DaryaB

Ok ladies, Wish me luck! We are leaving Saturday morning. I'm so excited!!!

Hey ladies, I need an advice. Do you tip the photographer, videographer, DJ, etc? How much? And how much should I tip the wedding coordinator? We are leaving on Saturday and I just want to make sure I have all the $$$ straightened out. Thanks!

We are using Arpason for our music for the ceremony, they seem like great musicians there's a harp, violin, and flute. I'll let you know how they are.

I picked coral and turquoise for a beachy theme.

Mikeycelle, I just saw your post to Breanna and realized that you are getting married on my birthday, April 19! What a coincidence Breanna, welcome! I'm freaking out a little bit... We are leaving in almost 3 weeks. I just want to make surei don't forget anything. Shannon, Not sure if you are still checking this blog, but congrats on your upcoming wedding! I believe it's coming up really soon. Let's us know how it went

I'm leaving for the wedding in 40 days!!! So exciting! I got everything booked except musicians for the ceremony. We got a photographer, videographer and DJ for the reception so that should be fun. I decided to skip OOT bags because we have 50 people coming and I already went over budget. I got really cute favors that will work as place cards too. I found this company Maracas Mexico online and they do awesome custom made maracas. You can pick from so many different colors of base paint and design paint and give them the design and the wording you want. Mine go with the wedding colors: turquoise maracas with coral flower (I sent them an image of our invitations) and our names and the date. And the best part is they will ship it directly to the resort so I don't have to take up extra space in the suitcase. Speaking of suitcase, how are you all transporting your dresses?

Mikeycelle, I want to do live musicians for my ceremony as well. I should get information back this week from a couple of them and I'll pass it on to you.

How excited are you?!? I'm getting married 3 weeks after you. You'll have to give us an update when you return

Another's question... Can anybody recommend a videographer? Some of my family and friends won't be able to make it so I thought they'd love to have a video. Thanks!

Hey ladies, are you picking out your flowers and cake ahead of time or are you going to decide on those when you get to GP?

Hey ladies, have any of you picked out the menu for the reception. We are doing ours at La Laguna so Vanessa sent me all of the different menu options. I wanted to switch out one of the sides but he told me there were no substitutions within each menu choice. Did any of you have better luck with changing up the menus?

Mikeycelle, have a great time and please keep all of us posted on how it went. I hope to see lots of pictures! Samantha, the witnesses don't have to be bridesmaids or even family, I think they mentioned that they can even provide them for you. It's for some kind of legal purposes.

Shannon, Sorry it took me so long to reply. You are way ahead of me when it comes to planning the little details. I haven't thoight about the decorations for teh recption yet. I was going to ask Vanessa to send me some pictures of how the regular set-up looks like. From pictures of other weddings it looks like they already decorate the restaurant for you. I have short hair so I will probably do it myself and have my girlsfriends help me with the make up. I'm like Samantha when it comes to getting my make-up done by a stranger. I don't want it to look unnatural. It is so generous of you to get the groomsmen suits and bridesmaids dresses. I wish we could do it but we I have 8 bridemaids and I think we have like 10 guys. I went to a friend's destination wedding 2 years ago and she had little pop-up coolers (which I still use to this day) with some snacks, bottle water, gum, and sample-size meds like tylenol, tums and pepto-bismol that all of us had to use at some point I was planning on doing something similar and also include spf chapstick, sunscreen, aloe for those that get sunburnt, and bug spray. My friend also did the maracas as the favors. I will have to do something else because I don't want it to look like I completely copied her idea. But we all had fun with the maracas during the reception Have any of you ladies picked out your flowers?

Shannon, Wow, 100 guests! That's a great turnout for a destination wedding. Based on the photographer reviews on this forum I booked Sascha Gluck. He is very reasonable, I'm paying $2,600 for 8 hours for Sascha and his assistant. Our ceremony is at 4 and the sit down reception is at La Laguna from 7 til 11pm so we wanted to do a cocktail party for 2 hours to keep our group together and entertained. For the reception we booked DJ Doremixx (they had great reviews too). I thought it was a good deal: $800 for 5 hours. Music is important to us and my friends love dancing so we thought we'd get a professional for that. They have been great so far, sent me all kinds of song suggestions and they are open for suggestions. Samantha, I'm still debating about live music during the ceremony but that's a little pricey. Here's the price list for music I got from Vanessa: Mariachi Band (8 men) $775 for 45 minutes Trio Band (3 men) $350 for 45 minutes Live Band - 3 musicians $625 for 1 hour Live Band - 5 musicians $975 for 1 hour As for the cake Vanessa said they can try and do anything you ask for but they do not work with fondant. I was thinking about getting white frosting and decorate it with fresh flowers to match my bouquet but I haven't picked the bouquet yet. I got the pricing for the bridesmaids bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, etc. if any of you need it.

Shannon, $20/person for ceremony is when you have more than 8 guests. $20/person is for set up of chairs, champagne toast, and cake. Some brides onthis forum asked for no cake and champagne, so just the chair set up is $4/person.

Samantha, Yes, lets keep in touch. Are you going to send Vanessa pictures of what you want the flowers and cake to look like? She told me that they can try and match it as close to the pictures as possible but I think I want to get their flower catalog first to see what they get to work with.

Hi Ladies! I've been following this thread for a while and finally joined. I'm getting married at the GP on October 25, 2012. I just want to say thanks for all of the posts, I really have learned so much. To the newest brides: Manda and Jena, you girls looked beautiful, I can't wait to see pictures from all of the upcoming brides. I'm sorry to hear that some of you had trouble communicating with the WCs. I've been working with Vanessa and she is great, she usually replies within 24-48 hours. I'm getting married on the beach, I alway loved having my toes in the sand. I saw a lot of pictures in the beach gazebo, but does anyone have any beach pictures? Manda, I booked Sascha for my photography, you gave him great recommendations. How many hours did you get him for? I just want to make sure I booked enough time. Did the hotel provide transportation from the ceremony to cocktail party and then to reception? We are doing the reception at La Laguna (we also had an option of El Gran Azul) but it was closer to our cocktail party and it seemed from the posts here that La Laguna was more popular. Dancing is really important for us so we wanted a professional DJ. We booked DJ Doremixx because of their reviews in the area. Did anybody have personal experience with them? Thanks!!! Darya