StephyD

I guess the budget depends on what you really want. We didn't have a strict budget. We just went and looked at what we wanted, compared the options, and choose whatever we saw fit. We did have an initial amount in mind for the overall budget but we went about 30% over... which is alot, but to us doesn't seem like a big deal considering we had the most amazing day of our lives. It was all worth it. If you can't afford it, I'd say don't go for it. We of course didn't go overboard on things, we stuck with what we wanted and could afford. I don't think there were any surprises or hidden expenses... The only thing I was a bit confused with was the wedding package at the Grand Palladium. Since we had so many guests and wanted a private reception, we had to pay alot of extras (chairs for the ceremony, sparkling wine toast, dinner, etc.) It seemed like nothing was included in the package. Remember that it covers only 8 guests! They have plenty of times for the ceremony but you do have to pick a time when you book your date. They can have up to 3 weddings a day but only one per time (does that make any sense?). They do this in order to allow you to choose the location you want for the ceremony without having to worry about someone else booking the same location (both gazebos, church, beach, etc). This you can pick when you get on site. Our reception was at La Laguna (private) from 7PM to 11PM. We did dinner and some dancing. At 11PM, the DJ stopped playing but they will stop your music as well if you're using an ipod. They didn't push us out but guests started leaving soon after the music stopped anyways. I'm not quite sure how the dancing works at the a-la-carte restaurants, not sure whether you can have music and everything? Other past brides could probably answer this one...

GORGEOUS!!! Wow, I love it! It's absolutely beautiful!!!!

EllaBaja is getting married today!! Thinking of you girl Can't wait to hear all about it!!!

We got married on 03-31-2011 and booked Claudia Rodriguez as our photographer. She was absolutely amazing on the wedding day! She surprised us with a slideshow of the day's pictures during dinner and they looked amazing. I would highly recommend her. www.claudiaphoto.com

We had a singer and guitarist playing so they made it last. We did use the same song for the whole bridal party. I started walking when the last part of the song started playing which worked out great.

I walked down the aisle to ''Marry me'' by ''Train''. It was perfect

Boy do I understand what you're talking about!!! That is the one part that really sucked in the whole planning of the wedding... We sent out STD's in May and our invitations in September. We didn't have our final guest count until 1 month before our March wedding. People just waited until the last minute to book... You can't push them. I guess if they want to come, they'll book... It can be frustrating!! We sent all of our TA's information... some people still choose to book with someone else and some of our guests even booked random dates, since the price was better, instead of booking the dates on the invite. For us... it made a big difference since we got a free trip when 15 people booked the same dates as us... Turns out we got one free and we were missing 1 person for the 2nd trip. Oh well... Our bill at the Grand Palladium only, not including the accomodation, was 10 000$. That's for the wedding package, cocktail reception and dinner reception. We had 68 guests + the 2 of us + 4 vendors. It adds up pretty quickly...

GORGEOUS!!!! Wow!

They went swimming with the dolphins at Delphinus. I believe it was 150$ per person and they all booked when they arrived at the resort and none of them had any problems doing it that way.

What do you mean by ''options in the lobby''?? They do have reps' of various airlines that are there for the groups on the resort. You can book your excursions through them. The only ''excursion'' we did was Coco Bongo. There was 18 of us and we booked it through our travel agency rep once we arrived at the resort. She arranged for transportation (we had a limo-party-bus which was very nice) and we had a little section to ourselves once we got to the bar. With 70 guests (most of whom we see once or twice a year), our week was more a PR week than anything else. We just spent lots of time mingling around, making sure we spent time with each guest. We had things to do for the wedding too (assemble paper cones, add tags to the maracas, meeting with Rocio), lots of dinners, etc... so we opted out of excursions. We knew it wasn't going to be our last trip to Riviera Maya and could do lots of excursions next year or whenever we go again. Lots of our guests went swiming with the dolphins and they all loved it. A few guests did the Rio Secreto and they absolutely loved it as well. There were no boats on the water all week, the waves were much too intense. For deep sea fishing, I'm not sure where exactly you are going but if the water is this rough, I wouldn't do it. There is definitely an activity for everyone.

There really isn't much for the witnesses to do other than meet with Rocio, have their passports and travel card (whatever they call it). It takes 10 minutes, top. But, they do have to be present 3 business days before the wedding too. For us, it didn't matter since all 4 of them planned to be there ahead of time anyway. Also, we thought that getting married at the end of the week was much better than early in the week. Surprising since from the start, I really wanted to get married a day or two after our arrival... but in choosing Mexico, we arrived on a Saturday and got married on the following Thursday and we really loved it. Everyone was so excited for the whole week! Again, personal choice

Hi Christine, We got legally married down in Mexico. We are getting the apostille done in Mexico (Rocio is taking care of it) since we need it to legalize the wedding in Canada. I looked it up with the government here about what I needed and this was it. Rocio didn't mention anything about the law changing but it would be something to look into I guess. Lots of people actually get married before going down to Mexico. It wasn't an option for us, I was really set on getting married only once, in Mexico. It just meant more to me. Again, it's a personal choice. Hope it helps! Steph

We just did a butterfly release at our March 31st wedding and it went very smoothly and was very beautiful. All of our guests were very touched and absolutely loved the moment. All of the butterflies flew right out of the box and it was a very special moment. My wedding coordinator at the resort arranged everything for us. If you want more info, PM me and I'll get the vendor's information for you.

We just got married on March 31st and didn't see eachother before the ceremony. I can't imagine doing in any other way. It was such a special moment and even our guests got all teary and emotional. I guess it all depends on your own personal preference We got married at 3PM and had plenty of time for pictures until our 7PM reception, and even had time to stop by our cocktail hour.

Awww Ella! I wish I could back tomorrow! I miss it already. I can't wait to hear all your stories and see how it went! I'm 100% positive that it will be fabulous! Don't stress out... they have it under control and they are the best at what they do! I was so relieved after our meeting with Rocio. Haven't you booked Claudia as your photographer as well? You'll love her. For the flowers... the setting is just so beautiful on it's own. You don't need that many decorations or flowers, it's really up to you. I'm sure you could get more once you get there. You could always check with other florist to see if they could help in any way. It can be hard on such short notice, but you never know.

We booked Adrian and his team for our wedding. They came right to our room and they were great!!! Adrian is very talented. Everyone looked beautiful! My makeup did last all day and after sweating like crazy in the Mexican heat, I still looked great at the end of the night. I wasn't crazy about my hair at first (to be honest, I hated it) and they gladly fixed it all and made sure I liked it in the end. Once I get my pictures, I'll be sure to post some of their work. I would recommend them 100%! http://www.stylingtriorivieramaya.com/

We hired DJ Mannia for our March 31st, 2011 wedding at the Grand Palladium in Riviera Maya. We had Carlos as a MC and he was great! He met with us right before the introduction, made sure we had everyone in order and that he had everyone's name correctly. They played everyone song as requested and the music during dinner was great (their choice of songs). When we were running behind on schedule, they gladly made some changes and accomodated us. We had some cold fireworks during our 1st dance and they had them exactly at the time in the song that I requested. Plus, we also got some extra orange spotlights to put around the room and they looked nice. After dinner, they really got the party started, brought out some balloons for our guests to play with and everyone had a great time. I would recommend them 100%!

We hired Turtle Bay Bakery to do our cake for our wedding day (March 31, 2011). I have to say, I would NOT recommend them at all. Throughout the whole planning process, Jen (the owner) took days, see weeks, to answer my emails. Yes, their price is cheap (400$ for a cake for 70 people). During the last few weeks before we left, I sent her emails almost every day, for her to give me a final balance on the cake and to fix the last details. She would not reply... so I sent her some money (since we were leaving) and hoped for the best. She did email me while we were in Mexico (after I told her I wouldn't have email access) saying that the balance was to be more than what I sent... Whatever, she never replied to my emails when I asked her about a balance 2 weeks before we left (she did reply, answering to other questions but never about the balance). Everytime she emailed me, I never got an exact answer to my questions. Anyway... Here is the inspiration picture I sent her. I asked for real flowers instead of sugar flowers on the middle tier. I wanted the 3-dot clusters the same and wanted bigger swiss icing dots (balls, whatever you call them) all around the first and third tier, to hide the seams (instead of the sort of ribbon you see in the picture. Here is what we got. Sorry, I don't have a closer pic yet. The cake was to be white... it turned out this ugly beige/yellow/peach color. Plus, they used a star-tip for the 3-dot clusters... which just looked bad. And, I never got the swiss icing balls or whatever. The cake still looked ok (upclose, not so much) and I'm the only one who knew the detailing that was supposed to be on the cake... but still, it wasn't what I asked for and the whole experience with Turtle Bay Bakery just wasn't positive.

Good morning ladies! As promised, here is a more detailed review of our wedding. We arrived at the resort on March 26th, the wedding was on March 31st. We stayed (and all of our guests) at the Colonial. The resort is HUGE! It is very beautiful. The rooms are OK, nothing extravagant, the food is good, the a-la-cartes we tried were good, the beach is nice, althought rocky. The beach at the Kantenah is much nicer. We had held our own little rehearsal the evening before the wedding. It calmed everyone's nerves a little and they all knew what to do when walking up the aisle, where to go, etc. We then had a rehearsal dinner at the beach BBQ (which Rocio arranged the reservation for us ). Since there was 17 of us, we couldn't eat at one of the a-la-carte unless we had a set menu, which we didn't want. The food was good at the BBQ but it was extremely windy. We moved to the Colonial lobby afterwards to hand out gifts and continue on with the party. Prior to our arrival, I had asked Rocio when our meeting would be so I could advise our witnesses not to plan any activities during that morning. We met with her on March 28th (Monday). There are no words to describe how amazing Rocio and her team are. They are of such professionalism! Rocio had every detail written down and was even more organized than I was. I had things delivered to the resort instead of having to bring them down with me and she had everything ready for me. They helped with a lot of stuff I didn’t have time to do while in Mexico (tissue pompoms, maracas, etc). Really, they are the best I’ve ever seen (compared to TV shows or other weddings I’ve been to). They all work together on the wedding day but Rocio was with us at all times. She met with us at the ceremony, got us water during the photo shoot, arranged for transportation… really, she’s amazing. Plus, when we ran into a tiny problem (an extra guest showed up… we didn’t have any room for him to sit at the dinner, etc.), she took care of everything and just told me to relax and enjoy my day. Seriously, amazing! We had the ceremony at the beach gazebo. Now… everyday, it was VERY windy. I was scared since we had rose petals and flower decorations, plus I was afraid my veil would be flying all over… We had the less windy day on our wedding day. Almost no wind at all. They set up the gazebo exactly as planned. The one thing I should have mentioned to Rocio is to make sure that all the seats were filled. Nobody wanted to sit in the first row since they thought it was for the bridal party. We had guests standing in the back and seats left empty at the front. Nonetheless, it looked beautiful. The ceremony itself was very nice. The officiant was great. We added the hand ceremony and the sand ceremony. We didn’t do personal vows. Everything ran smoothly. We had a glass of sparkling wine for all our guests after the ceremony. We started right away with family and group pictures. Once those were done with, everyone left for the cocktail ceremony. We had a butterfly release at the ceremony. It was one of the best moment of the whole day. It was absolutely beautiful and ran smoothly (I had read some horror stories). Every single guest thanked us and thought it was the best way to commemorate those who couldn’t be with us. Also, we had some random people standing on the side for the ceremony… which I didn’t really like. I don’t mind them watching, but they shouldn’t be right where my guests were sitting. I don’t need that old man in his bathing suits in my wedding pictures. J I wish Rocio would have said something to them so they would have stood farther down or more to the side. As for decoration for the ceremony, here is what we had: 2 flower arrangements for the gazebo (see behind the officiant, on the posts), 2 set of 3 vases with branches and flowers (see at the entrance of the gazebo), petals for the aisle, we had programs and petal cones with flowers (which didn’t work really, since all the guests were on one side of the aisle and the wind was blowing the wrong way, oh well). We got all of our flowers from Vanessa Jaimes. The only flowers provided by the resort is the table arrangement for the ceremony. Here is a picture of the bouquets, which were absolutely beautiful! We arranged for transportation for our guests from the wedding gazebo to the sports bar terasse (cocktail), and then to La Laguna (reception). Everyone absolutely loved that! As mentioned, we held the cocktail reception at the Sports Bar Terasse. To me, it was the best place to have it. None of the bars could offer a private cocktail hour since they are all opened to the resort’s guests. Nobody ever hangs out at that terasse so we had it all to ourselves. They have a nice fountain (which wasn’t working when we got to the resort but they fixed right before the wedding). I know it has been mentioned in this thread that the cocktail isn’t needed… but it was one of the best decisions we’ve made! We had the cocktail with drinks and appetizers and everyone absolutely loved it! It was well worth the money. Everyone loved that they all stayed together, none of them went back to their rooms, they all just hung out. The food was delicious and service was great. Rocio set up my ipod for the music and we had the mariachi trio play for 45 mins at the end. We had some small flower centerpieces for the tables (we had 4 low tables and 6 high cocktail tables with white linen), and some tissue paper pompoms that were hanging. (sorry for the random pictures... I'm just trying to show you the set up for the cocktail.) They brought everyone over at La Laguna to get ready so we could start around 7PM. We (with the bridal party) stayed at the entrance and met with Carlos (DJ Mannia) who reviewed all of our names so he could pronounce them correctly for the introduction. They introduced us, we danced a bit and sat down for dinner. We had servers by our side the whole evening. They were great! Rocio and her team were also there to make sure everything was going well. The food was AMAZING!! We made quite a few changes to the menu so we could have what we wanted (and paid a bit extra). We had: Lobster bisque, spinach and mandarin salad, mandarin sorbet, stuffed rack of lamb, cannolis with vanilla mousse. We also had a veggie lasagne for 2 vegetarian guests and a different soup for people allergic to seafood. Dinner took longer than expected… we had 70 guests and it took a little over 2 hours. We did our first dance and the parents’ dance before the desert, and then cut the cake. We got the party started with some dancing than after about 30 minutes did the bouquet/garter toss. Then, more dancing. Rocio had set up everything as we had requested. We had the ceiling decoration with the lights, all of the centerpieces and candles we had brought were set up exactly as we wanted it… they moved the cocktail centerpieces to decorate the reception as well, guestbook, everything… it was all set up amazingly well. Decorations: we had flower centerpieces, we had maracas that served as placecards for the guests, we brought some candle holders and candles, we had escort cards, a guestbook, a card box (money box? Whatever you might call it…), tequila table, ceiling decoration, extra orange spot lights from DJ Mannia, …. I might be forgetting some things, but I think that was it. I’m happy I chose to have the reception at La Laguna. It all depends on your own personal preference. La Laguna seems more private to me since it’s farther down from all of the restaurants and the lobby. Gran Azul is pretty close to both the Colonial and Kantenah buffets and the lobbies, so there is more people walking around. Plus, I really liked how Gran Azul is just all surrounded by water VS Gran Azul being more surrounded by jungle. I will try to post some pictures later this week. I have to say, absolutely nothing went wrong. It exceeded our expectations!!! All of our guests said it was the most beautiful wedding they’ve ever been to. We even had random guests of the resort stop us the next day and said that it was absolutely beautiful. I’m hoping to have time to do a (late) planning thread and review our vendors… but here are some comments in the mean time: Photography: Claudia Rodriguez SHE IS AMAZING! (So is her team!) There were 4 of them total, all of which were fabulous. Claudia is great at what she does. She’s done so many weddings that she’s the once I was asking for advice throughout the day (how to put the boutonnieres, when to do this, when to do that, etc.). I would HIGHLY recommend her. J For our TTD session, she was in the water up to her armpits and laying in the sand, etc. At the reception, she surprised up with a slideshow of 60 pictures that she put together during our dinner. What an amazing surprise and our pictures looked amazing! *I will post a link to the gallery whenever I get the pictures. Videography: Playa Weddings Paul and his team were also great to deal with. I haven’t seen any previews or anything, so I can’t speak of the final product yet… but from videos I’ve seen of their archives, their work is great. Flowers: Vanessa Jaimes She is amazing! Our flowers were gorgeous!!! She can be a tad bit expensive, but to me, it was all worth it. Plus… one week before our departure, I changed almost all the flowers! I had a tiny bridezilla moment J She gladly agreed to all my changes and exceeded my expectations! DJ Mannia Carlos and his team were GREAT! They played the exact songs I wanted and the dinner music (which was left for them to pick) was amazing. They adjusted very well to our last minute changes in our schedule and really got the party going. Loved them! Mariachi trio: They played during the cocktail and everyone loved them. Turns out we got 4 marchiachis instead of 3. Bonus! Ceremony duo: Ilys + guitarist Ilys was recommended to me via Playa Weddings. She was GREAT to deal with during the planning process, learned all 3 songs we requested and all of our guests raved about how good of a singer she was. AMAZING! Hair + Makeup: Adrian and his team, Styling Trio (Playa del Carmen) They were great! The makeup was AMAZING! We looked like stars out of Hollywood J I didn’t like my hair at first and they quickly changed it all and made sure I got what I wanted. Cake: Turtle Bay Bakery Alright, this is the one I’m not happy with. There was a huge lack of communication throughout the planning… the cake was not exactly what I wanted but still looked OK. Anyways… I would NOT recommend them at all. Please, don’t hesitate if you have any questions! I’m probably forgetting lots of details… so please let me know. J Steph

Hi Ladies, We just got back last night from our wedding week+honeymoon. I don't have much time right now since I'm already back to work (barf!)... but I wanted to let you know that the wedding was absolutely amazing! Rocio and her team are the best I've ever seen or heard of. I will be back later this week with a longer more detailed review and pictures. Steph

Cocktail prices: Drinks only: 5$/person Appetizers and drinks: 14$/person *Service is for 2 hours. You get to pick 12 different appetizers, if you decide to go that route.

I started loosing sleep last week ;-) We are having a cocktail (with drinks and appetizers) at the Sports' Bar Terrace and our dinner/reception is at La Laguna. I will definitely post a review and pictures when I return!

We leave in 5 sleeps! I can't wait :)

Welcome Rachel! There are 70 of us at our wedding and we had to have a private reception, since the maximum you can be at one of the a-la-carte restaurants is 40, I believe. Like the other ladies have mentioned, you'd have to pick between Gran Azul or La Laguna.

We are beyond excited to have so many guests! We were expecting maybe 40 at the most! Such a great surprise to see that so many people are willing to travel so far for us. It's going to be great. 60 of our guests are staying for the whole week and 5 of them already live in Mexico, so they will be staying for 3 days.