We were married at the Now Sapphire on July 2, 2012. While we never visited beforehand, I did a ton of research. For what we were looking for, the Now Sapphire exceeded our expectations. Our ceremony and reception was held on the Tequila Terrace. I did not want to worry about the sand and I wanted to wear wedges, so we did both on the terrace. We had 54 guests and it was not crowded at all. We started the wedding at 6 and the sun was just starting to set. It was a perfect night.  

A few highlights from our overall experience:

Hotel wedding coordinators were terrific. I used an outside planner to handle communication beforehand and day-of, but all of my dealings with Anel and Ramon were out of this world. The read all your emails - even closer then I think I wrote them! 

Instead of a sit down "rehearsal dinner" we opted for a welcome beach BBQ. We loaded up an iPod and danced for hours after an amazing buffet dinner. Our friends gave speeches and everyone got to spend time getting to know one another. 

We hired Citalli Rico from Claudia Photo on a referral from a co-worker who also randomly happened to get married at the Now Sapphire. Citalli was incredible, as was her assistant. Instead of a Trash the Dress session we had them shoot our welcome dinner. 

We used the florist and DJ in the Divine package. The florist went over and beyond to create the look I was going for, but I did pay for the customization. 

The DJ stuck to the form we filled out with the special dances, likes and dislikes. We paid to have them bring an MC so none of our guests were stuck "working" our reception. 

We hired a mariachi band for cocktail hour. Honestly, we were stuck doing pictures because the salon took a ton of extra time and we didn't get all the photos in beforehand. everyone loved cocktail hour and the band. While I fought having them play, it turned to be very festive and memorable for our guests. 

Dinner was great and the hotel was really easy to work with. We chose the Divine package, but asked to have another appetizer rather then a hot soup. We also gave our guests a choice of two entrees or a vegetarian meal. The hotel was extremely accommodating and noted any allergies we made them aware of beforehand. 

We did not have any onlookers, which I was nervous about. The restaurant next to the terrace was luckily closed on Mondays! 

While we customized a lot of the options to make the event our own, we spent not even a quarter of the cost that we would have in NYC. A destination wedding was perfect for us. Our guests had a better time then they expected and they all left with new facebook friends! We set up a shutterfly online share site that all of our guests were asked to upload their photos. While we were on our honeymoon everyone, still enthusiastic about the event were uploading pictures and sharing with one another. We got home from Fiji to 3000 online photos to relive the weekend. 

Do not over think booking this hotel. We would do it again in a heartbeat!