Wedding package: Aqua but I did not use the decor of this package
Number of guests: 33 including bride and groom
Total cost for wedding (just wedding, not room) - 15000 roughly

Resort:
We stayed at the reserve. We had paid for the one bedroom swim up suite and were upgraded to the master bedroom swim up suite which was beautiful. I would recommend staying at the reserve over the PPR because the rooms are much nicer and you have access to more restaurants and a reserved section of the beach with more bali beds.  All my guests loved their rooms even trhe cheapest in the reserve which were the one bedroom suite. Most of my guests were upgraded to a better room. Yes, the beach was somewhat far but it was never an issue trying to catch a van or cart to transport us.

A few of my guests had problems with check in. I later learned that it was mostly due to one of their employees at the reception of the reserve. He has a very passive aggressive attitude and lacks customer service. I also had a problem with him my last day checking out. Try to avoid the males, there were 2 of them and we were better served by the females. 

Food: We all enjoyed the buffets for breakfast and lunch but we preferred the market grill and the grab and go for lunch. For dinner, we recommend Vento, Market Grill, Bana Tepenyaki. We also took full advantage of the 24 hr room service, pizza was pretty good.

Restaurant reservations: Except for 1 night, I needed reservations for more than 10 people and the ladies from the romance team were able to make this happen for us at different restaurants each night. Just make sure you talk to them about the reservations during your 1st meeting.

Spa at the reserve: The guests at the reserve had a 1 day pass to their facilities (sauna, jacuzi, steam room) so we spent 1 afternoon there. My husband and brother and a few other guests received massages which they enjoyed. The mother of the groom, my mother, my 4 bridesmaids and myself all had our hair and make up done at the salon at the spa. Some of the ladies were better than others. There were 4 working with us that day. I would highly recommend Eudice. I did my hair trial and then the wedding day hair and make up withher. I could have probably gone without the trial since she immediately captured what I wanted. I heard there was another wedding that day and we did not see anyone else at the salon that day and we were there from 12-4pm.

Ceremony: We had a christian ceremony at 5 pm with Pastor York. He did an amazing job and spoke beautiful words. We had it at the garden gazebo WHICH I HIGHLY RECOMMEND. It is the most private location which is closed off to other hotel guests. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking and the wedding coordinators accommodated everything the way I asked them too and also offered suggestions on where to situate the bridal party and guests since the gazebo set up is a little tricky. After the ceremony we had a servere with champagne and we were able to take beautiful pictures there with our guests. (we later on took pics with the bridal party at the beach so we had a little of everything).

Cocktail hour (6pm) : Unfortunately I could not enjoy the cocktail hour since I was off taking beautiful pictures with my husband and bridal party. My guests completely raved about the dominican trio we hired and the food at the cocktail hour so I a glad they had great food and entertainment while we were gone, you dont want to lose your guests during that time since you are in a place where they can go and eat or go to their rooms very easily.

Reception: We paid to privatize the Gabi which was completely worth it. There would be no need to change anything if it rained and it had been raining all week so it was a concern although the weather was fantastic on our wedding day, plus it is completely private, we even had a section of the beach just for us.We had so much fun, I really have nothing bad to say. I will go over the different services next.

Food: Buffet which was beautifully set up at the Gabi.

Servers: We had 2 amazing servers which even danced with us all night. They kept saying how they had never had so much fun at a wedding. They even came out to party with us at a local club (Jewel) after the wedding. Great people!

DJ Abentos: We met with them on Wednesday and we spoke about how our guests are party people and I did not want to see them sitting down! They had my guests dancing all night and they put the music I had listed for the different events such as entrance, first dance, garter, bouquet toss, last dance.

Romance team: We worked with Massiel(the supervisor) and Natalia. Massiel had the meeting with us on Wednesday and we went over every detail even if it was discussed through emails. I wanted to make sure everything was crossed to the T. Natalia was the one who worked with us during the wedding day. She is a sweet and diligent girl who did everything she could to accomodatemy wishes. I brought to the office all the things I travelled with for the wedding on Thursday and everything was used as I had requested during the wedding day on Friday.

HDC Photography: We paid 3 nights at the hotel for our photographer in order to not pay the ridiculous outside vendor fee. It was all worth it. Miljan did an amazing job capturing all the beautiful moments. He took our getting ready photos, then garden ceremony photos followed by group pics at the garden, then bridal party, bride and groom pics on the beach and then all the candid moments at the reception. He is staright to the point and would tell us how to pose in order to create beautiful pictures. Simply amazing.

If you have any questions or would like to see pictures, do not hesitate to contact me.