Mya062813

Keep in mind whatever you pack to bring with you try to choose non-breakable items.  SHould somehting break along the way, we all know how the airlines handle bags, you will not be able to replace it in Mexico once their.  Also if you can pack somethign that you can put together at the resort it is probably better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by britt1125 
 

your slideshow is beautiful! did u take a lot of things with you from home down as far  décor, centerpieces,added touches, anything?

Thank you.  We brought a suitcase worth of items with us: printed menus, place cards, plate for everyone to sign, my bouquet, wooden sign for the beach with our names, wooden signs with senor & senora for the back of our chairs at the dinner table, paper lanterns to hang on the pergola at the Tequila Terrace, favors, picture frame centerpieces & chair bows, I believe that was everything.  Be sure to bring all of your receipts with you, we had a little trouble with customs & they almost took our stuff due to lack of receipts.

Originally Posted by TaraB 

 

hi gals,

 

I have a bunch of questions I'm hoping some of you can help me with:

 

-Does anyone happen to have copies or pics of the a la carte menus from the resort? 

 

-the website says that the 'unlimited connectivity' app is coming soon in 2014.  Has anyone heard specifically when (what month) it will be active for the Sapphire?  I'm getting married in late Jan and am wondering if it will be working by then.

 

-i am planning on bringing a bunch of my own decorations.  does anyone know if i will be charged for setting up the following items (and if so, how much):

        -table cloth overlays

        -satin napkins

        -pearl and rhinestone confetti for reception tables

        -chair bows

        -fabric to hang from the huppa

        -starfish and twine to hold back fabric on the huppa

        -round paper lanterns (in ballroom)

        -silk rose petals for the aisle.

        -table numbers

        -place cards

        -menus

 

I'm also planning to bring a special 'card/paper' to be given to each person at check-in which has all of the wedding events/locations/times etc.  will they charge me for that if they just have to give it out at check-in?  (people are arriving over several days)

 

just over 5 months to go!!  getting excited now!!   42 booked already!!  

I believe you would only be charged $1 per chair bow, send this list to Anel or Ramon they will tell you the fees.  We brought place cards, favors, menus, center pieces & guest book & were not charged for any of this.  We did bring bows for the chairs & lanterns for the perguloa on the Tequila Terrace.  They did want to charge us to do these, but my friends did them so there was no fee.

We had the front desk had out letters to each guest at check in & there was no fee.  A few things you should know.  Letters must be in envelopes & have the regstered guest/guests first & last name on the outside.  All guests must be the same level, example preferred.  All of ours were prefered not sure if the regualr front desk will do this or not.

Originally Posted by meganwitt 

 

For past brides or ones that are close,

 

I am thinking of bringing a polariod camera to use as my guest book. In addition to the cake table do we get another escort card table or guest book signing? 

 

Thanks Tara and Mollyes for information on photographer. Guest day passes are $75 per person right? 

 

Thanks ladies! I'm down to 10 months, whoo hoo!!

We had a small table that had our guest book & some photos on it.  The cake came out on another small table for the cake cutting.

If I recall the guest passes are $65 + tax, check the wedding guide it is listed there as well.

Originally Posted by meganwitt 

 

Mya,

 

Congrats. You were a beautiful bride!!

 

For the video were you able to pick out the music? And could you have had your vows in the video or do they pick what make the cut?

 

It looks beautiful down there, I can't wait till next June!!

Hello-

We chose our own music, they ask for this on your wedding planning details form which you submit 30 days prior to arrival.  We were not part of the video cutting process, they made the choices. 

It's funny you ask about the vows, I was disappointed that we didn't hear them, they also cut out our sponsors for the lasso & our kiss:-(  I e-mailed them & never heard back.  But I did get an e-mail yesterday that a DHL package is coming from them.  So I will see what they are sending us & let you know.

I am sure if you tell them you want to hear your vows that will make that happen, they are very flexible.

Originally Posted by zeman321 

 

These are beautiful! I loved your dress!  Who did the rope of flowers? I really liked that idea...perfect touch!

Thank you!  Many people have asked if I got my dress in Mexico..I got in in NJ:-)

I wanted to incorporate a Mexican tradition into our wedding ceremony.  After some research I learned about the wedding cord/lasso.  See this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_cord.  I brought my bouquet with me so I asked the resort to do the floral lasso in place of my bouquet since it was included in the Divine package.  There was no additional charge & it came out beautiful. All of our guests commented on how nice it was.  I coordinated it with the minister prior to our arrival & he was happy to do it.

Originally Posted by zeman321 

 

These are beautiful! I loved your dress!  Who did the rope of flowers? I really liked that idea...perfect touch!

Thank you!  Many people have asked if I got my dress in Mexico..I got in in NJ:-)

I wanted to incorporate a Mexican tradition into our wedding ceremony.  After some research I learned about the wedding cord/lasso.  See this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_cord.  I brought my bouquet with me so I asked the resort to do the floral lasso in place of my bouquet since it was included in the Divine package.  There was no additional charge & it came out beautiful. All of our guests commented on how nice it was.  I coordinated it with the minister prior to our arrival & he was happy to do it.

We haven't recieved our wedding pictures yet but got our sneak peek slideshow this morning, I am excited to share it with all of you.

http://rivetti.amorcitocorazonstudio.com/

Attached is the link to our wedding video done by the resort & included in the Divine wedding package.  We received it on a DVD about 3 weeks after.  http://youtu.be/H36TOJdpEp0

Originally Posted by zeman321 

 

I have a question for those of you farther along in the planning or those who have already had their wedding...If you could give us one or two pieces of advice on planning a destination wedding, what would it be? What has worked well for you and what have you stressed about that you wish you wouldn't have?

Be patient...they do not reposnd as quickly as we do in the US...be patient they will get back to you:-)

Our music was a huge stress..but our playlists worked our perfectly & the sound teh & system were worth it.

One bit of advice if you choose the sound system route is have someone in your group MC parts of the reception: first dance, cake cutting, etc.

Originally Posted by Rani Dae 

 

You should let me know what she tells you- I was also wondering about this. The way I took it was that as long as you have some sort of seating chart or way to distinguish who picked what meal ahead of time then you can pick 2.

You can pick up to 2 entree choices but you must tell the resort at your wedding appointment what each guest will have & also have their place cards marked in some way.  Our place cards had a small flower on them (teal: beef, orange: shrimp)

Just curious if any brides aren't extending their reception? I don't think we are going to so that would mean we are done around 10pm. I think I've read they have a disco area we could head to or I was thinking just hitting up a bar to keep the party going. What are other brides doing or did in the past? Also when do most people use the champagne toast? I was thinking during dinner and speeches, but now I'm thinking after the ceremony while we take a big group picture and before the cocktail hour. This whole time line is rather confusing to try and get the most of everything. Thanks Ladies!

Originally Posted by meganwitt 

 

Mya,

 

So the resort photographer that comes with the package is only around for 1 hour? We have the Divine wedding package. We are bringing a friend, but thought of using them for our "trash the dress" photo shoot. 

Yes the resort photgrapher included in the Divine wedding package included coverage for 1 hr, 24 photos & a photo book.

We were married on the Tequila Beach & our cocktail hour & reception was on the Tequila Terrace.  The Blue Water Grill was closed the night of our wedding.  The Buffet & Mexican restaurant were not but we did not notice on lookers.  We found this area to be more private than the beach terrace which is right next to the pool & more centrally located at the resort.

I got alot of ideas of what I could do at the resort & what the areas looked like by googling: Del Sol Photography, Now Sapphire.  I could see sideshows of other peoples weddings at the resort.

We LOVED our 2 photographers, Anel & Jacob.  They were very reasonable, professional, incredible personalities & very responsive.  I highly recommend them.  We had them for a little over 3 hrs.  We used the resort photographers included in our wedding package for our cake cutting, dancing & candid photos of the reception.  1 hr & 24 photos were included.  The resort photographer took 163 photographs.  We were able to select our 24 photos prior to departure & received a CD with them.  Our video & photo book with the 24 resorts photos will arrive in about 4 weeks.  Our outside photographers will send us a slide show as well as a website with all of our photos.  Our guests will then be able to log on & download any of the pictures they would like. 

PS we were not impressed with the resort photographer, she seemed timid & alot of our pictures ended up being the backs of people.  She just didn't know how to get into the crowd.

We highly recommend http://amorcitocorazonstudio.com/! 

I ordered menus for each place setting on Vista Print.

For the ceremony we brought paper fans for each seat which had our names & wedding date on them, bought them online: https://www.bbcrafts.com/shopping/card-checkout-result.shtml

I also brought bubbles for each seat, I bought them at Party City.

We also had a wooden sign made for the beach with our names on it & also wooden signs that said senor & senora for the backs of our chairs during the reception.  I bought these on etsy: https://www.etsy.com/transaction/121764441 & we brought them down with us.  Our guests & photographers loved our signs:-)

For the reception table I bought small maracas on oriental trading & tied them together with ribbon for each place setting.  I made centerpieces: http://www.onefabulousmama.com/6/post/2012/06/diy-illuminated-photo-frame-centerpiece.html

We also brought votive candles that I bought at Michael's.

We had a small table for some memento photos, our guest book (we had a plate that everyone could sign).  They also moved our centerpiece from the ceremony table to this small table for the reception.

We used the private airport transfers provided in the Divine wedding package & found them to be very professional & on time.  Our pickup at the airport had a sign with our names on it as we exited the airport & was a white Mercedes & back to the airport was a small van.

We had the couples Swedish massage included in the package, it was great.

Since I didn't use the hair services offered in the package the spa told me I could get a manicure or pedicure, I ended up not using either.

We did the romantic dinner on the beach.  Somehow our reservation was not logged in even though we submitted it with our form & reviewed it with Ramon.  The servers were very accommodating & were able to found our reservation.  I recommend finding out when sundown is & going an hour or so before.  Once the Sun sets it mosquitoes come out & it is very hard to see your dinner:-)  We had our dinner the night before we left, the second night after our wedding.  It gave us a chance to have some alone time.

We created a website for all of our guests on the knot & listed it on our save the dates:

http://annetterivetti.ourwedding.com/

Tipping:

Service Charge is not included in the wedding package so you are on your own to tip.  We asked Ramon for the number of staff so we would be prepared.  We handed cash at the end of the event to each server, bartender, the captain & the sound guy.  We went the next day to thank Ramon & tip him.  Since we never met Anel we did not tip her, I was not comfortable leaving the tip with someone else in hopes she would receive it.

Time Line:

3pm Hair (my sister did my hair in my room)

4pm Makeup (at the spa, careful they wanted to go a little heavy with the eye liner.  They adjusted as I asked)

5pm B&G began to get ready in our rooms (photographers arrived) (groom went to a friend's room, we did not have a bridal party)

5:30pm groom arrived at Tequila Terrace to being greeting our guests

5:45pm guests & all of our family (including my dad) began to arrive

5:50pm golf cart picked me up to take me to the lobby, long walk to the Tequila Terrace:-)

6pm the ceremony started

Champagne toast was offered to our guests after the ceremony, we did not do a toast during dinner

6:30pm-7pm we did pics with our families & all of our guests on the beach

7pm bar opened & cocktail hour began

7:30pm-8pm we went off with our photographers to take pics around the resort

8pm first dance

8:10pm dinner served

9:30pm cake cutting

9:45pm-11:10pm dancing

We never met Anel in person we worked with Ramon once we arrived at the resort.  Be sure at check-in to ask to setup your appointment with Ramon so you can walk the space, give them your wedding items & review your details.

We used the sound system provided for $150 per hour + service charge.  It came with great lighting & they handed out long balloons to each guest half way through, seemed a little hokey but the guests loved it.  We had to provide our own music which we had on an iPod & listed out each play list (1st dance, cake cutting, dinner, after dinner dance music, etc.)

We had the saxophonist for the ceremony & really liked him.  We hired a Mexican trio through the resort for our cocktail hour.  It was a nice touch.

We had 26 guests & one child (1 years old).  To avoid all the additional fees for the 26th guest we told them to keep the cake, champagne toast, cocktail hour & open bar to 25.  One of our guests was pregnant so she could not drink.  We just had to pay for the additional dinner.

We chose Tres Leches for our cake it was delicious!!

We eliminated the additional dessert & just had the wedding cake & added 2 additional hors devours during cocktail hour.

Ladies the Tequila Terrace is a deck & it does have small spaces in it.  Be sure to let your guests know to wear flats, wedges or thick heels.  Regular heels will fit in the cracks & someone could get hurt.

We brought our own paper lanterns (I bought them at party city) which we hung from the pergola at the Tequila Terrace.  The resort wanted to charge us $100 + service charge to hang these, we hung them ourselves to avoid the fee.  We brought the paper lanterns, scissors & fishing line.  The resort provided a ladder.

We also brought our own ribbons for our chairs, I brought them on-line for less than a $1 each.  https://www.bbcrafts.com/shopping/card-checkout-result.shtml  The resort wanted to charged us $1 per chair + service charge to put them on the chairs, we did them ourselves.  I made my own reserved signs for the first row for our families.

When arriving in Mexico & going through customs the wedding dressed was obvious so they knew we were getting married.  This sparked them to ask if we had wedding favors, we of course said yes.  We were then asked to scan our bags & the wedding suitcase had to be gone through. (we had all sorts of items in the suitcase for the wedding, one 50 pound suitcase of stuff:-))  They did not take anything but were very noisy & asked if we had receipts with us for all of the items, we did not & I panicked but the lady let us keep all of the items.  I would suggest having your receipts just in case.