Riu Vallarta Review and a few pictures

You all looked so amazing!! Katie made a beautiful bride!

Great Review Helen, thank you for sharing! I loved your dress and Katie's dress, both of you looked beautiful!!!

For the dinner at Flamingo's the tables were set up for our party in a horseshoe shape. White table cloths, and clear glassware. Usually at this restaurant they use the heavy blue rimmed glasses, and colourful plates, but for the wedding dinner it was all white. A few rose petals were scattered over the tables.

This is a picture (not very good) of the free cake that was supplied and you can see the table cloths.



Also, this is a picture of what a typical meal at Flamingo's looks like. We were there earlier in the week and this is the Land & Sea Kebab. All the other meals look very similar as the sides are the same for all of them but subsitute chicken, ribs, or steak instead of the kebabs



I got a quick look yesterday at the professional photographers pictures. Katie has an album with 15 printed out pictures and a CD with 100? pictures on. Some of them are really great but I have no idea when I will get to see them again. When I do I will try and post some of them.

Thank you all for all of the really kind comments!

Thanks again for sharing the pics Helen! If you don't mind me asking, how many were in your group?

 

I think we're going to do our reception dinner at the Flamingo, just on the upper level. Did I get it right that you said that the cake wasn't that good? I am SO stressed about this and I know I shouldn't be.

 

I think we are going to take a gamble and just go with it. We are going to order a 3 tier cake if they offer one. If they showed Katie a three tiered cake, then they should still have that option when we get there.

 

I am going to take a cake pedestal with us and call it done as far as the cake goes and whatever happens....happens!

For the wedding dinner there were 31 of us, including the bride & groom.

I asked Katie about the cakes offered and she said there were pictures of 1, 2, & 3 tiered cakes. Only the small 1 tier was free. She did not ask how much extra the 2 & 3 tier cakes were because she wasn't interested.

And no, the cake was not very good. I took one bite and decided not to waste the calories

I wanted to mention something else to you Celina, about day passes. It may have been on a different thread that you mentioned getting them. When Katie and Chris met with the wedding co-ordinator they added two half day passes to the invoice. Then we told the two guests that were staying at their timeshare that for the day of the wedding the passes had already been taken care of so that they wouldn't pay for it themselves. The day of the wedding (probably around 2pm for the 3pm ceremony) they show up at the front desk and explain why they are there. The front desk tried to charge them because they had no record of payment, and they could not contact the wedding co-ordinator to confirm payment had been received. So they reluctantly had the front desk call me. Bear in mind that at that point I had 4 bridesmaids & 1 bride trying to finish getting ready (I was all set to go) + a couple of other people video taping and taking pictures of the whole process in my room. I asked the front desk to just charge my room so that I could deal with it later. He was very apologetic but said he couldn't because I would have to sign for it so I had to go down to the front desk. By the time I got there the wedding co-ordinator had called them and it was all cleared by her. Anyway, my point is that if you pay for them make sure the guests know, otherwise the passes could end up being paid for twice.

Don't worry about the cake! I don't think anybody really cared one way or the other. There was a cake there for ceremonial purposes and that's what mattered. If anyone wanted dessert they could always walk back to the buffet but I didn't see anyone do that.

All will be well

Thank you again Helen for the pictures...hopefully we get to seee more.

A link to a website where I uploaded the professional pictures taken by the resort photographer (click on the picture):

 

 

This is my favourite picture of the two of them:

 

At first we were debating on where to stay... We had thought about the Velas Vallarta because my parents have a time share there - but it would be expensive for our guests even with the group rate that the Velas Group Coordinator gave to us.

 

But, then we called a travel agent we know and she recommended the Riu Vallarta as the best value for your dollar. I'm really trying to find something that can accomodate everyone's budget.

 

The Riu Vallarta worked out to be so cheap! I'm thrilled, I think it'll work out just fine.

Helen, I hope you're still around...

I'm a Jalisco bride, but I figured it would be the same either resort...

 

Which package did your daughter have? How long was the professional photographer there, and did they have the option of purchasing more photos than the package allowed? We're thinking of hiring an outside photographer, but I really don't want to spend that kind of money if the hotel one is good. I don't need him to watch me get dressed (I'm shy!), but if he does a load of pictures to choose from, I'm good!

 

Thank you!

Yes, I'm still around. They went with the 'Royal' wedding package. The photographer was only around for about 30 minutes before the ceremony and about 30 minutes after, so maybe 1.5 hours in total. The photographer was at the ceremony site to take pictures of the groom and groomsmen before the ceremony. He took some pictures of Katie and her Dad and I on the way to the ceremony, then took some shots of Katie and some of her and her Dad before walking down the aisle.

They upgraded the wedding photography package. The wedding was on Wednesday and the photographer showed up on Friday (9am?) with a laptop set up with all the pictures on it (100 or so?) so that they could go through and select 12 to be printed. They couldn't decide on the 12 so he did 15 or so. They also got a complete set of the pictures, high resolution, on a CD which I'm pretty sure is the upgrade they paid for. Not sure of the cost.

The photographer was only there for the ceremony. All the pictures of her getting ready in the room were taken by friends. Pictures at the reception, including cutting of the cake, were taken by guests. We have some friends with pretty fancy cameras so they also took them out on the beach and did some sunset shots with just the two of them, but I haven't seen any of those yet.

Katie & Chris also had the ceremony videotaped by someone arranged by the hotel. I've not seen the DVD of that yet either.

I will attempt to get information out of Katie about the details but I expect it will be around the 7th of June before I get to see the DVD of the ceremony or the CD with the complete set of pictures. I'll ask her about the cost and get back to you if she tells me