I recently held my wedding at the Paradisus Palma Real on 12/18/2010.  This review will encompass both my hotel stay as well as my wedding day review.

Arrival Day

Upon our arrival at the resort, we proceded to the front desk to check in.  After a bunch of back-and-forth with the clerk at the desk, they notified us that they could not locate a record of our reservation.  At this point (since I knew I was having about 30 other guests arriving who were all also staying at the resort), I nearly had a heart attack and pretty much flipped out on the poor woman working behind the desk.  Thankfully, I had all of my paperwork in hand.  I booked back in April on Orbitz, so I handed her the itinerary, which had our hotel confirmation code and everything.  About 20 minutes or so later, they came back and told me that my room was available.  I asked about my free room upgrade (as I purchased the 2011 Aqua package, there was a free upgrade included as part of the package).  Of course they had no idea what I was talking about, so I pulled out my printed package details and showed them that this was included.  After that, they told me I was eligible for a partial ocean view room (had booked the garden view (cheapest) option).  After all of this, I pulled out my guest list that had all of the people staying at the resort, and their arrival dates, and asked the clerk to provide me with room numbers for everyone (to verify that they did in fact have record of their reservations).  All of my guests did have reservations.  They also gave us "Bride" and "Groom" wrist bands instead of the traditional ones that the other guests received.  I thought this was so cute that I pretty much forgot how mad I was about them not having record of my reservation!

Resort:

Like I mentioned above, we ended up getting a partial ocean view room.  The accomodations were pretty nice actually.  Each room had a flat screen tv, a jacuzzi tub, a sitting area and table and a private balcony.  We were able to see the ocean from our room.  The hotel premises were gorgeous.  Everything from the incense in the main terrace area to the beautiful sculptures and other decor was perfect.  One of the only things that was kind of annoying is that they are a 'green' hotel, meaning there are certain areas where they shut the power off during the day, the lights go out in the shower if you don't move around enough, and the power shuts off at night and resets the clocks in the room daily.  But, I guess it is helping the enivornment... why do I need to know what time it is anyways when I'm on vacation :)

Shipped Items:

We had shipped a bunch of favors, arrival gifts, and other decor items for both the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception using CPS Miami (which was the brokerage company recommended by the hotel to ship the favors).  When I arrived in Punta Cana, I called CPS, and they delivered the boxes to the resort.  We had shipped 4 boxes in total, and they were pretty large-sized boxes.  We received the boxes in the wedding coordinators' office and we proceded to open the boxes to check them out so that I could show the coordinators what the contents were to be used for.  One of the boxes was completely smashed (this box unfortunately contained christmas ornaments that were to be the guests' favors at the reception).  I shipped about 10 or so extra just in case something were to happen to them, and of course, 9 of them were broken out of the bunch that I sent... so I had one extra.  I don't fault CPS for this, they didn't know these items were fragile.  They did get them to me when I needed them.  So props to them for doing so.  One comment on favors if you are planning to do ornaments, I went with ornaments with our names and wedding date and sand and seashells inside, I received comments from my guests that they were not allowed to carry the ornaments through customs b/c of the sand.  I also had pre-arranged payment for delivery of the guest bags to the guest rooms prior to their arrival.  This didn't work out so well.  The guests did receive their bags, but there was a lot of follow-up by me with the coordinators.  I think mostly b/c the guests were moving rooms around a bunch.

Restaurant Reservations:

Since we had such an enormous party staying at the resort, it was difficult to accomodate us at the restaurants.  Reservations can be made day of or the day prior to.  Pretty much, if you don't make them the day prior to your reservation and you have a large party, they will not be able to accomodate you, or they will split up your party.  We did however get to have our entire group at a few of the meals though, so that was nice.

Wedding Day

The day couldn't have turned out better for our big day.  The day we arrived it was pouring down rain, and the day following that was completely cloudy and miserable, but the rest of the week that we were there turned out pretty nice.  We opted for the beach ceremony.  It took place at 5pm.  We hired the violinist for the ceremony, the dominican guitar trio for the cocktail hour, and DJ Mannia for the reception.  All of them were awesome.  I provided the DJ with my ipod which had all the music that I wanted to hear and it was also broken out by type of music (dinner, first dance, dancing, slow dance, etc.).  The DJ played most of the songs that I wanted to hear and some in addition.  I told him the ones I didn't want to hear and I also told him that the guests could put in requests if they wanted to.

I had sent the wedding coordinators tons of pictures of how I wanted the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception to look... and they didn't disappoint.  If anything, they knew exactly what look I was going for and improved upon everything that I wanted.  I couldn't have asked for anything better.  We had the ceremony and the cocktail hour on the beach, and the reception on a terrace outside of the banquet rooms... I'm not sure what the name of this terrace was though.  We were going to have it on the Olympus Terrace, which was beautiful, but since it is so close to the beach it was a little to windy for all of the tall centerpieces we had on the reception tables.  We also went with the buffet option.  The food and drinks were all really good, and all of my guests said that it was one of the best weddings they have ever been to.  Thank you so much to Lauren Harder, Leni De Los Santos, and Jennifer Fuentez for all of your help in making my wedding amazing!