rainmaker002

Sorry for the delay in responding, I did not know this thread was still active! Â We did not use the resort photographer - we used De Sol Photography. They were excellent, but very expensive. We are super happy with the results but it really was no frills- no prints were included and all you get is a couple of dvd's with the pictures. They did send "thank you" cards which were BEAUTIFUL as a surprise along with the dvd's, but we had already sent thank you cards to all of our guests by the time the dvd's arrived (about 3-4 months) so they were kind of useless. Â If you'd like to see our professional photo's they're up at http://picasaweb.google.ca/jkurtz/20100129ProfessionalWeddingPhotos# Â Candy was excellent once we got closer to the date and when we were down there- I'd say things went largely without a hitch. Â Our guests loved the mariachi band during the cocktail reception in between the ceremony and dinner- but to be honest we didn't get to enjoy them all that much because we were off getting photos taken. I hardly remember what they sounded like but it was quite memorable for the guests to have them playing. Â Happy to answer any other questions, I've "subscribed" to the thread now!

Hi Everyone, Just thought I would send a quick followup. We got married on January 29th, 2010 and had a blast. Our dinner was at the steakhouse, we hired a mariachi band for a reception in the "VIP" bar area and the wedding was at 3pm which left us plenty of time to take some pictures between the ceremony/reception/dinner. The food for dinner was *fantastic* (steak for most, fish for some vegetarian types). Probably the best meal we had all week in fact. We hired outside photographers from De Sol Photography, a fellow named Vincent was the main photographer and he had someone there to take pictures of the guys while they got ready and to assist later on. We were thrilled with Vincent (who was really nice, fun and hillarious) and the final results. They are kind of pricy but we're glad we spent the money because the end product is amazing. Our stay at the resort was pretty great, as soon as we arrived we learned we were upgraded to the "honeymoon suite" which was the top floor suite in the building closest to the beach (2, I believe). It was huge, with two flat screens that never got turned on, two bathrooms, and all the chocolate covered strawberries we could handle. We really only experienced two frustrations with the resort. One was the size, which was great for most of the week but awful when we were trying to get in touch with people we needed (ie., to get documents signed). Our best advice is to bring walkie talkies for the wedding party- those would have come in super handy to help coordinate. The other frustration was that they mucked up reservations we tried to make for our "rehearsal dinner". It should have been really simple but they messed it up and sent us back and forth around the resort 3 times (see above frustration about the size of the place). In the end it wasn't a huge deal but my dad has diabetes and didn't end up getting to eat with us because of the delays. Candy and her assistant were really swell when we were down there. We had to take people's advice that you just have to trust things will fall into place when you're there in person and they did. It was annoying to not really get much info in advance (she did communicate with us a few weeks before to send us the various options/prices for food/flowers/other accessories) but it was so awesome to plan an entire wedding in 1 and a half hours. They are like a well oiled machine down there. As long as you're not crazy picky about the colour of your table clothes you should be fine. Oh and one concern we had was with the sound system for music and dancing, which turned out to be a non-issue. We hooked up a laptop to it and even though it was only a single speaker it was definitely loud enough for 30-40 people to dance to. I suppose it's worth mentioning that dinner in the steakhouse is extremely hot- it's sort of open air so there's no AC in that restaurant by the beach, and we ended up getting pretty toasty. No big deal I guess but worth passing along. We've posted our pictures from the week online if anyone is curious about the general look of the resort or our private lives (hah). We can also share our pro photos from De Sol Photography but out of respect for their work we won't publish the url publicly. Here is the link to our pictures from the week including the wedding itself: Picasa Web Albums - jkurtz - 2010-01-31 We... Happy to answer any questions anyone has. Jason & Michelle

Hi Alice, We were really frustrated finding what we thought would be reasonable pricing for the BBGE and our wedding (which we just got back from on the weekend, and which I'll post a very positive review about soon) and had gone through a couple of travel agents before settling on Bruce Bennewith of Rainbow Travel. He's located out here in BC but we did everything over email and a couple of phone calls, so I don't think you should worry about that as a limitation. Bruce's pricing through Sunwing came in at $400 (about 20%) cheaper than Flight Centre when they quoted on the *EXACT* same trip/itinerary/duration/dates. We couldn't believe it. We asked FC to explain it and they couldn't, they simply gave the business up even though we gave them the opportunity to match. We're glad they didn't. Bruce took care of EVERYTHING for us, including booking about 30 people in from various departure points across Canada. His communication to all our guests was top notch (we received a lot of compliments) and straight forward so there were no mixups. he ended up having to use a few different suppliers to meet everyone's specific needs and never complained about a dip in commission or what not. I highly recommend you give him a try. Feel free to send me a PM and I'll give you his contact info (I'm not sure if it's allowed to do so publicly by this forum otherwise I'd publish it for everyone).

Hi Jojo, Please keep us posted. My fiance and I will be getting married there at the end of January and so far the only time Candy has responded has been when money was owed. We assume that as things get closer she'll start communicating with us. Thanks!

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone!

That does a lot- thanks so much. Another question- I was confused a bit by the response from Marialma about whether or not it's ok to bring in an outside photographer. Has anyone brought their own in?

Oh that's too bad.. All the same, we've requested some information from the wedding planner and are getting a quote. It looks like a great resort. On another subject, I've read in a couple of spots that there is no beach other than the man-made beach at the resort. But some pictures make it look as though there is obviously an ocean front beach. Can someone who has been settle that question? Thanks!

Has anyone looked at simply paying to upgrade their guests to a Junior suite from a deluxe room instead of paying for the wedding package? From Vancouver, it looks as though the cost to upgrade is about $150 per suite (for ten suites that would be $1,150) as opposed to $2000+ for the wedding package itself. They claim to throw in the wedding package if you have 10 junior suites booked! Anyone have experience with that? We're looking at getting married there in January 2010. We had originally wanted to go to the Blue Bay Grand but the pricing is just not terribly competitive and they have not been great communicators.

I've been browsing this site with my fiance for a while, and we're looking for advice on getting married in Playa Del Carmen in January 2010. So far prices have seemed crazy, but we're hoping things will settle down and we can choose a location! Michelle (& Jason)