Dreams Cancun - Questions for those married here!

[SIMBASIM]

Originally Posted by Jenn3878

Hey everyone - is it weird that I still haven't received a contract? Just wondering!? :)

NO!!! it took her a while to send me mine.

[JoannaR]

I just finally got my date confirmed from daniella YIIPPIIEEE

June 20, 2009 Ill be there probably during your wedding Jen :)

[lucy106]

Originally Posted by JoannaR

I just finally got my date confirmed from daniella YIIPPIIEEE

June 20, 2009 Ill be there probably during your wedding Jen :)

What a relief! Congratulations!!

[dmarie17]

Don't worry brides, Daniella has been much better about returning my emails now that we are within 6 months... wait, 5 months?! oh geez!! Anyway, she's at about 24 hour turnaround or less!

[hmueller19]

Wow - take a few weeks off of the forum and like 25 more pages are written. Sorry bout that !!! And sorry in advance for the flurry of responses that we will send out now to try and help answer some of the questions of the last few weeks...

I posted this over on Ana's site review, but I will do so here too if anyone is interested...

For those of you looking for information on the catamaran trip we are booking - contact:

Guadalupe León
Wedding Agent
Amstar DMC México
Phone 52 998 881 95 63
Fax 52 998 881 95 85
weddingscun@amstarmexico.com
www.amstarmexico.com

Guadalupe is excellent... Hans has been emailing him back and forth and he is a riot (but very helpful) - tell them we sent you. The trip we are booking is 10-5, includes snorkeling, stops in Isla Mujeres and for lunch (included), drinks, etc. It is a private trip so you can customize somewhat. I think the max on the boat is 40, but I am not sure about that.

If you need more info, let me know...
H&V

[hmueller19]

Special thanks out to Kathi for the link to Sarah Sproull - she is great and we love our little monogram - we are going to use it on almost everything we can - what a great find...

[hmueller19]

So back on page 95, some of you were talking about having your guests sneak in - just my 2 cents, but probably not a good idea (even if it is Cancun)...

Hans's boss went down to Cancun (goes every year but stays in another resort) in Feb and we tried to get an appointment setup with Claudia for his boss to go onsite to Dreams and get some information and take some pictures. Needless to say, with the email "delays", we weren't able to get it scheduled before he left. But he thought he would just stop by the hotel and walk around and take some pics. Not even close... Security at the hotel was very polite, but also very strict. They did let him talk to the front desk, who tried to get one of the wedding coordinators to come down and meet with him but to no avail. He said everyone was very nice, and no one was rude, but that they were letting him walk around unattended on the resort, even just to take a few photos.

When we went to Secrets Capri, it was much the same - security was very polite, but tight. No wristbands, AI, and very upscale resort, security is probably not going to be lax... And again in the DR, when we stopped by Sunscape the Beach (now Dreams DR - they are all owned by AMResorts) we saw and experienced the same level of security.

Moral - I am sure that some folks can sneak on, but I am guessing that more than likely you will cause a stink, and then how will that reflect on your wedding... Just my 2 pesos...

[hmueller19]

OK, another topic - on page 97, there was talk about how to set a deadline for your guests. We are having a relatively small wedding. So we identified our group of guests who would be invited early on - our wedding is in July 08, we started communicating with those guests roughly a year ago. We let them know our plans, gave them a tentative date range, a tentative budget, and all that. Then each month or at key points, we gave them more and more detailed information.

Once we had the date reserved with Claudia last fall, we sent them STDs and all the details on how to start booking. We went through a travel agent that we have used many times before, and although she is not a "regular" with Dreams Cancun, or with DWs, she has been very helpful. She reserved a room block through Apple for the land only so that we would be sure that we have rooms, and we set the date range to hold those rooms to a wide enough range for our guests. That was also last fall, and by that time, we had a very good count of who was invited (32 adults, 8 children). So we knew the max number of rooms to put in the block and so on...

Then we really pushed our guests to get their airfare booked. Even though none of us have paid for the land yet (except a small deposit), once people buy plane tickets, you pretty much know if they are going or not. So we "lovingly" pushed to get plane tix bought, and as each couple/family bought, we let everyone else in the block know the updates - that probably also put a little pressure on people who were still out there on the fence. We set a date (actually it was earlier this week) for people to commit to the room and pay us the land deposit or give up your room. Final payment will be due in mid-April on the land portion, but already, we pretty much know our guestlist will be 24.

It is so true that when you start (and all throughout the process) many of your friends and family will come up and say "That is so exciting - we are definitely coming !!!". But they really haven't thought it through... And it is not until they look at the full cost, and have to start shelling out money for plane tickets or deposits or whatever, that they start to think about - is this really going to work, can I go, do I need a sitter, do I have vacation, what about work, how long can I go for, etc. And we wanted it small - we have both already been married once before, and we did the big wedding already. We will have a party back home for everyone in August. So we only invited those people who had special meaning to us and that we spent alot of time with. Even then, we still had other friends and family come up and say - hey, can we come - sure you can come but really, are you going to or are you just saying that... Not knocking family or friends, I just think that people don't think - they want to come, but don't realize its not just the next town over...

Hope that helps some...

[hmueller19]

OK, for those of you who are new and don't want to read 100 pages in one sitting, couple of tips and tricks...

I posted a bunch of questions / responses from Claudia that we gathered over the months starting on page 72. I also posted a bunch of attachments of documents / pictures / etc that we accumulated back on 73 and 74.

If you haven't already, check out Jill's pics:

Kodakgallery.com*Slideshow

Paula's pics:

Kodakgallery.com*Slideshow

Ana's site visit review:

SITE VISIT REVIEW, dreams cancun [pics]

Christine's pics:

Kodakgallery.com*Join now and receive beautiful photographic prints from your camera

Katherine's wedding site:

katherineandseth.com

Kimiko's review:

Dreams Cancun - Wedding Review - Detailed :-)

Jill's review:

Jilly's Dreams Cancun review-LONG!

pipi619's review:

Dreams Cancun - wedding review

SusanK's review:

Dreams Cancun Wedding Review

And on and on - I completely understand all the pressure on the most experienced among us who probably get bombarded by requests for information - there is a TON out there on this site - just start reading...

If you want any of the docs that I have posted, just PM me and I will email it along...

[hmueller19]

Kat81 - regarding your site visit. I see that Ana responded seeing if you want to come see their wedding in July. If that weekend didn't work, you are more than welcome to come down and see ours - July 14, 2008...