SUMMARY

 REVIEW BY: tiffani1980 http://bit.ly/kAoHZw Room Block: Nizuc Side
Mexico Wedding Coordinator: Kalena Arroniz
Ceremony: 3/19/10 Playa Capilla Beach 4:00 p.m,
Reception: Verranado (I think that was the way you spell it) Terrace

Overall Experience: Simply perfect!!

CHECK IN:
Our check-in time was 3:00 p.m., we arrived at noon. They greeted us with a carnation and a wet cold towel. The bell hop got our bags and took us to a table where the check in took place. We were unable to get a room until about 2:30pm. So, we basically ate at the buffet restaurant in the Nizuc lobby and wondered around the resort until then. The rooms are beautiful, they are all renovated, we had a king sized bed, with an Ocean View, #6124. There was a big flat screen TV, with a fully stocked bar. We found out that room service is included and it is 24-hour. In the Nizuc lobby they had a coffee/ snack bar that was open from 6am-1am, which was great for when we came back from Andromeda Disco! They offered coffee, tea, hot coco, virgin margaritas, different sandwiches, and desserts. All of the staff at the resort was very nice, and polite, they were very helpful (we did a lot of tipping).

Steam Dress/Suit:
The wedding department sent someone to our room to get the dress and suit and took care of that, I think in total it cost $52. They got the dress back to me the day before the wedding.

Meeting w/ Wedding Coordinator:
When we met with Kalena she was very pleasant and sweet. She went over EVERYTHING, and was very thorough. I had my own planning binder with all emails and everything wedding related with me. She showed me every option possible regarding the ceremony setup, reception, flowers, cakes, photo packages, EVERYTHING. We went with the free ceremony on the Playa Capilla Beach and a reception with a menu that I had already sent her. Kalena gave me a break down of the costs. At our meeting, she asked us to choose from a breakfast menu for our wedding breakfast the day after the wedding and the time the breakfast should be delivered to our room.

At the meeting, we went over the details of the ceremony, i.e. who was the maid of honor, bridesmaids, groomsmen, so that she would know how to time their entrance. She also let us know that my wedding ceremony was set to begin at 4:00 p.m. I had to be out the door by 3:45 (arrive at my room) and the guests should be at the wedding location by 3:40. Kalena gave me a map of the resort and marked where the wedding and reception would be, I asked for copies of this and she made 20 copies so that I could distribute them to my guests.

Since we were having a private reception on the terrace, the cost per table is $400 (and each table fits 10). We did two round tables and had a small table for the bride/groom. We asked to extend the reception by an hour, so they added an extra $120 to the total. The only issue we had was that one of our guests is a DJ and asked to dj the reception. We emailed Alex, the DJ person, to ask if there was a charge for him to DJ or if there are special stipulations, after several emails back and forth it was decided that our DJ would bring most of his equipment and Alex would provide the speakers. After several more emails from our DJ asking for the cost of the speakers, Alex would not put down a price, just that he would provide speakers. Once we got to the resort they tried to charge us $850 for the speakers, and I quickly nipped that in the bud!!! After some haggling, we got the cost down to $178 for two large speakers. We did not add any flowers or special decorations, as I brought my own. We also opted for the Horse drawn carriage for my entrance, which cost $136.
At the meeting, we took a small suitcase, with the following items for her to use:

1. Guest Book w/ pen
2. Champagne Glasses for the bride and groom
3. Petals (I bought about 160 cups of white w/ purple petals)
5. Thank you cards
6. Well wish card book
7. 50 Lavender chair sashes
8. 10 Lavender Table Runners
9. 20 small candles
10. 4 medium sized Hurricane glasses
11. Small glass bowl
12. 2 packs of Lavender (thick) napkins
13. 2 CD’s of music for the ceremony

I asked Kalena to have some petals for our flower girl to throw, and the guests to toss at the end of the ceremony. When we had our meeting Kalena informed us that they had split our guests up between the Sunrise and Nizuc sides. I asked that all of the guests be put on the Nizuc side and she made it happen. The resort is HUGE, so some of my guests were near us in the 6000’s and others were still on the Nizuc side, but in the 7200’s…..and that was a far walk.
WEDDING COORDINATOR DURING WEDDING:
Kalena (with her assistant, forgot her name, sorry!) stayed at our wedding the entire time, she directed the ceremony, made sure everything was in order, she had her assistant help out with the petals and making sure I got out of the carriage ok. She did an outstanding job.

DAY PASSES:
We had 2 guests that stayed of site and they had no problem getting onto the resort or to our room and the wedding.

SALON SERVICES:
As you know from the pictures, I am African American, my stylist was very nice, but she did not do a thorough job. She blow dried my hair and that was it. It was “straight”, but not smooth. I asked her to put it in pin curls because my mother was going to style it. By 3pm my mom ended up having to curl my whole head, so that truly was a waist of $42. I had a 9am appointment and was out by 10am.

THE CARRIAGE & CEREMONY ENTRANCE:
The horse and carriage along with Kalena arrived at my room about 3:40 to pick up me, my father, and our flower girl. Kalena took my mother and MOH to the ceremony in the golf cart. It was like a fairy tale, riding around the resort in the carriage. People were taking pictures of us and video. It was beautiful, all of my guests were surprised and said it was a nice touch. Kalena called our carriage driver and gave him the okay to come around the corner.


BOUQUETS:
We opted to take the free bouquet/boutonnière, we got the white lilies. Kalena stated that they could wrap my bouquet with Lavender ribbon. When she arrived with my bouquet my mouth dropped…..it was simply beautiful! Kalena made sure to place the groom’s boutonnière on his suit.

CEREMONY:
This was held on 3/19/10 at 4pm at the Playa Capilla Beach. I did not give Kalena any specific instructions as to the huppa setup, but it was beautiful! She used the chair sashes on the end chairs and 4 table sashes; she wrapped those around the huppa posts. It was really nice. The ceremony went smoothly, our justice of the peace was a little Mexican man, and he did a great job. His English was great and he said a short poem. We had to sign 3 different forms as well as our 4 witnesses and we also had to do fingerprints. The ceremony lasted about 25-30 minutes from start to finish. I gave Kalena 2 CD’s with 5 songs on it for the ceremony and it worked really well. They had 2 people manning the stereo system, the song for the signatures did not last long enough, so they played an instrumental to a nice slow song, and nobody even realized that my song was over. At the end, we did a champagne toast and glasses were handed to all of the guests and they gave our flower girl a glass of sprite. Kalena lined our guests up and gave everyone a handful of petals. The guests threw them as we walked down the aisle.



Resort Photographer: Enrique
A++++++
I was a little scared because after reading reviews on this site, all you read is to get an outside photographer, well this was not originally in my budget and I am happy that I went with my gut feeling. He was great, he engaged everyone, fun, he even told me to just do what I wanted and be a “diva”! He asked me if there were any shots that I wanted in particular, and I got pics with my MOH, my daughter, specific family and a great group shot. I think my pics came out really nice. I received the photo book about 3 days after the wedding, and it is beautiful! I also got his CD, with about 250-300 pictures on it. I paid $505.



Reception:
Our reception was at 6-9 pm, which we thought gave people time to go grab a drink, and allowed us to take pictures, but stay close……well besides the old people; everyone was late to the reception. We had it buffet style and there was so much food!! We had our own bartender and he was very nice. Our attendant/waiter was on the ball, he was re-filling drinks, taking plates, he thought of everything. The food was great and the setup beautiful. The tables were decorated beautifully….but it was super WINDY! I am surprised that nothing fell over! Our cake was vanilla with vanilla frosting; they put a lavender ribbon around the bottom….it tasted really good! We also had a couple of other desserts like Tiramisu and strawberry napoleons. The fruit cocktail was really good because it was fresh fruit.




Photos, Marriage License:
We picked up all of our decorations, marriage licenses, and pictures on Monday (our wedding was on a Friday, so that was a quick turn around)!

The restaurants were very tasty, my husband and his parents said they didn’t like the food (they only eat fish). The other 19 guests had no problems with the food. We ate and ate….. And drank and drank. We also visited the resort disco, Andromeda, it was fun. They played great music, but there were a lot of drunken St. Patty’s day spring breakers! We went there a couple of nights to dance off all of the food we ate. We also went to Wet N’ Wild, which is the resorts water park. We had fun, because our Palace wristband included the entry price and all drinks and food. They also run a free charter bus throughout the day to Wet N’ Wild, Sun Palace and Cancun Palace in downtown Cancun and back. Another person on the bus said that this is the first year that they did the charter bus. Overall, I, along with all of my guest, loved the resort. They showed us great customer service and the wedding department was thorough. Although they do several weddings a day/week/month, not once did I feel like a number or just another couple getting married. They took care of every detail and personalized the experience.

***Oh yeah- before we left we downgraded our room to a deluxe, when we arrived they upgraded us to the ocean view deluxe room. The room had a fruit tray in the room and a bottle of champagne on ice for free! And Moon Palace offers free international calls, so that was definitely a plus!!!Thanks Moon Palace!
I had a lot more pictures in the original post, but it limited me to 10.