I got married at The Royal Playa del Carmen on 10-09-10 at 4pm at the wedding gazebo.  I had 40 guests total in attendance.  I have a planning thread out there in the wedding journal section if you want to read more about the planning part of it.  If you think of any questions or if it seems like I missed anything please let me know. Oh and I know it's a long review so if you just skim over it at least read the points in bold

Hotel- The Royal Playa del Carmen was absolutely beautiful.  No one at all had any complaints about the appearance or about any of the staff's helpfulness.  A few guests had some issues with their rooms when they first arrived but this can happen at any hotel and with 40 guests for our wedding I knew there would be a few minor hiccups.  But everyone finally got settled in their rooms and all was well.  The grounds are immaculate.  They really take care of the appearance and upkeep.  A few issues I need to add here is about the day passes.  Please make a note that if you buy a guest pass at The Royal it's ONLY good at The Royal.  We bought a day pass to The Royal for a groomsman staying offsite and when we tried to mosey over to the Gran Porto they said it's not allowed.  Pretty crazy considering if a guest gets a room at The Royal they have full access to the Gran Porto but nope, this isn't the case for day passes.  So just a forewarning ladies. It wasn't too big of a deal to us, the liquor was all the same at both places so we just went back to the Royal and the groomsman hung out over there.   Also, if you have kids staying at the Gran Porto they can come walk along the public beach area of The Royal because it is just that, public.  However, they are not allowed on the Royal resort beach chairs.  As soon as their little booty hits a chair that belongs to The Royal the security guys will come over and make them get off the chair.  The security guys there are like ninjas and they are hard core.  But it's understandable, they are just protecting the guests best interest and making sure everyone follows the rules.  Also, don't be surprised if you ask one person a question and get an answer but then ask someone else that same question you could get a totally different answer.  For some reason if rules aren't written down somewhere then the "rules" can change.  For instance the prices of day passes, how kids can come into the resort for the wedding, etc.  But, hey, you're in a foreign country and if you're like me you just want to go with the flow and try not to cause to much ruckus.  I haven't heard very many good things about Mexico jails so I kept my nose clean!

Food - The food was really good, it was fancier than what all us Texans were used to lol but all in all it was really good and it was nice to have a change from the junk food we all eat every day.  Asiana was a favorite among everyone.  Their eggroll/springroll appetizers are off the hook!  The only restaurants we didn't try were the Coffe House, the Tapas restaurant and Maria Marie's.  Everything else that we tried was awesome.
*side note - BRING A WATCH!  We had a "Find the Couple" itinerary in our OOT bags so that our guests would know where we are at specific times...yeah that only works if you know what time it is lol.  If you think of it, bring a watch or have the FI wear one.  There are no clocks anywhere.

Welcome Cocktail-  We told all of our guests to meet us on Friday night (night before the wedding day) to have drinks in the lobby bar of the Gran Porto.  We did not make this a private event.  We figured if there's 40 of us and we sort of "take over" the bar then we won't have a problem finding space.  We're kind of a loud group so even with other people around we don't tend to notice lol.  We gave out our OOT bags during this time.

OOT bags- Below is a quick picture of the contents (minus an underwater camera that is not pictured)  I would recomend getting the drawstring backpacks from OTC.  Everyone loved them and they are pretty gender neutral, guys and girls will carry them.  Not sure about any one else but the guys in our group wouldn't carry a tote bag.  So we just got the black backpacks, no logo or anything, that way anyone and everyone could use it and keep it to reuse year after year Aaron and I agreed from day one that we would only get things that are totally useful, and that's a major reason why you don't see our names, initials or date plastered all over everything.  We had this type of backpack one time on vacation and used it for water shoes, sunscreen, and it held up really well with the beach/water conditions.  Also everyone loved their mugs!  We brought sharpies and had a (drunken) craft session at the Welcome Cocktails.  Everyone decorated their mugs and it was a blast. 

Wedding Coordinator- Ours was Michelle and she was so amazing!  After the Angie chaos I was passed to someone named Andrea.  Well after I gave my final payment Andrea told me that my onsite coordinator would be Michelle.  I never got Michelle's email, I only still had Andrea's email.  I had originally said I wanted a all pink flower bridal bouquet but about a week before the wedding I changed my mind and wanted an all white bouquet with one pink rose off centered in it.  (The single pink rose is a special thing to me and my FI) So I emailed Andrea, not having Michelle's email yet, and I mocked up a Photoshop picture of what I wanted and asked if she could please let Michelle know.  Well, needless to say I never heard back from Andrea or Michelle but I took the picture with me just in case the message didn't get passed along.  When we had our first meeting with Michelle to go over all the details everything was in order except the bouquet.  I was armed with my photo but I simply asked her "did you get my email from Andrea with the changes to my bouquet?"  And she said "Let me check"  She opened up her Outlook email omg...Ladies, let me tell you, these coordinators save EVERYTHING.  She had every brides name in her Outlook email cabinet on her computer.  She went straight to my name and sure enough there was my email that Andrea had forwarded to her with my bouquet picture attached.  We finished going over all the details, guests, kids, food choices (we picked between chicken and beef), cake choice, timelines, Dj info, and every single other detail you can think of.  Ladies, word of advice, make a list of questions a few days before you get there so that you can ask them and check them off the list once you sit down with the coordinator.  I had questions like, will there be a microphone, who will control the ceremony music, those sort of things.  We also gave her a layout of how we wanted the chairs set up and the decorations on the gazebo... We had the first row 2 aisle chairs reserved for my grandmother and FI's grandfather who had passed.  We had 2 frames and asked her to place them there for their memory. Then we had two grandchildren place a rose in those 2 chairs. She had everything laid out perfectly just as we asked.

Here is the photoshop attempt I made to show them what I want and then a picture of my actual bouquet.  I loved it!

Here is the document we gave her to show what we wanted the gazebo to look like and also a picture of how it turned out.

Here's the memorial frames that the wedding coordinator placed in 2 empty chairs on the first row aisle seats.

Flowers- Well as mentioned above my bouquet turned out more than perfect!  We just got my bouquet and hubby's boutonniere from the resort.  For the bridesmaids bouquets and the groomsmen boutonniere's my mom and sister went into the market and just picked up some loose flowers and my mom made the bouquets in her room.  I wasn't about to spring for the outrageous cost the resort charges and honestly flowers are pretty close to the bottom of my list of priorities.  I think they turned out really nice and simple.  We did get the 2 sprays for the columns on the gazebo and those were recycled for the cake table later in the night and that worked out perfectly.  It spruced up the cake table and gave the sprays two uses.

Here's the loose flowers before my mom made bouquet's out of them for the bridesmaids.

Hair/Makeup/Nails- I just got my hair and makeup done at the Spazul at The Royal.  I had a lady named Cory I believe.  I brought her pictures of how I wanted my hair and how I wanted my makeup and she did them perfectly.  I also had a mani/pedi done the day before the wedding and her name was Gilda (pronounced Hilda) and she too did an awesome job.  All of the ladies in the Spa are so super sweet and they want to do a perfect job for each bride.  I kind of felt sorry for them at one point because you have to think of how "particular" these brides can be and they just kept on smiling and trying their best to do exactly what the ladies wanted.  Cory had no issues with me though, she put everything together and I got nothing but compliments from everyone about how great the hair and makeup turned out.  I'm very glad I went with the spa for that.  If you bring photos with you, allow enough time for them to do what you want, and are polite and nice then everything will turn out beautiful.

Here's some pics of my hair and makeup.
 

My hubby sent that huge bouquet, a card and a diamond necklace to my moms room while me and the girls were getting ready.

Here's the best makeup straight on shot I could find now.  I wanted it just very natural looking.

Ceremony at Gazebo- Let me preface this for just a second...  I'm a simple kind of girl and honestly if you took away all the flowers, the rose petals, my dress, my hair/makeup, even all of our wonderful family and friends who took the trip to watch us get married...with all that gone, I still would have been the happiest girl in the world that day.  I was there, my best friend who I was about to marry was there, and to me that's all that mattered.  Now, having said all that, yes, I was lucky enough to have all that other stuff work out perfectly as well.  But my point is, I beg all of you to just remember why you're there.  It's not because we all spent a year or maybe even more to make sure that everything is perfect, it's not because we survived all the crazy wedding coordinator issues, it's not because we finally had every single last possible question answered.  It's because a man and a woman decided to be together and seal their love with vows to each other.  Just don't get to caught up in all the details because in the end you still have a great man that you want to marry and who wants to marry you.  Our symbolic ceremony was short and sweet, probably lasted about 12 minutes total.  We said our vows, we exchanged rings, we had a sand ceremony, we were married by one of the grooms best friends and to us that was very special.  Right after we kissed and he announced us as husband and wife we both took a shot that was hiding on the center table in the gazebo.  It was perfect for us to just say "lets get this party started".  Here's some pictures of the ceremony.

















A pic of our finished sand frame



 

Cocktail hour- We didn't spend the money on this.  Our wedding was at 4pm and the reception was at 5:30.  Everyone stood around and visited with each other and took pictures and drank champagne until about 5:15.  Some of our guests went to the room and changed into more comfortable clothes during the time in between the ceremony and reception.  If I had it to do all over again I wouldn't change a thing.  I saved the money on the cocktails and spent it on the DJ!

Reception- We had a beach reception on the beach right outside of the Pelicano's restaurant. 

Here's a pic of the reception setup

2 things I would 100% recommend you spend the extra money for:  DJ Ivan from Doremixx and an extra hour for the reception.  I'll get to the DJ in his own review in just a second.  The food was really good.  We gave the guests 2 options, chicken or beef.  We just had place cards with 2 different colors to show what guest wanted which entree.  We had the "garden salad" I believe, and it was just ok.  It was a bowl of fancy cut carrots and what looked like Brussels sprouts.  But for what it was it was actually quite flavorful.  Just a heads up, we ended up getting the "Royal salad with crayfish" for our beach dinner (same menu choice as the Eternal Romance Package) and it still had legs and eyes.  Kind of like a giant crawfish.  So if any of your guests have a weak stomach about that, you may want to stick with just the regular salad.  The Crayfish were delicious but I know some people can be put off by eating things that stare back up at them.  Also, some people are allergic to shellfish so that's something else to be careful about.  The entree's were awesome and we had no complaints.  We had the beef and it had a mushroom type sauce (people who said they didn't like mushrooms told me they easily scraped it off and it was good) and we had the chicken option as well (sorry, I don't have a pic of the chicken).  Me and hubby had the beef and we loved it!  One warning though, everyone's beef was cooked Medium Rare to Medium.  So if you have people who don't like any pink then you may tell them to opt for the chicken or veggie options. 

The dessert was no bueno in my opinion.  It was the hazelnut mousse I believe and it was a bit odd but some people said they liked it. 

Luckily we had the Tres Leches cake as our wedding cake so we were covered in the dessert area.  The Tres Leches was absolutely amazing!  One important note, do not order a bigger cake than the standard one they provide. 

I think LadyDi said this as well but we had a TON of cake left over.  We thought, 40 people, we're gonna need a bigger cake so we upgraded to a 2 tier.  But honestly if you spring for a DJ then save your money on the cake!  So many people will be up dancing that the last thing on their mind will be cake.  Ok speaking of the DJ...

DJ Ivan- We had a 4 hour reception and honestly with DJ Ivan we would have all danced for 4 more hours until we couldn't feel our feet!  Now, if you don't get a DJ and you don't think your guests are the dancing type then don't worry about the 4 hours.  We, however, are really big on dancing and music so the money spent on DJ Ivan was well worth it.  Even people in our party who don't really dance were up on the light up dance floor dancing.  It looked like a night club! (side note, if you get Ivan's light up dance floor pay attention to the lights, they spell something) We partied so hard that we had so many people watching us from the pier.  The locals were literally sitting on the pier with their coolers and drinking and watching our party!  We had people all weekend asking all of our guests if they were part of the party outside Pelicano's on Saturday and everyone was shocked that so many strangers recognized all of us.  It was a total blow out!  We even had 2 other wedding parties ask some of our guests about it and how much fun it looked like we were all having.  I met with Ivan on Thursday to give him a schedule of everything and a list of songs for the first dance, father/daughter dance, etc.  He handled everything perfectly.  And apparently during the dance music he even mixed in my name to one of the songs!  I didn't notice of course because I was up dancing and stuff but someone told me about it later.  We got nothing but rave reviews from all of our guests about DJ Ivan.  My husband even told me the next day "If you get on your bride forum, tell the brides no matter what Ivan charges, PAY IT!"  So, hubby was impressed enough for me to pass along the message to all future brides.

First dance

Before the crazyness started...

After the crazyness started...

And...the Soul Train line

Lounge Furniture- We went with Mayan Hospitality for the lounge furniture.  Raffaele was nothing but wonderful with his customer service and quick email replies.  The lounge furniture was amazing and really made our reception look like a louge/club and really seperated us from the rest of the beach.  However...one down side is that everyone was up dancing the whole time that the furniture rarely got used.  My advice, you know most of your guests. If you think they'll be up dancing all night then only get 1/2 of the recomended lounge furniture.  Raffaele gave us enough for 40 people because that's how many guests we had.  Well, even with half the amount of furniture we had we still would have had to much.  So even though it looked nice just think about your guests ahead of time to see exactly if you'll need it or not.  Maybe it would have gotten used more if A) We didnt have a DJ  or B) Our group wasn't the dancing type.  It was beautiful though and I'm glad we got it just in case people did want to sit and cool off from all the dancing.

Photographer- Luckily I'm blessed with a pretty bad ass photographer as a cousin so I didn't have to spend money on the resorts or an outside photographer.  Just to give you ladies an idea of the task I have at hand of sorting though pictures... My cousin took 2,000 pictures, yes that's a 2 and then 000 after it!  She's a crazy woman with the camera.  One of the groomsmen had 700 pictures from just our wedding.  You multiple that by the other 30something people who were taking pictures the whole time too, you do the math, oh lordy!  Plus we had someone video tape it as well.  So really, if there was a time when anyone was picking their nose or picking a wedgie then it's been caught on camera for sure!  Our wedding was Saturday and we chose to have our TTD on Monday morning.  It went pretty well.  We walked all the way down 5^th ave all the way to where the Cozumel ferry pier is.  If any of you are familiar with the area you know how far that is!  Then we got in the ocean and did the traditional kissing in the sand pictures.  I haven't seen as many of those because my cousin is still editing I believe.  It was fun to do the TTD and I would do it again but it was very tiring.  I would say if you can put it off until a few days after the wedding then do that.  Even with us doing ours on Monday we were still pooped from all the weekend festivities.  There's no way we could have gotten up early on Sunday after the party Saturday night.

Here's some previews of the TTD session.  There's probably 200 more but she's still editing I think.
 

That's about it ladies.  I do have literally thousands of pictures (some of which I haven't even seen yet) but I wanted to get my review out there for ya'll to see.  If you want to see more pictures just send me a private message.  The main place they all are for now is on my facebook but I need to sort through them all and put them in order.  Let me know if you have any questions about anything at all!