trivera5521

Thanks Reign!

A few questions:

• Can you share a pic of Bar Higuey during your reception, with table settings? I love your colors...curious how they all came together on the table. My colors were orange and Aqua 2 on the color sash which is pretty much turquouse (Malibu at Davids Bridal was an exact match!) They came together perfectly and I was very pleased. We opted to use the orange during the beach ceremony as the primary since the BM were in the blue dresses and then switched it for the reception and used the turqouise as the primary since my centerpieces were orange. I'm still waiting for the pictures from the photographer as the ones the guests took just didnt capture the reception and the table settings. I will FB stalk and see if I can find some. Same thing for the cocktail hour.
• I see you had your ceremony on the beach. I think I want the same thing (going back and forth b/w beach and rooftop) even though some are saying it's not very private. Question....did you say your cocktail reception was on the beach too? I hadn't heard of that. Was it a good location? Can you share a pic? If we do the beach ceremony I was thinking of doing the rooftop reception. But if the beach is a good option I'll consider it. Girl let me tell you if I could do it all over again I would do it exactly as I did it. The onlookers didnt bother us one bit and everyone was very respectful and no one photo bombed or anything. My cocktail hour was on the beach as well, literally sand and all. It was perfect. No one had to move and the chairs from the ceremony were set up already so I didnt have to pay extra for chairs. They passed alcoholic and non alcoholic tropical drinks with pineapple slices and we had the 4 choices of apps, chicken skewers, something with yucca and I cant recall the other 2 since we were doing pics so unforntaltey we didnt try anything. Everyone loved it! The rooftop is beautiful but honestly its soooo hot up there, no shade at all. Although the ceremony is late afternoon its still really hot and the ocean had such an amazing breeze  that it was so refreshing. Definetly cooled the guests down so much so that no one complained. My apologies for anyone who is considering this but the only spot I wouldnt have the ceremony is the beach gazebo. Its dead smack in the middle of the pool area. Since its circular every angle will have someone in the pictures. As opposed to the beach ceremony your backdrop is the beautiful ocean.
• Is that the caprese salad in the picture? Looks great! What was your dessert? Trying to decide b/w the creme brulee and chocolate forest cake (or whatever its called). Yes! The Caprese Salad and it was amazing! The shell was made of a like a parmesan cheese thing, just delish! We did the creme Brulee, I cant speak on it as I didnt try it but with that said no one complained about it either.

   

   

So I have Susana as my WC, and have heard she will not be there....so did the things you reserved/discussed with Susana take any like showing of emails, records keeping to have Marlene agree? I would say that 95% of the things I discussed with Susana, Marlene knew about. Such as selections of cakes and stuff like that. I didnt have anything out of the ordinary. The only thing that was not honored was the cost of the second chair sash. I would say to have readily available your email chains. Marlene has been monitoring all the emails so it appears shes on it.

Would you say the Lobby Bar is a good and fun place to meet up for the first night just to welcome everyone? Is there food there (snacks)? The lobby bar (Bar Carey) is a beautiful bar with a nice white piano in the center.  It however does not have food/snacks. If your looking for a nice spot to meet that has food I would suggest Strikers. Its a 24 hour sports bar that has a full bar and serves buffett food, wings, pizza, salad bar, ribs, fries, etc. We had our welcome party here since it was the only place that served alcohol and food and could accomodate our group of 45 for no additional fee. Additionally, they have pool tables and a huge theatre type screen with leather seats that plays the games in a back area. It worked out perfectly. I arrived early and had the waitress pull some tables together for us and just held down the spot until everyone arrived. It also has outdoor seating, not a big area but its available. Its located directly across from the casino/night club.

Did you ever eat at Hoya 19? We tried to have lunch here but the wait was always atleast 20 minutes. Its a really nice ala carte restaurant that overlooks the golf course. Its located about 5 minutes from the main area.  We did however have breakfast here and the service sucked! It took entirely too long for us to get our food.

Did you guys do any excursions? Anything fun on resort that shouldnt be missed? We did a speedboat and snorkeling excursion. Awesome! It was alot of fun and the snorkeling was amazing! We even saw a baracuda...dont think I hauled ass that fast in all my life LOL. We also took the lil kids to the Manati Zoo, was also an excursion. They had a dolphin and sea lion show, with a few other animal shows. I wasnt impressed. The pool area for the shows seemed run down and they didnt have animals that I would expect in a zoo. Mostly birds and reptiles, nothing exotic and nothing big like elephants, lions, giraffes. It was definetly no Bronx Zoo thats for sure LOL. They have the dance lessons on the beach everyday at 4:00 which is nice, as well as water polo, volleyball stuff like that. We also utilized the free Kyacks and those pedal boat things. They have a big calendar of activities in the main lobby that lists everything they have going on. I will upload that pic tonight. The shows in the theatre are quite entertaining, of course some better than others but its everynight at 10:00 nice thing to do.

For the day of and decorating, do you leave it completely to them and dont have any family or yourself helping decorate anywhere? Just want to make sure I am where I need to be. The day of I did nothing in terms of decorating nor did anyone in my family. I went the day before and did another run down of what I wanted and where I wanted everything. As well as filled up the centerpieces. Ramona took pictures of everything and I left that day feeling confident they knew what I wanted. I really wanted to keep the wedding day to myself and not burden fam/friends with tasks although they were willing. It all worked out.

Did you guys get vouchers upon checking in? I see online where you can get coupons for the spa/waterpark etc, but my TA wont confirm it. Upon checking in every room is given a coupon book. This contains the vouchers to just about everything, water park, spa, golf, upgrades, etc. Just FYI the internet cost is $12 a day and you can have up to 2 users on it. They also offer it in 15 minute incraments, ie: 15 minutes for $3 and so on. Guest services has computers that you can use if you dont have access on your phones. And if your in a jam you can also print things here. The golf was rather expensive, although it says a free round with every room. They dont say that each person has to rent the cart for $40 and the clubs for $40 so it averages about $80 pp for a round of golf which was steep. The course is beautiful and well kept. Oh and in terms of the water park for the kids, there is the one you pay for (Pirate park) $10 per day with voucher but there is also 2 others that are free. Served its purpose and the kids didnt know any difference.

We have the DJ with the MC as well, and I know you missed most of your reception (SUCKS!) but from a few past reviews it sounded like the reception was basically just dinner, toasts and a dance...I was hoping to have like two hours of dancing...and it sound slike your party was able to do that...did you opt out of things like father-daughter dance and toasts or was it just more organized with the MC so faster? We did entrances for us and the entire wedding party to different songs, we had our first dance, father/daughter and groom/mom as well as 4 toasts. With all that we still had about 2 hours of dancing, keep in mind we extended the reception though. I think that if we would have stuck to the 3 hour reception we would have probably left feeling like we could have used another hour of just dancing. The first hour and a 1/2 easily goes to all that dances, toasts, and food. Then you also account for the bouquet and garter toss as well as the cake and of course dinner. THe MC was full of energy and quite funny, I'm gald we had him as he was really on point in terms of timing and scheduling.

I know you brought two dresses with you? Any problems carrying them on? I rbought 3 dresses with me (Wedding dress, club dress night of the wedding and my TTD) all 3 I managed to get in one garment bag and had no problems. We flew JB there and US Air back and both were accomodating and allowed us to board first to ensure we fit the dress in an overhead bin. Unfortunately neither one of those airlines had closets but nonetheless laying it down worked perfectly. 

About how long did it take you guys to go through customs at PC airport? My FI keeps saying its going to take two hours, but I just cannot believe it!! No way, it was super easy. The longest part was probably waiting in line to pay the $10 entrance fee that is only accepted in cash. I would say in total maybe 15-20 minutes at most.

Okay, sorry I know that is so many questions! And I have more sadly hahah! My wedding is in three weeks and with Susana gone and a couple bad reviews im getting a little more nervous, so thank you for your review! Made me feel better. And your cake is the prettiest I have seen there! I was hoping to get that big bottom layer like you, but wasnt sure if they would be able to do it! But thanks again for all the info and you guys all looked wonderful!! Your son is just too cute! LOL thanks love, I would say that the bottom layer is foam, LOL. We learned the hard way when we went to do our cake cutting and were like WTF its so hard...they must use some serious fondant LOL. Needless to say we pulled the cake knife out and saw the styrofoam pebble things lol. We laughed it off and "gracefuylly" moved to the second tier that was actually cake. We brought our personalized glasses, cake serving stuff and monogram topper.

My pleasure to help you guys out so ask away =)

Teena wow what a small world!! Lol thanks for your kind words and lmao at your topless brother I'm so glad to hear your day was perfect and thanks, yes Kayden is much better now! Bar Higuey was a perfect reception venue and as worried as I was about the weather it was gorgeous! I'm looking forward to your pictures! Great color schemes! I'm glad to hear you brought your own photographer although TP does great work bringing my own photographer was the best decision I made! She captured every singles moment of our entire week! I feel like I can relieve every second of the experience through her pictures! Not to mention the savings and amount of coverage we got. I'm going to try and upload our TP video to utube but its a bit long. In making my decision to do the video it was tough bc there weren't a whole lot of videos to view of there work. This forum was my savior the last 2 years and I couldn't have planned this wedding without it! Thanks again to all the past, present and future brides!!!

Centerpieces...bad pic but they really did look great!

Sand Dollar Wishes =)

Fans w/ Tears of joy packets sat on everyone's chairs and they all used em 

Cake

Wow so it appears May is quite a busy month for weddings LOL! I apologize in advance for the lengthy review but here it goes. Check In / Rooms: My fiance and I arrived on Wednesday May 15th. We initally had reservations in the golf deluxe room and figured if we upgraded through our travel agent to a junior suite deluxe then we arrived at the resort we would be upgraded (per wedding package) to the club premium level. Um not so much, check in for all of our guests was easy breasy. There was a waitress walking around to greet all new arrivals with cocktails. Absolutely no delays for any of them and the lines werent long, however my finace and I had to wait about 40 minutes for our room since it wasnt ready. Keep in mind that check in is technically 3:00, we arrived at noon. I was a bit irritated but kept my composure. I was however disapointed to find out that the "free upgrade" from the junior suite went from a partial ocean view to a full ocean view. There was no difference in the size of the room, it was just the location that was different. That sucked too but whatever..we spent the first night in our regular room and the following day moved to the ocean front room. The room was beautiful, the beds were awesome and super comfy, the balcony had a jacuzzi and walked right out onto the beach and was literally 20 feet from the nearest pool with the swim up bar. Rememebr that this place is ginormous and the golf deluxe rooms and family deluxe rooms are all atleast 5-10 minute walk from the main area. I will say that a few guests complained to see roaches. I know it was pretty embarrasing and I hate to mention it but thought you should know. I mean it is the carribean so maybe it should be expected? IDK we didnt see any in our room but we did see a few on various nights we were out. One in the theatre and another hanging out in the lounge area outside the casino. Other than that we had no complaints of the rooms. We tipped our maids and they took care of us. Another thing to rememebr is tipping really does go along way, and not alot. A few dollars is a big deal as is spanish. So if possible speak spanish as much as possible. I think the conversion rate was like 41 pesos to every american dollar. Wedding Meeting: We had a 9:30 meeting with Susanna scheduled for Thursday morning and to our surprise she was unavailable and we dealt with Marlene. Which was fkn awesome since Susana and I just didnt see eye to eye. Ironically Marlene somehow knew we had some issues back in forth since she has been the one dealing with Susana's clients via email. LOL. We sat with Marlene and there was a bit of disorganization as I expected since she wasnt familiar with me and what I wanted but we quickly sorted through it. At this time I brought all my things with me and went over with her what I brought and how I wanted things set up. I will get into more detail later on that. We went over details of the cermony, cake choices, final #'s, food selections, flowers, costs, etc. We initally only had the basic DJ package and decided to upgrade to the MC package (I think it was $1200?) , we also extended the reception for the additional hour which was I think about $750. I brought my own real touch bouquet so the free bouquet with the package was used for the bouquet toss and to decorate the cake table. I purchased 3 bridesmaids bouquets from them for $30 each and didnt need boutanniers because I brought those with me as well. There really werent anymore hidden costs other than Susana telling me I could have 2 colored chair sashes at no cost. They were actually $7 per chair for the additonal one needless to say we only had one color. LOL. We finalized spa appointments here and went over the itinerayr of the wedding day, meet up points, etc. All in all I left there very pleased and 1,000 times more confident that they could pull of my dream wedding. Tropical Pictures comes in at this time and sells you their services. We brought out own photographer with us so we didnt need them for that but we did purchase videography services from them for $1100. Friday I met with the DJ to go over dance selections and song genres. The DJ didnt have much of a personality and I was a bit apprehensive hoping the MC wasnt as blah as this guy. I also prepared my centerpieces on Friday, since they required sand of course Marlene wasnt going to do that so I had to go to the beach and fill em with sand and bring em back to the office. A small price to pay for the amount of money I saved with doing them myself. Wedding Day: My hair/make up appointment was for noon and of course they were running behind schedule. I probably sat in the chair at about 12:45 or so. I didnt bring a picture of what I wanted with hair or makeup but they have a book and so I chose a great style that was exactly what I wanted. A girl named Maritza did my hair and makeup. Loved the makeup, it was light and really simple. I brought fake lashes with me but like a dumb ass left the top un topped and it dried out!! I sent mom on a wild goose chase b/c the salon didn have glue and $20 later she found a tube. Phew close one. The girl spend close to an hour on my hair and I just didnt like it, so she had to do it again. It wasnt even me being a bitch it just didnt look like the picture. She understood and gladly did it over. I got ready in the Bridal Salon with all my girls my mom, the 2 flower girls, my photographer, the videographer and the SYTTD videographer. I think I lucked out a bit with the salon because they typcially dont let girls use the whole bridal salon with out renting it. I think since the show was there they wanted it to look good and made the exception. The girls and mom helped me get ready and we took a bunch of pictures and were good with our 3:45 go time for a 4:00 ceremony. Tropical Pictures went first to the grooms room at 2:00 then came back to the bridal salon to shoot us getting ready at 3:00. The groom and wedding party met at Bar Carey at 3:30 and went with the WC down to the cermony. We had our ceremony on the beach and it was picture perfect. The weather was beautiful!! The wedding party walked to "Somewhere over the rainbow" I walked to Canon D and the sand cermony was done to Kenny G's Forever in love. The Tangerine Package includes use of the sound system during the ceremony so I had all the songs on my iphone and designated one of my cousins to change the music since Marlene said she wouldnt have time and it worked out great. The cermony last about 20 minutes that included our own vows, the walk of the bridal party (3 bridesmaids, 2 flower girls and my son the ring bearer) we also did a thing called sand dollar wishes that I made up LOL. A fun kind of way to incorporate the group. I purchased sand dollars and had a table set up next to the cocktail hour and before the cermeony I had everyone write a wish on a sand dollar. After the cermeony we all walked down to the ocean and threw em in. It was perfect and so glad we did it! When I say I had 4 suitcases full of just wedding stuff I am not lying I brought a shit load of things with me LOL! Our cocktail hour started right on the beach directly after the ceremony. The Trio played at this time and everyone loved the food. We did our pictures at this time and TP also covered this. The trolley took everyone over to Bar Higuey for the reception and we followed shortly after. I was very pleased with the setup, it was just beautiful. I did bring with me 100 floating candles for the pool area that were never used. They said it was too windy which was BS b/c there was no wind at all. I just think they ran out of time. The MC was awesome and I am soo glad we added him because he really did make a difference. He announced the wedding party and played the music selections we had for entrances, we had our first dance and the firework flare things were really a nice touch that no one expected. We nearly chocked on the smoke though. It served as a nice LOL moment for us during our dance. We sat down and dinner was quickly served. During our meeting Marlene mentioned that they dod things rather quickly so the party can get started quicker and she wasnt lying. I brought my own centerpieces, menu's, table decorations, and linen napkins. The food was really good! We had the caprese salad, and choice of fish and chicken. We had 3 children and they had chicken fingers and fries at no charge. The presentations of the dishes were quite impressive. The creme brule was our desert choice and the cake was the strawberry with vanilla cake. We did however have a pretty big bump in the road. Once the party started our group is very much dancers and the shoes quickly came off. Including that of our son whom is 2. I went to grab him for a pic and looked down at my dress to see it covered in blood! He cut his foot with a piece of glass! We quickly rushed him to the on premised medical center and spent the next 2 1/1 hours of our reception in the ER. Devastated on so many levels, for having missed the reception that I will never get back and the fact that my baby was injured. Early in the evening there was a glass that was broken and they just didnt clean it up properly. $500 bill later and we returned to our reception with 15 minutes left. They wouldnt extend the reception and they wouldnt refund the money for the additional hour. In any event our attorney is dealing with them on that but overall the ceremony was perfect and other than the mishap with my son the reception area was well decorated, food was good, MC was awesome. They even had signature shots in our wedding colors which was a nice touch. I think thats it for now...let me know if you guys have any specific questions and I would gladly answer them. Also, keep in mind that this place is huge so its really important to find a central location for people to meet. Also, dinner reservations for groups of more than 4 are hard to come by so have your guests make them ASAP and as far out as possible. We ate at the Japanese (awesome) Steak House, Seafood, Mexican and Spanish. No complaints although I didnt feel to swift after the mexican spot. I gave out welcome bags and included the personalized insulated mugs, wedding tshirts and an oh shit kit. The bags were such a big hit! Everyone used them to carry their things in them so glad we did them, as were the mugs. Since they were insulated and had handles and covers they were perfect for our group that had liquid breakfasts, lunches and dinners LOL! I also found the advil and Pepto that came in handy. Everything else I had in there wasnt used much. Um I think I covered most of the important things, if anything else comes to mind I will circle back and I will upload a few pics shortly. Girls 2 years of planning and the day came and went so fast!! Soak it up because it really is memorable!! Oh and I did a TTD shoot the following day and it was sooooo much fun and I would totally recommend it!!

Hi Girls, I'm back!!! I have so much to share with you all! I hope to get to my review at some point today. For those that have Susanna she is out on a medical leave for an indefinite amount of time so Marlene is handling most of her weddings. Although weather.com showed 40% chance of rain nearly everyday it was beautiful! Rained In the late hours and sometimes early am. A few bumps here and there but after all said and Done it was beautiful ceremony! Will post a full review tonight. Bjean I'm sy I didn't get the speaker voltage I will say that it was loud and absolutely no complaints with the music. For those planning their wedding I will say the MC I found to be a must so if possible budget for it. More to come and breath because after years of planning the day comes and goes so quickly

Thanks for the great review!! Did you see any beach weddings? Thoughts on that location? Do they serve food or apps at Bar Carey? Did she mention anything about the food options and how they handle that at the reception? Did you have any services done at the spa?

Miss Jali: Welcome back!! Thanks darling!! I leave in 4 days!! Looking forward to your review!~!

Gia: Yes it was a knockoff of the Allure 8862 and I got it from China, company was "Babyonline" the womans name was Sunny.  I also bought an after wedding reception dress from them if your interested in seeing it PM. There is a whole thread on here for knockoff dresses and tons of pictures of girls who have used various websites for knock off dresses, including full reviews and pics.

Congrats Parrish!!! Looking forward to hearing all about it =)

Thanks Natalie: Yea just might wing it and tell her to figure it out.

Hi girls so in the midst of trying to breath and packing Susana managed to drop the ball on me...not a fkn surprise with this chick. I am giving my guest dinner options however with only 43 guests confirmed I wasnt planning on doing a seating chart as I want it to be chill and everyone sit where they want. So with that said Susana emails me to tell me that I will need to do placecards so they know who is eating what. This wouldnt be such a big deal if she would have told me with more than a week until I leave!! Naturally a normal wedding the server would just ask the guests at the table what they are eating, usally done when they bring out the salad. But of course now she wants me to add the guest dinner options to some sort of a placecard?! Ugh

Anyway, has anyone heard of this? Has any of the WC mentioned that you will need to include the guests dinner choice on a place card in front of their setting? What are we in fkn kindergarden!?

Mood: Totally fkn aggravated!!

Welcome back Uhura!! What a beautiful picture and such a perfect day!! WOW a shooting star thats amazing! Cherany good luck this weekend!

Anyone else worry about the weather? Ugh it keeps me up at night. I know I just need to chill and hope for the best but naturally I worry considering extended weather shows rain and I leave in 13 days!!! Ahhhhh

We recently got married at a justice of the peace and we will also just do a symbolic wedding. No one in our family knows we are already married and so it will seem very real to all of us.  I was concerned that the verbiage would be different and Susana assured me that the ceremony is very real and there would be no indication that we are already married. We are doing our own vows though so above and beyond that it will be a bit scripted. We are also doing the sand ceremony (frame) as well as something I made up called Sand Dollar Wishes LOL.

Does anyone know exactly how the second dinner option works. Do you have to give the WC a head count of who wants what option before the reception or do they get to choose the night of? Waiting for Susana to get back to me but thought I would ask here. With 14 days to go I would need to contact everyone and find out what they want to eat, ugh! Had I known sooner I would have included it on the RSVP card. Will let you guys know as soon as I find out just in case any upcoming bride wants to give their guests options you can have them printed on the response cards.

Anyone have any experience with Jetblue?

Absolutely stunning Emily!! Congrats!! Loved everything about everything LOL!

I dont have anything of importance to say other than I leave in 17 days!!! Cant believe how quickly it came! Ahhhh LOL...thats it for now =)

Hi Ladies! Here is my pre-travel brochure. I sent these out a month before our wedding and also included a print out of the spa prices from the resort that I downloaded and reformatted. As well as a print out of all the excursions that are offered, including descriptions and prices. The excursion print out was about 5 pages front and back and the spa brochure 3 pages from and back.I made these on Vistaprint and they cost me $2.32 each and they came with envelopes!!! Huge hit with the guest and they all found them very informative!

Few more shots of the Tears of Joy Packets.

Guys the dimensions of the envelopes are:

I finally finished my Raffia fans w/ the tears of joy packets and here they are...I will post a picture of the back of the tears of joy packets tonight so you can see what I used to seal the envelopes. These fans will be laid on each chair for the beach ceremony.

I purchased the fans from Oriental Trading and they were perfect. $10.00 for a dozen

http://www.orientaltrading.com/api/search?Ntt=Natural+Fans

I brought the satin ribbon from the dollar tree, $1.00 per ribbon (112 – â…"x5-yd)

http://www.dollartree.com/catalog/search.cmd?form_state=searchForm&keyword=Bright%20Grosgrain%20Ribbon

I brought the personalized stickers from Vistaprint for for the front and the backside.

The glassline envelopes from ebay and the flower I got from Michaels. One stem for $7.99 and I cut each flower off the bush, so it made about 15-20 single flowers.

A lil note to self I tried to glue gun the flowers to the fans then wrap the ribbon over the stems for extra support and it was taking entirely too long. So what I ended up doing was using the end of a scissor and punching a whole into the handle of the fan and weaving the stem of the flower inside the handle. Then I wrapped the ribbon over it. It took a fraction of the the time and actually looks better.

I will take the naughty kits...sent you a PM

Dont worry I think your in good hands with Sunny although nerve wrecking since she doesnt provide pics. Love the rehearsal dress =)