Excellence Punta Cana Brides Thread

[Dolcenotte12]

Amber, I just sent you an email tonight and then I checked on here and I'm so glad you had such a gorgeous wedding!! Looks familiar lol. You looked beautiful and you have awesome pictures. I'm glad you had such an awesome experience at Excellence!! I knew you would love it!! My wedding was amazing in every way as well!! I will write a review on here and tripadvisor very soon. I will try to post a link to pictures once I get those organized. If anyone has any questions, ask away. But as Amber said, you can't go wrong with an Excellence wedding!!!

[amberdgraham]

Quote:

Originally Posted by adurrell Amber, You must be so excited to be married. I can't wait to get married at Excellence. I've been dreaming of the day ever since we met. Did you have to bring all the decorations down with you or did they provide some like the chair decorations, flowers for the ceremony, etc.? Congratulations! You were a beautiful bride!

Adurrell!

Thank you, getting into the carriage at the Excellence was a little surreal, because I'd been dreaming about it for so long, and the reality was just a amazing! We brought down the chair ribbons (on a spool) because we had a different color, but they do also have a few options available that you don't need to bring with you (I think there are blue and/or red chair tie options, but check with your WC). They provided very nice flowers on our gazebo, and our package included a centerpiece for the altar/table. Everything else we brought with us!

[Dolcenotte12]

Yes, if anyone is interested, I left my bright blue chair bows with Ana. There was about 60 of them. I'm sure they saved most of them. It is a gorgeous color, not teal, not aqua, not dark blue, just bright blue lol. If I knew how to post a pic here I would but I am clueless. The carriage ride was interesting because my mom kept getting hit in the head with the palm leaves lol. we brought our sand ceremony vases, chair bows, welcome bags, and in memory vase with a couple of picture frames...everything else they provided. The welcome bags for 40 guests took up the most room and weighed a lot. I had beautiful orchids for my bouquet and my hair and my bridesmaids had hot pink gerbera daisies, beautiful!!

[8phoenix8]

Amber-

Congratulations! Thank you for posting your pics and your review. It's making me excited for mine in 4 months! I was laughing at some of your comments, especially how it felt "surreal", b/c that's exactly how I think I will feel! thanks again and good luck!

 

-beth

[staceysbride]

amber-

Thanks so much for posting your review and your photos! It was greatly appreciated. Congrats and you looked wonderful!!

[nbulldog19]

Hey girls-

 

quick question do you know if we can ship stuff to excellence? I want to ship a few things for the wedding and havent heard back from Ana in a few weeks so I thought I would ask you guys. Thanks

 

Nicole

[Jamael]

Could someone post the prices of weddings at this resort or is it free for a basic wedding package? I tried to open somebody's link but it said I didn't have access!

 

Thanks

[Dolcenotte12]

nbulldog, It is not advisable to ship things to the DR. Many things do not arrive when they should. However, if you feel you really need to I think UPS and Fed Ex will get your stuff there, never use a regular postal service, it will not get thereeeee. I would still check with the wedding dept at Excellence because I'm sure it depends on how much you are sending, if they can hold it for you or not. I was going to mail some stuff and then decided against it based on what people that live there have told me. We had 2 free checked bags each and then had my brother check in a bag with wedding stuff for me. We worked it out after days of dwelling on how to fit stuff without going over the weight limit, what to do with breakables, etc, but in the end, we did it!

 

Jamael, here is the info for the weddings at Excellence:

 

Excellence Punta Cana Spa and Resort - Weddings & Honeymoons

 

If you qualify for the free wedding package which is $850, you can subtract that amt if you pick a different package.

 

Hope I was able to help!

[Dolcenotte12]

I had an amazing experience much like Amber. I'm going to write a review now. If anyone has questions, please let me know. I am also including a snapfish link to view some of my professional photos by Photo Souvenir. My photographer was Severine..she was awesome!! I love my pictures and hope you guys do too! The link will be at the bottom of this review.

 

I first went to Excellence July 2007. We loved it so much that we knew one day we would be married here. However there was one problem. I found out in May 2008 that I have a serious allergy to gluten - wheat, barley, rye, and oats. I was very worried about traveling anywhere let alone leaving my house to eat. I thought to myself, "How could I get married and spend a honeymoon in another country when no one knows how to take care of me here??" So I emailed management there and explained my situation hoping they would be able to accomodate me. Amazingly, they assured me that they would handle this and connected me with executive chef (who is a great friend to us now) who ordered me new pots and pans, and promised he would be there to go over the menus, etc. So we booked Excellence again in July 2008 to see if this would really work. Luckily, we were engaged in June 2008 which worked out perfectly to put Excellence to the test.

 

Excellence aced that test beyond any measurable score. I can not express how amazing the service was by the concierge dept and Chef Berthold to make sure I did not get sick on my vacation. Every meal, the chef met with me to go over my choices and to prepare me something special if I so desired. At the beach and pool parties which is always buffet, he went over each and every buffet station to tell me what the dishes were made with. I felt like I had a personal chef. They treated us like royalty. So of course, we met with the wedding planner and group incentives manager, Ana to look over some wedding stuff because we knew this place was IT.

 

Ana kept in touch with me very often throughout the year and answered any questions I had, no matter how dumb or repetitive they might have been! LOL She was amazing. I think communication is very important when it comes to planning a destination wedding. Because we had so much communication, I had very little stress when it came to the wedding planning.

 

When I arrived at Excellence with 10 of my 40 guests, Ana came to greet me and immediately took my dress off my hands and met my family and friends. Roberto at the club was looking forward to our arrival and escorted each of my guests to their rooms. Any problem any of the guests had during their stay, (there were a couple minor ones here and there) Roberto and his team made sure to address it.

 

We met with Ana a few days before the wedding and I gave her all the other stuff I brought with me and we confirmed everything. Then I made a little boo boo by confusing the date of the rehearsal dinner and I had already told my guests the wrong information. Ana felt bad about the mixup so we had an area sectioned off at the pool soiree the night of the rehearsal dinner and had our "real" rehearsal dinner the next night. She handed out all my welcome bags to my guests. She made beautiful menu cards and information cards for the wedding schedule.

 

One the day of the wedding, the spa did an awesome job with my girls' hair and nails and my hair never looked so amazing. They did exactly what I wanted them to. Ana was in and out making sure everything was going well. I did my own makeup at the spa. Ana came to help me put my dress on and then she took my bridesmaids to the beach wedding site. Meanwhile, Lisbeth was assisting the guys and helping to set up the location.

 

Our photographer arrived just as I was putting my dress on (like I requested) and I was nervous at first that I was not coming out nice in pictures, but she helped me to relax lol. I got whisked away with my mother in a horse and carriage.

 

The wedding ceremony location was beautiful on the beach. I highly recommend this spot. Absolutely stunning. The sky and weather were perfect. There was a great breeze on the beach, not too much, just right. You will see in my pictures. I did not feel hot at all in my dress like I thought I would, but Steve felt a little uncomfortable in his white suit. The ceremony went very well and Domingo the sax player was unreal. I felt like I was in heaven.

 

After the ceremony, we greeted people and then took a group shot on the beach and then stayed with family and wedding party for some pictures on the beach while everyone else went to the cocktail hour. I didnt really get to see it, but I heard it was great. It was at the veranda near the Lobster House overlooking the ocean, prime location. We changed it at the last minute from Agave patio to this. It was a good choice.

 

Pictures did take some time and the cocktail hour lasted longer than expected. But we took some awesome pictures.

 

The reception set up was beyond gorgeous. We had a beach reception. If I could, I would do it the same way all over again. The sun was setting. It was perfect. You will see in my pictures how the set up for the beach looks. They carved beautiful designs into the fruit displays and the orchid centerpieces I asked Ana for were stunning. We did our first dance and then we ate. Domingo the sax player played for one hour which was dinner time. He did such a beautiful job. Then we had a Dominican band which I highly recommend, it really got the guests moving.They even let us use their instruments and Ana brought out the limbo stick and we did the Conga, it was great and really complemented the beach atmosphere. Then we played our music that we put on cds. We stopped a few times for speeches from my mom, my father in llaw, and the best man.We had a cigar roller for 2 hrs and a fruit lady for 2 hrs. I highly recommend these as well. I even had a cigar and I never had one before but hey, it was my wedding!

 

We did the mother -son song and then we did brother-sister song. Those went very well. Then we kept drinking (alot), boogied down in the sand and gave myself a sandy body and blonde highlights for the rest of the night! LOL We did the cake cutting (extremely drunk at this point) and smeared cake all over Steve's eyes. Let me mention that the Chef helped to prepare a gluten free wedding cake for me in addition to the regular cake so that I could eat cake (which I barely did anyway), but the cake was really cute and bigger than I expected and tasted delicious!! We did the garter which was also pretty funny because everyone was obliterated!!!

 

All in all, the festivities lasted from about 4pm to about 11 pm and the weather remained consistently perfect! I thought people would have problems dancing in the sand, but no one did. Some people never got up but alot of people did dance. I dont think I sat down once after I ate dinner. People also enjoyed using the beach beds and swings to hang out on during the reception!

 

The honeymoon night consisted of me calling Steve's brother to make sure I wouldnt drown in the pool ( we were going to jump in) but we never made it back out anyway lol. Instead I fell asleep fully clothed on the toilet bowl!!!!!! Grosssss!!! But fun.........

 

A couple days after the wedding Ana brought all my stuff back to me in my duffel bag and everything was packed nicely. Everyone had an amazing time at the wedding, they said it was unlike anything they have ever been to.

 

The photographer left us with amazing memories, a beyond spectacular slideshow, and an edited ceremony video that we showed to my grandparents ( who didnt make it) and they were smiling ear to ear. They said this wedding was beyond their wildest dreams!

 

For our honeymoon, we had the lovebirds massage which was very nice, breakfast in bed, and candlelight dinner on the beach with some delicious food (catered to my needs). And we were treated like a king and queen for the entire 3 weeks were there. They really spoiled us there, so much so that we are returning for the 4th time next July for our 1 year anniversary!!!

 

I highly recommend Excellence for your wedding and honeymoon. Ana, Lisbeth, and Mercy will do their best to assist you in anything you need, I guarantee it!

 

 

Here are the pictures that showcase the amazing weddings done at Excellence:

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[adurrell]

OMG Dolcenotte, you are beautiful and your husband is handsome. You make a perfect couple. Everything looked so beautiful. I'm so excited to be married at Excellence. Thanks so much for posting your pics. Can I have your email address in case I have some questions?