*** Just a quick update to my review below... here is the highlight video that the videographer created in addition to our wedding video - http://www.oscarvideo.com.mx/HouranChrisEN.html 

Thought maybe some brides would like to see how the wedding turned out. :)

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Hello!

I had my wedding at the Now Jade Riviera on Nov 13th.  This is a bit of a long review, but I know how nervous brides are always looking for info :)

A couple of pre-wedding things - we had booked our wedding in Dec 2009 when we were visiting the resort (which at that time was called NH Riviera) and met with their coordinator at the time, Sandy. Our package was the NH Luxury, which is comparable to the Now Divine.

In Jan/10 the resort was bought out. Under new management, a new name, and with a new coordinator, we were a bit nervous but decided to roll with it (because really, what else could  we do?) No one from the resort offered much comfort with all the changes. At one point, Pilar simply said "don't worry".

Our biggest source of stress was actually how inconsistent the communication was with Pilar. Truthfully, I didn't really bother her until about 2 months before our wedding. I know a lot of brides are bombarding her with emails for weddings that are like 8-10 months away... understandably, as they want their perfect day! I was a little more laid back. But a couple of months before the wedding, when I started emailing her with questions, it was starting to stress me that she wasn't in touch much.

But it became apparent to me that she was getting back to my emails when she could. She had upcoming weddings to be concerned about, and many of them! It turns out this hotel's wedding business has increased pretty dramatically over this past year. Based on my experience and observations, the wedding team is simply grossly understaffed. Otherwise, they work very hard and juggle quite a lot. I will write a note to management about that, because really, I don't think Pilar is the problem. They simply need more staff for the amount of weddings they are taking on. In fact, they now do 2 weddings a day... When I met with their original coordinator Sandy, back in Dec/09, she assured me I would be the only wedding on 11/13/10 - but I wasn't.

That is my pre-wedding experience. So for those brides having your wedding here, or considering it, beware - if you stress about this sort of thing, you're going to have a hard time. If you can live without an answer for some detail on your wedding that is months away, then you should be okay. Because the reality is the whole thing won't actually come together until you arrive at the resort - be prepared to live with that. :)

So we arrived at the resort on the Tuesday before our wedding on Saturday.

First the resort: It is really great! It's beautiful. The rooms, restaurants, facilities, etc. are just like they are in pictures. I don't understand people who can't have a good experience here. The service is fantastic - I mean absolutely everyone was awesome! Friendly, helpful, and just nice! The food is good - some dishes might be a miss, but you won't have trouble finding food you love. Everyone in our party said they had a great time at this resort!

My only complaint with the resort is this really obnoxious practice of people getting up early throwing a flip flop on a beach or pool chair and thereby claiming it for themselves literally all day! It's insanity! Half of those chairs remain empty much of the day! Why is this practice acceptable??! Perhaps it was just this way because the hotel was completely sold out the weekend of our wedding. But I don't understand why the resort doesn't ban this practice. If you're not in that area, that's not your chair! I can't claim a chair at a restaurant that way, why should I be able to do it at the beach?! Sorry, I digress... it really bothered me.

The wedding coordinator - like I mentioned, pre-arrival communication was really difficult. But once we arrived Pilar took care of everything! You could tell she worked hard, and she really took great care of all the details. We met with her that Tuesday afternoon and reviewed all of the details with her, and gave her all of the items we brought with us - personalized napkins, guest book, etc. And our welcome/gift bags for our guests - which they had delivered directly to the guest rooms for $2/delivery.

I had scheduled a dry run of my hair and makeup for Thursday afternoon. The woman at the spa (Angelica was her name I think) was awesome! She didn't speak much english, but we got around that okay. She was mostly working from pictures I brought anyway. The dry run was crucial because I did change my mind a bit on the hairstyle... highly recommended!

We had a cocktail party on Friday evening, and they sectioned off an area of the main lobby bar. They put up tall cocktail tables, and signs for our event. We had our own server as well. Then they sectioned off large tables in the main buffet restaurant for a group dinner following our cocktail party. Again the tables had reserved signs for us.
Neither of these events cost extra.

Also, on Friday morning, they came to get my dress and my husband's suit to get them pressed. They returned them Saturday morning.

On Saturday, I went to my hair/make up appointment about 2.5 hours before the ceremony. Again, the lady was great and did a great job I think. I returned to my room and got ready and Pilar came to give me my flowers, corsages, etc. I loved my bouquet - they were actually different than what I had described on my wedding form, but I had sent Pilar a picture of what I had in mind and they replicated the picture almost exactly. Again, the flower types were different, but the color was right on, and the flower type included more expensive colored calla lilies which they didn't charge me extra for.

The videographer and photographers also came to my room about 30 min before the ceremony to get some footage and pics.

Videographer - Oscar from Oscar Videos (www.oscarvideo.com.mx). He was absolutely awesome! He was everywhere, and so great to work with! Our package included a video of the ceremony - which included some pre-ceremony, full ceremony, and a little post ceremony footage. But we paid for about 3 extra hours so we got our cocktail hour following the ceremony and some of the reception. Besides the ceremony video, he put together another video highlighting the happenings at the reception. I have yet to see that video, but I have a feeling it'll be great because he really seemed to care a great deal about getting it right!

Photographer - we used the resort photographers that come with our package - (positive.com.mx). Antonio arrived early and took some getting ready shots and posed pics while I waited. He was joined by a second photographer as the ceremony began. These guys must have take like a thousand pics between them. They were really everywhere too! We also paid extra to have them cover some of the reception. And the pics turned out beautiful! These guys were great!!

The ceremony was on the Pergola deck at 4p (we wanted plenty of light bc the sun does set pretty early here - it's pretty low by like 5-5:30p), followed by cocktail hour at 4:30p at the Blue Beach Bar with a Mexican Trio. Our reception was at the Festival Terrace from 5:30-10p (note, this terrace does not cost extra). We selected the menu ahead of time (I didn't want to mess with entree choices for the guests, more work than I wanted to take on), and the food was good. I didn't like one of the courses, but everyone raved about the tuna steak we selected as our entree.

The cake - apparently to die for! Unfortunately, I forgot to have my piece!

My only complaint actually was the DJ (again, the resort's vendor - www.avsc.com.mx). He was a totally nice guy and did ok. But he missed the time for things, and they were spelled out on a form the company had us fill out. So it sucked when I realized that we had missed the time for the toasts, or the first dance, etc. And that was not terrible, because I would just walk over and remind him to announce those things and we'll do them now.

But, even worse in my eyes, we had provided the DJ company with a spreadsheet of songs we wanted played at reception for dancing (which was very important to us!) and he didn't have that spreadsheet! Apparently, the company never gave that to him. He was playing all kinds of random dance songs! I was spending so much time trying to remember the songs we wanted and he was constantly searching for whatever I could come up with. Not cool. Again, nice guy. But it seemed like a big failure of the company to communicate with their DJ. We were disappointed by this.

Tipping - We tipped almost all of the vendors/staff we worked with. The photographer, videographer, DJ, the server for our Friday night cocktail party, waiters for the group dinner, and for our wedding reception. We also wrote Pilar a thank you note and included a tip. She really pulled it all together!

In the end, it was an all-around amazing time and the wedding was a fabulous, happy blur... I had a great time! We had a beautiful wedding and our guests had a blast at this beautiful resort - couldn't have asked for more!

Sorry, I feel like there might be a lot of details I left out. So if you have ANY questions, or would like to see more pictures, let me know!