lilboltz10

We got married in December. Dreams really is not too good to be true! I will NEVER EVER forget my first experience at Dreams. We arrived and were wisked away to the Preferred Club which is closer to the beach (entrance is farthest from the beach). We walked past the Gazebo and fell in love in real life (not just the picture we saw on the internet)! We continued to the Preferred Club and by the time we got there we knew we made an excellent choice! A lot of my husband's family members gave us a lot of crap about our wedding choice. He is Greek Orthodox and we were the first of his entire family (and his grandmother is 92!) who have not been married in the Greek Church. He didn't want to go the traditional route and I had no intention of standing in front of 300 people for a 2 hour ceremony! One of his cousins actually wanted to hire PERSONAL SECURITY ESCORTS (I know!!!) to get her through the airport (she ended up not coming, thank god!). I mean, come on! Needless to say, those who attended went home completely in love with PC and the DR (one couple is taking their son there as a graduation gift in a few months). The only negative comments we heard were that the rooms were small but whatever... you pass out in them you don't spend the day indoors! We got engaged in May and the wedding was December (short notice, I know!). The prices were very consistent throughout the booking process. I will say that I booked in June and we got probably the "best deal" but we were also there for 12 days. I would say the average couple leaving from either DC, Philly or NY spent $1,800-$2,000 for 6 nights. We had a travel agent through AAA but I would say most booked through other means -- about 30% booked through AAA. Guests will complain (again... seriously.. an escort??) but if they really want to go to your wedding they will attend. If they don't want to go don't worry about it.

Stacy, My husband and I decided on Dreams because we liked the Gazebo at Dreams. We got married in English by the DR Catholic Priest. Another option is to have Rick York, a pastor in the DR, perform the ceremony. He speaks English and a lot of brides love him. We also felt that Dreams was priced very well for our guests. Many guests stayed for 5 or 6 nights at $800-$900 a person including airfare (leaving from Washington DC, Philly or NY). So we decided to take a leap of faith and just book and make the best of it -- definitely was a great decision and our guests all loved the resort (we had 60+ guests so it was quite a feat!)

Jessica, We got the map on ebay. We just put in "dominican republic map" and it came up!

ErikaB - We used Michael Weiler -- send me an PM and I'll send you a link to our pictures. I HIGHLY recommend him. http://www.caribbeanemotions.com/

Shelly, We did the TTD session and we brought out outfits home and the local dry cleaner got everything out! Actually, it was just sand, really. I'd HIGHLY recommend the TTD -- our pics are unbelievable!!!!!!! Although our photog was quite amazing, too!! (P.S. I used my wedding dress for the TTD)

Hey guys -- I sent Carolina (my WC) a picture of the second cake and asked her if the baker can do it ... the first picture is the actual cake from the wedding. We ordered the starfish online from Cakes By Sam -- they are fondant so edible -- and brought them down with us. No one really paid attention to the cake until it was time to leave the reception a TON of the guests put their fingers in the icing! It was definitely delicious though. My husband and I only had the tiny bit of cake that we put into each other's mouth because we wanted to get back to dancing. Actual -- Inspiration --

The flutes came in a box with Styrofoam so we just brought the whole package down -- flutes in Styrofoam inside little box they came in.

I sent you a PM.

Our wedding was Dec 3, 2010 and we received our marriage certificate around 4 weeks after our wedding. I used our "certificate" for everything though -- social security card, passport, driver's license, mortgage documents. We had a Catholic ceremony so I am not sure if the civil ceremonies receive a certificate right then and there.

I did not use the resort photographer but I would definitely book it with the WC now. You'd rather be safe than sorry when you show up and he's not available.

Michael Weiler -- he was amazing!!! Many of our guests have complimented us on our pics -- saying that they are the best wedding pics they have ever seen! I would 100% recommend him!!!

I used Microsoft Publisher to make all of the templates.

We had 60 or so guests which equated to 36 buckets (couples get 1, singles get 1). We had 6 checked bags that all collapsed into each other so we sent 2 bags (4 bags collapsed into 2) with a friend and sister-in-law and the last 2 went with us to Saint Martin for our honeymoon! The buckets were actually not that bad -- the cameras were much harder to fit into bags. We have a 29inch luggage piece that fit 80% of the OOT bag contents.

Hey ladies! I finally finished my planning journal -- http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/thread/68338/sarah-s-planning-journal-dreams-punta-cana-pic-heavy Enjoy!!!

Our wedding cake inspiration – we ordered the fondant seashells and starfish from Cakes by Sam for roughly $100 which will be more than enough! The packaging they came in is incredible and we carried the fondant pieces onto the plane instead of checking them. We opted to forego having the people for our cake and the sand is brown sugar. Actual... The heart-shaped object (center-bottom) was supposed to be our cake topper but, oops! we gave it to the baker too late (oh well)! (we left the packaging on during transport to prevent scratching – I do not recall where we ordered them from though). Garter – My husband loves the Redskins but I am a die-hard Eagles fan so I got both (ordered from Ebay) – he took off the Eagles one first and nearly died until I told him there was a second garter – then he was happy! I found the champagne flutes at the Lenox outlet. I fell in love with them and they were on sale for $15 (I thought they were $50 when I went to the register to pay so I was pleasantly surprised). One small tidbit – greet your guests upon arrival at the resort. We had 60 guests and we greeted every single one of them with champagne. I am telling you, everyone commented on how they were impressed with us greeting them! They loved it! I will admit that it was a pain in the rear to get everyone’s travel schedules but the TA helped with that (she had everything in Excel) and we e-mailed the guest who booked outside of the TA and requested travel information. Everyone arrived between 2pm and 5pm so we just parked ourselves at the Lobby Bar and for the afternoon and drank while we waited. We arrived on Sunday and guests arrived Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so four afternoons were spent in the lobby. We went out of our way to make sure our guests felt special and who wouldn’t want a nice glass of champagne after they arrive to their destination – especially since it was an island filled with palm trees and beautiful weather? I hope you enjoyed my journal – If you are still counting down the days to your date – don’t stress out – when you are there nothing matters! I had not a care in the world! I was getting married in the Caribbean with family and friends… the weather was beautiful and everything was perfect!!!