Dreams Riviera Cancun - Brides post here (new thread)

[ebernard4985]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laura22610 I think that the bride's bouquet is bigger than the bridesmaids' flowers. I was thinking about having my bridesmaids carry small bouquets of orange roses or orange calla lilies. I am having about 30 people (STILL waiting on a couple of RSVP's, believe it or not!). Most of the people are our age except for maybe about 10 family members. I don't think that a DJ would seem awkward. Do you think your guests would want to dance? If so, I am starting to think a DJ is the way to go. When i started to try to compile a playlist of songs, I got really overwhelmed. So, I am not sure on who the resort uses for a DJ. I had seen on here on a thread about DJ's that some girls from Dreams Cancun had the choice of DJ Mannia or DJ Doremixx. I would think that if both of these were options at Dreams Cancun, they would be at DRC too?? Since Ana is sometimes difficult to get responses from, I decided just to email the DJ's to see what they offer. DJ Mannia told me I had to go through Ana. DJ Doremixx gave me a price quote, then told me I had to go through the wedding coordinator. So, I am confused as to how this works. I just emailed Ana asking her if I could use DJ Doremixx. I will let you know what she says about all this.

The brides bouquet is larger than the bridesmaids. Some of the bridesmaid pictures that I saw were actually very small bouquets (3 calla lilies). I am having a hot pink calla lily bouquet and Ana told me there would be an additional charge for it (surprise, surprise.... an additional charge!). She also said that my bridesmaid bouquets would be $100 each for hot pink calla lilies.

[ebernard4985]

Just need to vent for a minute......

 

Are any of you getting overwhelmed by all of the extra fees? It seems everytime I email Ana she sends back with some other additional cost. At first she told me that the beach set up included the arch (not the decorations though). Now she wrote me saying that the arch would be extra. I understand that they need to charge extra for the things they need to purchase from vendors... but honestly, they already have the chairs and arch. It just seems a little ridiculous. I feel that the resort does not accommodate to the weddings, after all, without the weddings the resorts would not have as many guests! Having my wedding at their resort is bringing in 20 extra rooms that would not have otherwise been booked! On top of that it is an all-inclusive resort where your guests are already paying extra for their food and drinks.... and then we still have to pay an additional $100 a person for a reception dinner. I am getting so frustrated by all of this because what I thought would be a $10,000 wedding has continued to grow everyday! I guess this is what I must deal with to have the destination wedding that I want..... thanks for listening to me vent.... sometimes I feel like this forum is the only place where people understand me!

[Princess402]

So, I got an email back from Ana today and I learned a few new things...

I had asked her about the sound system that you could play your ipod in and how much it would cost for the reception. She said that for the reception it would be $200 (taxes included) and then $35/hour for the technician. So, $305 total plus the $180 for the reception. Yikes!! So, I had emailed a couple of DJ's that I saw on here...DJ Mania and DJ Doremixx. The first emailed me back and said that I could get prices from Ana. The second told me that it would be $650 for 1-4 hours (which includes all the music stuff plus a few fun extras). I am definitely going to go with this. I was starting to really stress about the music thing and to have someone totally handle it for an extra $150...sealed the deal for me I can give him a playlist if I want and he will come meet with me at the resort a couple days before the wedding if I want, which I thought was nice!

QUOTE]

 

I also emailed DJ Mania and DJ Doremixx last week and got back the exact same responses from them. I was thinking too that DJ Doremixx sounded like a great way to go.

 

SO, I emailed Ana to make sure that having an "outside" DJ was okay and told her that I was interested in using DJ Doremixx. She emailed me back yesterday and here is what she said:

"If you are checking with dorremix, since they work with us the price and reservation is must to be trough us, I do not why they are giving price to you, the price of the dj is $ 330 USD per hour. And the minimum is 3 hours."

 

[wisconsinbride2010]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebernard4985 Just need to vent for a minute...... Are any of you getting overwhelmed by all of the extra fees? It seems everytime I email Ana she sends back with some other additional cost. At first she told me that the beach set up included the arch (not the decorations though). Now she wrote me saying that the arch would be extra. I understand that they need to charge extra for the things they need to purchase from vendors... but honestly, they already have the chairs and arch. It just seems a little ridiculous. I feel that the resort does not accommodate to the weddings, after all, without the weddings the resorts would not have as many guests! Having my wedding at their resort is bringing in 20 extra rooms that would not have otherwise been booked! On top of that it is an all-inclusive resort where your guests are already paying extra for their food and drinks.... and then we still have to pay an additional $100 a person for a reception dinner. I am getting so frustrated by all of this because what I thought would be a $10,000 wedding has continued to grow everyday! I guess this is what I must deal with to have the destination wedding that I want..... thanks for listening to me vent.... sometimes I feel like this forum is the only place where people understand me!

I completely agree. I too thought my wedding could be $10,000 but I think with everything thing that I want it to be it will be much closer to $20,000. There seems to be a 25% service charge for everything. I asked if I could just have silk flowers on the beach instead of purchasing real ones and Ana told me it was against the Mexican Law to have fake flowers on the beach, and I totally understand from an enviromental standpoint but I would like one flower on the back of each covered chair and it is $15 per chair! Ugh, it is frustrating!

[Princess402]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wisconsinbride2010 I completely agree. I too thought my wedding could be $10,000 but I think with everything thing that I want it to be it will be much closer to $20,000. There seems to be a 25% service charge for everything. I asked if I could just have silk flowers on the beach instead of purchasing real ones and Ana told me it was against the Mexican Law to have fake flowers on the beach, and I totally understand from an enviromental standpoint but I would like one flower on the back of each covered chair and it is $15 per chair! Ugh, it is frustrating!

WHAT Am I understanding you right?
I get it if they say you can't have fake rose petals or something, cause those could end up being left on the beach and then wind up in the ocean, but why can't you have fake flowers on the chairs? Does that mean you can't use a fake flower boquet if you get married on the beach?

That is so silly!!!

[dee414]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebernard4985 Just need to vent for a minute...... Are any of you getting overwhelmed by all of the extra fees? It seems everytime I email Ana she sends back with some other additional cost. At first she told me that the beach set up included the arch (not the decorations though). Now she wrote me saying that the arch would be extra. I understand that they need to charge extra for the things they need to purchase from vendors... but honestly, they already have the chairs and arch. It just seems a little ridiculous. I feel that the resort does not accommodate to the weddings, after all, without the weddings the resorts would not have as many guests! Having my wedding at their resort is bringing in 20 extra rooms that would not have otherwise been booked! On top of that it is an all-inclusive resort where your guests are already paying extra for their food and drinks.... and then we still have to pay an additional $100 a person for a reception dinner. I am getting so frustrated by all of this because what I thought would be a $10,000 wedding has continued to grow everyday! I guess this is what I must deal with to have the destination wedding that I want..... thanks for listening to me vent.... sometimes I feel like this forum is the only place where people understand me!

I think we emailed each other awhile back. We are getting married within a few days of each other. I totally feel the same way you do about the price quotes. I always check the price list that Ana had emailed to me, but when she quotes a price to me on a item for the wedding, it is much higher. So I had asked her about it and she always gives me some bogus answer like "Oh I will have to get management to change the price online". That is extremely aggravating to me since I have calculated all my prices according to the price list which list for 2009-2010.

When it comes to her answering my questions, most of the time I only get half of them answered. I got so frustrated that I had to email Rod Gahr (one of the Directors of the resort). Then I started to get answers. You can get Rod's email from the facebook page. Sorry I do not have it anymore.

Good luck planning everyone. Good to know I am not the only one who is frustrated with Ana. What keeps me going is that Dreams if known for their weddings. And everyone who actually had their wedding there, has been really happy. Guess it comes with the whole process of planning a wedding out of the country.

[ebernard4985]

So I spoke a bit too soon with my last post. Ana just emailed me back and I did get some good news about cost. The first good news is that the arch with white tulle is complimentary I am very happy about this because that is a couple hundred dollars saved and I like very simple, clean decorations. I am doing the Dreams of Love package and it comes with the 20 person reception and 20 person cocktail hour. My fiance and I have decided not to have a cocktail hour because it seems silly with so many bars available to them for free. For that hour we will be taking our pictures and my bridal party has agreed to "gather" everyone else at the beach bar where they all can drink and hang out for the hour. We are having 40 people and most of them are family so I know they all will be okay with hanging out at the beach bar for that hour. I just figured that the resort includes these bars so we might as well take advantage of it. So the good news is... instead of the cocktail hour I only have to pay $20 per extra guest at the reception (tax and gratuity included in the $20!). This has brought down the price significantly! Just thought I would share with the rest of you if you maybe wanted to try to cut costs. I would rather spend the extra money on group excursions than a private hour of cocktails.

[Princess402]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebernard4985 So I spoke a bit too soon with my last post. Ana just emailed me back and I did get some good news about cost. The first good news is that the arch with white tulle is complimentary I am very happy about this because that is a couple hundred dollars saved and I like very simple, clean decorations. I am doing the Dreams of Love package and it comes with the 20 person reception and 20 person cocktail hour. My fiance and I have decided not to have a cocktail hour because it seems silly with so many bars available to them for free. For that hour we will be taking our pictures and my bridal party has agreed to "gather" everyone else at the beach bar where they all can drink and hang out for the hour. We are having 40 people and most of them are family so I know they all will be okay with hanging out at the beach bar for that hour. I just figured that the resort includes these bars so we might as well take advantage of it. So the good news is... instead of the cocktail hour I only have to pay $20 per extra guest at the reception (tax and gratuity included in the $20!). This has brought down the price significantly! Just thought I would share with the rest of you if you maybe wanted to try to cut costs. I would rather spend the extra money on group excursions than a private hour of cocktails.

Yay that's really good news!!!!
First about the beach arch cause when I read your earlier post I was like wt?!?!
But it's all good now
Second, about the cocktail hour... I would love to have a private cocktail hour but really it's not necessary for the exact reasons you mentioned. I think that's great that Ana has made that deal for you to scrap cocktail hour and reduce the price of dinner. Hopefully she'll do the same or something similar for me - I would totally rather spend that extra money elsewhere too!

[lnf_munchkin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebernard4985 So I spoke a bit too soon with my last post. Ana just emailed me back and I did get some good news about cost. The first good news is that the arch with white tulle is complimentary I am very happy about this because that is a couple hundred dollars saved and I like very simple, clean decorations. I am doing the Dreams of Love package and it comes with the 20 person reception and 20 person cocktail hour. My fiance and I have decided not to have a cocktail hour because it seems silly with so many bars available to them for free. For that hour we will be taking our pictures and my bridal party has agreed to "gather" everyone else at the beach bar where they all can drink and hang out for the hour. We are having 40 people and most of them are family so I know they all will be okay with hanging out at the beach bar for that hour. I just figured that the resort includes these bars so we might as well take advantage of it. So the good news is... instead of the cocktail hour I only have to pay $20 per extra guest at the reception (tax and gratuity included in the $20!). This has brought down the price significantly! Just thought I would share with the rest of you if you maybe wanted to try to cut costs. I would rather spend the extra money on group excursions than a private hour of cocktails.

Thanks so much for that info!! I will totally copy your plan if I can get Ana to do the same for me ie no cocktail hour and reduce the price of the dinner add ons . . . . do you think it would be possible for you to pm me the contract once you get one? Thanks for sharing and doing the leg work for us!

[ebernard4985]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lnf_munchkin Thanks so much for that info!! I will totally copy your plan if I can get Ana to do the same for me ie no cocktail hour and reduce the price of the dinner add ons . . . . do you think it would be possible for you to pm me the contract once you get one? Thanks for sharing and doing the leg work for us!

I will definitely send you the contract once I get it.... she has been really slow at updating it and sending it to me.