Iberostar Brides....POST HERE!

Hello Shana

Sorry to hear about your experience.
Are you & your daughter considering changing just the wedding location at the Lindo or the hotel itself? Did you have an opportunity to look at the gazebo site?

We reserved the gazebo for our wedding, but I haven't seen any pictures of any wedding in the gazebo at the Lindo, only the Del Mar. We initially wanted to have our wedding on the beach, but I wasn't into other people watching. I know other brides have said you don't notice, but I just wasn't comfortable with that. However, if we completely hate the gazebo when we see it in person we will probably have the wedding on the beach as our backup. I will be sure to post pictures and a review either way.

hey ladies. i've been keeping up with this thread pretty regularly, but if this question has already been answered you can yell at me.

 

i got some documents from the WC at the tucan, and was starting to decide on private events, and if i wanted a private cocktail hour, to rent out the restaurant, and/or the disco. the prices seemed reasonable: $7/person for a cocktail hour, $350 to rent a restaurant for 2 hours, and $350 to rent a nightclub for 2 hours. (assuming 50 guests).

 

so my question is this.

 

the religious (non-legal) ceremony is $1800 PLUS $20/person ( for each extra person after 8 )

 

that comes to $840 for 50 guests (before the cost of the private events) !!

What on Earth does that go toward?

 

i can't imagine cake, champagne, and chair covers costing $840!

 

i guess my initial thought was the extra $20/person just went toward the extra effort for the wedding dinner and bartender... but that would have to be paid even if there were no private events planned.

 

any thoughts?

 

thanks!

right after i got finished talking about how "up-to-date" i was on this thread.

lol, sorry!


our TA (madison, wi) quoted us some IB prices for 7 nights in jan. of 2009 (as just a rough example of what we would be looking at in jan. of 2010) and the tucan was priced very similarly to the del mar.

of course this doesn't take into account what room you book, and i honestly don't know too much about that, but i figured this would at least get you some sort of ball park figure.

this print out i have has the resorts listed from highest $$$ to lowest $ as:

grand paraiso
paraiso lindo
paraiso maya (look pretty similar to lindo from this list)
tucan
del mar

& i have no idea where that puts the quetzal.

hope this helps, but don't take it as fact because i am by no means a travel agent.

Essentially after everything is said and done...a DW is expensive either way. Your asking your guests to pay anywhere from $1200-$1500 pp, then your paying anywhere from $20-$40 pp just for them to attend the event even though every person is all-inclusive...Your still charged as a bride & groom for your guests to have a chair at the ceremony, for your guests to drink champagne at the cocktail hour, and for your guests to eat food that would normally be free since they are all-inclusive.

You pay for the photographer which is anywhere from $300 for only about 50 pictures (rip off) to $3000 for the photographer for as many pictures you want (which doesnt include the TTD session) or you have the choice of flying in your own, which is expensive since you not only have to pay the airfare & hotel for him/her but you also have to pay a penalty fee for not using the resorts photographer

then your charged for a mariachi band almost $400 for 45 minutes ! (another rip off) Thats a crazy amount of $$ if you ask me considering Mexico is still on PESOS & not like on EUROS! So $400 American dollars is a LOT of PESOS, but what can you do ? That's just the rate everywhere...and they know they have you by the b@lls, because what else can you do about it? If you want music, that's what you pay, no negotiations.

 

and all in all after dress, invites, wedding, airfare, hotel, wedding party gifts, etc. its AT LEAST 20K - and then they still make rules like: any amount over 40 people have to have a set menu between 3 options, and you cannnot have a private reception, and you can only have a certain color theme, you cannot take away something from the package you might not want (cake for example) & exchange it for something you do (more flowers for example), etc. etc. etc. and the rules are never-ending, unless of course you want to give them MORE $$ but who can afford THAT!

 

When I came to the decision to having a DW with my fiance, I was under the impression that all my job was is to work out to get fit for my dress & that we can just fly out to Mexico & it would be an easier, cheaper, less stress route, considering I have no interest in weddings...going to them or planning them...But there's just no way out. You have to plan it & plan it so everyone's happy (family/mom/dad & guests) and anyone that says it's YOUR day, and it should be planned YOUR way, to make YOU happy....not so much. It has to be done the traditional way, and you think about everyone else's feelings & thoughts & expenses, AND that's not less stressful or cheaper by any means.

 

sorry ...venting.

The pp fees really made no sense to me, and they still don't. I think the reasoning is to pay the staff for your event for set up and service, etc., and I assume they factor the WC fee into that as well. I don't know why they don't just charge a service fee rather than the pp. Either way, we are still spending a lot less money than if we had a wedding here even if we kept our guest list to a minimum. Even then, there are some places here that require you to have a minimum guest list of 150 people to even book a place and if they don't show up you still have to pay for that amount. For places that we would have wanted to have the wedding it would have been $80-100 plate for dinner, not including drinks or any extras and the rental fee. Plus, the cost of flowers, DJ, wedding cake, the list goes on. With a DW you are getting a fabulous wedding location at a cheaper rate, and you get one-on-one time with your guests that you definitely would not have in wedding here. Overall, we are spending about $13K for our DW and that includes our trip. The trip itself cost around $5K, but we will be in Mexico for almost 2 weeks and staying at the Grand for part of the trip. We would have easily spent closr to $30K for a wedding here, and in my opinion that would have been a total waste. Not to mention that we wouldn't be getting married until 2015 to save up enough money to pay that, or be in serious debt! Ha ha! I definitely think you can have a DW for cheaper than that if you choose a different resort or location, and were not worried about all the little details. The photographer was a big thing for me, but I saved a lot of money doing DIY projects for our STDs and invitations. I think they turned out just as nice if not better than something I would have paid a lot more money for.

I am getting married at the Iberostar Parasio Del Mar. Do you happen to have any pictures or videos of the Del Mar that I can view?

 

Thank you!

Have you checked out the Iberostar board? There's a ton of info on there (pics/videos etc.). IBEROSTAR BOARD - IBEROSTAR RESORT REVIEWS, PHOTOS & RESTAURANT MENUS

you are so very right!! i did some preliminary math this morning, and over estimated on pretty much everything & ended up around $15,000. really, not a bad deal. (oops think i forgot to add a few thousand for an off-site photog, but whatever! still a steal!) time to take a deep breath and remember that weddings are EXPENSIVE, and we are saving some serious cash!

i did see on the iberostar message boards/forum that the per-person cost really does go to "chairs, champagne, and cake". lol- i hope this means we can get a big ass $840 cake.


thanks!

We figure it'll cost us around $15,000 too, but if we had it at home as originally planned it would've been over $30,000 and now we're also getting a weeks vacation...so I think it's a good deal.

LOL at the big ass cake comment