Excellence Playa Mujeres Brides Post Here!

[Sharon99]

llciz I am so happy for you guys!! Thank you so much for the review...thank god your husband took a nap so you could catch us up! lo! It sounds like you had a beautiful wedding minus a few snags. Your pics are beautiful! Love your dress! Wish I was there now  

 

I also was curious what kind of cake you had & also did you have to take down anything you had brought with you(chair sashes etc) after the reception & did you keep the centerpieces?  I cant remember if you had a DJ or not, if you did were they good?

We are also getting married in the gazebo because of the wind and also I think my guests may enjoy the shade as well! Do you remember how many seats fit in the gazebo? I know its kind of small & was curious if everyone would have a seat at our ceremony.

 

Cant wait to see more pics & congrats MRS.!!!!

 

 

 

For the menu we chose 1 of the options for the silver & everyone will have that but 1 vegetarian dish. Originally, I was told that everyone gets the same dish. Maybe that has changed??

 

We also have been to EPM before and stayed in the swim-up rooms twice. I didnt have an issue with privacy. The 1st time we stayed in one of the buildings where we were the only ones ever in our pool. It was one of the smaller pools between the buildings, not the main pools. I felt so bad for the bartender at the bar because no one was ever there lol! The 2nd visit we had a swim-up room by the main pool(lazy river) it wasnt as private as the 1st time but we didnt have a problem with it. It was great to hop out, run to our bathroom(lol), order room service if we didnt want to get out of the pool & eat on the patio. You can still bare it all walking around in your room if ya want, just gotta shut the curtains!!  

For us personally we think the Excellence club is a waste...you dont really get anything different. All the rooms are the same for the most part & we didnt feel the need to pay extra for what, a lounge that I have never seen!

We booked a roof top terrace room this time only because of the fact that we wont have any alone time so if we need to get away we can  hide out on our roof!  I actually didnt know they upgrade the rooms...now I wonder if we shouldn't have booked the rrt...

 

[MsBlissMpls]

Sorry, not 35 rooms booked it's room nights. Originally I read that you only needed 35 room nights booked for your party for the base wedding package to be compimentary. But I haven't seen that wording in the new materials, so they may have changed it. Luckly we noticed that detail when we were booking our room and we knew that our group would be staying a combined 35 nights, so we did the non -EC to save money, knowing we could always upgrade if we had it in our budget.

[lciz]

No one be sad about the swim up room! People pay extra for it for a reason, because they love it! It just wasnt for us and some of our guests because we like to keep our curtains open all the time for the view... But no worries if you are in one because, again, some people love those rooms!!

 

Again about the hair, all I wanted was my hair to be down and long and curly, its actually the only reason i grew it out over the last year!! But the wind is just so crazy, you will see. Just test the beach out when you arrive with your hair curly and go stand down there and be the judge. I just figured I would give you girls the heads up because it isnt something you can control and its just way to crazy to have your hair down... another bride was married here this weekend and she said she couldnt hear her husbands vowes over the wind even with the mic again, just some info I am passing along!

 

I had 10 pages of excel with EVERY SINGLE detail for our wedding that I gave N, N laughed and said I did all the work for her and she just copied and pasted all my details into her wedding sheet, so that way there was no confusion... Well our seating chart had our guests name and their exact meal written under thier name and also thier name tag had thier meal option as well and they still did not make enough... We only had 3 vegetarians and yet they made 6 vegetarian meals and then a few people who ordered the steak or the seafood was stuck with vegetarian meals. My guests made their meal choices 4 months ago... I emailed them to N several times as well as giving her print outs.... So again, just make her triple check!!

 

I took all our centerpieces to my room and the flowers are still alive and beautiful!! I am sure i will have to return the vases when we leave, which is fine because i dont want to travel with them...

 

I will upload more photos soon!!

 

Any other questions?? I am happy to help!

[MsBlissMpls]

lciz - Your info is awesome. And don't worry I'm not bummed about the room. It was just a small moment. I absolutely LOVE that you are communication with us fromt the resort... Can you tell us what N. is doing now??? ha. Because whatever it is, she is NOT emailing me.

 

Oh, how I wish that she would confirm our meal options so I could ask our guests what they want. Oh, how I wish I had details to have in an excel spreadsheet.....

 

I'm plannig for both hair up and down and will decide once I get there. That's why my Pinterst has so many ups & down photos!

 

 

[MsBlissMpls]

Is it crazy that we leave in 8 days and nothing is planned?

[Sharon99]

LOL!!!!

"Can you tell us what N. is doing now??? ha. Because whatever it is, she is NOT emailing me.  

 

I am sitting at work & just busted out laughing!!! And I completely agree, Iciz- you are awesome for giving us all the details while your still there! Hoping the weather has been beautiful for you & theres not rain. I was curious what we would do if it rains on the wedding day. Especially since our reception is on the spice terrace.

 

 

Originally Posted by MsBlissMpls 

lciz - Your info is awesome. And don't worry I'm not bummed about the room. It was just a small moment. I absolutely LOVE that you are communication with us fromt the resort... Can you tell us what N. is doing now??? ha. Because whatever it is, she is NOT emailing me.

 

Oh, how I wish that she would confirm our meal options so I could ask our guests what they want. Oh, how I wish I had details to have in an excel spreadsheet.....

 

I'm plannig for both hair up and down and will decide once I get there. That's why my Pinterst has so many ups & down photos!

 

 

 

[Sharon99]

Iciz - I was just looking over my info & I have a question for you that I am still not sure what we are gonna do yet. Did you tip anyone?!? N?? There are tons of threads here that say tip everyone to tipping the officiant to the bartenders & waiters. Honestly, I cant see going all out...the budget is already getting crazy. Was just curious what you guys did.

[MsBlissMpls]

For those of you on the Spice Terrace, are you doing any additional decorations on the top (paper laterns, etc)?  One of my questions to N was to see if they can do this at the resort and the cost. but no word back. So I'm wondering if I should just buy these and bring them. Time is gettign short for shipping so I hope to decide to order these today or tomorrow.

 

[lciz]

Sharon99,

 

We brought $200 in 1 dollar bills and we are tipping the waitstaff at the resort here and there depending on their service. Some people just do their job and walk away, those we may leave a dollar or nothing... Others go far and beyond for anything and everything you could ever ask for and you become close friends with them, those people we take care of... Then we never wait for anything at all, ever! Its worth it...

 

We did not tip N, we will send her a gift when we return to the states. At the wedding we tipped each of our bartenders and waitstaff $15 each. They deserved it. We did not tip the officiant, we just used the resorts... I say if you bring your own officiant in to the resort, you should tip them some.

 

We are sending our photogs a tip or a gift after we receive our photos... The tipping can get out of control, so just give when you think it is well deserved. We tipped a waiter when we first got here and he was not nice to us and later again, still not nice to us. So we are saving our tips for those that really go out of their way.

 

As far as the rehearsal dinner goes, I really didnt feel it was necessary to spend the extra money when we are already at an all inclusive. We had ours at the Mexican Fiesta and they put all the tables needed together for us so that everyone had room and we were all together, so it was just like a rehearsal but without the extra costs. We sat everyones welcome bags there for them... Well, N was supposed to set all this up for us but when we arrived no one had told the waitstaff about our rehearsal dinner there, good thing I showed up early and we threw everything together quickly... Our guests never knew the difference. It ended up being a blast!! 

 

I wish I knew where N was, Id make her email you all back!!! Again, she left at our reception and was never to be found again, she was supposed to help with the cake cutting and all of that, we had to locate a knife ourselves and just get what we needed done, done.

 

We had vanilla with vanilla, carrot cake (my husbands fav) with vanilla, chocolate with vanilla.... Everyone swooned over the vanilla and vanilla... I am craving it right now actually!!

 

We got the curtains for $50 for the gazebo and it really made a difference. totally worth it!

 

 

[k032379]

Absolutely stunning Lciz. By the way your dress was one of my top picks but I hated it on me, but u look absolutely amazing in it. You are the greatest. Thanks for all of the info. When I booked I did the exact same thing as you. We will be staying a few nights in a regular room and then on wedding night we reserved that exact rtt room for the remainder of our stay. I considered doing a different tier room and hoping for an upgraded but thought its my wedding and I feel better being sure. I also only booked EC for my fi & I so we didn't always have to be available to others if we chose not to. This may be a crazy question but do you know of the ipod worked in the room? I feel lost. I haven't even begun to start any planning at the resort but I have months to go still. Oh, I heard different things about the speakers and mic being free or paying to use them. Do you know if they are or not? Your pics are stunning. Shear beauty. Thank you so much for sharing. K