Hello ladies! Reading this last post compelled me to quickly write my wedding review. I'm sure I'm omitting things so just message me if you want more info.
I had my wedding at OCT on November 11th and the absolutely worst part of it was the salon/spa!! If you can...do your own hair and makeup and ask them to give you a refund on that part of the package. Like you, I thought that worst case I would fix my own hair and make-up....I was able to salvage my make-up (mostly) but my hair was ruined for good. It was crunchy and yet they somehow made me look like a wet rat. The lady also took so long that I finally ran out of there 30 minutes before the start of the wedding. I asked for soft beach wave curls and brought pictures. I ended up with shirley temple looking crunchy strands of hair interlaced with crunchy straight parts. There was no combing it out and it was too late to wash it.
My advice would be to go and try the spa very early so that you have time to wash and do your hair before the wedding OR just plan on doing it yourself and forget the spa altogether!
Regarding make-up: when I saw their suitcases filled with cheap crusty make-up that all the ladies (aka massage therapists) at the spa seem to be wearing I opted for her to use my own make-up. I brought a picture with me of how I wanted it to look. First question from this lady when looking at my smashbox eye shadow palette: "which color you want?" it got worse after that. She put foundation all over my lips, my eyebrows, my eyelids and my face had so much of it on that I felt like I couldn't feel my own touch on my face. When she was done...my eyes didn't match. My left eye had dark eye shadow on the lid only while my right one had it all over my arch. She put eyeliner on my eyelid NOT THE LASHLINE but really high up on my eyelid and then she stabbed me in the eye with the mascara...twice... I cried. Then I left (and by that I mean I ran).
The name of the person doing all this damage to my head was Vicky. After observing the hotel for a while I actually think that she was a massage person that happened to attempt to do hair and make up that day.
We used Ricardo with Disco Movil for our DJ and I would stay away from using him. I booked him because of all the great reviews he has but I'm starting to think maybe they are fake. He sat almost the entire time while playing music and some of the songs he played were inappropriate at best. One moment I vividly remember is enjoying my wedding cake (which was delicious) and all of a sudden hearing "To the wall" including all the expletives. For those of you who don't know that song, the chorus consists of words like mother$%^#$, B%$#@!, sweat run down my balls... Yup....that happened. I don't really think that you should tell your DJ not to play that crap at a WEDDING RECEPTION. He also played the wrong entrance song for us and the wedding party and cut off all the first dance songs at the wrong times.... Guests were making an effort to dance.
Alright...now that I got all that out of my system...on to the good:
Wedding - The rest of the wedding was amazing! They did everything right even though I think over the course of the last 9 months and planning we went through 4 wedding coordinators. One thing I didn't like is that we brought a ton of candles for centerpieces to create a warm look and while they put all the candles out...they didn't actually light them. They also didn't serve our cake for us. <- not sure if they were supposed to though.
Hotel DJ - his name was Temo and we saw him play at a wedding 2 days after ours and he was AMAZING! Dancing behind the turntables, engaging with the guests, playing appropriate music that had everyone dancing like fools. Being that there is no extra fee to use him I say go for it!
Flowers - I showed the wedding coordinator pinterest pictures of what I wanted and they replicated it exactly using different flowers that were included in the price of the package but achieving the exact look I wanted.
Ceremony - we opted for a religious one and the lady officiant was my favorite part of the wedding. That ceremony was so meaningful and true it had everyone crying uncontrollably.
Food - Amazing! No complaints from any guests.
Hotel itself - also amazing! No complaints from anyone and because of the size it was very easy to find everyone.
Best of luck to you all!
When we had our wedding we were the only group on the terraces (just over 40 of us). The other wedding opted not to have a reception. Comically enough the other wedding party decided to crash our reception. It was not received well and only lasted about 20 seconds.