RyanAmanda

Quote: Originally Posted by TrishB12 Hi there! Congrats on your wedding. My fiance and I have been looking at different resorts and this one Bahia Principe Tulum was recommended to us. We are having a tough time finding prices though. On different websites it is more than 1500 for a week per person. Is that how much you paid? We will be getting married at the end of April in 2010 so it won't be high season or anything. Thanks! We had three different rates - right when we got rates, if you booked that week it was $1100 plus $177.25 taxes so $1277.25. If you booked after the first beek but within that month, it was $1327.25. At the end of the month taxes went up by $100 to $277.25 so anyone that booked after that first month paid $1427.25. I think 90% of our guests booked that first week though so almost everyone paid $1277.25.

Quote: Originally Posted by Corvette79 our ceremony is 4pm dinner is at 6-8 pm, cocktails poolside is 830 to 11 For the cocktail party you pay per hour, I know 11 is the latest you can have them but why don't you have it from 8 to 11? Quote: Originally Posted by Corvette79 and then live music for an hour at the hacienda before the disco opens. I would check on this just to be sure. One night of the week they have this special party at the Hacienda and it costs like $16 US to get into the Hacienda. Quote: Originally Posted by Corvette79 the cocktails you have2 options: regular is$5 per person for the 1st hr and $3 for the 2nd & 3rd hr and that includes beer, pina colada, margaritas & pop. the international is $17 per person and $12 for the2nd & 3rd hr and it basically includes everything. If you don't want to pay for the internataional cocktails, the lobby bar is right by where the poolside cocktail party is held. We just did the regular drinks (for us it saved $400 vs doing international drinks) but as the bathrooms are at the lobby bar, the few guests that wanted hard alcohol would just grab a drink at the lobby bar on their way back from the bathroom. Quote: Originally Posted by Corvette79 she said wedding gown steaming is $20 to $25. My mom brought a small steamer with her and it worked perfect. Not only for me but it worked perfect as my mom ended up steaming almost all our guests clothes! A lot of people had brought clothes that couldn't be ironed and all their dresses looked perfect thanks to the steamer. Quote: Originally Posted by Corvette79 my only big concern is the spa specifically for hair, not hearing too many good things about them. I might source out someone from mexico to come and do it for us instead, i think i will ask claudia rodriguez for suggestions. I would definitely do this!

jkcz0702 and Corvette79, I know it's nerve racking when they don't respond, before my wedding I was freaking out because I hadn't heard from Jazmin. So I know it may be hard but trust me when I say everything will work out. The WC's work crazy hours. Jazmin had one day off while we were there and every other day she was there at 9 in the morning until 9 at night, sometimes later. The day of our wedding she stayed with us till 11! Plus, she doesn't live on property so on top of being at the resort for 12 hours a day, she still has driving time each day. As well, we saw a wedding almost every day at each of the resorts, so they do thousands of weddings. So where as something might be a big deal for us, for them they've done it a million times and will have no problem getting it done. I agree it would be nice if they responded faster. I think the big thing to remember is that they do lots of weddings and your wedding will be beautiful. Also, for those of you thinking about booking a cocktail party, without a doubt book it if you can! I promise you, you will not regret it.

Quote: Originally Posted by jkcz0702 Thanks Amanda do you have a picture of you flowers? I still have to laugh about your streakers!!!! lol...the streakers still kill me too! I don't have a good picture of the flowers as we don't have our pro pictures yet - here's a couple bad ones though: In this picture she's holding her bouqet and mine. Mine was quite a bit bigger and I added 4 orchids to mine. Here's the bridesmaid bouqets Also, just for comparison, here's the picture I had sent Jazmin. I told her I wanted them to look like this but with hot pink gerbers and white roses (and adding the orchids to mine).

Quote: Originally Posted by MayanButterfly Thanks so much for the review Amanda! Kind of a weird question, but is the dance floor for the poolside reception slippery? My FI and I are swing dancers and I was thinking of getting a dance choreographed, but it would only really be worthwhile the floor was slippery and I could really spin! Francine The floor wasn't slippery at all. They don't actually put a dance floor down, they just leave a space with no tables. The ground is concrete tiles - just like a typical poolside. If you look in the picture above of me and my bridesmaids you can sort of see the flooring. Me and my dad did a ballroom dance (maybe the foxtrot? sorry, it's been a while since I took lessons!) and we had no problem. Although the better judge would probably have been later in the night when everyone was more then a little tipsy and prone to slipping but we had no falls whatsoever. Also, when we had the streakers they had just jumped out of the pool so they got the floor wet - it dried almost instantly though.

Quote: Originally Posted by MayanButterfly Hi Carrie! Congrats on your day - it sounds so awesome! I was just wondering what you thought of Tequila and the atmosphere there. I've just booked my reception dinner there as it was close proximity to the poolside where we will be having drinks and dessert afterwards. Thanks! Francine We had dinner at Tequila restaurant one night. It's right beside the ceremony location, only a few feet away. The atmosphere at a lot of the restaurants was the same, we found all the waiters to be really polite and attentive. The appetizers were good (at all the restaurants the appetizers are buffet style). We both had the fajita's as our entree but they weren't the best. The fajita shells they use are real ones, they taste way different then the ones you buy in the supermarket here. Some of our group loved them and some couldn't get used to the taste and hated them. However, the meat with the fajita's was good and we both wish we had selected a meat plate instead of the fajitas. Quote: Originally Posted by jkcz0702 For those that got flowers from the resort did they give you the bouquet wrap on the flowers or did they use the plastic holder for you to carry the flowers? I want to have the wrap since I am putting on a memory frame for my dad so I am curious about the options. If they do not offer them would it be easy enough to bring my own and put it on? My flowers were wrapped in ribbon. When they do them they have big bows but I requested no bow so they just wrapped them up the stem and pinned it on the top. I think the only ribbon choice you get is white so if you're picky about colour, then I would bring your own ribbon and a pin (or double sided tape). That way you could just wrap your ribbon overtop of the florist ribbon. Our flowers were perfect! I LOVED them. After the horrible time at the spa, we were in the golf cart going back to our room and my sister told me not to get my hopes up about the flowers - that if the spa didn't speak English she could see the florist not having understood me. But when we walked into the room and saw the flowers we were all so relieved as they were exactly what I wanted. We had this game running the whole time "good for Vancouver" and "good for Mexico". Like the white house wine the Bahia serves was good for Mexico, but if we had gotten married in Vancouver, it would not have been good. The flowers weren't just good for Mexico, they were great no matter where the wedding was!

Nope, no Captain Morgan's. The waiter just looked at us like we were crazy...lol. And for the TTD we did book with Sol. We could only afford to hire Sol for one session and the TTD pictures were more important to me then the wedding pictures, so we booked her for that.

It was a blast! I'm not sure if different alcohol is included with different dinners - we had the mixed grill and had pop, beer and sparkling wine included. I'm not sure if house wine was included or not, we paid for wine from the wine list as we wanted 'real' wine instead of the wine they serve as the house wine. We had a cocktail hour before our dinner and with that they included margaritas. They said they would keep serving margaritas during dinner but no one had any (at that point we had all had our fill of sugar drinks...lol). The lobby bar is on the other side of the pool so only a 3 minute walk. It's also where the bathrooms were so some guests grabbed a hard bar drink from the bar on their way back from the bathrooms.

Thanks everyone...and I'm with you, I can't wait to see the Del Sol pictures either! The ones I have above were all stolen off Facebook so they're all really low resolution. We really had the most amazing time. I know that I went into details about the negatives above but really, aside from feeling sick which we had no control over, we would do it again in a heartbeat. I just wanted to give details about the negatives to give a heads up to the girls planning their weddings at the BPT. And Scoutley, I would 100% look into the dinner. It really was amazing. We saw a few weddings who didn't have an outdoor reception and their first dances, etc. was just in the lobby bar. One we saw there was a kid running around screaming during the father/daughter dance. If it's not a big deal for you (as I know some people the dances aren't), then no biggie. But for us, me and my dad did a traditional ballroom dance and it was really important to him. It would have been way different if it had been in the lobby bar with everyone else. Plus, a lot of nights there were events going on in the lobby bar - dance contests, karaoke, beer drinking contests, a carnival (I didn't really get it, all I noticed was there was a LOT of Tequila being shot). You'll have no control over the event on your wedding night so you really need to be easy going about it all. Also, just for comparision, for the 6 of us (me and 5 BM's) to get our hair and makeup done at the spa (which as you can tell we hated), the cost was $8,325 pesos. The private dinner (not including the cocktail hour) for our 30 guests was only $7,441 pesos! Granted we did pay an extra $1488.20 pesos for the cocktail hour and then $450 US for the DJ but still, I would choose the private dinner over the spa in a heartbeat.

I finally wrote my review! Hopefully this link works: RyanAmanda's Bahia Principe Tulum/Del Sol Review Also, here's a few pictures for now

We got married by the palapas and all wore flip flops. Some of our guests were in heels and they didn't have an issue - I just wouldn't recommend stilleto's heels. Although it's a long walk down the aisle, where you get dropped off is the very beginning of the aisle (they have a large palm that blocks your guests from seeing you) so you really don't have that far to walk on the sand. Also, Jazmin gives you the option of an carpeted aisle if you want it (although the carpet is red). Our ceremony was at 5pm so we didn't do any pictures on the beach because it was so dark. If you are planning on walking on the beach for a while to do pictures, then I would bring flip-flops, etc. ETA: Oops, forgot about the curling iron. You shouldn't have a problem plugging it in. The plugs are different shaped but our plugs still fit in them. However, there is a raised plastic circle around the outlet. So if you have a regular plug (like for a toaster), then it's no problem. You know how some products (like professional hair straighteners) have a 'box' on the plug? Or like how the battery chargers are for digital cameras? Those you can't plug in because the raised plastic is in the way. However, you can buy an adaptor from the desk for $2. As well, one of our guests had an 'american' outlet in their room so they could plug everything in without an adaptor.

Whew, this is the last post, promise For those of you planning a wedding at the BPT, here’s a few tips: -When we arrived, they told us they would bring our luggage to our room. It was a large group when we arrived – along with us there was another large group who turned out to be the relatives of one of the groomsmen from my sister’s wedding! Anyways, we waited in our room for our luggage (it arrived 15-20 mins later) but not everyone did. As the bellboys don’t have keys, if you’re not there, your luggage is left outside. One couple who didn’t wait had a cellphone and expensive sunglasses stolen from their bag so they spent the night getting it cancelled. So I would advise your guests to wait for their luggage. - It was hard to get dinner reservations so I would look at the menu’s online before you get there and make your reservations as soon as you get there. Even though it was hard to get reservations the restaurants were mainly empty so you could always try just showing up at the restaurant. -For beach weddings, the place you walk out of is a way’s away so make sure you have long enough songs. I had 5 bridesmaids so it took a while from the time they started the music until I was at the front. I'll update the thread with our pro pictures when we get them. As well, if you have any questions at all, feel free to ask. We're completely open about everything and happy to help other couples!

Photographer: Del Sol (no mark yet as I haven’t seen the picture) We hired Del Sol as our photographer as I love their pictures. They really had their work cut out with us though as Ryan HATES being in pictures. Not just that he doesn’t like it, he hates it more then anything in the world. He would rather have a root canal then pose for pictures. For the wedding day, we hired Diego as Mateo & Sol were out of our price range. He showed up early and was very accommodating. I asked him to take pictures of some things that were important to me and he made sure to get all the pictures I asked for. We also did a TTD the day after and hired Sol for those pictures. Our TTD was at 1 as I wanted to get pictures of the ocean at that time. We set the alarm for 8am so we had time to get ready, eat, etc as we needed to leave at 12. But, with my cold, I felt like s**t and must have slept through the alarm. Next thing I knew, Ryan was saying I had to get up NOW and when I looked at the clock it was 11:30. So I quickly got ready and ran out the door. By this time, I guess Mexico had caught up with Ryan so along with me being sick from the cold, his stomach was upset. Along with Ryan having reached his tolerance for being in photos, needless to say, we weren’t in the best mood. Sol was such a sweetheart though, she asked Ryan if he wanted to pause to get some food (since his stomach was upset, he just wanted to get the pictures over with) and kept asking me if I was okay. My dress weighted a ton to begin with but because I was sick and my body was aching, it felt like it weighted a thousand pounds. Sol helped me with my dress (tying it up when we get there – lesson learned, don’t ask your husband to do up your corset back…lol), and helped me stand up when we were in the water. Once the dress got wet, it was so heavy and I was so weak that I couldn’t even stand up on my own! The entire time we were in Mexico the beach was red flagged and the waves were really big. Ryan and I went into the water up to our knees and that’s as far as we could go. The waves were so strong, and with a wet dress with a train that kept getting pulled with the tide, Ryan had to hold on to me so that I didn’t get pulled out with the water. Sol emailed me the other day though and said the pictures turned out great so hopefully you don’t realize how sick I was! I can’t wait to see them. I did notice some differences between Diego and Sol for those of you trying to decide who to hire. Sol told exactly where to stand/look whereas Diego’s style was more free. A lot of times Diego told us to ‘do something crazy’ or to stand wherever we wanted. Maybe if I wasn’t sick we would have been more crazy and creative but the only crazy thing I did was not going back to our room to take a nap. Ryan and our entire wedding party was concerned about me being ill and whether I was okay so none of them were very crazy/creative that day either. Still, I think Diego got some really good shoots. I’m sure Sol is more knowledgeable about photography as she’s the principal photography and Diego just became an associate. When Diego was doing our pictures, we took a lot of pictures on this stage. Ryan was picking me up which is a big deal for us. He’s a guy’s guy and isn’t good at expressing emotion. But when he wants to show me he really loves me, he picks me up and gives me this big hug. So I really hope those pictures turn out and you can see that Ryan is picking me up. My sister is a professional photographer and she was surprised about where he took the pictures because she said the lighting wasn’t very good (she just told me this the other day though). I don’t know anything about lighting for pictures so hopefully they turn out! Sol took some of Ryan picking me up too so I’m really happy they got so many. Poor Ryan though – the week before we left he was in the emergency room as he injured his ankle. He was supposed to be in a cast (he told the hospital they couldn’t cast it because of our wedding) and instead here he is picking me all the time! Overall, we’re really happy with hired Del Sol (well I am, Ryan would have been happy if we had banned cameras at the wedding altogether...lol). I can’t wait to see our pictures and I’ll post them as soon as I get them!!!

Wedding details! Our wedding was INCREDILE! I’m so glad we decided on a DW. The only thing that really was too bad is that the day before the wedding, I woke up with a horrible cold. If I had been at home instead of at our wedding, I would have called in sick from the day of the wedding to the day after and staying in bed full of Nyquil. Wedding Coordinator – Jazmin: A Jazmin was great. She was hard to get a hold of at the beginning but then was really quick to respond. Once she took a long time so I phoned her and she got me the info right away. Sometimes her English is a little off (she means one thing but writes the wrong word) so I would ask for pictures just to make sure. When we got there she was amazing. We went through everything and planned all the details. She has a big binder of pictures and will show you the different options to pick. She walked us to the ceremony site and reception site as well as the back-up locations in case of rain. Spa: F The Spa is the only thing I would re-do about the day. We had 3 people doing hair and make-up as there were 6 of us and our first appts were at 9:30. They took FOREVER, our ceremony wasn’t until 5pm and we were almost late for it! I brought a bunch of pictures showing the front and back of what I wanted but what he did looked nothing like the picture. To make it more frustrating, the hairdresser spoke no English so I couldn’t even explain what was wrong. He ended up washing my hair out and starting again because he didn’t understand what I wanted (even though I had clear pictures). I told him then to just do my hair exactly like how one of the bridesmaid’s hair looked but it didn’t come out like that. I hated my hair the day of the wedding. Really, when I look at our wedding pictures, that’s the only thing I can’t stand. We did a TTD the day after so hopefully my hair is better in those pictures! As well, when we were leaving the spa, they had me sign the bill and they overcharged me by about $200 US. I noticed it right away but as we were almost late for the wedding and I was feeling so sick, I signed it because I didn’t have the energy to fight it. Two days later I talked to Jazmin about it as the spa had emailed me confirming the lower price. She asked if I had the email but I had forgotten to print it. She went back to the spa to try though and they said I agreed to the price so there was nothing she could do so we ended up paying the higher price. So when you email to make appointments, be sure to confirm the price and bring a copy of the email with you for verification. Flowers: A+ The flowers were exactly what I asked for! I couldn’t have been happier with them and they were definitely worth the money. I had emailed Jazmin a picture in advance and when we got there, I noticed she had printed it out in color on a huge piece of paper. Obviously she had given it to the florist as our flowers looked exactly like the pictures. I added orchids to my bouquet which were expensive but something that I really wanted. If you want any specific flowers (other then what they normally offer) be sure to email Jazmin in advance. The florist didn’t have orchids but luckily I had emailed in advance so she was able to get them for me. Ceremony: A Our ceremony was on the beach and exactly what we hoped for! It was beautiful and on a secluded part of the beach so there were no people around. The minister was great. He talked to Ryan before I got there and asked him what kind of ceremony we wanted - certain bible readings, personalized vows, etc. – so we had a perfect ceremony. We had certain songs we wanted play, Where the Streets have no Name by U2 right before the ceremony (it’s a Vancouver thing – they play it before every Canucks game and we always get goose bumps when we hear it. Whenever it’s played you just know something big is about to happen). Better Together by Jack Johnson for the bridesmaids to walk down the aisle to (I LOVE this song) and We Are Man and Wife by Michelle Featherstone for me and my dad (I didn’t want a traditional wedding march, just something slower). It was perfect. After the ceremony, they had this fruity punch thing for all our guests in champagne classes. Normally they do champagne but we needed to serve something non-alcoholic. Reception: A+++++ We were both AMAZED at the reception. We paid for a private cocktail hour and dinner which was set up by the poolside. When we saw the location the day before, there was a very large man in a very small speedo suntanning on what would be our dance floor so I was a little worried. While we were looking, they gave us a bunch of options options, round or rectangle tables, 6, 8 or 10 guests at a table, table cloth colors, head table options. When we saw it that night, it far exceeded our expectations, it was gorgeous. They had set up lights, a microphone and a dance floor so we were able to do our speeches and first dance & father/daughter dance in private. Really, I can’t put into words how happy we were with it. For our dinner, we choose the mixed grill which is one of the cheaper options so we thought the set-up wouldn’t be as nice as if we had choosen a Theme dinner but it was the same set-up. In the info it said it would be disposable cutlery but I confirmed with Jazmin in advance and she said if it’s a wedding dinner, they’ll use real cutlery. So not only was it amazing and beautiful, but after dinner all our guests started dancing. It was great to have a private dance floor. We hadn’t told the DJ what to play but he was really good at reading our crowd, he played old favorites that got everyone up and dancing. We had paid for a couple bottles of wine (as we wanted US wine instead of the house wine) and everyone was having such a good time that we finished it halfway through the wedding! I asked one of the servers and he RAN to get more. All the servers were in such a good mood and eager to do anything to make us happy. Later in the night one of them surprised us with this fancy tray with white tequila and glasses and everyone – even my dad who never drinks! – was doing shots and having an amazing time. Then later, one of our friends noticed two guys skinny dipping in the pool and invited them up, so we had streakers at our wedding! They hopped up and danced to an entire song and everyone was killing themselves laughing. My mom was laughing so hard she had tears streaming down her face. Ryan and I were talking later and we would have easily paid 5 times the price they charged us for a reception. It is without a doubt one of our best decisions. Reception Setup Me and my Dad Me and my NEW HUSBAND trying to explain Captain Morgan's to the waiters Me and the bridesmaids Our group at the VERY end of the night (on the dancefloor)

We’re married! Our wedding was absolutely perfect and went better then we could have ever imagined. When I was planning our wedding I was a huge sucker for details and information so here’s my crazy long review. First, the non-wedding stuff: TA Lindsay - A++++ I can’t say enough how amazing Lindsay was!! We were really indecisive at the beginning and she helped us so much – she must have sent me dozens of quotes. Lindsay definitely went above and beyond for us. The whole Dreams/other resorts closure’s was going on when we travelled and Lindsay said not to worry, she would handle everything if BPT was shut down. It was nice to know if anything bad happened, she was just a call away (as opposed to going through one of the big internet travel companies). Lindsay is based in Saskatchewan and our entire group is from Vancouver but it wasn’t an issue at all. Air Canada Vacations - F I don't think I'll ever book a holiday with AC again. The flight was about 6 hours and our guests weren’t giving anything to eat. We knew they didn’t serve meals but nothing, not even one of those little bags of pretzels. Also, our guests weren’t seated together. We were told by Lindsay everyone would be in rows 16, 17 and 18. But not only were they not seated together, couples weren’t even seating together! When we arrived in Cancun it was pouring rain, like tropical storm pouring rain, and Air Canada left all our bags out in the pouring rain. I explained to them that I had wedding items in the bags and they couldn’t get wet (I had my hair pictures on photo paper right next to FH’s linen pants!) but they didn’t care. Eventually FH and I ended up loading our groups bags ourselves! The Air Canada employees just stood there and laughed at us. First Class: A FH and I were bumped up to First Class for free– I don’t know if this was done by Lindsay or Air Canada so I didn’t include it above. It was incredible! I would definitely try to get it included in your contract when you book. The only downside is that Ryan said he’ll never travel economy again now so our holidays will be expensive from now on…lol. Bahia Principe Tulum: A It was our first time at the BPT and we loved it! The staff was amazing and everything was beautiful. Our friends LOVED the activity pool…well maybe not the ‘activity’ part but the swim-up bar part. And my family hung out by the quiet pool. The quiet pool has a large section where the water is only a couple of inches deep so it worked great as my 18 month old nephew was able to play in the water as well. The food was great at most of the restaurants and the buffet food was better then I expected. Most nights we hung out at the lobby bar and the only complaint was that it closed too early! It ended at 11pm so then we would move to the snack bar and hang out on the beach. It was gorgeous at night! Next post will have wedding details!