taylorwd

Quote: Originally Posted by amybermuda Ladies, I am seriously balling my eyes out right now everything seems to be working out so perfectly. My coworker thought something was wrong but they are tears of joy. My step mom speaks Spanish so she called the hotel about babysitters, etc. She said she spoke to each one individually and was very impressed by all of them. They said the hotel was not filled with kids the week of our wedding (next week) so everyone will get the cribs and strollers they need and they can get babysitters or play time any time they want during the week. She also said they knew about our group and are all expecting our arrival!!! Then she also called a restaurant the hotel recommended in Cancun and made the reservation for 28 of us for the Thursday clubbing tour we are doing. They are going to put us in the best spot by the band and dancers and will have pitchers of margaritas and munchies for us when we arrive. She said they were pleased our hotel recommended them and they will do everything they can to accommodate us and make sure we have a great time. SERIOUSLY - how can i NOT cry with all of this? I am crying just typing it! Who knew weddings were so emotional??!! Aw Amy, I'm SO SO SO SO SO happy for you!!! I've got chills while I sit here reading your message. Having been through all this, I know that it's just going to get even better for you once you're at the hotel. They are going to completely blow you away!! I have a secret smile on my face that says, "Just you wait!"

Roo66- Sorry, I did not purchase the aisle runner myself. I got it through the resort. My official colors were magenta and coral but I'm pretty sure they kept calling that color fuchsia.

Bronze8584- On Etsy! It's a hair vine from the seller Handwired.

YEA AMY YOU'RE BACK!!!! I'm so so so so so excited to see pictures and hear how everything went!!!!!! So glad you had a more than perfect day!!!

Quote: Originally Posted by meghan This is Meghan's fiance, I wanted to get information on day trip/excursions while we're down there. What have you planned for excursions? What company was it booked through? For those that did Catamaran/snorkeling, what was the package like-cost/#people/inclusives? thanks. Hi Meghan's fiance! We booked our catamaran trip through ParadiseCatamarans.com. Others on this thread have done the same. Sail, swim, snorkel, parasail, and enjoy the Mayan Riviera with Paradise Catamarans. Our private catamaran charters make every outing a memorable event. If you go to their website it's really easy to pull up their pricing. No hidden costs and it's all very straightforward. It depends on the number of people you have, food options, drink options, etc.

We did the same thing as Meghan. We sent out formal invitations and did not send them to the people who had already said no. I second not putting where you're registered in with your invites. Your guests can find out by word of mouth.

You can skip the review if you want and go right to the good stuff...the pictures!! The link is under my siggy. It definitely feels good to have my reviews done. Now I need to follow your lead and start working on those Thank You's...

LOL, Mel I can't stop watching our slideshow either! Or looking at all 900 pictures over and over and over again. Your pictures are GORGEOUS!! I absolutely love your dress, shoes, jewelry! Oh, and your veil with the black satin ribbon edge...DIVINE!

So beautiful!!!

Amanda, we had the Free Wedding Package. It came with "a bottle of champagne in your room upon arrival."

Wow, so my experience with DW.com has not been perfect but it has by no means been like what you all are experiencing. I never would have found my resort without my TA. We traded ideas back and forth for a month until we found just the right one. I credit her completely with the resort we ended up with. It's true she didn't know much about weddings at my resort, but when it came to all the travel stuff, she was on it. Just remember, these are TA's; they're not WC's. Once I came to that realization myself and stopped relying on her for wedding info, we had a great relationship. She got us a great deal and fixed any travel hiccups that came up, and there were quite a few!

Congratulations!!! Everything looks beautiful!

I don't mind! We also kept our legal ceremony on the DL. Only 2 people know the actual date, and only a handful know that Mexico wasn't our legal ceremony. Like you, we didn't lie about it and told people if they asked. We wanted to downplay it as much as possible so that Mexico was the real deal. We definitely still called each other "fiance" between our legal day and our ceremony.

Celina, you are so welcome!! I hope it helps convince the guests you have that are on the fence about staying there with you. Oh and thanks for your patience. Whew, it's such a load off to have that done!

Amanda, both Tiffany and Fabio confirmed with me that you DO NOT need to be legally married before you go if you're just doing the symbolic ceremony. We didn't even bring our marriage certificate with us to prove we were or were not married. In fact, Amy(Kittenheart) isn't having her legal ceremony until they go to Vegas on June 26th. If you do go to a JP before you go, do not worry one little bit about the excitement wearing off before the big ceremony. I've never heard a bride say that happened! We were worried about this too. Our legal day was special and powerful and emotional (surprisingly so), but it did not even come close to what we consider our real wedding, i.e. Mexico. There's no question for us that our anniversary is April 17th and not our legal day (something I was worried about feeling). All your time, effort, money, and love goes into the Mexico ceremony--a piece of paper won't change that! I think I speak for most brides when I say it didn't even cross my mind on my wedding day that I was technically legally married already.

YEA Renee!!!! These last two weeks will just fly by for you and you'll be in Mexico in no time!

Quote: Originally Posted by amandamarieb To save money, I decided to downgrade from the Silver package to the Pearl Package and build up. I am kind of sad that we are missing out on a few things. Does anyone know how much it is to get the following a la carte? Champagne delivered to the room? Private dinner on the beach? (After Wendy raved about hers I know this is something I don't want to miss.) Price to have the room decorated after the wedding? Thanks!!! Sadly I can't help much with the prices. But champagne delivered BY THE GLASS is free!! Maybe you'll get a bottle at check-in? They didn't give us one on our wedding night but we did have one waiting for us when we checked in. So did my MOH and the Best Man. You should be able to set up the dinner on the beach once you get there. Quote: Originally Posted by suzannepdc Great review! We didn't get our names in the fountain either and we had asked - it totally slipped my mind until the next day. We also didn't get the room decorated, but I got ready in our room, so it was pretty much a disaster. The funnier thing is that they put the champagne in the wrong room - it went in my Mom and Grandma's room - not sure if it's because we have the same last name and got confused or something - lucky, my Mom's cool and she gave it to us! I really like where you got married - I think it's a great location. I wonder what the deal is with the fountain? Funny about the room! I purposely got ready in my sister's room on the assumption they were going to decorate ours. So her's got to be the disaster room! FI was really sweet and while I was getting ready he put everything away in our room and arranged things just right--too cute!

It was quite magical, thank you! And went by too fast!

Hi Alisha, WELCOME!! Which resort are you getting married at?

Hey AB brides, I've finally posted my review! Check it out and if you're on the fence or unsure about your resort choice, hopefully I can allay all your fears! http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...3/#post1293269

Alright ladies, I've FINALLY finished my reviews!! Man that feels good! Resort Review: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...3/#post1293269 Photographer Review: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...9/#post1293228

Okay AB brides, my review is up! http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...3/#post1293269 Meredith, I also wrote a review on Andrew: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...9/#post1293228

Reception- A We had a private reception on the Blue Terrace, and the location couldn’t have been more perfect. It’s outside with plenty of room for tables and dancing but is also covered in case it rains. We rented their sound system and played music through iTunes. The sound was great and our guests liked being able to scroll through our playlists and choose songs. Officially our reception was scheduled from 6:30-10:30pm (the max time for private events is 4 hours). Quiet hours start at 11pm at the resort, and we wanted to stay the extra half hour. We had to pay $40 to rent the sound system for the extra half hour. I’m pretty sure the Lomas guy just pocketed that money! (all Andrew Jordan Photography) We didn’t do centerpieces and brought our own table decorations: menu/drink cards, maracas, and picture frames with our grandparents’ photos. We also purchased rose petals for the tables. (Andrew Jordan Photography) The food was exceptional! We had beef carpaccio, mahi-mahi with apple-curry risotto and glazed vegetables, and flan. Our guests raved and raved about the mahi saying it was the best fish they’d ever had and certainly some of the best wedding food they’d ever had. Cake- C I took the average here. We give the cake an A for flavor and an F for execution. We had a strawberry cake with buttercream icing, and it was hands-down the best wedding cake we'd ever had. Our guests loved it so much that not a single piece was left! However, boy was it uuuuuuugly! It looked nothing like it was supposed to. I've posted pictures below. This is Standard Cake D from their menu, and the only thing we changed was that we didn't want the white cloth ribbon on top of the cake. We also assumed they'd change the flowers to match our colors. Notice our cake doesn't have real flowers like in the picture. We had originally submitted our own design for a cake that we wanted, but when the resort came back with a ridiculous price, we went with one of their standards. I'm so so so glad we didn't spend the extra $$ on a cake of our own design! We would have been very upset, but since we couldn’t have the cake we really wanted, we didn’t care too much that this one came out like it did. In the end we thought it was comical and I've even submitted it to cakewrecks.com! What it should have been: What we got: (Andrew Jordan Photography) Okay, thanks for reading this looooooong review and YEA for all you Azul Beach brides out there!

Wedding Location- A+ This was a tough one for us from the start with a lot of drama. We were adamant about not getting married on the sand and wanted to use the beach gazebo. However, the pictures they sent us of the gazebo were outdated and didn't show the unsightly lifeguard tower that's directly behind it. To make a long story short, once we got there the WCs bent over backward to find us a suitable spot, and it couldn't have been more perfect! During the planning process, the Miami office told us we couldn't have this spot, but the onsite team readily gave it to us. Entrance/Setup (Most couples choose a ceremony on the sand at AB, and you get to enter over the bridge for that location, too): (all Andrew Jordan Photography) Décor/Flowers: (all Andrew Jordan Photography) More to come...

Wedding-Related Services: Our wedding was small: in total we had 22 adults and 6 kids. We had a symbolic ceremony and my brother officiated. DH’s sister played the violin during the ceremony. She didn’t need to use the resort’s amp system. I could even hear her when I was waiting at the back of the resort to walk down the aisle. We didn't use a microphone either and everyone could hear us just fine even though it was windy. We had the following promotions: Free Weddings at Azul Beach, Honeymoon & Anniversary Package, Bride & Groom Stay Free Free Weddings at Azul Beach- B We just added on to this package and even with ordering bottles of wine, it still came out to be cheaper than the Silver Package. The breakfast in bed was a ridiculous amount of food—enough for 3 meals! Our only complaint was that they didn't decorate our room on our wedding night like the promotion states (more on this below). Honeymoon & Anniversary Package- B Everyone should have the candlelit dinner on the beach! It was a special experience and we highly recommend it. We also definitely appreciated the bottle of champagne waiting for us in our room when we checked in. The only thing we didn't use was the massage lesson, and that was only for lack of time. They lit the path to our private table on the beach: Bride & Groom Stay Free- B This promotion sounds better than it is, IMO. It did save us some money, though, and now they've upped the discount to 20%. It also comes with a Couples Karisma Day Pass which we didn't use. Not only was there not time, but we felt no need to leave our resort to go to another one. That just would have meant precious time away from our own resort! Onsite WC's- B Onsite we worked with Mayra and Celina (Celina has since moved over to Azul Sensatori). Even though we're giving them a B instead of an A, we absolutely loved our onsite wedding coordinators. We loved them so much we tipped them…twice...and handsomely each time! The reason they don't get an A is because of a couple oversights the day of: We had asked if they'd put our names in the fountain on our wedding day. We had seen this done and thought it'd be really cool. They forgot. Our wedding package specifically stated “romantically decorated room on wedding night,†which they didn't do. Thankfully our families did that for us, but had they not we would have been quite sad to go back to our room and not see anything. When we asked about it they said they never decorate the room. We purchased rose petals for our guests to throw as we walked up the aisle. The WCs didn’t tell our guests what the little bags of rose petals on their chairs were for, so no one threw the petals. I really, really love the pictures of couples leaving the ceremony surrounded by rose petals being thrown at them, and we didn’t get that picture. Now, one could argue that our guests should have known what they were for (what else would they be for except to throw?), but it couldn’t have hurt for the WCs to inform our guests. Compared to how perfectly the rest of the day and details went, those 3 things are tiny oversights and mishaps. We still think our WCs were just about PERFECT! They accommodated our every wish and waited on me hand and foot the day of the ceremony. What they normally do with the fountain for couples on their wedding day: Photographer- A++++++ We brought our photographer with us, and it was the best decision we could have made! We used Andrew Jordan, aka GroomsArePeopleToo. Since he's not part of AB and because he was so good he deserves his own review, I've written a separate one here: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...9/#post1293228 Our pro pics: andrew jordan photography Wedding Day- A+++ Everything went off without a hitch and when it was supposed to. Hair/Makeup- B I had Monica and think she did a fantastic job with both my hair and makeup. I showed her pictures of what I wanted for both and she recreated beautifully. My only complaint is in the quality of the makeup. The lipstick wore off right away, so I had to have my own handy. Luckily, I had a trial done so I knew this ahead of time and wasn't surprised. Also, she insisted the mascara was waterproof but indeed, it was not. No bride should have non-waterproof mascara! A note about the spa: Right now hair/makeup is done in a converted room, but they're building a spa onsite that's set to open in 2011. (Andrew Jordan Photography) More to come...