MrsKellyToBe

Hi ladies, I haven't been on here for awhile and thought I'd check in. I'm heading to the resort one week from today for our destination wedding! Sooooo excited I'm not sure what package you have booked, but we have the caprice and it includes the coordinator setting things up for us. We're having our legal ceremony at the San Jose Gazebo, our rehearsal at the steakhouse and our wedding reception at the mexican restaurant. We have 68 people so we had to move our dinner from the terrace to inside the restaurant, but we're going to have our first dance, etc. all outside on the terrace. Adriana knows I have decorations, starfish namecards, table numbers, etc. to set up. We did have to pay to rent the soundsystem to work both inside and outside as well as to use the ipod dock, but it only cost something like $155, so it's no biggie. Just bring enough money to tip the coordinator for setting up your decor and that is all you'll have to worry about in terms of setup cost (well, if you have paid for a wedding package like the caprice, I can't guarantee for the other packages or if you're not getting a package at all). By the way - I read someone said they went with the steakhouse for the reception instead of mexican because of the food. Just so you know, the menu we chose for our mexican restaurant reception includes a shrimp option, a beef filet option, as well as a burrito option, so you can still get steak there. Both restaurants are beautiful, so I'm sure you'll be more than happy either way! I also want to point out that the birth certificates you get translated and apostilled are not the regular card-size ones we all have. You have to use the long form birth certificates which are on a piece of paper that is longer than regular letter or legal size paper. This takes time, so I want to make sure you get the correct copies of your birth certificates. Our parents didn't have long form copies for us, so we had to order new copies of them online from our government. Adriana is the 4th coordinator we've worked with since booking our wedding a year ago, and she is the best of all of them, so be grateful you get to work with her. Some of the old coordinators took over 2 weeks to reply to emails, whereas Adriana responds within a day or 2, which is amazing. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask me. We have everything booked and organized (seeing as we leave in 7 days), so I should be able to answer most of your questions. I'll also write a post-wedding update on how things went at the resort, as I wish there were more of such posts for me to read for comfort and knowledge! Take care, Katie

Hi Mason79, Hmmm, have you been emailing Kaiulani at [email protected]?... if you're not getting any response, you can try Monserrat at [email protected]. Monserrat used to be the wedding coordinator and she still works there, just in a different position. Perhaps she can give Kaiulani a nudge for you. But if you haven't tried Kaiulani yet, try her first since she is supposed to be your point of contact. Good luck!

Gorgeous pictures! Congratulations

Hi Nicole, Congratulations and welcome! There is an option to get married on the beach at Riu Palace and the onsite coordinator, Kailuani, can email you pictures of the places you can get married so you can take a look. The beach is supposed to be a bit rocky, but I'm sure they've figured something out for weddings that take place on the beach. We're only going for 7 days because the all-inclusive carrier only flies between Toronto and Cabo once a week. We wanted to do 10 days, but our only other option was to fly to Cabo on a separate plane from our 70 guests, so we didn't want to do that. We were lucky to have enough people attending that my fiance and I both got our trips for free. The group rate we got for everyone for the last week of April 2011 is $1698, which is quite good. I had gotten quotes from a handful of agencies and some wanted to charge over $2000! I didn't send out save the dates, but my fi and I called all of our close family and friends (or saw them in person) to explain our decision to get married away and let them know we'd love it if they could join us. We booked shortly thereafter and didn't have time for STDs, so we sent an online invitation (I don't mean an evite, but from our personal email with a nice message and an attached invitation that I had made with our picture, links to the resort, excursions, etc.). Then, one month before trip balances were due, we mailed out thank you post cards with our photo on it, enclosed a Riu Palace brochure, as well as a fake boarding pass that also noted the day that balances would be charged. For makeup, I'll be going to MAC and paying $150 to get a lesson where they'll do a paint-by-numbers sort of thing on a face on a piece of paper, so I can take it with me and follow it for the wedding. I'm pretty good at doing makeup, so I'm happy to do my own. For hair, I'm lucky, my best friend and MOH owns her own salon, so she'll be doing my hair for me. However, if you read through the forums, past brides have raved about getting their makeup done at a place just off the resort... I can't remember the name or else I'd tell you! But I'm sure you'll stumble across it. Lots of brides seem to get their hair done at the resort and have been happy with it, so that would be a good option. I'm going to get my hair done there another day on the trip (since it is included in the wedding package), so I can write a review on the hair salon in May if you like. You'll figure everything out, so have fun with the planning and try not to freak out! LOL. We all have our moments

Kaiulani's email address is as follows: [email protected] Time sure is flying by and with Christmas coming up, it will really be here before you know it!

I don't blame you! However, I emailed Paola (the person I was first in contact with when booking the wedding) and told her Kaiulani has not been returning my emails and that our whole forum is filled with fellow brides complaining about the same thing, and she responded apologizing and saying she'd look into it and make sure I got my replies. So, hopefully she'll get on Kaiulani... if you don't get a reply by tomorrow, try emailing the person that you booked your wedding date with! Hope this helps! Katie

Hi fellow RP brides, I was coming on to write a similar question as well. Monse was AMAZING but now she is gone. I've sent/forwarded 3 emails to Kaiulani (I believe that is her name) over the past 2.5 weeks and haven't received a response. I have only ever received one email reply from her when she first started. She is making me very frustrated. I miss Monse

Those cups are a great idea! Another option is to do coffee mug type glasses that act somewhat like a thermos to keep the drinks cold. We did that for my mom's destination wedding a couple years back and they were also a hit. However, I really like how your cups can be customized! I want the purple ones Nice find!

Ladies, I had the most exciting thing ever happen to me this week! I got a call that I was one of 2 finalists in a Wedding Bells contest. There were 7,611 entrants and my name was one of the two drawn! We had to go head to head in a cake dive to see who would win a $35k wedding! So funny to watch:  http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/entertainment/local/article/93554--how-far-would-you-go-for-a-35-000-wedding-two-brides-fight-over-cake  Now, instead of a a low-key cocktail reception upon our return, we'll be having an amazing full wedding reception My luck definitely peaked yesterday LOL.  Just wanted to share my excitement with you!!  Have a great weekend, Katie

I love how much our group has grown! Â

Amazing, thanks so much!

Oooh I am so happy to hear you still sign papers at the symbolic ceremony... thank you for sharing Have you spoken with the coordinator to make sure the officiant says the same things they would in a legal ceremony? I realize I sound extremely paranoid, but.. well, I guess I kind of am, but it is because my fiance threw me for a loop when he said he might want to change from a legal ceremony!

Hi ladies! Â We'll be doing the same thing, and I'll either stay with my MOH or he'll stay with his BM the night before the wedding. Then we'll be hanging out at different pools on the morning of the wedding day... Â We're currently registered to get legally married in Cabo but my fiance kind of wants to change things and do the legal part here. My concern is that everyone that has booked the trip has done so thinking that we're officially getting married in Cabo and I don't want them to be upset if they find out we're doing a symbolic ceremony. Are you telling your guests that you're married already or are you keeping it to yourselves? If you're keeping it to yourselves, do you know if you still sign papers or anything like that for a symbolic ceremony, to make it look like a legal ceremony? Finally, are you having your legal wedding at city hall with just parents, or how are you handling that aspect? Â Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feedback on how you'll be handling your symbolic and legal ceremonies... I appreciate it. Â Aside from that, planning is going well. We now have all the bm dresses, groomsmen outfits and mothers dresses, and yesterday I ordered our "thank you for booking" postcards that we'll be mailing out to our booked guests, along with fake boarding passes (with each person's name and noting the payment balance deadline) and the Riu Palace pdf that we're printing out from the website. Â How is everyone else's plans coming along? Updates?! Â

Hi ClairW, Â A long time ago I tried emailing that address too and I NEVER received a response. So, I went through the resort wedding coordinator and asked her to pass on my questions to the appropriate person. Someone then got in touch with me and helped me with my general inquiries. I'd suggest you take a similar to approach! Â Best of luck, Katie

Haha I totally went MIA, so sorry! It's nice to see so many other Riu brides have joined in on the fun! Â We're having a private reception at the Mexican Restaurant and I didn't know that we were allowed to offer set menus instead of the regular menu. I'd want to see the menu in advance if I were to narrow it down to a set menu... I wonder if they'll send a copy to us? Â My wedding is at 5 and I plan to hold a cocktail session between the photos and the reception. I'd like it to start at some point while we're doing our photos, so people don't have to wander around on their own for too long... I haven't looked into this at all yet, but I would like to ask Monse about my options soon. Â "gettingmarried" - I would LOVE to hear more about your wedding and the week at Riu Palace. I'm so glad things went smoothly for you and that Monse pulled through. Monse has been excellent so far, so I'm not surprised, but it is still very reassuring to hear you say this! Â I'm not doing a TTD session since I'll be wearing my dress again at my post-wedding reception. But, I do love those pictures! Â I'm not going to the resort before the wedding, but I'm not kidding when I say I have 9 people coming to my wedding who have been at Riu Palace Cabo within the past 2 years - 4 people who have been at the resort for a wedding before, and 7 people who stayed at the resort for a vacation last year (and at different times of year). I've also run into 3 people who have been to a wedding there and everyone just loves it (it has been so weird, people ask where I'm getting married and then they tell me "my daughter got married there!", etc. I find it so strange because I had never even heard of it before finding it in my destination search!). Anyways, my point is that every single person has raved about Riu Palace, so we feel confident in our choice to go there. Â I'm sure all of our weddings will be magical and the whole week will be a blast Â