prostar113

@@Meandhim, awesome, I'll be looking forward to it. I'm thinking back on the private vs semi-private options and now I'm starting to second guess myself. Has anyone had a semi-private reception? We have almost 50 guests. To seat all those people, we'd have to have a pretty big section of a restaurant anyhow. Would it almost have that private feel because of the larger number of guests? And can we even choose any of the al la carte restaurants? From the pictures they look pretty small (and from my previous experiences at al la cartes). Lastly, if we do go with a semi-private option, does that mean we couldn't have the sound system set up? As I feel it would disturb the other patrons at the restaurant if we did. Just worried I'd be paying an $1500 for very little gain.

Hello all, I've been checking in and out of this thread for the past year as me and my wife are getting married on January 11th, 2016 (sorry, there was no 2016 Grand Palladium Palace Grooms thread). There has been a lot of good feedback in here so I appreciate everyone who's posted in here. First I'll kind of post what our plans are/have been. Nov 28th (yup, just a few days ago) - We officially got married for a couple reasons. 1) Save time/costs and essentially a bunch of headaches with all that's associated in getting married legally there. 2) Since our grandma's are not coming to the DR, we thought it would be special for them to see us get married. Had it in her small home town church and went wonderfully. Jan 11th - Symbolic ceremony/reception at the Grand Palladium. We have 46 guests including ourselves all staying at the Palace section. Feb 13th - Another wedding reception....no meal but decorated tables/chairs, speeches, bar, DJ, midnight lunch, etc. This was to accommodate about 100 invitee's that were not able to make it to the DR. Since there were obviously costs associated with the Nov 28th/Feb 13th events, it took a big chunk out of our budget so not much is left over for the DR wedding. And with the CAD->USD conversion just getting worse and worse, I am looking to save where I can. So for us, the options we were planning on doing is the Crystal Package (website currently says $1180...that's 2016 price. Not sure if 2015 was different or what price we will actually get), Private reception (extra's sheet says $1060) and we definitely need speaker/microphone for speeches/dance following the dinner. I know the $900 can get you the DJ for the night, but I think that's for the entire night including the dinner (6:30-11:30). I've seen in here a couple different prices thrown out (as low as $350ish, high as $650ish). But it's weird those prices aren't including in any information given to us. I just sent out an email to Carolina asking about it so we'll see what she comes back with. That is definitely something we'd consider as we do have a portable bluetooth speaker that should be able to be loud enough to provide at least some sort of ambiance music during dinner. So roughly I'm looking at $1180 for the package + $1060 for private reception + $900 for sound system + (26*20 = 520 for guests over the 20 person limit) = $3660 USD. And with our terrible conversion rate from CAD, it'll cost me close to $5000. Which isn't too bad but it's pushing it. Unfortunately I'm already getting basically the bare minimum in the wedding options available so. I mean I could consider the semi-private thing but I'm pretty certain from everyone's responses that a private room is a must. Anyway...after all this, I do have a few questions: Anyone do the symbolic ceremony? How long did it go? Did you still have to sign anything after the ceremony? If not, we'll have to make up something to sign after to get that official feel to it. I saw the question asked but I don't think I really saw an answer. Anyone do the ceremony on the beach? We've been on the fence to have it on the breach or the Gazebo. Did you really get to choose the location for the dinner? Do you choose location/menu when you get there or do you have to do it beforehand? That's all for now. 41 more days!