reynbow

@@BethanyDanielle while customer service wasn't 100% up to par, overall we were satisfied. Check-in was not the most efficient for everyone and room service was very slow, but the execution of the wedding events and the resort itself were great. If you get a chance to scout venues I highly recommend checking out the resort.

@@valmarie99, I paid for a deluxe room for our DJ and photographer to share for 3 nights.  To my understanding, unless the policy has changed, you're able to bring an outside DJ and/or photograher if you pay the outside vendor fee or if they are your "guest" that stays and pays for at least 3 nights.  Good luck!

Oh cool!  Best wishes to you @@BecomingaRiggio!  On the whole, the food was excellent.  The sushi and Italian restaurants I didn't care for much though.  The Mexican food, poolside food, and Thai food were my favorites.  Food at the wedding was very good, though I wasn't paying attention to it much Got great feedback from our guests though.

I do have critiques of Azul Fives.  Feel free to contact me for details.

This website, Best Destination Weddings, was so helpful for me the past year for planning our destination wedding.  It helped me select my vendors and figure out a lot of stuff, so I do want to thank Tammy, everyone at BDW.com and all our vendors.  Below is my review of our wedding and an album of select photos.  Forewarning: this post is quite extensive!  Feel free to contact me for any questions, additional info

Wedding Date:  February 14, 2015

Location: Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Number of guests: 150 people (including kids)

Ceremony and Reception Venue:  Azul Fives Resort

Hotel Wedding Coordinators:  Brigitte Castro (Karisma Sales), Gaby Iturralde (Azul Fives on-site), Angie (Lomas on-site)

Wedding Planner: Erica Bressan – Weddings in Playa

Flowers:  Lomas

Photographers: Vincent van den Berg and Petar Gachevsky – Pixan Photography

DJ – Ricardo de Pavia and crew – Discomovil

Bride's Hair & Makeup: Daisy - Azul Fives Vassa Spa

Bridal Party Hair & Makeup:  Estetica Tantadell

Henna Artist:  Darcy Vasudev – Henna Lounge

Travel Agent:  Teresa Stauring and Deanna Delgado – Vacations 4 Less

Airport Transportation:  Cancun Transfers

Excursions:  Edventure Tours and H2Oh Sun Cruises

Venue: Azul Fives Resort (review on site, food, hotel coordinators, flowers)

SITE:

My now-husband and I scouted 9 venues in the Riviera Maya in April 2014.  Since we needed a venue that could accommodate 150+ people, thankfully this limited options, though 9 venues to visit was a lot in one weekend!  This included:

  * Now Sapphire

  * Grand Coral

  * Villa Sol y Luna (just a drive-by)

  * Playa del Secreto

  * Blue Venado

  * Azul Fives

  * Ak'iin Beach Club

  * Las Ranitas

  * Papaya Playa Project

  * Zen Serenity

We ended up selecting Azul Fives which was our second choice.  Our first choice was Papaya Playa Project.  Beautiful unique location in Tulum, but was too costly and restrictive.  Azul Fives was also an amazing location, and since it’s located in Playa Del Carmen, this made it quicker for our guests to get and to from the airport which was a plus.  Azul Fives worked out wonderfully since we had multiple days of events and mostly all of them were held at the resort.  This included a mehndi night in our suite, a welcome party on the beach, a farewell brunch at one of the restaurants (Flavours buffet) and our wedding.  We had our ceremony on the Sky Deck, which definitely had a WOW factor for our guests.  The Sky Deck is basically a rooftop overlooking the ocean.  We liked that it wasn’t directly on the beach but had a magnificent view. Having the ceremony on the Sky Deck includes a live webcast of your wedding.  This was great for our guests who couldn't make the wedding.  The video is still available on Karisma's website.  We had cocktail hour directly after the ceremony, one level below the Sky Deck, on the Sky Terrace and the Zky Bar, which also afforded great views of the ocean, and our reception in the poolside garden. 

Most of our guests stayed at Azul Fives and loved it.  It’s a family-friendly all-inclusive resort and has excellent food compared to other AIs.  Our guests received wine and spa credits through our travel agent which many used.  The feedback from our guests who went to Vassa Spa was that it was one of the best spa experiences they’ve ever had.  We loved the layout of the resort.  It’s not too large.  For the most part, the service was excellent.  Our guests loved the 24-hour room service.  The hotel accommodated our special requests.  We are thankful for our personal concierge who helped make special arrangements for us.

FOOD:

The food and drinks at all our wedding events were bountiful and amazing.  At least that’s what our guests said since we didn't get to taste everything We are very thankful to the hotel chef, Manuel, who accommodated our special requests for the wedding, which included arranging a whole roasted pig for our welcome party and making Indian cocktail bites to our liking for our cocktail hour.  The tandoori shrimp were gobbled up.  Wish we had ordered more! We had a bbq on the beach for our welcome party.  We had agua frescas at our cocktail hour and reception, a tres leches and coconut wedding cake, and late night tacos at the end of our reception.  All were hits.  My only regret was not requesting that the agua frescas were labeled and that I knew where the taco station would be located.  They weren’t very visible for our guests so not everyone knew about them. 

HOTEL WEDDING COORDINATORS, FLOWERS:

If you’re having your wedding at a Karisma property and began planning your wedding, you already know how the process and costs work.  If not, be prepared to hit some road bumps which is inevitable when deciding to have a wedding at an all-inclusive corporate resort chain. 

When you’ve accepted the system that Karisma sets up, then you’ll put the blame on the system and can appreciate the hard work that the coordinators do for you while sticking to the system.  My coordinator up until we arrived at the hotel for the wedding was Brigitte Castro.  Brigitte was very pleasant to work with and responded as quickly as she could to my many emails, considering the Karisma sales team is based in Miami and she has to coordinate with the on-site coordinators in Mexico which is why some responses were delayed.  The weeks leading up to the final selection and payment deadline to the hotel, Brigitte was extra attentive and worked with me to make sure all the details were taken care of before I submitted the final payment.  I'm very grateful for the customer service when it was needed the most.

The on-site wedding coordination team was also as fantastic as could be.  They were easily accessible during our whole stay, made great suggestions, helped with our last-minute changes, and executed each event magnificently.  The Karisma/Lomas team did a beautiful job setting up our decorations for each of our events. (We brought a lot of our own decorations because Lomas overcharges for practically everything.  This is again something you must accept if you’re deciding to have your wedding in the Riviera Maya at a corporate hotel chain that makes their $$ by creating a wedding service monopoly at their resorts.)  I’m very thankful for Arturo, Gaby, Angie, Lucely, Maribel and Esmeralda, for the time and effort they dedicated to us during our wedding week, and for being as flexible and accommodating as possible.  They have a tough job dealing with brides and grooms only when brides and grooms are at their most stressful time, so I give them mad props.  The staff were great at delivering our welcome bags to our guests upon their arrival as well. 

FLOWERS:

The flowers were expensive but beautiful.   Our wedding was a fusion Filipino-Indian wedding, so we had strings of flowers hung on the back side of our wedding gazebo (mandap).  These were later used for our reception to decorate our sweetheart table.  We also had flower garlands for my husband, both of our parents, and me during the ceremony.  They were beautiful, made out of carnations and roses. 

Wedding Planner: Erica Bressan from Weddings in Playa

Erica was a life-saver for our wedding. She helped my husband and I scout some of the venues before we decided on Azul Fives.  While our hotel had its own wedding coordinators, I needed someone who represented my best interests, so I hired Erica.  She has many years of experience working as a wedding planner in Playa and therefore she has a great network and is very resourceful.  She helped with recommending photographers, DJs, and with sourcing decorations, favors and items for our welcome bags.  She also served as our day-of-coordinator. We picked Erica in part because she already had experience working with Azul Fives as the day-of-coordinator for a previous wedding.  After we decided on Azul Fives, I returned to Mexico three months before the wedding to do a deeper site inspection and Erica met with me and drove me to local shops in the area to look for the items we needed, which saved us a lot of money and the hassle of transporting stuff on the plane. She participated in our coordination meeting with the hotel coordinators, helped order and pick up the local decorations and favors, facilitated our wedding rehearsal and was great at keeping things moving on our wedding day. During the whole planning process, Erica responded promptly to all my emails and we chatted via Skype as necessary. She was great. I'm so thankful for Erica and Weddings in Playa.

Photographers: Pixan Photography

Since having great photos that captured our wedding was very important to us, we took the decision of selecting a photographer very seriously.  I contacted 12 photographers in the Riviera Maya area, narrowed it down to three photographers, and decided on Pixan.  I chose Pixan because I loved both the artistic and photojournalist look of their photos.  Vincent was a very warm, jovial person which I appreciated.  And the overall package price for the level of service we wanted was very reasonable.  Our package includes a website that we can easily share with our friends and family and a photo album of 80 shots which we get to select for the album.  I had the chance to meet Vincent during my site inspection and he took the time with me to find great locations to shoot our photos.  Before the wedding, Vincent provided a must-have shot list for my husband and I to complete, which I appreciated, so he knew the shots that were important to us.  Pixan shot four days with us: our mehndi party, welcome party, wedding, and a post-wedding shoot.  Petar was Vincent’s assistant and second shooter.  He was also wonderful to work with.  They did some pretty crazy shots, many without us knowing what they were doing, and lots of WOW shots.  Vincent has an old Leica camera and different lenses that make incredible photos.  We’ve received the sneak peak photos and they’re beautiful.  We also hired Pixan to do our photo booth during the reception.  Our guests loved the props and the photos showed how much fun we had.  I only wish we had the photo booth open during the whole reception instead of just towards the end. I can't wait to see the rest of our photos.

DJ: Disco Movil Cancun

All of our vendors were fantastic, but since music is so important to my husband and me, we were especially happy that we made the decision to go with Discomovil.  From my first email communication with Ricardo, I was impressed.  We communicated multiple times before the wedding and Ricardo responded almost instantaneously.  We were nervous about hiring someone we didn’t know so we asked Ricardo for a sample of his 90s hip-hop mixing.  Clearly, the sample didn’t best reflect his talent, because at our wedding, he was AMAZING.  We hired Disco Movil for both our welcome party and wedding reception.  At the welcome party, Ricardo and his crew played background music during the dinner, displayed our slideshow on their projection screen, provided the audio for our guests who gave speeches and performed, and then served as a karaoke DJ!  He had practically every song imaginable to sing, and the lyrics were displayed on the projection screen.  It was a fantastic night. 

For the welcome party and the reception, Discomovil has a great website where you enter all the songs you’d like to be played for your events.  They have a massive database, but if there are songs that aren’t in their database, you can enter the song information and they will acquire the song for you.  Disco Movil stuck to our playlists since we gave them a lot of songs.  This was very helpful.  But the key to being a great DJ is knowing how to keep people on the dance floor all night.  Ricardo adjusted the music accordingly when the crowd didn’t respond well to one of our songs.  The momentum kept increasing till the end of the night.  Ricardo also served as our emcee (MC) and stuck to our script to make the necessary announcements.  He did a great job.  We didn’t want the party to stop at the set end time, but Ricardo agreed to stay and kept the party going for as long as the hotel would allow us     Thank you Discomovil for making a spectacular weekend!

Bride’s Hair and Make-up:  Vassa Spa at Azul Fives

I was fortunate to have Daisy as my hair and make-up artist.  I had my hair and make-up done at the hotel, as well as my mani-pedi (complimentary as one of the perks through our travel agent).  Daisy was wonderful.  The perk included a hair and make-up rehearsal which I redeemed. I brought my iPad to show her photos on my Pinterest of the hair and make-up styles I liked, and she matched them to exactly how I wanted.  For the wedding day, I had Daisy and one of her colleagues come to my room to do the hair and make-up of my mom and me. Hair and make-up took less than two hours on the wedding day.  If you’re having your wedding at Azul Fives, I highly recommend using the hotel stylists if you can afford it.  Vassa uses MAC products. 

Bridal Party Hair and Make-up:  Estetica Tantadell

Since the prices were high at the hotel for my bridal party to get their hair and make-up done, our wedding planner Erica arranged appointments for my girls at Estetica Tantadell in downtown Playa.  Their pricing and quality of service were amazing.  My girls were very pleased.  All 8 of them    There aren't many reviews on here of Estetica Tantadell, but I am so glad that I went with them.

Henna Artist:  Henna Lounge

There are very slim to none when it comes to local henna artists that do quality work for Indian weddings.  It was serendipitous when I met Darcy while on my site inspection three months before the wedding.  Darcy was the mehndi artist for the Indian wedding taking place that weekend at Azul Fives.   She flies back and forth between San Francisco and the Riviera Maya, and does top-notch traditional henna art.  Like the majority of our vendors, Darcy responded quickly to my emails, and she offered a special deal for me since she was already booked for another wedding the same week.  I got both my hands and feet done, which took about 3 hours and then she stayed for two hours to do simple designs on my bridal party and other guests.  She’s so quick and her henna product is all-natural and smells fantastic!  I received so many compliments on my henna.  Darcy has such a great spirit too and was so chill and easy to work with.   She’s very professional.  I highly recommend her. 

Travel Agent:  Vacations 4 Less (through Best Destination Weddings)

I contacted several travel agents, including www.destinationweddings.com and www.bestdestinationwedding.com.  BDW connected me to Teresa Stauring at Vacations4less.com and Teresa became our travel agent.  Vacations4Less/BDW had the best group rates for Azul Fives and best room block reservation policy. Whenever I contacted Teresa, she too always responded very quickly.  During the few occasions when Teresa wasn’t available, Deanna stepped in and was just as helpful.  Since BDW has a great relationship with many of the destination wedding resorts, they offered great perks for our wedding group, for both the couple and our guests staying at the resort.  Vacations4Less also arranged for our guests airport transfers through Cancun Transfers.  I liked how the airport transfer was an option for our guests instead of built into the hotel room rate which some travel agencies do.  It was such a relief to delegate these wedding logistics to a travel agency and Vacations 4 Less pulled everything off without a hitch.

Airport Transfers:  Cancun Transfers

We were happy that Vacations 4 Less partnered with Cancun Transfers for the airport transfer arrangements for our guests.  They offer competitive rates for individuals, small groups and large groups.  The shuttle service was private so our guests weren’t grouped with guests needing to be dropped off at different hotels. It was easy for folks to modify their reservations easily online.  They were much better and more affordable than taking a cab from the airport.  

Excursions:  Edventure Tours and H2Oh Sun Cruises

We offered our guests optional group excursions the two days before our wedding.  We offered a tour of the Tulum ruins and a cenote swim/snorkel on both days through Edventure Tours.  On the day before the wedding, we offered a private yacht tour out of Puerto Aventuras through H2Oh Sun Cruises. 

Both excursions were a hit.  While my husband and I didn’t accompany our guests who went to Tulum,  our guests raved about the trip and they loved the tour guides, especially Kique.  Bonnie handled the reservations for our guests.  She provided me with regular updates of who signed up.  Very responsive.  I enjoyed working with her.  Folks were picked up from our hotel at 8 am and taken to the ruins.  This allowed our guests to beat the heat and the crowds.  The excursion included a guided tour of the ruins.   Then folks had the option to either return to the hotel or stay and drive a Polaris to Edventure’s private cenote.  Our guests loved this.  They could either swim or snorkel, and Edventure provided a tasty Mexican lunch.  All of this for a very reasonable price.  My husband and I booked the trip with Edventure after our wedding, so we experienced how great they were.  We worked with Ed and Dan.  Both were very friendly and provided excellent service.  I highly recommend them.

For our other excursion, we hired H2Oh Sun Cruises for a four-hour private cruise on the Riviera Maya.  Everyone LOVED this excursion and the folks at H2Oh Sun Cruises.  It was so easy to work with them (booking the boat, setting up the online payment system, making some changes, and helping us on the boat).  Mack, the owner, was with us.  He and his staff were absolutely wonderful.  They were so organized and provided great service giving our guests welcome drinks before they boarded, taking photos during the cruise, and serving drinks a delicious Mexican lunch on the boat.  Plus, we trolled for fish, and we stopped along the tour so folks could snorkel.  Our guests saw a sea turtle and sting rays.  On the boat, Mack has a fantastic karaoke system so our guests loved this as well.  Then there was also the opportunity to dive off a 30-foot platform from the boat.  It was awesome.  This made for some of the best memories from the wedding weekend.

---------

We had a fantastic team that created the best week of our lives.  I am so thankful for each and every person we worked with, and I’m here to help future couples so you can have a truly magical time as well!

Best of luck with the planning.  Have fun and don’t stress too much cuz everything will work out as long as you don’t sweat the small stuff and can relax and appreciate being in a special place with your closest friends and family     Sending you all much love for your destination wedding!

Does anyone know if you can squeeze 10 people to the round tables? I know they are generally tables of 8 and I confirmed with my WC about adding a 9th but wondering if there were a couple of children at the table, could we squeeze in 10?

I just had my 150-person wedding at Azul Fives last weekend.  We had 10 people per table in the garden and it was totally fine.  The tables seat 8-10.  If you guys aren't yet on the Azul Fives Hotel Brides page on Facebook, I recommend joining.  Lots of info discussed there.

I am having a hard time deciding on a resort!  I was wondering if anyone would mind sharing how much their guest stayed and how many nights they stayed?

 

We won't have more than 20 people, but I would like to make it as affordable as possible for guests without sacrificing on quality of the resort too much.

 

Thanks!

Most of our guests stayed 3 to 4 nights.  We had events Thursday to Sunday. 

I just wanted to share that as part of my gift to my bridesmaids I got these personalized beach bags and they're great! They come in different colors too. I'm excited to distribute them. And they're on sale on theknot.com:

Thanks @!

Glad everything worked out well for you! And you ended up having your wedding events at the locations I'm gonna have mine how many paper lanterns did you use for the reception? I'm trying to figure out how many to order.

@@LuisaB I just told my WC in Playa that since I'm having so many people and giving their hotel a sh!t ton of money for all the guests, that I should get it waived. I'm still paying the cost per person for the cocktail party and the additional $8 fee, so I told them I think that's enough. She checked with her manager and they waived it. Which is awesome!!

 

Which WC in Playa did you negotiate with?

When I asked my TA about it, she said I don't get as many perks since my wedding is in February which I guess is the start of high season, and it's on a Saturday.  So it sounds like if you get married in the Fall or in low season, there are more perks since they have less weddings at this time.  But yeah, @kmciver lucked out on her TA. 

@@kmk2016 i just spoke with my TA and she told me I can only chose one of the three perks they offer. Cocktail hour, Bridal spa package, or Photo credit. I'm not sure if this is how it works with all TA or it is just mine that doesn't want to give me any more perks. 

The only room upgrade she can offer is a first floor one bedroom suite close to the pool. 

I'm in the same boat, @@ccphu.  I picked the bridal spa package as my perk and I'm not able to get upgraded to a sky suite, so we're going to pay for it on our own.

Hello again. I'm having my reception at the garden by the pool. I was thinking in adding some string light bulbs as par of the decoration. I was looking at the Lomas Wedding website and 12 light bulbs are $200. It is insane!!

I was thinking on getting some from an outside vendor and have someone from the resort to set them up.

Does anyone knows how many string of light bulbs you need to decorate the garden by the pool?

 

According to Arturo at Azul Fives, he said 3-4 strings would be enough since there are less palm trees and places to hang stuff from.

But I'm going to the November Brides Dress Rehearsal so I'll hopefully find out the correct # of strings of lights needed for both the garden and the beach area and I'll post the info here!

Hello. Have any of you thought of the idea to do hair and makeup from a salon outside the resort? I was thinking it might be cheaper to find a salon in Playa del Carmen. I haven't compare any prices yet.

 

I was considering it, but then I heard on here that the salon is actually pretty decent if you tell them what you want. I'm going to use my GI TA perk that covers bridal hair and make-up and a trial run, so I don't have to pay for this.

Hello everyone. My wedding is on May 23, 2015. After reading all your comments, I'm glad i'm not the only one stressing out about prices, the WC, vendors, etc. it is very frustrating to plan a destination wedding. I'm considering to get some of the decorations for the reception on my own and just bring everything with me the day of the wedding. I did hire a photographer and video from an outside vendor. I'm considering to find a local florist and see if they can make my center pieces for the reception. 

I visited the resort back in September and everything looks like the pictures you see online. The staff is very friendly and the service is great. I asked one of the WC of the resort if it was possible to work directly with them, but unfortunately we have to use Karisma. In my experience with Karisma, i'm very disappointed with the service. My WC from Karisma  take days if not weeks for her to respond back to my emails. I tried to change my WC , but they told me I cant.   it is sad because my WC is in charge of the preparation and coordination of my wedding and if something goes wrong she is not going to be there to fix it. 

Does anyone have any tips or ideas of things that i can bring or make that will help to save money??

Lomas-Karisma prices are outrageous and the things the offer for that price are not that glamorous. 

I feel your frustration @@ccphu!  When you visited the resort, did you make contact with any of the on-site coordinators there?  I find that if I ask questions from my Miami WC that she can't answer, such as questions specific to lighting needed for the wedding events, or dimensions of the event locations, etc. then I contact the Azul Fives coordinator directly, and I get the response I need!  I think some things the Miami WC doesn't need to know, and the on-site coordinators will just take care of it. 

I'm planning to bring most of my decorations too and still debating about outside flowers (not sure how strict they'll be at Azul Fives to allow outside flowers).  To save money, I'm planning to use Katy HK (Love & Lace Wedding Decorations.  She's on this forum.) for renting lighting and maybe a few other items.  And I'm hiring an outside wedding planner for day-of coordination, and she's helping me with finding better deals on some other decorations we'd like such as sheers for the gazebo, maracas, paper parasols and floating lotus lanterns for the pool.  This way I don't have to lug this stuff on the plane. 

In lieu of flowers for the bridesmaids, I'm having them carry fans with a fake flower glued on, like this:

And for our reception centerpieces, I'm only putting flowers on half the tables.  The other half, I'm going to have an $8 Moroccan lantern and a few votive candles as the centerpiece, so this is going cut down on the flower costs too. 

Hope this info is useful!

Where are you having your cocktail hour? We're having it on the Sky Terrace. I originally thought I'd have to rent lounge furniture but then I asked my WC if we'd have both the terrace and Zky Lounge, and it turns out we do (since we're having a 100+ wedding), so folks that wanna sit (and be inside in the shade) can do so in the Zky Lounge.

Hi Ladies- For those of you having a night event on the beach, are any of you going to have stringed lights?  My WC told me I would need 4 strings and that the total cost would be $2,500!  I also wanted to have paper lanterns for our reception in the grand garden and I've been waiting for weeks now to find out how many strings I'd need and what the cost would be. 

If anyone is bring their own lights and/or paper lanterns, would you please share how many you're bringing?  I figure I could at least buy my own paper lanterns, but then I'd either need to still use Lomas' lights or figure out how many stringed lights I'd need to buy on my own.

Hi Ladies- For those of you having a night event on the beach, are any of you going to have stringed lights?  My WC told me I would need 4 strings and that the total cost would be $2,500!  I also wanted to have paper lanterns for our reception in the grand garden and I've been waiting for weeks now to find out how many strings I'd need and what the cost would be. 

If anyone is bring their own lights and/or paper lanterns, would you please share how many you're bringing?  I figure I could at least buy my own paper lanterns, but then I'd either need to still use Lomas' lights or figure out how many stringed lights I'd need to buy on my own. 

@AallieH I had no idea those come flat! I am definitely ordering some and taking them down there then. That's awesome. Thank you!!!!

You can buy them for really cheap online and take them down with you (pack flat- easy!) and then have the onsite coordinators hang them for you! Most brides here do that and it works great! karisma charges max $250 to set up all your decor for you that you bring from home and they do an awesome job!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@kmk2016

@

I was going to bite the bullet and pay $2500 paper lanterns through Lomas (!) for our wedding reception at the garden of Azul Fivs, but then I saw these posts.  Did you guys end up bringing your own paper lanterns for your wedding?  I'm trying to find out from my WC what are the measurements of each string and how many paper lanterns I'd need to order, but she's been radio silent for a week or so. 

If you're bringing paper lanterns, are you also bring the stringed lights or ordering those through Lomas?  Appreciate your insight!

Hey ladies,

 

I just attended the BDR in September and I loved the hotel! It's defiantly smaller than some other resorts I've stayed at, but I think that's better for our guests so we people don't get lost.

 

Here is what I found out about the construction going on. It should be done around Nov 2014-Jan 2015 and it includes two new villas. Guests can still stay there, but they are trying to sell them as condos. They don't know what type of rooms, or how much they will cost. They are adding 3 new restaurants (Indian, Thai and Caribbean), which are included in the all inclusive package and a new bar.

 

Let me know if you ladies have in questions, or need pictures of anything!

This is exciting news!  I googled for more info on the new features at Azul Fives, and I found this presentation: 

http://prezi.com/zcdybuushwjb/azul-fives-fase-2/

A Thai restaurant, Mexican Cantina (finally the first Mexican option at this hotel!), sushi restaurant and more!

@@andreaberretta

Sounds like you have an outside wedding planner who is helping you negotiate with the Karisma coordinators.  Is this correct?  Because I was told by my Miami WC, Brigitte Castro, that the latest that private events can end is 11 pm.  And I'm requesting late night tacos for our event.  If you are using an outside wedding coordinator, are you paying an outside vendor fee?  Or are you paying for a day pass for Lorena to be there during your wedding? 

I'm considering hiring an outside wedding planner.  I'm just not sure how beneficial it would be.  Because from what folks say on this forum, the on-site coordinators really take care of you, while the Miami ones do not. 

If anyone has any thoughts on having an outside planner vs. sticking to the on-site coordinators at the hotel, please share!

hey girls!! My wedding planner is Lorena Montemayor from Anhexo https://www.facebook.com/ANHEXOAmbientacionyMobiliario

 

The thing with my wedding is that the reception is actually on the beach, so the ceremonies and the cocktail will be Sky wedding but the dancing is right in front the ocean... so that's why I find it very appropriate to have the 2 hour cocktail so that all the event could last a little bit longer.

@@TinkerSofi

Three nights' stay in a deluxe room will be roughly $600 opposed to the $800 outside vendor fee. 

Thanks @! I'll try asking. I've been asking my WC so many questions about everything but not yet negotiating the big fees. I commend you on your great work. Did you negotiate by email or phone?

As for the welcome bags, haven't figured this out yet. I'm guessing either we'll need to bring big suitcases and check them into the plane, or have family help bring stuff. For snacks, I may just get them there. I heard there's a Walmart in Cancun?

@@Lilgabri03

 

Yeah, I think the only reason they waived it was because I have 110 guests, not including us. They said that's a pretty big group for a wedding, plus I'm paying the $8/person fee for the cocktail party anyway. We're using the Sky Deck for the post-ceremony cocktail party only. It's too small for our reception so we're doing that in the pool/garden area. It doesn't hurt to ask them if they'll waive it. I basically told them I think it's crap that they wouldn't waive it since it's such a big group. I think they got tired of me complaining and pestering them.

I'm late to responding to this thread, but @, how did you get the unlimited private events?  I'm anticipating 150-200 guests.  I checked the Karisma website for specials and it looks like for wedding ceremonies on a Saturday, the unlimited private events special does not apply. 

We're having the wedding at the sky deck, the cocktail hour on the terrace and Sky Lounge, and the reception at the grand garden area.  Our welcome reception will be on the beach and our farewell brunch will be at Flavours Restaurant.  I'm guessing since we're having our wedding ceremony on the sky deck that I won't be able to get the $1,700 fee waived. 

Hi everyone.  I've been looking at the DJ reviews on this website, but wanted to know specifically if anyone has hired a DJ that they know mixes old-skool hip-hop well.  This may be a lot to ask for in the riviera maya, but thought I'd give it a shot.  My brother and cousin are DJs, but I don't want them to have to work at the wedding.  Coming from LA, being Filipino and my fiance being Indian, we both love 90s hip-hop and we love to dance.  And we are a bit of DJ snobs.  Was looking at videos from Disco Movil's website to get a sense of his mixing ability but there wasn't much on there.  There was one video of a wedding where he played Rihanna and then played Bel Biv Devoe's "Poison."  But it wasn't a good mix transition- once the Rihanna song ended, Poison just started.  DJ Mannia has a good sample online, but the reviews have been mixed.  Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

I'm reviving this thread as I'm looking for a henna artist for my wedding at Azul Fives.  Did anyone end up hiring Veronica de la Paz?  Wondering if anyone has samples of her work or would recommend her.  Appreciate any feedback!  I'm considering Inmar Body Art.  Not traditional Indian henna, but closest I could find so far for someone who does it locally.