kristenrains1018

My husband and I got married at the Occidental Grand on October 18, 2014. We were originally planning to get married in Cabo and due to the hurricane, were unable to fly there! So, 3 weeks before the wedding, we switched everything over to Nuevo Vallarta! With that said, the resort did an amazing job pulling off the wedding in 3 weeks! This website was so helpful to me as I was planning my own wedding, so I wanted to give a review of the major aspects of this resort for future brides. Occidental Grand Resort: The resort itself is beautiful!! It's a fairly small resort which was nice for having a large group (40 guests). We could all find each other fairly easily during the days (people were either at the beach or the adult pool, which are a couple yards from one another). There were only 3 restaurants to choose from for dinner, so we all ended up having reservations at the same places most evenings. Food and drinks were both great- especially compared to other all-inclusive resorts! The Mexican restaurant in particular was delicious... and they have mango margaritas that are SO good. Wedding planning: Our on-site wedding coordinator was incredibly sweet, but ours was her first wedding to coordinate. She was willing to do whatever we asked her, with a lot of prompting and assistance. Overall, all of the details worked out- with a significant amount of prompting and reminders. The planning team itself was not very autonomous. They pulled me aside several times (during the rehearsal dinner and on wedding day) to verify details. I'm not sure how much of this is typical and how much was due to the 3 week switch, but it was during a time that I just wanted to relax and enjoy the day! Side note- in Mexico, apparently rehearsals are not common. They had not planned a rehearsal (although I had mentioned it several times in my emails prior to arriving). We ended up doing one impromptu before the rehearsal dinner, but the officiant was not there, and the WC did not know what to do. 2 of my BM's took over and decided what order family would be escorted in, where family would sit, how far family and BM/GM would walk down the aisle before the next person would walk, etc. It ended up working out, but I don't know how we would have done it without those 2 girls who had just gotten married and remembered the little details. Florist/music: We just used the vendors contracted with the resort. The flowers were beautiful- I sent pictures from Pintrest and they turned out perfectly. The DJ didn't seem to be a professional; he seemed to be someone who just worked at the resort. When we originally met with him, he had questions about the music of the bridal chorus (the typical bridal march song). However, once he located the correct song, all of the music for the ceremony and reception was perfect! Photography: We used Enrique Morales for photography and videography. We haven't received our pictures yet (we should next week ) but we have had an amazing experience with him so far! He is a Cabo photographer and he came to PV so that he could still photograph our wedding. Him and his team were so professional, and all of our friends and family commented on how great he was. We booked them for 6 hours but they stayed a little past to finish out our reception. Enrique and his team were definitely beyond what we expected... now we just can't wait to see the pictures and video! For anyone planning a wedding at Occidental Grand- I would definitely recommend it. I would imagine that they do better with smaller wedding groups, but be aware that you might need to double and triple check the planned details to avoid all of the repeated questions on your wedding day!