SunBride

there are a few stores at the resort, they have t-shirts, hats and a bunch of other normal souvenirs. Price are normal to high depending on the item - my husband got a hat for 16$, tried to negotiate with them but they wouldn't. Some of the clothes was pretty expensive. There is also a jewelry store selling silver stuff - mostly very expensive I thought. Twice during the week there were also vendors that came in selling blankets, carvings, sombreros, paintings and other crafts. My sister got a big mexican blanket (you can see it wrapped around my shoulders in one of my pictures) for 25$ (initial asking price 75$ but she bargained hard) and they had some different styled ones for cheaper.

yeah, mine blew out, I had some floating ones that were about one inch or so under the top of the vase. If you have a higher candle holder or vase that goes like 3" above your wick you should be fine though.

one month before your wedding you will get an information form to fill out that asks what services you want. That being said you can always change your mind after, even up until your wedding day. the form just gives them an idea of what they will need to do for you. So that is when you would indicate your interest in using the resort's photographer

email the photographer and he'll send you some samples. He's email address is in the info guide (but I'll look it up and post it here) [email protected] I emailed him and he sent me like 40 samples, and I was pleasantly surprised, there were a few I didn't like, but a lot of great ones, all in all better than I was expecting for a resort photographer. but you have other options, you don't have to fly a photographer there with you (I did because it was a better value for me when you add TTD and some photos of the family the rest of the week). Look in the rest of the MR forum and there is lots of discussion about local photographers (my first choice before I decided to bring my own was claudia rodriguez). If you go to this thread: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t14762 there is a list of all brides, plus for the ones already married there are links to their reviews and photos so that you don't have to do a search to try to find them.

the two gazebos are pretty far from eachother, there could be two weddings at the same time and you wouldn't even know it. The gazebo next to the seaside grill is better in my opinion for picture taking (water behind the gazebo is all clear, and then there is the rock area to the right that looks great in pics). This being said I don't know if they actually do 2 weddings at the exact say time, I don't think they do, I think they try to seperate them by at least an hour. Also they have 2 coordinators. They do up to 3 weddings a day. Depending on your time of year it may be unlikely that you have more than one wedding a day. I was there last week of march / first week of April and there was only mine plus 2 other weddings that week, each one 2 days apart. I was told that December, April and May are the busiest months for weddings, so there would be a greater chance than that there is more than one wedding a day.

Just added Phalstead and Amodew Our list is getting pretty long!

worse case scenarios, they could stay at another resort nearby. The closest big all-inclusive resort is the Bahia Principe, and it's a good 15 minutes away, but there is a bunch of smaller non-inclusive resorts nearby (with better beaches!!!) Maybe you could convince some people to share rooms in 3s or 4s? Would save them some money. And if there are two beds not that big of a deal, just bathroom sharing to worry. In terms of adding photos, you have to upload them to photobucket, and then post the link (the 4th link that will appear until the photo)

I don't think she's seen this post and would prefer she didn't because she'll freak way more, especially since a bunch of people here said that they woudl never hire her after reading about this (so her reputation is ruined, at least on here). If she freaked out so bad about seeing the review (which most of you agree wasn't that bad) can you imagine what she would do to me if she saw all this discussion? I can post more or less her defenses, since she sent me many emails - she was rushed taking the pics of the starfish in the water because of the waves coming in and this is where the nicest sand was (understandable, I could remove this comment) - she said all along she wouldn't copy other people's style (but she's mistaken there, the photos I'm thinking of are either hers and some that she took of my bridesmaids gettign ready but not me. I even asked her for one of them and she defensively said she already took it so I didn't go into it further to make sure she got exactly what I wanted. It was a photo of my hair, and there are tons of it half done but not the ones I wanted after it was done. This is one of the ones I'm disappointed about not getting) -about the bad ocean, she says the other parts of the beach had people - about stressing me out she thinks I shouldn't be mad because it all worked out (i.e. I'm happy I gave her more time) but I still don't think it was necessary to stress me out. Also there were other things that she didn't defend (i.e. her being stressed about the room quality, the flights, and a few overly direct /rude emails that stressed me out) -the sunset was not good (so I removed that comment from my review) -it's not her job to be "fun" and her other clients think she is. She says it's perhaps a connection issue between us an her (I didn't think so, but maybe because of the stress she caused me before, we didn't connect great, just okay. But she didn't really try to make it fun. but again I didn't care, this was a comment for others who want to have fun even if the cost is not getting as many photos) - the comments about her negativity are a personal attack and have no effect on her job so I should not have mentioned them (I think they are very relevant since she spent most of the week, at least 50% of the time, hanging out with our group) - and of course, like I mentioned, she thought my "clump of material" detachable train did not flow well (but she didn't even try to place it! I have pictures the seamstress took that look great! I understand if we were fighting to make it work and it didn't, but we never even tried placing it nice!) These are all her responses (via email) about what I said in my review. Please don't go commenting on her responses because she's not here to defend herself and I don't want to make matters worse. feel free to comment on the general situation as per my other posts, but as for this post here, I think it's best we leave it be, especially since I am paraphrasing for her.

(oops .....)

She says she's never gotten a bad review or any of these comments before (like the one of it not being fun) so I guess that's why she reacted so badly, not that it excuses her behaviour at all

sorry, I should have been clear that by MR forum I meant Mayan Riviera, in the mexico section. I didn't want to change the content of the review, but just the wording to make it more clear that I am overall happy. I changed that one paragraph as indicated above, and also the changes from this morning (one sentence in capitals, adding the numbered review at the end, deleting the example of her complaining about punta cana being awful because my sister said that was too personal). The emails have finally cooled off, or maybe not quite cooled off, but we are done going back and forth. I apologized deeply to her for not talking to her about these issues before posting the review (she mentioned that in one of her emails that I should have done that). She's right that after her hard work she should have heard it from me first (I thought about telling her, but was so worried about her flipping out on me like she did after seeing the review). She says she'll still fill my order for sure, there was never any thoguht of not doing that, which is obviously good. It could be worse, she could be refusing to do that.

(I had posted some additional details but changed my mind because I wouldn't want her to see them and be more upset, even though I'm quite sure she hasn't seen this thread yet, she's been looking at the weddingbells one I think.)

just wanted to add that for right now, lets keep this discussion in this thread (not the review thread) becuase I don't know if I want it actually in the review. everyone has done that so far but just want to make sure it continues.

I've decided to shorten the part where I critiqued some of the photos. I think the fact that it was a long paragraph blew it out of proportion (one of the reasons the paragraph was so long was because I was adding a bunch of positive sentences in there). Here's the old paragraph: In terms of the individual photos, I have very very few complaints, the only ones being that (1) in all the photos from the back, my train isn’t nicely place and spread out, its often kinda clumped there . I’m not saying this is completely her fault as myself, my mom or my bridesmaids also “should” have noticed and fixed it (although none of them having ever been in a wedding party before, they didn’t know about this traditional stuff, and I only thought of it before the ceremony after most of the photos) I thought of it after the ceremony and asked Jodi to take one with my bouquet on my train, but by then the train was already wet and didn’t spread nicely (2) some of the great photos of me alone on the beach were taken in the crappiest part of the beach where there is gross black stuff in the water. I know we were at the far end to avoid the crowds, but I wish they were just a little bit to the left of that (behind the gazebo) where the water was perfect. For me the gross water almost ruins the pictures. (3) in some of the photos of our rings on the starfish my ring is placed with the diamonds down (no big deal as in one of them its fine, plus in all the ones of the ring on the flowers its showing properly so I’ll mostly print those instead) (4) we don’t have any sunset photos, I’m not sure if this is simply because the sunset wasn’t that good that day or because Jodi was really exhausted by then (understandably!), but I’m a little disappointed because she got great photos at her previous wedding where the sky is all pink and purple (not sure if this is natural but I suspect there is some editing in there because the sky looks fabulous). Honestly, these are like my only complaints about the photos, and as you can tell they are really really minor. She did such an amazing job! and the new one: In terms of the individual photos, there are only a few very that I am unhappy about, for example my train isn’t fixed in the ones taken from the back, some of the best photos of me alone on the beach are taken at the crappiest part of the beach (water is full of black stuff), in some of the pics of our rings on the starfish my ring is pointed down with the diamonds not showing, and we don’t have any sunset photos (maybe because the sunset was no good, maybe because she was too tired by then, which is understandable). Out of 2000 photos these are my only complaints about the photos, and as you can tell they are really really minor, and I have a ton of other photos to make up for those ones, so it doesn't really matter. She did such an amazing job!

Quote: Originally Posted by AlmostMrsForbes What is this all about? I think she is confused about her role as a wedding photographer. Why would she make comments about "negative experiences" that she had with you? In what arena is that (a) relevant or ( appropriate? You purchased a service from her - end of story. She's really doing a lot of damage to her own reputation with her childish response. I'm sure she did work really hard and put a lot into the wedding. That is her job, though. If I draft a contract/documents, etc. for a client, really work my butt off, and in the end they're not happy with them, I can't respond emotionally. I can't imagine ever responding "well ... working with you was a negative experience, too." How ridiculous and unprofessional. I'm sorry you're having to deal with this. That's a good point, I don't have to be professional here, I'm just a normal person in this relationship, yet I'm trying really hard to be professional. She on the other hand should be handling this with professionalism, which she is not. I hadn't even noticed the part where she said she had negative experiences. I'm sure she had some, I don't think they would have been that major as I tried really hard to always be nice to her, and my family was really great about including her. That being said, she probably still had some negative experiences, just like anybody would have had, you can't expect anything to be perfect, especially when you're hanging out with strangers.

oh no Leigh, you don't make me feel bad at all. and your point about things not being perfect in photojournalistic style photos is a good one, something that people should keep in mind when choosing a photographer of that style. this was not Jodi's style at all for the pictures of people because she was all about giving lots of instruction, but we liked that. It probably did contribute to making the photos session less fun though Quote: Originally Posted by Morgan Wow that is her loss. Now she won't have your pictures for her portfolio. I hope you can straighten it out. You don't have to be buddies, but hopefully you can come to an understanding. well she still has them on her website, she just deleted the pics and all her comments from the facebook group. All this within 5 minutes of reading the review (I know, because she emailed me about something 5 minutes before I got the email saying she had read the review)

The minute she saw my review she deleted all her photos from the dreams tulum facebook group (and also removed me from her professional facebook account) because she said that she can't imagine anybody would want to see them after reading my review. Yikes!

Thanks Leigh for responding. I did feel bad knowing she would probalby be disappointed or uspet when she read the review (although I never imagined it would be so bad), because she worked so so hard (and I think I say that a lot in my review) but I still thought that brides should still know. Maybe I should have only mentioned the first one or two negative aspects and left out the rest. I was definitely nitpicking when I posted the comments about some of the photos, I tried to make it obvious that I was being nit picky so that people could just dismiss my comments, or think "wow, if that's all she can think of to complain about that's great" about the ring pictures, there are lets say about 10 pictures of my ring on the starfish on the beach. The one where it is okay was taken inside the room, so totally different picture (starfish is leaning against my little ring jar). Of teh ones on the beach the only one I would put in my album is the one that is farther away and taken from the side (rather than the top) so that you can't see the ring details. I wouldn't bother printing the others since they don't show my ring properly. Again, this is being really nitpicky, I said I didn't really care because I have other awesome photos of my rings on the flower, so maybe I should have just not mentioned it at all.

yeah, I purposely chose the black and white one by the window because it's too dark to notice the train. In the color ones it's more noticeable. Again though, totally not a big deal, I'm ony slightly disappointed about it.

I have the dvds, and I get some prints free as part of my package. After the free ones I'm going to print them myself at like costco or somewhere else cheap. But I'm never going to print all of them, probably only like 500 - 1000 at absolute most.

I wonder if she could have replied on that forum if she would have called my train an "add-on of a clump of material that did not move well"!!!

Quote: Originally Posted by Morgan Was that during the ceremony? The BMs are supposed to handle it, but you said no one told them that. It's an awkward thing to bend over during a ceremony & fix a train. i still hesitate to do it & I've been a MOH several times. But if it was not during the ceremony then she should have caught that. Anyway, i agree I wouldn't want any part of my dress described as a clump. It was during the ceremony (yes I asked my sister but she forgot) but no big deal because it's not that obvious and the wind probably would have moved it and I moved around twice so she would have had to refix it. Obviously I did not expect my photographer to either fix it or go tell my sister to fix it during the ceremony. It is however much more obvious in a few pictures we took of my back before the ceremony, me on the balcony, me hanging onto the curtains, and me looking out a little window down the hall. It was only after all these photos that I realize my train had gotten half unattached. I think it must have gotten unattached while we did the laying down pictures on teh bed (which were the first ones). I don't totally blame her though because my mom and bridesmaids didn't notice either. But regardless, I just mentioned it as a very minor factor in the review.

Quote: Originally Posted by Morgan She did a weeks worth of photography & all the work that goes into it afterwards for $800! Well yeah, 800$ plus a free trip. But obviously for her she had to not charge a lot in order to build her portfolio because she only had 2 destination weddings, both at the same resort, and both with very very limited time for photos, and no trash the dress (most photographers do the first wedding or two free, and I believe she did for the last one but not sure). So yeah, I know I got a great deal and that she worked really hard, and we are both reaping the rewards, me because I have great photos, and her because she has a great portfolio which will surely help her get future DWs (in fact she has already increased her price to travel + 1500$)

Quote: Originally Posted by Maura if your photos are beautiful, but your customer service is bad, its not worth my time and stress levels as a bride to deal with you. that is just my honest opinion. your vendors are supposed to be there for you to make things easy, not hard, no matter how their services turn out. THANK YOU, that is exactly my point. My photographer should not be adding to my stress level. In fact, in between the time I booked and left she was the only thing that caused me stress, and it was really bugging me because I was trying so hard to not stress and I was being so successful at that with all other aspects of planning. Thank you for the support ladies, I really needed to hear this. And I'm very happy to hear that my review did not ruin her reputation, becaue I really didn't want to do taht, she did a fabulous job with my photos. It's just that in a perfect world I would have gotten a photographer who did pretty much exactly the same job, but didn't stress me out. So I wanted to warn others that if this concerns you, than maybe you should think carefully before hiring her, it's not like I went out saying "DON'T HIRE THIS PHOTOGRAPHER". One part of her reply was: "I hope you realize how unfair it is to make comment on a forum where I can not also make comments about the negative experiences I had or defend or explain the comments you made - such as your train which would never sit properly because it was an add-on of a clump of material that did not move well." Okay, we did have some problems with my train because it was detachable and the clasps weren't tight enough. Once we realized this problem (because I noticed it wasn't hanging right), my mom tightened teh clasps and it was fine and I thougth it was beautiful. But why didn't she notice it was clumpy and see if it was fixable? I mean I understand if we had tried to fix it and it was still looking clumpy, but basically she's saying that she thought it was clumpy and she didn't even bother seeing if tehre was anything she could do about it. And how rude of her to say that it was "a clump of a material".

This just really casts a bad shadow on my photos. I really hope one day I'll be able to look at them without thinking of the negative stuff, but for right now it will definitely makes me enjoy them a lot less when I spend time this week choosing my photos to print, and putting together photo books and stuf. Even before today, my enjoyment of my photos was slightly (but only slightly) hampered by remembering all the stress having my photographer come caused me (i.e. like people would say I made the right decision by choosing her, and in my head I would think "yeah but it caused me some stress") but now after this it's much much worse.