Mels84

@@Jc14 I think it was this one... http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=271609686040They come all smushed in a box but don't worry... They bounce back perfectly... They ship very well

Sorry I've been awol from this site for a while.. I tried to upload more pics and it wouldn't let me and then life got crazy but anyways... @@Jc14 I ordered my flowers from ebay and made my own bouquets, boutonnières and corsages. I used real touch calla lilies which are latex and come in all kinds of colours.. The ones I chose were white with a dark purple throat.. Our maid thought they were real and out them in water after the wedding lol... Basically I took as many flowers as I wanted in each bouquet and wrapped them in floral tape and then ribbon and then I found this rhinestone ribbon stuff and made a bit of an accent handle.. Very simple.. For the boutonnières I used starfish, ribbon, some grass sprigs, burlap and pearls.. Then just a brooch clip... It was a bit of work but I bet I spent half as much as I would have if I bought them... I found etsy very expensive and I even looked on kijiji and there wasn't much

its all so confusing trying to deal with each and every bit of planning through email... Plus having copy and paste answers... But it will all work out... Carolina is fantastic and she will do everything to make your day perfect for you.. All the little details will make you crazy but try not to worry about them too much...

@@Kerrierf we did a private reception not the beach bash so maybe its included in the beach bash... We got gifts for our parents... We got pocket watches that were engraved for our dads and I made bracelets for our moms that had a small picture frame on it... I put our engagement photo on one side and a pic of us as babies on the other side (a pic of me for my mom and a pic of him for his mom)

@Kerrierf@Meandhim They charge $320 to rent the stereo equipment and that does include someone to play the music for you.

@@Meandhim honestly, I would choose the lobby over the Hemingway... We only went there once... At night it was hard for us to find and the service was really slow and there was only 4 of us and a few other tables inside and the patio outside was full... I think there was only 2 servers so it was painful. And I had a bit of a sunburn so I froze in there... The lobbies seem to have a lot of bartenders and servers... There is room to dance.. Sometimes they do karaoke... They do the coco parties once a week I think

It's nice to see a few new people on this forum... Welcome!! I was just married at GPPC in January so if you have any questions please feel free to ask. For those that are looking for a meeting place for the first day/night each section has a bar right in the lobby. Most nights they have some form of live entertainment and some nights of the week they have coco parties (they have coconuts for everyone to drink out of). As far as having everyone go to Hemminways the first night I just have a few things for you to consider. Hemmingways is quite nice (has premium liquor and budweiser beer available) but it also gets very busy at night so service can be quite slow. It is a piano bar. They have a pianist playing most of the night. They have an outdoor patio (where you cannot hear the piano) but inside i found to be very very cold. They have the A/C jacked right up. Another thing to consider if you are in the Punta Cana, Palace or Royal Suites sections is that this resort is huge!! To try and find the Hemmingway on the first night when its at the other end of the whole resort, might be a bit frustrating for guests. There are shuttles but sometimes they are a bit of a wait to catch one and sometimes they will be full when they pull up to pick up more people. I really wanted to plan something there but decided to keep it simple for everyone. Our first night at the resort, we just had everyone meet at the lobby bar. We were in the Palace section and they had live music that night. There is an outdoor patio area that everyone really enjoyed too. Its right beside the casino and not far from the dinner/breakfast buffett and close to everyones rooms so if they need to wander back to their room its wont take forever. That sort of by default became our "home base" and most nights those that wanted to be part of a group could come find everyone. Hope that helps. @@rebeccalane Just a heads up regarding the bar. Its very misleading. You are correct that it is $16/pp for extras beyond beer and wine for the reception. BUT if you want the full open bar for both dinner AND the reception dance its $24/pp. Just a heads up. They don't make you pay that price for kids (obviously) but also let them know if you have anyone else who wont drink. We had a recovering alcoholic with us. He's been sober for years so I knew he wouldn't be drinking so they didn't charge me for him. Also at the ceremony they have sparkling wine for everyone but they will also have orange juice for people who don't drink. Another heads up is with the music. We did not opt for DJ Mannia. Too expensive in my opinion so I made our playlist myself. Now I was told that it would be $320. That covers the dance portion ONLY! I can't remember how much she said it would be to have music through dinner too but im thinking it was almost double that cost. We opted to not pay for music through dinner. People would be talking and probably wouldnt pay attention to it anyways. The person with the music equipment actually showed up early that night anyways so they did end up playing music through dinner without charge so that was a bonus. I'm picking up my pics tonight so hopefully I'll get some posted soon!!

@@Everly It's both however, with transat and I'm sure it's the same for other companies, there is still a $125 fee plus the taxes for the trip still to pay... For us it worked out to total about $500.

@@Alicia328 it depends on the time of year I think and possibly which section you book in but our Toronto guests were just under $1500 based on double occ. at the palace.. Single was close to $2000.. I also had a group flying from Thunder Bay and they were only slightly more than $1500. Transat was great for incentives for us... For every 10 people that booked... The 11th was free up to 4 people (provided that everyone booked through the same travel agent!) Plus we got as $500 voucher for future travel, an extra 10kg bag checked, priority boarding(they let us board right after the people in wheel chairs, before first class and families with kids and they specifically called brides and grooms.. The boarding lounge all clapped for us lol) , 2 200ml bottles of champagne for the flight there... Separate check in for the group...and our plane was awesome... Decent leg room, tough screen TVs in the backs of the seats with a good selection of tv shows or movies that you control.. @@samilein I posted a lot of info about the planning process and cost of everything on this thread... Read though that and let me know if you have any more questions One of the biggest a heads up about hidden cost that I can give you though is if you are bringing a vendor in from outside the resort for the day (someone who is not one of your guests), the resort charges a $500 USD vendor fee... That would go for photography, videography, or if you are bringing in a makeup artist/hair stylist (there is a spa on site that you wouldn't have to pay this fee for) etc... I had a friend record the wedding for us and a friend of mine who came to the wedding was the photographer so I didn't have to pay since they were our guests and staying on the resort too... Someone mentioned that the way around this is to book them into the hotel even just for the night before the wedding... One night at the hotel wouldn't be close to $500.

Stock up on your USD now then! Wedding stuff in carry ons!!

I know what you mean! I commute an hour to work.. I normally spend about 100/wk and I'm probably at 65 now!

There were 45 people plus the two of us and it worked out to roughly $7,000CAD at the hotel and I paid with my credit card... They charge your card in pesos tho so it was hundreds of thousands of pesos lol ... A bit scary lol but it's better than them charging in pesos and then paying in USD and paying the exchange on that too... You would lose twice... Dispite the exchange being a bit rough right now.. The price of gas is great! Take some of your gas budget and put it in the wedding budget!!

@@Meandhim thanks so much! Believe me time will fly by!! Your wedding is closer than you think! It will be here before you know it! A bit of advice... Be organized and get everything done early so it's less stressful in the last few wks before your departure... I had all of my stuff (crafts, welcome bags, reception stuff etc) all done by New Year's Eve and we didn't leave until Jan 6., that gave me lots of time to pack... You will need to be smart about packing due to weight restrictions... Oh and one of my guests had a great idea.. Pack half your clothes in your fiancées luggage and half of his stuff in yours... That way if one bag doesn't make it to your destination, you at least have a few days worth of clothes... My MIL's luggage didn't arrive for 2 days and she had absolutely nothing... Not even a swimsuit or shorts!!

@Meandhim@Candace88 We chose the Pure Paradise Package since it was the cheapest option. I wasn't hugely concerned about decor or flowers or a bigger cake so we just went with the base package for $1930, for upto 20 ppl, additional people are $22. They do not charge this for the kids. It was nice and simple. The backdrop of being in the Caribbean was enough decoration for me! I brought a sign that they posted at the wedding site that said "choose a seat, not a side, we're all family once the knot is tied". My husband didn't have a lot of family at the wedding so this suited our situation. Plus I had simple programs, and paper fans for each chair. Carolina happily obliged to have all of that put out. Wedding day timeline: Our wedding clothes were picked up the day before the wedding for steaming. (Dress $30, husbands clothes $15) They dropped them off the day of the wedding right to our room. 8am: Carolina called to see if I wanted our room cleaned since we were having pics done in there. I declined. 9am: 2 bridesmaids went to the spa to get their hair done (power went out and the schedule was a bit screwed after that but I'll tell you what the planned schedule was lol) 10am: my mom and MOH went to the spa to have their hair done... other 2 bridesmaids went back to my room to have makeup done (I have a friend who is a makeup artist). As others finished hair they went back to the room for makeup. 10:30am: my hair appt 1:30pm: All guest plus groomsman and groom meet in the Palace lobby for a train ride to wedding site. 2pm: Wedding time.... So for this I waited in my room with my bridesmaids and parents until Carolina phoned the room. She waits until the judge is actually there before she calls for you. She sent a bellboy in a golf cart right to our villa to pick us up. The wedding was a few mins late to start but no big deal. The wedding is honestly 10-15 mins.. Then as you walk out of the ceremony you are met by a bartender with champagne. They deliver it to all your guests. We had one guest who doesnt drink along with a few kids so they accommodated that by having orange juice to toast with. We had pics with all the guests and our families at this time too. 3:15pm: The train comes back to the wedding site to pick up the guests and bring them back to the Palace Lobby. We continued photos with the wedding party all over the resort and beach. 6:30pm: reception starts. 11:30pm: reception is over Basically they serve dinner and you decide the timeline after that. We had dinner, then speeches, then cake cutting, first dance, father daughter dance, mother son dance, wedding party dance.. then the party started. The extras that we chose were: Completely open bar for the whole reception. They originally told us it was $16/pp for this but that doesn't include dinner service. To have open bar at dinner as well its $24/pp. They use premium liquor for this bar. It was worth it for me since I dont drink beer and I didn't really want to have a wine hangover the next day lol. They also didn't charge this fee for the kids or our guest who doesnt drink which was nice. Sound system: $320 for the sound system this was supposed to be just after dinner for the dance part but he ended up showing up before dinner started so he played our music all through dinner and didn't charge us extra. (I think to have the sound system through dinner as well was like $600 or something). They had an iPod hook up and a guy to play the music for us. I made it really easy for him by labeling the playlists. The sound system also comes with a mic for the speeches if you want. A few of our guests asked the guy playing the music to play some of his music at the end of the night so for the last half hour or so he played some more local music which was cool. Steaming: as noted above $30 for my dress, 15 for his clothes. Decorations for the private reception. I didn't bring any. Again I wasn't hugely concerned with decorations as the area is so beautiful on its own. I brought a seating chart, place cards and table numbers. I brought a guest book so they had a table for it as well. I brought the cake topper for the cake (the cake is plain white with some fondant stars around it) They provided the linens, and chair covers. I made my own bouquets so the bridal bouquet that was included in our package, Carolina arranged to have it broken apart into flower centre pieces. There were also candles for the tables. The tables were round and seated 8 people. I think I had the option for square tables as well. I don't have any photos back yet from the reception so I'll do my best to describe it. The restaurant we had our reception in was between the pool and the beach in the Palace section. It has a grass roof (that you can see from inside as well), no walls, the support posts are all dark brown, the chandeliers are a bunch of hanging sea shells (really beautiful) and they also have nice big ceiling fans. I really liked it. It was very tropical and very classy. I wouldn't have changed a thing. At first we wanted to do dinner on the beach with the beach bash afterward... I'm so glad we didn't spend the money on that. This was perfect and the breeze from the ocean gets quite cool at night so it might have been a bit chilly. We had a bit of a breeze where we were but it wasnt steady like it would have been on the beach. I'll post some reception pics when I get some from my photographer but in the mean time I have a couple pics from the ceremony and pics from around the resort... There are so many places to have gorgeous photos!! The one of us lounging on the bed is by the adult only pool thats on the Palace Section.

We're back! And WOW!! What an amazing time!!! Ladies, you are working with one of the best! I cannot say enough positive things about Carolina and her team...... A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!!! You seriously do not have anything to worry about and I know its hard sometimes waiting for her replies and it feels like there is so much that you should be doing or worrying about but this woman is on it! She is a very busy lady with weddings almost everyday and sometimes more than one. You will be treated very well!! Our tour company was Transat so I'm not sure what exactly was the hotel and what was the tour company but heres a bit of an outline of our wedding experience at the GP Palace. When we got to Punta Cana, we were offered a private shuttle to the hotel. We opted to stay with the rest of our guests but I thought it was a nice touch. Then when we got to the hotel there was a separate check in area for our group. Made the whole process a lot faster I think. Some of our guest rooms (including ours) weren't ready immidately so they took my dress for me and hung it up in the office and told us where we could go grab a bite to eat. We went back to the desk and the room was ready. We had an amazing room. We were upgraded to a loft suite (RM 9114) and it was right by the beach and pool. Absolutely perfect! There was a few issues with a couple of the rooms. We had a few people booked together who were not couples and some were given one king size bed instead of 2 doubles or queens. They fixed it for us though. The evening that we arrived we were given a fruit plate and a bottle of rum in our room. Again a nice touch. The next morning we had a meeting with Carolina to go over everything with the wedding. At that meeting I brought her all of my ceremony/reception stuff that I wanted put out. (Programs, paper fans, place cards, table numbers, seating chart etc.) We went over the itinerary for the wedding day and all the other little details so that our wedding would be exactly as we wanted it. She also told me about another wedding that was going to be taking place on the beach the day before our wedding so that we could go watch if we wanted. (The beach location is not a private ceremony location. They do put up a barrier to a certain point so people dont get too close but people will watch on the sidelines and you may have the odd speedo dude photo-bomb lol... My husband told me that just over my shoulder during the ceremony there was a topless chick that our groomsman were oggling through the ceremony. Just over his shoulder there were other guests that we didnt know that were crying though the whole ceremony lol) So the day of the wedding, Carolina called me first thing in the morning to see if I wanted her to send someone to clean our room since she knew we were having photos done in the room. I declined since people would be in our room steady basically from 10am on. She asked if there was anything else I might need and told me my dress and grooms clothes (that they picked up for steaming the day before -$30 for the dress, $15 for hubbys clothes) would be delivered between 10-11 and that I didnt need to be in the room for this. I made all of our bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages but it would have been the same deal if I had flowers being delivered. Oh ya and because the wedding package included a bridal bouquet and I brought my own, Carolina used the flowers that would have been in my bouquet for centre pieces at dinner! I went for breakfast at about 8:45 with my mom and dad. 2 of my bridesmaids went to the spa to get their hair done at 9. At about 9:15, the whole resort and surrounding area lost power!! At first I thought it was just the buffet that lost power but then I went back to my room and there was no power and ran into a couple other ppl that said they were out too. Not good for the nerves thats for sure. So I couldnt just wait around in my room, I went to the spa to be with my bridesmaids and my mom who were all waiting to get their hair done. When I got to the spa, Carolina was there with her radio. She was working on getting a GENERATOR brought to the spa so we could get our hair done for the wedding! This woman is amazing!!! I could not believe that they would do this. She would not leave the spa until it had power for us! So when I say you have absolutely nothing to worry about.... I'm so serious... YOU HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT! Just as the generator got there, they put it on the ground and before they could even fire it up, the resorts power came back on! So now we are about an hour and a half behind schedule but holy those girls in the spa are good! 5 of us got our hair done in probably an hour and a half or so... And they did a great job too! So the guys and all the guest had to meet in the lobby of the palace for 1:30 and the train picked them up and brought them to the ceremony site. My bridesmaids, parents and I waited in my room until the officiant showed up. Carolina called my room to let me know she was there and that a bellboy was on his way to get us. We had our own golf cart drive us down to the ceremony. My husband had to bring our iPod with all of our music on it to the ceremony with him and gave it to the fella playing the music. @@Candace88 I made a playlist for everything so it was clear (walk down the aisle, document signing, walk out, father daughter dance, first dance, etc). They have all the cords and everything to connect an iPod and they have someone to play it all for you as well. They also have a microphone for the ceremony so everyone can hear. The ceremony takes 10 mins!!! Not very long at all!! Short and sweet! Then theres champagne for after the ceremony. We had some guests that didnt drink alcohol so they had orange juice in champagne flutes for them. I told one of our groomsmen that he was in charge of coconuts for drinks/pics after the ceremony. There seems to always be a groundskeeper in the trees cutting down coconuts so they dont fall and kill someone lol... so you can go get some from them and ask them to cut the tops off so you can drink out of them. After the ceremony the bartender went to one of the bars and got pina coladas for the wedding party's coconuts and we went down the beach for pics! When we returned to our room to freshen up a bit before the reception (our wedding day had to be the hottest day we had there with the least amound of breeze!!) our door had a just married banner across it, our room had rose petals all over the place, the bath was drawn with bubbles, and there was a bottle of champagne. Very nice touch. At 6:30 we all met at the reception venue. We opted for the private dinner which was held at a lunch buffet that was between the pool and the beach in the Palace Section. Absolutely beautiful. Close to the rooms, no walls, grass roof, sea shell chandelier.... very tropical feel. We opted for the caesar salad (it is served with anchovies on top and either tuna or chicken right in the salad... it was good but my mom doesnt like fish so it wasnt her favourite), beef cordon bleu, potatoes and a veg (very good!) and tiramisu (again very good)! Everyone seemed to like the meal! I could barely eat anything for some reason... it was so good and i wanted to but i just had no appetite! After the dinner portion, we cut the cake and did our first dance, father daughter dance, mother son dance, wedding party.... Then the party started. Again they had someone there to play the music for us (I made a playlist for the dance too). The next morning we had breakfast delivered to our room (we got to select the menu at our meeting with Carolina). They also gave us t-shirts and some sunscreen and moisturizer. Everything is was so perfect! @@Candace88 About dinner, I'm not sure exactly how the semi-private dinner works but about a month before the wedding, Carolina will email you with a spreadsheet where you get to pick all your options and she will make sure everything is right for you. Don't stress... I know its hard not to when its your wedding but really and truly there is no need to... everything will be perfect! Ladies, if you have any questions please feel free to ask...