erinkatherine

Hello All, We just returned home on the 11th from our wedding! Here is my full review. Sorry if it was so ling, I tried to give the short version, but I didn’t want to leave anything out. Everything about the resort was beautiful. Everything about the grounds made us feel like we were at a spa. Very clean and quiet for the most part. The food was better than most all inclusive resorts we have stayed at, but I don’t know that I would consider it to be gourmet. Staff was very friendly (big shout out to Miguel in the main lobby- best Bell Man ever!) I am not writing this to complain in any way, I only want to share our experience. Our off site wedding planner was Lynda Gomez. She was very nice, but hard to get in touch with and some times took up to a week or more to hear back from her. I didn’t think much of this since our wedding was still months away, but a week before our due date came to make the final payment and still no response. The due date came and went, and I finally had to contact a supervisor. Very disappointing and stressful. I asked in many emails what the highest possible amount would be for the set up fee and I was told $250 US. We then had our phone conference a few days before we arrived and confirmed it with Denise as well. She also told me $250 US was the absolute most it would cost. Arrival to the resort was very smooth, we were greeted by Miguel with a glass of champagne and a cool towel that smelt amazing. We were taken to a side desk for check in and taken to our room immediately (even though we arrived about 1pm and check in was not until 3pm) Our room was great, very clean and everything was in working order. We stayed in the adults only section, building 2, 4th floor. We met the next day with our on site wedding planner (Hugo) to go through all of the details. Everything went smooth and had no complaints. He took us to our ceremony site to let us see it and then explained that since we had brought along so many decorations that the charge would be $350. He told us that the set up fee that I was quoted was per event… NOT all together. Since we were having our ceremony on the Sky rooftop and private reception at Plaza Zavaz, the charge would be $250 for the reception site and $100 for the ceremony site. After a lot of back and forth, he brought the price down to $300 total. That had to be paid in full in cash that day. We also had made arrangements to have a quick rehearsal of the ceremony for the night before the big day at 5:45pm (sun set if at 5:10) It was pitch black on the roof top, and no wedding planner to be found. I had to head up the rehearsal and tell everyone what to do- even though I wasn’t sure if that was right. Now on to the big day. We had flown in a photography team from the US and paid a lot of money to have them. We wanted to remember everything about the day and that was the most important part of the day. Hugo asked me to be in my room by 2:45 and he would come get me so I wouldn’t run into my groom. My personal attendant never showed, which was fine (but a phone call would’ve been nice.) Hugo showed up about 2:50pm and walked us up to the sky rooftop. When we all got up there, I was told that the minister was “stuck in traffic.†We made the decision to go back down stairs to get more photos while we waited for the minster (thinking they would be there shortly) Well, 45 minutes later, we were told someone had arrived. We met the minister in the elevator who told me she was pulled from a different resort, and got here as soon as she could. She told me the other minister was in a car accident. But when I got up the stairs, Hugo told me “her car broke downâ€. SO who do I believe??? OK, so on to the ceremony- everything went smoothly, music was great, everyone said they could hear us. Once it ended, we were offered water and champagne. Since our ceremony was suppose to be at 3:00 and didn’t start until 3:50pm, we were loosing day light, and fast. The ceremony lasted about 25 minutes and we still needed to get all photos of me and my husband, all of the wedding party pictures, as well as family. As we tried to get some pictures of everyone on the rooftop, the staff started to remove all of the decorations as we were taking pictures. (RUDE) Lets just say, that 45 minutes cost us about 500 pictures that we will never get back. The cocktail hour and dinner was held at Plaza Zavaz. Dinner was great, the music was loud and everyone seemed to have a great time. We had a smores beach party from 9-11pm. We had arranged for an amp and speakers to be on the beach so we had music. But when we got down there, the Sunday night beach party was going on right down the way. They had a live band, event though I had confirmed with the off site wedding planner Lynda, that there would be no music down there and we would have to pay extra for that. I told Hug we did not want our music, since the live band was so loud, and would be hard to hear our music. Instead of getting upset in that moment, I made a decision to not use the amp that we paid for. There was big communication in many aspects of the day. Overall, everything was set up the way we envisioned, and was a beautiful resort. The next morning, after talking with my husband about what happened in his day, I learned that Hugo was lying about what really happened with the minister. My husband told me that at 3pm when the ceremony was ready to start, Hugo approached my husband and asked “where is your minister†UMMM, you have him. After flipping through our details sheet frantically, he walked away from my husband. We are in a different country and it was in our details sheet that was included in our wedding package. THEY NEVER HIRED A MINISTER!!! We knew he would not admit it, and the next day, when we went to pick up our décor, we asked again about the minister and what really happened, and why he asked my husband where our minister was. We were both very upset that we lost so much time with our photographers, and we had paid so much money for our wedding. Needless to say, he would not admit to anything being the resorts fault and offered to give us 50% of our money back from the smores beach party. We understood that there was only so much Hugo could do and we needed to address this with a higher authority. He was very nice and tried to help as much as he could. But for all of that confusion and over a year of planning and preparing, it is not worth it in my book. When we returned to our room, to open our luggage with all of our décor in it, everything was ruined! They literally through everything in the suit cases (even the party favor cups with our signature drink still in them) We made seashell wreaths for our centerpieces, and they were completely shattered. We even had melted candle wax on the bottom of our luggage. This is supposed to be a 5 start resort. How inconsiderate… but I guess, they had our money so there was nothing we could do about it. Of course I did not share all of the great things that happened, since all the bad kind of ruined it for us. But we still had a very nice time with our family and friends. We just wish we could have looked back at our special day and remembered nothing bad at all. Good luck to all of the future brides of Azul. I hope you have a better experience then we did! I have a bunch of pictures posted on facebook if you would like to look, you can find me as Erin Feldhusen, or my email is [email protected]. We even got a few pics back from our photographers. They were AMAZING! I tried to upload a few pics on here but it wouldnt work. I highly recommend them to anyone still in need! Any specific questions, please ask. J

Hey! When in October is your wedding? Ours is November 4th. Have you decided on a photographer yet? We just booked ours and are so excited! They are offering a deal where if our dates are near each other the two couples share in the airfare! Thought I would throw it out there. Photography is one of the most important things in our day and I have done ALLOT of research! Here is there website if you would like to see some of their work. http://artistique.com/ They have been to AS numerous times and really seem to have a handle on the resort. And their style and creativity if great

November 4th 2012

Sorry, still learning how to use this site... Our wedding is november 4th 2012

Hi Ladies! I just booked our photographer and am soooo excited! It is a husband and wife team out of Portland OR. They offer a great price, AND if someone is interested in booking them and have a wedding date around ours, you get a free album and we would share the cost of their airfare! Check out their website at www.artistique.com I cant say enough about them! They have been to AS a number of times and have a fabulous creative style!

Hey Ladies! I am getting married at AS November 4th 2012. Any advice on photographers? This might be the most important detail of our day. Any brides able to give me feed back on who they used? I found a couple that I totally love, but am debating if it is worth flying them in from the US. They do offer a deal if there are any other brides that book with them within the same week, we would share the flight costs. They seem like the best deal I can find thus far..... Any input is appreciated!