Amy715

we had the surf and turf and it was great! It seems the food for the wedding was better than what was served at the restaurants. The Seaside Grill also has an entree called 'surf and turf' but it was slightly different than the one served at the wedding. My dad is a picky steak-eater and he loved it. Here is a pic that Claudia sent me of the food.

Quote: Originally Posted by PaulaV Oh Amy! Congratulations! Your wedding looked wonderful! You were a beautiful bride! I am glad you had a chance to share your wedding details with us as I am a Dreams Cancun bride too. How was the cake? Did you get a picture? Good luck with your move! The cake was delicious! It was very light and moist. It isn't like most chocolate cakes here in the states (not as rich) but it was still good. I am a big dessert person so the cake was really important to me. I had a two tier chocolate cake with chocolate frosting on the inside. The outside had pink frosting with white lilies. Daniella even brought me an extra lily to put in my hair! Sorry, I dont have any close-up pictures of the cake (still waiting for pics from guests).

Hi everyone! We just got back from dreams cancun last monday and had a wonderful time! We stayed from 5/20-5/28. First off, we booked our trip through Honeymoons and Getaways (apple vacations) and had our transportation booked ahead of time. I highly recommend Apple since we also had an Apple Vacation representative at the resort to help us with excursions and etc. The airport was hectic with all the people constantly asking you to buy their service...so it was good to have something already arranged. The resort was so beautiful! The whole resort is outside so only the World Cafe and bedrooms were air-conditioned. The lagoon area had dolphins and you could watch them anytime. We always stopped on the way to the dinner or the lobby. All the staff were friendly and did their best to make sure we were having a good time. The concierge in particular were wonderful! We contacted them many times for various wedding things and they were always very helpful and even remembered my name! Fyi, housekeeping does not speak English so if you need something and dont know any Spanish -- just ask the concierge for it. We met with Daniella (she was in charge of the wedding since claudia was still ill) on the second day and finalized all the flower choices/music and other details. We stayed in one of the pyramid rooms before the wedding and then moved to the tower afterwards. The rooms were beautiful and we loved the robes/slippers and the shaper image radio clock (which you could also attach your ipod to). The nightly turn-down service was a very nice touch. I personally liked the tower room better since it had a sliding patio door, bath tub and we had a view of the gazebo. We saw a wedding almost every night there. I had my wedding at 5pm thursday night. Daniella did a wonderful job and it was such a beautiful day! The gazebo area gets really windy so I didn't wear a veil and had the bustle up on my dress. I saw a wedding the night before and the girl had her train flying all over the place! I had my hair/makeup done by Christian at the Spa. I really liked him so try to ask for him when you get your hair done! He did such a good job that my hair didn't move at all! I hired an outside photographer, Citalli from Claudia Rodriguez. She was really great and such a joy to work with! We had arranged with Daniella that the resort photographer cover the cocktail/reception only but somehow he only covered the ceremony and then took off! I was a little upset about that but luckily we had plenty of photos from our family/friends. We had our cocktail hour in the terrace but we didn't get to attend since we were taking photos the whole hour -- but our guests said they really enjoyed the carribean trio and the food. The reception was held inside the tower lobby. Our seating chart got rearranged and Daniella didn't confirm with me beforehand so half of our wedding party ended up at the other end of the table. That was a little weird but there wasn't anything we could do then. We had about 32 guests and we all sat at one long table. I gave Daniella a picture of the wedding cake I wanted and the chef was able to make it. There was room for us to have our first dance next to the reception table and then our guests joined us for the next song. After dinner, we just chatted and the night ended about 10pm. We went to our room while everyone else went to Azucar, the salsa club next to the resort. We have some pictures online at: Flickr: Photos from amylj715 The photos from the resort were delivered to us at the aiport and we are still waiting for the dvd and photos from Citalli. The guests loved the OOT bags. They particullary liked the aloe vera and the palm tree pens. They said the gum in the bag had gotten soggy from the humidity so they were all thrown out =( I had also brought straw fans for the ceremony but it was too windy for them. My favorite part of the resort was the spa. We had a couples massage and it was the best massage I've ever had! If you get there a little before your appt, you get to use the hydrotherapy stuff.The overall spa ambiance was very modern and soothing. All the restaurants had a great view of the ocean and had delicious gourmet food. Oceana was my favorite (they have the best tuna steak). I am still missing the food since being home for 5 days! Overall, we had a very memorable time there! It was so nice to have a vacation with family and friends and get married at the same time! The resort was beautiful and was a great choice. You can email me if you have any questions but I will have limited internet access since I am in the process of moving to phoenix! Thanks for all of your help and I wish you gals the best!

Quote: Originally Posted by PaulaV Oooh Amy! Have you tried calling her or the resort yet? I am sure they have the wedding situation covered... I finally got ahold of Daniella Castillo (Claudia's assistant) and she is taking care of things while Claudia is sick. She was really nice and helpful. She also said Claudia should be back at work in a week.

Quote: Originally Posted by jilly76 First of all, it doesn't seem like she answers the questions very well, maybe she's delirious from the chicken pox. Second, a couple of weeks she'll be back!!! Ummm, I know a couple of girls on this forum are getting married there within the next few weeks, does she still have that assistant!?!!? oh no...now i'm worried....i'll be there in about 1 week!!

Thanks Jilly for posting your answers and to Hang for the projector info! I hope Claudia feels better soon!

Quote: Originally Posted by jilly76 I know a lot of us have mentioned the email response being slow lately, have any of you gotten error messages? The reason I ask is because I tried sending a message to claudia 3 times from work the other day and got mailer-daemon messages back saying there was a problem with the email address. So I thought maybe I just couldn't send it from work. So I have two other email accounts I tried sending from one yesterday and one today. One of them I got an error message. The other one I didn't get an error message, but no response either, so I'm thinking it may still have not gone through, maybe that email account just doesn't let me know when there is an error. I am using [email protected] which is listed on their website. Does anyone have a different email address? Has anyone else had this problem? I've been having the same problem! I hope the ones that didn't return with an error message went through!! Unfortunately, I dont have another email address other than the one you listed. Maybe someone else will...

Is anyone having a hard time getting a response from Claudia lately? A few weeks ago she was answering my emails within one day and now I haven't heard from her in at least 2 weeks. My wedding in coming up really soon and I still have a few questions! Also, does anyone know if Dreams has a projector with a screen to use? One of the groomsmen wanted to show a short video he made on his laptop during the dinner reception. Is anyone else using one?

I have the same schedule as yours. I'm wondering if that will be enough time too, but all wedding ceremonies I've been to are over in about 15-20 min. I'll probably ask Claudia about it once I get to Mexico. Quote: Originally Posted by YauLau My contract said 5-ceremony, 5:30-6:30 cocktail hour, and 6:30-9:30 reception. Isn't it a big rush with the ceremony being half an hour only. I think Claudia at Dreams intend to only have one event after another directly. There's no downtime like 1/2 hr in between or anything.

Quote: Originally Posted by kucka00 Here's a little bit of a weird question, do you now if we can do without the minister We are having the religious ceremony at home and we actually want our good friend (Michael's best friend) to "marry" us in Mexico. I guess I should let Claudia know that we will not need the services of the minister and maybe get a credit for that part of the package! What do you girlies think Hi, we are bringing our own minister with us. He's known my fiance since middle school and we couldn't imagine our wedding without him. Claudia didn't have a problem with it but I didn't ask her about trying to get a credit for it -- good idea!! Let me know what she says about that!

Here are the pictures for the VIP bouquets!

I have two dogs too (a yorkie and a dauschund). I am putting them in a pet resort/kennel (where they share a room together, have play time with other pets and several walks a day). They love it there and always come back really happy. There may be some near you.

The maracas are so pretty! That is such a good idea! I am giving out these beach picture frames with our monogram inside.

I'm doing the OOT bags upon arrival and favors (small picture frames) at the reception.

Hi everyone! Do you recommend using real flowers or fake flowers for your wedding day hair? I wanted to put two small flowers on one side of my updo (as many people do) but I can't decide whether to buy them before I leave (silk flower) or get them at the resort (real flowers). Thanks for your input!

The starfish are so beautiful! I think you should use both colors as well.

thanks for the info, i'll prob tip my wc the same. Have an awesome wedding melissa!

thanks for the photography tip info! is anyone tipping their wedding coordinator at the resort?

She told me the bridesmaid bouquets are $60-80 + 10% tax.

Here are the bouquets and bouttonieres that claudia sent me, these are the ones included in the 'ultimate package'. I'm prob gonna go with the callilily bouquet since I dont want spend extra on the vip bouquets (gotta pay for other extra stuff!)

Hey! My sister was saying I should tip the wedding coordinator and photographer..how much am I supposed to tip? What is everyone else doing? Thanks!

Did anyone get a reply about the ipod sound system? I had emailed Claudia about it and she just replied by attaching the same music price list that she sent me earlier (and it doesn't have anything about an ipod on it). Ohh, she also gave me a quote on an additional gazebo decoration (its not the official document from the resort but i just copied the photo and pasted the prices she gave me). flower arrangement hanging.doc

hey Jilly! Claudia finally got back to me about the bouquets..she said the vip bouquets are not included in the 'ultimate package' (which sucks since they are so much better than the other ones!). I've attached the price list she sent me for them. Hope this helps! VIP BOUQUETS PRICES.doc

yeah, the costs for the extra guests are definitely expensive! Its about $19 a person for the cocktail hour and then $39/person for 'gold' dinner...and that doesn't include tax or a labor charge. There also can be a lot of extra charges in addition to the price of the pre-set wedding packages. I've realized the packages don't include a sound system for the ceremony, music for the reception, gazebo decoration, centerpieces for the dinner tables, dance floor..etc... so watch out for all the extra things...they add up!

I'm going with the ultimate package b/c we liked the food choices in the gold menu best and I liked the idea of the mariachi (ohh, the I love the included massage). Anyway, we are having about 30 people and they are charging us (about 65/person for the cocktail hour+reception) for each person over 20 people. I also didn't like the cake choices and will be upgrading the cake and maybe the flowers too. Oh, I am also bringing my own photographer and minister too!