Excellence Playa Mujeres Brides Post Here!

[May12]

EVERYTHING! Just always pay in Pesos...cash or tell them to charge your card this way...unless of course their conversion rate is not to your advantage, but I haven't seen that down there other than in money exchange places, which is not advisable.

When you get the bill, it will be itemized out in pesos and a dollar conversion. The catch is that the dollar conversion is based on the "resort's" rate which was holding steady at 12.7% the entire time we were there. As you know, the dollar fluctuates every day and was between 13.4% and 14% while we were there. We told them to charge our credit card in pesos and knew we would be getting a discount for this based on the conversion rate that day being better than 12.7%. Your bank will convert it at the highest rate for the day, which again is to your advantage.  

We also asked Nayeli for the wedding "bill" the day before we checked out so we could look it over and make sure it was right. She got it for us within 5 minutes and it was less than what I expected...in dollars because that is how we have been communicating the prices during the planning. 

Because we had the house DJ and photographer, the bill for them was included as well. We had extra things we did with the photographer that we decided to do a week before we got there so we dealt directly with him for that and took out Pesos at the ATM!

So, when you are anywhere and are negotiating a price, do it in Pesos, pull out your converter and make sure you are getting a better price than what they initially told you in dollars. EX: you're at the market (or in a cab asking for a charge to go somewhere) and want to buy something that they tell you is $40. Ask them "How much in Pesos?" They usually go to 400 or 460 Pesos...something like that. Well, now you just went from paying $40 to $28 or $32! THEN you negotiate in pesos....How bout $350 Pesos? Etc... you just went down to about $25.

We paid the spa separately (did a ton of stuff for the wedding party as part of their gift and it was already 20% off as part of our package) We thought we'd be spending about $1200 but after paying in Pesos, we ended up saving close to $200!!   

Quote:

Originally Posted by danak71 

What exactly did you pay for in pesos? Was it just what was owed to the resort?

[kshannon]

Ahhh you are so helpful!!!! Thanks so much! Moments that Matter are really good.. Ive looked them up. I LOVE their photojournalistic style I may just go ahead and book then.. when was your wedding?

[May12]

We JUST got back on Sunday...our wedding was May 19th. Our photographer was the in house photographer which actually is bluelense, but called VIP in the resort. We wanted them to capture our weekend and the vibe of the group and they got it! We are not traditional so there aren't too many of those photos. What I loved was that they were there following us around getting EVERYTHING! The head photographer's name is Juan Carlos Lancelotti and Nayeli (or your WC) can communicate with him for you, or you can do it on your own. His email is Jclancelotti@yahoo.es phone: 011 52 998 1049968

If you go with another photographer for the wedding, it may be worth it to work something out with him for an event or TTD you may want to do in addition.

Not sure if you saw our slide show he did for us being that it was in the middle of my way too long email, but if you want to check out their work(in our style we wanted) here it is again. We have it up on YouTube, but here's the link....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFzYYWe7a6k&feature=channel&list=UL

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by kshannon 

Ahhh you are so helpful!!!! Thanks so much! Moments that Matter are really good.. Ive looked them up. I LOVE their photojournalistic style I may just go ahead and book then.. when was your wedding?

[Momoarc83]

Hey everyone,

Question:  We are getting married next April and are inviting 250 people.  We expect at least half to attend.  I am in discussions with my travel agent as to whether or not to do a Group Room Block or just book a-la carte style?  What did you all do for your wedding? 

Thanks!

-Monica

[May12]

We didn't want to get locked into something and then having to pay the balance if we didn't have enough rooms blocked so we ORIGINALLY did not do that. As our group had a lot of procrastinators and the rates starting to go up, I knew for sure we had at least 10 more rooms of people who were booking, so we did a block 4 months before the wedding...more than half the group were in it. The cool thing about it was for every 10 rooms booked, we got a free "person" for the 3 day block time. I wish we had gone this way from the get go...we could have had 2 free "people" for the 3 days-or a reduction to our room. The stipulations around it may vary by the travel agent you have, but usually it is 3 days and if people book more days they still get that rate.

If you KNOW for sure you've got a big group going, it's the way to go... there are also different airline blocks you can do too if you have a lot of people flying from the same place or on the same airline.  

Originally Posted by Momoarc83 

Hey everyone,

Question:  We are getting married next April and are inviting 250 people.  We expect at least half to attend.  I am in discussions with my travel agent as to whether or not to do a Group Room Block or just book a-la carte style?  What did you all do for your wedding? 

Thanks!

-Monica

[danak71]

Originally Posted by Momoarc83 

 

Hey everyone,

Question:  We are getting married next April and are inviting 250 people.  We expect at least half to attend.  I am in discussions with my travel agent as to whether or not to do a Group Room Block or just book a-la carte style?  What did you all do for your wedding? 

Thanks!

-Monica

We're getting married May 4, 2013 and we did a group block of 32 rooms, as we are expecting 60-70 people. One of the things I liked about Destinationweddings.com is that from the time I signed the contract, I had 30 days before the full amount of the room deposit was due.

 

For example, with 32 rooms blocked a deposit of $200 per room had to be paid. So by the end of the 30-day period we needed to have $6400 paid from deposits. As people booked their room, their deposit was deducted from the $6400 owed. And if all the deposits aren't paid by the end of the 30-day period we can release the rooms and not have any additional responsibility.

 

What I didn't want was to have to put up the $6400 myself and then have it credited back to me as people paid. As Sheryl mentioned, people procrastinate! This option worked really well for me but I have to say I sent out an initial email to everyone telling them the rates and the room block. Then I sent out 2 more reminder emails within the month. The actual last day to book is 6/4/12 but I told everyone it was a week earlier (5/28/12) because I knew there would be several that wouldn't have their stuff together! LOL And inevitably, I was right. With the holiday being Monday, several people forgot so on Tuesday I made telephone calls and as of now we have about 23 rooms booked. I'm sure by Monday the additional 7 will be booked as well.

 

As Sheryl mentioned, the group booking is awesome because you get so many amenities and perks with it. But in addition, because these resorts usually are booked to capacity, if EPM is oversold, they will start sending people to their sister properties if they don't have enough rooms. They won't do that with group bookings. Your TA can advocate for you to make sure everyone stays together at EPM!

 

Hope that helps. If anyone needs a referral for TA, PM me and I can give you her #. She's awesome!

 

Lynn

[Sharon99]

Originally Posted by Momoarc83 

 

Hey everyone,

Question:  We are getting married next April and are inviting 250 people.  We expect at least half to attend.  I am in discussions with my travel agent as to whether or not to do a Group Room Block or just book a-la carte style?  What did you all do for your wedding? 

Thanks!

-Monica

Congrats! We did a room block of 20 rooms and had over 6 months to add or remove rooms in our group at no cost. We had to add a few rooms on towards the end but the TA just did it on her own. We chose the room block because the rate is much cheaper than we could find anywhere and if the resorts rates went cheaper then what we paid our rates would drop but only if you were in the group rate. I think it was definitely worth it and like danak71 said if there is extra money you get the refund or it pays your part. 

[Sharon99]

Originally Posted by kshannon 

 

Ahhh you are so helpful!!!! Thanks so much! Moments that Matter are really good.. Ive looked them up. I LOVE their photojournalistic style I may just go ahead and book then.. when was your wedding?

We used MTM and got married at EPM on May 3rd. We actually just received all our photos yesterday, 575 of them! 

He posted some of ours on Facebook,  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150898793854487.430757.18683524486&type=3

and I posted some on mine. If you want to see just request me.

They did some really awesome reflection shots that I LOVE too!! Definitely creative & it shows in every shot!

[MsBlissMpls]

Originally Posted by Sharon99 

 

We used MTM and got married at EPM on May 3rd. We actually just received all our photos yesterday, 575 of them! 

He posted some of ours on Facebook,  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150898793854487.430757.18683524486&type=3

and I posted some on mine. If you want to see just request me.

They did some really awesome reflection shots that I LOVE too!! Definitely creative & it shows in every shot!

Your photos are so beautiful! I love love love your day! The details and the color of the shots are so wonderful. In retrospect I reallly wish that we would have hired 2 photographers There were some details that I assumed would be captured in photos and we didn't get them - I think we would have had them if there were 2 photographers. The details from MTM are all wonderful. Congratulations!

[Sharon99]

Aw thanks so much! Your too sweet. I think your photos are amazing too. You look stunning in every shot!