loripanori

Did you end up getting the pool deck?

No we didn't!  But we ended up switching to the beach from the pool terrace and really loved it.  There was something special about being right on the beach for us.  All of our guests commented on how much fun it was to have dinner and dancing right on the beach.  It was super windy on our wedding day, but we didn't have any problems with sand in the food or anything like that.  And we found it just as windy at the gazebo during the ceremony, so I think the wind could be an issue at most of the locations, depending on the day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBarks 

Hey Ladies, This is probably a dumb question but when the technician was playing your cd or ipod before the ceremony, how did they transition from song to song. The song for my bridesmaid is not going to be close to over by the time I'd be wanting my down the aisle song to start, so do they just do an abrupt stop of the first song and start playing the other, or is there some way to fade between? Just not sure how this works!

Our technician faded the songs out and started playing the next song as needed.  It seemed to go very smoothly for us, all of the songs playing at the right times etc., without abrupt changes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by emmyss 
 

Hi everyone, 

 

We are getting married in one month whoo whoo!

 

We are having our reception on the pool deck but have not requested to have more lighting (hanging paper lanterns, lights under the table, bamboo poles with hanging lanterns etc). Do you think they are necessary? will there be enough light without adding the extra lighting options?

 

Thanks, 

Emmy 

They will definitely still set up some lights if you don't purchase any extra.  They won't have you sitting in the dark!  They just charge extra for the fancy-looking decorative lights.  At our reception on  the beach we didn't pay for any extra lighting (other than the light-up dance floor), and they set up a bunch of light-post type fixtures that were actually quite cute (at no extra charge).  I imagine you might get something similar on the pool deck.  You can see them in this pic:    

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeashAC 

Was anyone told they cannot exchange cocktail hour for some kind of credit towards extra dinner plates?

I could of sworn I've read numerous ladies that were able to switch it out for credit. So frustrating if your having a lot of guests :/
Destination wedding was supposed to save us some money.

My wedding coordinator (who was switched 3X already) is now Claudia and she has informed me I can't switch it for any credit.

We definitely switched out our cocktail hour for food credit - we were given a $400 credit for it.  Which was somewhat less than I expected, since 20 people @ $26 each would be $520.  But it was better than nothing!  We were able to use the credit towards extra dinner plates (over the 20 included in the package), and the cost of extending the reception by an hour.  I would definitely try to argue and get at least some credit for not having it, make sure you say that you've talked to many brides who were married at DRC and were given credit. 

We didn't even realize that our credit card had a foreign transaction fee before using it at the resort to pay for the wedding.  Whenever we used it for smaller charges (billed in other currencies) in the past, we just assumed that what showed up on our bill was the current exchange rate.  It's certainly less noticeable on lower amounts.  Anyway, it's just something everyone should consider ahead of time and keep in mind, as the resort will definitely charge you in pesos and not USD.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBarks 
 

I have a couple questions about the gold plated dinner menu:

 

- do the planners require your guest's meal choices way ahead of time, or are guests just given the options at the reception and pick at that point?

 

- did anyone make/bring their own menus?

 

- were your guests allowed to choose between the gold menu two options, as well as the vegetarian menu? I'd like to choose the lamb and seabass options, but I think picky eaters might take advantage of the vegetarian option, if I can have all three options.

 

- did anyone order these meal options and have comments on quality?

 

Thanks ladies!

A lot of times the wedding planner will try to get you to stick to a single meal choice for everyone (plus a vegetarian option).  In the menus where it lists the appetizer, soup, salad, sea bass OR lamb, and dessert - what they actually want you to do is choose either the sea bass OR lamb to be served to everyone, in combination with the app/soup/salad/dessert that is listed.  I know some brides have been able to talk their wedding coordinator into having two choices for their guests though - in those cases, I'm almost positive you will have to send in the numbers in advance.  It's either a week or a month in advance, I forget which.  We only finalized our menu after arriving at the resort, so I'm sure a week or two ahead of your date would be fine.  My guess is that you'll still be able to have a vegetarian option, because they wouldn't want any vegetarian guests to not be served a meal.  But I would definitely confirm that you can have two meal options for your guests, because they will try to get you to stick to one only.  

My husband and I are both picky, and we honestly had a hard time finding anything on the menus that we would eat.  We had the ultimate package but ended up going with the beef wellington from the silver menu, and changed the soup, salad and dessert that comes with it (even though we had never had beef wellington before, lol).  Anyway, it wasn't our favourite meal of the week.  But they were very flexible in terms of working with us to make a menu with items we would actually eat, so that was a plus.     

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wedding2014 


for the 300 dollars higher than signed fee, did you contact the hotel about it? Or credit card company?

We didn't pursue this issue...  I don't think it was an actual billing error, more an unfortunate side effect resulting from how they do the billing.  We didn't realize this in advance, but basically the wedding coordinators give you your final total in US dollars and then you have to go to the front desk to pay your bill.  However, the front desk will only bill in pesos.  So they convert your bill from USD to pesos, according to their exchange rate.  They charge your card in pesos, and then the credit card converts this BACK to your local currency, and usually charges a fee to do so (usually around 2.5%).  So it's quite likely that the currency conversion rates at the hotel and at VISA aren't equal (especially since there are usually different rates to convert from USD to pesos, vs. pesos to USD).  Plus a fee gets added on to the conversion.  I don't think there's much you can do about it, other than paying in cash.  And I've heard that some credit cards have no foreign currency fees, so that might be something to look into.   

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZachJess2013 


Doesn't the beach bar close at like 6p tho?

The beach bar does close at 6pm...  depending on what time your reception starts, that might not work for you.  In the winter months it gets dark quite early, so a lot of the receptions start earlier.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrsSmith2BMex 

Hi Lori

We are having a legal wedding on Jan 6. Mu wedding planner says only symbolic ceremony has sand ceremony but it is something that we really want to do and include our childen ( we have both been married before and so it's a blended family sand ceremony), where you able to personalise your legal ceremony ? And how long did your wedding certificate take to arrive ? Thank you x

Hello!

We had a legal wedding and it included the sand ceremony!  Our minister's was named Pedro, and he did all of the legal ceremonies we saw that week.  I'm not sure if maybe they sometimes use different ministers that don't include the sand ceremony?  We didn't request it, or ask for it to be included, it seemed to just be included by default.  So I would assume you would be able to have it if you wanted.  We went over the legal ceremony script with the wedding planner, and didn't make any changes, but I think you probably could if you wanted to personalize it in some way.  They seemed quite flexible, even though it was a legal ceremony and not symbolic.  We were given a copy of the marriage license to take home with us, but it was completely in Spanish.  The translated & certified version arrived probably 3 months after our wedding date (we were married April 18th, and it arrived here sometime early in July).   

You can see most of what was included in the legal ceremony in our wedding video, if you're interested...  this is the video that was taken by the resort videographer (included in the ultimate package).  I hope this helps!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRv6MIAelSc

I also just found a post I made shortly after getting home containing a lot of the price breakdown... We were only given $400 credit for not having the cocktail hour, which was less than the actual cost for 20 people (I think they charge $26 per person. Anyway, thought I'd repost it in case it helps anyone.

We just had our wedding recently, so I have a lot of the prices handy.  It was one thing I struggled with in the planning, so I'll put all the info here in case it helps anyone.  We had 24 adults, 1 child over 6, and 5 children under 6 (infants). Ultimate wedding package was $2,999 (no extra tax or fees) (Anything I list as included below was included in the ultimate package but may not be included in the other packages) Photographer - We had package #3, this included 6 hours of coverage and 100 pictures (+50 from the ultimate package, so 150 pictures total) = $999 + 11% tax = $1,108.89.   Flowers:

• Brides bouquet - included
• Groom's boutonniere - included
• Additional boutonnieres for groomsmen, parents, etc. - 2 are included, extras were $20 each
• Coursages - 2 are included, extras were $35 each
• Bridesmaids bouquets - $80 each
• Flower girl baskets with petals - $25 each
• Centerpieces - 2 are included, additional were $80 each
• Decoration of cake with flowers - $40 

*  Prices of the bridesmaids bouquets and centerpieces will vary depending on which you choose. *  All flowers have 11% tax on top of these prices. Food & Beverage: 

• Dinner - Included for 20 people, additional adults are $48 each.  Children over 6 are $24 each, children under 6 are no charge.
• Champagne - included for 20 people, each additional bottle is $40 (I'm not sure how they determine how many people per bottle, but we had 4 extra adults and paid for one extra bottle).
• Cake - Included for 20 people, extra is $4 per person.  We were charged for 30 people, so they included the children/infants here.
• Extra hour of reception - $15 per person, adults only.
• Credit received for not having an official cocktail hour - $400

*  All charges in this category have a 11% tax and a 15% service fee (e.g. For the $48 per person dinner charge you will pay $60.48). Music:

• Mexican Trio - included
• Sound system to play Ipod, CDs, etc. - $180 per hour (You will be charged for 1 hour to have the sound system for your ceremony, even if it is used for less than an hour).  
• DJ - $300 per hour (minimum is 2 hours, you can use the sound system for the first hour of your reception during the dinner, and then hire the DJ for 2 hours if you like) 

* All prices in this category will have 11% tax added. Additional Decor: 

• Paper lanterns - $10 each
• Tiki torches - $15 each
• Bamboo poles with 12 lanterns hanging - $150
• Lights under tables - $30 each
• Light-up dance floor - $580

* All will have 11% tax added Legal ceremony There was a charge of $500 + 11% tax (so $555) for the extra items required for the legal ceremony (blood test, translation of the marriage certificate, etc). ** One thing to note is that the resort gives you your final prices/bill for the wedding in US Dollars, but then actually bills your credit card in pesos.  Either the conversion rate of the hotel and our bank was different, or there was a foreign transaction fee or something of the sort worked in, but the amount billed to our card was about $300 higher than what we signed and agreed to at the hotel.

I ended up putting together a word file with all of the important details for our wedding - approximate timeline, music choices, bouquet choices, menu, centrepieces etc., and sent that to Lorena in advance. She said it was a huge help - it basically just compiled all of the important details (and expected prices) in one place. The wedding planning form is so long, and a lot of things end up not applying to your wedding, so I thought this approach was a lot more useful. If anyone wants a copy of mine to use as a template, just send me an email at [email protected] as I haven't been checking here as often lately. I also have all of the legal ceremony info for the person who was looking for it, but don't have it here with me, so I will try to report back when I get home tomorrow. Happy planning!

Hello, We had 4 songs for guest seating (should be 10 - 15 minutes of music), a song for bridesmaids & flower girls walking in, and a song for me walking in. Then a song for the sand ceremony, and one for us walking out. If you are doing the legal ceremony you can also have a song for signing the papers - we didn't know this, and the technician just replayed the sand ceremony song. We had all the songs in order in an iPod playlist, and gave Lorena a list with each important event and the name of the song.

For those of you that rented the sound system.... Pre-ceremony did you play music for when your guests were congregating/taking their seats? And how did you arrange that (iPod, cd?) so that whomever is running the system can change the music to the music you have prepared for the actual ceremony/walking down the aisle? Trying to sort out how many pre ceremony songs will be needed/ how many songs (or parts of songs) I should include for walking down the aisle. Thanks in advance for any help

Originally Posted by LeashAC 

 

 

Was this for the legal ceremony?

For the legal ceremony we had a man named Pedro.  I'm not sure if he does all of the legal ceremonies, but during the week we were there we saw him doing some weddings, and Linda doing some, so I assumed Linda did all of the symbolic ceremonies and Pedro did the legal ceremonies.  But I could be wrong!  His english was also very good, I don't think anyone had trouble understanding him...  You can hear him doing our legal ceremony in our video, starting around 06:30, if you're interested:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRv6MIAelSc

For the person wondering about the extra charges for the legal ceremony...  I forget the specifics, but it ends up totaling $500 plus 11% tax, so $555 total.  This was the total for everything required for the legal marriage (the blood tests, marriage license, translation of the license, etc.).

Originally Posted by Wedding2014 

 

Hi

!!

 

Hello! Question girls about omitting the extra corsages and boutienerres and even my bridal bouquet I emailed them and got a reply that only the bouquet can be credited and it's only 50 bucks!! Did anyone not use their flowers and get credit? I was thinking of making fake ones and using the credit towards centerpieces

Hi, I haven't heard that before!  I thought there were some ladies on here who brought their own flowers and received credit for the flowers included in the packages, but maybe I'm wrong.  I know I've heard from several people that you could exchange items for credit within the same category, but I only personally did this with the cocktail hour (used the credit towards dinner and an extra hour of reception).  Seems strange that they wouldn't offer any credit at all for the corsages and boutonnieres. 

Originally Posted by Jendev 

 

Any opinions about the Desires night club? We were wanting to have the DJ for four hours instead of 3.  We might have to change it back to 3 to stick to our budget. Did anybody go there after your reception? Or would you really recommend keeping the DJ for the extra hour

One option to keep in mind is that you can rent the sound system and play your own music during the first hour of the reception to save a bit on the cost of the DJ.  We did this because I figured we didn't really need a DJ while we were eating dinner, and it worked out quite well.  Our dinner actually ran quite long - closer to 2 hours - so in the end I was kind of annoyed that we had payed for 3 hours of DJing, when we could have easily played our own music for the full dinner time (2 hours) and had the DJ for 2 hours of dancing.  We had a seated (non-buffet) dinner on the beach, and I'm not sure if that's why ours ran so long, but I did find it awfully slow.  Especially since I had stressed to Lorena in our meeting that I wanted dinner to move as fast as possible, and she said it wouldn't be a problem to do it in an hour.    

Desires is very hit or miss depending on the night.  On our wedding night everyone ended up going there afterwards, and there were two other weddings on that same day, so it was quite busy with lots of people drinking and dancing.  But other nights during that week we went in and there was hardly anyone there.  If a group of people from your wedding all decide to go together after the reception, you can kind of make your own party and it should be a good time!

We finally got our slideshow!  We were married on April 18, 2013 and Santiago was our photographer.  Funny, I just noticed that we had a lot more seaweed on the beach during our wedding than most of the other brides on here.  Not sure if it is because of the time of year, or if they were clearing it away less that week or what.  Just an observation, haha.  I wish they could have included all of our pictures in the slideshow, but there were too many for the song I guess.  Anyway, here's the link:

http://180413mcneil.dreamsriveriacancun.adventurephotos.com.mx/#/home/

Originally Posted by kerrimaxwell 

 

Hi Ladies, 

 

  I have a couple of generic questions as my wedding is approaching in 3 weeks!

 

How is the dress code in the restaurants? I know what the website lists but I am wondering how it actually is. Do men have to wear pants, can they wear shorts, kids dress, etc...

 

Also, this may be silly, do you drink the water at the resort? Brush your teeth with it? Is it filtered, bottled?

 

And last, is it extremely windy there? From the pictures I have seen it looks like it is! Is it like this all the time? This will help me with a decision on how to wear my hair! 

 

TIA!

Hi Kerri,

I think the men really do have to wear pants at most of the restaurants. I forget which ones are exempt from this rule - the Seaside Grill, Oceana, and the World Cafe I think?  I didn't notice any men wearing shorts to the "pants restaurants" while we were there.  But women have it a lot easier!  They can wear capris, skirts, dresses, and I wore dressy shorts a few times as well.  Not sure about the kids dress-code.

We didn't drink the water from the tap in the room, but we did drink the water at the restaurants, which they pour from a pitcher into a glass. I think it is supposed to be filtered/treated so that it is safe to drink.  We mostly drank bottled water though.  It's readily available at all of the bars around the resort, and in your room.  We did brush our teeth with the water from the tap in our room.  However, a lot of our group had some stomach problems while we were there, so I'm not sure if that might be why!  I know some of the other wedding groups during our week had similar stomach problems, so maybe there was just something off during the time we were there.

It was very windy the whole week we were there.  Definitely a strong breeze every single day, although some days were windier than others.  Our day was extremely windy, and I wore my hair down and with a veil like I had planned, but it does look pretty messy in some of the pictures, especially the ones on the beach in front of the water.  One of my bridesmaids had her hair tied back very neat & tight (with braids etc) and hers lasted a lot better than the others who had their hair half up or loosely up.  If you look at our video at about 6 and a half minutes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRv6MIAelSc), you can see how windy it was!  I ended having to hold my veil or tuck it under my arm or into the back of my dress for most of the ceremony & pictures, which kinda drives me nuts now looking at it.  At the same time, I loved my veil so much and am happy I wore it.  I asked the girl in the salon who was doing my hair if it was always that windy there, and she said yes, but at the same time I know some brides on here were lucky and had much calmer days than mine!  

Originally Posted by mrscowbag79 

 

Hi Ladies! I was just wondering.. Do the judges who conduct the ceremonys only speak Spanish? My Travel Agent has advised to me book a translator but I'm not 100% sure I want to do this.. especially if the ceremony can be spoken in English! Your replies would be greatly appreciated, thank you xx

We did a legal ceremony, and our judge/minister spoke English.  I think his name was Pedro.  He did all of the legal weddings I saw during our week.  His English was very good - he had an accent, but everyone could definitely understand him.  You can hear him in our video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRv6MIAelSc

The lady who does the symbolic ceremonies (Linda) also speaks English.  

Originally Posted by BrieD 

 

Hello!! I am getting married May 24, 2014 at the Dreams Riviera Cancun! I am totally excited! I have a few questions for those who have had their wedding already.

 

1) Which DJ did you book?

 

2) Which photographer did you use?

 

3) Did anyone use a videographer. If so how long and what package?

 

4) Where did you hold the cocktail hour?

 

5) What time was your wedding? What is the most desirable for pictures?

 

6) Where did you hold the rehearsal dinner?

 

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

1.  Our DJ was Jorge Chagoya from AVI-SPL.  The resort assigned him to us, we didn't choose him.  He was great with communicating in advance, but we weren't totally happy with the job he did by the end of the night.  It didn't seem like he had done any work on our playlist in advance - he played some songs from our do not play list, and he played some songs twice.  He also wasn't playing any of our specific requests, so we had to go ask him to start playing these, and it seemed like he just downloaded the ones we asked for right on the spot, even though we had sent him an extensive list ahead of time.

2.  We had Santiago from Adventure Photos.  He was great.  We still don't have our slideshow for some reason, but you can see our photos here:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152798401285142.1073741826.646940141&type=1&l=7be7db9bd9

3.  We had the videographer package included in the ultimate package, and are really happy with how it turned out.  You can see our video here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRv6MIAelSc

4.  We didn't have a formal cocktail hour, just had our guests gather at the beach bar similar to Savannah.

5.  Our wedding was on April 18th, and we had our ceremony at 4pm.  There was both an earlier wedding and a later wedding that day.  Santiago suggested this time to me, because we wanted to make sure we had good light for a lot of pictures after the ceremony.  He said if it's an overcast day you will lose light really fast on the beach, so it's better to err on the early side.  Most of the weddings I saw during our week were between 4 and 6 pm.  The sunset time for our date on this site was 7:08pm:  http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=923&month=4&year=2013&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1 The sun started to go behind the buildings around 6:30, and it was pretty dusky by 7.

6.  We also didn't do a rehearsal dinner (or a rehearsal!).  We had a small group, and didn't see the need to add an extra event. 

Hi everyone,  We had Santiago as our photographer for our wedding on April 18.  He was fantastic!  I don't have our slideshow yet, but I think you should be able to see our photos using this link:  

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152798401285142.1073741826.646940141&type=1&l=7be7db9bd9

Just thought I'd share them in case it helps anyone at all!  I know I looked at Savannah's album about 100 times as I was planning our wedding.

Originally Posted by kellynnrose 

 

just wondering what everyone else plans on doing... is anyone taking a separate honeymoon or a few days extra at the resort after the wedding?

We went to Secrets Maroma for a second week after the wedding...  I HIGHLY recommend this resort, it was amazing.  Everything was a bit of a step up compared to Dreams - the restaurants, the food, the beach, the pools, the rooms, the loungers, etc.  And the general atmosphere was so laid back and relaxing, we loved it.  It's a bit more expensive, but we thought it was worth it.  Honestly, we were at Dreams for a week, and at the end of the week I was ready for something different.  It's a beautiful resort, and we had a ton of fun, but there are a lot of kids, which I find affects the whole atmosphere after a while.  My husband and I are both picky eaters as well, and we were starting to run out of options at some of the restaurants at Dreams, so it was nice to go somewhere different and have all new menus to choose from.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by TaraLynn770 

HI Ladies

can anyone explain what the difference between the pool deck and pool terrace are? i was told i had to have at least 60 people for the pool deck which i think i will but since i didnt know my total headcount when reserving they placed me at the pool terrace. from looking at a lot of your pictures it looks like the pool deck is more of a hit. is the pool terrace by the seaside grill? i was trying to figure this out from pictures but could not.

thanks!

The pool terrace is a concrete area located between the pools. All of the receptions I've seen on the pool terrace are held where there is a square of concrete jutting into one of the pools.  You can see a reception set up on the pool terrace here:

The pool at the very top of the picture above is the infinity pool. The pool deck is on the other side of the infinity pool, between that pool and the beach.  You can see it a bit better in this picture (the wooden deck area):

I also labelled the locations on a copy of the resort map, in case that helps!  It's a slow day at work today, lol.

Originally Posted by BettyT 

 

Hi Lori,

 

Do you think I could get away with no music for the dinner on the beach since we're so close to the ocean? I'm having the mirachi band play the first 45 min of the dinner than no music planned afterwards.  My thoughts were that the ocean waves would be so loud the music wouldn't be that audible.  What do you think?

Hi Betty,

The noise on the beach from waves etc definitely wasn't loud enough to drown out the music...  they play the music on a large sound system, so that it ends up being plenty loud to sing and dance along to, but not so loud that you can't talk to people.  The music would more likely drown out the sound of the waves than the other way around, so I think it depends on whether you'd prefer the sound of music or the sound of waves.  My husband and I are both very into music, and probably would have found it too quiet if there wasn't music playing at all times.  We're the sort of people who immediately notice if we're in a restaurant and there's no background music playing.  But it's kind of a personal preference I guess - I've heard of other brides with smallish groups not having music at all for dinner, and just having dinner and then drinks and mingling afterwards.  One thing to consider is that if there are other weddings at the same time, you may end up overhearing their music since you're not playing any.  We had our reception on the North Beach, and there was one on the pool deck that started later and went half an hour longer than ours, and we didn't notice or hear their reception at all until our reception ended and the music stopped.  Without our music we could hear their music and the hooting/hollering/etc from their wedding, but while we had music playing we didn't notice it at all.    

Originally Posted by MrsShoreytobe 

 

So there are credits issued for these items if you don't want to take them (e.g. centrepieces etc)....Our thoughts were similar to yours, in that we don't care for extra flowers aside from B&G, big centrepieces, etc. it would be great to spend the money elsewhere.

Yes, I think you will get credits for most of the items included in the package, but the credits can only be used within the same category.  So if you cancel the extra boutonnieres or coursages, you can only put whatever credit they give you towards other items in the flowers category.  This works well if you want to have bridesmaids bouquets (which aren't included) but no boutonnieres or coursages (which are included).  But it doesn't really work if there are no other/different flower purchases you want.  If that makes sense, haha.

Someone asked about getting a credit for not having a dessert with a dinner - I don't think you would be able to do this, because the cost of dinner per person is just one lump charge, and isn't broken down into the different parts of dinner.  I'm also not sure if they let you take a credit for the Mexican Trio, and if so, what you can use that credit towards.  I'm assuming you may be able to trade the trio for a different type of musician, or maybe you could put the credit towards the sound system or DJ (since it's all "music")?  But I'm really not sure.

Originally Posted by DWB2B2014 

 

Thank you so much for this! This totally helps! Sadly I was off by a few thousand I'm assuming you didn't add any extra lighting then? Was it bright enough?

Our reception was on the beach, and the only extra lighting we added was the light-up dance floor.  It wasn't dark at all - they will set up lights for you at no extra charge, they just charge to use the more fun/festive lighting options, like the lanterns, tiki torches, etc.  If you don't purchase extra lighting, your guests won't be sitting there in the dark, so don't worry about that!  People actually commented on how much they liked the lamp posts that they set up for us on the beach (which were included, we didn't pay extra). You can see them in this picture that I posted earlier:  

In terms of costs, if I did it again, I would probably cut out the centerpieces - maybe just have one for the table at the ceremony and use the same one at the bride & groom's table for dinner, and then take a credit for the second centerpiece that is normally included.  The centerpieces are expensive, and they're out for such a short amount of time. I don't think anyone would have noticed if they weren't there.  I would probably also cut out all of the boutonnieres, except for the groom's boutonniere, and take credit for those as well.  Our groomsmen and parents etc had on dress shirts but no jackets, and the boutonnieres were too heavy for the shirts. I'm pretty sure most of the shirts were left with holes, and half of the bouts were flipped upside down on their shirts within a short amount of time.  So these changes would probably save a few hundred in the flowers category.  

I would probably also switch to one of the buffet options, because I don't think we would have needed an extra hour for the reception with the buffet.  We didn't have a lot of speeches - just a brief thank you from the groom and I, and a couple of short toasts.  So I think with a buffet we could have did dinner in an hour, and then would still have two hours for dancing (which seemed long enough since we had a small group).  This would save on the charge for the extra hour of the reception, as well as an extra hour of the DJ (so almost $800 in our case).  Since our dinner ran so long, we paid the DJ for 3 hours but really only needed him for 2, which bothers me.  I really don't think you need a DJ during the meal - you can rent the sound system and play an ipod, and the technician will turn off the music whenever someone takes the mic to make a toast etc.  I also wasn't super psyched with our DJ - so if I did it again I might just make a dance playlist and use the sound system rather than pay extra for the DJ.