Savs1027

I dont know what smart jeans are, but men can wear jeans. John didn't wear slacks/trousers at all the entire trip (except for the wedding day!) so it's definitely allowed. We even saw several people allowed in the restaurants with shorts on.

Technically you're only allowed $300 worth of goods per person. If you make sure your stuff is spread out between people, they wont stop you. We took a bunch of decorations, maracas, bubba kegs, OOT bags, and all the fillings and we just made sure we didn't have all the maracas in one suitcase and all the bubba kegs in one suitcase, etc. Put 3 or 4 here and there and it looks just like you're bringing them for you. I would recommend bringing all of your receipts incase they stop you. I heard that they'll look at them and they dont really feel like calculating it all up so they will let you through. If they ask, just tell them a dollar amount that's less than $300 and you should be good.

the night they did that was a Saturday. I dont know if it's always the same though. That was the only night they did all the vendors while we were there. They have people blocking the area off so no one could come up to your reception and interrupt, but people could walk very very close. But honestly, it's like this no matter where you are. We were on the pool deck and in our wedding video you can see all the people in the pool hanging over the edge watching us cut our cake and the first dance. I had no clue at the time. You're so caught up in the moment you won't notice people. But there might be random people in your pics/video like ours!

Are you talking about like going from the hotel into Cancun to sightsee? I would NOT recommend taking a city bus at all. Take a cab. They also have tours you can go on which I would really recommend if you want to go in to Cancun.

congrats! I'm no help with the TA question but might can help with the others When we were there, there were receptions at the same time on the deck and terrace and I will say that they were competing on the music. They both had DJ's. Our room was on the second floor of the resort right by the wedding gazebo and we could hear both sets of music from our room. But if you are right there in the middle of your reception, the sound might be different. Just from an outsider I could hear both. Otherwise they are far enough apart where you wouldn't have to worry about it being chaotic. To book the DJ, you contact him directly. To get the light up dance floor you let the wedding coordinator know. If you decide to use the DJ and you are going to use the sound system for your ceremony, you can ask him to be your technician for that too. He'll get all the music for you so you dont have to bring a CD or iPod. Hopefullly this helps

The pool terrace definitely isn't as pretty as the pool deck, but there was a reception there when we were there and it still looked great with the light up dance floor and all the lighting! But it is RIGHT in the middle of the resort and people walking by. They had Mexican night the night of that reception which meant they had alot of booths set up with vendors, etc. So there were people EVERYWHERE. We could have walked right up to the reception if we wanted to. So that's something to think about. As far as the beach goes... the pool deck is pretty much on the beach. The wind wasn't a problem for us until the rain came. Is there a reception on the deck that night so you can't have it? If there is a reception on the deck it seems like the beach would be almost too close to the deck.... unless they do it alot further down not right in front of the resort.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=923&month=4&year=2013&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1 Use this to see the sunset times. Anel advised me that the beach got darker about 30 minutes before the time listed which was pretty accurate. April 18th is after the time change so it's not going to get dark until 6:30ish. If it were me I'd start the ceremony at 5 or 5:30 and then you'll take pictures during sunset on the beach! Then you can push the reception back to 7-10 or 8-11!

We had our legal ceremony here the Saturday before we left at our church and it didn't take away from our real wedding in Mexico at all. We invited just our parents and siblings and bestman and all had lunch and cake afterwards and it was perfect. We aren't going to celebrate that date and we dont even consider that our wedding. I'm really glad we did that before hand so we could semi-relax before the wedding in Mexico. I didn't want to waste 4 days getting blood work, going and getting paperwork done, etc. It was enough going to all the meetings with everyone. Everyone is different, but I'm really glad we did ours the way we did. I wouldn't change it at all.

I would definitely check with the hotel to make sure it's possible. I had a symbolic but just from the research I did it seemed like a lot of stuff that had to be done before hand. I think your birth certificates have to be translated once you get to Mexico.

Ceremony 3:30 "fake" cocktail hour Reception 5:30-8:30. Because of the rain though we were extended until 9:30. I felt 9:30 was fine to end. I was SO tired and ready to go to bed!! haha. We all went to Desires after the reception, but there was a Monday night football game on and no music or dancing. If you have a big group of partiers or want to have an "afterparty" then maybe 7-10 would be good and then go to Desires afterwards. I think 10 is when the music starts there. We went one night and there was a wedding party there and it was a lot of fun. Could you start your ceremony at 4:30 or 5 instead? It's lighter this time of year so the sun shouldn't be an issue if you start later. We started at 3:30 in december and I wish we would have started at 4 for more sunset beach pictures. We were just a little too early.

I completely agree with this!!! Mariachi band was one of my favorite things about our wedding!!

The runner and the shells were provided by the resort! I think they are standard in the ultimate package. We didn't ask for them and they didn't tell us they were going to put them down so that's why I'm thinking they are standard

I don't know if I shared these, but if I have, there are some new ones... These are the pics that we got on our camera from the trip plus the ones our guests uploaded to our shutterfly share site. It shows alot of the resort so you can get an idea of what it looks like. I made the album public so y'all can see; (this album has our shower and my bachelorette party pics too so skip past those if you want. The wedding ones are closer to the bottom) And if there are any newbies here are all my links: My review: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/products/dreams-rivera-cancun-resorts-and-spa/reviews/6785 My planning thread: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/84658/savanahs-planning-thread-12-17-12-dreams-riviera-cancun Link to our 2 slideshows: http://171212ryan.dreamsriveriacancun.adventurephotos.com.mx/#/ryan/ Link to our ceremony video done by the resort: Link to our storymix video: http://www.storymixmedia.com/weddings/gallery.php?k=savanah-john-ryan (click the very first video) Link to my blog: http://www.savanahsmiles.com/

I don't think you can do that. The only way you can switch is if it's the same category, like food for food or flowers for flowers. They might do it, but I don't think you can.

You're welcome! Have so much fun!! You'll love it there!

yay!!!!! definitely keep it in the bag! I found the best way to do it is lay it flat in an overhead bin and close it!

Yeah I completely agree! Santiago burned our CD for us right there in less than 5 minutes. Most photographers now let you keep all the images on a CD - They've already edited them anyway. I also used shutterfly to get my images printed - they are very reasonable priced. And they do discounts all the time. So look in to that!!

I have the brochure if you want to buy the PDF from me... I can personalize it for you and you can print wherever you want

i HIGHLY recommend Shutterfly for your albums!!! I made both of our parents one and all of our grand parents one on there. They loved them! And they are so much better than the one we got from the resort! We paid $500 for 50 extra pictures. The original price I think was somewhere closer to $800. I said I'll give you $400 and he came back at $500. I was so sick of being in there looking at pictures, I was like fine! haha! My husband was so mad at me for that! He thought we could have gotten them for cheaper.

The Lobby Bar is the best place to meet up!! It seemed like all of our guests congregated there every night no matter what! They are open all day and are open until 1am!! I wouldn't recommend Desires.... it was always different and some times they do wedding parties up there. Sugar Reef I think is the swim up bar so I wouldn't recommend that and the Barracuda Bar is the beach bar with closes at 6pm.

I don't really have any suggestions, but I just wanted to tell you that I'm so sorry and I'll be praying for your family. I know this news has to be devastating, especially with planning a wedding. I know how important it is to you to have your mother there and this news just has to be so hard. I'll be thinking about y'all. If it were me in this situation, I think that I would get married in the UK where my mom could be there. I think all of your guests would understand the reasoning behind it. We weren't in the same situation, but we did get legally married here in Houston before we left for Mexico. It didn't change anything and all of our guests knew about it.

I actually ordered them from an Etsy shop called Marrygrams. I needed something quick because I waited until the last minute to decide I needed those and she was in Houston and I actually got them the day after I ordered them. I'm sure you could make something like this easily if you have the right paper!

Yup, I just gave them the cards and they had the little holders

i completely agree!!! They already have them all edited so they are just going to throw them away anyway. It's just another way to get $$ i guess!!

I didn't question it when they told me that so maybe if you tell them you want the 2 that are included they'll do that for you! I'm not too happy with the quality of the upgraded one so I wonder what the regular ones look like! Or if that was just a line I believed so they wouldn't have to make 2 haha