JessiTaylor

lupita told me that photographers are now 300 dollars, and other vendors are 70 dollars. i guess they changed the rules since wilsar08 got married. which is a pity!

oh goodness i woudlnt do that if i were her. shes said its not only cheaper, its their dream to have the DW. thats going to seriously backfire if he then says "ok ill pay the difference. so you'll have it in your hometown now right?". then theyd have to say that they were bluffing haha

anyone know much about these vendors? i looked in the vendor reviews but i only saw one

i met the styling trio guys a week ago (at a wedding expo in monterrey) and they seemed really lovely. im going to use them anyway!

a lot of hotels will allow a photographer if you pay for them to stay for the night, but if hes a local photographer - best to check in advance so you know either way. because the hotels know all the main photographers by sight, so you can't "sneak them in" so to speak. you dont want to be suprised on the day by a 800 dollar fee so i would ask if theyd waive the outside vendor fee providing he had a room for the night

which bit do they save you money on out of interest? the entertainment or other bits are the location and food/drink costs the same?

eugh i should stop pressing post before ive said everything i want to its more relevent to people who love live bands but cant pay the prices, and also people who are having both ceremony and reception at xcaret

oops cant edit- because with the savings, i can add the midnight buffet, or have better flowers etc. im not going to sacrifice quality - if these bands are terrible i wont use them BUT i dont think xcaret prices are justifiable

having my ceremony in the st francis of assisi chapel, and reception in la isla. i wanted a cocktail reception by the water...but alas im too poor! so im going to try and explain what im doing. im a bit hungover so this may be a terrible explanation xcaret says you have to use 3 of their musicians/groups...after that you can bring people in. i really wanted a live band and fi always wanted a mariachi we are having the trio xcaret suggests for the church bit. and because the live band costs a bomb, we decided to have a harp during dinner rather than playing the expensive music when people cant dance cause theyre eating. so we figured that we could at least outsource the mariachi or live band because with them itd bring us up to 4 artists/ then i thought if i hired the cheapest artist they have to play music as guests arrived... i can outsource both. so im planning to hire a guitarrist for 567 dollars or whatever so i can go elsewhere for both to give you an idea about savings xcaret live band is 5840 dollars (plus tax) for four 45 min sets (they play 45 mins, rest 15 mins) musicancun have just quoted me 3780 dollars for 4 sets (including tax) and there are cheaper paclages available xcaret mariachi is 1985 dollars plus tax for 45 mins, musicancun prices range from 595 dollars for 1 set of 45 minutes with 5 musicians, and 1070 dollars for 11 musicians (again, including tax) so by hiring a guitarist that i dont particularly need or want, i think i can save myself around 2000 dollars. as graciela said 3 of ANY musicians. didnt say had to include specific ones i met her last saturday - she was at a wedding expo here in monterrey.. and she tried to convince me that xcaret mariachi was worth it...but honestly it isnt. for that, its my fi's call as its his most importatn wedding thing. if he doesnt mind, then it goes! does that make sense?

not this year, but im having mine march 9th 2013, so 7 months before you. so hopefully my review + rehanak's reviews will be early enough to help you! im also probably choosing a few non-xcaret entertainment options so can tell you how they are

in what way didnt they do what was promised?! im looking for a band at the moment, can anyone give me an idea on prices?

i met lupita yesterday! i went to a wedding expo in the city i live (monterrey) and she was there. she's really nice,helpful and had some great ideas. it makes me feel much more confident abotu planning my wedding when ive met the person in person rather than just via emails

anyone heard of tania tagle? she quoted me 240 dollars for airbrush makeup. not certain whether the hairdo was included or not

I think this wording is fantastic! frankly, having chosen the worlds most expensive venue (xcaret, so beautiful but so much money!) every person does make a difference to the budget for our wedding- it works out something like 120 dollars pp not including transport. i have no issue with people bringing someone to hang out at the beach with, they just cant attend the wedding. and im saying the same thing about children. if that means people drop out, then so be it!

what are the rates that youve seen? honestly, if you can combine flights with the hotel it seems to be wayyyy cheaper. i paid on expedia and will get flights seperately - paying 220 pounds a night. my friend and her bf got a 2 weeks hotel stay , transfer and flight package for 1400 pounds each from london - (and london to mexico flights are normally around 700 pounds), so their room rates are so so much lower than mine a website that can be good but accepts foreign cards is despegar.com.mx, i cant remember if you can get it in english or not. or the hotel will offer group rates depending on numbers and dates. its really worth shopping around! i needed a booking so i could reserve my wedding as i was worried about losing the date, otherwise i would have waited for lower rates elsewhere to come out! also vivaaerobus.com.mx can be in english, and it does hotel only bookings. someimtes they have good prices! soltamargo - thanks for the advice!! i think ill go for the gazebo. probably haha.

so we live in mexico, and for our cancun wedding we need to find a mexican tour company that does flights/hotels....and they dont release prices till approx 6 months before...so around now for our march 9th wedding. fi and i already have a hotel room as do my family, as we needed it to make the reservation for our wedding. but theres 50+ mexican guests who dont/./ some still dont have prices but we called one who told us that sandos playacar was 100% full, and our guests would have to stay somewhere else (the 50 people is including fis faimly...so would have been us plus my family alone). i cried as i was so stressed, as i thought we'd not be able to have any of these people...or they wouldnt be able to hang out with us.or theyd have to buy day passes or we would or whatevr so i was damning mexican tour companies for being so disoragnised, as foreigners generally arrange hotels and flights maybe a year before. it made sense to me that theyd be booking up the hotel way before we even had packages available here in mexico. BUT my fi had a proactive moment and called the hotel manager - who was completely outraged that we'd been told this as the hotel has plenty of available rooms for our dates and he'd sent this agency the info the week before! it seems they might have had a deal and thats why they were trying to pressure us to choose another specific hotel so we sent a lovely email (in spanish) basically saying " thankyou for your quotes for the other hotel, however we just spoke to the hotel manager of sandos, salvador bautista, and he is astonished that you seem to think theres no availability since he sent you the information last week. happily, we can confirm there is availability so please work on our quote again!" literally seconds after we sent it...the apologetic phonecall about how they couldnt understand how the mistake had happened, and of course sandos has availability. hmmm mmm. so they didnt even need time to discover the mistake by checking documents when one hour ago they were trying to push other options on to us? vent - that we dont have the rates available now vent - i think that company tried to scam us

azul beach is smallish for an AI in the riviera maya - it has 98 rooms. so youd have about 50% of the guests? for an AI its about as small as you can get nto sure about boutique hotels!

contract is sent!!! i am officially a sandos playacar legal wedding bride to be! hurrah! now where are all the rest of you?! =)

Im sending the contract tomorrow and then i will officially be a sandos playacar bride for my legal wedding!! 2pm March 9th 2013 for family only (catholic ceremony will be later in the day elsewhere with family and friends) im very excited to have it organized finally! i think itll be pretty bright sunshine wise so not quite sure how i will see anything without sunglasses but ill do my best! debating gazebo versus beach but im thinking the beach might be windier and mess up my hair before the other ceremony. mmmm decisions decisions! seems such a pity to be in the riviera maya and NOT to have a beach ceremony though......

ilooked at zenzi - didnt reply to my emails so i just turned up. the guy who spoke to us repeatedly emphasised that there was no possibility of a private event as "locals like to drink here". but kept telling us he would squeeze us in and try to find some space for us. only info he gave us via email afterwards was bar prices (so who knows about food). so the bar prices :$180 pesos/person for the house bar including smirnoff vodka, bacardi, cuervo tequila, beers and soft drinks . includes mixers and ice.$220 pesos/person per hour with better brands (no more info given) also includes mixers and ice.also you can buy bottles: wine $ 400 pesos.tequila 1000 - 1300 pesos,rum -1000 pesos for dollars divide by approx 13. basically i found them a bit unhelpful and sounds like itd be incredibly busy there kool i really did like - but i wanted a wedding ceremony during daylight, and it only opens for private events from 7pm (and in march sunset is around 6pm). canibale royale - i popped in quickly just to see how the palce was. it seemd quite casual to me, but not in a sort of charming rustic way like BV. its all subjective though, what i wanted was a simple beach ceremony but with a slightly more dressed up reception. admittedly i didnt see it done up for an event to be fair, i looked at zenzi, wickys. kool and canibale royale after id seen xcaret - and i was so in love with xcaret that anywhere else seemed not as special. so i stopped visiting beach clubs!

well the pdf file they sent me says: "* A minimum guarantee of 100 adults is required on weekends (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) of the following months: February, March, April, May and November and 70 adults from Monday to Thursday." so i assume that means if you go for june/july then it doesnt apply? when she sent the initial quote ot me for my march wedding, i said i wanted 100 people but she based the quote on 80 (as once you sent the deposit, you can increase the things you want - people, more music, extra hours etc - but you cant decrease it). so im not sure how strict they are on that? the advantage of the riviera maya is the temperature is pretty steady. it does admittedly get more humid later on, but its not like where i live in mexico (monterrey) where the temp steadily increases from february onwards to peak in the summer/ so what i mean is if you pick a bit later then it shouldnt make a massive massive difference. also... depending on how long people are coming for, could you do a weekday wedding? it often doesnt make a difference to people for destination weddings since they dont have to worry about work the nxt day etc im going to wait and see what my wedding co-ordinator comes up with - kristee from fresa weddings is helping me lots, as xcaret doesnt handle things like flowers, extra decorations. favors, transport etc...and as my spanish is pretty rubbish, arranging the extras was stressing me out! but apparently its possible to hire someone who does your main makeup before the ceremony, and then can do touch ups later in the night

i was wondering this too!! nobody mentions here booking a wedding there, but its very busy - ithink it must be locals as well.maybe its because generally if UK/US people are havign a destination wedding in the rivera maya then its to save money or have a very small wedding.ive found xcaret to be pretty much what id pay back home in central london so its definitely not a budget option!also the isla restaurant has a minimum of 80 people - and it was that (and the spiral candlit walkway) that really sold me on the venue! im looking at sandos playacar for my guests - it was approx 15-20 mins from xcaret, and it was on the lower end of the price scale of hotels i looked at (places like dreams are out of the budget of a lot of my guests and i would like everyone to stay in the same place). grand occidental xcaret looks nice too but for some reason my fi didnt really like it from the website. sandos playacar is family friendly,but has an adults only section

My fiance isnt that involved at all - ill run ideas past him and he doesnt have many strong opinions either way 3 things he insisted on - no pink - no personalised M&Ms - he hates them with a passion (no idea why, i LOVE them) - no blue glasses (there were two options - clear and blue) everything else hes happy enough to let me decide so i think i can manage to avoid 3 three things he doesnt want (though i yearn for those M&MS haha)

I just saw this bouquet and loved it - think it looks really "fresh" (perhaps an odd choice of words but first thing that popped into my head). thing is i would have to rethink all my colours!

Thanks so much! im standing on a box and its touching the floor, i think it was designed for a 6 foot + woman. i love the belts some people have posted, theyre very pretty!