beachbride2013

Hi! We did a bonfire 2 nights before our wedding. It was a very nice experience. All of the bonfires begin at 8:00 pm. We had everyone do their own thing for dinner and meet us at 8 on the beach. Cecilia will be waiting for you at the beach entrance and guide you to your bonfire. She will also guide all of your guests as they arrive. We had open bar for the bonfire which was very nice. You will get your own bar set up and also have a waiter. They will have tall pub tables set up and will pull beach chairs around for sitting. We brought a music box but it was pointless because of the wind and the wedding reception going on at the gazebo. Other than the music box, you really don't have to plan anything. It's a nice time to socialize with all of your guests and for all of the guests to have a good time together as well. I believe the bonfire ends at 10.

I believe that Cecilia is the wedding coordinator in charge. It does take some time for them to get back to you and yes it can be frustrating. I feel for you. I think Oceana is the buffet restaurant. So the terrace would be a large covered patio area. It's downstairs. I could be wrong about this, but I think that is what oceana is. I didn't see a wedding take place at that location. I did see a wedding take place upstairs on the other side of the night club. They had a DJ, lights and everything set up there. It looked really nice and they were off to the side so it looked pretty private. That would be an option to consider. I thought it was neat that they were upstairs so you are overlooking the resort and the ocean. Also, it was raining, so they were protected by a covering of some sort. I don't know what that location is named.

Hi Lorcas. This happened to us as well. We ended up doing the Baracuda Terrace (NOT the lawn) and it was beautiful. It is equidistant to the beach compared to the Gazebo. You would obviously not have the gazebo, but it is really beautiful and I would recommend this over any of the "lawn" options. It also has a beautiful view of the beach and is right near the infinity pool. The locations are really the most important to get taken care of. As far as any other changes go, they can be made at any time and it's not really a big deal. Good luck!

We did the Mexican trio as well. We had that during our cocktail hour. The guests enjoyed it. We were having our pictures during that time so we missed the cocktail hour. I did hear from a guest who attended that the trio at some points were just standing there and not playing. She said she told them to play when they were just standing around.

Hi! My husband and I had 20 guests including us. We chose to spend the money and go with the DJ. We even extended the reception/DJ time by 2 hours for I think only an additional $200. It was money well spend. We bought a jam box to use for the bonfire, but with the wind, waves, and music from the reception going on at the wedding gazebo, you could barely hear it. It was awesome though. As for 1st dances, intro of B&G. toasts, cutting the cake, etc......the DJ was perfect. The DJ will pull you aside and talk to you for a moment about the intro. He will have nice things to say during the cake cutting, and basically make sure everything goes seamlessly. They played the perfect music during dinner, and then play the party music when it's time to dance. They are excellent at getting everyone up and dancing. Our guests who absolutely never dance and are terrible dancers were up dancing and having a blast. The DJ/MC was not cheesy at all. I highly highly recommend using the DJ. They were better than any DJ's I have heard at weddings here in the states. They have all the music you could want. We gave cecilia and the AV manager a list of songs for 1st dance, etc. (We met with them after our arrival to go over the contract, pay, etc). We also gave him a list of songs we did not want played, and songs we did want played. We told him other than that we wanted some country songs, some latin music, and wanted people up dancing). They made it happen and everything went smoothly and was really perfect. We told them it was ok to play songs that guests requested during the reception as well (if there were any requests). I know many people here use a music box and have a wonderful time, but for us the DJ made the reception what it was. Everyone said it was the nicest wedding they have every been to, and the most fun they have ever had at a wedding reception. We did not have a huge reception when we arrived home for all of the guests who could not make it. I know that sometimes plays a part in cost. We spent our entire budget in Mexico.

The resort uses their own DJ company and I do not believe it is DJ Mania. I do believe you can book DJ mania if you would like, but you will just pay them and pay the outside vendor fee. We used one of the resort DJs and he was awesome. If you choose to use them, you would have nothing to be disappointed about. They were not cheesy, hokey, or boring. They have every song you could possibly want and they kept everyone dancing literally the entire time.

CriCri, we did not go back to SMB. We want to though!!! We ended up going to Cancun to a different resort with some friends before our anniversary. But to celebrate our anniversary we went to southern California.

If I remember correctly, all of the bonfires begin at 8pm. There will be several set up on the beach and cecelia will be there to direct you and guests to the correct one. We all enjoyed that. Our guests still talk about it. We did a welcome bonfire 2 days before our wedding instead of the night before. As for the coctail hour, I agree with Cri, it provides a nice time for your guests while you are doing photos. Our guests enjoyed the cocktail hour and the mariachi trio. Other than those things, we were very basic on the decor in order to cut costs. We didn't order extra flowers or decorations. I brought most of mine from home. Once we arrived at the resort and had our meeting with cecilia and the DJ manager, we decided to extend our reception for 2 hours. We were really glad we did. Everyone had such a great time and we danced all night.

I tried to email her an updated contract every time I made changes. However, the most important thing is location, date, and times. After that, pretty much anything can be changed and updated to fix your needs. We even changed our guest count the day of the wedding when we found out we would have an extra person coming.

Hi! Congrats to you! I think you would have a difficult time getting a reservation at any of the restaurants for 18 people. The restaurants do not really accommodate large groups. We had 20 people and ended up doing a reception. In my opinion, that would be the best option. Some have done things like bring their own music box, provide your own decorations including chair sashes and centerpieces(we did that), maybe don't do a bonfire. There are ways to cut costs. We were originally going to do the complimentary package, but it seems to be more for smaller groups if I remember correctly. We ended up just upgrading the package because it was going to be less to upgrade packages than to do a bunch of upgrades. Also, have you reserved your times and locations?

Congrats!! We had simple and inexpensive centerpieces. I had a silver charger, a cylinder vase with a fake fushia colored orchid in it with water and a floating candle. You can look at "drowned orchids" and get some ideas if you like that idea. Some look really cheesy and sort of cheap, but you can change them up to fit your liking. I bout a photo frame and painted it the blue that matched our wedding color and cut out a number and put it in the frame on a nice sheet of paper for background. It was simple and inexpensive. For the vases for drowned orchids, I shopped around at hobby lobby, dollar tree, and michaels. I used coupons for those as well as the flowers. I also found that the white orchids looked fake in the water, and the colored ones did not (unless you looked really really close)! Good luck! You will probably get lots of ideas here. The tables are large, so I think it would look better if you had something in the center. Ours was really simple, but the color added something and def made it look really nice.

Jen-LOve the video!!! Thank you for sharing!!! You look amazing!!

Just send her an email again asking if she received your deposit and then be patient. She could be out of town, or working a wedding. Sometimes it takes a while for them to get back to you. Since your wedding day is so far from now, she may not be rushing to get back to you.

Hi Angd! Congrats to you!!! We were originally planning to do our ceremony and cocktail on the beach. Never planned for dinner on the beach simply because of the sand and wind. It just seemed like it would be awkward or uncomfortable and I think it would have been. After arriving at the resort we immediately switched out cocktail hour from the beach to our reception location (barracuda terrace). The beach is gorgeous but it really seemed like it would have been too much. It gets humid, windy, and can get cool on the beach at night. Plus I don't know that the DJ would have set up on the beach either. A little bit of the beach goes a long way when it comes to a wedding. This is only my opinion and others may feel differently and have a different view to offer. A wedding dress on a humid day isn't the most comfortable thing either, throw in a ton of sand and it is really bad. For us, we wanted less sand and wind. We also wanted to be sure that our guests would be as comfortable as possible. Those are the reasons we chose not to do the reception on the beach. Our cocktail hour was at 5:00 pm and the sun was out on full force. I was so glad we didn't do the cocktail on the beach. Everyone would have been sweating like crazy.

Jen, heels on the beach sounds dangerous! Even with the isle.....I personally would not want to risk it.....

Hey Jen, you recently asked about back up in case of bad weather. I have some advice to offer. I would find out which restaurant will be closed. For my wedding (it poured like crazy that day) they were going to put us in the Japanese restaurant. I was devastated bc it's incredibly dark and wasn't what I was wanting for my wedding at all. It was the only option bc another wedding had taken the other back up. Luckily it cleared up by the time wedding started and I pushed to set up outside even though they were pushing for the Japanese restaurant. So, basically, upstairs on the balcony all the way to the end (outside of the lobby bar area) on the opposite side from the restaurant (italian and french) there was a wedding reception going on actually on the balcony in the rain. That side is a covered balcony and it's far enough away from the lobby bar to have privacy. It looked great, they had music set up and were still able to be outside. Just wanted to bring that up to you to check out in case... ' Best wishes to you! It's a beautiful resort and lots of fun!!

Hi Funkydoll! For the beach ceremony, Cecilia came to my room before hand and picked up my ipod. They have the dock. I had 4 songs selected to play while guests were being seated. I believe that was enough. I think 30 minutes of music would be plenty.

Yout wedding was beautiful!!!

When you confirm your wedding date and have paid the deposit, be sure to reserve where you want your reception to be. Do that by letting cecilia know and then signing the contract and sending it back to her. Otherwise your preferred reception location/time can be taken by someone else.

Enjoy Lola!! Best wishes to you!!

KC-your photos look great! You hair looks amazing!

KC Dawn, I can't wait to see photos!! Just FYI for the $300 limit- we did get searched at the airport and nobody asked us how much our stuff cost. We had a ton of stuff too. They just looked through our bags and didn't want to spend the time looking through the boxes so we didn't even have to open everything.

Congrats KCDawn! It sounds like you had an amazing time and your wedding went off without a hitch!! )

It's going to depend on when you are doing any dances that you may be doing, cake cutting, toasts, how many guests you will have, how long your photog will be there, etc. How long is your reception? It would be a good idea to have music playing for the entire reception imo. If your reception is 3 hrs, then I would rent the sound system for that amount of time (they may require it anyway).