Wedding on April 8, 2011

Coordinator: Angelica Martinez Mauricio

Ceremony (symbolic and complimentary package): 5pm Tucan Gazebo

Cocktail Hour: 6pm Tucan terrace

Reception Dinner: 7-10pm El Caribeno rooftop terrace (cost $400 per table of 10, plus $12 extra per person for set up)

Accommodations:

We, along with most of our group, stayed at Nizuc.  Very close to the Tucan gazebo, but a bit far from the lobby

Welcome Dinner:

We had the dinner at the Bugambilias restaurant on the Sunrise side.  The food was ok.  The service wasn’t the best – several people never received their after dinner coffee and tea for instance.  That being said, we all had a great time.  We had welcome OOT bags for every one that we handed out.  I bought a lot of the OOT stuff from the local dollar store.

Ceremony:

We had Jorge perform the ceremony, he was great.  We obtained a copy of the ceremony script ahead of time.  Since it was quite religious and we are not, we were permitted great latitude and completely revamped the script without issue. 

Make up/Hair:

Doris at the Nizuc salon did a great job!  I did bring some of my own make up and hair pictures to help facilitate the process. The cost for hair, make up, pedicure, and manicure was $135 (vacation credits used)

Decorations:

I brought my own flower petals (bought online from Flyboy).  Unfortunately, it was too windy to scatter them on the aisle, so people threw them at us after the ceremony which made for nice photos.

We also placed raffia fans on the ceremony guest chairs. 

Photographer:

We didn’t like the sample photos from the Resort photographer so we hired La Luna.  They have an agreement with Palace Resorts (an exception to the “no outside vendors” rule) so every thing was above board.   We did pay for a day pass for each of the two photographers.   We had the photographers from 4-9pm.  Honestly, we probably could have done without the last hour.

Videography:

We only did this because we could use the Vacation Dollars.  Haven't seen the final product yet, so can't comment

Flowers:

We upgraded the complimentary bouquet for myself to be a mostly green bouquet with orchids.  A similar bridesmaid bouquet was purchased for the MoH. We purchased a matching boutonniere for the groom and used the complimentary boutonniere for the best man.  We had the roses that would have been part of the compl bouquet made into a flower arrangement for the cake table.  We had 4 centrepieces at the reception, two of which were used as table arrangements at the ceremony first then transported over to the reception location.  I bought freeze-dried flower petals online from Flyboys.  It was too windy to scatter them on the aisle before the ceremony, so Angelica had guests throw them at us as we left the gazebo.   As an aside, we did find it windy by the ocean every day we were there.

Other Décor/Reception site

Rather than hire Zuniga, I brought a few table runners and sashes (eggplant organza) online and left them with Angelica who used them as decoration at the ceremony (centre aisle chairs only) and some chairs at the reception.  They tell you that the El Caribeno rooftop terrace isn't a private event (it is a large terrace), however they do block off a section so it felt very private to us.

Food

For the cocktail hour, we had the international cocktails – I didn’t eat much, but it did taste quite good.  We chose the BBQ buffet for the reception.  It was ok, nothing spectacular.  My mother did get sick that night (vomiting) but was the only one out of 30+ of us, so not sure whether it was food related or not.

We got the complimentary cake in vanilla – it tasted quite good.  I am glad we didn’t upgrade, as there would have been a lot of uneaten cake (not even the complimentary cake got all eaten), as there are other desserts provided.

Music

We decided to upgrade to a violinist for the ceremony and the cocktail hour – I quite liked it.  I created my own playlist from home and we hired an AV tech (no DJ) for the reception – we weren’t planning on having any dancing so we didn’t want to splurge on this