kosrae89

Try going to https://blumneumannweddingpuntacana2014.shutterfly.com/and using the password DominicanRepublic2014 and that should work. If you still can't see them, please let me know.

I would be more than happy to send you the word document that I wrote the longer review in. If you send me an email at kosrae89@aol.com, so I have your email address, I can send it to you. Try this link to see the photos. And if it doesn't work, let me know and I will see what I can do. https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=D3FD341EAA0EFC54!106&authkey=!AC3JormXkHkoXG0&ithint=folder%2cjpg It only took them a couple of days to send us the email with all of the information and the spreadsheet once we paid our deposit. They were always fairly prompt with responding to us, we usually had a response within a day or two. The only time we did not hear from them quickly, was when they had problems with their email and they never got our email. When I emailed them a couple weeks later to make sure they had gotten my last email, they responded immediately, apologizing that they had not received it. So, I would say give them a few days, but if you don't hear something within a week, it wouldn't hurt to email them and make sure they got it. Also, do not stress about your date being booked on the website wedding calendar. Ours wasn't updated until probably 3-4 months before our actual wedding. As long as you have your date confirmed and are working with your coordinator, that's all that really matters. Enjoy the planning process and try not to stress too much! I know it is easier said than done, but in the end everything will be beautiful!

I just emailed you the full review and the answers to your questions! Please let me know if you have any more questions. Happy planning!

Congratulations! I am happy to help if I can! Our welcome bags consisted of a beach bag with some paperwork with the timeline for the week and the wedding, timeline for the bridal party on the day of, a welcome letter, a sheet with info for our photo share site, a door hanger for the day of the wedding, and a DR cookbook my sister and I put together with some local recipes we found online. It also included a few other small items like a beach ball, sunscreen, aloe, chapstick, playing cards, and little Tylenol packets. I think that was everything. We hand delivered each bag to everyone when we met them in the lobby upon their arrival and they loved them. Everyone used the beach bags the whole time we were there to carry stuff, which was nice. We also made a special bag for the 2 kids at the wedding, which included a coloring book with crayons, playdoh, water squishy balls, sand toys (small rake and shovel set), beach ball, bubbles, and mini puzzles, etc. The kids really enjoyed them. We decided to pack everything separately and assembled the bags when we got to the resort. Hope this is helpful!

I am glad my responses have been helpful! I was definitely nervous before our trip too and I just wanted everyone to have a great time. And it really worked out great. We had so many different ages and personalities in our group, but everyone really had a wonderful time. We were able to do things as a group many nights, but everyone was also able to do their own things and everyone had an amazing time! I felt nervous about it until we got to the resort, but once we were all there, it was great!

I am glad my responses have been helpful! I was definitely nervous before our trip too and I just wanted everyone to have a great time. And it really worked out great. We had so many different ages and personalities in our group, but everyone really had a wonderful time. We were able to do things as a group many nights, but everyone was also able to do their own things and everyone had an amazing time! I felt nervous about it until we got to the resort, but once we were all there, it was great!

Thank you so much!! We sent in our music choices for the DJ about 2 months before the wedding. For the menus, we had a larger menu that we had printed framed and we put that on the guest book table for everyone to see when we walked in. We figured it saved a little money from printing a bunch of them and most people wouldn't care to take the menu home with them, so this way we had a keepsake to hang up and saved a little money. Although, the resort provided us with menus for everyone that we were not expecting. They weren't anything super fancy, but they were still nice and it was a nice touch for them to do. They were folded sheets of paper (slightly thicker than computer paper) with the menu items typed on them in English and Spanish. I am having trouble getting pictures to insert into the post, so I will just add them to the photo site with the wedding pictures so you can see what we had for our menu and what they gave us.

Congratulations on your engagement! They were able to get us a discounted group rate and reserve a room block for us. The prices I have were for Dec 2014, so the prices might have changed somewhat, and it obviously depends on the number of nights and the number of people in a room, but with our group rate for 2 people for 7 nights it was $1428 deluxe garden view, $1512 deluxe tropical view, $1778 deluxe ocean view, $1918 preferred club deluxe tropical view, and $2254 preferred club ocean view. That includes everything (except airfare) including transfers back and forth to the airport. There was also a 3G promotion going on at the time where if you book 5 rooms you get the 6th free (based on double occupancy in lowest booked room category), and we ended up getting almost $2000 back from the resort for the rooms that we had booked in our room block. We were able to use this to help pay for one of our relative's rooms that may not have been able to come otherwise. With the extra money you could either use it on your own room, use it on someone elses, or distribute it among all the rooms. The promotion was a little confusing to understand how it was calculated, but VIP helped us figure it out and make sure we got everything we were supposed to. Not sure if that promotion is still going on or not, but every little bit helps! We had never really worked with a travel agent before and they specializes in destination weddings. They made everything really easy for us and it was also nice because guests could just book through them and they handled everything, it was great. There services are absolutely free and in addition to their help with the planning, you get a lot of cool benefits like free beach bags for each room and free save the date postcards, etc. Sorry, I sound like a sales person, but they definitely made our lives so much easier during the planning process.

They let me book the bridal suite in May 2014 for my Dec 2014 wedding. They did make me wait 2-3 months before the wedding to make the hair/makeup appointments though. Not sure if they have changed that policy or not, but that's what I did. I purchased my chair sashes on ebay. The seller's name was ewsos-mall. I was able to get 50 sashes for only $17.99 plus $9.99 shipping. That came out to about 56 cents per sash. We planned one group excursion down there. It was a boating/fishing trip. You can try and book ahead of time, but it is also pretty easy to book when you are down there. There is an Amstar desk in the lobby and they set up tours/excursions and can help you. I am so happy to help, your questions are definitely not annoying me, please ask away! I would love to help everyone have as wonderful a wedding day as I did! You can ask your wedding coordinator to do a rehearsal. They didn't have us decide on the time until we got down there and met with her for the first time. We did not know what to expect as far as the rehearsal when we went, but it mostly consisted of running through the moving pieces. She showed us where to line up and when each person should start walking. It was mostly just going over the logistical pieces of the ceremony, since the minister is not actually there to go over any of the script parts. We requested to have our rehearsal around the same time of day as our actual ceremony, so we could get an idea of how the lighting and the heat was at that time of day, to know what to expect for the wedding.

When I booked mine they responded the very next day. The email address I used was spa1.serpc@secretsresorts.com They might be a little slower answering due to the holidays, but they were always quick responding when I emailed them. You could maybe let your wedding coordinator know that you are having trouble getting a hold of the spa and she can probably help connect you with them.

Thanks!! The fountain was a little loud during the ceremony. I had asked the wedding coordinator about it when we were doing our walk through and asked if there was any way we could turn the fountains down so they wouldn't be so loud. But she said we would have a microphone, so it wouldn't be necessary. However, during the actual ceremony, the minister was the only one with the microphone and it only picked our voices up a little bit. The guests didn't really have trouble hearing, but it was almost impossible to hear our voices on the wedding video, which was kind of sad. Although we used traditional vows, so we could at least hear the minister saying the words and then see us saying them, but not really hearing them too well. So, that was the only sad part about it, but all in all, it is still a great video memory of the ceremony and you can still see the emotion and the love, which is great! But I would recommend making sure that you guys either hold the microphone and pass it off to each other or at least make sure the minister holds it close enough to you to be heard. I did bring my own sashes, however, when I was describing the ribbon color I wanted the stems of the flowers wrapped in, I just sent them a picture of my bridesmaids' dresses, so they could match it, and they did a pretty good job! So, I would recommend doing something like that. I am glad my post has been helpful!! Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! I know time flies and it's hard to believe that you are only 6 weeks away. Just wait, I swear the clocks speed up even more the closer you get to it. I will definitely email you the longer version of my post, but I figured I would respond to your questions here, so that everyone else could see it too. I will also send you our excel spreadsheet, so you can see what our costs were for everything, in case that is helpful. As far as light goes for pictures. For us, the sun was pretty much set by 6 when our reception started. By the time of your wedding the days will be a little longer and you will have a little more sunlight, but you might not have much more than an hour for photos after the wedding. It is definitely doable though, depending on the number of different shots you want with guests and with your husband. Or you may want to see if they can do some of the photos before the ceremony. We added the minister service for $250. We had our own script that we wanted read and according to the excel spreadsheet you have to add this service if you want more than the standard script, although I never actually verified that with the wedding coordinator to see how lenient they were, so it might not hurt to ask and tell them what you want and see if it is possible to do what you want for the included price. It never hurts to ask! For the cocktail hour, we had the smoked salmon canape, the manchego cheese canape, the salami canape, and the ham and pineapple canape. They were all pretty decent. The had a table set up that had both the hot and cold hors d'oeuvres on them. The hot ones were in metal warmers and the others were on plates. We did not bring name labels for them, although I believe the catering people did have labels by the different items. For the carnival terrace, when we asked about our options for the curtains she told us that they came with lights, which lead me to believe that it wasn't possible to do them without, although I do not know that for sure. It might not be a bad idea to bring some curtains. They will most likely charge you the 25% setup fee for it, but even still that would only be like $112 instead of $450. We probably would have brought some if we had know ahead of time that we would need them and how much they would be. The curtains covered the main windows/doors into the restaurant. I do not believe the side windows were covered, however, it really wasn't noticeable like the main window would have been. We had 20 guests and 2 kids at the reception and there was plenty of room for dancing. With 30 it might be a little tight if absolutely everyone was on the dance floor at the same time, but I think it's big enough for 30. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask! And get excited...your weddings will be wonderful!! kosrae89, That is awesome! I bet you're so excited. Any recommendations you can give when you get back would be much appreciated! Let me know who you photographer is and how you think they did. Also, if you happen to stop by the eclipse terrace can you take a few pictures from all the angles so I know what I"m working with. We are having our ceremony there!! Thanks in advance and I wish you the best!! Enjoy!! Jamie Jamie, I am so sorry that I was not able to get pictures of the Eclipse terrace for you while I was down there. The Eclipse Nightclub is only open late in the evenings, so I wasn't able to get any pictures of the space in the daylight. Although I know when I was preparing for my wedding I emailed my wedding coordinator and asked for more pictures of the carnival terrace, so that I could get an idea and she sent me a ton of pictures of the space from other weddings, which really helped me get an idea of the space and of how things would be set up. I hope this is helpful and that you are able to get some good pictures from them to help you! I apologize again for not being able to get you any good pictures of the area!

I will definitely send you guys the long version once I have access to my computer, tomorrow, hopefully! The fountain really isn't very far from the beach, maybe like 5 minutes walking, maybe not even that long (depending on if you are wearing heels or not ). And yes, the bridal suite was very conveniently located by the fountain, it probably took 30 seconds to walk to the spot where we started our processional. If we had gotten ready in our room, it would have been at least a 5 minute walk and in the heat, I probably would have been sweating before I made it to the aisle. Although the only inconvenient part about the bridal suite is that you have to have all of your stuff out of their by 5pm, because the salon closes, so we had to get all of our stuff packed up before the ceremony and had to send someone back to be there when the bell boy came to take the bags to our room (they won't let them take your stuff to the room without someone being present for security reasons). So, after the ceremony, one of our family friends went and waited for the guy to get there and bring the stuff back to our room. Not a big deal, but something we hadn't considered until right before the ceremony.

I believe if you go to this link https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=D3FD341EAA0EFC54&id=D3FD341EAA0EFC54%21106it should work, but if it asks for login information my email address is kosrae89@aol.com and the password is puntacana2014. Let me know if you are still unable to view the pictures and I can come up with something else! If you want the "long version" of my post that I wrote in a word document I can send it to you, it was just a lot of pages and I thought it might overload the blog.

Hello Now Larimar Brides! We are back from our absolutely wonderful wedding on Dec 19th and have so much to share with you! I probably have way too much information to include in this blog, so if there is something I do not address that you have questions about, please feel free to ask and I will give you any information I can. First of all, let me start by saying that our wedding turned out to be even more perfect than we could have hoped for and we are so glad that we chose to get married at Now Larimar! We could not have asked for a more beautiful day or a more beautiful wedding. The resort is gorgeous and the wedding coordinators are amazing and will make sure that everything turns out perfectly! Whatever concerns I may have had about planning a wedding from a distance at a place I had never been were wiped away once I got to the resort and met with Yeomandry, our wedding coordinator. I would do it all over again if given the chance! To start off with I will give you a little background information about what we had: We had 21 guests at our wedding (not including us) We had the Divine Wedding Package Our ceremony was at the fountain at 4PMThe fountain was such a beautiful area and we were definitely glad we picked it. We decided not to spend the $1500 to do the plank across the fountain and we were glad we did not. Walking down the side of the aisle was just as good and you still got to have the pretty fountain going at the same time. We had two standard flower arrangements for the gazebo with white flowers ($100 each). The area is so beautiful, you really don't need too many decorations. Our bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres were also beautiful and just like we wanted. Our cocktail hour was at the fountain at 5PMCocktail hour was in the grassy garden area right beside the fountain. The appetizers were pretty good, especially the spring rolls and meatballs. The music and the cocktails were also great. We were able to spend 10-15 minutes enjoying the cocktail hour, before we had to go finish our photo session. Our reception was at the carnival terrace at 6PMThe carnival terrace was a great space and it overlooked the garden and the fountain. During our tour of the sites with the wedding coordinator after our arrival. We made one addition to our wedding planner spreadsheet during this tour. The carnival terrace is on the balcony of the carnival buffet restaurant, which is open for dinner in the evenings, so people could look out the window of the restaurant and see us or we might be able to see them in the background of our pictures, since the sweetheart table was going to be right in front of a set of glass doors. So, we asked about curtains to cover the windows and were a little shocked by the price. The curtains, which came with lights would cost $450, however, it seemed like they would help make the event more private, so we decided to add them. Despite the cost, we were glad we added these in the end. They did what we had hoped and kept the area private and they were also added some nice lighting to the setting and looked great in pictures. So, I would recommend adding these if you plan on having your reception at the carnival terrace, if you can budget it in. At our reception we had the crab cakes, chicken consomme, pear with Chablis sorbets, steak and lobster, and the chocolate Kahlua cake along with our vanilla and lemon wedding cake. All of the food and the wedding cake were very good. It was one of our best meals at the resort! Also the flower centerpieces and cake were beautiful. We gave Yeomandry photos of what we wanted and they delivered. We only had 3 guest tables and a sweetheart table. So we had 3 centerpieces and we used 2 of the bridesmaids' bouquets to decorate our sweetheart table and the other bridesmaids' bouquet and my bouquet to decorate the guestbook table. We also had a bag of rose petals that they used to decorate all of the tables, which made it look beautiful. We booked the resort photographer (WBA Photography) and got the Gold Secrets Photo PackageClaudia with WBA Photography was amazing! She was so great to work with and we were so happy with how the photos turned out. We booked the Gold Secrets Photo Package, which included coverage of the bride getting ready, the ceremony, a photo session after the ceremony, and the 1st hour of the reception. In order to get all of our events photographed during our reception, after our introduction we went straight into the first dance, followed by the father-daughter and mother-son dances. Then we cut the cake and threw the bouquet before starting dinner. You can see all of our wedding photos online at https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=D3FD341EAA0EFC54&id=D3FD341EAA0EFC54%21106 (the photos are still finishing uploading to the site right as I am posting this, so if you look at them right after I post this, they may not all come up yet, just fyi). We booked the resort DJ for the receptionThe resort DJ was awesome! We gave him our song selections for our special dances and cake cutting and such and we also gave him a list of some song suggestions and music genres that we liked. They did an amazing job. Each of our selected songs was played at the right time and they even played almost all of our suggested songs, with a ton more songs thrown in that fit perfectly with what we wanted. The played a good mix of slow and fast songs and they seemed to read the crowd pretty well and responded to what songs everyone was dancing to. They even brought out a bunch of long balloons, which were unexpected, but were actually fun and got people moving and dancing. I would definitely recommend the resort DJ and their services. We had the saxophonist included in the Divine Package play at our ceremonyAs the bride, I did not get to hear much of him playing, because we were still getting ready in the bridal suite when he started playing. I did hear from some of the guests that he was quite good though. I got to hear him during my walk down the aisle and during our recessional and was quite happy with our choice. We booked the Caribbean music trio for the cocktail hourI thought the Caribbean trio were great and tied in some of the Spanish flair to the wedding. I know someone had asked about whether or not music was necessary at the cocktail hour or if it would be a good place to save some money. My opinion is that it is not necessary if you need to make some cuts to help your budget. I think the atmosphere and the food, drinks and conversation would be enough. If you do have room in your budget I recommend the Caribbean trio, because they added a nice backdrop to the cocktail hour. We reserved the bridal suite for the wedding dayI thought it was nice to have the bridal suite reserved for the wedding day. It made getting ready and getting our hair and makeup done much easier, because the bridal suite is right off of the salon where they did our hair and makeup. They had champagne and fruit plates in the bridal suite for us and it also made a nice place for pictures. It was also conveniently located near the fountain where the ceremony was, so we did not have to walk very far once we were ready. Five of the women in the bridal party and myself got our hair and makeup done at the resort salonI thought the ladies at the salon did a phenomenal job with all of our hair and makeup. We were all quite pleased with the results and I would definitely recommend them. I booked a trial hair/makeup appointment with them a few days before the wedding, to help get an idea about what I wanted and I was definitely glad I did. Although I had a general idea of how I wanted to look on the big day, we were able to play with the hair and makeup a little and get it just right. It also helped speed things up on the actual wedding day because Johanny (the wonderful lady who did my hair and makeup) already knew exactly what I wanted and it took about 45 minutes to do my hair, instead of the 1.5 hours it took during the trial and it even looked better than the first time! So for those reason I would definitely recommend a trial hair and makeup if you have the time and the budget. And the nice thing is that you can get the trial hair and makeup for 50% off (because I was also getting my hair and makeup done as part of the Divine package). We brought the following items with us: Ceremony- Fans, programs, and chair sashes; Reception- Escort cards, photobook guest book, framed menu, chair sashes, candles, table numbers and table holders we made out of drift wood from HobbyLobby; we also brought welcome bags for the guests which we hand delivered to them on the day of their arrival and I brought silk robes that I found for the girls and me to get ready inOf the items we brought, the only ones that had a setup fee ($0.75/each) were the candles and the chair sashes. Although they ended up not charging us for the candles (not sure if it was an accidental or intentional oversight) and they even used some our extra chair sashes and tied them around the cocktail hour tables free of charge, which was a nice surprise when we got to the cocktail hour and saw them. The week we were there was a lighter week for weddings. I think there were only around 7 others during the time that we were down there, although we only saw a couple in person. It really does not feel like you are just one among many weddings, they are really good about making each wedding feel special! I feel like I have said a lot and that there is still a lot to say. So, I am just going to stop here and I am happy to answer any questions you ladies have!

The big day is finally almost here...only 1 week to go! I will be leaving for Punta Cana this Sunday, so if anyone has any questions or wants pictures of areas of the resort or anything while I am down there, please let me know soon! This blog has been so helpful to me in my planning and I would love to be able to help others in any way I can! I will post details about my wedding when I get back...sometime right after Christmas probably!

If you are booking your salon appointments at the resort salon all you need to do is fill out the form 2-3 months out and tell them how many people you will have and what services they will be receiving and they will give you the times based on your ceremony time. My ceremony is Dec 19 at 4pm and I have 6 ladies doing hair and make up and they have 3 doing hair at 11am and 3 at 12pm and then 3 for makeup at 1pm and 3 at 2pm. They can only do 3 services at a time, so that's why they break it up like that. I will be leaving for the DR this Sunday morning and will be there from the 14th-23rd. So if you guys have any specific questions or want pictures of areas of the resort or anything please let me know soon and I will be happy to post them along with details of my wedding when I get back! This blog has been so helpful to me and I would love to have the opportunity to help others the same way! So excited to be only a week away from the big day!

The prices for the different menu and buffet options are listed on the PDF Wedding Guide found on the Now Larimar Weddings page. Here is the link for it: http://www.amresorts.com/wedding_guides/nolpc-wedding-guide.pdf Hope this helps!