purplekitten

For those who have already had their destination wedding in Riviera Maya/Cancun, was your officiant secular or religious? I want to make sure that God is included (read: mentioned) in my ceremony, but since the resoirt (Iberostar paraiso maya) chooses the officiant, I'm worried it will be a judge and the ceremony will be completely non-religious. What was your experience with this?

I finally complained to my wedding coordinator after I hadn't gotten a response from the preferred vendor in TWO WEEKS (and I sent a reminder email to him after one week). He got me a quote later that day. With my name spelled wrong. And the wedding date off by 5 months. I pointed it out, and he fixed it and quoted me a 10% discount. I still don't feel great about using his services. There's another company I really want to use, but with the outside vendor fee, it would cost almost 50% more to use them. I don't want to condone the lousy customer service by hiring the inside guy, but I don't want to throw away money to make a point, either.

At least in your case, you have good reviews to cancel out the negativity of the slow responses. I've got nothing. I have no clue whether this guy is any good.

Any idea why they do this? What is the benefit to the resort to force their paying customers to use a crappy service?

If I had to wait 12 days for an email response, I'd pay the $500 fee to use an outside vendor just on principle.

My resort has a prefered photographer and a prefered company for DJ/lighting. I had a really hard time getting information out of the photographer but finally got things settled. Now, I want to get a price quote from the DJ, but he doesn't want to respond to me! He responded to my original email to ask me how many people we would be having (because how much music costs depends on how many people are listening?), and I gave him the information immediately. It's been a week, and I haven't heard back, even though I sent another email yesterday morning asking if he had been able to put a quote together yet. All of the other DJs I contacted sent me quotes, but I have to pay the resort a $500 fee if I choose one of them! I don't feel like I hsould have to pay money to not use someone who has terrible customer service from day one! What am I supposed to do here?

Did you guys use the prefered vendors for photography and for the DJ/lighting? They have been sooooo unresponsive to me!

What abotu Xcaret? it's beautiful and they have animals. Who doesn't love animals?! http://www.xcaretweddings.com/

Hmmm.... well I HIGHLY doubt we will have over 40 people. I think we anticipate 25 or 30.

Thanks, edowd! I have faith that they don't need to know what my choices are before a few months out. I'm just worried about two things on MY end: budgeting and getting the invitations (with the correct details and times) out in time. Did you go with the private reception? Do you know whether people have to pre-select their entree?

Oh, I know abou the Star/Silver/Gold (we chose Gold). What i don't know about are like, the options for what flowers to choose, the meal options if we go for the private dinner, the different locations within the resort where the ceremony can be held, if a certain kind of cake will cost extra, that sort of thing. I know that when she sends me the information in May, it will be plenty of time for them to have everythign ready. My main concerns are: what time will the ceremony and reception be and do people need to pre-select their meals? I want to know those things so i can order my invitations. i'm scared that if I don't order them until May, there won't be enough time to get them printed, get them sent, and get the RSVPs. The only thing I do know is that we're paying the extra for the private reception, which is $1050 at our resort. But like I said, i don't know if people need to select their entree.

Thank you, Becky! That helps a lot! I'm curious, though: why do you have to pay per person for an open bar at an all-inclusive resort?

Ok, so i emailed the woman I'd been working with at the resort to ask if we could have the list early. I said that I'm really anxious to see the options we have and that also, we need to see what extra costs there may be so we can save acordingly. She wrote back and said that no, we have to wait until May.

@@jsparrow10 - No, we haven't gotten that yet. Our wedding is a few months later than yours, though. Edit to add: Does it have a lot of "extras" (things that cost more money) on it?

Thanks, Becky! Have you been to your resort previously? FH and I were at the Iberostar Grand Rose Hall in Jamaica last July. It was absolutely excellent. If you haven't been, you're going to love it!