TheWolferts

Cvantine- I am having a friend do a few set up things at our cocktail hour, but most of the guests will be busy with pictures as they are in the wedding. Also, I loved your picture slide show! I am actually walking down the isle to that song! Angi111111- You said that it was a $5 set up fee per guest, but do you think that it would be per general thing I am asking them to set up? LOL Im not sure if that made sense... for example, if I had them do the set up for my center pieces, and had them set up my name/place cards, and had them put out wedding favors would they charge me $5 per guest per thing I am asking them to set up, so $5 x the number of guests for the centerpieces + $5 x the number of guests for the name/place cards + etc...?

AllieH- Love your centerpieces - are you bringing them with you, or renting them? I am thinking that we will need about 5-6 centerpieces, so I cant see how we would get 15 glass vases down there in one piece, so we are going to rent them. Also, they would charge me a set up fee which I think is $5 per item... I'm kind of peeved that the centerpieces are $120 each, especially because they would be so cheap in the states, but what can you do?! oh well and the invites are lovely!! I really like the scroll work on the side, and the starfish too. Thanks! We got them through http://www.weddingpaperdivas.com Very reasonable pricing, run sales/offer coupons frequently, and have a lot of beach/DW invites.

Leslidowd12- Where are you going to get your fiance's suit? Are you going with studiosuits.com? Our wedding isn't until Sept but I'm thinking of ordering my fiance's suit soon so that we have lots of time to make any changes/adjustments. His gift to his GMs are their suits so he is buying them in the states at Jos. A. Banks. I always thought that store was very pricey but they ALWAYS have rediculous deals! I think their deal right now is "buy one suit, get 2 suits free, AND 6 shirts AND 6 ties free"!!! We thought about renting the suits in the states (we were concerned about how fasnhionable/nice the rentals down there are), but we would have had to rent them for a week and the cost would have been almost as much as just buying the suit. Your centerpieces are gorgeous, great choice! Thanks! It is very painful though to have to pay $120 a table for the centerpieces when in the states, those are one of the cheapest options you can go with because you dont need to arrange anything and you don't use whole flowers! If I were to do the exact same thing in the states, the vases cost about $2-5 each, most florists will give you roses that are starting to lose their pedals, and floating candles are about $12 for a pack of 4... grrrrr! Who did you choose for your photographer? A good friend of ours is doing our photography, but we are getting a videographer to document the big day since a lot of our relatives cant make it down and I imagine the day will be such a whirlwind that we wont remember or get to see a lot of it! We are going with Claudia Photography for our videographer. They have great reviews and my cousin used them for her wedding and loved her pics! We are avoiding the outside vendor fee by having her stay as a guest for the 4 day minimum.

I thought I would check in since its been a while since there was any activity on this thread! We are about 4.5 months out and things are starting to really pick up! I just had my first dress fitting and finally convinced my fiance that it was time to pick out suits! (We have been engaged for a year now and I think its starting to set in for him that we don't have that much longer to wait!) The center pieces are officially picked out (but with white rose petals): http://weddingscaribbeans.com/images/photo_gallery/wedding_flowers_78.jpg The reception food officially selected: Filet Mignon with Carribbean Lobster and for our second option the Mahi Mahi filet And our formal invitations are set to go out in a couple of weeks! (sample image) http://wpd-images-cache.tp-global.net/product/4990/type/display/width/400/height/400/4990.jpg I also FINALLY decided on the reception shoes (I'm going with wedges to combat the sand a bit better): http://www1.bloomingdales.com/shop/product/ivanka-trump-doublet-evening-sandals?ID=536830&upc_ID=945753&Quantity=1&seqNo=1&EXTRA_PARAMETER=BAG How is everyone else's planning coming along?

Congratulations on getting to the venue/resort selection stage! You picked a great resort! We actually decided on this resort because we made a trip for my cousins wedding and fell in love with the resort! From what I remember of the alcohol, they tend to serve bottom shelf unless you ask for something better, with some upper shelf wines and champagnes being an additional price. I never had an issue where I felt the drinks weren't good and if they weren't as strong as you wanted, you just had to ask them to make it stronger. I came across this and from then on, my drinks were quite potent!

Previously on this tread, a bride wore about 4" heels in the sand and she said it was definitely do-able and she did get a lot of sand in her shoes, but that it was worth it! We are getting married at Gazebo 55, so I had similar fears, but my fiance is a whole foot taller than me and I ALWAYS wear heels and I just cant see myself being dwarfed by him the entire wedding and for pictures HAHA I decided on wearing wedges because it would give me the height and more surface area to decrease the sinking into the sand! I found really quite white and cork wedges at Charlotte Russe for $7!!!! I am generally a "shoe snob", but they were just what I was looking for! They even had the same shoe with cobalt blue (which is one of our wedding colors!) so I got those to practice in for the rehearsal! I am still debating on whether I want to get reception shoes once we are on the harder surfaces. Has anyone used the wooden walk way? I am wondering if it will be worth the money for me to have something more level and firm to walk down.

ElDorado2012, Again, speaking on behalf of my cousin's experience... she was nervous about getting her hair and makeup done by the salon because obviously she could not really meet with them a few weeks in advance to get her hair/makeup planned out, so she actually made an appointment right before her wedding rehearsal and dinner. She took them pictures of what she wanted and they worked with her on creating something she liked. She then took pictures of everything to replicate the next day and had them change up her hair a makeup just a bit for her, so no one would see exactly the look she was gonna have on her wedding day. I thought it worked out really well that way and she loved the hair and makeup! I would love to have my 4 BMs come with me for the hair and makeup, but 1) I cannot afford to pay for everyine hair and makeup (about $150+) per person, 2) I dont want them to feel like they have to shell out even more money once they make it down there and 3) my FI and I are staying in the Casitas as part of our wedding package, so I will probably be getting my hair done in the casitas spa and Im not sure that non-casitas guests can join me, wedding party or not... anyone know the specifics on this? I have read on older posts that there have been issues with getting your whole wedding party in any spa at the same time because of multiple weddings per day. I have heard that the golf carts will take the bride and one other person to the ceremony site... I am thinking my dad and i??

Did anyone do welcome cards for their guests? If so, what information did you put on them? Do you give those to the front desk when you check in, or...? Do they charge you to hand them out? Were they good about actually giving them out? We are putting in activity/event schedules in our OOT bags and having the hotel deliver them to each guest's room. Yes they do charge for this, but I figure its better than taking a couple hours out of my day wondering around the entire resort, plus I'm not sure how you would go about getting into each person's room.My cousin had her OOT bags delivered and she said they were really good about getting them in everyone's rooms, and she had people arriving at different dates as well. I was reading a much older post about not brushing your teeth with the water in the sink (using a water bottle instead). Is this what everyone does? Do I need to notify my guests of this? I used their tap water to brush my teeth and was fine. Of the 60 people that attended my cousin's wedding, 2 people had a bad case of "Montezuma's revenge", one unfortunatley being my roommate on the trip. Obivously we were using the same sink to brush our teeth in and I was fine. I think she got purposely slipped some bad water by one of the bartenders because she was being drunk and obnoxious, ordering multiple rounds of complicated-to-make shots for 20 people and not bothering to tip the bartender at all. I remember her ordering a glass of water before we headed back to our room and she woke up in the middle of the night really sick.

ElDorad02012, We are getting married at EDR May 2012, but my cousin got married there in September 2010. I am an avid scuba diver so I went on a scuba trip that I booked through the hotel once I got there, so I am not sure if it's through Lomas. If you are thinking about trying scuba diving, the resort did have a great option to take a couple of scuba lessons in the pool and then do a dive with a seasoned dive master right at your side. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to do something new! I actually got my start scuba diving when I did a resort dive (not through EDR, but I did watch their instructors in the pool and they were very good) and I felt very comfortable and safe! I used to love snorkeling and now I cannot stand it because it just doesnt compare to scuba diving! I highly recommend that! Other guests went on a jet ski and snorkeling trip and they said it was definitely worth the money and they had a great time! The snorkeling around the beach at the resort is not very good at all, so you may want to go on the afternoon trip for a better view. Like I said, my cousins wedding was in September and she had her private reception at La Isla, which is right next to the main pool and is outside with a huge grass roof. I thought the setting was fantastic though there were some rowdy/drunk patrons at the pool that you could hear during the speeches (someone from the wedding had to ask them to quiet it down for a bit). I thought the reception was great, but I started the evening off with a light grey dress and by the time the night was over, it was soaked with sweat and dark gray. Looking back at pictures from that night, I can tell at what point the pictures were taken based on the sheen of sweat on my body and the color of the dress. I know a lot of people were getting winded during the dancing because it was so humid and the entire wedding party, bride included, jumped in the pool at the end of the reception because they were so hot. My fiance and I were originally booked for June 9, 2012 at EDR, but as I was watching the weather this past year around the beginning of June, and we started to get nervous because it was getting into the upper 80s and lower 90s, and I knew first hand out humid it gets down there. Needless to say, we decided to move our date up to early May to try and avoid some of the heat. We also decided to get married on the beach at Gazebo 55 after A LOT of research on the different options. I really liked the gazebo right next to the salt water pool on the beach, but my travel agent let me know that when it gets really hot and there is a breeze, the salt water pool smells less than fresh and I didnt want to be turning up my nose the entire wedding. We settled on Gazebo 55 because of the location: no "whales" i.e. sandbags in the water behind it), and its on a further side of the resort so there wouldnt be very much traffic from other weddings or hotel guests. We also liked that there was enough space to have the cocktail party right next to the ceremony area, so our guests did not have to go very far to get some light snacks and beverages. We are doing a majority of our pictures before hand, but my FI and i dont want to see one another before the ceremony, so we will do all of ours and combined pictures after. Having the guests be relatively close by means they can watch and enjoy the cocktail reception. We are serving light appetizers and our specialty drinks at the cocktail hour, complete with a beach/reggae playlist on my ipod. We are still having a sit-down dinner and dancing after that, but because I didnt want my guests being too sticky and hot to enjoy themselves, we actually chose an indoor ballroom the Salon Dorado. The space looks gorgeous with marble floors and tall white columns, so I cannot wait! My MOH initially asked me why I would have an indoor reception in a destination wedding and I just explained I didnt want myself or my guests being too warm to dance and let loose, and I figured everyone would be in the sun all week, during the ceremony, and the cocktail hour, so I was perfectly fine with being comfortable in the a/c for a portion of the evening. That and my fiance gets VERY cranky when he gets warm, and I did not want a groomzilla on our wedding day! LOL Once I explained my reasoning, she definitely could see why I opted for the a/c. As for the food, we are going with a mahi mahi option and the surf-n-turf option, both of which I had at my cousins and they were sooo delicious! We are only doing a cutting cake, since the dinner comes with dessert options. My cousin said she ended up regretting getting a 3-tiered cake because: there were only 3 flavor options, the only icing they will do is fondant (very pretty, yucky tasting) and everyone enjoyed the desert plates so much, only a couple of people had some cake! I'm not a huge cake person and neither is my fiance, but we both wanted the tradition of cutting the cake, so we are going to get a small cake and do the ceremonial cake cutting actually before dinner is served! My grandmother whom I was very close to and is unfortunately no longer with us used to always prefer dessert first and say " why wait? it's the most delicious part of a meal! If this were my last few moments on earth, I'd rather have a banana split than meat and potatoes!", so I always remember her explaining that to me and I think it'd give her a laugh. Made my dad tear up a bit when I told him the reasoning behind it too ) As for the set up fee, I have read on this message board that sometimes the WC at the resort does these things for free, while other times, I have heard of them charging for it. I guess technically they do charge for it, so if anyone has experience with it, I would like to know as well. For our rehearsal dinner, I saw a picture of the space decorated with colorful paper lanterns, so we are going to do something similar with our wedding colors. I asked if someone from my family could set those up to avoid any fees, but she explained that since it would require a ladder to hang them, it would be against the resort policy, which I totally get! But for our cocktail reception tall tables in the sand, I want to go with a white table cloth, blue bow, and I found these amazing blue river rocks with seashells and starfish (yay TJ Maxx!) that I want sprinkled in the center of each table, just to give it some pop, but not take away from the gorgeous landscape! I refuse to pay $5 a setup/table for someone to dump rocks on a table, so I already have a close friend tasked with scampering over after/before the ceremony and just dumping them in the middle of the table!

When I told bridal store people I was having a beach wedding, I cannot tell you all of the generic white flowey dresses they threw my direction. I felt like I was in a pretty white dress, but not a wedding dress. When I was being laced up into the Adorae, I started to tear up. Then when I walked out and my mom's eyes got real wide and she sat back and took a deep breath, I knew it was THE ONE! I know it's not a traditional beach wedding dress, but it made me feel like a bride and I didnt want to sacrifice that feeling just because I'd be in the sand! Go with your gut feeling and dont listen to what anyone else expects at YOUR wedding!

ElDorado2012, We are getting married May 12, 2012, but I am sort of a season vet with EDR as my cousin got married there about a year ago! We are going with DJ Doremixx and I cannot tell you enough great things about them! My cousin opted for a "Lomas approved" which turned out to be not so great. They had spent a lot of time deciding on specific "walk out" songs for each of their wedding party couples, and they DJ got them all mixed up. You didnt have the option to request songs during the ceremony as the language barrier was so severe that communication was almost impossible. Obviously I have yet to meet with DJ Doremixx in person yet, but what impressed me about them so far were the hundreds of rave reviews they have and their professionalism. Within a day of our signing our contract with them, DJ Doremixx had emailed my wedding coordinator (I was CCed on the email) to set up a time to come by the property to make sure that everything we had spoken about would work in the space we are having our reception. They also sent me some great spreadsheet to help me organize the music selection and timing of the entire reception. I cannot tell you how much time this saved me having everything so nicely organized! We are doing OOT with general items they may need while down there. I found that the gift shop had such high prices that it was almost easier to do without! We thought about doing an excursion instead like Beekmanbride mentioned, but our friends and families are all coming down at different times and days, so I didnt want to make anyone feel like they needed to be down there for anything other than the wedding day.My mother is an artist and actually designed our save the dates, so I am ordering blank canvas totes and having her hand paint the OOT bags. We are doing one bag per room, so that our guests (i.e. the girl staying in the room) can use the bags to carry their books, sunscreen, towels etc around the resort. Since the resort is so big, Im hoping that the bags act as a "name badge" for guests that may not know one another, but will see the similar big and associate it with a guest of ours! We havent decided what we want in them yet, but I think bug spray, sun screen, advil (i definitly used all of the advil in my cousins OOT bags she prepared for us!), and I was even thinking of putting some "tummy tamer" meds for people that may experience "Montezuma's revenge" ( Since we are doing OOT bags, we aren't going to have favors at the reception. At my cousins wedding, I found that there wasnt much additional space at the tables to set anything (even a small purse), so I cant imagine I would have been happy keeping track of a favor all night. I think we might do personalized drink coozies (sp?) and put them in our OOT bags. I think the guys would use them and they squish into a suitcase for easy transport back to the states. I originally wanted my mom to etch in some art work into some martini glasses, but I thought people would have too difficult a time getting them back home in one piece. We are also doing signature drinks at our cocktail reception after the ceremony. I know an open bar is included with the cocktail reception packages, but our WC said we could close off the other options and have 2 or 3 signature beverages only passed around at our reception. I want to print up small recipe cards with the drink recipes on them for guests to take home. I figure they can easily be stuffed in pockets or little clutches so our guests wont have to keep up with them. For my cousins wedding, some of us went out to do excursions (scuba, snorkeling, sailing, etc), but no one went to the bars or clubs. My concerns were: 1) I didnt want to be taken advantage of money wise while not on the resort property, 2) I did not want to chance getting any bad water and being sick and 3) we paid a lot of money to get unlimited beverages and food so I didnt want to be paying to go elsewhere. If you do decide to venture out, I recommend setting that up through the hotel as cab drivers tend to overcharge the tourists!

KaRo, My cousin got married at EDR in September 2010 and opted for the surf n' turf... It was sooo good that we didnt even have to look at the menu for what we wanted for our wedding reception! I highly recommend it! I also tried the mahi mahi option (I am not generally a fish person) and that was fantastic as well!

Sorry Ivan! I meant your quote with the additional $800 resort fee put us around $1,700! Thanks for having me clear that up because you guys really are worth the money and other brides need to know that you are a great option! I cant wait to have you guys DJ our reception!

I think the quote I got from DJ Doremixx was $1700 for 4 hours of service. The "approved" DJs were all $2000 for 4 hours. My cousin chose an approved vendor at EDR and they messed up everyone's introduction song at the reception (the bride and groom has carefully selected songs that coincided with each of their friend's, so it was upsetting that the DJ messed it up), and she said he didn't speak a word of English which made it hard to request songs at the reception.

I think the quote I got from DJ Doremixx was $1700 for 4 hours of service. The "approved" DJs were all $2000 for 4 hours. My cousin chose an approved vendor at EDR and they messed up everyone's introduction song at the reception (the bride and groom has carefully selected songs that coincided with each of their friend's, so it was upsetting that the DJ messed it up), and she said he didn't speak a word of English which made it hard to request songs at the reception.

We went with DJ Doremixx as well, but I was sad to find out he was not on our list of approved vendors" so we have to pay the $800 fee to have him at our reception. It turned out though that he was still much cheaper than the "approved vendors", even after we considered the additional fee!