kbarchas

Hi ladies! I just got back from my site visit to Half Moon. We have our wedding booked for April next year, following a very similar plan to Mrs. Robinson's (by coincidence... great minds think alike!). We did the Paint Your Special Day package for our stay and were treated like royalty! Shanoya is amazing to work with. She's really helpful and incredibly sweet. I love everything about the resort and am so excited to return for our wedding.

Hi ladies! We just put our deposit down for the Royal Pavilion in April 2013!!! We had originally planned for MLK weekend, but the room rates were just too high (as is airfare in January) and we felt like it was too much to ask of our guests. Rates drop in April, and the weather is still amazing, so it was a no-brainer. We'll be visiting this April on the PYSD package. I think it will be great for planning and the package seemed worth the extra money since it will be applied to our master account if we decide to commit to Half Moon. I'm hoping I love the resort and venue as much as I think I will. Danielle has been great to work with so far and I strongly recommend a la carte pricing to build your own package. Also, putting an early deposit down now means not only securing the date and venue we have in mind, but securing current pricing (which have already gone up for food/ bar since I first started exploring this as an option). We plan to have a welcome cocktail reception on Thursday, do the Manager's BBQ with a private section/ sunset bar as our rehearsal dinner on Friday, ceremony and reception on Saturday, and then some sort of breakfast/ farewell on Sunday. We'll be using the Royal Villas for family, wedding party, and probably some groups of our friends. I thought for Sunday it may be easiest just to host an open house in one of them with coffee/tea/juices, fruit and pastries. That way people can come by at their leisure and we won't be shelling out for brunch at a set time when everyone is on different departure (and hangover) schedules! I think we'll also just do drinks/ heavy apps for the welcome reception on Thursday. Again, not sure how many people will have arrived at a given hour and if it's worth trying to do a sit down dinner. I too think I will send out Save the Dates almost a year early. It seems with destination weddings like these, the more time people have to plan, the better. Plus, we have a lot of other friends who are planning to get married in 2013, and this is a nice way to "claim" the date Mrs. Robinson, good luck on your upcoming wedding! Let us know how everything goes!