Sabes44

Ready for the rest of the story!

Hope you both have an amazing time!! Enjoy every single second, cause it really does fly by!

We used Destination Weddings and I liked them. We had a few minor bumps, but overall good service and we got really good pricing through them. If I didn't use them I would have used the TA's on here.

@@racht33 good question, I think it depends on your resort. Our resort didn't require anything to show we were already married, I would just ask, but I doubt they would require that.

Wahooo! Enjoy every moment @@Giocivs88!!!

So cute! I am glad you wrote about this since so many of us have gone and will go through the same thing. We legally got married the week before our destination wedding too. I kept trying to make it work to get legally married at the wedding, but Mexico has requirements that just didn't end up workign with our plan. My fiance (well now husband) had suggested we go to Santa Barbara (they have a beautiful Mission style courthouse) to get married and spend the weekend there. It ended up being perfect for us. We hired a professional photographer and I just got all the pictures back and tear up every time I look at them. I am so happy we did it this way! Although we are going to celebrate our DW date as our wedding anniversary, the week before will always be very special to us. Happy almost wedding day @@rachelia160!

We didn't take any pictures at the spa, but it is a very beautiful spot for pictures! I gave him a lot of direction of what I wanted when I was first talking with Juan and trying to decide on a photographer. I never followed up on much on pictures (besides family pictures I wanted). He took charge and kept taking pictures that I had told him I wanted 9 months before. Which was great, because I forgot a lot of stuff I said I wanted and just got caught up in everything the last month leading up and that day.

We did a first look too. I went back and forth for months on it, but I am really glad we did it. My biggest "fear" is that it would take away from me walking down the aisle and seeing him for the first time, but it didn't at all! Like @@JenniferH114 once the music started it was a total blur. An amazing blur, but I had to watch the video to remember how everything went. I think we did our first look in the same spot. Our room at the end of the property so it was really easy to have me come down for the first look and then after that we went back to the room and had a quick tequila shot before the wedding!

The music was loud enough, not overly loud but perfect. Honestly once I started to walk down towards the beach I didn't event hear the song anymore. They placed the speaker on the concrete about 20 feet away, which worked out well so it wasn't overwhelming sound and everyone could hear our vows. I walked down the aisle to a guitar version of "God bless the broken road" and we walked back up to "Come and get your love" we wanted something fun and peppy. Jessica handled all of it. I downloaded this app called Wedding DJ, which made it super simple to have all the playlists labeled and on one screen, much easier than just the playlists on the iphone.

That was our main course and it was awesome!! The filet was cooked perfect and I was very happy with it. The officiant did the same thing for our ceremony. After our vows he stood in the back. It was quite windy for us, but luckily my hair was all up and hair sprayed so much it didn't move. The breeze was actually nice cause it kept everyone (including myself) cool! Like @@JenniferH114 the spa told me 2 hours for hair and makeup. But I don't have a lot of hair so mine took about an hour and 15 min. I think it all depends on your hair and what you want to do with it. I think 2 hours is a safe beat either way. We just had some extra downtime before the first look, which was fine.

@JamieCKL we chose Chez Isabell which is the "nicest" restaurant they have and in my opinion the most romantic, because it is more intimate and mostly just couples were dining there. When we got back to our room they had drawn a beautiful bubble bath with rose petals and it was lovely! Unfortunately my husband (still getting used to saying that!) had gotten a bit of Montezuma's revenge that evening and wasn't able to join in with me. But it was a nice surprise I was not expecting!

Since the flowers were similar to another bouquet the offered, I didn't have to pay. I just asked her if they could do what I wanted and sent a picture. Since none of the flowers in the bouquet were "upgraded" flowers they were able to do it. I am always nervous about my hair and make up too and although it rarely turns out exactly how I planned in my head I always end up loving it and it looks perfect for the pictures. Although nothing major went wrong there were a few hiccups (very minor ones!) and every time something weird happened we just said "It's Mexico!" and let it go.

@@JaimeCKL - Yup!

@@victoriasalv - Thank you!! I got both my hair and make up done there. It was so great! Angel did both and he was amazing and super quick! I brought a bunch of picks of make up and hair ideas (pretty much the same thing, with slight variations) and had my sister and a few friends help narrow is down. Unfortunately, he told me my hair wasn't thick enough for what I wanted lol. But he made something similar happen and it looked exactly like I wanted from the front (which is the most important to me anyways). Honestly, the bouquet was so so much better than I expected!! I had sent her a picture of what I had wanted and she said they could do something similar (just orange lilies and bright pink daises). Jessica said they couldn't do turquoise flowers but the could do a turquoise ribbon (it was more blue than turquoise, but I didn't care). So when I got the bouquet with the blue flowers and extra greenery I was thrilled! I had even brought some fake turquoise and fillers just in case, but didn't even need them.

@@upstatekj you are welcome! The weather was pretty good for the majority of the time. It was about mid to high 80's and high 70's at night with pretty decent humidity! It only rained a lot one day and just in the morning (we were on our way to the cenotes and by the time we go there it had stopped). It would randomly rain for 10-15 min and then go away. The weather reports were always worse then what ended up happening. There was a really cool lighting show the night of our wedding, it was far away so it didn't affect us, just had a nice breeze which kept us cool!

Thank you @@upstatekj! I accepted so you can see the cocktail hour photos. Once I get more pictures, I will upload them on there. Can't wait for the professional pictures!!

Congrats @@LisaAnthonyPoppy! Can't wait to hear all about it, I just got back too and still need to write my reviews!

@@JenniferH114 - Thank you and congrats to you too!!! Juan was so so amazing! He remembered pictures I told him I wanted almost a year ago and I forgot about! He was super on top of it and from what I have seen so far, the pictures will be amazing! We also did the Cenote shoot and he was so great and had 3 other guys helping him, I was really impressed and he was totally worth the little bit extra he costed over the in house photographer.

I accepted the request, so you should have access now. I am happy to answer your questions, that was this site is for! We used their sound system for the ceremony, but used our own speaker for the reception. Since there's was $400 to rent and not worth it to me! We did a family dinner at Agave (there are two restaurants that Jessica can make reservations for with a set menu) and then had an informal "welcome reception" at the Martini bar. It was very casual, just gave everyone a chance to meet and we handed out the welcome bags. Most people came in that day so just stopped by for a drink or two and then went on to dinner. I didn't want to force the guests to do stuff with us everyday (but that was just my choice).

Thank you @JamieCKL! They are all very conveniently located. Las Olas is in the middle of the beach and X-Lounge, but all within a 2-3 min leisurely walk. It really just depends on what you want. Once I was told Las Olas was available I went for a very simple and "authentic" beachy wedding. I already knew I didn't want much decor and fuss and wanted to use the scenery as the decor. So for us those spots were perfect, you could do a lot more if you wanted, but just depends on your vision and what you want from your wedding! Here is the link to my shutterfly which has pictures from the cocktail hour at X-Lounge, you can see the layout a bit more. Site URL: https://ritterweddinginmexico.shutterfly.com/

Thank you! Thank you!! Congrats to you and enjoy every second, it FLYS by! Thank you! We met with Jessica the next day, we got in late Wednesday afternoon so we met with her on Thursday morning to go over all the details one more time and to give her the decor. We had already decided everything and had everything confirmed, it was just going over it all in person and asking a few day of questions and minor details that we hadn't discussed prior. You can do a lot over email, but some stuff was easier in person. She had it all together, it was just the confirmation of everything we had discussed. At the end it all turned out even better than I had expected!

Thank you @@acw271011!! I can't wait to see the professional pictures, Juan posted a few on instagram, but they show up so small and hard to repost.

So I am back from the most amazing time in Mexico! Having a hard time readjusting to everything now that the craziness has died down and back to "normal". I couldn't have asked for a better wedding at Excellence NOTHING went wrong and everything was smooth and as seamless as possible. I will write a full review once we settle back in and I get some more pictures. I used Juan Navarro for the pictures and he was Amazing!!! We also did the Cenote TTD shoot (my dress was cleaner after that, than after the wedding!). I really really can't wait for all the pictures. Now just settling back in and happy to answer any questions. We did a beach ceremony, cocktail hour at X-Lounge, and the reception at Los Olas with the gold package, 30 guests and no DJ. Happy Planning to all those who just started or almost there! Enjoy the ride, cause it will be here before you know it! That is the exact combination we did! Originally we were going to do the cocktail hour on the pier but Jessica recommended X-Lounge and it was perfect for us. The pier is amazing too, just depends on what you want. With 20 the pier could be really cool, it's just kind of narrow so not a ton of room to spread out, but a beautiful view!