CDC-SRW

Talicea7812, your day is fast approaching. My FI and I can not wait to hear how all your hard work and planning turns out. Please keep us posted.

@Mark82  We fly out in 19 days. We just finished all the details with our coordinator in Florida. What an ordeal that was. We're both glad that part is over. Where are you getting married at? Our wedding is at Azul Beach.

Hello ladies,

 

Well, we got our date set for our wedding next year, but now we need to choose a photographer. Most of the photographers I see that are partnered with Lomas kinda suck   I really like Sarani but she is also very expensive...

 

Fellow Azul and El Dorado brides, who did you choose for photography? Did you go with an approved vendor, or bite the bullet and pay an outside vendor fee?

 

Thanks in advance!

@ Travelgal78  We are getting married at Azul Beach on 4/19. We thought the same thing about the Karisma photographers. We didn't like the quality. We chose to bite the bullet and went with Playaweddings for photo/video. We did have to pay the outside vendor fee, but Playaweddings discounted the package price to offset the vendor fee.

@kaleighMCL  we were wondering the same thing about the timeline for the actual ceremony. We are just having a symbolic ceremony and wanted to print some sort of program for our guests but do not know what order things happen.

@

I could be wrong, but if you are bringing your own photographer and they are staying in the resort as a guest, you would not need to pay the outside vendor fee.

 

According to Azul the set up fee is up to $5 per person.  So I'm estimating $120 for setup.

 

@Telicea7812  We've been trying to get a straight answer from our Karisma planner on this cost. They say $5.00pp to set up. Is that for everything? Per location? Per item? Do you know?

One thing we are doing for suitcases is going to the local thrift stores. We've found 2 pretty nice suitcases for under $15.00ea. We're just going to leave them down in Mexico once they have served their purpose.

@@talicea7812

So, onto this little tidbit of information. We've been wanting to find out what the cost is for the people at the resort to set up certain aspects of the ceremony and reception, i.e. chair sashes, table runners, lights etc, etc. Our coordinator has told us the set up charge is $3.00-$5.00 per person. They have not clarified what that entails though. Is that for everything? 

On another side note, we found a place that sells really inexpensive decorations. the website is www tableclothsfactory dot com. They sell chair sashes for .49ea. Karisma/Lomas wants to charge us $5.00 each!

@ Talicea

We only have 19 people. We are planning on having a tent on the beach, but Chil was my FI second choice.

@ Talicea

If I remember, the road is about 2-3 miles, maybe. It definately can't be walked.

Seein the pictures posted about Chil terrace is interesting. Our planner in Florida told us that we could not use the Chil terrace for our wedding reception.

@ talicea7812

We are paying $1500 for 4 hours through Azul. It's more that what we wanted to spend, but the I-Pod/Dock solution just didn't make sense for us.

We are arriving at Azul on Wednesday the 17th.

@@talicea7812

Our wedding is the week after yours. We arrive on April 17. Maybe we'll bump into you and we can chit-chat abou how our day turned out. We are holding out hope that once we get on site, the coordinators there will have a much better handle on things.

For our decorations, we are keeping things minimalistic. We are trying to let the beauty of the resort and ocean provide the decorations. We are just adding little touches, hurricanes, votives, lights.

We were undecided on the cake and chose to go with cake pops decorated like little bride and grooms, but those are going to cost us $200.

We're using the Azul DJ and hoping for the best.

@talicea7812   We really didn't like the photographers that Azul offers and we are going with Playaweddings for photo and video. Although that choice will require us to be robbed of the $800 outside vendor fee, Playa is discounting our package to offset that and their work looks so much better than the vendors Azul uses.

Also, We've been following your plight with Azul and the outside vendors. We've done a little research on that as well and what we've discovered is that if you plan to use someone for flowers/cake/decor and plan to meet them, they will not be able to get to the resort. You will have to take a taxi to meet them offsite. They will not be able to get past the guardshack at the front gate by the main road. Just keep that in mind.

I found veil weights on Pinterest by savetheveil.com, I'm thinking about using them myself haven't made a final decision though,  might be a good option if the wind is too bad. 

Hi Talicea, I found your blog very interesting to read as I too am experiencing many of the same problems as you are.  My wedding is the following weekend on April 19.  I am on my 4th planner in FL with Karisma.  Our 1st planner had been great but left the company to pursue her education.  The remaining 3 have been horrible.  I experience the same issues with the emails going unanswered or not at all.  I know all will work out in the end but this has not been a positive planning experience for us.  I feel your pain.  

I've been searchin every post in this thread for something and I'm not having any luck.

A while back someone posted a few of these BLUE first aid kit templates in different colors. I can't find that post to save my life.

Does anyone remember the post I'm referring to? The search function proved to be no help.

Here is the blue template. I'm looking for orange and fuschia.

first aid kit label.doc

Hi Mibosox, we had the same questions when we wanted to work on our boarding pass invites. We found out fast that we are not that creative and didn't have the time to design and print.

We found a company on Etsy called AprilTwentyFive. Amir and Katrina are fabulous to work with and their quality is incredible. Their prices are reasonable too!

Sorry for the duplicate post. Originally posted this in the archive section by mistake.

I am looking to purchase a gently used 66" Wallybag Garment bag.

Thanks in Advance,

Candace

Looking to buy a gently used 66" WallyBag garment bag.

Thanks,

Candace

Paul, you are doing our wedding in April next year. We can't wait to work with you. Your work looks outstanding.

When we went down for the Dress Rehearsal, we stayed in one of the deluxe rooms that has not been renovated yet. I would give it 3 stars. It wasn't that bad. The food on the other hand was wonderful. My only complaint would be with the breakfast options, buffet only, but i'm not that big of a breakfast eater.

We really liked the set up with the dancefloor on the beach. It's ONLY $250.00 hahaha.

When we went down for the Brides Dress Rehearsal, there was a wedding at the resort that weekend and they had everything on the beach. We fell in love with the way their reception was set up. They had a tent with a dancefloor set up outside the tent. That is the way we are hoping to have ours set up as well. We are having a welcome party on Friday night at the Waves lounge along with a cocktail party after the ceremony there too.

We are having a difficult time with decorations for the events though. The Karisma people keep referring us to the Lomas Travel website. Maybe it's just us, but we can't seem to get our vision across to them.

Vanilla871, we were assigned Christine Fernandez as well. So far everything has been going well with her on our end too.

Where are you planning on having your reception?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanilla871 

Who is your coordinator? I hadn't heard any replies to questions and then find out that she's no longer with the Karisma. Have you had any trouble with yours?

Not to but in..but I couldn't help my self....

We are on our 3rd Karisma planner. We send questions with no reply. We send a followup and then we find out the person we've been working with is no longer with the company.

I know our wedding is still 6 months out, but that is no way to handle customers. Just a simple we have received your email and are working on it would be wonderful to recieve.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tracey lynn 
 

Which photographer did you choose? I have been looking at other photographers today, the difference in quality is amazing! Pretty positive we are going with Samuel Luna. His  pictures look fabulous and he is surprisingly affordable. Thanks for your input, it helped me realized what I booked through the hotel isn't what I really want.

We made the trip down for the Brides Dress Rehearsal in March. Looking at the photographers that they offered, we were really unimpressed. We did some research and really loved the work that PlayaWeddings has done and chose them. You wil be hit wih the outside vendor fee, but PlayaWeddings discounted the package we chose to help offset that charge.

Photos and Video was the one area I did not want to go cheap. With many people not being able to go to Mexico and be there, I wanted the photos and video to be top notch.

Take a look at PlayaWeddings, I don't think you will be disappointed.

Our colors are fascia and orange. We ran into the same issue with planning and not knowing how many are going to attend. We just winged it and hope we guessed right. Lol