Overall we had a wonderful experience and wedding at Moon Palace. The beginning of the process was extremely frustrating with the Miami office and lack of communication but once I started working with Zaray at Moon Palace directly things went smoothly.

Check In: The check in was real easy for us. We walked in and they handed each of us a glass of champagne and each of the kids were given a soda of their choice. Our rooms ended up being a couple of buildings apart but it worked out fine.

Nizuc Section: The majority of our guest were on the Nizuc side and a about 6 of the couples were in our building, Iguana, the rest were very close by. We could see the Tucan Gazebo right outside our window so we saw several weddings throughout the week. Our room was really nice, only complaint I had was the shower never completely drained so there would be water standing in it, but housekeeping would mop it up when they came to clean.

(While on the subject of housekeeping, they weren't so great with my mom's room. We had to complain after a couple of days for them to come and clean. My mom would put the sign out to clean and no one ever showed so I finally called and complained. They showed up with fresh towels that night and then the next day they came in a cleaned everything else.)

Wedding Coordinator: Zaray.......AMAZING!!! We met with her the day after our arrival. She had every email printed in a file and basically we spent about 30 minute verifying all the details that we had already discussed via email. We took her a suitcase with chair sashes for reception, starfish lassos for chairs down the aisle, blume boxes for tables and extra starfish for tables and then we added Chinese Lanterns from Zuniga and speakers from PSAV. She didn't charge us for set up of our own decorations and she told me it's because we were so easy to work with.

Flowers: Marvin.......PERFECT!! I didn't have any issues getting Marvin to contact me via email (I know several other brides have had issues). I sent him several pictures of what I might want and he emailed prices back within a few hours. When I finally decided on which ones I wanted he sent me a price and said we could pay via paypal or pay when he delivered the flowers. We paid about a week in advance and gave him a delivery time. I had him delivery them about 4 hours ahead as I had heard of him running late on several instances. I was in the middle of getting my hair done and forgot to remind my fiance to meet him in the lobby. The front desk just had the flowers delivered to our room. No issues there. We ordered 5 bouquets (3 for the bridesmaids and 2 extras for table decorations). They were gorgeous! And I had gave him specific instructions to keep the stems shorter than 8" for the blume boxes and they fit perfectly.

Rehearsal Dinner - Tucan Terrace. Apparently we forgot to give Zaray the menu that we wanted for this dinner so she picked one for us. I believe it was one of the International Buffets, all of our guests really enjoyed it. My fiance and I didn't eat much. We weren't feeling too well....more on that later. The service we had was impeccable!! We had our own wait staff and bartender and never was a glass empty and they were quick to take away plates. Wonderful! I can't remember their names but we had the same staff for our wedding reception as well. Zaray had another wedding but she stopped by to say hello and to make sure that we were pleased with everything.

Complimentary Wedding- It was everything that we could have imagined it to be. There is nothing I would have changed. Zaray showed up at 4:30 to pick us up in the golf cart. I decided to save money and not do the horse and carriage, but I would recommend it to everyone. All of the brides that we saw doing it looked so lovely. We got married at the Bugambilia Gazebo. The view of the ocean was gorgeous!! We almost had a snafu with the music but I was able to catch it and get it corrected before. Zaray's assistant stood with me and my kids (they walked me down the aisle) and I told him we were walking out to the second song and he walked over and fixed it. Still not sure how they mess that up since you fill out a paper when you give them the music. The minister was really nice and funny. Jonathan had a difficult understanding him so I had to "translate" for him. All of our guest thought it was funny. Overall it was wonderful!

Photographer -  We used Smile Market to avoid added costs in bringing someone else in. It was very windy and I have bangs so I'm not overly pleased with most of the pictures. That's not the photographers fault but I felt he could have tried to get some better shots. We had a crowd that was there to party so it was difficult to get everyone that we wanted pictures of. I felt like if the photographer had a list to work off of it would have gone more smoothly. I finally sent the groomsmen off and we didn't get any pictures of my husband and each of the groomsmen because the photographer just wasn't effective in keeping people around. I felt like he was a little slow in direction and deciding what shots to take. I got impatient and finally told him we had enough pictures and it was time to go to the cocktail hour. They don't edit any of the pictures so I was a little frustrated with that as well. As you can see in the pictures below I have one piece of hair stuck to my forehead after I finally was able to pin my bangs down and they didn't fix that on the pictures.

Cocktail Hour: We had this right next to the gazebo. This area is called the Bugambilia Garden. They set up a bar and tables to serve the food along with chairs for the guest to sit while munching. We chose the Superior Hors D'Oeuvers. It was so delicious!! I highly recommend this one the beef medallions were amazing and the chicken kabobs were too. Service was awesome! I never had to ask for a drink, when my glass was getting low she would bring me a refill.

Reception: Was at the Bugambilia Terrace which was like 4 steps from the Garden area. There we had full bar service and the Yucatan Buffet. Food was pretty good as well. We did our first dance, father/ daughter and mother/son prior to eating to get it out of the way. Again the service was great. She even sliced and served the cake for us. We danced for a while until Zaray came back to close it down around 9:30. Then we walked over to the Sunrise lobby and they had a DJ there playing music since the disco is closed for renovations. We stayed there pretty late. The drink service there was not good so we had to go order drinks at the bar. There were a lot of people so it was a little slow.

Cake: We had the cheesecake. By far the best of all desserts we had there. It was so good!

PSAV: We just purchased the speakers and Ipod setup however they send a technician out to run it for you. It was perfect. What little time we had to dance was a lot of fun. Not many of our guest are dancers so it was mainly me and my husband, kids and a few of the bridal party but it was still fun.

Resort Credits: We didn't even get close to using all of our resort credits unfortunately. The only thing we used ours for was the Spa which was fantastic. We did the one hour couples massage the day after our wedding. Best part of the whole day! Be sure to arrive early for your massage so you can utilize the hot tub and steam room prior to getting your massage. We also took the kids to Wet & Wild and used the free shuttle to Cancun for the transportation. The park was very small but we went on a Monday and there was hardly anyone there so we never waited in line for the slides. The kids had a great time and that's really all that mattered. Food and drinks (alcohol and non-alcoholic) are included. We wanted to hit the ruins but it's an all day affair so we just ran out of time to fit it in.

A few of our guest used their credits to play golf. They raved about the course and how beautiful it was.

Pools: We primarily hung out at the Nizuc side pool. It was very nice and really not crowded. Drinks were a little weak but other than that it was nice. The Grand side has a really nice pool and lots of cushy lounge chairs. We only passed by the Sunrise pool but it looked pretty nice.

Restaurants: We ate at ARRECIFES twice. The first time the service was great, the second it was not good at all. I would suggest to go early if you want to eat there because the will run out of food. LOS CAPORALES food was tasty but the service was extremely slow. We were in there for close to 2 hours and sat there with empty glasses for a while. La Tratorria was by far the best food we ate the entire week. It's a dining experience so expect it to last for a couple of hours. We had all four courses and all of it was delicious! But if you go late make sure that you have transportation to get back. The shuttle stops running at 10:30 so you will need to have them arrange to have a golf cart come and pick you up. The failed to tell us this so we sat outside for 45 minutes waiting. EL MANGLAR is where we ate breakfast everyday. It was good and they have a wide selection every morning.

Extras: The shows in the evening on the Nizuc side were pretty entertaining. We went to a couple of them after dinner and had drinks. We missed the Michael Jackson show. It's on the Sunrise side and it was the night we went to the Italian restaurant. I was a little bummed.

We went deep sea fishing on the Friday of our rehearsal dinner. Turns out everyone on the boat got sea sick and we had to go in early. We all caught a fish except for my husband, he was too sick to reel one in but we caught 5 bonitas and my bil and a cousin each caught 7ft. sailfish. I was disappointed that I didn't catch one but my stomach wouldn't allow me to leave the side of the boat at that point. The seas were really rough that day and we didn't know it until we were pretty far out that that day was the first time all week the boat had been out to fish because the seas had been so rough. Dramamine doesn't help in that situation, in fact it tastes really terrible coming up! My husband's cousin who was with us took a picture of us both hanging over the side of the boat. My bil used this while giving his toast at our AHR this past weekend. It was pretty funny and I will be printing that photo to hang up with the rest of our vacation pictures.

Several of our guests went parasailing and jet skiing. They all really enjoyed that. You can't use your resort credits but I think it was around $50 to do either of those. It's located at the resort down by the Bugambilia Gazebo.

Mini golf, my kids loved this and played several times while we were there. It's free so no added cost. We also used the bike they have but you have to have closed toe shoes on so if you don't want to go on a guided tour wear tennis shoes so you can ride around with just your group. We did see lots of iguanas and one crocodile when we did this.

Here's a few of the Smile Market Pictures that I liked the most. There is a really great pier to take pictures on and those were some really good ones I just don't have the cd with the pictures with me at the moment to post those.

This was the bridal party.

Bridesmaids

On the rocks at the beach.

All of the family and friends that came.

Our family

Table set up with Marvin bouquet.

Table set up.

Overall we had a wonderful wedding and vacation with family and friends. If any of you have questions please feel free to ask!