Any Grand Palladium brides?

I am looking forward to relaying information with other future GP brides, and I just want to make sure this is the current and most-used GP thread.

I am getting married in December 2010 at this resort!

I was just looking at the 2010 wedding packages.. are the "Vow Renewal" Packages the same as "symbolic" wedding packages?

Thanks

Thanks so much Sarah K!

Yeah, we are going to use the vow renewal package and then do a quick legal ceremony when we get back.

To all brides that were married at this resort...

Can you please advise if you tipped on top of the package and private reception if you had one? My fiance and I are trying to figure out what other have done and if so how much?

We leave November 14th and our wedding date is November 19th. We decided on the Civil Crystal wedding package and are finally relieved to know exactly what documents are needed. I will post incase any other Canadian brides are wondering. The internet can be pretty confusing since most is US based.

This is if you have not been divorced, name changed or are a widow.

OPTION 1

Bride & Groom must bring:

• Passports (Current)

• Tourist Cards (Provided on arrival to Mexico)

• Photocopy of Birth Certificates (Without any Translation or Certification)

• Blood Work (on Arrival)***

• Sign and complete some forms with basic information upon meeting with wedding

coordinator on arrival.

Plus, you need 4 witnesses with passports and tourist cards that they will get on the airplane before they land in Cancun. They have to be over the age of 18.

My travel agent also confirmed:

once you get married they will give you a copy of your license that you signed etc.

then they have to have it legalized by their office there so often they will courier you the originals

a short time after, this works in all of the islands, then you can file it here in Toronto with the Mexican consulate and have it translated should you wish to!

Also, for all the future brides I have been emailing the resort since last November and honesty Rocio and Erika have been great getting back to me. Sometimes it takes a week but really when the wedding is still far out I am sure they are busy dealing with the current and upcoming weddings taking place. Paula was great to deal with at the Spa for hair appointments. You have to book in advance and pay 50% in advance too. The balance you pay on the day you get your hair done. You are also to stop into the resort prior to your appointment to discuss what you want done. It was very easy once I paid on pay pal I immediately received an email from Paula with confirmation # and was told to bring with me. I booked the bridesmaids and moms along with myself.

Since we have 44 people coming we did the private reception and it add's up pretty quickly so we picked one of the cheapest dinner menu options which was $50 US per person. They will also accomodiate any people with allergies or vegetarians. They just ask to know in advance who these people are. We already sent them a list of all out guests who are coming and when since some are arriving on Nov 16th and Nov 17th as well. They are very organized. Rioco also sent me an invoice of what we can expect to pay and on there it has noted the private reception, our Crystal package the additional cost for over 8 people as well as what amounts we need to keep cash out for. $60 US cash take off the Crystal package to pay who they have coming from city hall. Also, the $200 US for blood work. Everything else you can pay by Visa, mastercard, travelors cheques or cash.

We also got a DJ for our private reception. His name is DJ Bob. He is really great to deal with and you pay a $100 deposit and balance at your wedding reception to him. He charges 450 US. The band we looked into was 850 for 45 minutes!!!! So we decided to go this route. Thank god, we have been saving like crazy. DJ Bob has been great with keeping in touch and he is actually going to be our MC too at no extra cost. We just have to send him an email on how we want the evening to go.

Our DJ is actually coming from Victoria BC - Devin Card Photography. He has been great dealing with and getting back to us through email too. We are looking forward to meeting him. He is coming the day before to do a walk around with us on where we want our photo's taken and has already done a wedding at this resort too.

Sorry this is long but if anyone has any questions please know I am here and will help in anyway. It can be very stressful and overwhelming at times trying to get everything organized but I had amazing people on this site help me and make my planning much easier. Thank you

Thank you so much for all that information!

You answered a lot of questions that I had.

It's great to hear that the wedding coordinators have been so great to deal with, really puts my mind at ease

I will have to look into that photographer you are going with.

Only 1 month until your wedding, you must be so excited!

Thanks for the information. You also answered questions that I knew I would have.

Have Fun!

Hey GP Brides,

If I choose to have my reception in one of the a la carte restuarants, as opposed to a private reception, can I still hire a DJ and have a dancing area?

Thanks

Hi girls - I just returned from my wedding at the Grand Palladium and everything far exceeded my already high expectations. We arrived on Sunday for our Friday wedding. We did the civil ceremony so we met with Erika on Monday morning to fill out paperwork and get our blood tests. I showed up for our meeting completely unprepared (which really irritated me b/c I'm usually super organized). I only had 2 witnesses with me but that wasn't an issue b/c Erika and Ari both just served as witnesses. It was also at that point that we discussed all of the random details like ordering extra flowers (which we did), pick up times for the ceremony, reception details, etc.

On Thursday (the night before the wedding) we did a family dinner, rather than a traditional rehearsal dinner, at the Mexican restaurant - La Adelita. The food was very good, the only downside is that they treat it like a dinner reception and I had to pick a set menu for everyone. Joe's dad is a super picky eater so we just paid off our waiter to bring him a menu from the steak restaurant that the Mexican place is connected to. Erika took care of making a reservation for our group of 15 and she also arranged for rides to pick us up after dinner to cart us to our cocktail/welcome party at Bar las Rocas at the Saltwater Pool. It was beautiful! We were kind of torn over whether to do just cocktails or cocktails and appetizers and we decided to go with the food as well, so it was $14/pp. There was a TON of food so if any of you choose to do that option I would suggest encouraging your friends/family to not eat dinner beforehand. Many in our group had dinner prior to the 8pm party and a lot of food was wasted. We had made a cocktail party playlist on our ipod and they docked it directly into the speaker system. I was concerned that it was just going to be a ipod dock put up to a microphone, but it they had 2 huge speakers that we cranked up later in the night when one of Joe's drunk friends hijacked the playlist and put on rap music. We were having so much fun that we arranged with Erika to play an extra 1/2 hour (for a fee) that turned into an extra hour and 15 minutes. The waiter service was on the ball and the shots were flowing. I was actually concerned that everyone was having TOO much fun that they would all be bums at the wedding...

We had a 4pm ceremony at the White Sands wedding gazebo. My bridesmaids and I got our hair/nails done at the spa starting at 10:45. It was slow season so they could only do 3 of us at a time. Me and 2 of my BM's were done by 1:00 and then we had rides back to my room. I was staying in a White Sands Mayan suite/cabana right on the lake so everyone came there to get ready. The other girls showed up around 2:30 and my photographer - Erik from Claudia Rodriguez photography - came at 3:00 to take some shots of us getting ready. Erika had arranged for rides for us to the wedding site for 3:55pm - 5 minutes before the ceremony. They had picked the boys up at 3:40.

The ceremony was absolutely beautiful although I was seriously sweating my ass off. Of course it was the hottest/muggiest day of the week, but I was just thankful that the rain held off b/c there were some very ominous looking clouds. We had arranged for the guitar trio through the resort, and while it was a steep charge - $300 for 45 minutes - it was well worth it. After the cermony and champagne toasts guests went to the White Sands lobby for cocktails and sat in the air-conditioned bar up there so that was helpful. We had a 7pm private reception at La Laguna so they had a couple of hours to spare while we took pictures.

The reception was set up beautifully and Erika had taken all the stuff I had given her (including the bottles of Cuervo 1800 for each table) and set everything out just how I had told her. We had DJ Bob and he was AWESOME too. I had given him a list of songs that I wanted and he played the most important ones and also took several requests from my guests - even some polka for Joe's dad! He did a great job of gauging the crowd - and our fancy for hip hop/rap - and everyone ended up having just as much fun as the night before!

We all had so much fun that a lot of the younger crew ended up jumping in the pool! Yes, I was in my dress! My 5 BM's, Joe and I all held hands and jumped at the same time. Hopefully some of my friends got some pics b/c Erik the photog was long gone by then.

Everything was amazing. Erika was awesome and so helpful/accommodating with everything. Erik the photog took some AMAZING pictures - I can hardly wait to see them. He showed us a few on his screen as he took them so I got a small taste. Our videographer - Jerry from Cancun Wedding video (Claudia Rodriguez's husband's company) - was awesome. He even stayed later than scheduled just b/c he wanted to get some more video. DJ Bob played awesome wedding music and had the whole crew dancing all night. We had such a good time that he says he wants some of our pics for his website!

I had so many guests tell me that it was the absolute best wedding celebration they had ever been to. I know I'm biased but I've never had so much fun. The whole week was like one long celebration. I was sooooooooooo sad to leave on Sunday. That's a whole other issue - we had like no post-wedding honeymoon. That's the only thing I would change if I had to do it all over again. We had no time to decompress - married on Friday, working on Monday. EEK! Okay well I hope my notes were helpful - I am so excited for all of you to get married there. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Congratulations on your wedding GoCubs!

Sounds like you guys had an absolute blast!

Can't wait to see pics posted!