*this is pretty long but I just wanted to help out anyone else who might be planning a wedding at DRC. It's not easy planning an event somewhere that you have never been. Please feel free to ask me any questions and I will do my best to answer*

Length of trip: August 1- August 10, 2012

Wedding Date: Saturday August 4th, 2012

Ceremony: North Beach

Cocktail: Desires Lounge

Reception: Pool Deck/Seaside Grill

Wedding Coordinator: Evangelina -> Yamina -> Lorena

Photos: Anel, Adventure Photos

Number of guests: 29

Wedding package: Ultimate + photo package #3

   We had an amazing trip and couldn't be happier with having chosen Dreams Riviera Cancun. We are super easy going and pretty low maintenance. and the planning of the wedding was pretty stress-free for me (i did the majority of planning-the husband had a few requests here and there). One of the main reasons we chose DRC, was because we had been to a wedding at Dreams Tulum the year before, and we felt we knew what we would be getting by going with another Dreams resort. We got what we hoped for and more!

My husband has asked that i do not post our slide show on here, so I will respect his wishes. I will post a few pics though :) We were pretty busy the first 2 days we arrived but we managed to swim and have drinks and have fun in between meetings and what not. After that, we were able to relax, even with a Hurricane!

Wednesday August 1

   We  landed in Cancun at about 3:30pm. We had 4 suitcases. My carry-on was a garment bag with my wedding dress. My dress was folded in half, then half again. As you will see below, my dress wasn't poofy and didn't have much detail, so I wan't worried that folding it woud damgeit. I had no issues with that.My husband was stopped in customs because one of his suitcases had about 35 mini-tubes of sunscreen in it. They asked him about it. i had the receipt for it. They searched the suitcase and let us go. no biggie at all.

   About half of our guests arrived this day also. We had a preferred club room with the plunge pool (the plunge pool was one of like, 2 requests of my husband). We booked it for more than 7 nights, so we also got the Honeymoon Package included. Check in was easy. We got to the room and there was a bottle of 'pagne for us. I immediately finished assembling our OOT bags. They were a hit! they were mesh bags from Oriental Trading, a personalized beer koozie, a personalized plastic cup with lid and straw, Emergen C, Imodium, Advil, an itinerary for guests and a list of attendees (name, how we know them and where they were from). The only thing I wish I could have added is bug spray! Or OFF wipes. The bug bites were brutal and I felt bad because some people got bit real bad. That resort gift shop sold OFF for $16.00 and most of us ended up buying some.

   Here is the itinerary template i made up. i had different versions for various family members, MOH, etc.We included our room number so guests could find us. and we also opted to put the table numbers of our guests on the itineraries. i was afraid that place cards would blow away on the pool deck. I think this worked out well. no one seemed to forget their table number and they could pick their seat at the table.

   We took a walk around the resort and found most of our guests, gave them their OOT bag, ate dinner at the buffet set up on the pool terrace that night and then went to Desires.

Thursday August 2nd

   Our first stop after breakfast was to set a meeting with Anel. I tried to set this up prior to our arrival, but she told us to just stop in when we arrived to set up a meeting. Santiago was there and he gave us a time.

   Our second stop was a meeting with Lorena at the Business Center. We set up these next 2 meetings a few months in advance. It was so good to finally meet her. She's really nice. We initially had chosen the Love wedding package. The first thing Lorena mentioned was upgrading to the Ultimate package. At first i was like, "oh here we go with the up selling....", but it turned out that due to our guest count dropping by about 10 people and items we had added on (centerpieces, mariachi), that it would be more cost effective because those items are included in the Ultimate package. We ended up saving a few hundred dollars! it was great! and of course i felt bad for thinking my previous thoughts. I had brought all my spreadsheets i created with my notes, printouts of our dinner menu for the table, chair sashes, cake topper, table numbers with stands to hold them and we covered EVERYTHING. With the exception of date, time and locations, we would have been able to change anything else we wanted. it was a good meeting and we got even more excited for the wedding.

   We grabbed coffee and hung out with guests. We also headed to the lobby and paid for half of the wedding. then we headed back to the Business center and met with Mauricio (DJ). He had emailed us a spreadsheet to complete about a month before our trip. We brought that and went over it with him. We also brought a flash drive with some specific songs we wanted to hear at various parts of the reception. He was really nice and thorough.

   Right when we finished with Mauricio, Anel came in to meet with us. We went over the time line of our wedding day, specific shots we wanted. It was quick meeting which was great. She was also really nice.

   The rest of our guests arrived this day. we tried to find them throughout the day to give them their bags and their itineraries. We had scheduled a Meet & Greet for all our guests at Rendezvous  (Lobby Bar) this night. Any guests who had not received their OOT bag with itinerary, we called their room and left them a message to be in the lobby at 8pm. We did not reserved this area. It worked out perfect. Some nights the lobby is packed with activities, but we lucked out. it was pretty empty except for us. Everyone met, mingled and had a blast!

Friday August 3rd

  I scheduled mani/pedis for myself, MOH, my grand-mom, mom and future mother in law. i had booked this reservation a few months in advance with William at the spa. He was there at the desk when we arrived. He was also very nice. It was a good experience. I also received 15% off with our wedding package, so that was nice :)

   We purchased 2 full day resort passes for our best man and his wife. we coordinated this with Lorena. We had no issues with this. We paid the balance of our wedding on this day. we used a debit card. no issues.

   Our wedding rehearsal was at the North beach at 3pm. Linda, our officiant was there with Lorena. It was quick and easy. I'll be honest, this area is no more private than the gazebo. There are beach huts with guests lounging on the perimeter of your ceremony.

   Kip and I checked into our extra room for the groom. He wanted to use the plunge pool all day on the day of the wedding, so our extra room was actually the Bride's room, lol.

   Friday night we had reserved a table for 20 people at Himitsu. We paid for this. It was not private, which we were aware of an did not mind. We had 2 big table to ourselves in the rear of the restaurant so it seemed pretty private. It was great and I'm glad we did it. Our families had the chance to be alone and talk and really get to bond over dinner.  We we able to order off the regular menu. They brought us all Sangrias as soon as we arrived. We distributed our wedding party gifts. 

Saturday August 4th-WEDDING DAY, OMG!

  I didn't sleep well the night before and was really restless :/ I wandered around, went to the beach, went in the infinity pool with some gfs. then i went to my room and showered.

   Our ceremony was at 4pm. I made hair and makeup appointments for me and my MOH for 12:00pm. I had an idea of what I wanted, found it in their book of hairstyles and Ana did it. I brought a picture for my make up and she did a great job on that also. Again, I'll be honest....i don't wear alot of makeup normally or do much to my hair....and i don't really enjoy having it done lol. i got back to the room and kind of panicked. i felt like i had too much make up on and my hair felt like a helmet :/ I had a corona, some GFs came to my room and assured me i looked great. 

   Anel went to the groom's room at about 2:45pm and did pics with him.

She came to my room at about 3:00pm and did pics with us girls. 

   Anel left us at about 3:30-3:45 to go take photos of the beach and our guests arriving.

   Lorena came to my room for me, my dad and MOH at about 3:55 and guided us through everything.

The ceremony was great. and quick, which was good because it was SO HOT!!!!! Linda (officiant)was great also. I really liked her presence. tiny issue: she had thought we wrote our own vows (which we didn't), so she gave us some vows to repeat on the fly.

   There were still people in the beach huts all around us watching, but they remained quiet and respectful.

   We did photos with Anel all around the resort from about 4:30-5:15. She was soo nice and friendly and FUNNY! We really enjoyed her.

Then me and Kip went back to our room to cool off before the cocktail hour. It was nice to take a few minutes with him and just breathe a sigh of relief. We were so relaxed after that.

   We did our cocktail hour at Desires. It was the coldest place at the resort and i do not regret that decision for a second! its not the fanciest place at the resort, but it suited us to a tee! The appetizers were good. The mariachi trio was soo awesome. and funny. Everyone LOVED them! They were the other request of my husband. a plunge pool and a mariachi trio. he's pretty easy to please :)

   Our reception started on the pool deck at 6:30pm. Half of the pool deck was under construction and blocked off, which was kind of a bummer and was kind of an eyesore, but all in all, didn't effect us. Also, the infinity pool is RIGHT behind the pool deck, so this spot is not private. Again, we didn't mind but i figured I'd mention this so other people knew what to expect.  We had our fist dance and everyone in the pool was hanging over the pools edge watching. I'm just glad everyone was respectful and some people in the pool even started slow dancing with us.

   As we started dinner and the clouds started coming in and the wind picked up. the staff kept saying "it will not rain, it will not rain"....we were getting weary. By the middle of the 3rd course the wind was pretty crazy (the food was amazing, by the way-the asparagus soup was ridiculous!). we looked around and more than half our guests had their sunglasses on...at dusk. They had sand in their eyes and food. i turned to kip and said "we have to do something". Lorena had left us at the beginning of the reception and left Jorge to assist us with everything until the end. Kip asked Jorge if we could move and the next thing i knew, we were migrating to the Seaside grill. All our guests were so happy with this and that made us happy. everyone kept asking me if i was OK, as if my night was ruined, lol. i told them i was fine and just wanted to dance!

   Mauricio had set up the dance floor for us on the deck (we did not pay extra for this), so when we moved to the Seaside grill, we lost the dance floor and about 30 min of music while he moved. The staff served the rest of the food, then made a makeshift dance floor and we had a blast. Some of my gfs mentioned they had made requests to the DJ and they were not played. He only played about 1 or 2 of the songs we provided him on the flash drive. But we did enjoy the music he played and like i said, we did lose about 30 min of music in the shuffle of things so we attributed to missing out on songs because of that.

   When we got back to our room that night, the sand from our sand ceremony and our cake topper were in the room for us.

Sunday August 5th

   Anel  tagged us in a picture! it was such a tease! i ran around showing everyone!

Monday August 6th

   Our wedding DVD was ready for us in the wedding office. we watched it immediately and it was really nice. We hadn't really planned on having a DVD, but when we switched to the Ultimate package it was included and i'm glad we have it. i can watch it anytime now! the sound is great! the quality is great!

Tuesday August 7th

Hurricane Ernesto. heh

Wednesday August 8th

   We stopped in to see Anel in the afternoon and asked when we could come by to go through our photos. She told us probably the next day. We went to dinner that night and when we got back to our room at about 9:00pm, she had emailed us and said they were ready and we could come by that same night! we went right over to the photo office (open until 10pm)! Santiago was there and was really helpful. We went through them all and got done by about 10:15pm. He told us our photo book would be ready the next night at 9pm.

Thursday August 9th

  Sure enough! We had our romantic dinner on the beach on this night (included with the honeymoon package). After dinner, we stopped by the photo office and picked up our photo book and CD with all the photos. i must have flipped though it 857395 times that night. It came out very nice.

   We also did a couples massage and body scrub at the spa on this morning-also included in the Honeymoon package (as well as another bottle of 'pagne). it was great! so relaxing. 

   I asked my husband if he had any advice to offer you all also. he said "mention the wi fi". It wasn't that great. We had it included with the preferred club room. and yes, it wasn't great, but honestly, we didn't need it THAT much either.

   Well, that about sums it up. i pouted all day yesterday because I did not want to leave. We got our slideshow link today! it included some pictures that we had not chosen because we could only choose 150 our of 350 photos. they worked fast on everything! i hope this helps some brides in the future. DRC is a great location for a wedding. I actually only saw 1 other wedding while we were there I think, even though there were more than that- so weddings do not run the resort at all.

Again, feel free to ask me any questions or to clarify anything i wrote.

happy planning!!!