Barcelo Bavaro Palace Deluxe

[AddyB]

Hey Ladies,

I got back from Punta Cana about 2 weeks now. I'm just trying to get back to my daily routine. It's super hard when I keep thinking about Punta Cana! It's absolutely amazing there. Everyone is already planning another trip there. The resort is huge so be prepared to do a lot of walking but I didn't mind it.

 

I arrived at the resort on Monday June 29th but I didn't get to meet with Laura until that Wednesday. She is absolutely amazing. So helpful! I had an issue with my family room right before I had to go into a meeting with her. When she heard about it, she fixed the issue right away. Love her! The meeting was awesome, we over every little detail and she showed me some pictures.

 

I had my rehearsal dinner on Thursday at Santa Fe Steakhouse with a guest of 20 ppl. Highly recommend that place. I got the Surf and Turf and it was delicious.

 

Friday was the wedding. My hair and makeup appointment was at 1pm, wedding was scheduled for 4:30pm. I wasn't in love with my eye makeup but I did like my hair. Bring pictures of how you want your hair done ladies. Language is a barrier so it's easier to show pictures. I went with Tropical Pictures and they showed up at 3pm to take some pics of me getting ready at the salon. I thought they did a fantastic job with the photos. The only bad thing about the photos are the seaweed that's in the background!! That's also the downside about the beach. My guest, the groomsmens, and groom all met at Bar Carey. Laura took them to the ceremony site, which was at the beach. She picked my bridesmaids and me up at 4:10. The ceremony site wasn't private but it was secluded enough. The site was absolutely beautiful. More than I expected. The ceremony itself probably lasted about 20 or 25 minutes. After the ceremony it was pictures of groups, wedding party, then us as a couple. While we took pictures, all of the guest were enjoying the cocktail hour.

 

The reception

We ended up at one of the ballroom because the weather was hot. The ballroom had AC so it was perfect. Our starter was chicken noodle soup, main course was top sirloin, dessert was creme brulee and the wedding cake. My wedding cake was vanilla with strawberry filling. It was amazing! Not too sweet. We didn't go with any DJ package. We took our own speaker with us, that fit into a carryon bag. We played music from our tablet. The speaker was very loud and everyone had so much fun. Even the servers, bartenders, and cooks danced and partied with us the entire night. After the reception was done, we all met at Disco Tech and continued to party there.

 

The after the wedding

All of the younger guest and myself went on a catamaran getaway, which was soooo much fun. People got to do some snorkeling and we got to play games at a natural swimming pool (got a lot of people drunk), which was in the middle of the sea but the water was only up to our waist. highly recommend you arrange to go on one.

 

I'm sure I'm missing a lot of details but don't hesitate to ask questions. my email is abannavong88@@gmail.com I'll try to post pictures but I don't know how to on this site!

 

[BNeff]

@AddyB thanks for the feedback. We are trying to keep the budget low so I like the idea you had about bringing your own speaker! Right now we just had the sound system booked for us but we may rethink that idea. Thanks!

 

Did you give them a design for your wedding cake by chance and if so, did they charge you extra?

[AddyB]

@@BNeff taking my own speaker saved us a lot of money since our reception was held in a ballroom. I originally had a cake design in mind and had sent a photo of it to my wedding coordinator but when I met up with my coordinator she showed me some samples of cake designs on her computer. I ended up choosing one of those. It's nice and simple! So, delicious. Hope that helps! I can email you a picture of my cake if you want me to. Let me know

 

Addy

[Tequila00]

Addyb, 

 

 Your idea to bring speakers sounds like an awesome way to save some money!!! I'd love to hear more details. How did you set the tone for the evening? Did you have someone orchestrate a first dance or have anyone deliver toasts? (I'm really clueless about these things)

[AddyB]

@@Tequila00 I'm actually having a very large traditional wedding/reception here in October, so I didn't go all out with the Punta Cana wedding. I got the strawberry package and it included a lot of stuff already. So, I saved wherever I could. Taking our speaker worked out perfectly. We were planning to just rent a speaker system for $400 anyway, but then my husband was like "why not just take one of our speaker?" I had to ask my coordinator if that was okay first and it was. Of course, the speaker had to get a physical screening done at the airport but it didn't take that long. As for the first dance, it was hard to time everything because the servers took a while to serve each course. As for toasts, we didn't expect or ask anyone to make a toast but we did prepare our own speech. So, in between meals was when my husband and I made our speech just thanking our family and friends. Before dinner was over my maid of honor, bridesmaid (now sis in law), and best man made their speech and made everyone cry. Honestly, I wasn't too worried about timing stuff, we all kind of just went with the flow and it turned out amazing. Once everyone was done eating, everyone was up and dancing right away. We didn't do our first dance until everyone started chanting it lol. It was a good time and I'm grateful to have such a fun group of family and friends. All of my guest chipped in to tip the bartenders and servers. Which, I didn't know until the end of the night. Everyone who was working that night got a pretty big tip because I tipped pretty well on top of the guest's tip.

 

That's another thing about the resort. BRING DOLLARS FOR TIPS. Everyone is soooo super nice and eager to help you. You can't help but tip, tip, and tip!  I hope this helps

[Tequila00]

@abbyb very helpful!

 

It sounds like an amazing time. I visited this place at the end of May. Lovely service !

[kmateo2015]

@@AddyB that was such an awesome idea to bring speaker..  I might have to think about that

[MissTS]

Hi ladies,

 

My new husband and I just got back from our wedding last Wednesday and it really couldn't have been more perfect! My wedding coordinator was Elizabeth and she was AWESOME! My parents, in-laws and the bridal party couldn't stop raving about how well she kept things running. I gave her all the little details (guest book, programs, place cards and favors) the day before and the morning of, and she had everything set up wonderfully for the wedding.

 

For our guests we made welcome bags, there really is no easy way to get the bags to the guests. we knew around what time our family/guests would be getting in and would just hang out in the lobby with the bags for those guests. 

 

We had 80 guests, including ourselves. Our ceremony was in the garden, which was beautiful and very private. The reception took place in Bar Higuey, which was decorated beautifully. To get to the ceremony/reception site the WC had everyone meet at Bar Carey and they were taken in decorated trolleys to the location. The only complaint I heard about the night was that it was hot. Being from South Florida though it's something we were all used to. 

 

For the reception we had the DJ, who was great! He kept us all dancing until the very end of the reception. We gave him a playlist for dinner and one for dancing. What I really loved was how he looked through the type of music on the playlist and played the songs of the same type that we did not include. 

 

We used Tropical Pictures and had Mika as our photographer. The pictures are absolutely gorgeous, I really couldn't be happier. If there are any specific shots that you would like, just let Mika know and she will be sure to get them. 

 

It was hard to believe that the whole wedding was a product of 100+ emails and that I had never seen the place! It was more stressful to get everything ready before we left, once we got there everything went so smoothly and we were stress-free.

 

Let me know if you have any questions, my email is jillian.ts@@gmail.com 

[BNeff]

My wedding went pretty smooth for the most part. Actual wedding was good, chapel was simple and beautiful on it's own. Margari was my WC and she made things smooth when we had our bumps. Wedding reception went by too fast but we plan on having a large party here at home so we'll get to party more.  

 

The hiccups actually came with the hotel side. Sadly we were very disappointed that we constantly had to stay on top of EVERY thing. When you have family traveling from Nigeria....this was the last thing I should have dealt with. 

  - Hotel said we got our up grade. Sweet.....not really. When we got to the room, it wasn't the upgrade. Took us an hour with multiple people to sort this out but we finally got it. 

  - Dinner reservations - were messed up multiple time with us and a few of our guests. 

  - Room wasn't cleaned the day of the wedding - When we got back to the room it was still messy and we had to do a quick make over ourselves before the pictures.

  - Salon - They didn't speak much English so due to lack of communication we ended up 20 min behind and super rushed for pictures and getting everyone to the chapel. Make up was a heavy from one of the ladies...another lady did fine. Everyone like their hair though. 

  - We didn't get our champagne or roses the night of the wedding. Another thing we had to complain about to the desk.

  - Belle hops never showed up to our parents room after calling several times so we had to help them.

  - Internet was very spotty - we got it discounted after complaining 

 

Good

  - Margari was easy to work with and things were decorated like I had wanted

  - Everyone liked the food. Fish/Beef and creme brulee

  - Cake was good. Chocolate on chocolate....how could you go wrong. It was whipped icing....which was perfect! we had way too much though for 25 guests. 

  - Cigar roller - very entertaining and we spent a lot of time out there with him so not much dancing was had since we had an hour for dinner, and an hour for cigar roller.....

  - We were in a ball room on the Adults only side and we had a portable speaker that we used....worked perfect. 

  - Flowers were beautiful - all bouquets and centerpieces looked like was shown and discussed. I upgraded on two centerpieces. 

  - Massages the day after for the two of us....fabulous  

 

I can't wait for the pictures to come back....one of my friends did our pictures so we saved money there too. We didn't have any push back from bringing in our own things. 

 

Everyone overall enjoyed themselves and didn't know all the hiccups we had. Which is how I wanted it for them. 

Now....time to enjoy my marriage and get this family started! 

[Soon2beJara]

Hello everyone! 

 

So happy to say that I am officially booked for August 5th 2015 at BBPD! Could not be more excited / anxious. 

I'm expecting almost 100 people and I am very nervous about it getting very expensive.

(any tips  for saving a buck would be greatly appreciated)

I actually went to this resort about 11 years ago for my 15s! My family & I had so much fun and loved the resort and now its all redone so i'm excited to see what it looks like now. 

I absolutely love reading everyone progress in planning and reviews. 

GOOD LUCK & Congrats to everyone planning there wedding!