loripanori

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustNoelle 

Hi Savs,

 

Was your final costs including the resort's photography? I haven't seen my tentative invoice from my WC and its stressing me out. 

We didn't get an invoice or tentative invoice ahead of time at all, but I had our final price figured out almost exactly from the various prices that had been given to me.  The only thing I was off on was the amount of credit given for not having the cocktail hour.  We also added on an extra hour of reception on impulse at the list minute, but I'm glad we did.  I stressed to Lorena that I wanted dinner to move very quickly, and she told me they would have it move as fast as our guests were eating, but it was sooooooooo slooooooooow.  Took pretty much 2 hours from start to finish (I was aiming for 1 hour!), and we only had 24 adults.  I'm sure it would be a lot faster with a buffet.  But anyway, because dinner was so slow I was happy to have the extra hour of dancing.

Our final cost was around $7650 (including photography).  It broke down roughly like this:

$3000  wedding package

$1100  photographer

  $620  flowers (3 bridesmaids bouquets, 2 extra centerpieces, 4 flower girl baskets, extra boutonnieres & coursages, flowers for the cake)

  $290  extra food & cake

  $450  extra hour of reception

  $400  sound system (2 hours - 1 hour for the ceremony, and 1 hour to play music during the first hour of the reception)

$1000  DJ (3 hours)

  $640  light-up dance floor 

  $550  extra costs for legal wedding

 -$400  cocktail hour credit

So this doesn't include our trip itself, or any of the stuff we brought with us, just the actual wedding items we were charged for by the resort. I think we may have been given a few small breaks in some of the prices when we decided to add on the extra hour, like I don't think we paid for the child's meal, or an extra bottle of champagne (for having 4 extra adults), small stuff like that.  But we also realized later that we didn't get one of the boutonnieres we paid for, and we didn't get any cake or flowers returned to our room.  I was mostly sad about this because they told us to just leave all the flowers and they would bring them up, and so I left my bouquet behind, and ended up losing my bouquet photo charm which was a real sentimental item for me.  

We took the credit for the cocktail hour, the original plan was to have our guests and the Mexican trio mingle around the beach bar and have drinks etc while we did pictures.  This didn't work quite as well as we had hoped - The photographer ended up taking us a bit down the beach (not far really, but far enough that you couldn't easily grab the people you needed for the pictures if they were still at the beach bar), and so some guests followed, some stayed at the bar, and the trio didn't really know where to go or what to do, haha.  There also wasn't a ton of room around the beach bar for our guests - there were still lots of people in the swings and on the loungers with their bathing suits on etc., plus extra people hanging around from the wedding before ours, so a lot of our guests ended up spread out and sitting on the beach loungers, which I wasn't super happy about.  For the first part of pictures, we were doing different groups of people (families, parents etc), and it was kind of tricky trying to wrangle everyone and keep people there, because people kept wondering off.  So, it didn't work super well for us, but I have heard that it worked really well for other people.  I think if I were to do it again, I would make sure that everyone followed to the pictures area for the first half hour (so that everyone you need for the different combinations of people is nice and handy), and then I would just send them all away until the start of the reception, haha.  Just tell them it's "free time" until the reception, lol. There's lots of places to grab a drink, I'm sure no one would really mind.    

In case it helps, here is an excel file showing the differences between the 3 packages.

Package Differences.xlsx

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.

Originally Posted by Eyeball17 

 

Has anyone that has Lorena as their wedding coordinator heard from her lately?  I have not heard from her since the beginning of April.  I have followed up many times and never get a response.  I leave in two weeks and I need to finalize some details before I leave so her lack of responding is making me nervous.  Is this normal?  I thought the coordinators responded more often once it got close.

I had Lorena for my wedding on the 18th, and had the same problem with not getting responses as we were approaching our departure date.  I ended up sending an email that I marked as high priority, and made it into an itemized list that was summarized all of the questions I still needed an answer to (because they were spread across a few emails at that point), and just said I needed the answer to these ASAP because we were leaving soon.  Then Question 1, 2, 3, etc.  That email finally got a response, so you could try that.  I also made a summary document with all of the important details I wanted included in our wedding and emailed that to her, and she had it at our first meeting and said it really helped a lot, so that might be something you could do to make sure everything you want is covered and listed in one place.  Honestly though, you will get so much done and answered when you first sit down with her when you arrive - you can add or change pretty much anything at that point, so don't stress too much!    

YouTube automatically detected that it has copyrighted music in it, so it may not play for all people, but so far it's still working in Mexico and Canada!

In case it will help anyone with anything...  here is the video of our legal ceremony from April 18, 2013.  This is from the videographer included with the ultimate package.  It's still fairly low quality, but I think it's improved a lot from some of the earlier videos I've seen from the resort videographer.  No cheesy hearts exploding, etc.  If nothing else it will give you an appreciation for how windy it was on our day!  lol

For the footage of us doing pictures at the end on the beach, we were closing our eyes for a few seconds and then opening them in hopes of getting less pictures with eyes squinting at the sun.  Photographer was Santiago, who was FANTASTIC.    

One of the things that drove me nuts was the inconsistency in the prices people were quoted... The price in the lighting document I had, and confirmed by Lorena, was definitely $30 per table for the lights under the table... Try to get the lower price if you can! Kellynnrose - I will send you all the decoration documents I have in just an hour or so when I get back to my laptop.

Hi Elsa, Lorena told me the lights under the table would be $30 each + tax. Hi Kerri - our wedding was at 4:00, and we did hair and makeup at 12:00 noon. This ended up working well time wise - I was done at the salon around 2:15, and the photographer came to my room to do the getting ready pics at 3:00. He went to the guys room first and did their pics at 2:30.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BettyT 

Hi,

 

I want to change my reception from the pool terrace to the beach as well! I haven't heard back from Lorena for over a week now and I don't know if I can change it at this point since my wedding is less than a month away.  Were there other receptions on the beach at the same time as yours? We don't plan to get a dance floor - do you think I will need to get extra lighting? Was it cold on the beach in the evening?

 

Thanks!

Betty

Hi Betty,

Yes there were 3 receptions the night of our wedding - we were on the North beach, there was one on the pool deck (which borders on the beach), and another on the South beach.  The receptions didn't interfere with each other at all, and we didn't hear or notice anything going on at the other receptions.  You will likely still be able to change your reception location (as long as one of the beach locations is still available).  We changed ours very last minute, I think it was just the week before our wedding.  It wasn't cold on the beach at all - I don't think anyone wore a sweater at night the whole week we were there, and definitely not on the wedding night.  And it was windy, but there was no blowing sand so that wasn't a problem (I was worried for eating etc).  We were really happy with the beach - it had a very unique and special feel.  Everyone kept remarking that it felt like a once in a lifetime sort of event, and "when would you ever do something like this again", sort of thing.  For lighting they set up all kinds of vintage-style lamp posts at no extra charge.  I'll attach a picture.  I'm not sure if they'd use even more light if you didn't have the dance floor, but I think they would make sure you had enough light for your reception.  It just wouldn't be the same fancy lanterns/tikis/etc that they charge for.  We came to realize that they weren't going to leave us all there in the dark, so they would have to set something up, haha.  Actually, a lot of our guests commented on the lamp posts that they used, that were included at no extra charge, and how nice they looked.  

Here's our flower girls dancing before the dance even started...  they all LOVED the light-up dance floor.  The lamp posts they used at our reception are in the background.

Hi Elsa, We lucked out, there was a wedding before ours (and one after - 3 at the gazebo that day), that ordered the white drapery. Lorena called me about an hour and a half before our wedding and asked if I wanted them to take the drapery down or leave it up. So we didn't have to pay for it! I'm not sure how much it normally costs, but I was so happy with how it looked afterwards in our pictures. I originally wasn't even sure if I wanted it left up, since it wasn't what I was expecting or picturing, but I'm really so happy we kept it. I think they took it down for the wedding after ours!

Whoops, only one uploaded... That's the preview image I have from Santiago. I'm gonna try to attach two more photos my guests took.

A few photos, I can't resist, haha...[/img][/img]

Hey ladies, Our wedding last Thursday was fantasic. We're still in Mexico (at Secrets Maroma this week - amazing), so I will write more when we get back. Just wanted to say that we LOVED Santiago as our photographer, he was so much fun to work with. I only have one preview image so far, but we really had such a blast shooting with him, and he took a ton of different photos that I can't wait to see. We also love love loved our reception on the beach. So glad we moved it there from the pool terrace. We had the light up dance floor but did not pay for any other extra lighting, and it was perfect. There were a few things I wasn't 100% happy with, but I almost feel bad complaining because my overall feeling at the end of the day was that the whole day was perfect. Anyway, more to come!! ps. Not sure if it's always so windy at DRC, but it was super windy almost the whole week we were there. Which is definitely nice to help with the heat, but a bit harder to work with if you have your hair down or wear a veil etc. I had a long veil and it was pretty much out of control in the wind, to the point where we had to hang on to it a bit so it wouldn't be pulled off my head. When we were signing our papers the minister told us to tuck it into the back of my dress cause it was blowing like crazy and getting in the way, but now I'm a bit bummed because for the picures from the second half of the ceremony (first kiss etc) my veil is tucked in! Lol, oh well, what can you do! Made for some great pics with the photographer later on the beach though.

Hi Nikki,  We're getting married this Thursday and have Jorge as our DJ.  We were late adding on the DJ, I'm not sure if that's why we were assigned Jorge instead of Mauricio, but I'll let you know how it goes!

Hi Nikki,  We're getting married this Thursday and have Jorge as our DJ.  We were late adding on the DJ, I'm not sure if that's why we were assigned Jorge instead of Mauricio, but I'll let you know how it goes!

Holy cow, we leave first thing Sunday morning!   I can't believe how time has flown by.  We still don't have a menu figured out - the chef emailed us once but hasn't gotten back to us since about any of our requests.  I'm hoping we can sort that out when we get there, otherwise we will probably switch to the buffet (which I would be happy with, but my fiance seems quite set on having a seated/plated dinner).  We're also still trying to decide whether to add an extra hour to our reception.  The cost of this is $15 per person (+ tax and service), plus the cost of the DJ for an hour, is that right?  We have a smallish group (24 adults, 6 children), and I just don't know if everyone's going to be up dancing!  If they are, then I would want to extend it, but if everyone is just kinda mingling around and not dancing a lot, then I wouldn't want to pay extra to extend that by an hour.  So hard to know.  

Holy cow, we leave first thing Sunday morning!   I can't believe how time has flown by.  We still don't have a menu figured out - the chef emailed us once but hasn't gotten back to us since about any of our requests.  I'm hoping we can sort that out when we get there, otherwise we will probably switch to the buffet (which I would be happy with, but my fiance seems quite set on having a seated/plated dinner).  We're also still trying to decide whether to add an extra hour to our reception.  The cost of this is $15 per person (+ tax and service), plus the cost of the DJ for an hour, is that right?  We have a smallish group (24 adults, 6 children), and I just don't know if everyone's going to be up dancing!  If they are, then I would want to extend it, but if everyone is just kinda mingling around and not dancing a lot, then I wouldn't want to pay extra to extend that by an hour.  So hard to know.  

Hey Dominique!  Hope to see you there.  What is your timeline for your wedding?  It's the last thing I'm struggling with, as I've been talking to both Lorena and the photographer about the best times for pictures etc.  Right now we have the ceremony scheduled for 4, and the reception for 6:30.  We can't do the ceremony at 4:30 but could move it to 5 or 5:30...  but the photographer said we should plan to be done all pictures by 6:45, in terms of the catching all of the good light on the beach.  So I'm not sure what to do.  I would be interested to hear how you're scheduling it all!

Thanks, Lori

I will try to help where I can!  I understand your frustration.  I am getting married on April 18th, and last night I finally had to email Lorena to ask for some immediate answers to questions I sent several days ago.  Whenever I start to freak out, I just remind myself that everyone here says that it all falls into place when you get there.  You can sort almost everything out, and add, change, and move things, when you meet with the wedding coordinator when you arrive.  

I have contact emails for two coordinators - 

Gaby: [email protected]

Lorena: [email protected]

I believe if you use the mariachi trio for the ceremony, or one of the other musicians (saxaphone etc), it costs about $50 to rent the microphone for the ceremony.  I don't have any specific info on the sand ceremony, but I think that the officiant usually reads the script.  You may be able to ask to sub in a family member, if you'd like to do that.  

We are not having an official cocktail hour.  If you don't have a cocktail hour, you can only exchange the credit for other items in the food category - usually people use this to cover some extra guests for dinner.  I think it can also cover other food items such as cake & menu upgrades.  If you don't have more than 20 guests, you probably won't be able to save much money by cashing it in, and may as well just have one.

The DJ & reception is where I struggled the most as well.  We have 24 adults, and 6 children.  Originally we were just going to play an ipod, and if people wanted to dance, then they would dance.  But...  Renting the sound system by itself is quite expensive!  The DJ ends up being an extra $120 per hour (sound system is $180/hr, DJ is $300).  So we decided to have the DJ for 2 hours, and will play a playlist for the first hour during dinner.  That way there's someone (other than us) in charge of changing songs and trying to get people to dance.  I don't know if we have enough people to have a real dance (probably not!), but I've heard lots of people say that they had 15 - 30 people and had a lot of fun with the dance part of the reception.  So we'll see!  

I'm not totally sure about this, but I think weddings only have a DJ and dance if the restaurant is shut down for the wedding.  I think I read somewhere that if you simply reserve tables in a restaurant (rather than the full restaurant), you can't play your own music etc.  I've heard of lots of people having the Seaside Grill for their reception at no extra charge (although we weren't given this option!), and I don't recall ever seeing any other resort guests present at the receptions.  If you were offered the Seaside Grill for your reception (vs reserving tables at the Seaside Grill), then you will probably have the whole place to yourselves.     

Originally Posted by kerrimaxwell 

While I am at it... I still have many questions and I would love some input! Especially since who knows if I will ever get answers from a planner or how long that will take!

 

Our ceremony is on the beach and I think we have decided to use our Mariachi Trio for the ceremony. We do need to request a microphone for the ceremony as well right?

 

If you had a sand ceremony (as we are with our 4 kids) who read the script for it? A family member or the officiant?

 

Cocktail Hour... we still have not picked a location or decided if we want to have one or try to swap it for something else. If you had one wher would you recommend the location be? If you didn't have one.. were you happy with that choice? What did you exchange it for? Where did guests hangout in lieux of having one?

 

Here is my biggest gray area....  DJ and reception. Okay, so... we have chosen to have our reception at Seaside Grill, I love that it is sort of indoor/outdoor best of both worlds. What I don't know is if the restaurant is shut down soley for us? Are we right in the restaurant with other people? We have about 20 guests right now including 4 kids. As far as music goes... do we gt a DJ for 20 people or do you think that is overkill? Should we justs it down and have dinner and not even have a reception? If we have do have the reception and they don't give us Seaside Grill to ourselves... how do you have a DJ with a restaurant full of other people.

 

So as you can see I have a MILLION things in my head and no coordinator helping! UGH! Any help would be SO appreciated!!

Originally Posted by jswllms 

 

My FI and I will be paying for our wedding ourselves so we want to stay on a budget. Do you ladies think it is tacky to put a limit on the amount of guest at our ceremony in Cancun? We will have a ceremony back home after we return.

I don't think it's tacky at all.  I'd say to extend the invitation to the people who you absolutely want there, and see how many will be able to attend, and then go from there.  If anyone questions it, just say you decided that you want a small intimate wedding with just very close family and friends.  For us, the location really cut down our guest list.  We had a huge guest list planned for a local wedding here, because of all of our extended family who would be invited, and live close by, and would definitely attend.  But once we threw the cost of a destination wedding at our potential guests, the number who would attend dropped drastically.  I actually kind of wish we limited our guest list more, because while we have mostly close friends and family going (which is what we wanted), some of our closest friends couldn't attend for one reason or another, and instead we ended up with a few aunts and uncles deciding to come who we aren't really that close with.      

Originally Posted by EmilyT 

 

Hey! I did my ceremony at 4:30.. cocktail 5:30 to 6:30 and reception 7-11. I cut back in other areas to extend the reception for one hour and IF you can find a way to do this i highly recommend it because it does go fast.. I remember not paying any  attention to time and then checking it and realizing we still had an hour left of just dancing and I was SO happy i made that decision or the party would have ended right then and everyone was having a good time. Anyway 9:30 is early BUT u can all go to the lobby bar afterwards and then desires which is where we went to continue hanging out and dancing.

Hi Emily,

Thanks for this info!  I missed it last night somehow, and just saw it now.  How did you find the lighting for your pictures?  Did you find you had enough bright light to get lots of pictures with family etc, and then also some time for sunset pictures?  If that makes sense, hahaha.  I checked and the sunset time for your date was around 6 pm, which is about an hour before ours, so I think I could definitely push back my ceremony and reception a bit.  Did it get dark during your cocktail hour or earlier? And was it pretty much totally dark by the start of your reception?  Also, how did you find this timing worked overall?  Would you have spaced anything out differently to have more or less time for pictures or anything else?

Have there been any stories etc recently about receptions on the beach?  I've been trying to see if we can switch to the pool deck, but no dice, the only options I am getting are the pool terrace, beach and ballroom (which are the same three options I was given originally). We're probably going to stick with the pool terrace, but my fiance was saying that maybe it would be nice to be on the beach.  He wasn't a big fan of the pool terrace pictures because there's "so much concrete", haha.  I seem to remember hearing that the beach isn't great for the reception, because if it's windy there's blowing sand and harder to eat, etc.  Does anyone have an opinion or any info on this?  

Hi again Vika,

No, Lorena told me that if we didn't want/need to include our parents names, we didn't need our birth certificates at all.  All you need in that case is your passports & tourist cards, 4 witnesses (arriving the same day as you) & their passports, the blood tests (which they do when you get there), and the legal form that needs to be completed and sent to your wedding coordinator in advance.  If you send me your email address I can email you a copy of the legal form so you can start collecting the information that is needed for that.  I would double check these things with your wedding coordinator as well, but that was what I was told.  We're getting married on April 18th, so we haven't actually gone through the full process yet!

Originally Posted by Savs1027 

 

 

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. 

Thanks Savs, this helps a lot.  I think I will talk to Lorena and see if we can shift everything a bit.  I previously asked her what time it would get dark, because of our reception starting at 6:30, and she told me the sunset would be around 6 and by 6:30 it would be "as dark as we want it", haha.  But I feel like this might be a bit off, we were in Mexico last year around the same time of year, and I don't remember it getting dark that early.