kather2008

Congratulations Kat!!

 

Your pictures look great! Hope your wedding went the way you dreamt of it!!

 

 

My wedding is coming up on the 31st, we are leaving on the 27th!! Did you have a dancefloor for your event? They look so small on the pictures. 

 

How was your overall experience?

 

Renal

@kokobellaa

Hi!

My overall experience was great I definitely recommend beach palace!

I did not have a dance floor, but I had two standing light trees that designated the dance area. 

I hope your wedding turns out Beautiful & Congrats !!

-Kat

Hi Girls!

I came back to the thread as promised and posted some pictures to my album of the pearl shimmer package ceremony & reception.

I also posted a picture of my makeup by Tania Tangle and some of my professional pictures from photos in cancun.

Please let me know if you have any questions because I know how stressful it was for me during the planning process.

I hope you enjoy! 

-Kat

Hi!! @@yancn

I am really happy my review helped!

If I was you I would not ask them because the wedding coordinator will just try to charge you. The day of the wedding just ask for a potential extension. I found they were more flexible the day or days lending to the wedding, when I was already on site.

The Photography package is just a basic package of 30 pictures I believe and they only over the ceremony. This is why i ended up hiring outside (Photos in Cancun) they were really affordable and took gorgeous pictures.

Overall I would definitely recommend the pearl shimmer the set up was gorgeous and I felt it was worth the money especially after I applied the resort credits to the package. 

let me know if you have more questions!

-Kat

Hi Everyone!

Okay below is my full review and I created an album with pictures guests took from their phones.

1.       Beach Palace Experience Overall: Great with a rating of an A-

·         Wedding Coordinator (Marco Antonio Chuc Dzul)

I was really frustrated with Marco throughout the process because it would take me at least two weeks and several calls to get anything I wanted sorted out. It was not until a week before the wedding that Marco did a 360 and was the best coordinator I could have asked for. He started answering my emails almost instantly and on our in person appointment he made sure everything I wanted was included. The day of the wedding he went above and beyond to make sure I was 100% happy.

·         Beach Palace the actual hotel look and feel

The actual hotel is beautiful; I would recommend either an ocean front room or concierge level room. The service is great as well.

·         Welcome Dinner in the tequila Restaurant the day before the wedding

The dinner buffet was organized nicely, they set up a whole section of the restaurant for our group. The only problem we ran into were some day passes issues I will go into this in more details in the day pass section lol.

·         Day Passes

The Day Passes are the reason why I gave Beach Palace a rating of A- . The Day Passes are just a nightmare. It is really crazy to have to force all your guests to book in the palace resorts chain, especially if they are having financial issues. An example of one of the day passes issues is that we had two guests that stayed in different resort and they were more than willing to pay for the day passes for the wedding day. The problem occurred when they attempted to attend the welcome dinner the day before the wedding at around 930pm. They offered the manager to pay full for the day passes for the next day and pay half for the welcome dinner since they will only be staying for a maybe an hour and half, this would have been a total of 300 dollars. The manager will not accommodate this at all he was really stuck to his ways about them having to pay day passes the day of wedding plus welcome dinner without any discounts. I had to almost to be in tears because of how insulted I was about the whole situation for the manager to come around and agree to give the day passes for half for the welcome dinner. As a bride it was really stressful and really unnecessary since theses guests were paying full day passes the next day.

·         Vendor Fees

I got out of paying for vendor fees by just asking for day passes for my makeup artist and my two photographers Derek & Lorena. I rented two string lights for the reception from Zungia and used JSAV music equipment & additional lights. I created my own dj mix for the reception & cocktail hour. Overall I would recommend future brides to literally just tell them you need day passes and state the name of the vendor you need the day pass for and that’s it.

·         Ceremony 6:00PM

The ceremony was in the Sky Terrance and it was absolutely perfect! I was so happy with how it turned out. I used the pearl shimmer package and it was gorgeous! The pearl shimmer included a violist and they played the sounds I requested and fit the mood perfectly. We choose 6pm for the ceremony and in May/June I believe it was the perfect time because the sun is going down and it’s not too hot. In addition the colors of the sky look great as well. At end of the ceremony we had fireworks and it was a nice touch as well. It was short & sweet.

·         Cocktail 7:00PM & Reception 8:00PM

(1)Palenque terrace

We had both our cocktail & Reception in the palenque terrace. We only had 20 guests and I was hesitate about the space I thought it might be too big for only 20 guests yet the wedding coordinator made use of the space and it was perfect. I realize many other brides have gotten married in the north terrace but I personally loved & preferred the view, privacy & space of the Palenque terrace. I saw other weddings while I was there in the north Terrance and sometimes the layout was a little strange because of the pool being in the middle. I could definitely see though the north Terrance working for other brides, it’s still beautiful. I will post a picture as soon as I get them.

(2)Reception Tables

I used the pearl shimmer collection tables and mixed & match fabrics. I bought menus, place cards & table numbers that match from etsy. I will post a picture as soon as I get them.

(3)Zungia & JSAV

The string lights & candles I ordered from Zungia were perfect and exactly the look I was looking for. JSAV lights were great as well because it designated the dance floor for the reception area.

2)Photography (Photos In Cancun) Rating of A+

This is probably one of the best decisions I made throughout the process. I hired Derek & Lorena almost a year and half ago when I first started my wedding planning they were sweethearts from day 1. My husband and I meet both of them two days before the wedding just to go over details and so they could get to know us as a couple. Let me just tell you guys I am a very detailed person and I was willing to pay more, I just wanted a great photographs and I happen to choose one that was actually very affordable compared to other photographer’s. The other photographers I was looking at was Del Sol they have really impressive photos as well but I fell in love with a sun rise shoot of Derek & Lorena it was just breathtaking. They provide you all your pictures at the end of the night in a USB, I looked at them and they are so beautiful!! I really am so happy with having them capture our special day. Unfortunately my husband left the USB in the villa we were staying at so the housekeeper is mailing them to us L. As soon as I get them I will post some of the pictures. These are just raw pictures without edits and they are still so beautiful!! Derek & Lorena provide the raw pictures and you tell them which ones you want them to edit, there’s a limit depending on the wedding package you choose. At the end of the night of the wedding, they were seriously our friends, all our guests were telling us how wonderful they are. I highly recommend them, fabulous couple & photographers!

3)Makeup + Hair (Tania Tangle) Rating of A+

Tania + her assistant are wonderful! This was one of the best decisions I made because I was so happy for her work. I am usually extremely picky with makeup and have actually gotten upset over professionals doing my makeup but Tania was a totally different experience. They arrived on time at 2PM and went straight to work. She sat me in from of the ocean with relaxing music and it was really soothing. I sent her a couple of looks beforehand so she already knew exactly what I wanted. We talked throughout the process and she is real sweetheart! Really loved her and her work! So professional and clean! She is worth the money I highly recommend her!! She told me she will send me pictures she took my makeup so when she does I will post it on here for you girls to see J!

I know this was really long, but previous brides helped me so much and I felt I had to provide a detail review as well.

Hope you enjoy and please let me know if you have any more questions.

-Kat

Hi Girls!

We just got back from our wedding & honeymoon.

I just want to let everyone know I was one of the most stressed out brides I believe beach palace has seen with the amount emails I sent throughout the process lol.

I have to admit everything at the end did turn out exactly the way I wanted, so rests assure literally a week before your wedding your wedding coordinator will have 100% attention on your wedding.

I will post a full review either tomorrow or weekend.

-Kat

Was your wedding planner Elizabeth Yanez?? That is who I have but haven't been in contact with her in about a month I hope they don't switch me to someone else.  

Also a question about the day passes past and future brides.  So if you purchase a day pass for an outside vendor and a wedding guest is there an additional charge of $25 for the cocktail hour and $55 for the dinner on top of the day pass fee?  I don't have this stated anywhere in my contract or was ever told there would be an additional charge from either my wedding planner or on site wedding coordinator but on a Facebook forum the brides on there said that this was the case.  I emailed my onsite wedding coordinator to clear this up but just figured I would ask on here as well.

Hi-

Yes my wedding planner was Elizabeth Yanez before they switched me to Mario about two weeks ago.  

I am actually in the same situation. I basically told the wedding coordinator that I just need day passes for them and that they are not guests of the wedding essentially. I guess I will find out soon what the outcome is.

-Kat

My coordinator was Renee for the whole time up until last week when I was officially passed onto my on-site planner Mario and now he is taking care of us and will be the person we meet with when we arrive.  Mario gave us our site visit back in December so I am glad to be working with him again!  Renee was great as well, she was usually pretty good at getting back to me quickly and she even scheduled a few phone meetings when I had a ton of questions.  It was nice to speak to someone in person!  I would definietly reccomend planning a few phone calls with your coordinator and have lots of questions ready to ask.  She would answer as many as she could and would email any answers later that she had to check with the hotel for.

Thank you for the info! It has been extremely frustrating, going back and fore with the contract and now to find out I am being passed on to someone else. I will call them asap.

Thanks again! 

Hey!  No problem...I totally know how you feel. I was so overwhelmed before but trust me, it will all make sense and become easier.  One tip I have is to make a wedding binder and print every email coorespondance, write everything down, make copies of every contract and purchase order so when things get confusing you have one area where all your info and resources are located.  The process is painfully slow with the resort and sometimes thingss take weeks to get done so you sort of forget about stuff while you wait for a response.  My wedding binder has helped me so much! 

 

Here are some answers to your questions:

 

1) We are not doing a DJ.  Me and my sister put together a bunch of different playlists (Welcome dinner, cocktail hour, dinner music, party/fiesta music, etc).  Our MC is a friend of ours and he has all the info on when to switch the playlists and stuff.

We put all the songs in order and have told the MC not to shuffle the mix, that way during the reception it starts of with music for everyone and stuff the oldies will like and then builds up to more party dancing music by the end.  I think it will work well.  Once I have the music finished I can post the playlist songs we chose if anyone is interested!  We rented a sound system from JSAV which includes a speaker, microphone, ipod connections, mixer, etc.  We added an additional speaker just to make sure everything was nice a loud.  Here is the breakdown of the sound system costs:

$209- Basic Audio wedding package

$35- extra speaker

$335 Basic Lighting Package fopr dancefloor with robotic light tree + lighting for Lounge Palms

$100 Gobo and Gobo design fee

$220- Labour and Delivery

$143- tax

 

For the welcome dinner we are just bringing an Ipod speaker (we have a really loud one) and then our friend is playing acoutic guitar.  We made a Welcome Dinner playlist for this night.

 

2) The South Sky Terrace is the south pool area on the rooftop where they have all their wedding receptions and events. (The North Sky Terrace is the pool side that is closer to Cancun hotel zone point and they keep that area open for hotel guests everyt night).  One thing to note that since they keep the North side open you will see the odd guest coming through during your event because the womens bathroom is on the South Sky Terrace side.  During our site visit we were told about that.

 

3)I am bringing a TON of stuff from home! lol.  I have an entire extra suitcase of decor and stuff as well as all the welcome bags and contents.  I was shocked with the prices of centerpieces ($50 per centerpiece for a very basic centerpiece!) so I got crafty and put my own together.  

For the welcome dinner we are having an imperial table (one long table for everyone) and we are putting out a ton of electric candles down the center of the table.  Just keeping it simple and soft and glowy.

For the reception we have 4 round tables for guests and I put together centerpieces with electric candles and white pencil starfish around a small metal pail with a candle inside and we are going to fill it with sand from the beach.  I found these round placemats in the exact same blue color as mybridesmaid dresses so it will tie in everything nicely.  I posted a photo of it in my gallery if you want to check it out.  All in all I think I spent about $60 on electric candles and mayb $20-30 for everything else which is a great price that covers table decoration for both my event nights.

 

4) As for getting everything there safe I got some bubble wrap and packed everything in boxes and packed them all tightly in the suitcase and covered it in bubble wrap.  I also put a note ontop of everything listing the contents for airport secutiry if they happen to open it up and dig through it (I am sure 20 or so electric candles looks very odd when x-rayed!! haha.)

I plan to get the person at the check in desk to put a fragile sticker on the bag too if possible.  There isnt a ton of stuff that can break but I just dont want it tossed around, etc.

We are flying direct to Cancun so I hope that minimizes the chances that the bag gets lost in transit...but I just try not to stress about that and think positive!! lol

 

Oh and here is a another tip when choosing your buffet menus! You can swap out stuff you dont like and add things from other menus. The only restriction was that you have to take away something to add something. You cant just add things.

 

For the welcome dinner we chose the Buffet Yucateca:

We swapped out stewed pumpkin and added roasted potatoes

We swapped out butter sugar bread and added Ceviche

We swapped out marble jelly and added Petit Fours

 

For the reception dinner we chose the Buffet Cajun:

We swapped out Beef escalope and addedd Sirlon Steak with Blue Cheese Sauce

We swapped out Apple Tartlet for tropical fruit tartlet

And we also added Garlic Bread (This was not an issue to just add this because it was small)

 

The menu choosing was a hard decision for us until we learned we were able to swap stuff so I hope this helps anyone struggling with it!

Hey-

Who is your wedding planner, I recently received an email stating Elizabeth will no longer be my wedding planner now its Macro?

-Kat

Hi Kat,

Over a year ago when I was just beginning to plan stuff I was like "I am going to start making the playlist now so I am not doing it all last minute" aaaaaand guess what....I am doing it all last minute!!! lol.  Thank god my sister is a kickass maid of honor and has been putting together an awesome mix of music for all the events.  This weekend we are planning to sit down and put all the songs in the playlists in some sort of order so that the music is a good mixture and builds to higher energy songs by the end.  We are not doing shuffle because I feel like it might get stuck on a bunch of similar songs and then someone shuffles the mix or messes with something it will repeat a ton of songs. 

Hi-

Great Idea! I was thinking of something similar. A playlist for the cocktail hour, while guests are eating, and a dancing playlist.

-Kat

New question for everyone:

 

What menus are you choosing for Cocktail hour and Reception?

 

I have a phone conversation booked with my coordinator tomorrow for 9am so I am trying to get organized but am still flip flopping on some decisions like this.  I cant believe I am already 30 days out!   This year of planning went by SO darn fast.

 

Also is anyone planning a welcome dinner? We have one booked for the night we arrive on the Palenque terrace (was originally booked for the infinity deck but the hotel couldnt confirm that there wouldnt be nightly entertainment going on on the big screen....lol!  How terrible would that be if there was a movie playing during the dinner. 

I only have 30 people so I feel a dinner on the Palenque is going to be too tiny for such a huge space....but I really didnt want to do it up on the skydeck because the reception is up there two days later....decisons decisons!

Hi!

I am having the Mexican Hors D'Oeuvres for the Cocktail and Buffect Mexicano for reception.

Side Note:

I am also having a playlist with no DJ. Do you have a playlist you created already? 

Thank you! 

-Kat

We had 40 people and one speaker worked just fine!

Thank you so much!

Hi Past Brides!

Are two speakers necessary for the reception or is 1 speaker enough?

Thanks in advance!

-Katherine

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brandi Robinson 

There was enough light I think but I rented two illuninated columns, lights for under the tables and floating lights. I just did plain white lights under most of the tables because of the cost but they didn't seem to do much. I had pink under our sweetheart table and it was really pretty! The columns were awesome. Half of my floating lights didn't work... I didn't say anything to them about it because I didn't want to stress but it is annoying when you pay that much for something and they don't work.

Thank you so much Brandi for sharing!! Your Wedding looks beautiful!!

Originally Posted by Chacie B 

 

They did play good music and it was a good mix of oldie's (ice ice baby for example) and the current stuff. During dinner it was slower music which is expected. But after dinner, toasts, cake cutting they cranked it up and we danced all night long both in and out of the pool. They played one line dancing song, I think it was the casper shuffle.

 

Pics are coming in all over the place from friends and family and my husband is making an album on Facebook, but my one friend is posting a ton on Flickr and its open access so you can see some of the pics so far here:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/100295060@N02/

Thank you so much Chacie for sharing your pictures and giving us a review!!! sooo helpfull!

You were a beautiful bride!

-Kat

Chacie--

Yeah I am thinking of going to her salon for trail and paying for her to come to the resort. I agree running around on your wedding day is a big no no. 

Thanks for info!

-Kat

Chacie,

Do you have to pay some sort of fee for tania to come to beach palace? I debating just going to her salon to save money but not sure if itis worth the effort. 

When you get a chance!

Thanks-

-Kat

Thank you Chacie!

Look forward to hearing all about your wedding

Thanks Nicole!!

Hey Nicole-

Were you able to take some good pictures after the ceremony with the sunset on the beach? 

-Kat

Review*

Thanks Nicole for the wedding!!! Very Helpful

Originally Posted by Chacie B 

 

Kat,

 

I booked Tania as well for myself and my step-daughter, both hair+makeup and it was $380/total.

 

Welcome back Nicole!!! Can't wait to hear all about it!

 

I think I'm up next out of the BP Brides; we leave Aug. 7, wedding is Aug. 10.

 

Stacie

Hi Chacie,

Yeah she is pricey but I believe she is worth it. It is your special day and all . 

I booked a hair + makeup + trail too. 

I look forward to hearing about your wedding!!! I am sure it is going to be beautiful! 

-Kat

Originally Posted by Nicolew412 

 

Hi Brandi,

 

I just used Tania Tagle for my makeup for my wedding on July 12th, 2013. I only used her for makeup though, not hair. Here's a picture of my makeup...

 

 

I did airbrush makeup with MAC eyelashes. I think it was $125 total + tip. I was IN LOVE with my makeup and  Tania is sooo sweet. I cried so much and it was hot and humid, and my makeup stayed all night. I was so pleased. I'd definitely recommend her. 

Nicole,

You look soo pretty and Flawless!!!!! In love with your makeup!!! I am sure your professional pictures are going to be stunning!!

I booked Tania for Hair + Makeup as well, you confirmed I made a good choice by picking her .

How was beach palace, did everything go smoothly the day of the wedding?

-Kat 

Originally Posted by Bella Rios 

 

But if I reach my 75 rooms nights I don't need to pay for this right?

Yes this is true. If you reach 75 room nights the private function is free. 

-Kat

Originally Posted by Bella Rios 

 

hey Chacie, why do you have to pay $50 per person? I'm doing the Complimentary wedding package, and was under the impression that I would get a free dinner up to 30 guests

Hey Bella,

You do not have to pay $50 per person if you are not interested in a private function.

The complimentary package comes with a reservation at one of the restaurant covering 30 people (standard  hotel decor etc).