Sheena2011

They normally don't contact you until about 2-3 months before the wedding. They have up to three weddings a day, every day, so they focus on the weddings that are coming up first.

We had a mic (it came with the sound system which I had for music), and with waves nd a bit of wind, i'm glad we had it. Our officiant spoke English and had no problems with the ceremony. I'm not sure how much you can modify the legal ceremony though - We had symbolic which allowed us to say exactly what we wanted.

We didn't bother with a rehearsal. I wrote the entire ceremony myself, and we only had a maid of honor and a best man, and they knew what they had to do (walk a straight line, hold bouquet, don't lose rings). If you have a bigger wedding party or are planning a long ceremony with lots of readings, the rehearsal might be a good idea though. We opted for welcome dinner instead. We held it a the World cafe buffet. It is the only place that doesn't charge extra for a group dinner.

We paid an extra $15 per person for the extra hour.

We instructed supper to move along at a good pace. Maybe just over an hour? We did our first dance at the beginning of the reception, ate, then had 5 super snooper quick speeches during desert. Then we did father daughter dance, mother son dance, cake cutting. I would say all that plus supper was just over 90-100 minutes. We were less stressed because we added an extra hour to the reception.

It didn't have a bar set up per say. We were on the beach next to the Seaside Grill, and we had two wonderful dedicated waiters that fetched any drinks we wanted from the Grill for us. That being said, most of us stuck with wine through supper - and glasses never got empty, so before you realized, you had four glasses gone. But no one had to run off and get anything. Did I mention the end of night cheeseburgers they got us? They earned every bit of the tip we gave them. Our timeline ( for November) was a 4 pm ceremony, followed immediately by a big group shot and family pics. Everyone minus us and the moh and bm headed off to cocktail hour for 5 pm, while we did pictures. Supper started at 6:30 and everything ended around 10:30. We paid for one extra hour, as normally it's a 3 hr reception. 4 pm was the latest reception time offered at that of year, and I believe they time them based on the sunset times. It was dark for us by 6:30. All the photographers would probably recommend the latest ceremony time you can get to get that magical 30 minute window of sunset. It's also great to keep costs down, since there's no down time after the ceremony before supper. I loved the sand myself. Some people might not like it, but I really felt like it added to the experience. The setup staff groom everything, so we didn't have any issues with large rocks or anything like that. Also heads up on the Tiffany chairs. If you want them for the ceremony and the reception, they charge you twice. Hence why I had them for the ceremony only. Not sure if you have your photographer booked, but La Luna is a bit less expensive than Del Sol, and they have beautiful work. That's where we blew a bunch, but it was worth every penny! Our bm asked if we were planning a 1 year reunion trip.....I wish!

If it is movie or football game night, the screen is set up smack in between the two pools. But 50 people might be pushing it for the Dolphin pool... Best chance is to ask the coordinator if there's enough room, but the Dolphin pool would be the one to pick if it's big enough.

Not sure. We didn't have a dj, we just used the sound system. The normally charge a bunch if you want the dance floor though. We did the Dreams of Love package (18 people,so no extra charges for additional people) and paid extra for the following: Arch setup (I brought material) Chiavari chairs for ceremony only Paper lantern set-up Misc setup (menu cards, favors, guest book, etc) Extend reception by 1 hour Vendor fee for Del Sol Photography Sound system for ceremony and reception It totally can add up! But then I think of how awesome the day was and don't regret a penny. Best part? My husband, after dancing for a few hours, got hungry. I got one of the waiters to get him fries and a bacon cheeseburger. Everyone took one look at him and we all ordered one. The last thing you'll be thinking of is "I wish I had saved that $150 and set up the paper lanterns myself". You'll be thinking "this is the best wedding EVER. We should go jump in the pool."

I was doing everything myself. Then I got there and stop stressing about everything. At that point $200 bucks was well worth it to not deal with anything. That and my husband told me to stop being so cheap and go to the spa instead. Best idea he ever had.

Unfortunately, that's how all the resorts operate. When it came down to it, I didn't want anyone to lift a finger (including me) and just paid the extra. I'm glad I did, and it was still much cheaper than a wedding at home. Please don't feel like its just Dreams that has all the extra charges - they all do, and you made a great decision to go with them. Their packages are still really great - a lot of resorts charge a small fortune to be able to just have a private reception, and that included in two of their packages.

We've been married for 8 months and I'm still waiting on that proposal! We had been together 9 years and one day I just said "So what's the hold up?" to which he responded "You. Tell me what you want to do and we'll do it." I had himmed and hawed on a wedding for years, but said very promptly "You, me, beach, done." It was booked three days later. We went shopping for the ring with his parents on vacation in Florida (He said "I suppose I have to get you a ring now that we put down deposits?") and he gave it to me on the beach in Florida with the words all girls want to hear: "Your ring's in my backpack if you want to go get it." Ah, the romance. The mothers just lie and tell everyone that he dropped down on one knee on the beach and proposed. It makes them feel better.

We did Vitamin String Quartet's version of Yellow by Coldplay. Their music is beautiful. And, for the groom, we used their music for dinner as well - Metallica never sounded classier!

Yes, the will all give you their price list if you contact them directly. Almost none post their prices online. Keep in mind that most charge by the hour, so if your ceremony is at noon, with a reception at 6, you will paying for a lot more hours. Most will tell you to get a later ceremony time to not only cut down on costs, but to get the best light for pictures.

I don't even remember where online I ordered mine from - Paper Lantern shop maybe? About $50 for 26, including shipping. I ordered LED lights from eBay (100 for about $10) and then 100 watch batteries for $10, also from eBay. I bought a box of binder clips at Staples to hold everything together, handed it over to Anabel and she assembled everything - she knew exactly what I had and said she'd done it many times before. They do charge a flat rate of $150 to set up the lanterns, but to not have to do it myself was GREAT. The ones with the lights already in them are much easier to set up, but are also more expensive. It's a trade off.

We had 26 paper lanterns - could have use a few more, but mine weren't huge. I probably would have picked up another half a dozen if I had my time back.

The resort does charge to put on the chair sashes, decorations, etc. and it can get a bit more expensive than you prepare yourself for. It's all in the planning guide that they send out a few months before hand, clearly broken out. Depending on the wedding schedule for the day, the coordinator might also really try to dissuade you from setting things up. If there are 3 weddings on your day, there is pretty quick turnaround window - so they don't like non-hotel staff doing decorations and set up because it could potentially interfere with someone else's wedding. However, if you are lucky to have the day to yourself, I'm sure they are much more accomodating with doing decor set up yourself. Just keep in mind that this is your special day - and running around setting up chair covers, table clothes, etc, might add stress to your day. Personally, I was going to see what I could do myself to save some money, but I realized - I wanted to go the beach and go the spa with my girlfriends, not worry about setting up the decorations in between getting my hair done and putting on my dress. I handed them over to Anabel and paid the few hundred dollars for everything to be set up, and for me (normally stressed out), it was worth every last penny to not have to worry about it.

There's more than 1 ballroom.

The chapel courtyard is right next to one of the bars. No food, but drinks and chairs.

They might let you do that. We didn't have a video, so I'm not sure how flexible Il Gruppo is. I know that some brides last year had issues though with having both the resort photographer and an outside phtoographer at the wedding at the same time - they were in each other's way. Il Gruppo was really flexible with me, and said they would take pictures for any time the week we were there. We picked our welcome dinner, and figured that if we got some nice ones, it was a bonus.

I'm really suprised. Anabel let me have the Gold menu last November, no problem, and I had the Dreams of Love package. Tiffany chairs at $7 each - but they charge you twice if you want them for the ceremony and the reception.

We used them just for our rehersal dinner, and I found that anyone with a DSLR camera could have taken the exact same pictures, if not better. I found them really heavy on the posing - "please put your hand on her shoulder", "please touch your noses" etc, which I couldn't stand. Since I didn't use them for the wedding, I'm really not sure of the quality of their wedding pictures, but I know they have a website http://www.ilgruppodigitale.com/ that has some sample wedding albums on it so you can get a better idea if you like them or not.

Matt, those first few pictures look really familiar..... The pool reception areas are sheltered by a few palm trees - that's pretty much it. The beach reception area has a few palm trees as well, but it's a bit more open. We got lucky and there was next to no wind on the night we got married - but there were other nights that would have been challenging. We walked down the aisle to "Yellow" by Coldplay, but it was done by the Vitamin String Quartet. They have a huge catalogue of songs to chose from, all pop or rock songs but done to strings. We turned it into a big of a supper game - who can guess the song? The husband picked all the music we played over supper and is one of the few that can say he got Metallica, Gun s Roses, etc played at his wedding. All to strings and the parents were none the wiser (they just thought it was lovely instrumnetal music), but the boys thought it was awesome. As for the food - here's a hint. We had the Dreams of Love package, but did not have to stick to the Dreams of Love menu. We ordered off the Ultimate menu (oh the filet was so good). We did not have to pay extra for this - but if we went over the 20 people, we would have had to pay the ultimate price for each extra person (which was about $10 more than the Dreams of Love price per person). And yes - the tres leche cake is pretty darn good. Highly recommended. We just brought menus, paper lanterns and white fabric for the arch. I had the resort do centrepieces to match my bouquet. I think you can see them in the slideshow attached to my resort review.

Wow! And that is exactly why people want small weddings and don't want to invite every person in their hometown. :-) I got guilt tripped a lot about my grandmother not being able to come - by everyone except my grnadmother, who bless her heart, told me to ignore everyone else, do what I wanted and have a great time.

We found a really nice coffee table book with beautiful pictures of Mexican architecture and homes. We had everyone sign the inside cover. Now we can keep it out all the time and it doesn't look "wedding-y."

We got the hometown as well too. Well. which town would you like me to pick? The one where I grew up but haven't lived in in 12 years (and didn't like it when I was there and everyone but 6 people would all have to travel anyway)? The one where my husband grew up (that I don't like, and all but 6 people would have to travel)? The town where we met and went to university (and all but 10 people would have to travel) or where we live now (you know the drill). There was no where to go that would please everyone - I know, I spent about a year trying to convince myself that one of the options above would make me happy. But frankly, I work all week long and I didn't feel like turning planning a wedding into job #2. Ah yes, the ring question. Still makes me chuckle.