Le Meridien Wedding TIPS!

[ipodgirl]

I'm back and I have a hubby now!!! :) Our wedding went really well & we want to go back to Cancun again soon!

Here are some things I learned during this trip that I didn't know until I got there. Hope this will help you plan your wedding!

First of all, our schedule:
Thursday late night - welcome dinner
Friday - wedding ceremony, cocktail, reception
Saturday - a tour group to Tulum and another group to deep sea fishing, some people opted out to do their own thing

Remind Your Guests
We had one guests that found out her passport was expired while she was on her way to the airport. I have a few guests flying from Asia so I sent information on getting a visitor visa to Mexico, but I forgot to remind the US citizens to make sure their passports are current. I recommend sending out this reminder earlier.

Getting Familiar with the Hotel Area
After our welcome party dinner at Hacienda Sisal (10-15 min walking distance from the hotel), some older folks left earlier to go to bed. To get to Le Meridien Hotel from the main street, you have to turn into an alley first. It's actually not that hard to miss but somehow three older folks did miss it and just kept walking. We got pretty worried since they only speak little English and zero Spanish, and it was near midnight. We spent two hours looking for them before we called a cab and just drove along the street. We found them way way south, beyond the Hilton Hotel. So, I recommend making sure everyone has a hotel map with them and encourage them to not leave first.

Hair & Nails
I had a hair trial done at the salon in Le Meridien Hotel and then on the wedding day the ladies came to our room to do my & my MOH's hair. They are really nice but don't speak much English. I recommend bringing a picture of what you want, that really helped a lot. I like the outcome :)

I did my nails a day before the wedding but quickly realize I should have just done it on the wedding day. I destroyed one nail within ten minutes of completion so the lady fixed it right away, but I destroyed another one later that night.

Alcohol for the Wedding
Le Meridien gives you the option of bringing your own alcohol, which means you can save a lot of money. We rented a car to drive to Costco (in the real downtown Cancun) and bought tons of alcohol there. You can return the bottles that are unopened later so that's good. Later on we saw this place call "La Europa" in the hotel zone (about 5 min walk from La Destileria, Blvd Kukulcan Km 12.6) that has about the same prices as Costco!! I'm not sure of their return policy but I recommend checking that place out if you don't want to rent a car and drive around to buy alcohol.

We rented a car on Expedia.com from Hertz for one day, the cost was about $30 but after adding full insurance (highly recommended by many people as insurance laws are different in Mexican than in US) it came out to be around $75. The streets of downtown Cancun are kind of crazy, often times the signs don't tell you want street you're on, instead it tells you what the street name of the next three upcoming streets are. We got a bit lost but not too bad, in the end we did find Costco (and Walmart too!).

Airport & Duty Free & Currency
If you are transferring through Mexico City, pay extra attention to the gate number. Ours changed three times before we boarded.

The currency exchange rate at SFO was the worst of all places. Mexico City airport as well as Cancun airport had pretty good exchange rates for USD. Within the hotel zone there are also places with good rates. Scotiabank had the best rates within the hotel zone. Everyone said not to exchange at the hotel itself so I didn't bother to ask.

Duty Free had pretty good prices and good selections. We bought a bottle of tequila in the duty free store on our way back (so we could bring it along as a carry on instead of packing it in our luggage). The alcohol prices in the malls are probably the worst we've seen so far.

Wedding Day
Make sure your timeline is padded so you have room for delays. I've noticed that people are less sensitive to time, so often times appointments start 20-30 mins late. We didn't have time to do a rehearsal (most guests flew in the night before) but I think that would have helped a lot.

Another thing is, our minister actually didn't use the vow we sent him and used his own version instead (too long and not what we wanted!!). He's a nice guy and did the service well but of course I much rather he used the one we sent him. I laughed it off during the ceremony since there's nothing I can do about it but now it's starting to bother me.

Vendor List
Airport transportation service: Best Day Travel Services

Photographer: Sergio Sergio the Photographer
Sergio is so much fun to work with! We're eagerly waiting to see the pictures but I'm sure they'll be perfect.

Tours: Welcome to Cancun MaroTravel
Ask for Max, this place has the best tour prices and the people were pretty nice. We booked a group tour for Tulum (20 people) and a deep sea fishing trip (7 people) through them. The next day my friends booked a tour to Chichen Itza (8 people) and they were pretty happy too. I highly recommend Max. He'll give you a good price and great experience.

Welcome Party dinner: Hacienda Sisal, Cancun
The special events team here really delivered!! They created a special menu for us so we can stay within our budget (dinner for 33). Everyone was telling me how delicious the food was. Trinity is the person I worked with.

Flowers: Jaimes Vanessa Jaimes Vanessa
Vanessa was great to work with! We communicated over email and didn't meet until the wedding day. She created these beautiful bouquet and centerpieces just like the pictures!


This is all I can think of so far. I'll add more if more comes up. I'm really happy with the results and the service I received at the Le Meridien Hotel Cancun. Jessica from Le Meridien Hotel Cancun is such a sweetheart and so easy to work with. Her partner Ernesto is also great too. We didn't really have to worry about anything about the wedding itself. I'd definitely recommend this wedding site to anyone & we would go back to stay there for future Cancun trips.

[Kathie]

Sounds great. Congratulations.

[riviera]

Congratulations!!!! I am so glad everything was great! I can't wait till 12.12.08! AND ur PHOTOS! I am in search for an awesome photographer and I would love to see more photos from him!

When did you fly in? I am also having a friday wedding and I was planning in flying in on Wedesday.. Is it too late? Did you have to do a lot of co-ordination on site before the wedding? What kind of music did you have? Did you have a DJ? Do you have a wedding program you can share with me?

Sorry! Too many questions!!! CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN!

anna.

[Davematthews16]

Thank you for your tips! It is very much appreciated by us brides who haven't "walked down the aisle yet" and don't know exactly what to expect! :) I'm sorry you had a few "mis-haps" As far as them not reading the correct ceremony, and not being able to have a rehearsal, I think it's more than "fair" to write them a letter to let them know how important your vows were to you, and they read the wrong ones, and didn't allow you enough time for a rehearsal. As for you and your Hubby, you will always have that to giggle about. You could also hang on to your vows until you decide to "renew them" and then after 20 years or whatever, you will still be able to hear them, and WOW how special that will be after 20 years. :) (Just an idea hehe) Thanks again for sharing everything, and can't wait to see pictures!

[JennyK]

I'm glad it turned out well! I'm sure I'll have the same minister as you so I'll be on top of him doing what we want. I can't wait to see your pictures! I thought of you on 8-8-8 hehe CONGRATS!!!!!!

[DanielleNDerek]

Great tips for every btb. Thanks!

[ipodgirl]

Thanks for all the posts :) I'm glad to be able to contribute some! Feel free to ask more questions Let me relive my wedding moments haha.

Anna - I think you should be fine arriving on Wednesday.

We flew out Tuesday night and got there Wednesday morning. We checked in around noon (let Jessica know if you need to check in earlier so they can accommodate that). Upon checking in, we got our favors ready (putting the favors in a pouch) and folded our pre-printed table tags for all guests. We got those ready and handed it off to Jessica and her partner Ernesto during our food tasting session at 2pm. That was also when they did a mini reception showroom for us to decide on final details (like how the napkins should be folded, additional touches to the tables that we might want to add, etc). We also used that time to finalize our timeline and confirm some details with Jessica. Afterwards we went to Costco to buy alcohol. That took about 2-3 hours.

On Thursday I had hair trial and my nails done and that was it for wedding prep. We were able to enjoy the beach and pool for a little bit, before our welcome dinner at night.

DJ:
I used the DJ service Le Meridien offered and it was soooooo worth it! I sent them about 6 songs as must-plays, the rest was up to them but it was so good. Half way through they took out these balloons and maracas that was sooo fun to play with.

We only had one issue - our first song "Can't help falling in love with you" - their CD somehow didn't work! Luckily we had a computer backup so we were still able to dance to our song. I recommend bringing a backup copy just in case.

Do you mean wedding timeline? Sure I'll post my spreadsheet with this message. (if I can figure out how )

Jenny - There was a big wedding in the Martiniere terrace on Saturday and thought of yours! They had about 150 guests.

For the beach wedding, in retrospect I wish I had asked my guests to remain on their seats during the ceremony. (I went to one wedding that went as far as asking people to not take pictures, only letting the professional photographer take pictures, but all of my friends are pretty camera crazy so that would be too mean to them). Anyway, the reason I said that is because a few of my friends went up front, so I think it blocked my photographers ability to take as many pictures of us with the ocean as the background. Instead, he went took more pictures of us with the guests as the background. The pictures still turned out great, but I think it would have been even better if my guests were seated and not blocking the professionals.

Here is the slideshow from Sergio, he also had Christian Velazco (I think he is from Del Sol) and Carlos help out that day. I love love love their work! You can probably tell how much fun we had coz I laughed all the way, totally forgot to do my fake camera ready smile haha.
Tammy and Mark
Sergio Photographer Blog

I'm still editing my own pix but I will have it on Flickr soon

-Tammy