delauren

Hi there! I got married in 2011 at Esencia Hotel on Xpu-Ha beach. We were given a wedding coordinator to work with at our hotel but also hired Yazmin de la Mora, who I thought was great. She brought two assistants to help on our wedding day and was wonderful communicating in Spanish with all the vendors. She has great taste and always listened to what I wanted and helped it become a reality! http://www.yazmindelamora.com/ You can also check out my full wedding review here...http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/59189/just-married-hotel-esencia-review#post_1770552

Hi ladies, I looked at both The Tides and Le Reve before choosing Esencia - what Esencia has that The Tides and Le Reve definitely lack is a very quiet beach. There are really no other resorts on Xpu-Ha and I felt it was private and serene. The Tides was expensive and I felt like everyone would just stay in their rooms the whole time at their little private pools - not socialize with other guests. Le Reve we really loved and I think would be a wonderful location for a wedding but Esencia was a bit more upscale and I knew the service and food would be better at Esencia. You get what you pay for, I guess. We are heading back to Esencia for our one year anniversary in a couple of weeks - can't wait to go back!!

Sorry, my hotel spoke to them - I never did directly - that's the only contact information I have!

Post pictures!!!! Can't WAIT to see

Good luck!!!

"Sea of Love" is sung by Cat Power. Love this version of the song. My dress was Monique Lhuillier...the Daphne I think is the style name? So comfortable!

My advice is as soon as people start RSVP'ing, start working on the book. At the end of all the wedding planning, you won't have time for Arts and Crafts, trust me! If you do it a little at a time, it will be much easier. I then sent my husband to print them out on his parents home printer and we just bought them a new color print cartridge as it was a fortune to print them someplace like Kinkos.

Hi Jessie! I used Microsoft Power Point to make our "facebook" - I used the template, "Office Theme" and then just played around with colors and borders and fonts, etc. I pulled friends' photos off the actual Facebook and then emailed people whose photos I didn't have and had them send me .jpgs. I then copied and pasted them into the template on Power Point. Hope this helps! Francesca

The facebook was, as I said, our guests' most favorite thing in our Welcome Bags - you would meet someone on the beach and then be able to go back and look up who exactly he or she was and how we knew them! A great way to get to know people and also to help people remember names! Good luck!

I think it depends how soon you want to start using her and how much you need her to coordinate - I think between $500 and $2000 is the norm for the RM.

We didn't have a hard time getting through customs, actually. I was fully prepared, though!  I had read on the Mexico Customs Website that you’re allowed to bring up to $300 a person so we split the goods between our suitcases and made sure to have receipts for everything we had purchased. For the things I didn’t have receipts for (thank you, Chinatown parasols), I made them with this template - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/te...423521033.aspx I'm sure you know this but as you're clearing customs in Mexico, you have to press a button and if you get green you get to go through but if you get red, you have to allow your bags to be inspected. Out of the five of us, only my sister got the red button and she grabbed a suitcase that wasn't even hers to have them inspect! Sshhh. It was my suitcase of clothes, not one of the ones with stuff in them.  This is a much better plan than shipping them there because that stuff NEVER seems to make it!

[email protected] Phone: 9981348043 Â They also have a facebook page you can check out!

Aw, thank you so much!

Here's a pic of me with my sister and best friend, both holding the bags Â

Thank you! Â When looking for someone to do a "vintage poster" logo, I came across a woman online - http://maryddesign.com/Home_Page.php. I contacted her through her website contact page and she delivered it in PDF, which is what was requested by my printer. I'm sure you can request it in .jpg too, if that's best for you. She was amazing and super SUPER helpful - when we had an emergency with the printer, she totally helped out and gave me her professional advice. Â We used the design for the welcome letter and ended up having a banner on vistaprint made with it, as well. Â If you like her vintage poster look, definitely contact her and discuss. I also found a bunch of great designers on ETSY who I emailed and asked if they were willing to do custom work for $75 and there were plenty. Â Good luck!!

Screenprinting was $1.99 per bag and a $35 set-up fee. I was in a hurry so I didn't shop around for prices, just went to a place I had used before in Los Angeles. Don't know if you can find a cheaper price. Â We only printed in ONE color, to keep the price down - they just did different shades of the same color. Â The quality of the bag is good - you will find this same bag at a higher price on other websites (I know because I ordered samples from a couple different places at different price points and they all ended up being the same exact bag, lol). Â The bag is on the thin side (which I don't mind) and lightweight and easy to carry.

Thank you! They're actually good quality for how cheap they are!

These are so great! How fun and colorful, too!

Hi guys,  I wanted to post about my OOT bags because I found that BDW was instrumental in helping me find vendors to buy the bags and the contents and I wanted to pay it all forward! We got married May 1st at Hotel Esencia in the Riviera Maya.  Not only was I super proud of our OOT bags, they were a huge hit with our guests, who carried them around all weekend and loved having some items they didn't think to bring along.  We had an amazing designer I found online design a PDF logo ($75) that we had professionally screenprinted on our welcome totes (cheaptotes.com - $.99/bag). We could have ironed on the design but with 100 bags, we didn't have the time or the energy.  We tied a "Francesca and Peter" ribbon to each bag, thread through an Oriental Trading Company flashlight ($.41 each) and a vistaprint (http://www.vistaprint.com) postcard with our welcome note. The vistaprint notecards were all free - all I had to was pay shipping.  Inside each bag, we had a welcome packet with information about The Riviera Maya, maps of the area and hotel we were getting married at and our schedule of events.  BY FAR the biggest hit of the wedding was our "Facebook" - with a picture of every guest and a little blurb about how we knew them. We made these on powerpoint and printed them at home.  In each welcome bag, we also included:  1. Two personalized postcards made on vistaprint (free) 2. A “Too much Sun, Too much Fun†kit (in a vellum envelope with personalized label, picture below), which contained: two single packs of Advil, a single pack of shout wipes, a tube of Aloe Vera Gel, a single pack of Alka Seltzer, a single pack of all natural Bug wipes, a personalized Lip Balm, 2 Band-aids and two Insect Bite Relief wipes. We got these items on Drugstore.com and Amazon.com in bulk, super cheap. 3. Mexican candies from Oriental Trading 4. A deck of playing cards from Oriental Trading 5. Bag of tortilla chips and a can of salsa; Mexican candies (Wal-Mart in Playa del Carmen). Everyone was very happy to have these at 2am, let me tell you!  And for the kids' bags, we also bought frisbees and little mexican whistle toys.  We brought everything to Mexico with us in our suitcases, except for the chips/Salsa/Candies that we bought once we arrived.  I've attached a couple of photos of our bags - please PM me if you have any questions! Â

I used a .99 cent tan bag I found - http://cheaptotes.com/canvas_tote_bag_8.html  Great quality and good size!

Just GORGEOUS

We got married May 1, 2010 and had the ceremony at 5:30pm. Cocktail hour from 6-7 and it was just starting to get dark when we all sat down for dinner around 7:15. Hope that helps! I thought it was perfect

Thanks, guys!

http://www.elizabethmedinaphotography.com/2010FP/ Â

Hi erinbrooke124 - I used Fernando on the day of my wedding and I couldn't have been happier. I chose to do a trial a couple months beforehand but honestly, on the day of the wedding, I decided to go with something completely different and then had him even change that a couple times! He will totally do whatever you need him to do to make you happy. I don't think you HAVE to do the trial, he's a professional and better than most of the people I've used in Los Angeles, frankly. Good luck!