ktrant

There is a Wal-mart in Playa but they do not carry the same items as we do in the US. We wanted to put travel size sunscreen, lotion, chapstick, etc in our bags and decided we would buy it when I got to Playa...well sadly, they do not carry travel size anything. Prices are a tad cheaper but not by much.

We used Michell w/JSAV (something of that sort) which was from the resort. Music was EXTREMELY important to us as well so my husband brought his laptop and they played songs from our wedding playlist. They mixed it up for us which was a great twist. We literally danced all night long!

The resorts are right next to each other but they are huge! If you are taking pictures right after the ceremony, having your guests walk to the cove side for cocktail hour/reception will be no problem. It will probably be a 5-10 minute walk just depending on where you have the reception. It is a lot of walking but once you get to the cocktail/reception you're not going to be leaving again so shouldn't be a big deal. If it is, have them shuttle from Spa to Cove.

The sun there is no joke. We were squinting in some of our pictures! You should be okay though. It's not going to be as bright at 5:30 as it was at 4:30.

During our ceremony, my uncle talked about what marriage means, vows and our sand ceremony. There was no signing of any papers before, during or after our ceremony. I brought a marriage certificate w/me and Dulce made a copy for her records.

Jessica, Our wedding was at 4, cocktail hour followed 4:30-5:30, then dinner & reception started at 6-10:30. The sun started to set right around 6:30 ish.

If I'm not mistaken, that is included in the civil ceremony.

Well our plan was to keep it just between us but by accident my husband mentioned it to his parents and they were livid that we were going to do this without them or my parents. We didn't think it was a big deal but to them it was. So we ended up having to invite his parents, his sister, my parents and my sister. I was worried that it would affect my wedding day but it didn't. We didn't act any differently once we were married by the JP. We got our marriage certificate in and went and ordered a couple of extra copies so that we could take one w/us to Mexico so that we could get the extra goodies from our honeymoon package. Nothing compares to the feeling of getting your hair and make-up done, putting on your wedding dress, having your dad (or whomever) walk you down the aisle and then hearing "here comes the bride" and then seeing your future husband waiting for you. It's PRICELESS!

I didn't want to have to do blood work, sign papers and do the fingerprinting at the ceremony so we got married at the JP office before we left. My uncle, who is a minister, married us in Mexico. We acknowledge our wedding date as the day we got married in Mexico 6.11.10.

I totally felt the way you ladies are feeling when I was planning our wedding. We told are friends right away that we would be having a destination wedding and they had about 6 months to save and book (I had to plan our wedding around football season). Our reasoning for having a destination wedding was simply to keep it intimate. We both come from big families and it doesn't help that my husband is in the television business and locally he knows way too many people for us to even think about having a wedding here in Houston. Our list would have easily been over 700 people and I didn't really feel like going broke in the process of getting married. So we decided a destination wedding best suited us. We sent out 200 invitations to our closest family and friends. We knew some wouldn't attend and we were okay with it. We knew it would be out of some people’s price range, but this was one of the only resorts that could fit our large party. We started looking at flights right when we booked the resort and they were only $200...WELL...if you don't book early the flights will make the package price even worse!! We had about 20 guests get this price and everyone else paid well over $400 for airfare. SO tell your guests to at least book their flights early!!! Prices will go up and WON'T come down. We kept waiting for them to drop and well...nope! A few procrastinators paid $650 per ticket just for airfare. We were expecting 75-100 guests and well, a few months into it, we had only about 40 booked. I was freaking out and then just decided that I wasn’t going to stress out over it. I sent a couple of follow up emails to all the guests giving them flight prices and when they say that they were going up, they all started booking. My husband and I decided that quantity wasn’t important to us, we would rather have quality ;-) and quality is what we got. People we thought would definitely be there couldn’t make it and the people we least expected were the first to book. You just never know!! My husband had one friend from elementary school that was pretty low on funds and started selling personal items so that he and his wife could make it. He told my husband that he wouldn’t miss our big day and they didn’t. He definitely got his money worth and let’s just say...they partied hard!! So the point I’m trying to make is that your true friends know how important this day is for you and if they are your true friends they will do anything and everything to make it. We ended up having 89 guests and it was important to us that they all had a chance to enjoy our wedding but also make a vacation out of the trip too. That’s why we decided to have our wedding on a Friday. We had planned our pool party and welcome dinner on Thursday and the rest of the weekend we wanted them to get out and do the things that they wanted to do. A majority of our guests stayed a week and for those few that had to be back at work on Monday. They flew in Wednesday or Thursday and left on Sunday. Since we had the wedding on Friday, they were able to relax on Saturday and go home refreshed instead of hung-over. We booked over 150 nights at the hotel. I had learned early on in life that I needed to surround myself with friends that bring value to my life and get rid of the ones that don’t. My husband and I combined had 25 family members attend and the other 64 were friends. I have to say we are truly blessed to have such amazing family and friends. It was such a wonderful weekend and I truly feel that if we only had 20 guests, we would’ve had just as much fun.

We were only allowed to use $300 at the spa if you had $1500 vac dollars and if you had $750 vac dollars you could only use $150.

Thanks At Michael's arts and craft store here in Houston.

I bought my set at Michael's arts and craft store. I had a coupon and it was $20. It came with 3 vases. 2 small and 1 large. It also came w/a cream colored sand and a tan sand. I purchased my green sand separtely for like $5 and used the tan sand that came w/the set. I think 3 colors would be the most you would want to do just bc the colors might combine and make an odd color combination. What if all the kids were the same color...just a thought.

Miss Nicole...don't stress! You can order items up until the day before your wedding. Linens, DJ, etc... their lack of communication is ridiculous but I promise you....Once you get there and have your one on one meeting w/your WC everything will be settled. Just bring the items that you brought w/you to the meeting. They will take care of everything. Did you call the 1800 #?

I did a unity sand ceremony and mine made it home perfectly. Most of the vases or containers you buy should have lids or corks. I stuffed my vase w/tissue paper so that the sand was compacted enough not to move and put the lid on it. Quote: Originally Posted by adales Awesome. Thanks ladies!!! Is anyone doing a sand ceremony? I love the concept of it but I am wondering if I need to bring my own supplies for it.