Barcelo Maya

[MelissaH]

What I would suggest to you too is to not limit your guests to just staying at the Palace side of the resort - you may get more interest if you let them know about the other parts of the resort so they if they are looking for somewhere a little cheaper they have that option It doesn't matter where you stay there it's all nice (the Colonial & Tropical are obviously nicer than the Caribe & the Beach because they're newer, but I've stayed on the Caribe side as well as the Colonial and I wouldn't hesitate going back to either one of them).

[nylalany]

My concern is that the point of having a destination wedding for me is to have a vacation with all my loved ones, and that won't really happen if they stay on the Caribe side - it is quite far and those folks can't use all the restaurants of the Tropical/Colonial side, etc. So...I don't know. I wish I found a smaller resort.

[MelissaH]

We found that everyone wanted to do their own thing for the most part anyway - so we'd meet up in the afternoon for a drink or arrange a meal together but other than that we all did our own thing.

 

It's really not that far from one part of the resort to the other, and I'm pretty sure there is a shuttle that is going between the Palace and the other parts of the resort.

 

When we stayed at the Colonial we found we ate most of our meals at the Beach & Caribe restaurants (except for a couple a la cartes) because they were way less crowded and the food was better.

 

If money's not a problem for anyone in your group then sure have everyone stay at the same place, but for me people weren't willing to pay the higher prices for the Tropical or Colonial but were happy with the prices at the Beach & Caribe - if they didn't have those other options they wouldn't have joined us - so leaving things open for people to make their own decisions like that was really great for our group - otherwise we probably would have had like 15 people instead of 42!

 

Hope that helps to see where I'm coming from a bit...

[MagsieMexico]

All of my guests are staying at the Colonial, but only for 1 night or so because it was too expensive for most of them...

 

Melissa, how did you organize the 'meeting here for a drink', 'dinner on the caribe side' etc...? Did you plan it out all in advance and leave an itinerary? Or how did you get in touch with everyone to make sure they knew the plans?

 

Also, for the OOT Bags, did they distribute them to all the rooms, or did you have to find out where everyone was staying and do ti yourself?

[MelissaH]

I planned it out in advance and put an itinerary in the OOT bags.

 

I distributed the OOT bags myself because I knew approximately when everyone would be arriving - but you can arrange to have the front desk distribute them as people were checking in (our WC offered to arrange this for us, but I don't remember if there was a fee involved or not).

 

When it comes closer to your wedding you will get some forms to fill out and at that time (if I remember correctly) you need to put down all of your guests and where they are staying along with any room preferences for each of them (ie. double beds, king beds, etc.) and the dates they'll be arriving on so you'll know in advance where everyone will be anyway.

[nylalany]

Did you get this list from your TA or the WC at the resort? If I'm not getting married there but I do plan on having a group there (and maybe having a rehearsal dinner there) would the WC also provide the room preference list.arrival date/group list? Or was it the resort reservations people? Did you deal directly with them?

[MelissaH]

I got the forms from the WC, so if you're getting married elsewhere then you wouldn't get it. They didn't provide me with the list, I had to provide them with it, they just gave me the form to input the information into.

[Leticia]

melissaH- did you use the barcelo photog? do you know if they are good? i wonder if someone has pictures up somewhere.

 

Magsie are you using their photog?

 

i'm debating flying in a girl i know as a guest but dan really just wants to use the barcelo person.

[MelissaH]

here are my pictures from the photographer...

 

melandjohn/Wedding - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

 

i didn't really like using them (i found them to be rude, and super high pressure when it came to choosing your package) and would have preferred to have erick rodriguez stay at the resort for a night so he could have done our wedding, not just off site photos...but hindsight is 20/20, right?

 

i didn't like that all of the pictures were so posed either...i really loved that a lot of erick's photos were

 

here are erick's photos

melandjohn/Wedding 2 - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

 

hope those links work!

[Leticia]

i totally see the difference. i hope i can sway dan.

 

melissa did you use the barcelo flowers? because i love your bouquet!!!