also had little glass bottles of sand with our wedding logo at each place setting along with menu cards. All of my printed material (programs, escort cards, menu cards, table numbers) were coordinated which really pulled the look together. Ramon completely surprised me and decorated the cocktail tables. He set out some vases with purple rocks and tropical flowers. It looked great and completely matched my decorations. I had not even thought about asking the cocktail tables to be decorated. He did not even charge me for it! Ramon thinks of everything, even things you wouldn't think of. He even had the wait staff color-coordinated for my wedding. Centerpieces/Flowers: My guests were raving about the flowers. I outsourced my centerpieces and bridesmaid bouquets to a local florist (as recommended by HeatherViolet). The florist is Floreria Lucy. The florist's name is Liz Rubi and her direct email is lucy_cancun@hotmail.com. Liz was wonderful. When I filled out the contact us form on their website, she emailed me back in less than 10 minutes. We communicated by email before I got to Mexico. I sent pictures of what I was looking for and she sent back her ideas and examples and we agreed on a price. She was willing to meet me at the resort when I got there just to go over the final details, but I thought that was unnecessary. The night before the wedding, she emailed my photos of my flowers. The centerpieces were $30 USD and the bridesmaid's bouquets were $20 USD. The resort wanted $150 USD for the same centerpiece and $80 USD for the same bouquets. All together 4 centerpieces, 4 bouquets, the delivery fee, and the tip I gave because I was so happy, it cost $250 USD. I saved a lot of money on flowers. The only flowers I got from the resort were what was included in the divine package (my bouquet, 3 boutonnieres, 2 corsages, 1 centerpiece-used it on the ceremony table and then moved it to the guest book table), flowers for the cake at $25 USD, and the flower garland for the top of the ceremony canopy at $150 USD. All the flowers from both the resort and the florist matched perfectly. I will say the flowers from the florist had bigger blooms and looked a bit fresher than the resort; they were also willing to do more customization, like filling the vases with fresh-cut limes. My guests are still raving about the centerpieces, including a florist of 30 years. The resort charges a $300 fee for off-site vendors. To get around this fee I met the florist outside the gate of the resort. It was not a big deal. It is honestly 100 feet from the front door. I asked her to meet me at noon on the wedding day (wedding was at 5:30 and I didn't start getting ready until 1:00). She called my room when she was there and my husband, mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law and I walked out to the front to get the flowers and pay. We walked the flowers back to my room to keep them cool. When the groomsmen went down to the wedding, they carried the centerpieces down and placed them on the tables. This was NOT a big deal. It really wasn't any trouble and I was happy to do it to save a ton of money. You just have to ask yourself what is more important to you, not having to lift a finger on your wedding day or saving nearly $1000. We used the money elsewhere. Arch/Canopy: The Divine package arch is a bamboo canopy with sheer fabric. Flowers and colored fabric is extra. As I said above, the floral garland across the top of mine was $150 (it is normally much more for the size I got, but Ramon is super awesome). The garland was a last minute addition, since I had saved so much money on my centerpieces and bouquets. I was glad we added it. It was stunning and really added a lot to the pictures. The purple fabric on the canopy in my pictures is my extra chair sashes that Ramon used to add a splash of color. He did not charge to do this. (Do you see the pattern?) Regrets: I had an awesome wedding. My biggest regret is that it went so fast. It felt like an out of body experience. I wish I had been more present in the moment. My second biggest regret is hiring the resort DJ. We planned to use our iPod and the AV equipment for the first hour of the reception during dinner and then pay for the DJ for the last 2 hours during the dancing and what not. The DJ was there early and started playing during dinner, which would have been fine, but I wanted my play list to play. He started playing a bunch of Christian music and we are Jewish. We had a choreographed dance, for which we provided him the song we wanted on our iPod. Rather than playing it, he played the song from his library, and it was a different version! My husband can’t dance to save his life and had spent weeks practicing with the slow version of the song. During the later portion of the night, he was playing only fast music and the old people felt left out and started to leave. The DJ is not an emcee at all. I had to ask him to turn off the music for the cake cutting. I had to take the microphone and announce the cake cutting, the bouquet toss, garter toss, etc. Since I had to do all the work anyway, I wish I had saved my $777 and just used the AV equipment and iPod. That was the only real mistake. A much smaller regret, was having the wedding on a Saturday. Pick a Friday, or even a Thursday, if you want a party. Most people travel home from resorts on a Sunday. If your wedding is Saturday night, everyone is packing in early to get a good night’s sleep. Even the dance clubs were dead on Saturday night. On Friday, it was a non-stop party all over the resort. Wow...sorry that was so long. You can see why I haven't done my review yet. Any other questions, don't hesitate to ask. I am happy to assist anyone with anything. I especially love finding bargains and ways to save $$$! So if you need some ideas, just ask! This thread was so helpful in my planning, I feel the need to pay it forward.

Hey guys! We have been home almost 2 weeks now! I haven't written my official review yet, but everything was wonderful! Ramon totally rocked and everything far exceeded my expectations. We are already talking about going back next year for our anniversary. We both lament the fact that it was all over too fast. We are suffering the wedding bell blues here...lol! Feel free to ask us anything! I thought I would share some photos. We brought our own photographer. He took over 2400 pics over the weekend. This first link is some of his detail shots. This link is to his shots that are more people centered. The password is "gocards" http://www.eventpix.com/guest/events/event.php?_function=detail&key=5cb999f8aac34dfe89d8d69b3d566acd We also had the resort photographer for an hour as part of the divine package. We used them for cocktail hour, since our photographer was busy doing the family portraits. Here is the link to the resort photographer's cocktail hour album. http://erikaanddaniel.nowsapphire.adventurephotos.com.mx/s7-slideshow-2.html[/]

1. Budget: trying to keep it under $1200 2. Type: An informal cocktail reception at a bar from 8:00-11:00 PM. We will show the video of the ceremony, do the first dance over, cake cutting, bouquet toss, garter toss, etc. I don't think we can afford a DJ, so I will make playlists on my iPod to play over the sound system for the dancing. I really want it to be a big dance party. I really missed out on that at our DW. We are trying to decided if it should be a Friday or Saturday night. We are trying to figure out which night will have better attendance. We did not have good attendance at either our engagement party or shower. Our people are kind of flakey. 3. When: our wedding was two weeks ago, June 23, 2012. We have a space reserved on Friday, September 7, 2012. This is still sunject to change. Picking a date (and planning in general) was tough for 2 reasons. First, my brother is getting married in North Carolina (we live in KY) on August 11 and we didn't want our AHR to be too close to his wedding or we thought our family would blow it off and use his wedding as their excuse. Secondly, we were waiting until after our wedding to see how much money was left in the budget to determine if it was even possible. 4. Food: Appetizers, wedding cake, champagne toast, sodas, cash bar (I already had an open bar at my DW) 5. Clothes: wearing our DW attire, my 2 in town bridesmaids will wear their dresses too 6. Invitations: postcards, front with the info "you are invited...blah, blah, blah", back with a timeline for the evening (8:00 appetizers served and cash bar opens, 8:15 B&G announced, 8:30 ceremony video, etc.) I like the timeline so people realize there is structure and it is not just like an open house. 7. Photographer: Our photographer we took to our DW said he would do it at $100 per hour, not sure if we will go this route or just use candid snapshots 8. Cake: we will have a replica of our DW cake. We don't plan to have a grooms cake, but that would be a nice splurge if we have some extra cash. 9. Decorations: We will use the ones from our DW. Chinese lanterns, votive candles with palm trees and our names and wedding date, very simple and cheap. The venue is beautiful on it's own, so we don't need a lot. 10. DW photos: We will have a sideshow playing on a loop all night on the big screen TVs in the venue. Questions for you all. 1. How many people are you expecting to attend? What percentage of invitees do you expect? 25%? 50%? Etc? 2. Do you think it is smart to wait until school starts back so people's schedules will be more normal and we won't have to compete with all the events that fill people's weekends in the summer? 3. What night is better for attendance? Friday or Saturday? Thanks!

To the bride I just met on the tequila terrace (sorry I can't remember your handle), the direct email address for the florist is lucy_cancun@hotmail.com Good luck!

I emailed Anel and asked her if we rented the Av equipment would we have to operate it ourselves? Her response was that there would be someone to set it up for us only. Now I am really confused.

What Facebook does she use? Her own personal? The resort's page? Some other page all together? We leave for our wedding in a week and I haven't been able to get in contact her in 3 weeks! I have several questions that'd I need answered ASAP (i.e. our rehearsal time, and welcome reception time) so I can finish my welcome book. :confused: