We were married at the Sandos on February 25th, 2011 at 4:00 pm. RESORT: The resort was the best choice for our group. It was large but had enough meeting spots that we ran into our guests throughout the week without any problem. My parents stayed at the beach (RM#1110), which was such an amazing location. Considering we have small children, it was nice to have a close place to run to when we needed things. My husband’s brother also stayed at the beach which was a great location for the guys to get ready. The majority of our group stayed in the Hacienda section (middle of the resort). We stayed in Hacienda 74 (RM#7403) and had a walk out to the small private pool. Maria, the Wedding Coordinator, helped make sure that our group was as close as possible. We had other guests that stayed in the Riviera section. It’s the farthest from the beach, but if you don’t mind a 10 minute walk, the pool and rooms were the best. It’s a lot more quiet from the crowds. There are also shuttles that can take you to the meeting point, which is close to the entertainment/restaurant centre of the resort. BEACH / POOLS: The beach is fabulous. We had my parents and my husband’s father reserve our seats at the beach each morning. We had the same spot all week, so it was easy for people to find us. It’s a little annoying that people would reserve seats and then not come back all day, but at least we spent the majority of the day in our chairs/area. The main pool is quite crowded and I only went once to it for 10 minutes with my 8 month old. My son who is almost 5 years, loved the beach. He chased the birds and made sandcastles. Some days the water was quite rough due to the wind, but still amazing. I highly recommend taking a walk down to the undeveloped beach next door to the Sandos. The pool in the Riviera section is the nicest, biggest and has a swim up bar. We spent one day there and it was very nice. FOOD/RESTAURANTS: the food is resort food. Over all it was good. We were fortunate enough to have Maria help us reserve our a la cartes before we arrived. We went to the Mexican, French and Steakhouse. The French was quite good. The Steakhouse was also good. Mexican was okay. We didn’t go to the Asian but apparently it was also pretty good. DRINKS: yummy, yummy, yummy. A lot of variety and the beer was good too, although that’s very subjective. I didn’t hear any complaints from our guests about the drinks. We had a lot of sparkling wine while we were there. It was very good. Highly recommend trying some. ENTERTAINMENT: There was a lot of entertainment, unfortunately we didn’t see any of the theatre shows. We mostly went to the Meeting point at night and watched the outdoor entertainment, which varied. We were luckly to have a live band the night of our wedding. I hadn’t planned for anything after dinner, so it worked out quite well that we had a live band to dance to. The kids and adults also enjoyed the play room with video games, ping pong, foosball, etc. It was located next to the outdoor entertainment, so everything was close at night. SERVICE: EXCELLENT! The staff at the resort are fabulous. We had a slight issue with the front reception, but other than that we thought all the service was excellent. Especially Maria the wedding coordinator. WEDDING: The morning of my wedding, I woke up at 5:30 am with my 8 month old baby girl and took the opportunity to walk down to the beach and watch the sunrise. I highly recommend that on at least one of the mornings that you take advantage of the quiet beach and see the sunrise. It was also a great opportunity to take pictures of the resort without all the people. The wedding day was perfect. We didn’t get a lot of extras and we didn’t need them. The resort and beach setting speaks for itself. I brought my own silk petals for the isle. We had an IPOD for the music walking down the isle and for two dances in the wedding hut after the ceremony. Maria had the DJ add some other music for the walk up the isle and also during the toast hut. The speaker system is very good and loud enough for video recording the ceremony. After the toast and our dances, we had photos taken of the families then headed out with the photographer. We had our dinner at the Italian Buffet. It was the best place since they have an area for a large table. We had 32 people and had a “U” shaped table. The food is quite good there. Actually, I enjoyed the Italian Buffet more than the Grand Buffet. We decorated the table with maracas (12 in total) which was enough for all the kids to take home. We also had mini picture frames that we used as place cards. I bought them from www.weddingfavours.ca. I gave them to Maria with a seating chart and everything was done perfectly. We had a cake that was nicely decorated and very yummy. FLOWERS: They were gorgeous. I loved my bouquet (RA13), it was very colourful and smelled so nice. I had a white lily in my hair. I wish I had brought a silk lily, because by the time we were finished taking photos, the lily was very limp. My bridemaids had silk flowers in their hair and it looked really nice. I end up using one of their flowers for the dinner. PHOTOGRAPHER: We used Octavio Montes. He was very professional. His prices are great and the photos are amazing. If you want to have a look they will be up for the next two weeks. 1.- Go to http://www.octaviomontes.com 2.- In the bottom right type user name "elizabeth". 3.- And click on Log in button. If you have any other questions, please feel free to email me at [email protected].