moult_22

Thanks Cindy! Congrats Beth, you will have a fabulous time with them as I'm sure you already know!! Have a wonderful time in April!!

Hi Everyone, I used this forum and all your opinions so much while I was planning my wedding, so now that I’m done I want to return the favour and finally post some reviews!! I was so impressed with our photographers that I will start off with them. We used Bella Stella (Julie Lepage and her husband Chris). I had heard good things from the girls on here who had done boudoir photos with Julie who is based out of Ottawa, Ontario, and I loved her portfolio so after a couple emails back and forth (we live about 6 hours away) we decided to bring her down to Mexico with us. I really can’t say enough wonderful things about Julie and Chris. They were SO much fun to work with, and while I’m sure I’m biased I LOVE our pictures!! I hate being in front of a camera and am infamous for the ‘awkward smile’ but Julie and Chris made us feel completely comfortable and I think it shows in the pics. They came up with great shoot locations and took full advantage of all our resort had to offer for backgrounds (from jungle to beach). We would see them out every day with their cameras scouting and when our wedding day came they were very well organized moving us quickly from spot to spot. Our package came with the full wedding day (they were with us about 9-10 hours) and a choice or two other shoots (boudoir, engagement, trash the dress etc)- we chose to give one shoot to my parents and their siblings as they are rarely all together in one spot and used the other for a trash the dress. The trash the dress session was awesome, we had a great time and love the pictures that came out of it. I also have to say as I know many of us are on a budget that I thought they were amazingly reasonable for what you get. Their package details are at: http://www.bellastella.ca/wedding/pdf/destination.pdf. Please PM me if you have any questions at all about Julie and Chris, I would highly recommend them and have to many of my girlfriends getting married next year. I seem to be technologically challenged and can't post pictures- I think maybe they're too big (Mb instead of Kb) but if anyone has any ideas let me know, or if you want to see pictures pm me and I can give you the link to my photobucket account. Happy planning!!! Laura

Hey! If you haven't sold the dress yet would you send me more pictures? It looks gorgeous! [email protected]

Hi Girls, Congrats to everyone who just got married at the VIM! Congratulations on your wedding!! I'm looking for opinions... my fiancee and I were all set to get married at the Catalonia Royal Tulum, even booked our trip, secured the date with the wc (who has been awesome!!) but our tour operator has now cancelled our flights twice and no longer fly the day we need so we are considering other options. It is hard because we have been to that resort before and feel very comfortable with it, honestly we are a bit nervous to be looking elsewhere. The Valentin works for the day we want to go, is an awesome price right now (for the girls asking round trip incl air and transfers from Toronto, Canada it is $1200 right now pp!- I have heard that dreamdays.com is a great website for low nightly prices if you want a reference) and looks beautiful. That said, I am pretty nervous about the problems everyone seems to be having with the wc and changing wedding dates etc. I would love advice on whether this is a place I should consider or whether I should stick to my comfort zone and find a way to make our original place work.

From talking to our travel agent it's a bit of both- in that Sunwing is the most stringent on their group rates policies (ie most companies will let you just put down deposits without a name attached but from what we were told Sunwing makes you put the names with the deposits which makes it a bit trickier)- but they tend to have the best prices so it is a trade off. Congrats on getting your wedding booked! Ours is in December 2009 and hoping to book ours in a couple weeks once the travel companies are back flying into Mexico.

I would love your girls' thoughts. My fiancee and I have been debating what to do about this. We have decided for sure that we will get legally married before we leave to save the blood work hassle and the expense of translating all our documents. Our debate is how- I can't keep a secret to save my life so i would have a lot of trouble having a legal ceremony and not telling people but I also wouldn't want to have the people spending the money to join us in Mexico feel like they weren't at our 'real' marriage (even though I 100% consider our wedding in mexico to be the real one and the legal marriage to be paperwork). Here is my solution: I live near toronto and we have officiants here who will meet you at the airport and do a 90 second legal marriage for you right there (for only $150)- we could tell our guests when it would be happening and then they can choose whether they want to be there. I think it would be a nice way to kick off our 'wedding week' but the struggle is if everyone is around will it feel too much like our real wedding (though it is only 90 seconds long and we won't do our vows or anything then and we won't even dress up). Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Laura

Congratulations and good luck on your planning! I'm also from Ontario and started out with pretty much the same criteria as you (smaller resort, under $1500). We have settled on Royal Cataolonia Tulum in the Mayan Riviera for this December- it is about 250 rooms and in our price range (PM me if you want specifics- we haven't booked yet but I can tell you our quotes so far). I can't tell you much about weddings there but we visited in 2005 and found it a beautiful and unique property. If you are interested in anywhere else feel free to PM me, I've travelled to a few places in both cuba and dominican and we went through a big pros/cons list to decide where to get married (Samana in the Dominican Republic was our other main contender. It is also absolutely gorgeous however downsides are limited number of resorts to choose from and limited flying schedule- about twice a week from toronto). Also if you're looking for a travel agent I would highly recomend Megan at Weddings by Oceans. She's out of Richmond Hill but we have done most of our buisiness with her through email or phone and went in to meet her once. We shopped around (as she suggested) with itravel, flightcentre and a few others and found the service wasn't comparable (it didn't help that those ones have high turnover rates and our travelagents kept leaving the companies!) price either, Megan and Lasia have been very helpful in fighting to keep our costs down. Last bit of advice- don't get discouraged with your first round of quotes! I know through our first couple rounds they all came back $1500-2000 and it was pretty discouraging but they will come down and if that resort won't then there's lots to choose from! Good luck! Laura

Hello, I just joined too. We are also planning to have our wedding in Mexico- in Dec 09. While we are holding off booking right now mostly because we know it would make some of our guests uncomfortable to put down a deposit at the moment we are still planning to have it there. Realistically if you look at the other recent pandemic scares (sars, avian flu) none of them lasted 8 months and by the sounds of it they are taking all the precautions they can right now in Mexico to make sure it doesn't spread. So hopefully they're able to nip it in the bud before more people get sick (same goes for Canada or we're in trouble too)! Sorry I'm no help with the resorts. The only one I've been to and where we're getting married (Catalonia Royal Tulum) is an adults-only. Good luck with your search, don't stress! Laura

Hi Ladies (and gentlemen?), My name is Laura, my fiancee and I are getting married December 19th, 2009 at Catalonia Royal Tulum in the Mayan Riviera. We have the date reserved but are waiting to book the rooms as our guests are a bit nervous with the swine flu I've been browsing the site for a little while and have appreciated the advice you girls give, looking forward to contributing! Laura