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@sassldiva wow sorry it's been so long since i've logged on. hmm that's weird, it could also be because it's plated food, but we ended up going with buffet for ours at Moon Palace so we didn't incur any of those extra fees just to note as well, our group booked through my wedding planner who deals with a travel supplier to provide us with our rates to complete the group booking with moon palace, we didn't book directly with them but were still eligible for the group benefits.

Hi @@sassldiva! I'm also planning my wedding for January 2017 and we booked at the Moon Palace. Because we met the group minimum, we're actually not paying per head for our wedding or any private events. We booked back in 2015 and I believe their group minimums have now changed since then. When we booked, it was, 75 room nights or more to get free unlimited private functions. As far as wedding costs go...most things like string lights, dj, fancy chairs, tables are at an extra cost. I know that Moon Palace is more expensive than most resorts in Cancun...but for the size of the resort, resort credits, and amount of activities and things to do, we felt like it was worth it for our group. Hope that helps!

@@Natasha28 I purchased the silk flowers from the wholesaler and it came up to about $120, which bought me enough flowers to make about 3 bouquets, and 5 floral table runners. Hope that helps I'll definitely need to make another trip back there though!

@@tuppup yah their prices are outrageous! I have wedding planner that I'm bringing down from Vancouver so I'm leaving her to set-up most of those items for us; I'm not sure about the cost for the charge..but I imagine it to be worth it considering how much they're charging for their decor :S

@@tuppup which resort is your wedding at? I'm at MP and we can get our decor from vendors like LatinAsia or Zuniga. They're pretty pricey though-- so tbh i'm bringing down most of my own decor (floral bouquets, and garlands).

@@Cablelove11 here's a site that shows you how to build both! http://www.afloral.com/Wedding-Design-Ideas Hope that helps!

@@banana2016 there are a whole bunch down in Burnaby on Marine Way; but the one i'm going to is called "Florists Supply", this one isn't open to public, but there are a whole bunch in the area that are! I would definitely check it out when you can.

Hi @@banana2016 I'm also doing the same-- I'm buying the silk/fake flowers from a wholesaler here in Vancouver and assembling the bouquets myself. I've youtubed it as well and it honestly doesn't look TOO difficult. I also want peonies which are super expensive down in Mexico so we've opted for the silk flowers instead Hope that helps!

That's a good point! Thanks @!

@ -- Congrats again on the wedding! I read your review and it immediately got me so excited about my wedding. So happy everything went smoothly for you guys. So I think I might have forgotten to mention that being on the Caribbean Terrace, the latest the reception can go until is 10pm...so even with extending the reception, we would just be moving up our cocktail hour, but instead now we're just ending at 9:30 and i feel like on the day of, we may end up just taking the 30 mins up until 10pm to move everyone out of that area... into the club I'll post some photos later on my hair and make-up inspiration

Hi Ladies, Sorry I've been so MIA! I guess we're kind of at the point in our planning where we're really just waiting for vendors and others to get back to us before we get to make final decisions on things. WEDDING DAY DETAILS: We've finalized our wedding date/times and location: January 19, 2017 4pm Ceremony at Caribbean Beach (Moon Grand Beach) 6pm Cocktail hour Caribbean Terrace 7pm Reception dinner Caribbean Terrace (which we've decided we would extend for an additional hour, bringing the reception until 10pm-- this costs an additional $8.50/pp) MP was nice enough to lower the combined set up fee for both the cocktail and reception to $15/pp. Normally they charge $7 for cocktail hour and $13 for dinner ($20/pp for both cocktail and reception). Initially I was also super adamant on having plated food for our reception dinner, but plated dinners cost an additional $37 per person...so for that cost, we opted for buffet instead. I've started to find that even though we're at an all inclusive resort, a lot of these weddings costs add up daily quickly and almost creep up on you unexpectedly! Right now, John and I are looking at about an additional $23.50/per person (which is almost an extra $1000 based on the amount of guests we're expecting) So i'm actually thinking of contacting my WP so we're not adding the additional hour for the reception (this saves us about $400!) HAIR & MAKEUP So I've been debating for about a week now on hair/makeup vendors and I know a lot of people have been recommending the StylingTrio, but after looking at their price list i was SO TORN...especially with the resort credits that MP offers, I can almost get my hair and make up done for free (still having to pay the 16% service fee and that's it!) vs. paying the $500 for my hair and makeup through the StylingTrio; and this is for the wedding day hair and make-up with their senior artist, not the master artist and the trial isn't included. You have of course get the trail with the package as well, but it's almost another $200. So...needless to say, I just couldn't justify. But after doing some more research on the MP salon/spa, the look I'm going for, and reviews I've decided to just bite the bullet and go with StylingTrio. The last and scariest thing is to be walking down the aisle HATING how you look and having all the pictures to haunt you for the rest of your life, lol. I'm also going for the soft low up-do with natural makeup and i find that sometimes with the resorts style, it's harder for them to achieve this look. Aside from that, we're waiting on the decor vendors to come back to us with quotes, which then at that point we can decide to add or trim down from what we've chosen. Keep you ladies posted!

HI @@OttawaBride2017, Congrats on your engagement and welcome to the forum! I'm also a January 2017 bride, and we're booked at Moon Palace in Cancun. MP definitely ticks of all of your 'must-have' boxes, and we're actually hosting our reception at the Caribbean Terrace which is some-what of a rooftop type/deck terrace (it lives above the Caribbean Restaurant and is outdoors). I wouldn't say that MP is really 'contemporary looking', I feel like it lends a little more to the 'Mayan' feel, but it's sister resorts Sun Palace, Beach Palace, and Le Blanc (adults-only) definitely are! Palace resorts as a group offers a lot of great group incentives, like the unlimited private events, based off of room nights and Moon Palace is a huge resort so if you're looking for lots to do to keep your guests entertained, you definitely won't have any problems here! You'll find a lot of helpful forums and blogs here to help with your planning! @, @@Wafflesmom and @@tygrrlily are 3 just to name a few, and are really great reads esp. if you're considering Palace Resorts Let us know if we can help, I'm sure you have lots of questions

Hey Ladies!! Thanks everyone for all the support! You guys have all made me feel so much better-- being the hands on, control freak that I am...i honestly couldn't stop worrying but it's OVER and the turn out was greater than expected, we've got a total of 17 rooms booked and 32 deposits, which is WAY more than we had hoped for. The crazy part is, a good 10-15 guests have actually told us that they're planning on booking later (due to pregnancies, vacation days, etc.) so we're probably looking at about 45 people in total! We met our 10 room minimum, qualified for the unlimited private events (we totalled to 110 room nights, when we only needed 75), and qualify for at least 1 room free (from the 12th room free promotion). So we are doing SUPER! And now it's finally onto the 'fun' part of actual wedding planning! We've been assigned a coordinator (I don't know her name, because my WP deals directly with her), but we're finalizing our wedding, cocktail and reception location. Right now-- we have the Caribbean Beach, or otherwise known as "Moon Grand Beach" (which is the beach closest to the Caribbean Terrace and the further location from the rest of the resort, #11 on the MP map) Now we're just in works of confirming cocktail and reception location. We initially were going to have the reception on the Venado Terrace and cocktail hour at the Venado Garden...but John and I found a video on youtube of someone filming the Terrace ( ) and the surrounding areas and John was really unhappy with it. He felt like it was in the middle of nowhere, there were walk ways surrounding it, and the resort buildings were in close proximity. If any of you ladies are looking for reception venues at MP, I would suggest just typing the location into the youtube search tool and seeing if you can find a video on it to give you a good sense of how the venue fits into the resort and it's surroundings!So we decided to switch our reception over to the Caribbean Terrace which is as private as you'll get at the MP since it's on a Terrace above the restaurant; there is also a $12/pp set-up fee for the reception, but for more privacy and intimacy, I think John and I are OK with that. Our WP did mention that the entire deck may not be all ours, but our reception area would be sectioned off. I also hear that this area is on the quieter side of the resort. My WP did also mention that the wedding co-ordinator is suggesting that we also have our cocktail hour at the CT, but the cocktail hour also costs $6 to set-up on the Terrace, so right now we're talking with the MP coordinator to see if we can maybe waive one of the fees if we have both events on the Terrace Keep you Ladies posted! <3

@@ashhtayy Yah certain things can wait until the final payment, like the 12th room free promotion, but the 10 room minimum needs to be booked by the deadline. But I guess it's just the stress of all of it that I'm getting overwhelmed and just want everything confirmed sooner rather than later. Thanks for the kind words!

Hi Ladies, Just a quick little update before I head to bed tonight... I'm not going to lie...this past weekend has been really stressful, i've cried multiple times over the RSVP deadline which is tomorrow. The fact that everyone wants to wait until the VERY last minute is driving me absolutely insane! We've had a lot of people we thought would book as double books as singles (UGHHH, WHY?! It's $1000 more!). This isn't helping because we're trying to guarantee our group booking minimum which is 10 double occupancy rooms. To add to that, it also doesn't count towards our 12th room free promotion (requires 7 night stay, double occupancy). Our family has also made up excuses as to why they can't come anymore and this whole RSVP thing is just COMPLICATED! I'm trying to group up single occupants into double rooms so they don't have to pay the higher rate, we get to meet our group minimum, and add to our 12th room free count. People, let me help you!! I just can't wait for tomorrow to be over and hear that everything is OK...One annoying thing about this suppliers group booking is that for any changes to the reservations/rooms they charge $75...but beach so many of our guests are expecting their plus ones to book at a later time, it makes it difficult to group people so they can pay the lower cost now without incurring the $75 fee. Oh...the stresses...

@@Wafflesmom, i totally agree with @, such a blessing in disguise. you guys are gona love having some alone time together. even before we've totalled up the room nights, john and i already decided to go for 10 nights vs. 7 just so we can have some time to ourselves. It'll be good!

@@Wafflesmom YES PLEASE! I think you have my email...if not, it's [email protected] Thank you!! *Phew* good to know about the travel pricing, I hope the same is for us

@ Hi Friend...thanks that was super helpful. I'm really hoping that my WP did her best with quoting us the best rates possible, $1650 is such a great price!!! I wish i was a little more patient with getting a better quote for our guests...but I know that year over year it tends to increase by a couple hundred If you could send me your PO's that'd be amazing! ([email protected]) With the 16% tax and USD...i can see the decor adding up to be quite a bit so i'll definitely make sure to negotiate, Thanks again!

@@calgarybride2015 Thanks! That's a sigh of relief...I seriously hope the same will be true for our rates. Unfortunately, expedia and sell-off rates aren't available for 2017 yet...so the only thing i've been able to compare to are 2016 rates. I'm not sure if that's really the best comparison because I know rates tend to increase year over year. Our rates for 7 nights from Toronto to Moon Palace Cancun are about $2100 and the expedia 2016 rates are $1750... I REALLY hope that the 2016 rates are not anything like the 2017, I can't imagine them being so, because i'm sure my WP would get a lot of angry phone calls...lol

@@Wafflesmom oh no-- sorry to hear about your TA. I hope they do something to rectify that...!

Hi ladies, as i mentioned earlier... i emailed my WP because I just wanted to make sure that we were securing the best rates and promotions not only for us but for our guests as well. I was also starting to get a little concerned because a couple of our guests told us that they wouldn't be booking with us. This posed a bit of a problem for us because: 1. We need to meet the minimum 10 room minimum before Nov 30th 2. We want to meet the 75 room night minimum so that we can earn free unlimited private functions with MP (anything below that will give us either 1 two hour private reception or a 1 hour cocktail reception. 3. Any guests attending the free unlimited private functions who are not booked with the group will incur extra charges per person 4. We want to benefit from the 12th room free promotion (24 guests based on double occupancy) I reached out to get a little reassurance from our WP because I was worried that some of our guests might find lower rates elsewhere with other suppliers...here's what she said: When you receive a group quote it is an averaged price. This is to ensure all guests are offered the same price--- rather than the first 5 rooms booked be a lower price, and then the other guests get stuck paying a much higher price. This is what would happen for example, if you were to ask all of your guests to book separately on expedia or any other travel site or individual travel agents. The rates and availability wouldn't be held, and once the dates for the flights and resorts were booked by your first few guests, the prices would rise further and further for the rest of your guests. On top of this you would not qualify for group promotions, and you would have to keep track of all details for each guests booking in order to plan your wedding. This being said-- a few guests may end up finding slightly lower rates if they were to book outside of the group. Usually, however, this is not the case and our rates are still much better than what they can find separately, especially with a resort like Moon Palace that fills up quickly because of their great wedding and group promotions. I think it made me feel a little better-- and I think there's always going to be a couple people who find one off deals here and there, any other ladies with this sort of experience? I'm going to really start laying out the details for decor soon, people have mentioned Latin Asia and Gamma. I'm considered bringing a lot of decor down myself as well if it's cheaper but i think i'm going to contact both the vendors and compare all the rates they quote. Does anyone have a catalogue or quotes that I can take a peek at? A couple things I'm looking for: beach ceremony: - ceremony labor/arch - flowers for the arch - fabrics for the arch - lanterns for the aisle reception: - bistro lighting (string lights) - rectangular tables (not sure if MP has these already or if they only have round ones?) - same lanterns for the aisle can be moved to tables as centre pieces - table runners Please email me if you do [email protected] Thanks ladies!

@ GREAT TIP! i'll keep that in mind and just hope for the best.

Hey ladies, thanks for all the help with this...i just want to make sure we're really reaping the full benefits of booking with ACV. It's helpful to see what other suppliers and even ACV has offered to others because i can then compare with what we're getting on our end, but I'm a little stunned because I'm surprised our WP hasn't already offered these perks to us since ACV is our travel supplier. Our WP said that the upgrade isn't available on our flight to Cancun...I'm going to ask for clarification as to why, but she did mention previously that our room upgrade would be based on availability and sorted when we get to the hotel-- i just hate having things 'up in the air' and not confirmed on paper lol. I'm emailing her now, so I hope we find out soon!

@@vancouverpetunia wow i'm shocked that triple occupancy rooms don't count! and KIDS?! seriously... Yah i guess they're always going to put terms and conditions on incentives like free rooms. We also considered Now Sapphire at one point as well-- I think you'll be in great hands, I hear that Carlos is amazing, I'm actually kinda sad that I wont be able to work with him. He sounded so great at what he does. Good luck with all your planning! So I just double checked my emails and our rates do apply for price drop guarantee...however the conditions make it extremely rare for us to be able to benefit from it. The conditions are that there have to be the exact amount of seats available on the flight for however many guests we have (not including the seats we've already booked) So essentially...if we have 40 guests and the price drops by $100...there has to be exactly 40 seats available on the flight in order for us to take the lower quote, which is obviously very highly unlikely.

@@deecol Oh really?! is this with Air Canada or Air Canada Vacations? Apparently there's a distinction between the 2... (said my wedding planner) lol. and my guests have also had to put down $300 for their deposit, so i'm not sure now lol