We were just married at Sandos PlayaCar on 9.29.2012.  Exactly 3 years to the day we met.  It was GREAT!  I want to share as much detail as I can because this forum helped me decide on this resort and I want to help others as well.  We had enough people booked to receive the basic package at no cost.  We had 55 people aging from ages 22 months to 85 years old.  This resort had it ALL.  Kids playground and activities, adult only section on the beach, adult only pool - it is a large resort but so worth it with all the options.   I asked that all guests dress in white!  It was perfect and beautiful, made for amazing pics.  I wore ivory with a hot pink petticoat barely peaking out from under my dress. 

Another reason I chose this resort is that next to it, not far form the beach ceremony site is a strip of undeveloped beach - great spot for pics.  I am also a huge Michael Jackson fan, and they have a MJ  tribute show that we all watched on Thursday night in the theater.  AWESOME FUN! 

We did bring our own professional photographer with us from Austin, Texas.  So he was in that 55 people BUT these pics are not his, these are from cameras and iphones.....

Lupita was an angel.  I had a very specific plan for how I wanted the wedding to go.  I wanted to keep a lot of the normal traditions in place even though it was a beach wedding.  She was totally cool with whatever I wanted to do.  I did not want to do the toast, first dance and signing of the certificate in the hut where she normally does it.  My goal was to get everyone out of the heat and into dinner as soon as possible.  Plus since we rented the disco we did all that inside.  

The songs I picked and loaded on my ipod for the guest seating, bridal party entrance my entrance and exit were spot on.  I literally went over it with her an hour before I walked down the aisle when she stopped by my room to deliver flowers and she got it right.  I was concerned about this because we had very specific unusual songs I wanted and specific times played - I'll be there by the Jackson 5 and Stand by me while I walked.   We had the theme song from Austin Powers played on the exit and she had it Q'd up to the perfect spot n the chorous. 

We got married at 5:30 - So it was actually starting to cool down and the breeze was great.  But it was not too windy so everyone could still hear (we brought out own minister too) I would suggest checking the wind the day before about 5:30 and know that if it is really windy to be sure to talk loud into the mic and consider wearing your hair UP!  We all did and glad we did or else our hair woulda been flying,  My veil was caught by the wind a few time and almost got in our face - which made for gorgeous pics  tho!  My hair dresser happened to also be a guest so we did not use the spa for our hair.  But I will say check out the spa if you can.  It is no charge to sit int he steam rooms and hang by the hot tub and cool dipping pools with the gold bracelets.

Let me stop there and talk about that - the gold bracelets are $22 more a day unless you are in an adult suite, or an ocean front Jr suite.  The gold bracelets allow you access to the adult only pool and top shelf liquior.  There is also a black bracelet - that is for time share holder.  

***Side note*** when you and your guests check in there are time share people there trying to give you tours.  We figured this out fast ans asked they leave the wedding guests alone~ !  They are almost aggressive.  Someone called a guests room and said they have a gift at the front for them, them went to the front desk and it was a time share salesman offering a $100 spa credit if they went on the time share tour which lasts half the day.  NOT COOL 

At 5:20 Lupitas assistant came to my room to grab me and the bridemaids  We opened the hotel door to find these little guys all lined up!  I was 10 minutes late to my own wedding due to stopping and feeding them.  It was a precious moment and I knew they would not start without me......Fortunatly I heard later drinks were served to our guests beach side by waiter while they were being seat.  beer and cocktails so I don't think anyone minded too much

Only downfall to getting married at 5:30 was the sun was starting to go down so we had to kinda rush at the end to get all the pics I wanted.  BUT it was a full moon, so the fact that the moon was coming out was awesome....NOTE THESE ARE NOT THE PROFESSIONAL PICS....these are Iphone pics - we have not gotten back the professional ones yet.  CAN NOT wait to see those if these are this good.

When the ceremony was over we headed over to the Italian buffet.  IT WAS hot in there!   Our best man speaks fluent spanish and got Lupita to find fans FAST! which helped ....It was closed due to it being the slow season which might be why maybe the air was not on?  But because it was closed we had the place to ourselves, which was perfect because we are a loud crew. But check out the shine on my face! NOT pretty! 

At dinner we did a blessing over the food, a speech by my father, best man and MOH speeches, cake cutting and certificate signing - along with dinner.  It worked out fine once the fans came.  I did not add flowers or decor to the Italian restaurant, I thought it was fine and elegant enough as it was - yes, as others wrote the walls are green but it's almost a sage and not as bring as the pics make it look.  It was totally fine.  I placed maracas on the tables for people that said "to celebrate our wedded bliss, shake this for a kiss"  Super cute - everyone took them home as a gift.  The shaking got annoying, again we were a loud crew!  but it was a blast.  I gave the maraces, and our cake topper to Lupita at our meeting as well as our program/fans and she took care of getting them to where I wanted them flawlessly.

Next onto the disco - Super fun - we walked into Billy Idol's White Wedding - we showed a slide show on the big screen - we brought it in dvd and USB form and they used the DVD no problems.  We then did father/daughter, groom/grandmother dances (his mother has passed) then bride/groom dance.  Then we opened up the dance floor and danced non stop for the next 3 hours.  I brought all the music on my ipod and the DJ just plugged it in and that was it - just let it play  The best man did go ahead and announce the father/daughter dances for us ect....to get everyone's attention.  

One of the waitresses in the disco, Diony, was great! We met her our first night there and our group loved her.  We requested she be our waitress at the reception and Lupita was on it and had her scheduled.  Diony even gave Michael and I a little frame as gift for appreciation the next day for asking for her.  Super sweet!

The whole resort knew we were the bride and groom and treated us like royalty.  Our only complaint is the heat in the Italian restaurant and I should mention my husband is a chef.  So he is a bit of a food snob.  He liked the asian restaurant, the mediteranian and that was about it.  The buffets turned him off and he was super disappointed with the steak house.  I on the other hand had no complaints and know that at all inclusives the buffets are not 5 star !   I love the salmon at the Asian restaurant as well as the spring rolls so be sure to check those out. 

We also handed out Out of Town bags.  I was worried how this would go down.  We had one plastic container of all the OOT bags stuff and tapped up up good and checked it in.  Customes made us pay taxes on the items when we got to mexico but it was only about $22 so whatever.  We tried to explain we are not bringing these items over to sell on the streets but they didn't get it.  It was worth it - everyone loved them - they were little canvas beach bags full of goodies

we attached a little tag that said

….Just In case you drink the water! 

EVERYONE LOVED IT!  

We also had in there a tiny empty glass bottle with a cork - that had a tag on it that said 

"Thanks for being a part

P.S. I lied this is the last pics - We did trash the dress the next day - so fun!