First, let me say that our wedding at Dreams was absolutely AMAZING!!

[b]Email Communication:[/b]
Our wedding coordinator was Lorena and to be honest with you, I did not have any issues with not getting email responses like the other brides. Maybe it’s because I only emailed her 5-6 times. But when I did email her, I would email her a long list of questions/comments that I’d accumulate over weeks/months. The longest response time was about 3 weeks which was expected because she does have to speak to different vendors. I rather her do research, then for her to answer my questions with, “I’ll have to get back to you” or “I’ll send you a quote when I get it”. So, the email communication was fine for me. I also took about 4 months to complete my ‘Wedding Planning Form’ to make sure I was sure about everything and included tons of photo examples.

[b]Arrival (Wednesday):[/b]
I was disappointed with the preferred club (VIP) check-in. We had to wait quite awhile to be seen and during that time, we were not greeted with champagne or anything. We actually saw the waiter hand family champagne (they came in after us) and I asked my husband to go to the bar and order us some. Our room was not ready until after 3:00 pm; which was disappointing because I had planned to make our welcome bags as soon as we got there, so we could hand them out at our welcome dinner. Anyway, we had booked the Preferred Club Master suite and it was amazing. I realize that the next upgrade is the Presidential Suite but we had 42 guests stay at the resort, they could’ve at least offered us an upgrade.

[b]Meetings (still Wednesday):[/b]
We met with our officiant Linda first. She is such a doll; very prepared and professional. We confirmed all of our ceremony script pretty swiftly and easily.

Our next meeting was with DJ Mauricio. That was also pretty easy. He SEEMED to know what we wanted and expected (I’ll get to that later).

Lastly, we met with our wedding coordinator, Lorena. She is so efficient! She had all of our emails already printed and ready to go. We had our suitcase filled with wedding décor ready for her as well. The flowers were ridiculously priced. So we ended up putting up a little bit of a haggle for that. As well as, our photographer. We booked Melissa from Del Sol and Debora was her assistant. They wanted to charge us for (2) external vendor fees + (2) dinners. Crazy… I know! Anyway, we ended having to cut our meeting short (which was already 2 hours long) to get ready for the Welcome Dinner.

[b]Welcome Dinner:[/b]
We had our Welcome Dinner at Portofino’s Restaurant at 6:00 pm. It was a bit of confusion and miscommunication because all of my guests were already informed that the dinner will be at 7:00 pm. During our meeting with Lorena, she informed us that we had to move it up to 6:00 pm in order to reserve the restaurant. I thought that was B.S. because we actually paid for our guests (28 of us) and we could at least have been able to pick our time. For all that, I should’ve just told my guests to meet at the restaurant before it opened… It would’ve definitely saved us $$$. Anyway, by the time we left her office and attempted to spread the word (we literally had to pull some of our guests out of the pool/beach to tell them to get ready); I already knew that this was not going to be a good night. Majority of my guests got there an hour late. However, the manager was very accommodating and understanding but after 7 he told us he had to pull apart one of the long tables. So, as my tardy guests were strolling in, they had to be seated elsewhere because there was no room for them at our tables. The food was not that good to me there either. It could’ve been my nerves or the whole crazy situation but we definitely did not go back to Portofino’s our entire stay. Also, because we were using Del Sol, we requested to have photos taken at the dinner. Anel from Adventure Photos came to take our photos. She also asked Phil and I to step outside to take some intimate couple shots I thought that was neat [font=wingdings]J[/font]. I looked tried as heck in the photos with huge bags under my eyes but I definitely LOVED the photographs.
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[b]Wedding Day (Getting Ready):[/b]
My hair appointment was at 2:00 pm at the spa. It went pretty well. The only thing I didn’t like was that I had to come to the spa with my hair washed and blown. Apparently, they only style the hair. I wanted loose curls but by the time I arrived at the ceremony, all of my curls dropped (that dawn humidity). My cousin/bridesmaid is a makeup artist so she did mine and my mother’s makeup. She did an AMAZING job [font=wingdings]J[/font].
Lorena and another wedding coordinator came into my room to drop off our bouquets. They both had huge smiles on their faces and she explained that everyone was going crazy over our bouquets (we had a peacock themed wedding). I was uber excited when I saw that she got me the flowers that I wanted… I actually jumped up and gave her a hug (I guess the fighting I explained earlier really worked lol).

[b]Ceremony (North Beach):[/b]
Our ceremony was at North Beach at 6:00 pm. Of course, due to my tardy family, the ceremony didn’t start until about 6:20. I definitely had about 3 breakdowns on the way to the ceremony because of that. Anyway, I was in awe with how BEAUTIFUL the ceremony set up was!! I had brought the fabric for the chuppah, the program cards and had our maracas delivered and everything was placed perfectly. The ceremony went off without a hitch. We did not have a rehearsal but Linda and Lorena was there to very discreetly tell us what to do. It did help that we had PERFECT weather (40% chance of thunderstorms my butt lol). It was not too hot and not too cloudy. I am so grateful. The next day it poured on someone’s wedding on the beach… I was so sad for them [font=wingdings]L[/font].
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[b]Cocktail Hour (North Jacuzzi):[/b]
We had our cocktail hour at North Jacuzzi. We missed most of it taking photos and wrapping up our video but we got to enjoy the last 10 minutes. Our guests seemed to enjoy it and also the mariachi band. I also requested to have a signature drink, our “Something Blue”. Everyone said that was the best drink at the resort lol. We didn’t get to try any of the food but I also heard they were good.

[b]Reception (Pool Deck):[/b]
We had our reception on the Pool Deck. My mouth nearly dropped when we saw the space. Everything was PERFECT!! They did everything and more that we had asked for. We brought our own table overlays, napkins, table numbers, tented menu cards and escort cards (thanks Rebecca from Rebecca Allurements), sand tray, Map guestbook, peacock feathers, lanterns… Etsy was definitely my best friend. The set up was beyond our expectations. Everyone can’t stop complementing us on the décor and creativeness. Lol It’s funny because when we told our guests that our reception was on the pool deck, they looked at us like we had two heads and were crazy. It showed them huh?! Lol.
Any who, we went right into our first dance after being announced. We danced to Adorn by Miguel [font=wingdings]J[/font]. The only thing that I am kicking myself for, is forgetting to ask for the fireworks around our dance floor during our first dance. That is something I really wanted so I can’t believe I forgot to ask. Oh well… I hope all the brides reading this put that on their checklist if they want it.
The wait staff was amazing. I was very clear that I did not want the dinner take up the majority of our party time (especially being that we were a ½ hour behind schedule. They really worked hard to have all courses out and taken back swiftly. The food was great! I think it was the best food at the resort. We chose the stuffed ravioli for our appetizer… So tasty. And we gave our guests (3) options of chicken, beef or fish. I had the chicken which was finger-licking good and my husband had the fish which was also good. The strawberry tulip ice cream desert was so good. I was disappointed that they took it away so quickly when we stepped away from our table. (Oh well… we did asked them to rush the dinner lol). We had a 3-tier tres leche wedding cake… Also good. We had one whole layer left and I was also disappointed they did not send any of it back to our room. Yes… I am a greedy! [font=wingdings]J[/font] Lol
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P.S.
We got back to our room with a trail of rose petals leading up to our bed and on our bed. There was also roses, candles and in scents surrounding our Jacuzzi. Yes… Very romantic!! We loved it!

[b]DJ:[/b]
As stated above, DJ Mauricio sat with us to discuss our expectations and music choices. I actually had my sisters/MOHs create a detail song and playlist of the type of music we wanted to hear and dance to.

Side note: My family is of Jamaican decent. You may be wondering… Why’d we choose Mexico? Because two of my cousins already had destination weddings in Jamaica and we wanted to be “different”. Besides, we have always wanted to visit Mexico and so did our families.

Any who, so we had very specific genre of music requests (i.e. Reggae, Dancehall, Soca, Hip Hop, R&B, Pop, Dance). He definitely got the Pop, Dance and some Hip Hop correct but definitely did not know how to mix the reggae and dancehall. He played a Bob Marley in the middle of the dance segment. Disappointed was not even the word. Our guests kept sitting back down so he will play something like the Cha Cha Slide to get everyone back up. I had guests tell me that they kept on going up to him to requests songs but he did not take their requests. Of course, my biggest critics aka my sisters were frustrated. Anyway, we made the best of it and continued to dance even though it was not the best. I definitely did not let that stress me or ruin my night.

[b]Day After Wedding:[/b]
We scheduled our “romantic breakfast in bed” (which came with our wedding package but was the same as regular room service). Oh well… the thought that count.

After we ate, we headed to the spa for our 80 min Swedish massage and a 25 min exfoliating treatment. OMG amazing!!!... The most relaxed and refreshed I’ve been in about a year and a half (since wedding planning). We definitely enjoyed our spa treatments. The spa itself is gorgeous. We did not want to go back to the “general population” lol.

Later, we were scheduled to have our “romantic dinner on the beach”. We arrived at Oceana and were seated by our personal hostess. We literally sat down, got 3 photos together and next thing you know is that we heard loud thunder. Then in a split second, it poured down on us…no fair warning (Again… I felt so bad for that other wedding). Our hostess ran back to help us get off the beach. But it was too late… We were soaked in a matter of seconds. So everyone was crammed in Oceana waiting for the rain to let up. Our hostess asked if we wanted to be moved to the lounge chair area (they also set up private dinners there at night); we said okay and it worked out perfectly. We were dry and we still had our romantic private dinner. It also helped that our waiter was hilarious.
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[b]The Resort:[/b]
We definitely had an amazing 11 days at the resort. We visited every restaurant (Himitsu, Oceana and Bordeaux were our favorites). Housekeeping was great and the turn-down service was also good. Room service was also very good. Hubby and I were definitely taking advantage of the 24-hour room service. The nightly entertainment was pretty good. We especially loved the drum/fire show. The beach is not the best. There were plenty of seaweed but the resort really made an effort to try to clean it up every few hours.
P.S.
I ended up meeting the General Manager of the hotel and he was so nice. He kissed and hugged us goodbye when we were leaving.

[b]Excursions:[/b]
We rented a van to go shopping in Playa Del Carmen for 3 hours on Sunday ($180… I know, ridiculous!) but we had a blast on the 5[sup]th[/sup] avenue strip. Monday, we booked a group excursion to Tulum (Mayan Ruins) & Xel-Ha. It was blazing hot but everyone enjoyed themselves. Tuesday, we met with our Del Sol photographer, Debora, to shoot our Cenote + Beach TTD. The cenote they took us to was amazing! And we had a ball with Debora, Ruben and Duncan (the assistants) and Alberto (the driver). Definitely a great experience! Hubby and I also booked Xplor Fuego (Its Xplor but at night… 5:30 – 11:00 pm) and Dolphin Discovery in Isla Mujeres. Both were excellent!

We think we had the best honeymoon ever… We just can’t stop talking about all that we did and experienced.

*Overall, we had a FANTASTIC wedding and the best time of our lives at Dreams Riviera. I call it our Dreams dream wedding and honeymoon! We don’t regret anything and would do it again in a heartbeat. I’ll definitely recommend Dreams Riviera Cancun resort to anyone.

[b]4 THUMBS US FROM US!! [/b][b][font=wingdings]J[/font][/b]