shmanderz

I am doing the complimentary package and it has been great so far. I am using Del Sol Photography and only am paying the day pass fee for the two photographers. I am using JSAV and Zuniga for decor/sound/lighting and since they are preferred vendors there are no fees for them. I got all my lighting, gobo and sound from JSAV for about $1000 and then I ordered a ton of decor, lighting, lounge area, lounge palms, etc from Zuniga for $1700. I just received my purchase order bill from Beach Palace this week and the total bill is looking like it will be about $3550 after all my extras like day passes, extra reception hours etc (This price also includes the JSAV and Zuniga charge because you pay them through Beach Palace). I am totally happy with this total price because that literally includes everything for the entire wedding day, reception etc...we are also having a welcome party on the first night and costs for that are also included in that final price. In addition to all that I am using Maya Floral for bouquets, bountineers, hair flowers and cake flowers for about $400 and he is meeting my bridesmaid in the lobby so there is no fee for him. So, I dont know if that really helps you at all but I guess it gives a little insight into the other option of just doing the complimentary wedding! Hope you are able to make a decision and I am sure whatever you choose will be fabulous!

I am from Airdrie and getting married in a few weeks!! SO excited. Our date in May 10, 2014 at Beach Palace in Cancun. Everything is pretty much planned other than a few odds and ends that I am finishing up. We leave May 7th for Cancun and have a group of 27 people joining us

Thanks for the pic. The candle tree idea is really cool! My wedding style is definitely a bit more simple than that but it is a great idea for a flowerless centerpice

Is anyone else doing non-floral centerpieces? This is what I have come up with to put in the center of the reception tables on white linens. The center pail will be filled with sand The starfish accents fiiiinally arrived this week....I was getting stressed! Living in Canada makes things very difficult to order because shipping times vary so much if stuff gets stuck in customs!

Sounds so awesome!! I feel the same way about having so much undone! I did just had my phone meeting with Renee and feel so much better. She is sending me an email with everything we talked about to confirm that the details are correct. Feels good to have the plan layed out with the hotel now and not just in my planning binder! haha Were you able to get them to confirm that there will not be any nightly entertainment down near the Infinity Deck during your events? I had originally had my welcome dinner planned there for May 7 when we all arrive but when talking with Renee she mentioned that I have to wait until about 10 days before the event to know the entertainment schedule. Since the pool deck is a public area the nightly event schedule goes on no matter what events are planned down there.

Hi Kat, Over a year ago when I was just beginning to plan stuff I was like "I am going to start making the playlist now so I am not doing it all last minute" aaaaaand guess what....I am doing it all last minute!!! lol. Thank god my sister is a kickass maid of honor and has been putting together an awesome mix of music for all the events. This weekend we are planning to sit down and put all the songs in the playlists in some sort of order so that the music is a good mixture and builds to higher energy songs by the end. We are not doing shuffle because I feel like it might get stuck on a bunch of similar songs and then someone shuffles the mix or messes with something it will repeat a ton of songs.

New question for everyone: What menus are you choosing for Cocktail hour and Reception? I have a phone conversation booked with my coordinator tomorrow for 9am so I am trying to get organized but am still flip flopping on some decisions like this. I cant believe I am already 30 days out! This year of planning went by SO darn fast. Also is anyone planning a welcome dinner? We have one booked for the night we arrive on the Palenque terrace (was originally booked for the infinity deck but the hotel couldnt confirm that there wouldnt be nightly entertainment going on on the big screen....lol! How terrible would that be if there was a movie playing during the dinner. I only have 30 people so I feel a dinner on the Palenque is going to be too tiny for such a huge space....but I really didnt want to do it up on the skydeck because the reception is up there two days later....decisons decisons!

Ooo thanks! I didnt know there was a preferred vendor for hair and makeup that wasnt the salon at the hotel.

Wow, crazy that buying a room is cheaper than their fee's!! lol. But that totally makes sense to do it that way especially if you get the vendors you want and save money at the same time! We are not doing a DJ or a dancefloor. We only have 30ish people so we just decided to order 2 speakers and use ipod playlists for dinner, cocktail hour and then reception. We didnt do a dancefloor either and instead ordered a bunch of robotic light trees from JSAV to aim down at the floor to kind of define the space. I hope it works well! A DJ and a dancefloor would be so awesome but I was just blown away by the prices. I went a little crazy with decor rentals and lighting to try and make up for it all, haha

@@NJBride2014 No sorry, I meant they waived the outside vendor fee. The wedding coordinator sent me an email awhile back saying that if I was booking Del Sol the outside vendor fee was $500, then another email later said the fee was now $800 for 2014. I freaked out and managed to find some documentation where it said I only had to pay for 2 day passes for the photographers and they honored that. $200 for daypasses is much better than $800 lol. It is so weird how they are not consistent with the outside vendor fees for everyone...After hearing that the fee is not really being enforced, I am now totally reconsidering hiring Tania Tagel for hair and makeup (I wanted to have her, but couldnt risk having them charge me $800! yikes). Has anyone been able to confirm that only a day pass is needed for an outside makeup artist?

@@meliss0981 I actually mananged to get Beach Palace to wave the outside vendor fee because there was a bunch of conflicting info in the documents I was sent from them...some said photographers only needed a day pass and then some documents and emails said there was a fee (Went from $500 to $800!). I pressed the issue and they dropped the outside vendor fee...which was super awesome because Del Sol was a big chunk of our budget. We paid about $4000 for 5 hours and had to have a 50% deposit down when booking. We had originally requested Juan but a few weeks ago I was notified he left the company. At first I was worried but then they let us know that Sol Tamargo would be photographing the wedding at no extra charge to us. I am beyond thrilled!! Her work is outstanding Photography is so important to us and we budgeted almost half of the budget towards it so I am super stoked that we are going to have some seriously kick ass photos If you are able to get Beach Palace to drop the fee you should definitely try. It is nice to be able to put that hard earned money towards the photos instead of a silly useless fee!

Hi everyone! Does anyone have a schedule of the wedding day events that they want to share? I am not 100% sure where to put things like speeches and cutting the cake etc....It also feels a bit rushed I guess. Is anyone else struggling with this?? I have listed my rough draft below 12:30-3:00pm: getting ready (Hair/makeup etc) 3:00- Photographer arrives and takes "getting ready" photos 4:00- Ceremony 4:30- champagne toast and group photo 4:30-5:45- Formal photos and photos down on beach 6:00- Everyone moves over to dinner tables/MC gives welcome speech and quick toast 6:15-7:00- Dinner 7:00-7:45- Speeches/toasts 7:45ish- first dance and then switch the music to Party Playlist 7:50-8:30- Dancing 8:30ish- cut the cake and hit the pinata 8:30-10:30- more dancing and fun Also does anyone know if a 5 hour photography package starting at 3:00pm would end at 8:00pm? or is the break where the photographers have dinner not counted so it would be something like 3:00pm-9:00ish? Thanks for any responses!

Hi ladies, I just finished my DIY placecards and thought I would share I purchased the starfish charms in bulk on Etsy and the rest of the supplies at Michaels. SO happy with how they turned out. Total cost for all the supplies needed was about $15!

Does anyone know if the dress codes at the restaurants are strictly enforced? (ie. long pants, collard shirts & sleeves) Our wedding dress code is classy beach casual and i know some people wont even wear pants to that....Being Canadian the idea of bringing long pants to mexico sounds totally crazy! lol

I booked with Sunwing Vacations here in Canada so it is a little different. It was only a $200 per person deposit to reserve your flight and room and then full payment wasnt due until 2 months before (Today was the deadline). The way it works is for every 11th guest that books with Sunwing we get 1 person free. Since we had over 22 guests book me and my fiance's trips were free. The $200 we both paid to initially book the group package with Sunwing is being put towards upgraded seats on the flight and we also extended the return flight by a week so we can do a honeymoon, so there was a change fee for that. As for the deposit we made at Beach Palace to confirm the date and skydeck ($300) I was told that money would be deducted from our final bill with the hotel for the wedding. I am going to bring the copy of the depsoit confirmation so I can make sure they honor the $300 credit at the end.

Sooooo today is the final day to pay in full for my guests...STRESS!! When everyone booked early last year all they had to put down was a $200 per person deposit to hold their booking and then full payment wasnt due until 2 months out. So today a friend of my fiance and the person she was bringing both cancelled out...It is just super annoying since it was very unexpected. She said it was because of bills and stuff that they couldnt afford it anymore...fair enough, but from the conversation with her, she has obviously known for awhile that they were going to cancel and you think she could have mentioned it earlier than the very last day of the payment window....Kicking myself right now because I JUST purchased a ton of wedding favours, customized shot glasses, OOT bags stuff, beer koozies, etc and it turns out I wasted a bunch of money on their items. I should have waited until this week but I live in canada and i didnt want to take the chance of stuff getting stuck in customs while shipping. (Less than 10 weeks until wedding) Ok, rant over! lol On the brightside we still have enough people for free unlimited events and enough people booked to make me and my fiances trip free which is great. Will feel very good to finally have a set number and to not be stressing about people cancelling out last minute. I guess a word or advice to everyone planning is expect the unexpected with guests and have a backup plan ready...or wait until everyone has paid in full to order items like favours, etc...they really do add up and its not worth buying extra if you dont have it

Hi Laura, No prob. I totally know how overwhelming thigns are in the beginning trying to figure out what the heck you need to order and how much it is going to cost. I booked my date/location and paid trip deposit March 18, 2013. I used a travel agent in my city and she took care of everything up until I got word who my wedding coordiator was (About November I first talked with her). I am dealing with Renee at Palace Resorts. When i went to my site visit I had a tour with Mario who said he would be the onsite coordinator handleing my wedding and he was really great and informative! He gave me two really good tips which I have used: 1) Dont skimp on lighting. He says lighting really sets the atmosphere and the skydeck areas need extra lighting to bring the event together and make it glow. 2) Dont bother with a dance floor unless you are on the beach. He says just order lighting specifically for the dance area (ie. Robotic light trees) and it is much cheaper alternative to an expensive dance floor and has a similar effect. Let me know if you want to know anything else Amanda

Hi everyone! I am about 10 weeks away and I thought I would post a summary of what I have planned so far for anyone interested: -Wedding Day: Saturday, May 10, 2014 -Guest Count: 30 (About 105 room nights) -Symbolic Ceremony + Complimentary package Welcome Dinner: -Infinity Terrace the first night we arrive (7:00pm-10:00pm). -I have rented two strings of paper lanterns from Zuniga for lighting and just going to have an ipod speaker for music. I chose an Imperial table setup (one long table) with the complimentary standard linens. Dinner will be buffet (not sure about menu choice yet). I am bringing a bunch of electric candles from home to place down the table (Will be using these for reception as well…$50+ centerpiece rentals is ridiculous! No thanks! lol). Planning to hand out OOT bags and play an icebreaker game that I created after dinner. I ordered customized shot glasses to put on each persons plate for the icebreaker game (It has some bride/groom trivia plus some cards say “Take a shot” etc, so will be pretty fun) Wedding Day! (Ceremony @ 4:00pm) -Hair & makeup: Beach Palace Salon @ 12:00pm (Plan to use resort credits for this) -Flowers: Maya Floral (Marvin) …$425 for bridal bouquet, 2 bridesmaids, 3 boutonnieres & cake flowers. Dropping off flowers in lobby to avoid vendor fee. -Zuniga: Pink lights under tables, Lounge Palms, Candle Steps, Paper lantern strings, floating candles for pool, piñata, Lounge seating area and low lounge table. (About $1500) -JSAV: Robotic light trees for dance area, Gobo, Lighting for lounge palms, ipod music setup and 1 speaker and microphone. ($1000) -Centerpieces: Bringing electric candles from home (keep it very simple with soft/glowy light) -Photography: Del Sol Photography (Juan). 5 Hour package (3:00pm arrival) -Ceremony: 4:00pm skyterrace. Complimentary set up. I ordered paper fans to put on each seat and am just using the provided CD/ipod music for the ceremony. Keeping the ceremony super simple and keeping it short. (We just want to party! J) -Cocktail Hour: 5:00pm South Skyterrace Ocean side. Standard décor. Appetizers: Cold Hors D’oeuvres Menu. Ordered customized napkins and coasters in my wedding colours for the tables. -Reception: 6:00pm (Extended until 10:00 hopefully 11:00 or later!) -Dinner buffet: Cajun Menu -Standard complimentary table décor. 1 sweetheart table, 2 tables of 8, 1 table of 10. -Ordered: disposable cameras for the tables, starfish tealight candle favors to put on each plate, seating place cards have a little metal starfish charm attached and the placecard table will be decorated with the complimentary bridal bouquet flowers that I am not using during the ceremony since I ordered from Maya Floral. I also ordered a piñata from Zuniga which I have to bring candy for so that should be a fun addition to the night! Ok well I think that is all I have for now. If anyone has any planning questions I would be happy to help J Good luck with your plans!! -Amanda