Adfaircloth06

We returned from our wedding / honeymoon on 11/13/11 and the entire experience was totally awesome!!! I can't say enough about how awesome the service was all over the resort. I'll try to write a full review later but wanted to come on and reaffirm that you all have totally made the right choice choosing this place. Hubs and I were so happy and relaxed the entire time there. Cecelia also rocks so no worries about late emails, she'll totally make your day special. Also ideeli.com has bridal looking shoes for sale today and you guys should totally check it out if you haven't found your perfect shoes yet. They have Badgley Mischka's starting at like 49.99!!! If you're not already an ideeli member here's a link to join http://www.ideeli.com/invite/adfaircloth06 and here's the link to the Stiletto sale http://www.ideeli.com/events/66158/latest_view. I'm super jealous cause I totally paid like $200 for the same shoes.

OMG! Leaving for the airport in about an hour. Am super excited. Our wedding date is Sunday!! Woohoo!!! Couldn't go to sleep tonight and now it's too late to try LOL. I keep running through my check list for the 100th time to verify I haven't forgotten anything. Now just crossing my fingers for no rain

It's my understanding the resort provides transportation to and from the airport. We booked our trip and our guests land packages through a travel agent (our guests booked air travel on their own). The travel agent told us there was no extra cost for airport transfers unless you want a private transfer. However, you may want to keep in mind and tell your guests too that on departure the transfer is probably going to be 3 - 4 hours before your flight. So if you have a 10 am flight departing from Cancun, be prepared to catch the shuttle anytime between 5 am - 7 am from the hotel. Again this information is coming from our travel agent. If you're not using a travel agent you may want to get your guests itinerary's for when they're arriving and departing from the airport and send it to Cecelia and see if she can arrange the transfers. We're just sending all flight info to our travel agent and she is coordinating that info with SMB. Hope that helps!

Thanks so much for the information. I calmed down a little bit I think. So exciting October 28th is so close. You should have such a great time with 29 people. That's wonderful. Hope everything goes exactly the way you want!!! I think I"ve just about figured out how I want the tables and decorations and things to look. Been sending crazy and probably mostly incoherent emails to Cecelia for the past week or so. So I think I'm just about ready to write up my checklist including the prices for extra things. Now I'm just trying to decide if 40 days is too soon to try to order and mail my OOT bags We have 14 people coming for ours and just can't wait!!!!

Our November 6 wedding date is quickly approaching and I hoped some of you who have already been married could give me some input on the following things. Did anyone get to sample the menu before deciding on your final menu choices? Did anyone buy an upgraded cake choice and if so, did you get a chance to taste or was it the same cake flavor just a prettier version? If you had a DJ who did you chose and were you able to send a list of songs to them prior to the wedding. We only have about 15 people coming with us so I don't think we can do the beach bonfire with dinner. So we were thinking of doing the canapes. Did anyone else chose this option? Were the canapes filling or would you suggest booking dinner somewhere first and then just meeting up on the beach for drink and the bonfire. I think previous reviewers said they had time to pick flowers, etc upon arrival am I remembering correctly? That's all I can think of for now. Getting nervous and excited!

I'm definitely using an outside photographer. I'm going with Sascha Gluck! We're super excited. Everything I've read about their onsite photographer is that the pictures included in the package are the pictures he choses. And the photographer purposefully does not give you the best photographs because they want to charge additional $$ for you to purchase a CD with all the photos. If you're going to use they're photographer I'd just do a bit more research. Perhaps the onsite photog isn't doing that anymore. I booked Sascha back in February I think for our 11/2011 wedding and haven't looked back at the others since We're going to use a DJ recommended by the resort. Just haven't gotten around to booking it yet. That's my goal for this week! Good luck!!!

Our guests are only staying for 3 days and our agent got a group land rate through the resort. Each guest is then booking their airfare separately, but we have guests flying in from all over the country. Originally because we booked more than a year out we were given the standard rate, we're getting married November 2011 and we reserved a block of rooms October 2010. However the travel agent said she would periodically check for the special rates and sure enough in March she contacted us to say the land rate had gone down by about $75.00 per person per night and she had locked all our guests in at the lower rate. If you're expecting a large group the good thing about doing a group rate is that for every 5 rooms with double occupancy booked you get the 6th room free. You can then choose to give that room to a family member or redistribute the cost of that room to the rest of the group. If you distribute it to the group this ultimately would mean an addtional 10% or so discount for each person, depending on the actual number of rooms you book. We did not try to price out booking a separate package including airfare for each guest just because it was turning into a logistical nightmare and this was the easiest way to do it. Some of our guests were just not financially ready to pay for the entire flight once they became available which would be required in booking a package deal. So we advised our guests if they would like to stay longer than the block of rooms we reserved they could meet with our travel agent separate to hash out the details. If you're more than a year out in your planning like we were, it will be very difficult to estimate flight packages it seems too since my understanding was that flights only become available within 11 months of the current date. We tried to use 11/2010 flights as an estimate in our pricing and flights when we actually booked in Feb for 11/2011 were actually about $150.00 more expensive per person than we thought they would be.

So can anyone who has already been married here comment on the food quality, especially for the reception? I hadn't really given a thought to what the reception food may taste like. The cake in the pictures doesn't look very appetizing, but I don't really care a lot about that. But I want to make sure I'm not expecting too much from the food, after all this is an all-inclusive. Also can anyone comment on alcohol service during the cocktail hour and reception. We booked the gold dinner plan I think. Is there a full bar available throughout both, or is the dinner wine only?? It also looks like the menu options have changed since we originally confirmed our wedding dates last year. We're not getting married until November of this year so I guess I shouldn't try to decide anything in case the menu changes again?? Thoughts? I'm meeting with our travel agent again tomorrow and want to make sure I firm up any other Cecelia questions I may have. For those who were married at the gazebo, was the ceremony private enough for you or were there lots of onlookers? What was the atmosphere. Thus ends my barrage of questions for the week.

Super cool! We're going to be legally married at home and then just a ceremonial wedding at the resort. We're doing the ultimate wedding package and have maybe 20 - 25 guests. Other than that we're going to wait until June or so to iron out the rest of the details with Cecelia. Quote: Originally Posted by dreamchaser Thanks! My bday is November 7! We are getting married on the 18th. What type of ceremony are you doing?

Hey dreamchaser! I'm getting married November 6th! We're super excited although I have been particularly lazy with the planning recently.

Cheerleader your wedding pics are stunning! We're also from NC and are getting married at Secrets Maroma November of next year. Would you mind sharing information on how you thought the cost of flying your own photographer there was compared to hiring a local? Was this purely an budgetary decision or did you just love this particular photog? We're trying to pick our photographer by the end of the year and would love any information you could share that may be helpful. Thanks! Amanda

tequila filled chocolates are an awesome idea!!! You think they'd sell those at the airport when we get there. Because I have no idea where I'd find those here in NC. Cheerleader1975 we're getting married nov 06 of next year!! We're super excited. So I obviously think you have an awesome date.

Congrats Sarah!! We're also doing SMB but in November of next year. I'm so excited for you and would love some feedback on November weather once you get back.

We sent a request yesterday to book 11/04/2011!!! Which is so crazy to me, it seems like a lifetime away. But we are both soooooo excited and can't wait. I've been stressing the past few weeks about choosing a resort and am so excited that we finally chose SMB. I love the pictures online and I can't believe I have read every frickin 54 pages of this post For now I am done with the planning and I don't want to look at reception/ceremony locations or anything else until at least December. I'm really looking forward to this being a stress free and easy process since most of the details will be out of my hands. So for now I'm just another "lurker".

Hi! I'm also looking at booking Secrets Maroma for either June or Novermber we're so very excited and still in the early stages. However I found the reviews on this board very helpful. We are going to definitely book an outside photographer after reading some of the reviews. What really sold me was the posts about the quality of pictures and how the best pictures do not get included in your album because the photographer wants to sell you a separate DVD with all the pictures included. Â We're going to book the ultimate package...again I think and see if we can substitute the PA system for the wedding instead of the photographer and if there's a remaining credit, then apply it towards the DJ. The forums have been a bit inconsistent about whether they allow substitutions but it can't hurt to try. Â We're also working on the theory that our whole reason for having a DW was so that it would be less stressful. So we're going to wait until a few months out to do most of the small details like flowers, food and music. Â Anywho, Congrats!!!! And keep posting any helpful information and I plan to do the same. If I can track down those reviews again I'll post them here because they were most helpful to me.