SunBride

Wow, what an honour. Thanks so much guys! I'd love to move down south and become a wedding coordinator at one of the resorts. Seeing as I don't see that happening though, I guess I'll just keep helping out as much as possible on this forum! I hate disorganization, so while we had this super awesome long thread before, it bugged me a lot that we could never find all the helpful info we vaguely remembered other people posting. My husband keeps saying that if only I showed this much initiative at work we'd be rich! (Just need to find the right job...)

wow, that is gorgeous, but I understand it might not be right for everyone. But I can see somebody buying that as their wedding dress!

Quote: Originally Posted by adias.angel Thanks for the help. We have never stayed in an all inclusive, we are cruise addicts. What should I expect from one? What things and activities are included? I have no idea what I am looking for except a beautiful ceremony site LOL I've found most resorts have the same activities, i.e. aerobics, beach volleyball, some sort of non-motorized boat (kyak, sailboat or something like that), snorkelling equipment etc. Motorized watersports are not usually including (i.e. boating, banana boat rides, etc). These are all clearly listed when searching resorts. I think all resorts have nightly entertainment (shows), although the quality will vary. Some resorts have a kids club which can be really usefull if you have young children coming. Some resorts are adults-only which can be a bonus if you don't have kids in your group. As Danielle mentioned, only the higher end resorts will serve top shelf alcohol (not really a factor for me but it is for some) Speaking of liquor, some resorts will say liquor is included only until like midnight. I've never understood that. All the resorts I've stayed at had 24 hour liquor service Like I mentioned one of the things I always check is the number of a-la-carte restaurants. Buffets get a bit repetitive and the quality is better at the a-la-carte. Most resorts will have one buffet, and maybe 2-7 a-la-cartes. Some will also have a 24 hour snack bar (I really like this, if you are up late it's fun to have munchies!), a beach bbq for lunch, etc. Some resorts (the bahia comes to mind) will limit you to say 2-4 a-la-cartes per week. I personally like to go to a-la-cartes almost every night, so I don't like when there are limits on how many times I can go (limit of 4 is not so bad but I would be annoyed with a limit of 2). Also some resorts will have room service included, but others will charge a fee for room service. Not all resorts will have a disco on site but some do which could be something fun to do later at night. Most resorts I think have spas but I guess not all (I don't really pay attention as I don't really feel like spending more money once I'm there. This is never included in the price). The mega resorts I mentioned previously will usually have trains/trolleys to drive you around when you are going far. All resorts will offer the same daytime excursions (similar to being on a cruise). Some resorts have beach beds which is a huge plus for me, so much more comfortable than being in a lounge chair (although this is very rare).

I decided which criteria were important to me: Resort (not wedding related) 1) COST! 2)5 star resort prefered, 4.5 star would be okay 3) Good beach 4) lots of a-la-cartes (and preferably no limits on number of times you can go per week) 5) Size of resort (Mega resorts like Palladium, Barcelo, Bahia are great for escaping your guests and having alone time, but I didn't want to have difficulty finding the people in my small group so I prefered an average size resort) 6) disco at resort resort (wedding related) 1) Cost of wedding package 2) Outside photographer allowed? 3) Location of ceremony and set-up (i.e. gazebo? whether the beach ceremony was in the middle of the beach or off to the side for a bit of privacy, etc). I usually started with the cheaper hotels and then checked out the reviews on trip advisor. You have to ignore a lot of the negative stuff but if it seems like something is repeated a lot then I would consider it (i.e. I couldn't care less if housekeeping is inconsistent, but when several people complain about the rocky beach then I'm paying attention!) I created a spreadsheet where I listed all those factors and I put information and comments related to my factors and to other things I learned about the resort. Helped me to keep track of everything and which resorts I eliminated and why. Choosing the resort was BY FAR the most difficult and unpleasant part of wedding planning, once we booked everything else was so much fun!

Quote: Originally Posted by Dreams425 Not sure if this has been covered but I have not been able to find it so far...if you use the resort photographer are they booked for a number of hours? I definitely want shots of the girls/guy/family getting ready but I'm not sure that the resort photog. does this?? Trying to decide if I need to book someone else or use the resort. If anyone has any input please let me know. Thanks girls! Hopefully somebody who used the resort photog can provide a better answer, but based on looking at the photo albums of everyone who got the resort photographer, it appears he only starts shooting a little bit before the ceremony (a few photos in the rooms and outside) then the ceremony, and after the ceremony, but not the reception. In terms of getting ready pics, it probably depends a lot on who early you want him to arrive, if you only want him to come like half an hour before the ceremony, there likely isn't an extra charge (as it appears he normally does that anyways) but if you want him to come like 2 hours before, then I imagine you would have to pay extra. Nobody has ever posted info on how much he charges for extra hours, so if anyone has this info it would be very helpful! Why don't you try emailing him? The email address is on Page 1. When I emailed for samples they were really good at emailing me back, I'm sure they'll answer all your questions.

Quote: Originally Posted by Morgan Is it too late to get the raw footage somehow? I feel the same way that I couldn't trust someone to pick the highlights. I don't think they would know what I really want. Also, I want to have the entire ceremony, but I don't want to watch it all everytime. And it's also not what I'd want to share with everyone. I think I'd be really uncomfortable to watch the whole thing with a room full of people. I'll let you know how hard it ends up being. I hope to make some progress this weekend. I have all the raw footage. I had Paul from Playaweddings, my DVD has 3 chapters (1) the wedding day edit, approx 4 mins (watched it a zillion times!), (2) raw footage of the ceremony, approx 15 mins (have showed it to a few people, watched it maybe like 5 times), and (3) raw footage of before and after the ceremony, approx 1 hour (long and boring, we only watched this once, there is the very odd little funny part but very few and far between). I woudn't redo the edit, Paul did a wonderful job. I would rate the edit like a 9/10 because it's wonderfully done but there is a few little things I would change if I did it myself (not that I have the skills to do it so well). So I did provide feedback to him afterwards (about putting just a few extra clips of the ceremony and less kissing at the end) and he said he'll keep that in mind for future videos.

I don't know how much this helps because I'm from Canada but maybe it will help somebody else who has the same question. In Canada they sell all inclusive vacation in one week packages including hotel and air (and transfers), nobody here books their flights and hotels seperately (way more expensive to book seperately and go for a few days than to just pick a one week package with flight). In Canada, depending on the time of year, departure location (toronto is the cheapest, other large airports in the east a bit more, prices in the west/prairies are generally a lot more), how far in advance you book, and of course the resort chosen, the price in my experience for a 5 star resort would be in the 1200$-2200$ price range for most 5 stars (I'm sure there are a few that are way more expensive) excluding Christmas vacation. When I looked for the 2 weeks of Christmas vacation I couldn't find any 5 star resort under 2000$. This of course is just a rough estimate based on my extensive research (different departure locations and the different times of year I was considering).

Quote: Originally Posted by can't wait! BTW...when/how did we become a sticky?!?!?! This is sooo cool!! We don't have to go searching for our thread anymore, it'll be at the top!!!! Yeah, this happened last night. There are a few other resorts that have big threads too: Dreams Cancun has a few (although people are still always starting new threads about the resorts for specific questions), the Bahia has a thread almost as long as our old one (but it's in the "Riviera Mayan Accomodations sub-forum), Moon Palace, Paradisus, etc. I think it would be great if they were all put in the same place (I actually suggested this in the feedback forum), like either all stickies in this forum, or a sub-forum just for these resort threads (I guess the Riviera Maya Accomodations sub-forum) rather than having some at different spots and having them mixed in with other threads that aren't resort specific. It seems like these long resort threads are a fairly new phenomenon (like from the last 6 months or so) so maybe they will find some way to reorganize them all better. But for now, no more searching for our thread (although it was pretty much always on the front page anyways!)

Quote: Originally Posted by amy706 Neen- that is GORGEOUS! Monica- thanks for the tip on the tulle. Would be awesome if they kept the orchids. From the sounds of it- they're not so good at this part:) Why don't you try emailing them and asking them to keep it for you? Maybe knowing that somebody is definitely planning on using it will give them the motivation to save it. Worth a try! Too bad your wedding is still several months away though. If it was only a month or so they'd probably keep it for sure.

Quote: Originally Posted by sgbrown I was wondering if anyone could expand a little bit on how much we're aloud to alter our civil ceremony text. I have found some really beautiful passages (an introduction, a hand ceremony, vows, and a closing) that I'd like to use in addition to the standard text used by the judge at Dreams Tulum that SunBride was kind enough to post on the 1st page of this thread. I guess I'm a little confused because obviously none of the text that I'd like to add would be in spanish. Would the wedding coordinator read my text (quite lenghty) and then the judge would take over at some point and perform the standard legal text? Just askin'! I hope my question isn't too confusing! Yes, I think that's exactly how it would work. The coordinators are so flexible that I doubt they woudl have any problems with adding all those parts to it, although if it got crazy long there might be a problem only because the judge would have to leave (but I'm talking like if it was insanely long, which is unlikely). But I think intro & conclusion, hand ceremony and vows would be fine and since they won't be translated it will likely only add like 3-5 minutes to your ceremony. Hum... why didn't I think of adding an intro & conclusion? Would make it so much nicer. Then again, I honestly didn't care all that much about the ceremony text (aside from our vows).

Great video. I can't wait to see your edit. I considered getting just the ceremony (done by another videographer) and then editing myself (because getting the edit cost way way more than I wanted to spend) but becuase I wasn't sure how hard editing would be, and because I had my AHR to plan and wanted the edited done before then, I decided to just splurge to get a package with edit. The other reason I would have liked to do it myself (aside from saving money) is that I could have had in exactly what I wanted. I like it a lot as it is, but I wish there was more of the ceremony (right now there is just me walking down the aisle, our vows, and then us walking out. I would have liked to have a pan of our guests watching the ceremony, our first kiss. Not much more but just maybe two or three more 5 second clips) and less of us kissing at the end (just like you, there is a lot of that!). Good luck with the edit, can't wait to see the finished product. It better not be too good because then you'll have me wishing I did my own too

Quote: Originally Posted by monicabrandon2008 Hi girls, I received my pro pics today! There are about 700 but I put together a slideshow of about 200. We were on a tight budget but knew we wanted a professional photographer. I ran across Cecilia Dumas and we just loved working with her. You have to do a TTD session. That was So much fun! Picasa Web Albums - Monica - pro wedding pics Beautiful pictures! There are a few TTD ones that I particularly love (there are other great ones too, but these ones I notice in particular becuase I love them AND they are different from what I have. I wished I'd gotten shots like these!) (showing you which ones just for fun, because I know I loved hearing about which photos other people loved best) Picasa Web Albums - Monica - pro wedding pics Picasa Web Albums - Monica - pro wedding pics Picasa Web Albums - Monica - pro wedding pics Picasa Web Albums - Monica - pro wedding pics Picasa Web Albums - Monica - pro wedding pics Picasa Web Albums - Monica - pro wedding pics Picasa Web Albums - Monica - pro wedding pics I also love the ones of you running through the surf - looks like you are having so much fun! Our TTD was a cool experience, but not all that fun. I think it was a combination of the getting up so early to do it (because we attempted to go to the ruins and wanted to get their before it was busy) and because the beach is so rocky that we kept bumping our toes and stuff! Oh, and your flower girl is too cute playing in the sand during your ceremony! I love that!

Quote: Originally Posted by Seahagamy I have just received an email from Lizette in response to my question about the hut dinner set up on the previous page. She said that dinner option is for the Silver or Gold menus but she didn't answer my question which was how much extra it is if I am having the free wedding package. It's a start! I wouldn't be surprised if they are lenient on this (if I remember correctly you are using the free package). Don't get your hopes up too high, you can ask if they will include it for free as part of your package or just charge you a small flat service charge rather than having to upgrade your menu to gold or silver for each person.

Quote: Originally Posted by sgbrown Landy sent me the 2007/08 guide when I booked, but I have yet to hear from her about whether I'll have to pay the 08/09 prices. Truth be told, I'm a little scared to ask for fear that she'll just tell me that the 2009 prices apply now. For example, Ashjanbro is getting married 2 days after me and she was given the new prices (although I guess I did book sooner). I think it's going to be sticky to try and get them to honour their old prices for us who have weddings scheduled in 2009. I'm crossing my fingers that we'll get the old prices, but my FI are budgeting according to the new prices just so that we don't get scr#@* over! There are many other brides in the exact same position as you. One or two of them (forget who, it was somewhere in the last 20-30 pages of the old thread) has confirmed with Lizette that brides who booked when teh old guide was in place will be allowed to follow the policies of the old guide. You should get in touch with one of the coordinators to confirm, in writing. Also save your old emails from when you booked amd bring them with you as proof. Quote: Originally Posted by neen help please...i read somewhere on here - maybe our old thread, maybe not - about a transfer service that charged by the vanload not per person for airport transfers. does this ring a bell with anyone Sounds familiar but can't remember the details, sorry. We need to go through the old thread and move all the most usefull information to the first page of this one! But that would take another 30 hours of work on top of the 30 or so I put into creating the new thread! Quote: Originally Posted by sgbrown SunBride, you're from Ottawa too right? Did you book through Air Canada Vacations by any chance? Yes, see my review (at the end of "Part 1" section) where I discuss in detail my transportation experience with ACV.

Quote: Originally Posted by ashjanbro I think I have read practically all of the 100 plus pages of posts on this site, and I do have the 2008-2009 wedding guide. However, I do still have a couple of questions that have yet to be answered. First, I know that chair covers and bows are included in the dreams of love package for the ceremony, but is there an additional charge for the bows on the chairs during the reception? If so, how much is that? Second, the new wedding guide states that if there is going to be music and dancing during the recpetion, they must take place in the ballroom. But, I've seen a lot of '09 brides who say they are having their reception at one of the restaurants or on the beach. Are they not having music or did I miss something? Finally, was everyone pleased with the stylists in the salon? Well one thing is that the new wedding guide was only released about 2 months ago and many 09 brides had already booked under the old policies and one or two of those brides has confirmed that the old policies will still apply. I think there is also another exception to the rule too (something to do with seaside grill or el patio, but you have to rent the restaurant privately?) but I don't remember exactly what it is so I'll let somebody else cover that. As for the hair stylist, I was very pleased, she did almost exactly like the photo I showed her, it was a little different but still very nice and all the ladies at the wedding were really impressed with my hair (I rated it 9/10 because it wasn't exactly what I wanted, but everyone else thought it was perfect). I had trinidad. Another recent bride had her too and also said she was very good. My two bridesmaids were slightly disappointed, but it's because their hair was very short (above shoulders) and the stylists couldn't do the look they wanted. It still also looked very nice, it's just the pile of hair was smaller then they wanted it to look. In fact almost every single bride has said that their hair turned out very well (don't know if they all had trinidad too or if they used other stylists). So that's one less thing for you to stress about! Bring a picture if you can, but if not they have several huge books of hair styles.

Quote: Originally Posted by ashjanbro Hello Ladies!!! I am a new DT bride and wanted to introduce myself. First, let me start by saying how wonderful this site is, and how much info I've learned, and questions have been answered thanks to you all (especially SunBride). Welcome Ashjanbro! We love having new people join our thread. I'm happy to hear everything has been helpful so far. I notice your post count is only 1 - which is weird because I thought the first thing you had to do to make your account active is put up an introductory post in the "newbie section". You may want to go over there now and post your info (there is instructions at the top of that forum) to make sure your account remains fully active. Updating the Bride list with your info...

Just don't go back shopping. I was concerned too about finding something else, but I never went back to a bridal store, and in the end I was very very happy with my choice.

Quote: Originally Posted by can't wait! Ladies! The forum is currently looking for the "member of the month" and I voted for SunBride. Since we've all been praising her on this thread, I figured others should know about her wonderful work too! If you want to vote for her, go to BDW contests. It would be awesome (and well deserved) if one of our brides gets chosen!! Aww, thanks "can't wait" that's so nice of you, but definitely not necessary, the praise I get on the forum is enough to keep me motivated

I think that's a great price for Jamaica. If your guests have traveled at all to all inclusives, they will know that that is a reasonable price for Jamaica. That being said, since you are going during cheap season, I'm sure you could save a few hundred dollars by going to mexico or the dominican instead. Mexico is more developed and more stuff to do off the resort (well in the mayan riviera at least) but Punta Cana, DR has the best beach.

Quote: Originally Posted by neen I just wanted to throw out a suggestion to those of you having a small wedding with under 20 guests...the seaside grill is obviously great (I'm having my reception there too), as are all the other restuarants, but when I was there last weekend I also saw a wedding reception dinner done in the massage hut on the beach for 16 people. It was beautiful and private and right on the beach...here is a pic. I don't know if it would cost more, but I'd imagine not much This is just beyond the "quiet pool" nearer the water activities hut Ohhh, why didn't I think of this! So beautiful! I'm going to put this on the first page under member contributions for you Neen. What a great idea!

Quote: Originally Posted by chandrathebride I originally had my date confirmed at DT for mid October. But the more we talked to travel agents and people in the know, we more we decided that we would rather be safe than sorry. So then we moved it to mid November (11/21)--this way we were out of hurricane season (we were told by November we were in the clear) but before high season when prices rocketed--which was key for us. Yes, November is a very cheap time to travel, I think pretty much the cheapest of the year, well maybe Sept & Oct are cheapest due to hurricane risk. Although some people think summer is the slowes (because who wants to go somewhere hot when it's hot back home) there are still lots of people who take advantage of school vacation to go then, so summer isn't super busy but not super slow either. Fall however is very slow and then things pick up mid december.

Hi, I saw you on the Dreams forum, I'm glad you made your way over here, that forum is full of Dreams Punta Cana people, but here we have tons of Dreams Tulum ladies! I assume you found our thread: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t25646 You must be gone already. Hope you post a review and pictures when we get back.

you could probably skip the salt. I often skip salt (or reduce the quantitiy) in the recipes I use.

What I did (thanks to my photgrapher's advice) is stand on the other side of the groom (normally it's bride on the left, groom on the right) so that my veil was blowing behind me. We saw a ceremony a few days before mind where the veil was blowing in the woman's face, which is when my photographer told me to stand on the other side. Since it was planned in advance, I had my side of the family on the same side as me. While I was walking down the aisle, the judge tried telling my husband he was suppose to be standing on the other side, you can hear in the video my husband telling her it's because of the veil! Anyways, that worked well for me, the veil didn't get in the way at all. The only pain with my veil is that it wouldn't stay on I had an updo and it kept falling out (during pictures, not during the ceremony) not because of the wind just because it was loose (also b/c when people put their arms around me for photos or to hug they would accidentally tug the veil). It was such a pain, I must have stuck in back in like a dozen times before giving up. Get the hair stylist to do it for you! (I thought I could do it myself but obvioulsy not). In my case though it wasn't back from being steamed when I went to teh stylist's (in fact both dress and veil only arrived like 3 hours before the ceremony. I wish they had arrived sooner both for the veil and for dress photos).

Lonna14: my newsletter - you can access my newsletter for free, go to the member contributions section on page 1 (I think it's post #7) and there is a link for the website "4shared" which is a document sharing website and you can download it there. I couldn't put it as an attachment because the file is too big (due to all the photos). I wouldn't ask for payment. All I hope is that after everyone's turn has come that they come back here to post their review and pictures. Everyone loves reading reviews and seeing photos, but that stuff doesn't fall from the sky (and although it only takes a few people to stick around after their wedding and answer everyone else's questions, each person can only post 1 review and 1 set of pictures, that's where we really need lots of people to contribute) so in my opinion the least people can do if they really benefited from BDW is post a review and pictures to help others out (or at least reduce people's worries, because people always feel better after reading great reviews!) wedding package - you won't get a credit even if you qualify for the free package. Almost everyone qualifies for it (note: it's either a honeymoon suite for a week OR 5 rooms any category for I think 3 or 4 days. Seeing as most people have more than 10 guests, i.e. 5 rooms, pretty much everyone qualifies for the free package). If you choose the more expensive price, you don't get anything free I know, it sucks and is kinda unfair. So just calculate the separate price of all the upgrades you want and if it comes up to more than the cost of the ultimate package, then just go for that one. extra guests - I didn't have more guests than included in my package, but from reading the book (and from discussing with other brides) I think you are right about paying all those extra costs for guests over 20 people. Don't forget for the dinner one, the 65$ is for the gold menu. If you want to cut costs you could go with the regular restaurant menu and then you just pay 20$ per person above 20 (as a service charge for having a group). Beverages - not sure, somebody else would be better to confirm ERnurse: Yes, October is hurricane season. Officially, hurricane season is from June 1 - December 1, although from what I know hurricanes in June, July and November are pretty rare, the peak months are August - October. You may want to consider delaying one month, it will make a big difference hurricane wise. That being said, it's not like there are major hurricanes hitting every week. Many people travel (and get married) during peak hurricane months. You'll have to decide if you want to risk it or not. I personally wouldn't, but that's just my personal opinion. Also keep in mind what your guests will think (if you really want lots of guests, you don't want to be upset because people don't come due to the risk of hurricanes)