Trisha's Bahia Principe Wedding Review...

Ok... it's only 3 pages in Word... but it could have been 15! I decided to cut out a bunch of stuff, but if anyone has any questions at all or needs to know specifics about the resort just let me know! I'd be more than happy to answer any questions!!!

Engagement Photos A+

Leigh Miller took our engagement photos in Central Park. First of all, she is WONDERFUL to work with. She worked with Shawn prior to me and since he doesn’t have a cell phone and was keeping it a secret from me, I’m sure it was difficult to communicate with him. But, none the less Leigh was professional and did everything he asked for . Our photo shoot was a breeze. She was so easy to work with and our pictures turned out lovely. Everyone loves her work and made wonderful comments.

Save The Dates A

Well, it’s kind of weird to give this an A since I did them myself, but I’ve had very many compliments! My work printed them for me on beautiful cardstock and they turned out great. My loving parents, Shawn, and I took two hours and cut everyone out by hand so they’d be perfect… and they were. Only problem, I’m an idiot and put the wrong phone number for our travel agent!

Wedding Website B+

Our wedding website (ShawnandTrishaWedding) was fun to create. I’m not sure it was worth the $85 I paid for it through ewedding.com, but I like it. I think it really got Shawn interested in the planning of the wedding and provides a lot of information to our guests. From what I hear people like not having to call us for every little question. They also enjoy Shawn’s random pictures he occasionally posts of completely NON wedding related items!

Photographer A+

We hired Amore Photography for our wedding. We wanted wonderful pictures at a fraction of the cost, and they fit the bill! I found him through the BDW, but he was soon banned. None the less, he had never shot a destination wedding before and offered a wonderful deal. He quickly sent me a portfolio with some sample shots, album information, and a contract. He (and his wife) replied very quickly to e-mails prior to the wedding.

For the wedding Bryan arrived on Wednesday. We met up with him on Thursday afternoon and he took some shots of us getting our nails done and then we went to the rehearsal dinner and he did some more shooting.

Friday was wedding day. He met up with us at the salon while we were getting our hair done. It was quite amusing to see how confused he was  Since this was his first destination wedding he was NOT used to seeing multiple bridal parties getting ready at the same time and he took a few photos of some random people. It made us all laugh pretty hard 

Our wedding photos went well… I think I haven’t seen them yet! But he was hopping around during the ceremony and I think he captured everything. Afterwards we went straight to business with shooting all kinds of fun bridal party pictures. In retrospect, I’m very upset that I didn’t get a family photo… but that’s totally my fault.

Saturday morning we met for a TTD session. He had scoped out some areas in the resort that we used first, and then we headed to the Tulum Ruins. Well, that didn’t work at all. And we knew it wouldn’t going into it, so I wasn’t too disappointed. We ended up going to the public Tulum beach just down the road which was breath taking! And the ruins were VERY crowded since it was a Saturday and the public beach was empty. I can’t wait to see the pictures from that!

Wedding Dress 1/ Bridal Boutique F

I purchased my dress from Expectations Bridal in Hartford WI. I wouldn’t recommend this place. It’s a very oddly run store and I didn’t feel comfortable at all during the trying on, measuring, ordering, or follow up appointments. I ended up hating the dress

Wedding Dress 2/Amelishan Bridal

This place was amazing and I got my dream dress! They were very accommodating and I ended up ordering a brand new dress design for Spring 2008 and it arrived in two weeks and they altered it in a month. Such sweet people here. Not to mention I love my dress! I would wear that thing every single day if I could pull it off!

Wedding Invites A

Well, of course I gave myself an A! I made these myself and although they aren’t the coolest invitations and they aren’t perfect, I’m SO happy that I did them on my own. It cost me $200 for 89 invites. The feeling of accomplishment was well worth all the sweat and tears that went into making the stupid things  One word of advice though, DON’T procrastinate if you are going to make them yourself! I had over two months to do these but decided to finish them in three days. That’s a lot of cutting, folding, and taping to do in three days without going crazy! Another regret is the fonts I used. I’m retarded and somehow managed to use 5 different fonts! I wish my RSVP and both envelope fonts would have matched my actual invite. Ah well. Nobody noticed.

Custom Mugs

I ordered my mugs from discountmugs.com. The ordering process was very easy, although I had to specifically request a proof prior to printing. After that it was smooth sailing. When I had questions they would call me right back, never e-mail. It was very reassuring. When they arrived I loved them! And all of our guests used them every day and thought they were awesome. I also got many comments from other guests at the hotel who wished they had them!

The Hotel – Gran Bahia Principe Akumal A++++

There were 10 of us (and two babies) that checked in at the same time. My parents and Shawn and I had booked Club Golden which are the condos right on the water, so we had a separate check in. So as our bridal party did the normal check in, we went straight to the Club Golden area. It was beautiful and we were given condo 65. AMAZING! It had a gorgeous view and I could see the wedding set up right from my window. We were also just a hop skip and jump away from the activity pool, restaurants, and the 24 snack bar. It was awesome.

The rest of our guests ended up spread throughout the resort in random villas. It kind of stunk that nobody was together, but oh well I guess.

The grounds of the resort are amazing. Lush and well managed with lizards running all over the place. I’m not a picky food eater… I eat pizza and watermelon and I’m happy… so I thought the food was great. Shawn too. We end up eating at two alacart restaurants. We chose Les Gourmet and Dolce Vita. Les Gourmet was fantastic! LOVED it. Dolce Vita was alright, again, we aren’t very picky.

As for the wedding portion of the resort… Yurítzia is the wedding coordinator for the Akumal section. She doesn’t ever reply to e-mail messages and our meeting with her was very stressful. HOWEVER she saved us over $5,000 as she didn’t charge us for the cocktail hour or the open bar during our reception. She also gave us amazing deals on our flowers (which I LOVED) and in the end the wedding was everything I had imagined and so much more! She did an amazing job and I just wanted to hug her at the end of the night! It was awesome.

There were some issues with the blood tests. We went the first time and were told they were out of supplies so we were to come back at 4. Ok, came back at 4… we were told to come back at 6. At 6 they finally got us in and it was quick, painless (well, to me anyway!), and we were done! I was really surprised by this since I have terrible veins.

The wedding location that we had chosen was the hammock spot on an unswimmable portion of the beach. It was beautiful with the waves crashing and we knew there wouldn’t be Speedo men or topless ladies in our pictures 

The day of the wedding Yurítzia decorated the location just as I had asked and everything looked beautiful! I was so pleased.

Our cocktail hour (which she demands be two hours… which I don’t recommend!) was in the Akumal Theater Lounge. It has huge windows which can be opened so that you get a nice breeze, but it was still pretty toasty. We also had the trio playing during this time. They were really great and I am glad we spent that money.

After the cocktail hour we moved to the private dinner reception. This was $46 a person and was located by the pool. It was beautiful decorated, however we really couldn’t see what we were eating! That was amusing. The food was delicious though, and the cake (three milk) was really good too, very moist.

After we were done eating we started the reception with the traditional dances and then we just partied until 10:30. At which time… Shawn and I did our special dance! We preformed the final dance from Dirty Dancing (I’ve had the time of my life.) We have been practicing for a REALLY long time and everyone loved it. They all cheered VERY loud and we got the perfect reaction! It was amazing.

10:30 the music stopped and we headed to the Hacienda to take some night time photos and whoever wanted to stay out and party could (we were too tired and had our 8:00 TTD session the next morning!).

The wedding was perfect and amazing and we couldn’t have asked for anything better! We were so thrilled!

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to let me know. We are slowly getting pictures to trickle in… so I’ll post as soon as I can. If you are interested you can visit our wedding website which I keep updating with new photos. Shawnandtrishawedding.com