Hey all! Just got back on Sunday from our wedding at Dreams Palm Beach and we had an awesome time!  We had our reception at Jellyfish (amazing by they way!!), so this will be a review on the resort and ceremony only.  I hope it helps!

The Resort

We have stayed at 3 other resorts in Punta Cana (Majestic Elegance, Ocean Blue and Bavaro Princess)and this one was our favourite.  I was really getting worried leading up to the trip because there were such bad reviews on TripAdvisor, but honestly I do NOT understand where these reviews are coming from.  Check in was great and even though we got there at 12:30 almost everyones rooms were ready, and we had 65 people staying with us.  All the guests loved their rooms and noone had any problems at all. We upgraded to the honeymoon suite before we arrived and are so glad we did...it's such a nice room.  The A/C worked really good and we even turned it off at night because we were chilly.  Yes, there is a somewhat musty smell in the room and things will feel damp - but it's due to the humidity! We have experienced the same thing at the other 3 resorts as well, including the Majestic Elegance, and it was brand new when we stayed there.  The food here was the best we've ever had at an all inclusive.  We ate at the Italian, Japanese, Mexican and French restaurants and I can't even decide which I liked best! Yes, some of the food is a little hit or miss (my vegetarian Aunt didn't care for 1 or 2 of her meals) and sometimes the burgers at the beach grill were dry..but overall I would say the food here is really good.  We never had to wait long to get into a restaurant, even if we were going as a bigger group.  The staff here is amazing, always smiling and helpful.  Just a tip - people have complained saying they don't have premium alcohol but they do! It's not on the front shelf but if you ask for the aged anejo rum, johnny black, grey goose, etc they gladly give it to you!  We also never had a problem finding chairs at the beach or pool, and it was at full capacity a few days while we were there.  The only con about the resort was that the beach was not as nice as many of the other resorts.  The sand is nice and white and soft but there is some seaweed in the water, and it's not as clear as I've seen elsewhere in Punta Cana.  They do a great job of raking it up and there was barely any on the sand...just in the water.  Every resort has it's pros and cons but I believe the pros at this resort WAAAAY outweigh the cons.  All our guests agreed! No bracelets, no towel cards, no getting up early to make reservations at the restaurants, only 15 mins from the airport...I could go on and on!  You've made a great choice!

The Wedding

Everything went very smoothly while getting ready for the wedding.  I had Krystie Ann (makeup artist from Canada who is living in Punta Cana for the winter) come to the room and do our hair and makeup and she did an AWESOME job! It was so nice to relax in the room, order room service, have some champagne and just hang out with the girls.  I highly recommend doing this if you can.  We did a "first look" at 2 pm and we are really glad we did..helped with the nerves big time! We laughed and took pictures and at 3:45 when we had to separate for the ceremony we couldn't believe we still had so much of the day to go! I think we appreciated it more and it really made us slow down and enjoy the moment.  We booked our wedding for 4 pm at the garden gazebo but unfortunately it started raining on and off at 1 pm..so disappointing!! and of course it was the only day it rained like that all week...at 3:30 our wedding coordinator, Julie, came to us and said we were going to have to move the ceremony because it wouldn't stop raining.  We decided to move it to the terrace where the entrance to the restaurants is and I would DEFINITELY do this over moving it to a ballroom.  The terrace is open (but covered) so you are still outside, you can still see palm trees, and it actually ended up being alot more intimate then the gazebo. You have to walk up a nice staircase to get to the terrace and there is no one else there but your guests.  We had the trio play for the ceremony and they were great!  We also hired Pastor York to perform the ceremony and he was awesome!!! He made the guests laugh and cry and it was so much more personal then the 5 minute ceremony the resort coordinators perform.  Overall, and despite the rain, I was really happy with the ceremony.  It was hard for me to take it all in as I was concentrating on Greg, but everyone kept commenting on how beautiful of a ceremony it was. 

There were some disappointments, however, and I'm not going to sugarcoat it in hopes that they won't happen to the next bride.  I was not that impressed with Julie, our wedding coordinator.  She is very nice and seemed on top of everything at our meeting, but fell short the day of.  She put the wrong colour sashes on the chairs - I wanted coral and she has 2 different types of coral - one was more red/coral and one was orange/coral, which was what I wanted - she used ones that were more red.   I had brought down wooden fans that were supposed to go on the chairs and gave them to her at our meeting yet she never put them out.  She came to my room and delivered the bouquets and showed me Greg's boutinniere (which was nice!) but she never gave it to him! So he doesn't have a boutinniere on in any of the pictures.  We went with the cheapest option for flowers, the tropical bouquets and they were really nice! I sent her a bunch of pictures of bouquets and colours I liked, and while the bouquets themselves were beautiful (all white for the bridesmaids, white and coral for me), the coral flowers I asked for were pretty much pink.  Not a big deal because I was happy with the flowers they used but still...Even though she had to move the chairs from the gazebo to the terrace, everything was still set up and guests were ready and seated by just after 4 o'clock.  The groomsmen were all ready and mingling with guests and the girls were ready and waiting in the suite, but she didn't come to get us until I called her at 4:15 wondering what was going on...finally at 4:25 she came and got us, which meant we were 1/2 hour behind for NO reason and lost all that time to take pictures.  I got a little stressed at one point with the rain and all these things not being done but they really were just little things, and the guests didn't even notice at all.  I just wish I had designated someone who wasn't in the wedding party to check up on things as it would have avoided these issues. 

Overall it was great and I talked to a few other brides there and they said everything went perfect and didn't have these issues - so hopefully it was just an off day.  Do not be nervous or worried about choosing this resort - it was perfect!