TheWolferts

Unfortunately, we overestimated the people that would be actually attending by over our 25% reduce rate, so we initially held 30 rooms and are now only filling 20, so we are stuck paying the fee for those 3 rooms. If we wouldnt have had the last minute cancellations and people combining rooms last minute, we would have been fine. Oh well, what can ya do?

DW.com told us that we could reduce our rooms up to 25% without being penalized. We originally held 30 rooms, so we can reduce to 23 rooms without incurring a $100 fee per room that we dont book. Since it is looking like we will only book 20 rooms, we will have to pay a $300 fee for not filling those rooms We just feel like we have had to pester people to make a decision one way or the other and we both hate having to do that. Stina- is that how your agreement worked? Are you added rooms still receiving the discounted room rate?

So we are 4 days away from having to have our rooms paid in full and have 4 days left to fill our room block... we had one other room just cancel today, so now we need 5 more rooms to book between now and Friday or we are fined. I know we have at least one of those rooms filled, but we are getting the "if we had more time to come up with the money..." or "we need another month to come up with the funds, then we can book"... I am pulling my hair out! One of the friends I am actually personally paying for his room tomorrow (I know he has already done with the work, but his employer has yet to pay him) that way, he can still get the discounted room rate and will count towards our rooms booked. Im just hoping that my generosity doesnt back fire, though it very well could. It isnt a huge deal if we come under our minimum 23 rooms, but I just want to know who is in and out. I am very eager to know how much money we are getting towards our room, how many guests are coming so we can notify our WC about how many of everything we need (chair covers, dinner plates, etc), and how much we will be getting towards our anniversary stay. I may be living on Pepcid all week since my stomach is just churning!

AllieH- Tucanes is a 2 minute (if that) walk from the Martini bar, but both are quite a ways away from Gazebo 55. If people are already going to be walking to the reception, it might be nice for them to have a quick a/c cool off break at the martini bar.

Hi msbritbrit57, welcome to the board! Our wedding is May 12 at Gazebo 55! My cousin got married at EDR in late September and had his reception at La Islas, which is an open air restaurant with a palapas roof. The venue was nice, but it was soooo hot, especially if you danced! Many people had to take breaks from dancing because they were so warm. We opted for an indoor reception location to try to avoid guests beign uncomfortably sweaty. It may be that Claudia messed up and is trying to suggest you to another location and is just using that excuse, but it may have some validity. It is looking like we are going to have about 35-40 people, which is much less than we initially expected. We wanted to get a DJ to give it more of the feel of what my FI and I expect out of a wedding reception and we also wanted someone to MC the event. We are using DJ Doremixx (http://www.xcancun.com/doremixx/home.html), who is actually wayyyy cheaper than their approved vendors, even with the addition of the $800 outside vendor fee. We are getting a large screen and projector as well as 2 dry fireworks for around $1,800. If we wanted the same add ons with an approved DJ, it would cost around $3,000. I cant imagine not having a DJ, but a lot of brides have had a great time just using their iPods. I think it's just a matter of preference.

ElDorado2012- Feel free to let it out! We have had several people that have put down a deposit, but had not sent me their RSVP card back (which we requested back Feb 15th), so when we followed up with them, they just non-chalantly backed out and expect us to notify our travel agent... ummm?? I told my fiance that I was not handling it for them and that they would have to contact her to work everything out. Another guest texted my FI and said that if flights dont come down $40 by March 1, he and his guest arent going to attend. I realize March 1 is the date that total room payments are due, but I asked for RSVP cards back February 15th, so that I could take advantage of some sales on favors and OOT bag fillers. While it would obviously be great to have them come down, I'm just ready to know our final number so we can move forward. Another thing that is really getting to me, is people not sending their RSVP cards back. I understand if someone cannot go, but to not even bother checking the box and putting the already-stamped envelope back in the mail baffles me!!! So rude!

Mrendic- Our original date was June 9, 2012 at Gazebo 55!! We ended up moving up the date to May 12, 2012 to work around my fiance's football schedule and we were worried it might be starting to get too warm. Such a small world!

ElDorado2012- While I wouldnt wish this situation on anyone, it is "nice" to have someone that can sympathize. Where is your reception? We are having ours in a fairly small space in the Salon Dorado, so I am thinking that I will just put 5-6 people at a table so people have more space and the room doesnt look so empty! I remember stressing about getting our number under the 64 maximum capacity for this space! HAH! I'm so torn, because I cannot imagine not having a DJ and I think I would regret it if I canceled him, but it almost seems like a waste of money and like you said, a little embarassing. *sigh* I think the "embarassed" feeling might be stemming from the fact that my MOH just got married in June and had a lavish $100k wedding with hundreds of people and for some reason, I care what her opinion is on mostly everything. I know she wont "judge" our wedding because she is one of my best friends, but I cant help but compare the overall "pomp and circumstance" of the 2 weddings. I'm hoping that as people arrive throughout the week, I just relax and grow more at ease with the fact that we are having a very small wedding. We planned the wedding the way we wanted it, and it really shouldnt matter who is there or in our case, who isnt. I say we unite, go with our first instinct, and keep our DJ! At one point, we thought it was a great idea, so lets stop second guessing ourselves!

Thanks Murmel! I dont think my FI totally gets why I'm upset, so its nice to sympathize with other DW brides that have gone or are going through the same thing. My WC said she needs our final guest list 6 weeks before our wedding date. I am also eager to figure out our total number of guests so I can start accumulating the OOT bag supplies and other various things we are ordering based on how many people are attending the wedding. We are also trying to decide on our honeymoon options and it would be great to see how much, if any, we have left over from our budget. I know it is asking a lot for people to come down to Mexico from our wedding, but to be honest, most people were going to have to travel to my hometown and pay for hotel, rental car, food/bev, and flights as well. When we decided to do a DW, we literally ran the costs and compared them and the DW cost people less than $100 more, so we figured people would rather go to Mexico than VA lol. I think I am just disappointed to have people say they cant afford to make the trip, then I see them post pictures on their Facebook walls of trips they have recently taken. I know we cant make people decide that our wedding is a priority when it comes to them deciding how to use their vacation money, but I think im just hurt that if I only had enough money to take only one trip, I would, without a doubt, choose their wedding. At the beginning of the DW planning process, our guest list of who was seriously considering making the trip was 64 people, which I had to convince myself would be a decent number. Now, we only have about 35, including us. I am trying to see the positives, but the negatives keep creeping in... like, we are hiring a DJ, for what I thought would be a sizable party, but now I am thinking it will look strangely "over the top" for 35 people. Also, we are having the wedding party announced by our DJ at the reception, but all I can think of is 10 people standing in the reception hall, since the majority of the guests now are in the wedding party and will be waiting to be introduced LOL. *deep sigh* I need to stop thinking about what I thought it would be, and be grateful for the close friends and family that will be down there to share our special day, which is really what the day should be about anyways.

Ashbrooke3ou- When my cousin got married in September 2010, the outside vendor fees were only $500. I was told they went up to $800 and there wasnt anything we could do about it. Since we are only using 1 outside vendor and the price is still less than it woudl cost to use one of their approved vendors, we let it go. When is your wedding? How many guests are you expecting? All- Off topic, but we are less than 3 months away and owe our final guest count to our WC in 2.5 weeks, and I am having a couple of people that have already put down deposits, now say they arent coming! Im so frustrated!!!! We have been engaged for 18 months and let everyone know about the wedding over a year ago. To make matters worse, these guests arent even calling us to tell us! One sent a text with an "FYI, if flights dont go down atleast $40, we arent coming" and another we had to call because we hadnt received his RSVP card and we needed to know which menu option he preferred. My fiance keeps telling me that he wishes I didnt take it so personally, but I am having a hard time not to. Help!

I just followed your boards on Pinterest! Im at http://pinterest.com/newinitials/ The outside vendor fee is $800 so the total is about $1,600. Still a way better option than the approved DJs as they are at a minimum $2,000.

Thanks! If you aren't on Pinterest, you need to be! I have found a lot of great ideas and vendors for decor items that we are bringing down. I'm not a huge bow person, but I knew I wanted some color on the chairs and a more official looking isle, so I actually saw the idea for the starfish on the Wedding Bee board. We made them this weekend and they are really easy to make! I did a lot of research for pricing and the quality of starfish ( i know, Im a dork ) and found a great site http://www.seashellcity.com/ Since our colors are cobalt blue and tiffany blue, there werent a lot of options for naturally blue flowers, so I wanted to keep all the flowers white. It took me a relaly long time to find the BMs bouquets at a reasonable price, but I love them! As for the hair, I have very fine, long hair and when I went in September 2010, my hair wouldnt hold a curl (I think they dropped out before I even left our room) and was crazy frizzy. I really want to do a long curled, side pony tail so I think it might work, as long as we do the curls really tight, so that when they inevitably drop out, they are a nice soft curl haha. I pulled up my original email with DJ Doremixx from July 5, 2011 (see below). We loved that they had a ton of GREAT reviews, and came with all the little extras that will add to the fun! He includes the cold fireworks (EDR charges about $150 or $200), he does balloons, masquerade masks, and glow jewelry! They are also very easy to work with and provide you a spreadsheet to help you organize your reception timeline and music. I was VERY hesitant to go with the Lomas approved DJs because I couldnt find any reviews or websites for any of them! Thats a red flag for me! My cousin used an approved DJ and they mixed up all of her wedding party's intro music, which they had actually spent a lot of time selecting based on passed experiences with each friend! They also did not get to meet their DJ prior to the reception. I have already scheduled my meeting with Doremixx for the Monday before our wedding. They are just so on the ball and for the price, I cant understand why anyone would chose an "approved" vendor over this guy! I am sooo excited, we are going to use the cold fireworks for our introduction at the reception! I think it will make for quite a grand entrance and great pictures! DJ Service equipment: 02 Speakers JBL 15†02 Robotic Lights 04 Par 64 Led’s (lights) DJ Booth (With Mixer Rane and Double CD player CDJ400 Pioneer, or turntables Technics 1200) Wireless Microphone (Speeches and announcements) Professional DJ (He can do the announcements) 02 Cold fireworks (See enclosed photo, ask to your wedding coordinator if they permit these cold fireworks) Smoke machine, Bubble machine (Available only Indoors) Music from the 70’s, 80’s to the best music playing today with different genres. PRICE 2012 $800 US From 1 to 5 hours. if your wedding is just for 3 or 4 hours apply the same price) Additional hour $150 US Slide Show Tripod screen 1.72 * 1.72 = $60 US Big screen 3*2 meters = $200 US Projector $150 US If you reserve one of the screen and the projector we will provide you the lap top or the DVD without any extra charge.(please see attached the pictures)

Thanks! I am wearing my hair up, but it's either going to be in a low side curled pony and curly bun thing LOL. I think I will just be too hot if I dont get it at least off my neck. Plus the humidity is crazy! I nixed the headband idea when I found the perfect hair comb/pin! http://pinterest.com/pin/192669690278304301/ (all my pics are on my Pinterest board, so let me know if you have trouble viewing the links). My flowers, but with all white orchids: http://pinterest.com/pin/192669690278110341/ My BMs flowers: http://pinterest.com/pin/192669690278150384/ Reception Centerpieces, but all white rose pedals and a Tiffany blue, satin tablecloth: http://pinterest.com/pin/192669690278110343/ Reception glasses (I thought it would be so cute to have all white flowers, tiffany blue satin tablecloths, and these cobalt blue glasses to give an accent of our all of our wedding colors) http://pinterest.com/pin/192669690278258500/ Isle decorations: http://pinterest.com/pin/192669690278150453/ Dress (not me in it): http://www.sotteroandmidgley.com/dress.aspx?style=JSM1307LU I am having terrifying wedding dreams too! My dress being green with patches of flowers, my dad and groom missing and them forcing me down the isle anyways! I get a wedding nightmare at least 2-3 a week! I am working with Valeria. She seems to be on top of things, though she does seem to take 5-7 days to answer an email. I tend to send a few emails per week, so I end up getting a mass of 7 emails back to back from her when she addresses my emails! A little overwhelming and tough to follow at times, but I am sure she is handling a lot of weddings right now! For my nerves, we are going to do a rehearsal ceremony run through the day before the wedding. We are hoping to do it right before the rehearsal dinner, but there may be a wedding there, so we might have to go earlier. I am also getting a rehearsal hair and makeup session, so we can figure out "the look" I am going for, without the stress of it being on the wedding day! My cousin got her hair and makeup done at the Casitas spa and they did a great job! Our rehearsal dinner is on Friday May 11 at Tucanes Bar. We are doing the passed Italian style dinner (I have personally had this and its so much food and sooo tasty!). We are going with the plain white table cloths, with a satin cobalt blue runner, votive candles, and we are bringing down a bunch of starfish down to scatter across the blue table runners. Since we are also bringing down white and cobalt blue paper lanterns to have hung from the roof, they charge $150 to hang these, but are including any other set up I need at the rehearsal dinner. We are having a 5pm ceremony at Gazebo 55, then cocktail party at beach next to Gazebo 55 from 5:30-7pm. We opted for the white glove cocktail party because we got to pick the hor d'ouvres (sp?) and how many of each we wanted. We are also having a signature drink prepared! We havent come up with a cute name for it yet, but it's going to contain either Blue Curacao or Hypnotic so it's our one of our wedding colors! We are having a private reception at Salon Dorado and are serving the Mahi Mahi and Filet Mignon with lobster tail. My cousin who got married in September 2010 at EDR opted for the same menu, so I can personally vouch for them both being fabulous! We booked DJ Doremixx and while he isnt on the appoved vendors list, his price plus the "vendor fee" is still less than their approved vendors! We are only expecting about 40 guests, so we didnt have to get a DJ really, but music is really important to us and we wanted someone to do all of the announcing and read the crowd to get people going! Since desert comes with the menu, we didnt want to spend much on the cake, but we also didnt want to miss out on the "cake cutting experience," so we are doing a small cutting cake. It will be the middle tier of this cake http://pinterest.com/pin/192669690278150435/ We are also doing a a welcome cocktail gathering at the Martini Bar. We wanted to bring everyone together, but it wasnt in budget to do another cocktail party, so I just told our WC that about 40 people were planning on meeting at the Martini bar at a certain time, so she could notify the resort so they could make sure they had adequate staffing. We are doing a "black and white" theme, so everyone has to wear either black and/or white! Since other patrons will be in the bar at the same time, I thought the black and white theme would make our guests stand out to one another so everyone could get to know each other at the start of their trip. We also got custom black cocktail napkins that say "Eat, Drink, and Be Married!" in white along with the date of the party. http://pinterest.com/pin/192669690278159933/ Sorry for the long post! Im getting excited!!!

Phewf!!! Well I just had a very busy weekend with wedding planning, but I can now say that I have confirmed 100% of everything with Lomas for the wedding! I also figured out what I want to do with my hair, made the boutineers, corsages, throw away bouquet and isle decorations! I also got my 2nd fitting and the dress is starting to look perfect on me! How is everyone else's planning coming along?

AllieH- Are you using Lomas?

Great pictures!!! I am doing a similar reception place card thing using the sand dollars, but I think we are going to get the guests' names printed directly on the sand dollars. Did you make yours or order them with the text?

LOL I actually confirmed our ceremony and rehearsal dinner location about 10 months ago Since I had already been there, it didnt take long for us to decide where we wanted our events held at the resort. I also wanted to make sure that there wasnt another overly organized bride out there that got our locations! Even booking that for out, there was a wedding already booked for our day (May 12) at the resort, not our same location. Since your wedding is on a Monday, you are probably fine to wait longer to reserve your locations.

I would try their live chat feature on their website.

Stina- Dont worry, itwill all come together! I keep swinging back and forth between "I have everything under control" to "omg I have so much left to do!"... sometimes it takes a phone call to my mom to help me keep everything in perspective... because in the grand scheme of things, everything will get done and you will be marrying the love of your life in 3 months! All those small details that only you will notice wont be a big deal.

I went there in September of 2010 and there was zero cell service, unless you wanted to purchase an international plan from your service provider. My dad did this for work reasons and he made all his calls very brief and to the point, so I cant imagine that streaming internet radio will be very cheap. I know the casitas side of the resort has internet access and wifi but I believe they give each room a specific pass code to access it and from what some of my relatives said, the internet was EXTREMELY slow. I would count on downloading everything before you go down there.

ElDorado2012- Very pretty dress! A good friend of mine just started dress hunting and is looking for something similar, so I already sent her the link! AllieH- great dress! I felt that with a lot of the beachy dresses I was trying on, it either look like I was hiding a bun in the oven or they felt like glamorous white dresses that one would wear to the Oscars haha I just bought a jeweled head band and it arrived yesterday, but I just dont know if its the look I have in my mind so I may return it. http://www.bella-tiara.com/kacospelrhhe.html I was thinking maybe going for a more low key sparkle in my hair something barrette like http://www.projectwedding.com/photo/browse?photo_to_show=246605&tag=hair&thumbs_page=12 OR some sparkly bobby pin things. My FI LOVES when I wear headbands so I really want to find one that I like, but I think they one I ordered maybe sits up a little too high on my head and seems more tiara-like.

Woops! I forgot to talk about my planning experience at the EDR. We actually chose EDR because my cousin got married there a couple of years ago and I attended the wedding. Unfortunately, my FI couldnt make the trip, but the entire time, I just kept thinking "OMG, he would love this!" or "My best friends and I would have such a great time here!"... We looked at a TON of other resorts since we were trying to have our wedding else where but we kept coming back to the EDR having everything we wanted for the wedding and for our guests. I cant wait for all my friends and family to experience EDR! We are using DestinationWeddings.com to book all of our travel and I love our TA Christine! We are booking all of our wedding venues, food, flowers etc with Lomas Weddings. At first I felt a little frustrated that they charged an $800 outside vendor fee, but I am such a perfectionist that I would drive my self crazy with unlimited options and dealing with vendors on my own. Plus, I have never asked for anything that their preferred vendors couldnt provide. We did opt to have our good friend come down and do our photography and avoided the outside vendor fee because she is staying as a guest with her husband. We also decided to pay the $800 outside vendor fee for our DJ since I couldnt find any legit reviews on their approved DJs and our DJ is actually still cheaper, even with the addition of the $800 fee, than their "approved" DJs. We dont really have that much left to do and I feel like we should! All in all, I have enjoyed my experience with DW.com, Lomas, and EDR.

Thanks for your insight! From the research I have done, my vote is for the Iberostar Grand, but my FI seems to like Secrets WO.... LOL but he also cant explain why, so I think my hours of research might end up trumping his "i just like it because" haha

Just out of curiosity, what does everyone's dress look like?! Did you go for a beachy-wedding dress or something different? When I went dress shopping and told the stores I was getting married on the beach, they all pushed me towards flowey, beachy dresses, which was initially what I thought I wanted, but I just didnt feel like a bride in them once I tried them on. I ended up getting the Sottero Midgley Adorae dress and I couldnt be happier with my decision! While it isn't the traditional beach wedding attire and I know I am going to be very warm (at least our reception is in doors), I knew it was THE DRESS for our big day! http://www.sotteroandmidgley.com/dress.aspx?style=JSM1307LU

Thanks for all the info! Everyone that can make the trip down there decided to stay at EDR to be able to spend a few days with everyone all together, so it ended up working out anyways!