McGee2Be

Hi everyone, my name is Cara and I'm marrying the love of my life, Ryan on February 10, 2015 at the Grand Palladium, YAAAY! Funny story, we were actually booked at another resort (Azul Sensatori) but unfortunetly the resort sold out with only half our guest list booked in, crazy I know. So we went back to the drawing board and ended up booking the Grand Palladium (White Sands section). At one point this was our top pick but we decided against it because of the pricy wedding packages. We have about 50 guests, so the extra $20pp over the included 8 people for the ceremony, and the $50-$60pp dinner was not such a great deal compared to other resorts. We do love the beach gazebo for the ceremony, the huge selection of food, bars and activites not to mention the La Rocas pool (so excited for that!). Plus this was one of the best flight/hotel packages for our guests, so it all worked out! Looking forward to sharing ideas and tips with everyone! p.s. @@Carlota1981

Edmonton bride getting married at the Grand Palladium White Sands, February 10, 2015!

Thanks @@KendraS! I hope your guests hurry and all get in on time, good luck!! We booked Dean Sanderson too, great minds think a like I guess.

@@cocosho Thank you, I'm definitely happy to have found a resort with availability for our guests and travel dates! Didn't want to change too many details haha. Although we did need to change the wedding date a few days. It was on a Saturday, Feb 7, now it's on a Tuesday, Feb 10. The Grand Palladium only does weddings Mon-Fri and the only day available was the 10th! All of my guest leave on the 11th, so I wasn't too happy that everyone will be traveling hung over... although they probably would anyways! We'll be staying for 2 weeks though, so once they leave our honeymoon starts! I know, it's such a challenge and hard because you don't want to feel like a nag! You can use my story to prove that it wasn't too early to send out those save the dates hehe! Best wishes!

@@KendraS I know I can't believe it happened! Our travel agent did give us warning as soon as she heard the news. We warned our guests too but I don't think they believed it would sell out so far in advance, I know I didn't haha. I really hope that doesn't happen to you too! Do you have a good chunk of your guests booked in? Our travel agent was really good about everything, working on days off and everything! They did transfer the deposits over to the new resort without any change fees. So our guests that were already booked in just had to say what new room category they wanted. @@murmel We moved to the Grand Palladium White Sands! The packages are a lot different but I'm sure we'll figure it all out. The good thing is that most of our group is booked in now, and it's a huge resort if we have any last minute guests! Having everyone there to celebrate will definitely make it an amazing trip! Thank you for all the well wishes everyone, happy planning!

@@TheBHolders sounds amazing, would love to see pictures, great idea turning it into a Christmas present! @@girlinthecity97 Does your fiancé not have many friends? Mine doesn't and is having a hard time trying to match my 5 bridesmaids haha, whoops! I told him it's ok if the sides are uneven but he likes symmetry haha. @@kmk2016 My girls would definitely love the wine. I would probably do champagne just so I could literally pop the question.. I'm a sucker for puns!

@@TheBHolders Awe I love the care package idea! I've seen so many cute ones on pinterest and wanted to do that but ended up blurting it out to everone out of excitment haha. I started off with 3, which turned into 5! The guilt of not asking some friends got to me

This has been one of the biggest challenges for me! We wanted guests to have lots of time too, so we sent out save the dates 13 months before. Problem was that we hadn't picked a resort and we're getting such high quotes back since it was so far in advance. So our save the dates said we we're getting married in February 2015 in the Riviera Maya. We asked for guests to send their email addresses so we could send booking info once we had it. (we set up a separate wedding email address, I suggest it!) A bunch of guests got confused and thought they had to RSVP instead, which turned out to be a good thing since we could gauge how many people to expect. Now that we've sent booking info and set up a wedding website with all the info, we're thinking we won't send out invitations. Crazy I know, but our guest have all the info and if we don't send invites, we could spend more on OOT bags. This nice thing with email too is that you know they will get the info on time to send in deposits. We had 90 days for everyone to place deposits, so it is pretty quick and people like to take their time and think about it. Totally a personal decision though, I know some people think it’s tacky to email. And I’ll admit I was sad not to have pretty invites to pick out and send. My fiancé has taught me not to care so much about what others think, it’s all about what works best for you! p.s. If you want to share engagement photos, a wedding website is great for that! I use the knot, you can put a different picture on each page, or put them all in an album.

That's a good plan, definitely put some pressure on your guests to put their deposits in asap! Even though it's rare, it does happen as I found out haha. That's so good that you can reserve 48 spots, bummer we could only do 30 at a time!

Well ladies, it looks like I'm no longer getting married at Azul Sensatori We were able to reserve 30 spots for 90 days with our deposit through Sunwing. We have about 50-60 guests coming. Our travel agent did warn us this was a possibility, although rare, the resort sold out with only 30 of our guests booked in, 2 months before the deposit deadline! We were warned that the resort was filling up fast, and did pass the urgency along to our guests, but as I'm sure you all know, getting guests to book so far in advance is tricky! We've done a lot of planning with the coordinator so far (venues, times, bbq, flowers) so at first we thought the rest of our guests could stay at a resort close by and just get day passes for the wedding. Unfortunately a good chunk of our wedding party didn't get in, plus it's just not the same having half your guests at another resort. So our other options were to change the date or the resort. Hard choice, but we decided to change the resort. We went back to our original list and got quotes for a bunch of resorts, then picked the cheapest flight/resort package. Although the wedding package will probably cost a lot more, I'm happy that we were able to accommodate all our guests and even save them some money! Just wanted to share my little wedding crisis in case someone else goes through this, definitely pick a resort big enough for your group! Even if you think it's big enough (like I did) destination weddings are becoming more popular and resorts are filling up earlier in advance. Thank you everyone for helping out so much! Sad I won't be able to keep planning with all of you. Happy planning and Congrats everyone!

Too funny, I always get things mailed to work! Nothing fits in my tiny apartment mailbox haha. Ahh so those deals are only for the day? I better get shopping!! ...Blonde moment, I now see the title saying through June 1st haha!

@@kmk2016 Thanks for sharing, wow this site has so many beautiful things!!

Oooh I love that idea! So pretty! You could stick your tongue out and catch them like snowflakes haha, delicious We were thinking maybe glitter, but that might get messy and don't know if they'd let us do that. Or those mini beach balls, adorable!

Has anyone used freeze dried rose petals before? Just saw them here: http://www.beau-coup.com/freeze-dried-rose-petals.htm Apparentely they keep their color better, don't stain and don't wilt. For some reason I thought I read somewhere that Azul doesn't allow guests to toss slik flowers. Did anyone else read that? Maybe that was an old policy?

Deal, I'll make sure to keep track of the timing! Awe too bad he can't go, but that would be such a fun girls trip!! Ohh yes, pictures please. I think the only specific thing I'd be curious about would be the beach. Our ceremony is near the peir and I've heard that it gets quite seaweady. So I'd love to know how clean it is. Thank you so much! Have fun on your trip!

@@kmk2016 So cool! I wish we could go down for the Brides Dress Rehersal. I'd love to know how everything goes! Are you going down with your fiance? We booked our ceremony for 4:00pm. According to timeanddate.com the sun sets at 5:39pm so we don't have a lot of time for pictures but we want a bunch of sunset pictures and night time sparkler pictures. Plus we'll be doing a lot of group shots with the bridal party before hand. So hopefully that time will work out nicely! Happy Planning!!

What she said haha! This was also a selling feature for us. They even have "Fischer Price" rooms with kids toys and apparently you can get baby food at the restaurants. Plus you can get strollers, bottle warmers, cribs, the works! Psst @@kmk2016 we are both getting married the same month (although different year) and are both from Alberta! So cool! Let me know if you have any questions about our wedding next year!

@@KendraS Our lady's name is Kari at Airline Ticket Center. How funny would that be if we had the same travel agent! We sent save the dates out in January. Sounds crazy but we wanted everyone to have more than enough time to save $ and plan. And we decided to email the travel info / official wedding invite, which was a hard decision since invites are such a big part of traditional weddings! We wanted everyone to get the info at the same time so they'd all have equal opportunity to get in on the spots we reserved. Also, since the price of stamps shot up to $1 and we'd have to send out travel packages too, making it even more expensive, we decided we'd spend the money on better wedding favors! We're finding that people are taking there sweet time booking too haha, stressful for us but I guess it makes sense for guests trying to figure out days off and what not. Haven't found a photographer yet but we're looking at PlayaWeddings. Such a hard choice!!

We did engagement photos, as you may be able to tell by my oh so Canadian cheesy profile picture. In case anyone's wondering, the matching plaid was meant as a joke, I swear haha! We always end up accidentally matching, so we had to do a picture like that! We were also lucky to have a photographer friend that did it in exchange for a high five and some jewelry I made for his girlfriend. We've used them for our save the dates and website. I would definitely agree though, especially if you won't use them, to save your money for where it counts, the big day! Happy planning!

@@HerreraNovia I feel your pain! I swear that was all I thought about for a couple months haha! @@MrsSheppardToBe is SO right, take you time! The right resort will come along. Sorry to hear about the troubles with your wedding planner! We had some problems with our travel agent, we actually ended up firing her and finding a new lady. The lady we fired was coming back with quotes that were way too high and was also pushing us towards certain options. I wonder if she gets a nice commission from these private venues? For us, one of the nice things about a destination wedding is that everyone can stay out as late as they want, relaxed and worry free, and then stubble back to their rooms. I'm assuming you'd need to travel to the private venue, which may not be as fun getting home. Just a thought, could also be worth it! We ended up choosing Azul Sensatori! Got a great deal for guests, it's 20 minutes from the airport, 438 rooms, good layout, good wedding packages and the rooms are nice and modern (they all have jacuzzi's, ipod docks, rain showers, etc.). And you can get married on the roof or "Sky terrace". A few downsides were that the beach isn't the best and they charge an $800 outside vendor fee. After weighing all the pros and cons we decided it was perfect for us! Hopefully that helps!

@@KendraS Ya at first we were thinking we'd switch to another resort for the second week, but we have a few guests staying both weeks so it'd be nice to hang out with them. What travel agent are you using? We have a lady in St. Albert who was actually the one to suggest this resort! Can't wait to plan together too!! @@barnet202 I believe it was $1,700 for the sky terrace ceremony. We're coming from Canada and I think the packages are different for us. Our only option was that "free" package, except that it's not complimentary for us. So I'm not sure if the pricing will be different for the sky terrace as well. Hope that sorta helps!

@@KendraS YAAY that is so cool! We are getting married a week apart at the same resort, and we're both from Edmonton! What a small world haha! My coordinator is Brigitte Castro and she has been great so far. We're staying at the resort for two weeks, so maybe we'll run into each other!!

@@VincentvandenBerg Thank you so much! No unfortunately the memorable moments packages were out of our budget. If we could, we would have went for the coastal bliss package, although they are all gorgeous! You did a great job photographing those!! Our ceremony location is Zocalo Beach, right near the pier. We were originally thinking of the sky terrace, but I have a friend in a wheelchair and I guess the elevator doesn't go all the way up. Plus I've heard it gets quite windy. Looking forward to digging our toes in the sand!

Congratulations Tina! I was in the same boat a couple months ago, and trust me once you pick the place it's such a big load off your shoulders! I too feel in and out of love with so many resorts. There are so many amazing options, so to narrow it down you almost have to be super picky haha. It really depends on what your "wedding wish list" looks like. For us, we wanted a reasonable price for our guests and for the wedding package, big enough so guests wouldn't have trouble booking but not too big that we couldn't find people, and not to far from the airport. Our flight is about 6 hours so we don't want too long of a drive after that. There were more things on our wish list and we did end up compromising on a few, but we are very happy with our choice. I can say that our travel agent helped out SO much as well as this site and countless internet searches haha. I'm sure you'll find the perfect place! If you have any questions let me know, maybe I can help! Good luck and happy planning!

Congratulations everyone!! We are also getting married in 2015... February 7th to be exact! We got engaged September 28, 2013. I'm so relieved to have our resort, ceremony and reception location all locked down! We looked at so many resorts and it feels so good to get everything started. Happy planning everyone!