TealMarie

Click on your username at the top right hand corner, then click on My Gallery, click Upload and add photos to an album. Then when you write posts, click on the image icon and add photos that way. It'll just come up as a link when you're writing but when you post it'll be a photo. I hope that helps.

Hi Karijean, We didn't use Beach Wedding Studios for our wedding because we already had our photographers for 8 hours. We didn't use them for our welcome dinner but that's an option a lot of past brides have used. We ended up winning a photo session with them later on in the week and used it for honeymoon photos. That could be another option if you asked them about that. You can take a trip to Playa del Carmen (or Cancun) and buy maracas at any of the stores along their touristy strips for $1 or $2 a piece. They have trips everyday from the resort to PdC or you can take a cab. Ask the concierge about their trips. We ended up bringing our maracas down there because I knew we wouldn't be leaving the resort before our wedding. Our guests LOVED them and they were all gone at the end of the night.

Hi Karen, We gave Gloria a tip, as she was awesome and did a lot to organize it all for us. We also gave tips to the bartenders, servers (I asked Gloria ahead of time how many we would have) and the cooks. I read some articles about tipping at weddings to determine the amount. Hope that helps I don't think they've waived the outside photographer fee for anyone for awhile, so I don't think it has to do with your photographer. We had two choices of entrees at our reception and this was fine as long as we had everyone's choices at least a month ahead of time (name with choice) and assigned seating with escort cards so the servers knew who had what. Gloria did say they will offer vegetarian meals for anyone who requires it, if that helps. Hope your planning is going well!

Not a problem, happy to help. Yes, you set up your own hair/make up reservations with the spa. There's a contact form on that section of the website and they will email you back with confirmation. I think you just need your booking confirmation number if you want it put on your room tab and maybe your wedding confirmation number from Gloria. Hi Karijean, You're not able to make restaurant reservations. I'm pretty sure they do that so that the restaurant seating flows more smoothly, otherwise you would have a longer wait to get a table because a bunch of them would be sitting reserved. I think the only times you can do it is if you have one of the honeymoon/anniversary special meals, or a welcome party. Sometimes we were able to ask them at 5pm that day if we could have a table at say 8pm and it worked. Plus you should do that if you want to go to the teppanyaki at Spice, which is a lot of fun.

Karen, Your schedule looks great and like a lot of fun (love the emphasis on cocktails). The only thing I'd consider if I were you is the night time entertainment. They put on a different show every night, they're a lot of fun and lots of people loved going to them. Our whole crew, didn't matter what age wanted to go to it almost every night and I believe it runs from 9-10:30. The stage is right by Cafe Kafe and Stars bar, so it's easy to meet up with people right afterwards. If you do want to see the shows, your 8:30pm dinners would cause you to miss the start of them, assuming at least 1 hour dinner. Also, if you're meeting everyone for pre-dinner cocktails and then saying, "Let's all go to Agave!" or whichever restaurant, it may be hard to get everyone in at the same place, even at 8:30pm. We often would meet for cocktails, split up for dinner into groups of 6-8ish and then meet up afterwards again for cocktails. You can fit 50 people in the martini bar, you guys will just probably take it over which would be fun! I guess I just meant, don't expect seats for everyone. It's a great idea and everyone will have a lot of fun meeting everyone else over a lovely martini. They scheduled me to have my hair and make up done at 9am for our 2pm wedding, but there were 6 of us getting our hair and makeup done. Make your appointment with the spa and they will help you determine when you should get your hair/make up done. They'll schedule you for 1.5 hours but they are exceptionally fast and talented, so it was quicker than that. I had Elias, which a lot of other brides mentioned as well and he is phenomenal. Make sure to bring pictures, as he really likes seeing what you want. He didn't even really ask me anything and just started working and it turned out perfect (I did not have a trial). The makeup was great, don't worry about it. A few of the girls in my bridal party are very picky about their hair and makeup and they all loved what he did, so no worries. Just remember they do at least one wedding almost every day of the year, which makes them more experienced at it than most stylists and makeup artists in Canada or the US.

I'll definitely have a look at your schedule. It's always helpful to run it by a couple of people. It sounds like you girls are doing great! You will be so happy having your wedding there. We have the best memories. Wish I could go back!

Hi KariJean, I believe we had a ceremony centerpiece and a reception centerpiece. Yes, they can move the ceremony one to your reception after the ceremony is over. We had 5 round tables, so we had one centerpiece on one of the tables, and a vase on each of the other tables that we plunked our bouquets into. The second centerpiece that came with our package was next to the cake. I think we got two centerpieces because we had the Gold package. Yes, the centerpieces looked like our bouquets. The pictures I sent as inspiration for our bouquets and the centerpieces were just ones I had found online, not ones I knew were made at ERC. I didn't know I could rent vases. I had emailed Gloria some ideas and she said they could rent us some things if we didn't want to bring them. If that's the route you'd like to go, I would email her pictures of what you're picturing and ask how/if they can make it happen. They have a lot of glassware, decorations, etc that they've either purchased or other brides have left, so I imagine that's why they don't have a catalogue of it. Using our bouquets for the centerpieces turned out great, so I'd ask Gloria/Jessica about getting vases and say you'd like to use the centerpieces that are included for no additional cost in your package as well. About a month before your wedding, ask for an itemized invoice so you can go over everything. That way you'll be sure you're not being charged for centerpieces if you thought they were included.

Hi Karen, That's a great idea to let people know where you'll be going. We did something similar and we usually ended up back at Cafe Kafe after dinner where we'd let people know what we were doing for the night, if they were interested in joining. I have to admit I never went to the Sports Bar and don't even know where it is on the property, so I have no idea about it's hours or atmosphere. Cafe Kafe was open until 11pm or 12am, if I remember correctly. It had a great atmosphere where a lot of people would gather before dinner and they'd have a live band playing often or sometimes salsa dance lessons that you could join in or watch. As I said before, the Martini bar is really fun, feels a bit more dressy and has some great martinis, but it's busy. Not meaning you shouldn't go, it's just you might be standing while you drink, which isn't a big deal if you've been lounging and suntanning all day Also, most of these bars are about 30ft from each other, so not that hard to jump ship and move to another one. Random tip: We had people download the app, 'What's App' to their phones and it was a great way to text people to let them know what the plan was if we hadn't run into them that day. Very handy as there's wifi pretty much everywhere on the resort.

I had my reception at the Foyer. It is a private room that's very pretty. It's kind of shaped like a T, with the post of the T wide and short, if that makes sense. Yes, it's very hot. Our wedding was in November and everyone was dripping in sweat during the meal and especially after a little bit of dancing. In terms of space, you could place your table by the window, as it was a bit breezy but you would have to rely on several fans. I've said it before but if it were me I'd have the reception at Barcelona or the Lobster House, especially if it were in July. I believe these are the correct bars that are open until midnight or 1am. Alegria is the dance club and it's....not very nice I'd say and not very busy, although this depends on what groups decide to go out what night. The martini bar has a lot of neat drinks and a great atmosphere but it gets busy, especially to have 50 people meet you there. There's really only seating along the bar (maybe 35 seats along the bar and another 10 in chairs off to the side) and it's more of a place that people would go to have a drink before or after dinner. If you're organizing this for 50 people I'd go with Stars. It's the bar next to the stage where they put on different shows every night. There's a lot of seating around there and there are servers to bring you drinks. You could meet people there, enjoy the show (which are really fun) and then decide whether to stay or move on to the club. Our group tended to meet at Cafe Kafe, have a few drinks and then decide where to go afterwards. I'm not sure what your questions about centerpieces are. I didn't like most of the centerpieces offered in the catalogue but if you just give them a picture or two, they can make anything for you. I did that with my bouquet and centerpiece and they turned out exactly how I wanted. I also rented a few vases and had my bridesmaids bouquets in them on each table. It turned out fantastic! Also know that a lot of flowers that are affordable for us in the US or Canada, are much more expensive there because they have to import them. I was interested in peonies and hydrangeas, but these were very expensive, so I stuck with roses (they had the shades I asked for) and local (cheaper) white and green fillers.

Hi Karijean, 1. It's $200 per couple to get the bloodwork. Bring cash to give the Doctor. That makes it sound shady, but it's not. 2. We do have to get it translated into English (ahem, a task I still have not completed - oops), in order to get a new drivers license and I believe passport. We're in Canada, so the cost to us will be different, I imagine. 3. We had 30 guests at our wedding (which was such a perfect amount, btw). We had a 'Welcome dinner' the second night we were there. We ended up having it at the outdoor Carribbean night festival they had at the resort. It was wonderful, but keep in mind we didn't do (or want to do) any speeches or to pick our own menu (it was a delicious buffet). Gloria reserved three tables for us, which was awesome. 4. They have music trivia every 2 or 3 days by the swim up pool. The prize is a short photo session with the resort photographers and you get five photos. I couldn't pick five photos, so we came to a price and I paid for all of them on a cd. I was so happy with this, especially because we never ended up doing engagement pictures. More pictures? Sure! Twist my rubber arm, why don't you? I'll be that annoying bride on here If I were getting married in August, I'd choose the air conditioning. I think people would feel super uncomfortable and grumpy if it was much hotter than what we dealt with. People were taking more breaks from dancing then they wanted because they were just soaked in sweat. Barcelona can look really great. When we were there, they had Chez Isabelle in there because the normal restaurant was being renovated. They made it look really great. I'm sure your guests will thank you for considering their comfort over asthetics in the end. Another option would be the Lobster House. It's by the beach, super breezy and really pretty, but I think it's only available Friday nights. Not sure on that. It's open to everything though, so people walking by around the resort would see everything. Not a big deal, but it might be to some people.

Awesome pictures Lydia! It looks like you guys had a blast! Glad to hear you had such a great time.

Okay, last review for me. This one is for our wedding photographers, whom we just loved! http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/index.php?app=reviews&module=reviews&section=reviews&do=view&id=4279

Dina, I finally figured out how to compress my pictures, so I could upload them on the site. Thanks for the link. I can't believe we were so close to each other! I would have hopped, skipped and jumped over to see you if I'd realized it! 11.21.13 will always be such a special day, and I'm glad to share it with you guys Thanks for the lovely comments ladies. We're very lucky to have had such amazing photographers and they guaranteed our photos within 6 weeks of the wedding, but we got them after 3.5 weeks! Victor Herrera photography is really top notch, they were such a good choice. I can't wait to see the rest of your pictures! Please post when you get them! Sheena - now I can finally sign my name, without fear of someone seeing my dress before the big day Here's a link to my ridiculously long review, if anyone is interested. http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/index.php?app=reviews&module=reviews&section=reviews&do=view&id=4275

You are so welcome. I hope it can help you and other brides with some decision making. Thank you for the compliments! It was actually the same dress - the lace overlay comes off! I didn't know this when I picked it out but it sure sold the dress for me. We definitely had the best day and our guests had such a wonderful time. Everyone said they wished their wedding had been so stress free and relaxing. It also helps that you're on vacation with all of your guests, so you get a whole week to spend with them chatting, instead of just a few hours at the reception. Gloria is such a peach, just as sweet in real life as in her emails. The resort photographers are great, I wouldn't worry about anything