BeaBride

Quote: Originally Posted by rootkl Can someone give me a time frame for a 4pm ceremony?? I am having my pictures done before with my groom so that we can attend the cocktail hour but I'm still not sure how much time to allot afterwards for group pictures...I've seen 30 min which would be perfect but I'm not positive. I have my photog for 5 hours, I'm thinking of having him get there at 2 then be there an hour into the reception...thoughts?? Rootkl: I'm not sure what time of year you're getting married but I got married in November and had my ceremony at 4pm. The ceremony itself takes about 20-30 minutes depending on what you want to incorporate into it. We only had about an hour of daylight to shoot pictures of everyone including the bride and groom/wedding party...which was tight since we had 55 guests. It's a good thing we had some trash the dress pictures done as well. We had a photographer for getting ready, the wedding, the reception and trash the dress. For myself, I would have preferred 1 hour of photography time in daylight to shoot all of my 55 guests (since I didn't get that many pictures of my guests except for at the reception) and another hour for bride & groom/wedding party but it depends on how many guests you have. Thirty minutes might do fine. If you have a photographer booked for 5 hours and you and your groom are doing "first look" pictures pre-ceremony, I think you have the right idea. In your case, I would probably do: 2 hours pre ceremony 30 minutes during ceremony 1 hour group pictures/cocktail hour 1.5 hours reception ....or swap the last two things It really depends on what is important for you and how many guests you have. It was really important for me to have as many pictures as possible in daylight so I should have really booked me ceremony for 2pm because I didn't see my groom before the ceremony.

Hi Coolcalcium! When I was planning my wedding last year, the wedding planner told me to expect the weddding planning forms to be emailed to me 2 months before the wedding. I just checked my inbox and saw that I received my wedding planning forms on August 24th....which is 3 months before our November 21st wedding. I believe that wedding reception locations are a first-come, first-serve type of thing. I emailed my wedding coordinator fairly early in my planning stage when I knew approximately how many guests I was expecting to tell her which location we had in mind. We ha our wedding at the Seaside Grill which you have to pay extra for. That means not as many people are willing to pay to rent it, which makes it a safer bet. However, if the resort occupancy is high, there is a change they won't rent it out because the Seaside Grill is used as one of the restaurants in the evening. As for the spa bookings, the spa concierge emailed me in May for my November wedding bookings and I booked with them through email. The email address at that time was [email protected] and I communicated with Adriana Garcia. I would confirm your bookings when you get there just in case. Vandeni: CONGRATS and WELCOME!

Hezmshaw: FIrst of all, I did not have a beach wedding. However, I know that past brides have brought their own fabric. Somewhere in these over 5000 posts, brides have talked about how much tulle they were bringing, etc. You are allowed to set up your own decorations but depending on where they are being set up will depend on the time in the day they will allow you to set it up. Some days there are 3 weddings so that will affect things as well. The wedding locations also play into when things can be set up. Also, I'm pretty sure that the wedding planners will not allow you to set things up that require electricity or things that require a ladder to set up (probably for liability?), so I'm thinking that they probably don't allow you to set up the canopy. I would check this with your wedding planner. From experience with dealing with my wedding coordinator in email, I would just tell her what I was planning on doing. If she had a problem with anything, she would write back and tell me it was not possible. Also, when I had questions, I would number them and then she would just respond to my questions directly below them. Their English is pretty good but sometimes things get lost in translation over email so I tried to be as clear and concise as possible in order to get my questions answered promptly. She always got back to me within 24-48 hours.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sehausle We decided to just use the resort white linens & flowers (bought extra centerpieces) ...that will save some room in my suitcase & fuss... I was a bit stressed about the linens when I was planning because I didn't want to pay for overlays and and I thought things would look too plain with only the resort's white linens and my fake rose petals BUT my white table linens were really pretty. Their white linens have a criss- cross type of white embroidery on them and they're kind of satin looking. I was expecting very plain white linens. I wish someone had told me that before so I wouldn't have been so worried about it. There are some things that just aren't worth the extra $$$. It WILL be beautiful and you don't even have to put a heck of a lot of effort into it to make it look nice. My advice would be to keep it simple but elegant.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sehausle We are planning on checking one extra bag- I didn't want anyone else to have the responsibility of bringing anyting or dealing with paying customs fees (which people have had to do). I did have to limit my choices as to what I could bring as I belive 50lbs is the weight-limit for most airlines. I originally wanted to bring photos of my familiy members wedding photos with frames and all but it just seems like too much and I don't want to risk anything being lost at the reception. In the end I decided I could only bring things I wouldn't be heart broken if they weren't returned. We are packing - 24 "Welcome" Kits, Menues, place cards, starfish wine stopper favors, 3 candles & holder for unity ceremony,to-go flat cake boxes, 12 tea lights & glass holders, and that's it. We have left most everything in it's original packaging for the trip but I will affix our labels to the cake boxes and our personalized tags for the wine stoppers when we arrive. Make sure you bring extras just in case anything breaks. I am packing everything in shoe boxes as they take up little space and I feel like they will survive the trip better. We decided to just use the resort white linens & flowers (bought extra centerpieces) ...that will save some room in my suitcase & fuss... If you bring breakables, I would bring extras just in case. The only breakable things I brought were the mercury glass candle votives and 2 broke in transit despite leaving them in their original packaging and carrying them on board with us. Good thing I had extras! Also, you can only bring $300.00 USD worth of merchandise so they can get sticky with you at the airport if they want. With all the decorations, it definitely was worth more than $300.00 but I wasn't worried. I brought lanterns and because I had them in my carry-on and they saw them on the xray, they wanted to see them. I showed them, told them what it was for and how much they cost, and they let me through. The centrepiece lanterns were in various carry-on bags with different people in different lineups, so they didn't see them all, and I only had 3 with me. They just get sticky because they don't want people bringing merchandise and selling it there. I haven't heard of any bride getting anything taken away though.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sehausle I've read all of the reviews for DT weddings and most said they were happy with their makeup though it does tend to be on the heavier side so be sure to bring photos of the look you're going for (also know that a tad heavier will look better in photos- but as we all know there is such thing as overkill). I went to my local MAC counter and did a trial with the colors I wanted to use. The makeup artist gave me a picture of a face palette and literally wrote directions on what he used and where everything was supposed to go (kind of like a map for the makeup artist in Mexico to use). The makeup was very expensive over $160 for some eye shadows, a liner, concealer, and a gloss but I chose colors I could use every day so really it was a good excuse for a makeup revamp! I totally agree! In my experience, if you bring a picture of yourself and/or your face palette picture thingy, then they are good at copying stuff. If you have no idea and just let them choose, it tends to be heavier makeup. This is why I think my bridesmaid's makeup was heavier and not as nice....but it looked good in pictures....just a bit much in person.

Quote: Originally Posted by amanda2 Also going to book hair and makeup appointments soon. Does the resort salon do good work, and are they easy to work with/communicate with? I think I am planning to do a few hair and makeup trials at home first and then take a bunch of pictures down to make it easier- anyone else doing something similar? Would you recommend bringing your own makeup down for them to use? Or do they have a good selection? All in all, the spa does really nice work from what I've seen at my wedding and pictures from other brides. It can just take more time than expected. I just cut and pasted this from some of my previous posts. SPA: I knew from a previous bride that I needed to give myself plenty of time to get ready so I booked my hair for 12:00 and makeup for 1:00pm. My ceremony was at 4:00pm. When I booked the appointments for hair and makeup months before, the spa concierge Adriana assured me by email that everyone would be finished by 2:00pm. I got to the spa at 11:45, and they didn't start my hair until about 12:30. The lady that did my hair, Rosely, was very good at her job but took FOREVER. She started my makeup around 2:30 (half an hour after I was supposed to have been finished completely) and it was also nice but not exactly what I wanted. I would have been able to fix it if I had enough time to get ready in my room, but I did not get back to my room to get dressed until 3:10pm!! That left me 50 minutes to get dressed, eat, take pictures and be at the chapel. I lost my cool and cried. That last thing you want is to be rushing to your room from the spa and getting ready in a frenzy! This was hands down the most disappointing thing of the entire day for me. The spa opens at 9:00am, so I actually called them at 9:15 on my wedding day to ask if I could come in any earlier. It wasn't possible. I guess I had a gut feeling that I might not have enough time. Plus I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time for pictures pre-ceremony. FYI: Bring pictures of exactly what you want done with your hair and makeup. The ladies at the spa speak little to no English. I brought a picture of my hair that I took after my hair trial at home in Canada, and she copied it and made it look even nicer! However, I wanted a different bang than in the picture, so I showed her a picture of the bang that I wanted but it didn't end up looking like the photo that I brought. I forgot to take a picture of the makeup that I wanted but either way, it was pretty darn close. The only thing I would have changed is black eyeliner instead of brown (the lady suggested the brown so I went with it because I just wanted tot get back to the room) and maybe a bit more blush. ***Also, I would suggest taking your own makeup. I took all of my own makeup so I wouldn't be stressed about choosing colours, and thank God I did because who knows when I would have returned to my room if I would've had to choose the makeup too! Also, I need to add that all the makeup was MAC makeup. I went for a makeup trial at the MAC counter and the makeup artist there gave me a picture with all the makeup on it and where it was applied so the spa makeup artist knew what to do based on the picture (same as another past bride "Sehausle"). My hair and makeup held up really well. Post sleeping (albeit only about 3 hours) and some wedding night hanky panky, I got up touched up the makeup a little and added a couple of bobby pins before doing our TTD shots at 5:45AM the next morning. I washed my face off after breakfast but didn't wash out my hair until 9:00PM the day after the wedding and the "do" was still in pretty good shape. My hair was mostly up with a bit down and curly to the side. I think if you have a down-do or a partial up/down do, you need to be a bit more concerned about whether it will last, especially if it's curled because of the humidity and dancing. My bridesmaid did a part up/part down hair do. She had the hair that was left down curled as well and it was falling out after about an hour of dancing. If I wasn't so darn tired and hung over, I would have done my makeup a bit better for the TTD shots (foundation, blush, and lips). Spa Appointments: I had two bridesmaids and myself booked for hair at 12:00 and my brother's girlfriend had her hair booking at 1:00. Myself and my 2 bridesmaids then had our makeup bookings at 1:00 for two of us and 1:30 for one person. I had 4 nail appointments all for the same time. My sister-in-law completely forgot to do her nails at home so I booked her mani/pedi appointment the day before at the resort and was lucky enough that the spa could accommodate. I pre-booked my 3 other nail appointments by email from Canada and made all the appointments for the evening before my wedding at 5:30pm. I'm so glad I did because it was one less thing to worry about on the day of the wedding. My sister-in-law had a French manicure and pedicure, I had a French manicure, and my mom & family friend both had a basic manicure. The nails turned out really nice and no one had any complaints. They are really sweet and good at what they do AND they took a reasonable amount of time to do it. FYI: My MOH decided to have acrylics done because she chews her fingernails so she did them before heading to Mexico since they don't do them at the resort. In hindsight, she would have done a gel manicure instead because the acrylics really ruined her nails. My bridesmaid decided to have both her manicure and pedicure done at home to simplify things for her. Myself, my MOH, my mom, a family friend, and my brother's girlfriend all decided to do our pedicures before leaving Canada since they last long enough to still be nice for the wedding. Myself and my MOH did gel pedicures at home while the rest just had regular polish. I really wanted a gel pedicure and they don't do them at the resort. I did a gel French manicure test run at home to see if the polish would last long enough (4-5 days) to be nice for the wedding and they probably would have been fine if I we weren't doing hand/ring shots, but I didn't want to take the chance since the French tips weren't as nice a few days later. That's why I decided to do our manicures at the resort. I did not want acrylics, but if you want to do all your nails at home and don't mind acrylics, that is the way to go for a lasting manicure. As for pedicures, it seems that no matter what kind of pedicure you get (basic polish, gel, acrylic), it will still look beautiful 4-5 days later. We all had our pedicures done on Saturday in Canada, left on Sunday, and the wedding was on Wednesday.

I tried to post a picture of one of my reception tables, but the JPEG size is too large to upload as a picture on this site. Sorry Ladies! Quote: Originally Posted by amanda2 Has anyone hired a DJ through the resort? Or is it better to hire an off-resort DJ and pay the $120 vendor fee? We hired a DJ - DJ Bijan from Mayanvibes for our 55 person wedding reception for 4 hours. We had him do our ceremony music in the chapel for 30 minutes as well. For $750.00, it was totally worth it for us as we had a great time dancing at our reception at the Seaside Grill. We had a huge list of songs ranging from the 1950s to now in order to give him a taste of the fun songs we were looking for...plus the more subtle dinner music, first dance, etc. If we changed our minds on timing or something we wanted to play at the moment, he was able to do it no problem. I actually didn't include a father/daughter dance so when it was time, I went over to him and asked if he could play a country song that would reflect the occasion and he nailed it. I loved that I didn't have to micromanage him. He knew what to do and how to keep the reception moving. DJ Bijan was extremely easy and prompt to deal with via email. We email money transferred him our $200.00 deposit in CAD to hold him for our wedding. He was nice enough to let us pay him in CAD since he's a Canadian living in Mexico. The final amount was paid with Paypal in USD the day of the ceremony. He also gave us the option to pay in cash. The ceremony sound was not as good as good unfortunately. I'm not sure why that was. The music itself was fine but the microphone kept cutting out and it wasn't loud enough when people were speaking into it. Like I said, I'm not sure if that was the resort's mic system or his or whether Kiko, the minister wasn't holding it properly. The DJ was an outside vendor so we had to pay the $120.00 vendor fee to the resort to bring him in. He came alone with his equipment and he brought his own lighting which he placed around his DJ table. The table was supplied by the resort. Anyway, that's what I can tell you about having a DJ. It all depends on what you want to spend but we found DJ Bijan to be affordable for 4.5 hours of play when comparing prices at the time. I think you can definitely get away with having an ipod but you need someone to man it if you're planning on having speeches, special dances, games, etc....which is what we did. I think some brides have brought ipods and had a resort sound guy manage it as well. When I was planning my wedding, it would have cost me $410.00 to rent a sound system for a 3 hour reception....HOWEVER my reception was 4 hours long so it would have cost more than $410.00. I just didn't look into it because I knew we wanted a DJ. The resort does have DJs. I have read from other brides that they are good. When I was planning my wedding the cost for a resort DJ was $250.00 per hour of play. At the time, it would have cost me $166.00 to rent the resort sound system for the ceremony. So, it would have cost me $1166.00 to get have the same services from the resort as what I paid for an outside DJ which cost me only $870.00 (vendor fee included). From a cost perspective, it made more sense to have an outside DJ (especially since we knew we wanted a DJ and not just a sound system rental). I'm not sure if any of the resort prices have changed this year, so I would check into that.

Things I brought: -battery operated votives with mercury glass votive holders for the reception tables (5 per table).I had 6 guest tables, 1 head table, and a welcome/gift table. The DJ also had a table and set up his own lights around it. We used the centrepieces included in our ultimate package for the welcome table and head table....plus we had our 3 bouquets scattered at the head table (MOH, bridesmaid and bride). Only the bride's bouquet was included in the package. -lantern centrepieces with a battery operated pillar candles inside (lantern is made of black metal and plastic windows instead of glass). We tied ribbon around them and they looked great. -fake flower petals in ivory and dark pink for the reception tables -table number holders with table number cards -menus for each plate -wedding favours which were airplane shaped luggage tags in a box wrapped with ribbon. Each had a guest's name on it as their place holder - card box - self-standing seating cards for guests to know what table to sit at - star decoration, spray painted paper lanterns, and tissue paper pomanders for the ceiling at the Seaside Grill - "Just Married" banner for the reception - ribbon for the chapel pews and reserved signs for the front pews in the chapel - fake flower petals in pink and ivory for the aisle - programs at the chapel - 2 little white electric string lighting for around a central pillar at the Seaside Grill I paid to have the wedding staff set everything up. I didn't have time to set anything up, and I didn't want to add stress to anyone in the wedding to run around and set stuff up because the window of opportunity to do so was pretty tight. Plus I wanted people to be around for pictures after the ceremony. I gave Natalia printed instructions on how to set up the chapel and the reception area with a picture of how I wanted the reception tables to look. My sister-in-law to be and friend made sure that the chapel and reception areas were set up properly once the wedding staff did it. I took all of it with me as I was told by various Dreams staff that shipping could be problematic. I didn't have to pay for any additional bags as my family was nice enough to take stuff along for us. We all used little carry-on suitcases; I think we had 5 little carry-on suitcases with wedding stuff and the rest we just spread amongst our regular luggage. As for candles, I had my reception at the Seaside Grill and I would have loved to bring real candles but was told by the wedding coordinator to bring battery operated ones because of the wind near the ocean. I followed her suggestion but I think I may have been able to get away with real ones. Anyway, my point is that I would definitely recommend the battery operated ones for a beach-side or even poolside reception because those locations are less sheltered. Initially I was just going to put 1 large double-sided menu card in the middle of my 6 guest tables just so the guests had an idea of what kind of food to expect. My husband (also) actually wanted inidividual ones to bring the accent colour out more on the tables since we had all white linens and plates. I didn't have napkin holders or anything with a punch of colour so that's what we did. Plus we had the luggage tag favours at each setting with each guest's name on it. We did have a lot of stuff for the resort staff to set up, Here was our price break-down: - Set up over 20 guests for ceremony and reception = $207.90 ($165.00 plus tax and service) - Set up of decorations by wedding staff = $211.68 ($3.00 plus tax and service x 52 adults..at least they didn't include the 3 kids, I guess). We had individual menus and favours per person. At each reception table, I had a lantern centrepiece, table number holders, fake rose petals, and 5 candle holders with battery-operated votives. Each of the 3 kids had a little monkey holder with their picture attached and a kids menu. Also, I had the gift/welcome table with card box, 5 candle holders with candles, rose petals, guest book, and floral centrepiece. The head table also had a floral centrepiece and bride/groom signs on the chairs. - Set up of pomanders and lantern centrepieces = 100.80 ($80.00 plus tax and service). They actually had to fluff up and hang up the 6 pomanders as I just brought the packages that I bought them in at the party store. On the ceiling, I had 6 pomanders, 5 lanterns, 1 hanging star decoration, and they hung a "just married" sign between the pillars. I also had 2 sets of white string lights. For the ceremony, they set up our pew ribbons with fresh flowers, set up extra chairs with covers so all 55 of us would fit in the chapel (6 of us stood at the alter), had the programs ready, 4 reserved signs, a centrepiece, flower petals scattered in the aisle, and lit the candles at the front of the chapel. ** Keep in mind, though, to save on cost, we did not have any chair sashes, we used the standard chairs (not any of the special ones), and we used the standard white linens (no overlays, colored napkins, etc. The Seaside Grill was beautifully set up so in hindsight,I'm glad we didn't spend extra money on sashes, overlays, and linens for 4 hours of reception. Instead of overlays, we sprinkled rose petals. ​

I thought when I was at the Dreams Tulum, one of their excursions included a dinner cruise but I'm not sure. That may be something that you could all enjoy together, but I don't know what that runs for. If you're interested in excursions, I'm sure you could email your wedding planner and they could forward you the link/email addresses of a company that offers excursions. Because we booked our trip to Mexico through Air Canada Vacations, our group ended up booking all of our excursions through them as well. They have a rep at the resort, we booked once we got there, and it was actually cheaper for us that way. Maybe see if you can contact a rep with your travel provider if you're looking for an excursion. Also, the spa offers services for reasonable prices. You could book services through them ahead of time which is what I did via email to ensure all our appointments were booked before getting to the resort. FYI: If you pre-book you appointments at the spa, I would make sure to confirm them once you get there to avoid any confusion. If you have the ultimate package, you could even use the services included for someone else. I know one of the past brides did this.

The DJ was an outside vendor so we had to pay the $120.00 vendor fee to the resort to bring him in. He came alone with his equipment and he brought his own lighting which he placed around his DJ table. The table was supplied by the resort.

CORRECTION!: We paid $750.00 NOT $850.00 for 4.5 hrs of play

If you new brides-to-be have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. This forum was very helpful to me so ask away. I'll help if I can!

I believe you are correct. I can't find the documentation that I had but I asked the wedding planner this at one point last year, and I think you can only have up to about 45 people at the pool. I don't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure it won't accomodate 70 people because at one point I was expecting that many guests. I would email her to make sure. I think the only places that may accomodate that many people is the beach and the ballroom.....maybe the Seaside Grill but you'd have to ask.

Hey Amanda You really have no reason to be nervous. I think it's just the fear of the unknown. No matter what, it will be beautiful, relaxing, and fun!! The beach location is beautiful and romantic. You will need to have lights of some kind because it is dark at night and a bit secluded (in a good way) at one end of the resort. It's a bit windy so you'll need battery operated candles if you use candles and in November and can be a bit chilly to the shoulders for the women so shawls/little coverups come in handy. I had my reception at the Seaside Grill which is near the beach reception area and some of the older ladies were chilly to the shoulders (but they obviously weren't dancing..haha!!). I was hot of course but not unbearable. It was actually the perfect temperature for anyone dancing, women with long dresses and for the men. I went to a wedding in Jamaica last April....it was soooooooo hot and humid at night. Almost unbearable to dance in a short dress. Their reception area was much like the Seaside Grill where there is a ceiling but it's open to the outside all the way around and it had ceiling fans (there are no ceiling fans at the Seaside Grill). It was BOILING! I could not imagine wearing a wedding dress in that sweltering humidity. As for the ballroom, I have only seen it in pictures. It just depends on what atmosphere you're looking for.

We hired a DJ - DJ Bijan from Mayanvibes for our 55 person wedding reception for 4 hours. We had him do our ceremony music in the chapel for 30 minutes as well. For $850.00, it was totally worth it for us as we had a great time dancing at our reception at the Seaside Grill. We had a huge list of songs ranging from the 1950s to now in order to give him a taste of the fun songs we were looking for...plus the more subtle dinner music, first dance, etc. If we changed our minds on timing or something we wanted to play at the moment, he was able to do it no problem. I actually didn't include a father/daughter dance so when it was time, I went over to him and asked if he could play a country song that would reflect the occasion and he nailed it. I loved that I didn't have to micromanage him. He knew what to do and how to keep the reception moving. DJ Bijan was extremely easy and prompt to deal with via email. We email money transferred him our $200.00 deposit in CAD to hold him for our wedding. He was nice enough to let us pay him in CAD since he's a Canadian living in Mexico. The final amount was paid with Paypal in USD the day of the ceremony. He also gave us the option to pay in cash. The ceremony sound was not as good as good unfortunately. I'm not sure why that was. The music itself was fine but the microphone kept cutting out and it wasn't loud enough when people were speaking into it. Like I said, I'm not sure if that was the resort's mic system or his or whether Kiko, the minister wasn't holding it properly. Anyway, that's what I can tell you about having a DJ. It all depends on what you want to spend but we found DJ Bijan to be affordable for 4.5 hours of play when comparing prices at the time. I think you can definitely get away with having an ipod but you need someone to man it if you're planning on having speeches, special dances, games, etc....which is what we did. I think some brides have brought ipods and had a resort sound guy manage it as well. That may be a cheaper option but I'm not sure. Hope that helps!

Initially I was just going to put 1 large double-sided menu card in the middle of my 6 guest tables just so the guests had an idea of what kind of food to expect. My husband (also) actually wanted inidividual ones to bring the accent colour out more on the tables since we had all white linens and plates. I didn't have napkin holders or anything with a punch of colour so that's what we did. Plus we had the luggage tag favours at each setting with each guest's name on it. Anyway, it's totally up to you. It'll look pretty either way. If you decide to have menus, I think I still have my menu template and would be happy to attach it or email it to you.

I know that my DJ brought his own lighting without me even saying anything. I'm sure you can email yours to ask. He's going to need to plug his equipement in somewhere I would guess. so maybe if he doesn't have lights, you could bring a string of lights for his table?? In the week I was at the resort, there were 9 weddings (including mine). I think I saw 3 beach receptions and they were beautiful and pretty well lit. As for candles, I had my reception at the Seaside Grill and I would have loved to bring real candles but was told by the wedding coordinator to bring battery operated ones because of the wind near the ocean. I followed her suggestion but I think I may have been able to get away with real ones. Anyway, my point is that I would definitely recommend the battery operated ones for a beach-side or even poolside reception because those locations are less sheltered.

JamieT!!! I'm so sorry. I feel like you've been ignored! I actually didn't see your post until now! Congrats!!! For music, you can either go with the resort DJ, an outside DJ, or rent a sound system and play music from an ipod. It just depends on your budget and preference. Either way, you can select the music you want played. As for a dance floor, I think it's not worth the money but I guess it depends on where you're planning to have your reception. If it's on the beach, I really think it's more romantic to dance in the sand. For photography, I would definitely recommend getting an outside photographer, whether that means flying one from where you're located or hiring one in Mexico. We hired a friend of ours from Toronto who has experience shooting destination weddings as well as weddings in Canada. We paid for his 3 night stay as well as for shooting the pre-ceremony, ceremony, after-ceremony, cocktail hour, reception, and TTD. Because he's a friend, we got a good deal. I think he normally charges between $2500 - $4500 per wedding depending on various factors. PM me if you need more details on pricing, etc. I know there was a photographer that posted some of her shots on this thread not too long ago. I think it's a Canadian lady living in Mexico that has shot at DT often. Maybe you can message her for pricing or look at some of her work. I've seen and heard Del Sol photography is also awesome but pricey. I hope that helps. I'm so excited for you and thanks for posting! It's so nice to hear from all of you!

Yay Dee Dreams! I'm so happy for you and am glad you had a great time (as I knew you would)!! Congrats!! The dress is beautiful on you...and very unique with the back detail. You look so happy! It's so exciting and interesting hearing from other brides that have been married at DT....especially within the same week. It seems that your hiccups were very different from mine. It was nice that they didn't charge you for setting up your table decorations!! I think it really depends on which wedding coordinator you get. I felt like I was nickle and dimed for every detail. I'm sorry to hear about the front desk staff and the minister. Who was your minister? Thank you for sharing your experience. I really need to buckle down and finish my review! Tulumbride2013: Although we did have a lot of stuff to set up, It feels like we got ripped off on our setup fees a bit. Here was our break-down: - Set up over 20 guests for ceremony and reception = $207.90 ($165.00 plus tax and service) - Set up of decorations by wedding staff = $211.68 ($3.00 plus tax and service x 52 adults..at least they didn't include the 3 kids, I guess). We had individual menus and favours per person. At each reception table, I had a lantern centrepiece, table number holders, fake rose petals, and 5 candle holders with battery-operated votives. Each of the 3 kids had a little monkey holder with their picture attached and a kids menu. Also, I had the gift/welcome table with card box, 5 candle holders with candles, rose petals, guest book, and floral centrepiece. The head table also had a floral centrepiece and bride/groom signs on the chairs. - Set up of pomanders and lantern centrepieces = 100.80 ($80.00 plus tax and service). They actually had to fluff up and hang up the 6 pomanders as I just brought the packages that I bought them in at the party store. On the ceiling, I had 6 pomanders, 5 lanterns, 1 hanging star decoration, and they hung a "just married" sign between the pillars. I also had 2 sets of white string lights. For the ceremony, they set up our pew ribbons with fresh flowers, set up extra chairs with covers so all 55 of us would fit in the chapel (6 of us stood at the alter), had the programs ready, 4 reserved signs, a centrepiece, flower petals scattered in the aisle, and lit the candles at the front of the chapel. ** Keep in mind, though, to save on cost, we did not have any chair sashes, we used the standard chairs (not any of the special ones), and we used the standard white linens (no overlays, coulored napkins, etc. The Seaside Grill was beautifully set up so in hindsight,I'm glad we didn't spend extra money on sashes, overlays, and linens for 4 hours of reception. Instead of overlays, we sprinkled rose petals. I wish I had my pictures already!

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news about the reception food. I should also mention that although we had the ultimate package, we chose to go with the silver menu for all our guests which came to about $500-600 USD cheaper for us (because we would have had to pay more than $90.00 per head over the 20 guests included in the package for the gold menu). We really wanted the surf 'n turf but we felt the cost was not worth it. If I had 22 guests like you Tulumbride2013, I would probably have chosen the gold menu for all my guests and paid per head for the extra two guests. I hope by me saying something to the resort about the food, it will be better for you guys. Like you know Tulumbride2013 and I mentioned before, the resort food in general was great. The charge of extending the reception is universal and has nothing to do with renting the Seaside Grill. On the invoice, they actually write "extra hour of open bar". To clarify what I meant about the alcoholic drinks, she told me that if we wanted a specific brand of bottled of wine or scotch or what have you, they would charge extra per bottle. We did not pay anything extra as they just served us the alcohol available at the resort. The reception servers were happy to bring us whatever we requested so our guests did not have to serve themselves at the bar. TexasMandy: Let me assure you, on my wedding day, I was not the least bit stressed about the details....only about having enough time/daylight for pictures. I just let go of ALL the planning the day before the wedding. You'll do all the pre-wedding prep and hand off your instructions/decorations, and then you can sit back and relax knowing that a team of people will take care of the rest while you enjoy your day.........assuming you're not stuck at the spa!! lol! I loved that we had a wedding planner, photographer, and servers that made sure things were set up/cleaned up, on-time, and that people were taken care of. It goes so fast that you don't have time to worry about every detail. In fact, we had to tip the minister, wedding planner, and mariachi band the day after the wedding because we forgot. Also, to this day I'm not sure if our DJ got fed because we paid for his meal. I think I'll email him...........

To extend the reception, it cost us a whopping $18.90 USD per person. They charge you %15.00 plus 11% tax and 15% service fees. Robbery!! As for the international bar thing, I'm not sure about that. Natalia just told me that if there was a particular type of wine or alcoholic beverage that you want, you had to pay for it. The servers were completely on-the-ball and super friendly. We were happy to tip them but wish we had given them more after all the compliments they got from our guests. They got people whatever they wanted in shots and drinks, including coffee (which apparently is not included in the meal). I should mention that we were pretty disappointed by the food. It generally was not what we expected and it was brought out lukewarm, which should not happen considering we were at the Seaside Grill that has it's own kitchen. We had the vol au vent appetizer which tasted good but the pastry was a bit moist instead of light and flaky like it should have been. The salad was presented nicely but a bit bitter and had way too little salad dressing. Maybe we should have opted for the chicken salad. The main course was the flank steak which was good but too well-done for our liking and not hot enough when they brought it out. The fruit tart was tasty but the tart shell was so hard, I ended up only eating 1/4 of the tart shell and I just scooped out the fruit filling which was yummy. The wedding cake tasted awesome and it was nice and moist. We had the three milks cake with pineapple filing, and our only regret is that we didn't get the leftovers boxed up so I'm not sure what happened to the rest of it. I was really happy that the servers cut it up and served it to the guests but not everyone had some. I even ordered a bit less and we still had leftovers. I was warned by a forum bride not to expect to see the type of wedding cake that you might get in North America, so I wasn't surprised when the shape/height of the tiers weren't perfect and it didn't look exactly as in the pictures. I haven't yet but I'm planning on writing Natalia an email about what was good and not so good with their services, mainly the food. My husband, guests, and I ALL agree that despite us paying almost $82.00USD per plate over the 20 guests in the package, the all-inclusive food at the resort was better than the reception food. We ate at the Seaside Grill a few days after the wedding for dinner, and my husband went there twice for dinner to have steak (he even ordered 2 steaks one night) because he liked it so much. The kicker is that the normal food/salad they serve at the Seaside Grill is better than when you have a reception there, which makes no sense because you're paying a tonne of money to rent the place and feed your guests. Also, we had 4 vegetarians who did not want their vegetarian lasagna so by email, we requested a plate of grilled vegetables and tofu with a side of rice for the main course. All the other courses were already vegetarian, which we chose that way on purpose. What my guests got was rice with pieces of carrot......and we paid $82.00 for that!!!! That was a total lack of respect and a complete rip-off! On a completely different note, the Italian restaurant "Portofino" was the best one according to us and all our guests. The pace of the service is what you would expect here and the food was fantastic. We wish we had gone there earlier in the week because we would have gone twice. TIP: bring a shawl or some sort of cover-up to wear in the restaurants or you'll freeze. They like to crank the A/C . Anyway, hope that helps!

Extending the reception is quite pricey, but we figured that it's an hour of a really important day that we'll never get back. No regrets! I would say that if you can, skimp on some of the less important stuff to get the things that really matter. That's what we did.

Thank you!! You'll have the time of your life! Congrats on your engagement.

Going to the cenote sounds great. I actually only decided to trash my dress about a week before the wedding and by that time, I didn't have the energy or time to look into going anywhere other than the resort to do it. I really just wanted a few beach/water shots so I don't think there will be any crazy, super creative shots in the TTD section. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that we went with the most expensive package. I think it's called the Ultimate package with a 3 hour reception included. We paid to rent the Seaside Grill and paid to extend the reception by 1 hour until 10:30. They won't let you have it any later than that. After the reception, some of us headed to the bar and beach to check things out. Many were too loaded or tired to continue. We had a great time. Initially in the planning process, I was a bit panicked thinking that we would not have nearly enough time to celebrate, but I was wrong. I think I definitely would have appreciated having about an hour or so more but it was great the way it ended up anyway.