Laura's Wedding Review Dreams Puerto Aventuras 2-28-09

We arrived on the Monday prior to our wedding, we were greeted with champagne as soon as we walked up to the hotel. We arrived at about 9:30 am so our rooms were not ready. This was something that we expected so we planned accordingly and packed our bathing suits. The resort is absolutly beautiful and the community that surrounds it is what makes it an optimal spot for a destination wedding. DPA is located in a small town I guess you could call it, there are dolphin and seals are only a few steps away from the resort. There are shops, resteraunts and bars if you feel the need to ventures away from the resort.

Our room was beautiful we had an ocean view on the third floor I would recommend that you request a room on a higher level. Don't get me wrong our view was great we were able to see all of our guest at the pool

We did meet with the wedding coordinator twice prior to the wedding. During each of the meeting we went through the details of the wedding food, flowers, location, and music. I will go into detail about each. We choose the Ultimate Package.....

Food: We did the Surf and Turf with Tortilla soup, salad, and wedding cake. The food was FANTASTIC the night of the wedding.....the servers were a bit slow with the courses I think the entire meal took about an hour and half. Our cake was Vanilla and was GREAT!! They will not bring the cake out until right before you cut it due to the warm weather.

Flowers: Our flowers were Beautiful they were very tropical with a main focus in fushia and orange. I did send Jacy a few pictures of what I wanted prior to the wedding. This is one thing not to stress about the flowers were absolutley breath taking.

Location: We were married in the wedding gazebo which they decorated beautifully there were flowers and tool that gave it a wonderful wedding feel. The scenery is really the best part in all of our pictures all you see is ocean. We has our reception on the beach, this was really our only option since we had about 50 guests. This I was nervous about! In the end it looked beautiful. Keep in mind it is pretty windy by the ocean so the candles and tiki torches were not useful. We did not do a dance floor we just danced on the sand (who knew) the sand is actually rather hard, the area they use is normally the volleyball court.

Music: We actually rented the equipment for the reception and just used our IPOD this worked great! The Mexican Trio was great from what I hear Eric and I were off taking pictures during this time.

Cocktail Hour: If you choose to do this clarify with the wc whether or not a bar will be set up! Our guest went to Barracuda bar to get all their drinks. Also there were not many appetizers and the ones I tried were not very good.

Photographer: We used a photographer from outside the resort. We did use the resort photographer for shots of all of us hangin out around the pool. If you do the ultimate package jacy told me after the wedding that I had the choice of the photographer or videographer, and that I had choosen the photographer. I didn't realize that there wasn't a videographer until I was walking down the aisle, so make sure to clarify! This was something I was really bummed about.

After the reception about 20 of us did go to Coco Bongo in Playa Del Carmen this was very fun and I would recommed that you go if you have crowd that enjoys drinking and dancing.

All all it was a PERFECT day Eric and I had the best day of our lives and our guest had a wonderful time. I would recommend DPA to anyone that is thinking of a DW. Below is a link to my photographers website Lydia was fantastic I would also recommend her. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Lidya Solemidt

Thank you for your review. It sounds like you guys had a great time. Congrats!!!

Thanks for the review lyales! I am glad to hear everything went well.

What did you use for music as you were going down the aisle? I know the Trio is part of the Ulimate package, but can you use them for the ceremony if you wanted?

That is a good question?? I bet that you could I just brought a CD and IPOD with the music on it and they played it at the ceremony.

Your pictures are beautiful! Contratulations and thanks for the review!

thanks so myuch for the review Lyales! I'm so happy for you. Too bad about the videography. I think I might get one of the guests to film for me and get my 15 year old step daughter to help edit to music.(kids are great at that stuff!) A few questions...Did you pay extra to have the reception on the beach? I read that it costs $80 extra/pp to have it there. Also, how were the pics from the resort photographer, and would you recommend using him/her? Do you think it would work if we just brought an ipod docking station with good speakers instead of renting for an arm and a leg from the resort?

Jen

your pics are gorgeous! you looked beautiful, thanks for posting!

I did not pay extra to have the reception on the beach. I think you could maybe use an IPOD dock depending on the number of people. I would recommend renting the equipment to ensure that all your guest can hear the music.

Yeay! I'm glad eveything was good. Congratulations.

Congratulations! Great review!