Hello everyone! We have just got back from an amazing fortnight at Dreams la Romana, and got married on Friday 11 April :-D

Please see below my wedding review, if you are having any second thoughts or doubts please let me assure you, you will have the best day of your life if you get hitched here! It was simply magical...

First of all, the wedding coordinators are brilliant, if you are worried about the lack of emails please don't be- Yanna is so organised, everything we wanted and more was done. Yanna made us feel so relaxed and confident that our wedding plans were in experienced hands. She and her team made our day so special and we can't thank her enough.

We had the ultimate luxury package and it was worth every penny. We booked some extras too... We has requested a 3pm ceremony, but Yanna advised we move it back because the judge's schedule, and the heat is insane at that time, so we had a 4:30 ceremony at the wedding gazebo. It was stunning - go with their recommended timings, the light and temperature was perfect - especially as the groom’s party were in three piece suits! You don't lose any time off the cocktail or the reception party. The ceremony was 4:30-4:50 then we had photographs and the guests all went to the pier for cocktail hour after photos from about 5:15-6:30pm whilst we had our couple's photos. We then joined them on the pier for drinks and food (the canapés were delicious and there was so much there!) 

Setup/ Ceremony:
We took our own chair sashes and pom poms for the gazebo:

Yanna and her team did the sashes for us with the corsage pins and we fluffed up the pom poms ready for her the day before.

The civil ceremony was great, we added two readings from one of our bridesmaids and my brother, and chose our own playlist for the entrance of the bridesmaids, bridal entrance song and our exit song to personalise it. Yanna translated for us as the judge conducted it on Spanish. At the end they gave our guests rice to throw which is environmentally friendly and traditionally good luck, plus there were pink rose petals to make it look pretty. You are greeted by a smart, smiling waiter as you exit the aisle with glasses of champagne and we got some great moments on video and photographed afterwards in the gardens with our family and friends!

Cocktail hour: 
The pier was lovely, it's a great place for the guests to cool off with the sea breeze, private cocktail bar and take some great photos so I'd recommend it. It is quite narrow so if you have a larger party consider the gardens for your cocktail hour - there were 20 in our party and the pier worked very well for us but it might be harder to mingle with a larger group. The Caribbean music trio were superb, although we missed most of their set because we were off having photos, the guests loved them!

By the time we'd got to the cocktail hour after photos on the beach, in the gardens and the ceremony, we were so thirsty, so ask one of your bridesmaids to give a bottle of water to the photographer to carry around when you're having your photos, we'd gone about two and a half hours without a drink by that point, which was silly of us! 

We then went for photographs on a more natural part of the beach for sunset- we couldn't have imagined the photographs turning out so incredibly beautiful. The videographers came as well and the do some amazing footage of you interacting between photos.

Photography:
About the photography packages- the 50 prints included in the package is just the ceremony and one group shot- no prep photos, no other shots of the bridal party or the evening is included in this. The packages are between $500 - $2300 (depending on if you want trash the dress etc) so put some more money aside in the wedding budget for pictures! We booked an extra hour and our photographer was very generous with his time and we ended up with over 300 photos.

Reception:
We booked the seaside grill deck for our reception dinner and party and it was worth the extra money. It was beautifully decked in lights and the table looked stunning (we brought a lot of things ourselves, but Yanna added the birdcages which was wonderful and a complete surprise, the set up was amazing) 

The staff at the seaside grill deck were phenomenal - they constantly topped up our champagne glasses and were so attentive and joined in the fun! Special thanks to Zacaria and Jose Maku for being such fantastic company and looking after us so well at our wedding 

We booked the premium DJ service who was excellent and had high quality equipment. Happy Boy was our MC- he is a real party guy and got us all singing and dancing throughout... He really helped with organising the speeches and introducing everyone. 

Extras:
If you can afford it, the fireworks were fantastic and we'd recommend them - they cost $600 for over 200 fireworks and they were set off on the beach just as our first dance was finishing- our guests were all in tears, they couldn't believe it! It was absolutely out of this world.

Cake:
The cake was huge - we had to leave half of it there was too much to eat we even gave loads out to guests beside the pool the next day - we had chocolate and coconut on one tier and lemon and vanilla on the other. There are so many flavour choices! We brought a little cake topper and Yanna added fresh flowers which looked gorgeous and it was on a lovely table for the cake cutting

Dinner: 
The food was delicious- we has the bayhibe salad from the silver menu, sweet potato and broccoli soup, rib eye steak and the Parmesan chicken option, followed by chocolate mousse cake. Everyone enjoyed their food and the steaks were huge!

Wet weather: 
Around 10pm there was a downpour of rain - fortunately mark and I were back at the room freshening up (I was reluctant to squeeze into one of the loo cubicles in my dress!) and when we came out everything had moved into the seaside grill restaurant and the music was set up and the party resumed. We didn't mind this because we got a new setting with some fun pictures there. The whole team and our guests just grabbed everything inside and it was all set up in no time.

Videographers:
The videographers are fantastic. They arrived at my room and filmed me and the bridesmaids getting ready and then the whole ceremony and our pictures - we also agreed a price for them to stay for the evening and we are glad we did, our wedding video is an hour and 20 minutes long, includes all the ceremony, the cocktail hour, speeches the party and some beautiful cutaways at the end of us posing for photos in gorgeous scenery, the end result is exceptional and such high quality. They gave us two covered DVDs and a back up HD copy on a USB stick as well. We have watched it about 6 times already ha ha! They ask you to write down your special songs to put over the film too. 

So there we have it! I hope you're day is as wonderful as ours was, you can message me if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them! 

Best day of our lives :-)

I've put some photos on Flickr if you want to have a look

Best wishes to all DLR brides, past, present and future!

Mrs B xxxx