Simple Beach wedding January 2011

Moon Palace- Beach wedding

Wedding Week: January 12-19, 2011 (Flying to CUN on the 11^th)/ 7 nights/8days

Room Block Location: Sunrise Section

Wedding Date: January 15, 2011       Wedding Date/Time: 3pm

Wedding Ceremony Package: Free Symbolic Package

Wedding Location: Beach Wedding Area

Cocktail hour: 4-5pm       Cocktail Hour Location: Toucan Garden

Dinner: 5:00pm-9 pm         Dinner Location: Terrace Tucan

Number of Guests: 33 guests

Wedding Coordinator(s):

Janina Mendoza ***member wedding coordinator***

Angelica Martinez Mauricio             ***On-site Wedding Coordinator***

If you are planning to have a wedding at a Palace resort I would recommend it but be aware of what you are getting yourself into. We had an amazing wedding and it was absolutely beautiful and I would do it again if I had to. As with EVERY wedding things don’t work out as you plan so just double check and verify all your details (which is what I thought I was doing) because especially in Mexico it does get lost in translation. They take forever to get back to you. Just use this forum to guide you and answer your questions. Besides all the major things I would just wait to get there.

Accommodations/Reservations

Some of my guests with three people in a room were given a room with one bed (that just doesn’t make sense). I had my room block for well over a year and I’ve been planning my wedding for almost 2 years and they gave my guests one bed?! The Miami coordinator told me that my guests would get two double beds unless otherwise requested. And if they did request a king size bed they might be far away from our room block. So when I put in my paper work I made sure the people who wanted king beds had that requested. The guests that were moved were far away from our room block and I felt like it was a deluxe room when we paid for a superior room. Honestly there isn’t much difference between those rooms just the price and different alcohol/bath toiletries  ***I would specify for each room the accommodations needed (double or king) and have your guests confirm too**

My 6-month-old niece was given a crib that was so uncomfortable. We requested another mattress and they said they didn’t have any. I would just bring your own crib. I feel bad because I kept telling my sister that it will be okay and she wouldn’t need hers but the baby couldn’t sleep in their cheap crib. The baby ended up sleeping with her in the bed all week.

MP tried to charge my guests twice. One guest got charged three times but he was only supposed to get charged twice. (We made changes last minute and they were working on a refund, which takes over two weeks! A new charge had to be made for the new reservation but two charges were made, thus the three charges.) This was the Miami office’s mistake and we had to deal with it when we got back to the states.

It seemed like everyone I dealt with was either going on vacation or leaving the company. So many of my details and trips were screwed up.  Make sure you get everything in writing/emails its hard to do but worth it in the end.

Many times we would be talking about one date or time and they would write down another. This happened when I was booking one of the tours but luckily I caught it. Another example, while we were going to the airport the guy asked me if I was flying Continental airlines and I told him no I was flying American and it was also written on my transfer sheet and he asked me three times after that if I was flying Continental. My guests started laughing because that summed up our whole trip. They just couldn’t get it right.  So pay attention when booking your tours and reservations and double, triple check everything and make sure you get it in writing. Although we had many more problems with the resort I’ll focus on the wedding for my review.

Meeting with Coordinator-

During my meeting I gave the wedding coordinator bride’s dress and grooms suit, parasols for the ceremony, programs, rose petals, bags for the rose petals (the coordinator put some in each bag for me), cake topper, timeline of how I wanted everything to go, and she went over the wedding details with me. Provide names for guest passes, clarify you want your clothes delivered the day before the wedding. Also, they tried to charge me a groom’s tux fee, which was over $60 I think, but it was just a regular suit that should only cost $14. So I had to talk to them and tell them that even though it’s a groom’s suit it is not a tux and does not need to be labelled or charged as a “grooms suit.”  It was a regular suit (jacket and pants). They tried to say it was three pieces (jacket, pants, and white shirt!) We just paid for the regular suit.

My dress arrived at 1pm the day of my wedding even though we called two hours before looking for my dress.  I was supposed to be taking pictures at 1. I would recommend getting your dress the day before.

Welcome Dinner –A+ Arrecifes Restaurant. We were moved inside due to weather but it ended up being a lot of fun anyways.

Spa- A+ Loved the girls at the spa. They did a great job and accommodated everyone. I got my hair and makeup done.

BIG FAT F for FAILURE- I booked spa appointments with Reyna months before we got there and I tried to add some more spa services a week before we left. I actually met with Reyna in person (Yes! I tracked her down) the night before our spa day to get the confirmation and she said she’d email me the new confirmation numbers. She never did. She left on vacation the next day and we spent three hours in the morning trying to get everyone into the spa. I called the manager Karla first thing in the morning. Told her my situation. And she met me down at the spa to help me sort everything out. When we got there we asked if the reservations were held and the guy told us no. After we made new confirmations, he tells us that he found our reservations. (really?!) I probably spend 8 hours trying to book/confirm/sort out the spa appointments. Advice: just get the confirmation numbers and hold on to those gold tickets (half piece of paper) for everything (tours/spas/golf)

Ceremony

We didn’t add anything to the complementary package. I just wanted it simple with rose petals on the ground, which blew away so it was sort of pointless, and the white parasols for the guests. I’m glad I kept it simple. It was still breathtaking and saved me a lot of money.

PETALS:

I ordered petals from Eco-Friendly Freeze Dried Rose Petals I ordered 66 cups for the aisle and guest toss after ceremony $70. I think it was good enough.

Horse Carriage – I was undecided on the horse carriage but I ended up booking it when I got there. Everyone loved it. It builds the suspense for when you walk in. I’d do it again.

Music- we connected our laptop to the sound system. We had DJ software installed on our laptop and just designated someone to handle the music.

Cocktail Hour- music from laptop.

Reception- I brought in a seating chart, which I made from weddingwire.com and name table tents. I had a u-shape table set up. I gave them to Angelica and she had everything set up beautifully. 

Centrepieces (tree with hanging light with pink/dark roses and flowers) I ordered from Zuniga and I loved them. I think this was my little splurge. It cost $115 each.  I got hanging paper lanterns to decorate the terrace $100 each I got 4. I got the 2 candle station for entrance for $55 each. I wanted to use them for the cake table but that was another thing they didn’t get right. I also only wanted pink flowers for the centrepieces but they gave me purple roses too (weird- but I really don’t care anymore). Labor and load fee $150.

Video Montage

I had my photographer bring a projector and we ended up projecting it onto the ceiling of the gazebo because of the rain. I ordered a projector for $42 and they gave me a flat screen TV that we didn’t end up using because it wouldn’t work with the laptop.

Cake-we upgraded the cake to P-10 with Navy Blue Robbon Top-fruits middle-chocolate bottom-lemon. No one got to try the top fruit layer. She said she would have some for me but I never got it. I don’t know what happened but I really wanted the top of my cake. The chocolate was delicious. I would have changed that to the bottom one. JThe cake was beautiful I didn’t give them a ribbon because of past experiences from the girls on this forum. I just told them I wanted a navy blue sugar ribbon. They used a regular ribbon for the cake instead which I thought it looked beautiful.

Fireworks – I ordered the 5 round shells but I don’t have any pictures yet. I LOVED having fireworks. It was awesome even though it only lasts for 30 seconds. I’d do it again.

Honeymoon breakfast- they sent us the wrong breakfast. I don’t know what the point of confirming my breakfast menus if they can’t even send me what I ordered.

Group tour booking

The sales department sent me an email telling me I can book group activities. Long story short. I told her that I wanted to swim with the dolphins late Sunday afternoon because my wedding was on Saturday. She got my name wrong. She sent me a confirmation Saturday at 5pm for a tour on Sunday at 9am. My wedding didn’t end till late and I wasn’t going to call everyone and wake them up just to try and make the tour. Then I find out that she is no longer with the company and was just trying to make commission. 

Weather

When we got there and for the first two days the weather was gloomy and rainy. On my wedding day the sun came out and I couldn’t have asked for better weather. It wasn’t too warm but the sun was out and it lasted like that until 7pm. Then it started to sprinkle and little bit.  Angelica asked if I wanted to move under one of the gazebos but I didn’t really want to. Some of my guests started moving under there so I said okay we could move there for the remainder of the evening. We were under the gazebo for an hour and the weather cleared up. I told people I didn’t care if it rained. If they wanted to go under for cover they could but we were dancing and having such a good time. Luckily it stopped raining and we had an awesome last dance with the fire works. The weather was so warm and humid the last three days we were there.

Overall- Everyone had a great time.

I would recommend:

Getting married at Moon Palace.  Even with all these headaches I had a beautiful wedding. I was so excited to marry my best friend in front of my immediate family and close friends. Seeing everyone hanging out together was worth every penny.  We have so many awesome memories.  

(Side note: My friend who has been to almost all the palace resorts said she’d want to get married at Cancun palace (she stayed there before and it is smaller than the moon).)

Horse carriage ride

Fireworks

Swimming with dolphins

Tours Tulum –but go straight to the beach its gorgeous!

Zip-lining was fun. Guys rode on ATV’s after and had a lot of fun. They try to sell you more activities and tell you that you have to wait for everyone to finish their activities but they can take you back to resort before the activities are over.

Marvin for the flowers- He saved me so much money.

I wouldn’t recommend:

The lobster dinner (total waste of money/points). The lobster is served cold.

They ended up compensating me for all the headaches that I encountered, which wasn't much.  I filed many reports and probably spent most of my time at the front desk, email, and trying to solve all these problems.

The 1500 Vacation dollars isn’t that great unless you play golf.  There are so many restrictions. If you are getting the 1500 vacation dollars/points only $300 can be used at the spa and salon services; only some tours are included, and you can purchase a  Jose Cuervo tequila bottle gift set for $100/points which they do sell out because no one can use their money. Also note you can only bring one back per person through customs.

If you have any questions you can private message me. But good luck to you.

And one last word of advise. Even though things go wrong on your wedding day just have fun relax and enjoy it. I know I did and everyone around me had a great time too. Good luck!!