CaraW

Hi ladies, I am trying to make a boudoir photobook. I am late giving my husband the book but that's ok. He doesn't even know he's getting it so it'll be fun. But I've made a really nice one on Shutterfly, and when I was done I got to thinking, is this safe to order over the internet? The photos are very tasteful, but they are not photos I'd want anyone else to see or get their hands on..... what do you ladies think? Has anyone ordered a boudoir photobook through Shutterfly before? Maybe I should've thought about that before I went to all the trouble of making the book..... hahaha.... Thanks for any help Cara

Quote: Originally Posted by ChristinaP Thanks Cara. Did all of your guests have to have their deposits down within 7 days of booking the resort though? Mine had 90 days, which gave me time to put out invites. Hi Christina, Yes our guests had a few months to put their deposit down which worked out well.

Hi Christina, It's good to see you on here again. Hope you're doing well. Don't worry, we will do another get together. I wasn't able to go to the last one so I sure hope we do. With us our guests all had to put down a deposit to hold their spot. But I know with other travel companies they wanted us to put down a deposit of around $2000, which would go towards our full payment, but that would hold our group spot.

Yep! You're right! And I forgot to mention that everyone who had a piece LOVED the cake. Here are our photos that I uploaded to facebook. We have 1150 photos from our photographer so it was very hard to go through them all and decide which ones to put up! And it took me forever! hahaha. You need to have a facebook account to see them I believe Cara Woods's Photos - Our Wedding | Facebook

Here's a pic of our cake I brought the cake topper of the two hearts, and the blue flower petals. I love what they did with it. I didn't actually ask for them to put the petals on the cake, just gave them to our wedding coordinator and asked her to incorporate them in our wedding somehow. I was so happy with the cake, and we actually had quite a few people eat a piece! But still the 1 tier was good enough, and we had 53 guests. I was never picky on the cake and didn't care it was only a 1 tier though.

Hi ladies! Just wanted to let you know that the sand ceremony frame worked out great for us! My husband removed one pane of glass, glued the first one (not the 2nd one) and the last pane. I will have to ask him again exactly what he did because I sort of left it in his hands. LOL Here's a picture We actually re-did the sand when we got home because A) it didn't stay in the frame very well travelling back to Canada. And We didn't like the way it turned out. Maybe practice once so that it's not half and half like ours was. LOL

Same with me, I wish I could go but I won't be able to today. Next time for sure. Have fun girls! Cara

Hey diamondpooch! Oh, I definitely didn't see any kind of flags like that on the beach. Maybe they were brought by the bride? We also didn't want a beach reception, and I'm SO glad we didn't have one because it was so windy the night of our wedding, sand woudl've been all in our food. We had our reception in the Palmeras grill and I loved it, they did a beautiful job of decorating it, and it had a nice breeze blowing through which everyone said they loved because we were all baking!! Lol

YAY! Exciting Maegan!! Bet you're so excited. Diamondpooch - I am assuming that those are the flags they have on the beach at all times that let people know whether or not to swim. If the water is really rough, they will put up a red flag which means do not swim. The other ones I can't really remember the colors... I think that's what you saw in the pics. What color was the flag? If that is what you saw, then yes they're always there. And holy smokes! A fire?? Was it at the Palace? Crazy!

Quote: Originally Posted by Barbo Thank you Cara, this does help I have something, nothing I wrote personally though. If we end up not using it, just like you, I'd be fine with that too... I just don't want that awkward silence either! lol Also, I'd rather not have my personal vows running through my head, stressing me out. I'd like to be surprised and do the least amount of talking, then it would be more genuine and I won't be plagued with anxiety of getting my 'lines' right! I have Gabriela as a coordinator and have not heard from her in months! I spoke to Claudia over the phone yesterday and asked her to make notes of some of the things we would like to confirm, I'm pretty patient and easy going but with it coming up in a few weeks I'm getting anxious, it's so nice to know that it all works out It's funny because Claudia said that she would have Gabriela email me menu options 'today' as in yesterday, its too funny that 'today' in Mexico usually means 'in the possible futur' lol By the way, your back looks gorgeous in your profile pic! Thank you, Barbara No problem! I know I was the same way, I always thought it would be nice to say our own thing, but I get major anxiety when i have to speak in front of people and I didn't want to have to stress about that either. I just wanted to enjoy the day. So in a way it was nice that it didn't work out for our personal vows. lol. We read them to eachother when we got back from the wedding. Haha I know what you mean, Mexican time is totally different! Thanks for the comment on my profile pic! And diamondpooch- thank you also! Cara

Hello!! It all depends on what you would like to do for your vows. They will let you say your own vows if you choose to do so, but if not they will do the standard vows for you. My husband and I were planning all along to write our own vows. But the day before we left for mexico I couldn't print them off, and we decided to go with the standard vows after that. We changed it up with the wedding coordinator when we got there, which I was worried about because I thought they may still think we're saying our own vows, and they'd hold the mike up to me asking me to say my vows and there'd be an awkward silence, but it worked out perfectly and the minister knew that we were saying the standard vows and they were beautiful. Hope that helps! Cara

Thank you!!! Aww you had heat stroke? Did you have the photog booked already for your TTD? Yay ladies! I would be up for next Thursday I think! So excited to meet you all and hear about your wedding plans!!!! (If you're all ok with meeting an old married woman hehe ) Cara

Great review. Congratulations MRS!!!! :) Cara

Quote: Originally Posted by Jennybell1 Welcome Natalie and to the windy city....lol You flew in on a crappy week that is for sure - hope you like the wind and rain....four days of it from what the new says. I am still up for getting together, I think we need to decide on a date, time and location, and whomever can come will come. Good luck with the unpacking....keep us up to date! Jenn I agree, we just need to set the date & time... hopefully lots of people can come. If not, whoever can will come, and we'll have another meet for those who can't!

Quote: Originally Posted by diamondpooch Gosh I really want the mariachi band, but I just don't think it's in the budget Oh well. Those were my thoughts exactly, but I am SO glad my husband surprised me with them!! They were amazing

Quote: Originally Posted by nmurch how much was the mariachi band and where and how did you book them? i hear nothing but GREAT stuff from the mariachi band ! Hi! The mariachi band was $400. So worth it.. SO worth it. Cara

Hi ladies! here are a few of our photos, I've also posted a review for him in the Bride Referral section if you wanted to check that out. Luckie Photography | Wedding photographer | Riviera Maya | Playa de Carmen | Cancun You have to go to "view full post" to see all of the photos.

Hello everyone! I just wanted to share my experience with Ivan Luckie. We had booked him a while back after I had seen a post on this forum, and after looking through his photos I fell in love with his work! He has such an amazing eye for photography, and though I didn't know much about him, I booked him and was confident that we had made the right choice. Ivan was great to deal with up to the wedding, we only contacted eachother through email as he lives in the Mayan Riviera and he was always fast to respond to my questions. I didn't ever feel uneasy about our decision, I was always checking his blog for more photos, and every time he'd upload photos from a wedding I would be blown away. On our wedding day, when I finally met Ivan, he was the nicest guy! He was there to take photos right from when I was getting ready, to the very end of the reception. The next day he did the TTD photos, and we started at noon and took photos until I think it was like 7:00pm or something like that! My husband and I were getting tired so we called it quits. I'm pretty sure Ivan would've kept shooting! He was the nicest photographer, and his wife was also there during our wedding as the 2nd photographer, and she is so sweet. I really enjoyed their company, and they had very creative ideas, so I had no doubt in my mind the photos would be spectacular. He uploaded some of the photos last night to his blog, and I would like to share those photos. I would highly recommend Ivan to any bride who is getting married in Mexico, we couldn't have made a better choice! You have to go to "view full post" in the bottom right corner to see all of the photos. Luckie Photography | Wedding photographer | Riviera Maya | Playa de Carmen | Cancun

Thanks Ladies!

Hello my Calgary ladies!!! So I finally posted my review, not sure if you've read it yet, and some of our professional photos are in the first page in my 2nd post!!!! http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...-2010-a-59800/

Quote: Originally Posted by JoanneIreland Thank you so much Cara for the review! Less than 24 hours ago I just booked the Barcelo Maya Palace for my May 6th 2011 wedding so am so happy today to read your review! If you don't mind I have a few questions for you (I'm relatively new to the forum so fogive me if some of the answers can be found elsewhere) : - The lights you mentioned at the reception, did you bring them or have to pay for them, or were they provided free of charge? - Is there a particular reason you chose the grill over the beach for the reception? We are not even sure what our options are! We are looking at the Strawberry Passion package also. - You mentioned dancefloor, did they have an area sectioned off for this? - Where did you buy the macaras? - Do you have pictures online that I can see? Thank you so much and congrats on becoming a Mrs!! Joanne You're very welcome!!! No problem about the questions, if you have more let me know! -The lights were an extra charge, $10 per string of lights which was a little expensive I thought but I am glad we did it because it really gave the room a nice feel. -We chose the grill only because I had seen photos of it a year ago from another wedding and loved it, and I personally never wanted a beach reception (no real reason, just wasn't my thing) but I still wanted it to be an open air room since we were in Mexico. -For the dance floor, they basically had the center of all of the tables for the dancing area. It was really nice because we had our head table, and then the tables all around the head table, and in the centre was the dance area, so if people wanted to sit and watch the dancing it was right next to their table. -We bought the maraca's at a store in the resort, actually. They were $3.00 for 2 maraca's and I'm sure we could've found cheaper in Playa del carmen but just didn't have the time. We just bought one for each table, and two for each end of the head table so our bridal party could shake them also if they wanted. -The only pics I have so far that are up are the ones on the blog on the first page of this review from our photographer, I tried to upload some of my own to facebook and it wouldn't let me! I will try again and I can share that with you when I do if you have facebook. :-) Cara

Our photographer uploaded some of our photos to his blog today, and I love them! Let me know what you think Cara + Jason | Wedding and Trash The Dress Luckie Photography | Wedding photographer | Riviera Maya | Playa de Carmen | Cancun

Hello ladies!!! I have posted my wedding review, check it out. http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...0/#post1314312

We got married at the Barcelo Maya Palace on May 13, 2010 at 4:00pm. I was so happy with our choice, and everything was perfect. We had the Strawberry Passion wedding package. Barcelo Maya Palace Resort A The resort is beyond words, it’s breathtaking. As soon as you walk in, you’re jaw drops because it’s just so beautiful, and you can tell that they put a lot of effort into keeping the place top notch. As soon as we went to the check out counter, our guests were already saying things like “it’s SO beautiful!!!â€, etc. The resort is HUGE though, but we still bumped into someone from our group everywhere we went. The rooms are gorgeous! Our best man said it was the nicest hotel room he’s ever been in. And it’s definitely one of the top rooms on my list. The grounds are gorgeous, and the pool is big, and gorgeous. The beach is so nice, we did some snorkeling one day, and I wish I had done more because we switched resorts for our honeymoon (to the Valentin Imperial Maya) and the beach was really rough at that resort so we couldn’t do any more snorkeling. The restaurants were so nice, and the food was delicious. My favorite was the French restaurant. I didn’t get a chance to go to the Japanese, which I’ve heard is the best so I’m a little disappointed about that. My only issue with the restaurants is that they are so booked up so quickly, and thus we weren’t able to get reservations into some of the al la cartes. Make sure that you book the restaurants as soon as you get there if you’re staying at this resort. Wedding Coordinator A+ My wedding coordinator for the past year and a half of planning was Gabriella. Gabriella was great to work with and though she was slow to respond to emails, she was very helpful. And I know that being slow to respond is a norm for Wedding Coordinators. However, the odd thing was that at the resort I didn’t see Gabriella once. Instead, Wedding coordinator Karen was put in charge. Apparently she’s Gabriella’s co-worker. But though this seemed strange to me (I’m assuming Gabriella was just really busy??), the transition from Gabriella to Karen when smoothly, and Karen knew every detail that I had been planning with Gabriella for the past year and a half, and Karen was wonderful to deal with. She was so nice, so sweet and so accommodating. When I met with her the day after we arrived, we planned every detail in the office and it was really easy and very relaxed. I had just been at the pool, and went to meet with her. I don’t think there’s any better way for a bride to plan a wedding!!! She helped me make decisions about the flowers, etc and I told her about the things I brought along with me (photos, candles, chair sashes, etc.) and she told me to bring them to her on Tuesday (this was Saturday when we met). I brought my own chair sashes and she said she would iron them, and get them ready for the day of the wedding. I can’t say enough about Karen, I could go on and on about her and I don’t have one single complaint. The day of the wedding she was there making sure everything went perfectly, and when the wedding was over she told me to go have fun with my friends, that she would gather all of my things and give them to me the next day. And she did. Everything went perfectly. Welcome Dinner B We had a welcome dinner that I had planned via email with Gabriela months in advance and we had it in the buffet. We asked to have a section reserved for our guests. When I checked in, Karen our wedding coordinator had found me at the front desk (this was the first time I met her) and asked if we could move the welcome dinner from 8 to 7 because at 8:00 it is extremely busy in the restaurant and it would be harder to section off an area for 53 guests…. I found this just a little irritating because I had told all of our guests that it was at 8 and now I had to make sure everyone knew it had been changed to 7. We checked in at 5:30. I managed to tell most of our guests who were in the line up behind us waiting to check in, and some I had to phone. It went ok though, it was just a minor glitch. Some guests didn’t know it was earlier, so they came late, which was unfortunate. It’s hard to keep track of 53 people. However, despite this glitch the welcome dinner was very nice, and I’m so glad we did it. It was a perfect time for everyone to share their excitement that we had just arrived in Mexico. Karen had reserved a really nice spot in the La Hacienda buffet for our guests, and stood at the front entrance for the whole time that we were there to make sure that no one else sat in our section, and to direct our guests to our area. It was really nice. We had OOT bags, that we wanted to give to our guests at this dinner, but we didn’t have a chance to get them organized in time because of the time change of the dinner. Welcome Bags Well, we did OOT bags for our guests and I must say, I almost wish we hadn’t done them. It was more of a hassle than it should’ve been and caused some unnecessary stress. Since we couldn’t hand them out at the welcome dinner we tried to think of another way that we could hand them out. We finally decided that we would see if the resort would deliver them to the rooms while our guests were out so that the bags were waiting for them when they came back to the rooms. We talked to the front desk and they gave us a list of the room numbers of our wedding party. We went back to the room, and asked for a bellboy to help us out. When he got there, I felt so bad because there were something like 35 bags that needed to be delivered and he kind of had a look of shock on his face, but he was SO nice and didn’t hesitate to say he would do it for us no problem, he told us he’d let us know when it was done and off he went, no complaint, and he did a wonderful job! We gave him a pretty decent tip because we really appreciated it and it was a big job! Our guests were so happy to come into the room and see the bags sitting on their beds waiting for them. We got so many hugs and all our guests told us how nice it was. In the end, I’m glad that we did it, but it really was a pain! lol Getting Ready (Spa) A++ I am so glad that I got my hair done at the spa, they did such an amazing job and I had so many compliments on my hair, it was perfect. I went in there knowing what I wanted (I meant to bring pictures but forgot them at home) and I told them what I was thinking of. The only thing that we did though was my MOH brought a big barrel curling iron, because all they have is the little skinny curling irons and I wanted big curls, not ringlets. I’m sure they could’ve done a good job regardless if they used our curling iron or not, but she used ours and it turned out great. It was an up-do and they did a fabulous job! All 3 of my bridesmaids and my mom got their hair done at the same time as I did. My MOH hated her hair, but I honestly thought it looked great, but she went back to the room after and fixed it up a bit. My sister disliked her hair and changed it up when we got back to the room also. However, my other bridesmaid loved her hair and it looked beautiful! And my mom’s hair was also beautiful. All in all, we were happy and it was nice to get our hair done all at the same time. There is only 1 spa at this resort, and it’s at the Barcelo Caribe (one of the 5 Barcelo’s). We had some confusion as to where it was when we were looking for it, but we eventually found it. For future brides, you should take the tram to the Caribe as it’s quite far. When I left, a lady (I believe she was another wedding coordinator) told us to wait one minute and she’d be back with a golf cart. That was really nice, she drove us all back to our rooms so we didn’t have to worry about waiting for the tram. Photographer Check-In F The Barcelo has changed their photographer policy that states that no outside photographers are allowed on the complex, however they changed this back in July of last year, and our wedding coordinator sent us an email that stated if you have already booked a photographer before last July, you can still use him instead of the resort photographer. I verified with the WC that everything would be ok and she assured me it would be. Our photographer was Ivan Luckie, (who was phenomenal, BTW.) and his wife was the 2nd photographer. So on the day of the wedding our WC told me that we would have to pay a day pass for our photographer and his wife. The day pass is somewhere around $100, maybe just under that. This wasn’t a huge issue to me until I realized I’d need a day pass for the next day also for him & his wife because we were doing the TTD session on the Barcelo beach in the morning. So that would be $400 for the 2 days and 2 photographers. I asked our WC if I booked a room for him & his wife, if that would be a better option and she said yes. I had to go back to the resort and phone the Barcelo because the front reception told me I would get a better rate if I phoned instead of booking at the front desk. So I phoned from my room, which seemed to go smoothly, I was told that he had a room at the Barcelo Tropical (the resort right next door) and he could check in at noon when he was planning on getting there, and could walk around the resort as he pleased. He was going to come to the spa at noon and take some photos of me getting my hair done. So my then fiancé, now husband () had gone to the Barcelo Tropical at noon to make sure that Ivan was able to check in alright and that everything went ok. When he got to the Tropical front desk however, they told my husband that Ivan did not have a room at the Tropical, and that his room was at the Colonial. So my husband ran to the other resort, hoping to run into Ivan along the way but unfortunately he didn’t, and when he got there they told my husband that he needed to pay up front for the room… when they told me on the phone that we would pay for the room when Ivan checked out. I gave my visa number over the phone. My husband wasn’t prepared for that and didn’t have a wallet on him or anything, so he had to phone his mom at her room (I was already at the salon getting my hair done) and see if she could come and pay and we would have to pay her back. In the end we had to get his mom’s friend to pay for the room, and paid her back. What a hassle. My husband was frantic, and Ivan had the same hassle when he was checking in. It was totally unorganized. When he got in ok, I was just finishing up at the spa and I think he snapped maybe 2 pictures because he wasn’t able to get there until 1:00. Ceremony A+ The ceremony couldn’t have been any better. I had imagined the ceremony since I was engaged in August of 2008 and it exceeded my expectations. We got married in the Gazebo at the Palace and they did an amazing job of setting everything up. I had a photo of my dad (who passed away a few months ago) and they put it on a table in the gazebo, along with our sand ceremony and a very nice collection of flowers. Our WC was there through the whole ceremony keeping an eye over everything, and making sure that everything went perfectly. She directed my bridesmaids & I down the aisle and told us when to go. We had the guitarist for our ceremony music and I LOVED him…. He was fantastic!! He played a nice song while my bridesmaids walked down the aisle, and changed the song when I came down the aisle. I get tears in my eyes just thinking of how beautiful the ceremony was. Our minister was so nice, and he had a beautiful service. We did the sand ceremony and everyone thought that was the neatest thing! No one had seen it before. I am so glad we did that. We were originally going to do our own vows, but the morning that we were leaving our house to catch our flight I tried to open my vows document on the computer and it wouldn’t open!!!! I tried to do it from the resort too one day and same thing. I thought about re-writing them but we didn’t have any time, so my husband and I decided to just do the standard vows. We told our WC a few days before the wedding and I was a little worried that the minister might not realize it was changed and put the microphone to my mouth asking me to say my vows and there’d be silence… lol but he knew, and everything was perfect. Reception B The reception was so fun, and they did a wonderful job of setting it up and it looked beautiful. We had our reception in the Palmeras Grill, it’s an open-air grill and it was very nice. We had the strings of white lights wrapped around the poles in the grill, which looked so nice and elegant. However it was super windy that day which was a little irritating when we were trying to eat and our hair was blowing in our faces, etc. But I guess that’s can happen when it’s in an open-air grill. The reason why I gave the reception a B- was because it was short. I wish that the Barcelo didn’t have a time limit on the receptions, we had paid for the extra hour on top of the reception so we had the grill for 4 hours, until 10:30pm. However, 10:30 came so fast and I was sad to leave the reception. The food was OK. We had the shrimp cocktail, lobster bisque, chicken and Portobello mushrooms, and white chocolate tiramisu. The chicken was delicious, it was stuffed with mushrooms and everyone loved it. The lobster bisque was soooo good. But I wasn’t the biggest fan of the shrimp cocktail. It was neat how they presented it though, it was served in a coconut. Our headwaiter at the reception, Carlos, was fantastic. He was so nice, and fun, and was always on top of everything. We had maracas at our reception for people to shake when they wanted us to kiss. After a few people shook the maracas, Carlos came up to us and said, “I’ve noticed that when they shake the maraca’s, you have to do something, but why don’t they have to do something also?â€. He suggested that whenever someone shakes a maraca, they have to do a tequila shot. Haha. It was a great idea, we agreed but said only ½ shots so people weren’t loaded before dinner even started. (lol). So from then on when someone would shake a maraca, Carlos would run over to them with the tequila bottle and tilt their head back, and he’d pour it in their mouth. It was so funny!!! Our guests got a real kick out of it, and there were a few less people willing to shake the maraca’s when tequila was thrown into the mix. After the speeches were done, my husband surprised me with the mariachi band. I can’t stress enough how amazing the mariachi band was, it was something that I wanted all along, since the beginning of our planning, but I decided to give them up when we were finalizing our plans because we were getting short on money. Just when we were about to start the dancing, the mariachi band came parading in and went straight onto the dance floor and began to sing. It was such a beautiful surprise and I loved it so much. Our guests had the greatest time with the mariachi, they danced in front of them and it was so fun. They are SO amazing. Probably one of the best parts of the reception. Overall, the resort was gorgeous, the wedding was everything I could’ve imagined and more, and I am so happy we picked the Barcelo Maya Palace. I should be getting my pro pics soon and I will upload them as soon as I get them. Let me know if you have any questions about anything!! Thanks for reading! Cara

Quote: Originally Posted by BethBride1 Cara, you are my hero right now, you have no idea how much you just helped me. I listened to it & I started tearing up. It's perfect! Thank you so much! Love your pic by the way! You're welcome!!!! I'm so glad I could help out. And how exciting that your wedding is only one month away now!!!! And I totally know what you mean about seeing it, it really hits you when you see it in writing. Best of luck with all of your final plans. Cara