asbarret

Quote: Originally Posted by orionandmari072510 yes, they do mayan ceremonies by request. Its not common, but they do them when ppl ask for it. We are excited! what is involved in the mayan ceremony? extra cost? Again, if ANYBODY has maribel blancarte or claudia alejandros emails, i really really need them. my whole email account was deleted. Ill take ANY onsite wedding coordinator/assistants email, i just need to be in contact and give them my new info. thanks

orion...i didn't know there was a mayan ceremony. details!! I need everyones help! my email account was deleted (old school email...they delete one year after graduation WITHOUT notice!) ive not only lost all my wedding info...but my contacts. could anyone PLEASE send me the onsite WC's maribels and claudias email addresses? thank you!!

cwelch...where is your moon palace review and pics? =)

ugh. you just reminded me of all the stuff I still have to do. I am in the same boat about centerpeices. soooooo much money. I am buying runners from table cloth factory (cheap) and i think im just going to buy those bulk cheap seashells and scatter them on the tables. cheap and good. we dont have any gifts for anyone. BMs dresses are picked out but they havent ordered them. grooms suit is picked out (studio suits) but haven't ordered it. i have my dress, no shoes. groomsmens look is half picked out, but not ordered. im not making any fans/cards, but i have to do my oots. photographer is booked =) still have to pick all our wedding music and find the sheet music for the harpist. have to shop for clothes/bathing suits etc and get dress altered. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

woodsylou, i was JUST wondering where you have been! What else do you still have to do?

And some more: -- Arricefes: Yes, had our "honeymooners" dinner there. It was SO GOOD -- that and Mo Mo No Hana (Asian at Sunrise) were my two favorites. However, because we did our special "honeymooners" dinner at the Brazilian restaurant, we had a special menu and didn't get the meat off the skewers/swords. There was a pre-set menu for us, but it was delicious. The filet was as good as I've ever had. Several people from our wedding group went to the Brazilian restuarant for the "regular" menu, though, and really enjoyed it. I think it will be a good place for a welcome dinner. -- Beach: About three days when we were there the wind was really strong (including my wedding day). It was fine (if kept us cool), but it did make the water darker (not disgusting, just not crystal blue) and there was quite a bit of seaweed on the beach (the seaweed isn't slimy stuff, it almost looks like leaves or pine straw). There were a couple days when the seaweed was pretty bad due to the strong winds/waves, but it was the worst at Sunrise. It really was piled up pretty high on that side. The further down the beach you go away from Sunrise (the wedding stuff is at the far end of Nizuc), the clearer it got. I got married on a very windy/wavy day and there was seaweed on the beach, but it didn't really bother me. I don't think anybody really paid too much attention to it. If you look at the picture of the wedding party on the beach with the sunglasses on or the pics of the full ceremony set-up, you'll see what the beach looked like. There is some dark seaweed there, but I didn't think it was disgusting. If the weddings were held at Sunrise, then I might have been unhappy when it was at its worst. Nizuc was fine, though. After the wind died down after about 3 days, the water actually did get aqua blue and the sand looked much better. -- Posting: Feel free to post my review on the best destination wedding forums website. I did find out about the website about 3/4 way through my planning and did sign-up. I ended up not going there too much, though, since I was almost finished with everything. I know I loved reading everything that I could about weddings at Moon Palace, so please feel free to share any info that I give you. I actually plan on still posting reviews on tripadvisor and some other websites, so I should probably go back into best destinations wedding forums again. -- Zuniga -- They are great and have such good ideas, but the setting is so beautiful and the "standard" set-up is so nice, that you definitely don't need to do anything else. Like I said, I saw many that didn't do any upgraded decorations, and they were so pretty! -- Menu -- We did a cocktail hour (which we got for free, since we had enough rooms booked) and a reception. We chose the cold hors d'oeurves for the cocktail hour, which I heard were EXCELLENT! My dad couldn't stop talking about them during our father/daughter dance that we did -- he does love his food! That is one thing that I am sorry about -- I didn't get a single one! We were busy taking pictures the entire cocktail hour. Oh well -- hopefully we'll get some good pics and it will be worth it! For the reception, we chose the Mediterranean buffet. It was all really good, but my least favorite thing was the beef -- it tasted good, but it was tough. There was a seafood stew kind of thing that was really delicious, though. I asked about mixing and matching and they weren't too open to it initially. They said if there was an allergy or something like that, then they would switch out maybe one salad and one entree or something like that. For the rehearsal dinner, we got the Mexican buffet (which was really good!), and I did ask for something special for my dad since he is very allergic to jalepeno/spicy peppers. They were actually really good about it. I asked them if they could just keep the same food, but just make a separate plate for him that didn't have jalepenos. They ended up doing like three things for him and had enough of it for almost the whole group to have some! I thought they were just going to give him a pre-done plate, but they had a whole big chafing dish full of food that he could eat. - Legal wedding: I actually did a symbolic ceremony, just to avoid some of the red tape. Legally, we got married by a judge on April 19th here in the states -- just the two of us. We completely consider April 30 as our wedding date, though. In fact, nobody but my parents even knows that we got legally married before hand. So, I can't really answer the question about the legal wedding.

Here is some info a girl sent me that I met on FB that she said I could post here: I could probably go on forever about the wedding at Moon Palace, but I'll try to just hit the high points. The pics posted to my FB are just those that friends took -- I don't have the pro pics yet (brought in an outside photog -- you can if you pay for one night at the hotel). I'll definitely post the pro ones when I get them. I should have them in 3-4 weeks, so be on the lookout. The wedding was perfect!! I seriously could not have asked for better. I was a little nervous because I had never been to the resort before, so I had no idea what to expect. My coordinator, Angelica, was great, though. She always got back to me within a day or two. I did a wedding on the beach and a private reception on the Venado terrace -- very similar to what you are doing. I did the complimentary wedding package and then just upgraded the things I wanted. The ceremony set-up in my pictures is the standard set-up. I didn't upgrade anything with that. My bouquet was the standard bouquet, too. It was beautiful! (You get to pick the colors of the roses.) My bridesmaids flowers (oh, and the Mexican trio who played) were the only things not included in the standard ceremony set-up. The reception at the Venado terrace was gorgeous! The Venado terrace and the Tucan terrace are basically identical and fairly close to one another. They are right by the beach and water -- just beautiful. I did upgrade quite a few things at the reception. I had a DJ (DJ Omar -- who ROCKED!). My husband is a HUGE music buff, and he had very specific do's and don'ts for the music, and DJ Omar delivered for sure. Everybody was on the dance floor and had a great time. We even got several compliments on the great music selections. I also did table runners and candle centerpieces. In addition, I had a lounge set-up with couches, coffee table, pillows, lanterns, tiki torches, lighted candle stairways, lighted side tables, etc. That was a pretty big upgrade (the Moon Palace contracts with an outside company to do this, but they were GREAT -- they gave me such good ideas and were so responsive). Again, that was a pretty big upgrade, but the price would have been double or triple in the US, so I didn't think it was really that bad. I saw several weddings that didn't do any upgrades (or very few upgrades) and they looked really nice, too. The standard is white chairs, white tablecloths -- very clean and classic looking. I had a private function for a rehearsal dinner the night before and did the standard set-up for that. It was really nice. I can't remember now if I posted pics of the reception set-up I had. If not, I'll try to do that so you can see. I can tell you that the Tucan terrace is beautiful. I can't imagine that you'd be disappointed with it. How many people will you have? We had just over 30. The Tucan terrace is slightly bigger than the Venado terrace, but basically they are about the same size. We had the garden area next to the terrace, too, for our cocktail hour. Also, the lounge area was mostly set-up there. We had plenty of room. Between the terrace and the garden, we had a full bar, buffet, DJ, lights, 4 round tables, lounge area, etc. Nobody was cramped at all. The rooftop Grand is also really nice. There is a sushi restaurant up there that we went to for the after-reception celebration. It has really pretty views of the ocean. Basically, it is up to you -- the terrace and Grand rooftop are both really nice, but they differ in a couple of ways. The terrace is right by the water and is really private (people can walk by, but you feel like it is your own party for sure). The rooftop is farther away from the water, but you can definitely see it (at night, though, the views aren't quite as good because it is dark and hard to see the water). We actually saw a reception being held there, and it looked really nice and they seemed to be enjoying it. Keep in mind, though, that any guest can still go up to the restaurant, so it isn't quite as private. The reception was over to one side, but there were general hotel guests (including us!) sitting right by there. So, it just isn't quite as private, because it is one of the actual restaurants. Both are good choices, though -- just depends on what you want. The Moon Palace does a TON of weddings, and you will probably see many while you are there. I did not feel like I was just being pushed through an assembly line, though -- I felt like mine was the only one that they cared about. I had their full attention. I was a little worried about the food, because I had several "foodies" that were there. I was quite happy, though. Many people said the food was really good, and nobody had any complaints. Oh, I forgot. I also upgraded the wedding cake. The cake was gorgeous so I'm really happy I did. It was delicious, too. My husband doesn't even like cake that much, and he couldn't stop raving about it. No less than 3 other people said that it was hands down the best wedding cake they had ever eaten. We just went with the vanilla one. So good -- the buttercream frosting on the inside even had real vanilla bean in it. Oh, and the open bars are spectacular. They really mean full bar -- including frozen drinks, any mixed drink, etc. Usually a full bar in the states has beer, wine, liquor, limited mixed drinks, etc, but hardly ever includes frozen drinks or a huge variety of mixed drinks. I didn't have any frozen ones myself (I was too busy dancing!), but many of my guests really enjoyed them -- fits in well with the beach setting! Oh, and you will get a champagne toast that is included in the complimentary wedding package. It said champagne for the toast, but I was drinking champagne the whole night -- guess they had extra there for us!

love it!! need to be more consistent though.... wish jillian had more workouts available, but i switch around to other trainers so i dont get bored

kgirl: i think that depends on where you are from. the ave. high in july is the low 90s. im from dallas, so to me thats comfortable weather. since you are from chicago, however....could be a different story. are you and your guests comfortable in that kind of weather?

yea jodimichelle. do you feel like things are coming together? what are you doing for the centerpieces?

LOL!!! thanks for all the info. hopefully she will get back to me and say they will rope it off for me too!

Melidell: that was AWESOME! thank you

Vgirl: my wc said the terrace was available that day...BUT she said that it wouldnt be private seeing as other guests could still come and go as normal. did you have other guests wandering around at your reception??

thanks for all the info veronica. do you think it would even be worth me ordering petals for a beach wedding/outdoor reception?? was it your wedding coordiantor that told you they were going to start charging for the rooftop terrace?? do you know when?? (emailed mine, but she is out of the office right now!)

vgirl: did you order the groomsmens pants from the same place you got your husbands suit from so they would match? (studiosuits) it looks like they match perfectly

southern sweetie: you can either use their red runner, or the tan one in the chapel. no extra charge either!! jodimichelle...im trying to figure out hair too. as far as i know, it will be hot humid and windy, and my hair is naturally very wavy!! and ill be on the beach!! i think im gonna do it up to be on the safe side. if i was in a chapel id probably do half up half down. post pics when you pic a style!! kinda like this:

thank you sooooo much vgirl!! your reception site looked beautiful! was it big enough for 37 people to fit comfortably? im think of switching my site (if i can weasle out of the extra fee, that is) your pics are great!! can't wait to see more

thanks for the info. i know power point..so im sure i can figure that out. and you just printed your logo on to plain stickers that you bought?? 2 weeks is so exciting!!

A We are considering a harpist for our ceremony. We would like to know if we can choose our own music, or if we have to pick from a list. If we choose our own music, do we need to provide the sheet music?? B Usually you select from his repertory but as we have time if you provide us with the sheet music he can be able to perform that song. This is some of the songs he knows: * El Ave Maria * Jesu Joy of man´s * Trumpet Voluntary * Cannon in "D" * Weddings March * over the Rainbow * Yesterday once more * imagine * Beautiful Tonight * hojas muertas...

indy chic..........that suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. hope you can muster out another one =(

MRoades...........I'm new to the world of DIY... can you tell me where you got your great logo and how you put it all over your OOT bag stuff?? I mean, I need details. I'm a complete novice here!!!!!!!!! Thanks!

NJ hunnie...you only paid 50?! did you bring your own, or pay the resort?

65 a piece for small ones. from what i remember reading, people were getting fresh flower centerpieces for the same price. anyone know?

is anyone buying centerpieces from the resort? if so what are they and how much? i just got a RIDICULOUS quote for glass vases filled with limes...no flowers!

Quote: Originally Posted by KGirl99 I am thinking of doing OOT bags for our guests. I have decided on the following items: Sunscreen Sunburn relief cream Rolled towel Luggage tags Any other suggestions? I chose a canvas bag about 8.5"x11" We are also thinking about immodium/tylenol single packets, maybe bug repellant wipes (heard it can get bad at ourdoor receptions) and insulated cups that people can have the bartenders fill their drinks with instead of those plastic cups....will keep the sand out too!