Iberostar Quetzal/Tucan

nicole and ryan · December 11, 2012

I am meeting with my Travel Agent on Saturday to talk about my Destination Wedding. My FI and I love the Iberostar Tucan, have read so many great reviews about it! We havent booked with any resort yet but if the prices are right we are going with the Iberostar. From the information the wedding coordinatior sent me it looks like it is significantly cheaper to go with the free wedding package and add on all the extras you want, only $800 to have a private reception... you can basically get everything in the dreams package added on to the free one for half the price. If anyone has been getting pictures on cakes/flowers ect I would love it if you emailed me them! Also any top questions to ask my Travel Agent? Oh and were planning for January 4-11th 2014.

Happy Planning!

Nicole

nicole.zeilinger@st.bemidjistate.edu

sandybeach · December 11, 2012

A heads up for future iberostar brides (and possibly other resorts in mexico aswell) keep in mind, for a legal ceremony bride,groom and witnesses must arrive 4 days prior to wedding date (weekends do not count as days!). If everyone already knew this....disregard this msg lol.

Jessicalynne · December 11, 2012

Trace - all of your information is so helpful! You should do third for a living We are torn about having the reception at the tropical restaurant or doing it in the convention center. We are expecting 100+ adults and got the dream package. Do you have any pics or would you mind sharing a pic after your amazing trip of "I do's"? Thanks again. I'm excited for you, its almost here!

Jessicalynne · December 11, 2012

*this for a living...not third. Stupid auto correct on my phone

Trace2013 · December 11, 2012

Jessica

NO WAY! hahaha. Although I've enjoyed the process somewhat, I'm going to be very happy to have all the planning and decision making over and done with

I had asked for pictures of the convention center as this whole discussion was a real sore spot for us. We truly wanted to have everything in the open air restaurant but they are super strict about limiting the reception to 4 hours. No buying your way out of that one! I was not happy to have to essentially end the evening at 10:30, even though we could go to the disco. The idea of rounding up 90 people and making sure everyone knew the party was continuing there was not something I was interested in doing, and just when things would be really getting started! So...We booked the convention center and have the DJ staying until 1am. Here are the pictures Alejandra sent of the convention center, they will do a standard set up and we can bring whatever else we want. To tell you the truth I'm not bringing a ton, I plan on decorating with balloons, adding maracas as favours to the tables and letting the DJ lights and the Mexican fiesta do the rest!

Here is my inspiration pic I sent to her (I found those big ass balloons online and they are amazing):

:

Here are the pics:

There were some of the questions I sent off to her once I had seen these pictures:

Some additional questions for you:

1 - Will the children be part of the head count for extra charge per person if we extend the night by 2.5 hours past the four hour time limit? Children just pay the half price.
2 - Who is responsible for decorating the convention centre? Is that something that you and your team will take care of? The convention center has a standard decoration and I have some tea candles and standard centerpieces. The main table is decorated with a flower center piece. The tablecloths are white and beige, or white and peach. Color tablecloths could be requested to an external provider if you want something different.
3 - Are there decoration options or would we be responsible for providing all of the decor? Sometimes the bride brings some special decoration and we take care of it. If you want to add balloons, special centerpieces, color table clothes, color saches for the chairs, color lights or extra flowers could be possible. Please note that every extra decoration requested has an extra charge.
4 - Would we still have to choose the menu options that were previously provided? Yes, of course. You can choose a menu of a restaurant. It might be a fixed menu, this is the same meal for everybody. If you have vegetarian or allergic guests let me know and the chef can prepare some special food for them.
5 - We've hired a DJ from the local area, will there be any issue with his set up in the convention centre? There is not issue with the DJ if he has his day pass. Let me know please if he need a table for his set up or any thing you would need for him.

Sorry, such a long post but I wish I had other brides to ask questions to when I was first making decisions so I want to be as helpful as possible as we all know there is next to nothing online about weddings this hotel!

Tracy

Jessicalynne · December 12, 2012

This is amazing!!! Thank you so so so so much. Such a huge help

catgirl · December 12, 2012

Thanks to the ladies who sent me info.

I posted a thank you and it was sent for review, not sure why?

Some of the stress is easing away now.

Kali628 · December 12, 2012

Hi everyone, I'm back!! We had the most amazing time. The wedding was perfect and we couldn't have asked for anything more. I'd be happy to answer any questions about the process!

We arrived on Tuesday and had our meeting with Alejandra on Thursday afternoon. It took about 45 minutes. Her and I had been going back and forth via email so everything just needed to be confirmed. There was a wedding Thursday/Friday/Saturday (mine)/Sunday/Monday. Those wedding people work their butts off.

My wedding was on Saturday. We had a lot of spectators, some even took video! We did not have a rehearsal and it was completely fine. The Mariachi were fantastic and everyone loved them. We used Adventure Photo and I think they did a great job. After the ceremony the photographer got a group shot, multiple family shots, bridal party shots, and then we had a photo session with just us two. We had about an hour to kill after pictures and before dinner so we went to the lobby bar. Dinner was at the steakhouse and it suited our needs perfectly. We weren't supposed to be private but it ended up being just our group in the restaurant. After dinner we went back to the lobby bar (it was the best bar on property I think) and at 10:30 we went over to the disco on the Quetzal side. It was awesomely terrible (i.e. cheesy). We pretty much had the place to ourselves and kept the bartender busy. All in all it was a perfect day and Iberostar did a fantastic job with the wedding. Everything I had envisioned and asked for was there.

Buffet food was so-so but the a-la-carte restaurants were delicious. We had a hard time getting reservations so try to make those the first night so you can get in. Oh and when your reservation is over they do try to push you out a little bit to make room for the next table. You couldn't really sit and hang out which was unfortunate. The Japanese was my favorite followed by the Italian.

We had a total of 35 people that came down with us and they all managed to be in the same area of buildings. We had an oceanfront suite and were the farthest away from everyone but it was fine. The beach was absolutely beautiful by the way! There is a lot of walking to be done so if you have elderly people or those that have trouble walking, be aware. You can request a golf cart though to get from one side to the other.

That's my quick review! Overall I was so pleased with my decision to go to this resort. Everyone loved being together and spending vacation as one big family.

Here are some pictures from the photographer...

Kali628 · December 14, 2012

I'm back!! We had the most amazing time. I have a more in-depth review that I need to post in the right section but I wanted to post a few pictures here. I'd be happy to answer any questions you ladies have as well.

I am so happy we chose this resort, it was perfect!