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Anel's e-mail: [email protected] Let me know if you hear from her! -Allegra

Has anyone heard from Anel (the photographer with Adventure Photos) lately?? She is usually very quick to respond and I haven't heard back from her in 1-2 weeks. Thanks, Allegra

Thanks Angela! I can't believe I missed your pool-jumping experience - nice job:-) I must have been meeting with Ana or something. Congrats to you as well. I can't believe how much stuff you brought down with you (I saw it all in Ana's office). I heard several of your guests talking about how great your wedding was at breakfast in the World Cafe the morning after - hope you had a blast. Allegra

I feel the same way about Ivan. He was awesome and contributed GREATLY to our amazing wedding!!

We used credit card.

We got two keys. I also locked myself out of our room by accident one night....went to the front desk and they made another key for me.

p.s. I had my hair and make-up done at the Spa and I was happy with the results. You need to make appointments before you head down there for your wedding. The Spa folks were very responsive over e-mail and I didn't have any problems setting up appointments a few weeks ahead of time.

DRC Wedding Review Date: Sunday 12/12/10 Guests: 80 total (77 adults, 3 kids, 1 infant) Ceremony: 4:15pm at the Gazebo Cocktail hour: 5-6pm on pool deck next to Oceana Reception: 6-11pm in El Patio Travel to Mexico: We flew US Air on the way down. We had a connecting flight. Both planes were relatively small. I had my wedding dress with me and neither plane had room in first class for my dress. I just put it in the overhead bin on both flights (had to fold it a little) – no one said anything and it was fine. They would have let us on the plane early (just talk to the folks at the gate), but we were in boarding group 2 on both flights, so it wasn’t a problem in terms of space in the overheads. Check-In: No problems. We asked for a room upgrade and the front desk staff wouldn’t give us much of one. So we met with Ana (our new wedding coordinator) who arranged for a room upgrade to the Honeymoon Suite. It was awesome and all we needed. We saw the Master Suite when we went for a site visit in May – it’s huge and super nice, but we didn’t want to pay extra and the Honeymoon Suite was also really nice and we had Ocean Front w/outdoor hot tub. Since we had over 45 rooms booked with our wedding group at the hotel, I think that’s why they upgraded us without too much hassle. Also – it was ‘low’ season and the hotel was only about 40% occupied. I think it really depends on occupancy and availability in terms of what they can offer. Meeting w/wedding Coordinator: Our original wedding coordinator was Ana Maria Cruz. She left around September and we were assigned to Gaby. I sent Gaby several e-mails over the course of the past few months and only received responses one time at the beginning of November, then didn’t hear from her until three days before we left for Mexico. When I heard from her it was to say that SHE was leaving and wouldn’t be there for our wedding!!! I was a bit stressed, as you might imagine. We were informed that the new Ana would be doing our wedding. We had no idea what to expect once we got there. When we met with the new Ana, we were quite pleasantly surprised. Eventhough Gaby had not responded to most of my e-mails, Ana had a big file folder on our wedding with ALL of the e-mail communications I had with Gaby. Everything was documented. I was completely blown away and so happy that Gaby had documented everything, which she had reviewed with Ana before she left. My FI and I reviewed all the pricing, etc. and we made a few tweaks – we had agreed on pricing with some of our vendors and there were a few discrepancies on the estimate. Ana was SUPER sweet. She did not argue with us at all and she simply revised the estimate. Ana is absolutely wonderful and she did everything possible to make us happy and make sure our day went as we wanted. All of the wedding coordinators seemed great. They all work really hard (they are there from 8:30am until about 8:30pm, like 7 days a week.). It’s actually totally ridiculous and I don’t blame them for quitting. They get hundreds of e-mails a day and they need to deal with brides who are onsite, etc. The resort really needs to figure out a way to make it so they aren’t working so much – it is definitely not sustainable. Please know – they are trying really hard and doing all they can do to make the brides happy! One of the best things we did was that we hired travel agents (in the states). They were able to communicate directly with all of the wedding coordinators – when I couldn’t get answers/responses from them – so at least we had some in-direct contact during the months that I wasn’t getting any direct responses. Rehearsal Dessert: We had a pretty large wedding group and we wanted to do something the night before the wedding, but we didn’t want to pay for another dinner for everyone. We ended up doing a dessert with everyone after dinner. We paid extra for this ($20 per person) which included an ice cream buffet and open bar for 3 hours in one of the ballrooms. We also hired Ivan from DoreMixx to set up a screen and microphone for speeches, slideshow, and karaoke. It was a really fun night and everyone had a great time. The staff set up an amazing dessert buffet and there was tons of food. Wedding: We hired DecoCancun to help with decorations. Here’s another story…..we had been working with Ana from DecoCancun since May and a week before we left for Mexico, I get an e-mail from her which said SHE quit and wouldn’t be there for our wedding!!! We ended up having Karina – who was great. Ana had gone over all the details with Karina before she left. We met with Karina a few days before the wedding to finalize everything. The decorations were great – no complaints. Everything looked beautiful. Music: Ceremony: We made CDs with our pre-ceremony, ceremony, and recession music and we did the technician with speakers (for $180). I was nervous about this and sort-of anticipated disaster, but the technician played everything exactly as we wanted! I wrote out instructions on the back of the CD cases re: when to play which song. We also asked one of our guests to meet with the technician right before the ceremony to explain what we wanted. Cocktail Hour: We had a Caribbean Trio (included 45-minute set with our Ultimate Wedding Package). To be honest, I didn’t notice them much. We were a little late to our cocktail hour (we went back to our room for 20-minutes after the ceremony and my friend came up to bustle my dress, etc.). I think I was so excited and I just didn’t notice the music during this time. I’m sure they were good. Reception: We actually splurged a bit in this category, as music was important to us. We hired a Caribbean band to play two 45-minute sets and then we also hired Ivan from DoreMixx to DJ and MC the evening for 3 hours. Both worked out great. We had minimal to no contact with the band before we arrived (they spoke mostly Spanish and they were difficult to reach from the States – but the original Ana and Gaby both ‘confirmed’ they would be there for our wedding). We re-confirmed this with the new Ana when we arrived. Ivan was also great. We met with him a few days before the wedding to review some details. We put some of the songs we really wanted played onto CDs and Ivan downloaded them onto his computer a few days before our wedding. He played most of the songs we wanted and he added some of his own. He also provided balloons and masks. Again – the music was great and people were dancing for hours. At the last minute, we also decided to get/pay for his light-up dance floor (a little pricey – at $600, but it was super fun and different and everyone loved it). Photographer: We used the resort photographers (Adventure Photos) and Anel was great. No complaints. My husband unfortunately hates taking photos. So we got most of them out of the way before the ceremony. I really wanted some beach photos, so we did a 15-20 minute beach session in our bathing suits a few days after the wedding. Anel had our photos ready to view a few days after the wedding and we chose some pictures for a slideshow, which she sent to us via e-mail on Thursday and we’ve been able to share that with our friends and family – which has been really nice. Videographer: We had him for the ceremony (included in our package) and we paid extra to have him stay for a few hours afterwards. He had our video completed and delivered to our room a few days after the wedding. Food: We had the Mexican appetizers during cocktail hour, the Caribbean buffet during the reception, and the Tres Leches wedding cake. We arranged to do a ‘tasting’ of the reception food a few days before the wedding. We were all impressed with the food we tasted. On the wedding day, I thought the food was okay. It didn’t taste as good to me – probably because they had to make it for 80pp. However, the cake was amazing. I highly recommend the Tres Leches cake. We had several guests tell us it was the best wedding cake they ever had! All-in-all it was a fabulous wedding. Everything didn’t go exactly as we had planned, but we just ‘went with the flow’ and didn’t make a big deal about little things on our wedding day. It was definitely frustrating trying to plan the wedding from the States and getting minimal responses and feedback from the resort along the way, but it all worked out in the end. I would recommend using Travel Agents to help communicate directly with the resort/wedding coordinators. They were a big help and it would have been way more stressful without their help. Also – I recommend trying to stay as relaxed as possible. There’s only so much planning you can do. Be assured the resort staff (wedding coordinators, banquet staff, etc) will do everything they can for you and they work really hard. Ana (wedding coordinator) was awesome!! Many of our guests said they wished they had done destination weddings and that it was the best wedding they’d ever been to. Everyone is still talking about it and of course the pictures are flying on Facebook. Let me know if I can answer any other questions. It’s best to send me a personal message – I’m not checking this site as frequently anymore. Good Luck with your planning. (I posted our slideshow in an earlier message on this forum if you want to see some pictures, but here it is again in case you missed it: http://121210newman.dreamsriveriacancun.adventurephotos.com.mx/#/newman/) -Allegra

Oh - here's a link to our slideshow - for a glimpse into our wedding. Enjoy! http://121210newman.dreamsriveriacancun.adventurephotos.com.mx/#/newman-1/

Hi Ladies, I just got back from my wedding last night. I'll try to post a review later today. We had 80 guests and our wedding was awesome!!! Everyone had so much fun. Don't stress. More details to come... Allegra

Ditto Angela - and it sounds like I am working on the EXACT same things right now!!!

Hi Ladies, Anyone who has had or is planning to have the buffet, could you tell me how it works? For example, I know in the Caribbean Buffet there are about 5 different salads listed. Do you get all of those options or do you choose one or two of them to be included. Thanks, Allegra

Boo - we're planning for 5 hours also!!

Can anyone who has used an outside vendor (DJ, decoration company, etc.) tell me how and when you paid these people? Does everyone take credit cards? Thanks.

Beachykeen: Thanks so much for your honesty and all the photos. It is SO incredible helpful. Congrats!!