Canadians @ Playa Pesquero

Yes 10am just seems to early, especially considering I will need to get my hair done (along with my maid of honor) that morning. Plus, like you said, I don't think I would want to hang out in my dress all day until dinner! Initially I was asking for 4pm as I think that would be great in terms of temperature and then having the beach bbq at 6pm would allow a few hours for pictures, drinks, etc. Well, maybe the 18th will work for that time. We have a few days to play with.

So, I just heard from Yaly and we are having our ceremony on April 18 at 4pm. She said that the notary doesn't work weekends, so we are signing the papers on the 17th at 10:00 a.m. and then the ceremony will be the next day.

JulieG, what is involved with the signing of the papers? I'm thinking that's essentially our marriage license and then the next day is more of a symbolic ceremony?

Anyhow, I'm super excited and I have my first dress fitting in 2 weeks so things are great!

Yes that makes total sense. I'm glad that you and I are understanding the same thing. I am totally ok with signing papers and being "legally" married on the 17th but then having a symbolic ceremony in front of our friends and family on the 18th.

Now that we have the date/time and the beach bbq set, can you think of anything else that we should take care of at the moment, or are we good until we get to the resort?

Lord it's less than 3 months and I feel so unprepared....

To the ladies who've been married at PP already, would you please help me with the following questions?

1. Is there a DJ for the ceremony/reception? Do you get a chance to talk with them (either directly or through Yaly) regarding your music? My plan was to make a cd for the ceremony itself and perhaps a few songs for our reception (first dance, etc)

2. Did you all bring your own decorations? If not, is there a fair selection of decorations available at the resort? I'm concerned about the wedding arch itself (beach ceremony) and the reception (beach bbq). Are there centrepieces, etc. available?

3. Do you finalize your menu once you get to the resort? How did you find the food?

4. Are there some fun excursions around Holguin itself? I do know about the swimming with the dolphins and the jeep safari but am wondering if there is anything else to do off the resort.

5. Is there a fun nightclub at the resort for me and my MOH to go to the night before the wedding? I'm not big into nightlife but for my last night as a single woman, I might as well let my hair down....

6. Will my appliances (hair dryer, camera charger) work at the resort without a converter?

Whew...ok that's it for now...

1. Is there a DJ for the ceremony/reception? Do you get a chance to talk with them (either directly or through Yaly) regarding your music? My plan was to make a cd for the ceremony itself and perhaps a few songs for our reception (first dance, etc)

There is a dj for the reception. I didn't get to talk to the musicians about the ceremony but they did a great job and we had them bring speakers and put a friend of our in charge of playing the special songs on the ipod for when we started walking down the aisle. They have the connectors for the ipod.

We just used playlists and ipods for the reception but there was a dj there if we needed him.

2. Did you all bring your own decorations? If not, is there a fair selection of decorations available at the resort? I'm concerned about the wedding arch itself (beach ceremony) and the reception (beach bbq). Are there centrepieces, etc. available?

I just asked Yaly to do the arch with lots of green and some of the bright pink flowers. She used real bright pink petals for the aisle. They only have a red runner/carpet.

For the reception I made luminaries and brought votive candles. If you ask Yaly, she might be still have them. We also brought fake flower petals. I did go and check on the reception set-up in the afternoon. It was a good thing too b/c they didn't do anything I asked. There were even black candles on the cake table! And these crazy orange fabric hearts on the sand. Be VERY specific! I would maybe do a mock up and take pictures. They also have white linen napkins which are nicer than the green ones they normally use.

3. Do you finalize your menu once you get to the resort? How did you find the food?

The menu was exactly what they wrote in the description of the beach BBQ. It was one of the best meals we had all week!!

4. Are there some fun excursions around Holguin itself? I do know about the swimming with the dolphins and the jeep safari but am wondering if there is anything else to do off the resort.

I have a pamphlet laying out all the excursions, I will try to remember to send it to you tonight. There is a little train that goes into holquin every morning too. Not much to do off the resort though.

5. Is there a fun nightclub at the resort for me and my MOH to go to the night before the wedding? I'm not big into nightlife but for my last night as a single woman, I might as well let my hair down....

There is a little disco. Some nights it's pretty decent, some nights really empty. If you have lots of girls with you though you can totally make a blast of it!

6. Will my appliances (hair dryer, camera charger) work at the resort without a converter?

We tried with and without a converter and couldn't get anything to work. Some rooms got lucky with some appliances but it would be smart to plan on nothing working.

Also bring a battery powered alarm!! and let your guests know to bring digital watches with alarms. There is only one clock at the whole resort and wake up calls only worked about 25% of the time. We were constantly confused about the time!

If you have any other questions, fire away!

That is awesome! Thank you so much for the info. Very odd about your reception decor! I think I will bring some votive candles as well.

Were your flowers provided by the resort? Did you bring your own ribbon (can't remember if you had ribbon now, have to look at your pics again!) for the flowers?

Also, did you see the resort hairdresser for your hair? If so, how did you find it?

I bought the flowers from Angels Accents but they're for sale if you want them

Also, we asked for coursages and boutenniers from the resort and neither ended up arriving at the resort at all. It was a very good thing I had brought my own flowers!

I did bring ribbon for the cake though. We just had a plain white cake with flowers on the top. I would skip the ribbon b/c it looked like they really didn't know what to do with it anyway.

If you're interested in the luminaries I have light pink, fuscia, and white bags left. They turned out super pretty on the tables!

The resort hair dresser was pretty good, she seems nervous at first but she did a great job. I brought pics with me. She did my hair and all three of the BM's, she even put real flowers in their hair!

Thank you again! I think I will hold off on the flowers/luminaries. I'm sure someone else will snap them up right away though!

I do like the idea of the luminaries on the tables...from the few beach bbq pics I saw, they look lovely.

Now I feel a bit calmer about my wedding!