ADetailed wedding experience ( more detailed than on tripadvisor) We stayed at Melia for the second time. This time we came with almost 80 people for our Nigerian-Dominican wedding. Overall it was amazing, our families and friends enjoyed their stay and the staff at Melia made everything possible to keep us comfy and happy. We will be as honest as we can: When booking our wedding, it took a long time for the wedding coordinator to reply, so my recommendation is to establish a more personalized means of communication i.e call and talk to a real person as they absolutely don't do well with emails. Buy a calling card and call them directly instead of waiting for 4-5 days for a reply, sometimes more. We believe that the coordinators don't have good communication by emails/distance but once the day is approaching, our WC (wedding coordinator) called us and emailed us frequently (during the last week). Once we arrived at the hotel, the communication was excellent and our WC did do her bes to help us have a special wedding!!! We had the Premium Tropical Fairy Tale package for 75 people ( 2 kids equals 1 adult). The most negative thing about the whole process is the long months without any communication with our WC. We tried to email and call at times and it was a pretty frustrating, as a bride, I thought sometimes that I was alone and that the wedding would be a near-fiasco, but those fears were allayed once we got to the hotel and had face-to-face interaction with the WC and her team. We shipped 2 barrels and 1 box full of stuff for our wedding, as it is cheaper than paying for luggage. We sent them 1.5 months before the wedding to allow time for the shipping company to deliver it to Punta cana (from NYC). We waited until the last 2 weeks and when we called the shipping company, they told us that when they tried to deliver the cargo, the hotel desk told them that they can not receive the shipment during the night, and that delayed the delivery. Thank God, I have family in DR and they were able to pick the shipment up from Santo Domingo and take it to Punta cana for the wedding. Imagine how bad I would have felt if all my wedding favors, souvenirs and other critical paraphernalia did not arrive in time for the wedding itself!!! Check in: we were a group of 10 people checking in. It took about one hour to complete it. We also bought some rooms for other family members from DR and we took a lil bit of time sorting their rooms. Ileana and Laura Mota were amazing, very professional, responsible, friendly and cooperative with our check in and our guests under the direction of our WC, Heinicy Santana. We had 75-80 people coming and many of our guests were pleasanlty received at the lobby by the WC/ her team members where they were handed our specially prepared gift bags and wedding itinerary. Did i mention we were upgraded to Royal Service as part of our wedding package! One hour after check in, we met Heinicy (WC) for the details of the wedding, I sent her some pictures and ideas of my dream wedding and she gave us the prices of the things that were out of our wedding package. We spent one hour with her and had everything ready for the wedding. Basically after that point, it was time to relax and enjoy. I must say Heinicy did a great job!, she put an itinerary in each of our guests bags and efficiently delivered them to each room, if not given at check in. We had a rehearsal dinner for 25 people at the Dominican Restaurant: our waiter Elvis deserves special mention; he was great with us, always on top of everything and with a genuine smile, he made us feel right at home! We also had an informal 'meet and greet' after the dinner for our friends at the Tropical Lobby, with live music and drinks, which went out really well. Just to Let you know of how relaxing our wedding was, my husband and I were at the beach until 4pm, and the wedding was at 6pm. I didn't use the hair salon at the resort but people say it is really good. My sister-in-law used the spa and said it was nice. My flowers were amazing!!! I took a picture of the flowers I wanted and they did exactly what I wanted! We had our wedding at the beach gazebo which was nicely decorated with drapes and tropical flowers (free from the hotel flora), they put bamboo sticks with little red flowers ( the ones that they use to put in the rooms) but they look very nice, and they put a table with two simple centerpieces at the beach gazebo. They played soft music from a cd/iPod system. The ceremony lasted for 20 minutes and was translated by Heinicy. We then took pics at the beach for around 30 minutes. I made my wedding programs and gave wooden fans that we put in every chair at the ceremony. We went for the cocktail hour at the amphitheater, the only thing that i regret is not to have the trio playing music. They placed a table at a extreme of the amphitheater with the 4 hor d urs, then there were high tables with high cilinders and flowers, I brought chocolate kisses, cocktail napkins and coasters that were used in the cocktail hour. We had prosciutto and melon, beef sticks, ham and cheese burritos and a vegetarian option, they were all delicious and people ate them all!!! The cocktail hour was overall good and we all sat in the steps of the amphitheater, chat and took pics, it was a beautiful day, sunset to the night full of stars. Our reception was at the Turey grill, we had the foldable white chairs, with turquoise and orange sashes and white linens ( if you want colored linens you have to pay over your package), there were transparent platters, i brought orange wide ribbons that we used as napkin holders/rings and we put starfish keychains as pendands from the rings, as souvenirs. We also had little buckets (beach buckets that i found in oriental trading) and put some chocolates kisses ( i found coconut kisses- I of course did not taste them, but apparently were great), the centerpieces we chose were beach oriented ( our WC gave us a List of about 5-7 centerpieces to choose from). I got dry starfishes that were put on the tables and little lights. I don't think that it was necessary to bring all those things ( will give u the list of what I brought later).The DJ was great, we gave some songs to play, and he had lights and an overall good ambiance. The centerpieces were round glass bowls with some shells on it, and the tables had starfishes and shells on them. The menu was fixed for everybody but it was good, we had seafood mix salad, then surf and turf with mahi mahi in coconut sauce and chicken with spinach, they were accompanied with vegetables. The cake was so delicious, that my sisters in law came to our room the next day looking for more!!! We had "la hora loca" which is a crazy hour with masks, beads, feathers, neon necklaces and people went nuts!!! All our family and friends loved Melia, our wedding was relaxed and mostly stress-free and we all enjoyed the resort and the amenities. We have been twice at the resort and in another resort in punta cana (honeymoon at Zoetry Agua, Dreams, Punta Cana) and we really loved Melia! You can find everything there, it can be quiet and peaceful, but also you can find music, fun activities and a party atmosphere too! Pros: wedding - very efficient delivery of gift bags and itineraries. - wedding ceremony was well done, everything was smooth, executed well. - everything was done exactly as we invisioned and planned. Cons: wedding - very poor communication before arrival. Melia: we love the resort, the people and the beach! It's the best, we recommend hotels in bavaro beach because the beaches are from the Caribbean sea and there are not a lot of mosquitoes. We do not recommend resorts in Ubero Alto because the beaches are rocky, not as clear, more wild, and you can be eaten by mosquitoes. We did not use the pools in melia cuz the beach is just as a natural pool. Initially we were Put in room 3601, it had a noisy AC, the shower door didn't close properly. We received a courtesy call from the royal service and we told them about it. We were offered to wait to fix it or change rooms. We were changed to room 3608 and it was perfect! Royal Service: we had the opportunity to stay on and off royal service ( in our previous year). It is great. The Gabi restaurant is very good. They even cooked some Fried plantains for us that were not on the buffet/menu. We used the golf cars every time we needed to move. Pablo Martinez is a great butler with lots of charisma. Pedro and Abel also were very good. Off royal service also is good: my dad ordered a special breakfast (mofongo: plantains matched with pork meat) and the crew in market place managed to do it for 15 people! That was great! Also, the best bartender: Roberto 'el fuerte', in the capri/french restaurant!!! We really appreciate the people in Melia! My list: Goody bag for guest: -beach bag - waterproof camera/money bag - stainless mug - goggles -sunscreen - insect repellent ( is not needed in melia- but I used it a lot in the other resort I visited after the wedding) - flip flop At the dinner, we gave starfish keychains, chocolate, wood and fabric fans, CDs with Nigerian music, nail clippers, another type of raffia bags, plastic mugs and rhinestone clutches, card holders (we didn't buy all these gifts, in fact it is a Nigerian tradition that all the families bring gifts to all the guests- I didn't even know about it until wedding day!). The first dance was great as my dad bought sparkles in DR (as we couldn't ship them nor flight them to DR). Inventory: Wooden fan- 75 Love birds cake topper: but we used the letter toppers instead. Summer coasters: 100 Summer wedding program papers. I did my own programs in my printer. Sugar starfish: 500 Starfish assortment: 60 Summer stickers: 200: to personalize our things without spending a fortune. Masks: 48 Feather masks- 12 Glow bracelets: 100 Maracas: 36 Whizzers: 60 Lei multi color: 100: we used at cocktail hour. Cocktail umbrellas: 144:we used these as our place cards, put them in as and box and did thin name tags and it was simple and beachy. The rest we used to put on our cocktail hour favorite drink: coco loco!! Blowouts multicolor: 8 Mardi grass beads: 120 Floating candles: 36 Submersible lights: 40 Napkins- personalized: 120 Little cans: 20 Lanterns: 20: we used at cocktail hour scribes:2 Sparkles: 48 Metal frame Flip flops Starfish keychains aisle runner 1 mugs Sunscreen Goggles- Waterproof bags I don't recommend to bring decoration stuff as I know that they can do great things without our help. That was a lil excessive but the fact is that I didn't know what to expect and it is the reason why I'm doing this review. My favorite part of the wedding was to dance under the stars with my husband surrounded by our family and friends with sparkles on their hands. I highly recommend it. My two regrets are: that we didn't use the the musical trio at the cocktail hour. The other one is that we didn't put merengue in our playlist, which is the national music and I'm Dominican! We enjoyed every detail of our wedding and our stay at Melia!!! :D