shanbeth

I was married on Nov. 11, 2010 at Dreams Cancun. We did the legal ceremony and Claudia said we would have the legal paperwork to us within a month. It has now been over 9 weeks and still nothing.lm just starting to get really worried. Please let me know if anyone else has experienced this? Shannon

Okay I have been home almost a month (3 weeks) and I still have not posted my review so not sure if it is okay to post here but here goes in order: Arrival to Dreams- Perfect! We booked the Jr. club suite in the towers and after sitting just long enough to be served a drink the took us over to the lounge there and checked us in immediately. Our room was gorgeous! On the 9th floor- beautiful view, probably the best room I have ever stayed in!! Champagne and fruit waiting for us with a banner on our door. We even had a huge bouquet of flowers brought to our room the next day and I have no idea why but they stayed all week. I met with Claudia that afternoon and all I can say is she is wonderful! Took care of the witness signing right away, paid and I was pretty much done. Picked out the food right then and she was very easy going about it. I made sure I tipped her $100 right away because she had been so good emailing me this whole time. Had the blood work the next day. They came right to the room and it was simple. Rehearsal- I pretty much ran it, but it was nice to run thru. It was so windy that night that at the last minute I asked Claudia if we could move the reception into the club terrace lounge area and she let me. I'm so glad I did this. It was perfect that way but I will get to that. Wedding day- Okay I brought all my decorations to Claudia that day(centerpieces for tables, sashes for chairs and party favors) and she handled everything exactly. I even gave her a diagram and had place cards for the tables and she did it exactly. My hair appt. was at 12:30 and Maria did my hair & make-up. I cant say enough about her. I told her I wanted my hair with big curls and she did it better then I have EVER had my hair put up (and I have been in 13 weddings so I do this a lot) She made me feel beautiful and the make-up was amazing. She doesn't spell it with like I did, but her name was Maria and I highly recommend her. Claudia came in to show me my bouquet and it was more beautiful then I could have picked. I had sent her an example of hot pink and orange one I liked and told her I trusted her and to match as well as she could. I knew there were more expensive flowers in there, but I loved it so much and am so glad I just trusted her. -Ceremony-They played my music exactly as I asked. One thing I would suggest, I did a legal ceremony, but still sent the judge (sent to claudia) the exact wording I wanted. It was blowing so hard I wish now I would have laminated everything. From the judges ceremony, to my readings, it would have helped a lot. SO LAMINATE! I also did a rock ceremony instead of the sand ceremony and I LOVED how it turned out. Very special and I have great keepsake. The judge did not speak very good english and she did forget to ask my father who gives this woman...(he was upset about that) but overall it was fine. My guests could hear her better then we could with the sound system (which is totally worth the $180 by the way) -After the ceremony: We walked down the pathway and each of our guests followed us out which was great to see on the video. My wedding party and Mike & I formed a greeting line in the club terrace lounge to get out of the wind. Then Juan immediately took the group shot and a few family. I do wish I would have done more family but he is on a tight time schedule with the sun and we only had 40 min before sunset. -Photograher & video- By far the best photographer I have EVER encountered. My pictures are absolutely amazing. I have the album with over 50 pictures plus the 2 additional cd's for a total of 750 pictures for an additional $300. I will say this again. If you are bringing your own photographer with you or outsourcing this from Juan, YOU ARE CRAZY! He is amazing....The video was also like a perfect movie, incorporating my own music. Best I had ever seen. Miguel was great and this was part of the ultimate package. The photos and video alone are worth the $2700 by far!!!! -Reception- Soo glad I moved it inside the lounge. This worked out great. Even though it's the lobby of the Towers it was like our own private room. I traded the cocktail hour for 10 additional dinner guest and so glad I did. There is a bar right in the lounge and also everynight in there they put out appetizers. So while we were getting photos taken, my guest thought the appetizers were for them. My tables for the reception were already set up and they transferred my sashes to all the chairs and had it decorated beautifully. I had flowers on the head table that matched everything (this was included in the package) and they also utilized on the table the flowers on the table from the ceremony. Claudia also set it up exactly as I had it, name places and all. -DJ-This was very expensive, but so glad I had it. He played from 6-9 (really started by 5:30 which is when we got back from photos) and ended at 9- We did our first dance right away, and then wedding party joined in and then my dance with my dad. Then ate and cut cake and then danced the rest of the night. We were ready at 9:00 to go change and everyone went to the disco and had a great night till really late. It was really busy that night for some reason and very fun. -Decorations- Claudia did great and I did not stress about these things. I traded the 3 piece trio for gazebo decorations and the tulle and flowers were beautiful. I would highly recommend this. It is so windy you don't want to do to much. They also tied 2 of my sashes on the poles and it looked very colorful and the flowers for the centerpiece table looked beautiful and it had my rock ceremony vase on it. Great looking picture. I was there for the 85 person wedding and I see why the bride was upset with Juliette. They hardly did anything for her for decorations. All I can say is trust Dreams and Claudia. I did order my bridesmaid bouquets from Juliette because I saw the recommendations on this website, and she also did my boutinierres. They were all pretty and no problems there. Although the night before I kind of panicked because I realized that Juliette had not gotten ahold of me like she said and when I asked Claudia about her she said she had never heard of her. But when I got to me room that night Juliette had left me 2 messages and I spoke with her in the am and they were delivered just fine. -Overall service- A +++++. I do all inclusive all the time and this place by far had the best service, staff, cleanliness I have experienced. The food at ALL of the restaurants were superb, some of the best steak ever and best sushi. By far best decision I have ever made. Some of my photos I posted on my profile page. Sorry this took so long... Shannon Allen-11-11-10 dreams bride

I totally agree with Jana. Your crazy if you bring someone to dreams to use as a photographer. Juan is the best.

Tiffany, I am so glad I went with hot pink and orange as an accent. The colors looked amazing in the photos and my bouquet was the most beautiful I could have imagined. I sent Claudia a picture and said just something like that and she had originally told me that there were too many expensive flowers in there and I told her to just make it match the colors and she practically matched it the same. She is so great. I got my girls dresses at JCPenney's for like $40 and they really will wear them again. The hot pink sashes looked great on the chairs and then they moved them into the reception chairs so the colors looked so good. The flowers that the provide for the head table centerpiece was amazing also and Claudia also brought in the centerpiece flowers from the ceremony and this was all part of the package. I brought four vases with decorations that were hot pink, fuschia and orange from home and just had little hot pink bags with mints in them on the tables and it was beautiful. I really didn'[t have to put a lot of planning into it and am glad I didn't over think it since Claudia does so much!

Charmaine, I got the ultimate package and traded a couple of things. I traded out the cocktail reception for 10 more dinner guests. I had the reception on the club terrace and actually it worked out perfect because at the last minute I asked Claudia to move it inside the terrace (with the doors open to the terrace) because it was so windy. Every night in the Towers which is where the club terrace is located right by the Gazebo, they have appetizers for the guests in the privilage club and the bar is right there. Nobody uses it too much and since we had our table set up there it was like it was all for us. My guests thought it was just for them and didn't even notice the difference. This worked out great. And yes Juan was the photographer that Dreams uses. I highly recommend him. Anyone that brings someone from home doesn't know the lighting or the area like Juan does and he took about 750 photos in an hour. Also he works with the Videoagrapher so the video that is part of the package was a lot like the photos. I couldn't be any happier. I also traded out the mexican trio for gazebo decorations and Claudia gave me tulle for the posts and the flowers. She also was creative and took the extra chair sashes of mine and tied them around the back posts to add color. Their were two other weddings while I was there and their decorations on the gazebo where not nearly as nice as mine. I trusted Claudia completely and am glad I did.

The wedding was at 4:00 and lasted about 30 min. Juan was hurrying us to get to the lighthouse because he only had about 35 min. left of light. Sunsets were at about 5:15 during this time. Hope that helps.

Here are just a couple. I did figure out how to put some into an album on my profile page also if you want to look at more.

Hi everyone. I got back really late Monday night and a week a go today we were married! Best thing I ever did was to go to Dreams. Everyone (about 30 people) had the best vacation ever and said it was the most beautiful wedding they had ever been too.! Juan is AMAZING! He does this everyday and knows the area better then ANYONE you could bring yourself. I got my album and over 700 pictures on disk for just an additional $300. I loved him and the videagrapher. He did a great job too. Claudia is the best and she is a very busy women. Also her laptop broke last week so might also have something to do with the delay in things. I have stayed in A LOT of all inclusives (been to Cancun over 7 times alone) and Dreams was by far the best service and everything else, food, looks, cleanliness, etc, that I have ever experienced. My wedding and reception were perfect. I will put a more detailed review on this weekend. I had to get right back to work on Tuesday and am still tired. However I do not know now to post some of my beautiful photos so let me know if you can tell me how! Mrs. Shannon Allen 11-11-10 Dreams Bride

I haven't been on here in about a week since I have been crazy busy! We leave a week from Monday and my Wedding is less then two weeks away!! (11-11-10!) Claudia just got back with me on all the last minute things and we even have the total amount due and it was only $30 off of what I had!! I am very proud of myself for being so organized. I have everything done except for a few things. I even am packed for the most part. I had to pack all my gift bags and I decided to put them together first and then pack them. I had to use a very big suitcase and also packed my chair sashes and a few other odds and ends. Oh yeah decided to do the rock ceremony instead of the sand ceremony. I really like the thoughts behind it and I wanted to include all the guests. Just ended up being easier to do. We also decided to still do it legally there, but I did re-write and add a few things to the ceremony to really personalize it and Claudia approved it so I'm psyched. I would post it on here if I could figure that part out. Tonight we are throwing a dinner party for our wedding party since we are not doing a rehearsal dinner. There are only 6 of us total so we are making lobster and steak and going all out for them. I was able to spend more money on gifts for everyone since we kept it small. I figure they are flying to mexico for our wedding the least I can do is buy them cool gifts. Anyways if there are any brides leaving the week of Nov. 8-15th let me know and i will look you up!! Getting excited and I'm not even nervouse. Oh yeah forgot to add thru all this stress I switched jobs. Last Weds. was my last day, I had 2 days off to do wedding stuff and am starting Monday and my new job. I would have waited but I really didn't want to go another two weeks without a paycheck so I negotiated 3 weeks vacation since my new boss wanted me to start asap! Oh well at least when I get back, it won't be so stressfull. It also made me get everything done ahead of time. Have a great weekend everyone!

Jana, you can use an outside vendor but I believe they charge you like a $100 vendor fee. There are ways around this also. I am using someone for just a few things. I do believe there are a lot of brides on here that know more about this and hopefully will reply. Shannon

Okay Dreams Cancun Brides. I have a question and need your thoughts. We get married exactly a month from today and leave 3 weeks from Monday. All along I thought I wanted to legally get married in Mexico because I felt like it was worth it. While trying to write the ceremony I did get Claudia to email me the Judge's script and I'm not crazy about part of it, plus if I want anything extra it's like I have to get permission for it. Also we get there about 1:00 on Monday and get married on Thursday. Claudia did tell me that this was enough time because they can count Monday as a day and the actual wedding day, Thursday as a day so it will be 4 days in advance. We also have 4 guests(family members) that will be able to be our witnesses. Now I'm thinking that between having to schedule the blood tests and all the other legal stuff(plus it costs $660 ) that maybe we should have our minister marry us the day before we leave and then not tell anyone?? I'm not even sure that my FI will go for this but I'm just thinking of practical, plus I can make the ceremony more meaningful. It's just hard for me to think of doing it "legally" because it makes things easier. I'm afraid I would feel like the mexico symbollic wedding would not mean the same thing. Any suggestions?

Jana297, I also was a little bit disapointed in some of the selections. I am going to get my bouquet from the resort because I sent Claudia an example and she said they will do their best to match it, but I found (thru another helpful bride) a local vendor that had better choices and pricing and am using them for my bridesmaids bouquets and the guys bouteniers. it's called " Julieta Fun Unique Weddings" and her email link is: [email protected]. She does a little of everything. Hope this helps!

Tori, I am working on my music right now. I talked to my DJ (I'm paying for them to set up the sound system for the ceremony) and he told me to have it all on a disc. I actually have it pretty detailed. Here is my order so far, I just have a couple questions still on the witness portions of the ceremony, I thought someone said that took up time so if anyhone know if that is after the ceremony or during that would be helpful.1. 3-4 songs while guests are being seated, etc. 2. One song for the seating of the parents. 3. Song my bridesmaids walk in to 4. my processional song, 5.3-4 songs for the Sanc Ceremony or Witness portion if that is in the ceremony 6. Recessional song 7. Then a couple songs to play while guests are walking out. Hope this helps you.