Gran Bahia Principe Cayo Levantado Brides?

[Peach]

Yeah, I am not going to worry too much.... at least, I am telling myself that. I am just planning on having an idea for when I get there, and then make decisions there. If I decide to change my mind completely once there, then so be it!  

My date is so far off, right now I am just wishing I could plan things! Haha!

Did you go to the salon there? Any reviews on it?

 

Originally Posted by LaurenP 

We had 47 guests total. The majority of your planning will happen when you get to the resort, don't stress yourself about trying to do everything in advance. You'll worry yourself out too much about not getting responses back in a timely manner or at all from the resort.

 

When we met with Angela the day after we got to the resort we went through all of the details. The patio between the 2 restaurants is actual seating for one of them (I think don pablo but can't remember) so we requested to have that area reserved for us. Because of the size of the group, we had the middle of the patio to ourselves. They can do a lot for you once you're there, but won't promise anything over email.

 

 

 

[LaurenP]

We were able to have my uncle do the ceremony and the judge agreed that he would witness the entire thing (sign the documents) so that it would be more personal. It would still be a legal ceremony with the judge from the dominican, you would just be providing someone to execute the spoken portion. It is probably just some confusion.

[LaurenP]

We were able to have my uncle do the ceremony and the judge agreed that he would witness the entire thing (sign the documents) so that it would be more personal. It would still be a legal ceremony with the judge from the dominican, you would just be providing someone to execute the spoken portion. It is probably just some confusion.

[LaurenP]

No one in my group went to the salon. We had my hair dresser do my hair back home and my sister watched and memorized how it was done so that she could recreate day of.

The wedding that happened a few days before mine went to the salon and they ended up having to redo their hair. From what I've seen/heard, I would recommend not going to the salon to get your hair done unless you want it very very basic and down.

[Peach]

Hmmm, good to know. I have short hair, about chin length, I will probably just get it curled. I will mention that to my bridesmaids though... not too keen to budget to pay for something for them that they are just going to have to redo.
 

Originally Posted by LaurenP 

No one in my group went to the salon. We had my hair dresser do my hair back home and my sister watched and memorized how it was done so that she could recreate day of.

The wedding that happened a few days before mine went to the salon and they ended up having to redo their hair. From what I've seen/heard, I would recommend not going to the salon to get your hair done unless you want it very very basic and down.

 

[Peach]

Oh, another question, Lauren. I heard somewhere on tripadvisor (which I hate), that the security guards at the Samana airport are terrible... very forceful and will take batteries out of things for no reason, and such, and quite impolite. 

I am not sure to believe this or not, but did you or your guests have ANY complaints about them? It is not a deal breaker, I would just like to politely bring it to my guests attention, so they are not caught off guard.

[LaurenP]

We didn't have any issues at the airport. It was actually quite enjoyable from what I remember.

[Peach]

Yes, I try to take everything with a grain of salt from trip advisor, but thought I would at least ask. I want to prepare the people in my group who rarely travel as much as possible!

 

It so awesome that you are answering questions like this for us! 

I think I speak for everyone when I say I would love to see pictures of your big day!

[LaurenP]

I'll work on getting some posted.

 

One thing to remember is that it is permitted to be topless on the beach at CL and they can't restrict people from sitting in front of where your ceremony is going on.

 

What we did (with suggestion from Angela) was to have some people go down in the morning (before chairs start getting reserved) and move all of them away from the picture view of where the ceremony is occurring (reduces the chance of having a topless woman/ or man in speedo walking behind your ceremony). Be prepared that most ppl will sit and watch your wedding from wherever you have moved the chairs to.

 

I had a german man in a speedo taking pictures of our wedding (I still don't know what he was doing with them) including coming up the isle to get better shots (I don't know how he didn't make it into our video or any of our pictures) and ppl I didn't know crying from the sidelines.

[Peach]

hahahahaha!

 

Oh my goodness, a speedo-wearing man taking pictures? Creepy!

But a funny story, after the fact...

 

I did not realize the beach was topless. Good to know!