My husband and I got married at the Gran Caribe Gazebo on 1-1-11. Overall, the experience was great, with only a few glitches.

[Gran Caribe: the Resort itself B+]

We booked the One Bedroom Master Suite with Ocean-view and Jacuzzi at the Gran so that we could be close to our wedding guests who were staying there and we’d have full privileges at The Royal.  I would like to point out that our room was not what was pictured on their web site.  There was no balcony and our view was blocked by another building.  We did have a view of the ocean, but I was under the impression that we would be Oceanfront.  We couldn’t get an upgrade because it was a holiday, and the resort was pretty full. Looking back, I wish we had booked a room at the Royal next door, since that is where we spent most of our time (their restaurants and their pool).  Our room was right next to the gate that led to the Royal, so it did work out in the end.  If you can afford it, just stay at The Royal and get married at the Gran Caribe.  Turned out we rarely hung out with our families and friends outside the wedding.  The food at the Gran Caribe is not as good as the food at The Royal.  Since the Gran is a family resort, there are kids around, and the atmosphere at the Royal is actually much more relaxing.  The Gran does not have a big Jacuzzi and their gym is tiny.  If you want a great relaxing pool experience, go next door to the Royal.  The Gran's pool is small and full of families.

Our Master Suite bedroom upon Check-in:

[Travel Agent: Jennifer from Sand n Sun Vacations: A for me, B+ from my mom]

I loved Jennifer.  I only give a B+ because when it came to my mom dealing with Jennifer, replies were slow (but my parents had special room requests that required some fancy footwork for Jennifer).  My sister was sharing a room with my parents for only a portion of my parents’ stay, so booking was kinda complicated.  Props to Jennifer for getting that done!

 For me, though, I had no problems.  Planning went smoothly, and she arranged for everything that I asked. She was good with follow up to my questions. 

I had a tiny guest list, so she only worked with my parents’ travels.  But she is very organized, and is at the whim of her own vendors to find the best deals. I don’t know if going through a travel agent is better than doing it all myself, but with all the wedding planning, I am glad I had her take care of that part.

[Wedding Location: Oceanfront Wedding Gazebo: A-]

I booked this location because we originally wanted to get married in their on-site Chapel.  GORGEOUS.  When I looked into it, though, turned out we had to be Catholic to get married there, and although we’re both Catholic, we aren’t registered at our local church, nor did we have time to go through any of the prenuptial classes, so there went our dream of the ocean-view chapel wedding.  We decided to just go for the Gazebo, and keep the ceremony at the Gran Caribe since we wanted to invite guests with children and the prices for rooms were affordable for our guests.  Our suite was right next to the gazebo, so it was perfect to have me and my dad walk down from there in view of the guests. In case you’re interested, we had Suite #2763.

[Wedding Planning: B]

I’m sure any bride that has been in contact with the Real Resorts Wedding department will complain about the lack of communication.  I guess in 2010 when I was planning, the department went through some restructuring, and it was tough to get responses back from my many Wedding Coordinators that were assigned to me.  I finally got Claudy as my WC in the months prior to the wedding, and she was very good about following up with me and staying on top of the deadlines. She was also good about addressing all my questions about locations and decorations, she would send me photos of the site for me to consider, and gave great input on the party size and where to go.  We didn’t do a site visit as we had planned, so her communication and photos helped a lot.

 [Our On-Site WC: Flora: B+]

The day after our arrival, we met with Flora, our on-site coordinator.  She was very nice and spoke very good English.   We had to make some changes during our face-to-face meeting, since our guest list dwindled down to only 7, so Flora was able to make those changes and apply some credit towards other things like flowers and spa credit. Throughout our stay, I always felt like she was easily accessible.  Even though we had to make some very last minute changes to the wedding (on the day of), she was great about taking care of the details. Overall, she helped everything run smoothly, and on the day/evening of the wedding, she checked in with me a few times to make sure we were alright.

Also, the [B+] is there since two of my guests were not staying at the Gran Caribe, and were visiting for only the day for our ceremony/dinner. Unfortunately, the hotel was not notified of non-resort guests, even though I specifically told both Claudy and Flora that there were two people who needed passes or at least have their names down for security to let them in.  My guests were stopped by security, AND when they tried to mention our wedding, the security guard didn't know anything about our wedding taking place. My husband had to go down to security in the lobby and bring them up to our room. 

[Wedding Package: Complimentary: A]

Since we stayed in their Master Suite for more than 7 days, we got the complimentary package and just added a few extras.  At first I was going to do the Eternal Romance package, but I realized that we could save money by opting for the Complimentary package and adding small details that were not on the Eternal package deal. We ended up paying $2800 for everything at the resort. What a deal! Glad we did it!

[Wedding Reception: A-]

We had originally planned to have everything take place in the gazebo area. The cocktail hour and the dinner was supposed to be served at the Gazebo Terrace, but the weather did NOT cooperate.  The week we stayed, the winds were 14-16mph, which was ridiculously strong in the gazebo area. Every morning I would look out our window to check how windy it was, and the palm trees looked ready to fall over.  Even on the day of the wedding, the winds died down a bit, but I did not want my guests to have their dinner  in the wind, so we had to move everything indoors.  I was so bummed since I wanted to have the ocean view, but it worked out in the end. Flora was able to make the quick change smoothly.

[DECORATIONS and CAKE: C]

I’ll review flowers separately in the next section, but here is where I want to point a few things out to anyone planning to wed at the Gran Caribe.  One of the few glitches that occurred, and bugged me to no end, was that I ordered BROWN Tiffany chairs (or chivari chairs) for both the ceremony and the dinner.  The day of the wedding, I came down to see WHITE chairs.  I had specifically told my WC brown, and looks like things got messed up communicating it to Flora, but I wish I had triple confirmed this detail with the WC and with Flora.  Each chair is $10 to rent.  The sashes ($6 ea) on the chairs, were red, and were made of chiffon, which I did not care for.  I thought they would be satin or silk, but they ended up being red chiffon, which in person, doesn’t look as upscale, especially when they are tied on WHITE chairs. 

The gazebo was nicely decorated with the white fabric, and they used the same fabric to adorn the ballroom where our reception took place, which looked nice.

I ordered the silk overlay in a pintuck chocolate satin table topper ($25), so that I could have a chocolate and crimson themed wedding.  I WISH they had full length table cloth to use in different colors. They use only white full length table cloth and you can choose any topper.  What I should have done was buy and bring my own, especially cuz we only ended up with one big table and one little table for the photographers.

I had originally wanted to hire a Cancun vendor that would decorate the whole facility for me the way I envisioned, but due to the costs of outside vendors and the smaller guest list, I opted out, and trusted that the Real Resorts would be able to do it nicely, but the décor was not as great as I would hope, but in the end, as the bride, you don’t really care until you see the photos from the photographer.  If you have the larger budget, pay the extra resort fees and hire that local wedding planning vendor to do all the décor for you to make sure your vision comes true without any stress.

As for the cake, I’ve posted a complaint on this forum about my cake and I’ll sum up here, that I did NOT get the cake I was promised.  The resort had a catalog where I chose the couture design for an extra $300, and we did not receive what was advertised.  HUGE disappointment. My mother didn’t like it, and I hated it, but it did taste DELICIOUS. 

Here’s the cake  we ordered

Here’s the actual cake we got  :(

I did complain to Flora, Claudy and their manager after we returned from our trip, and they were good about apologizing for the glitches I mentioned in the décor.  All in all, the resort did a great job.

 [Flowers: A+]

GORGEOUS flowers! My bouquet was an upgrade, which had just red roses.  There had to be at least 3 dozen roses in there. I’m a tiny girl, and it may have overwhelmed me, but I don’t care. I loved the bouquet.  The centerpiece was originally going to be a tall glass vase with a big rose arrangement on top, but the WC warned me about windy conditions for an outdoor reception, and that tall arrangements might blow over, so we went for a short rose centerpiece, which came out pretty darn well.  I will say that the florist at this resort take their job seriously! Excellent work! In the Del Sol slideshow below, you’ll see the flowers. 

[FOOD: A+]

We ordered a private cocktail hour after the ceremony, and then the dinner.  I think I got confused, because I meant to have the cocktail hour served immediately afterwards, so that the guests wouldn’t have any down time, but it started after we took our photos… so with the combination of the cocktail hour and the dinner, it seemed like a really long dinner.  Plus with the new location change, there was a little confusion where to go since it originally was supposed to happen in the gazebo area.

The food itself was amazing. All the guests raved about the quality. The presentation was excellent. We did a combination of hot and cold hor d’oeuvres for the cocktail hour.  For dinner, we chose the shrimp salad, the stuffed chicken as an entrée, then ended with the chocolate cheesecake. We did the Private Dinner Reception, for 3 hours, but I wish it was 2 hours, cuz we were done with all the food pretty quickly, and I didn’t plan on having dancing (our short guest list didn’t have anyone big on dancing).  With the extra time, the groom and I got to take a few more photos with our photographer at the Albatros  Terrace before they called it a night.  We only had 11 persons for the meal, but paid for 20 with the Private Reception package.  So glad we did it.

Appetizers:

Salad:

Entrée:

Dessert:

[MUSIC/ENTERTAINMENT]

Since we had such a small guest list, we scratched any dance floors, so we decided not to pay for a DJ.  The resort had a Bos sound system for our ipod, and the sound quality was fine. Someone (I don’t know who) was available to play the right music at the right times during the ceremony. I had given Flora my playlist for certain parts of the ceremony and they were good about it.  And we were able to use the sound system during dinner. Music went smoothly, and I felt great about it. Now, if we had more than 20 guests, I would definitely have paid for the DJ, and for more live entertainment.  The resort has a decent list of entertainment options.  I had originally ordered the fire dancers ($650), but decided in the last second to cancel due to weather.

[DRESS: A+]

In case anyone is interested (after you see the slideshow below), my dress is Maggie Sottero’s “Madison.” CLASSIC and elegant (PLUS a great price at $695 plus $300 for the hem and bustle), and I felt pretty.  But girls, make sure you get a fitting done maybe a month before you leave.  I wasn’t quite as thin as I was in my last fitting (3 months prior), so I could barely sit in my dress.  As you can see, it also pushed me up quite a bit, kinda like when you squeeze your toothpaste tube… lol.  Someone had to loosen the corset a bit during dinner.

[PHOTOGRAPHER: DEL SOL PHOTOGRAPHY: A++]

One of the best things we spent money on was the photographer.  The $300 outside vendor fee was nothing when it came to hiring Matt from Del Sol.  I wrote a lengthy review for them, but here I want to add that Matt and Jonathan were one of the best things about our experience that day.  Photos will be with you forever, and Del Sol made the $$ spent worthwhile. I didn’t expect much from our tiny party, but they surpassed my expectations! I didn’t think I could use their photos here in my review for copyright purposes, but check out the link below of our online slideshow.

Here's a shot of Matt and Jonathan at work.

Wanna see the professional photos of Our Day? Del Sol did an EXCELLENT job, and please see my Del Sol Photography review under the Del Sol category on this site!

Here's our Wedding Slideshow by Del Sol Photography