My Majestic Elegance Wedding Review and Prep

Part 1: OOT Bags-- I have an entire separate post on the OOT bag thread:

http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/thread/50330/oot-bags/40

Meeting our Coordinator and Planning:

1)Décor- this was huge for us in creating that romantic beachy feel we were going for. We had a group of 26 so we decided to do the private reception on the beach. I am a huge fan of Tiffany chairs because they provide a much sleeker- natural feel. We opted for the $760 décor package that included the Tiffany chairs (in brown or white- we chose brown), menu cards, table runners, plate chargers and a centerpiece for each table. I declined chair sashes as I thought it would ruin the organic feel of the setting.  The wooden chairs are gorgeous.

I was not a fan of any of the centerpieces they had in their selection so our coordinator was very helpful and quick to accommodate what we wanted. I brought photos (see below) of flower arrangements I liked for the bouquet- they were tropical, sleek, very condensed round balls of flowers. I told our coordinator that I wanted absolutely no carnations anywhere around me, and that I am allergic to lilies (not calla). She said she would do her best to find out the cost of these additions as they are not included in the package. I didn’t mind paying because we still fell under our wedding reception budget. (26 people, $6000, with private beach reception, cocktail hour, a ton of extras, custom flowers, décor). They were not much more expensive than I expected ( ~ 60/centerpiece) but absolutely beautiful and exactly what I asked her to copy. We had three of these and my bouquet. The sweetheart table (ours) had the décor from our ceremony so another centerpiece wasn’t necessary. With me I brought a suitcase filled entirely with bubble wrapped vases—I found these vases at Deals and Dollar tree stores—you can order- but I purchased in store 1 case of 12 costs $12-

See links: http://www.dollartree.com/floral-decor/vases-bowls-containers/Crystal-Cylinder-Vase/202c203c203p9889/index.pro (case of these- three per table),

 http://www.dollartree.com/floral-decor/Wholesale-Bulk-Candles-Holders-Votives/Rocks-Glass-Candle-Holders-4-inch/202c205c205p294384/index.pro (two cases of these (wanted 5 per table but coordinator only put three).

 I got 2 x 3 votives in Ivory from http://www.wholesalecandlesdirect.com/-strse-166/whole-pillar-candles,-bulk/Detail.bok, i think this is the same site: http://www.dlightonline.com/

I also got a case of 12 of these floating candles in Ivory for the taller vases: http://www.wholesalecandlesdirect.com/-strse-Wholesale-Floating-Candles/Categories.bok

The vase for the flowers was included by the resort.

I left all the vases there so it would be a great idea to check if they still have them.  When I emailed to ask if they had any vases before my arrival they replied no so I purchased all of these, check with them and it might eliminate you having to take them.

The coordinator also set up tiki torches around the perimeter of the area so that was a nice touch.

At the meeting we also discussed doing a cocktail hour- we were not charged extra for this event, only for the hors’ deurves that we selected to have there. We didn’t do a rehearsal dinner or anything so I don’t think it was a problem for them to do this. We had it on the terrace of the Sea and Sea restarant, just next to where we would be having our reception on the beach and not far from where we had our ceremony. We chose 3 from a list of cold, 3 from a list of hot, and 4 from a list of premium choices. We were excited because they all sounded so appetizing. Lobster, shrimp, caviar types of choices were the ones we gravitated toward. Our WC told us that the way it works is that there would be three pieces of each one per guest. We weren’t concerned about quantity until the day of, when we were notified by guests that there was barely one piece per person and they quickly ran out of food. That was aggravating because we had paid approximately $1.50- $3.00 per hors’ deaurve/ per person ($20/person for all).  I am not sure about the taste of each because we were not present at the cocktail hour- we were taking pictures on the beach with Photo Phil but my sister told me some were excellent, but others like the mushroom filled puff pastries were empty and had no mushrooms in them!! They were just puffs of empty dough!! The shrimp-caviar crudités were yummy.  Will talk more about cocktail hour after.

We also notified our WC that we purchased Liquor from the Duty free and would need to chill it. Have I mentioned that I come from a large, rowdy Russian – Jewish – American family yet? Insert every stereotype here.  We purchased Vodka and Cognac in Duty free in the U.S.  and brought it to the hotel.  We got charged a corkage fee- this was better than spending an arm and a leg on their selection of premium alcohol. Wayyyy cheaper buying it in duty free and paying corkage ~$10/bottle.

I also had custom water bottle labels created and I requested for our WC to give us 50-60 bottles of water so we can adhere them. I’m sure she forgot but it was no big deal to get them myself (took a bunch of water from the Elegance Club Lounge refrigerator). Note- it is easier to adhere when the bottles are room temp (not cold). They were adhered by double sided tape. I got them from:  http://www.foreverwedstore.com/category/Personalized_Water_Bottle_Labels.html with the double sided tape. We brought the ready bottles back to her with the liquor to be cooled and advised that the water bottles be set out at the ceremony and cocktail hour. She actually added a nice touch and had them displayed in a large metal pale/tub.

For the cocktail hour we also requested a signature drink- we initially requested coco-loco’s that would be displayed inside a coconut, but she had trouble getting the coco’s and had them displayed in pretty champagne flutes and had the rims lined in hot pink sugar (nice contrast to the white drink.) The signature drink was a nice and thoughtful touch. Our guests enjoyed it. The other drink we considered putting out was the Majestic- yummy orangy concoction- but the coco loco was way prettier in hindsight.  See photos below-

At the meeting we covered every aspect from A-Z of how the ceremony and reception will be. The actual execution will be discussed in the next post.

We gave our WC everything including the suit case with glass, candles and a ring bearer pillow.

Day of the wedding-

1)The salon/spa:
Hair-In the morning I went to the salon/spa to get my hair and make up done for the day. I had brought extensions with me for them to use and a head piece to be placed. The hair was OK, and the headpiece and extensions were attached with a ton of pins. I brought at least 6 photos of the same hair style that I liked just so its done right. They even had a photo of the style I wanted in the salon sample stash. It was a close enough match, just not done as neatly as I would like. I had a half up poof thing going on, but the poof was really sloppy and not as slick as I would like. I have extremely curly long hair so if it isn’t slick or sprayed to death with hair spray the whole ordeal will frizz. By the end of the day my hair completely fell apart (curls straightened out- which is nearly impossible because I have extremely curly hair- not enough hair spray or product was used).  I just had limp pieces of hair sprayed strands left over. The heavy head piece sat securely on my head as it had about 30 pins in it. All the pins used to secure that, my veil, and the mess of hair on my head gave me a head ache by the end of the night…  I wouldn’t change what happened because it looked good, but I would advise a soft, simpler style for my fellow curly haired girls. Mine just plain out hurt. By the way, the only reason I had extensions is because I am used to having huge voluminous curly hair and I don’t blow it out often- when it is blown out I feel like it looks too flat for my head so the clip in extensions were a great addition.

Makeup- what a disaster this was. Thank goodness I brought all my own make up and had practiced “just in case” application at home several times, because the girl doing make up application had no idea what she was doing. I brought primer, foundation, blush/bronzer duo, gloss, lipstick, false lashes, eye liner, etc. I wanted a more dramatic, romantic look. The products they have are very muted so it was a good thing I brought my own stuff. Note- they don’t even have q-tips for little botches in the salon- so bring your own q tips and mild make up remover!!  I applied the entire base and foundation, as well as the false lashes, eye shadows and lip stuff. For the eyeliner my hand started shaking because we were running late on time and I was nervous, so the salon lady volunteered to help me- this was a huge mistake that cost me another 10 minutes of makeup application since I learned that she has no clue as to how to apply eyeliner. I brought both liquid and pencil eyeliner. I guess she was unfamiliar with its use because I got a half inch thick line of black drawn onto my lid. I was mortified. The girl absolutely butchered my eye makeup and I had to have my cinematographer and sister fix it all up. This began with reapplication of shadow, lashes, etc… because the line could only be removed with makeup remover that dissolved the glue of the lashes! This set us back majorly and we were rushing to get back to my room for photos with Photo Phil. Thank goodness for my practice runs at makeup application at home- otherwise, I would be in trouble. I purchased all of the make up in one sitting at a makeup trial in Sephora. The guy who did the make up for me taught me the order of application and how to get through each step. He set me up with every product he used. The base and foundation were very light and perfect for the beach. Note- I got a burn at the top of my forehead (hairline), despite my efforts for the first three days to keep covered up!!! I tried so hard so that the color of my foundation still matches my face and body! Girls – make sure ur using that sunblock!!! Otherwise, being burnt in a wedding dress is sooo not cute. It hurts.

Manicure- I am VERY disappointed with the service received for this. To begin with, my mother sat down for a manicure- the cuticle clippers were dull and broken, the color variety was extremely limited. I am not sure why a person would take an appointment for a service they are unable to provide? Why take an appointment for a manicure if no one knows how to do a manicure. My mother’s fingers were all cut up and bleeding- they have still not healed. When my mother brought it to the attention of the spa's front desk, another girl said she will take care of it and could not believe what had been done to her hands. She sat my mother down to "fix" the manicure- at which point she proceeded to soak, scrub and massage my mother’s hands for 20 minutes. When my mother asked when the "fixing" would begin, she was told "oh, I don't do manicures, I am just killing time until the girl who does manicures finishes." It turns out the same girl that does hair also does make up and mani/pedi’s. I got a gel manicure at home so it held up just fine. My mother wanted a touch up since she had a few chips in her polish- huge huge mistake.

Spa- I later went for the spa treatment with my husband that was included in our wedding package- we even upgraded to the 55 minute aroma-therapy package. That experience was enjoyable in contrast to the salon. I enjoyed being petted for 55 minutes after the hectic stressful week we went through.

Note hair and make up (they did hair, I did make up) Behind us is Pastor York!

2) Preparation and coming down the aisle:
When I got back to my room, I hadn't heard at any point from my coordinator. My sister was in my room to greet me with Phil, our photographer. We got dressed and took some photos, then left to take outside photos. At no point did I have any contact with anyone yet. I chose to see my hubby before the ceremony for photos- will discuss that later. We got back to the room, my husband went down to the ceremony site at 4:45 because he had been in agreement with Pastor York to meet at this time, and saw our coordinator there. My husband asked her what to do about me, and then he ran to my room after meeting with Pastor York to explain when I should be going downstairs and where to go. Our coordinator stayed by the ceremony site. When my husband came running back downstairs, his brother notified him that there were only 18 chairs set up, when we needed 23. The quantity of chairs we needed was discussed in our meeting with our coordinator in the meeting - there was no reason for not having enough set up. It just caused further confusion, frustration and wasted time. The WC told my husband the ceremony will not start until all the guests were seated, which was when he and his brother told her again that there were not enough chairs, and she went to count (after she said there were enough chairs that she counted). It turned out the 5 missing chairs were nearby, just not setup, so a couple of workers took the chairs where they were and put them in place. I started to go to the Elegance Club lounge (which was where the WC told my husband for me to go). This was the first time I met/spoke to our coordinator the entire afternoon (our ceremony was at 5, and this was maybe 5-10 minutes before!).

The ceremony was beautiful, the altar was set up very nicely. The flowers on the altar were not quite what I had wanted because they didn’t really match my bouquet or the reception centerpieces, but that is minor and they were fine. The still stuck to the tropical theme. The ceremony  beach set up was beautiful with flowing white fabric. The tiffany chairs were PERFECT. For the aisle I requested the tall cylinder vases with submerged green orchids. They looked clean, modern, fresh and stunning. We opted out of the $ 100 dollar white aisle runner. I am sure it is cheaper to bring your own. I didn’t want one at all. The whole set up was gorgeous.

See cylinders lining aisle, the ceremony set up, and my bouquet {an orange rose actually fell out by accident after picture taking all afternoon} ( im with my father but thats the only pic I have of it close up - we have only been back a week!!)

Note/Tip: I had planned to do this and couldn’t find what I needed last minute to pull it off. I purchased a navy blue wicker storage basket in TJMaxx for 7 dollars and I had planned to fill it with flip flops for our guests. A lot of our guest’s didn’t know where or how the ceremony/reception would be so they weren’t sure what shoes they needed to wear (to be honest, I didn’t even really know where it would be until I got there so I couldn’t really make up a program or itinerary). I was waiting for months for the Old Navy $1 flip flop sale and it hasn’t come about yet! I was then thinking to purchase the mesh Chinese flip flops, and in the last week before we left I had issues finding these as well, so I completely scrapped the idea. I should have followed through because a lot of the guests just ended up barefoot and I know they would have appreciated some foot wear!! It doesn’t cost much and it’s a really nice touch for the reception party. Especially if you go with the dance floor option, some people get grossed out having to dance on the same floor as others with bare feet (feet hygiene issues).

3) Pastor Rick York- I don’t have enough kind words to say about this man. The ceremony was BEAUTIFUL. He sends you what he will be saying ahead of time so you can review and amend it. As I mentioned before, we are both Jewish and we didn’t even want our families to know we got someone not Jewish, none the less a Christian Pastor to conduct our ceremony. He was well worth it. We asked him to keep the ceremony completely non denominational, to have no mention of Christ or Church or anything else. He was completely respectful of this request and kept it totally religion free. He was even willing to incorporate the one Jewish tradition we wanted, the breaking of the glass. That was a nice touch. Needless to say, because of him and the beauty of the words he speaks, at the vow section of our ceremony, I was in tears. So were most of our guests. He got them involved in a section asking for them to commit “we do” to supporting us and loving us as a couple and as a family. Everyone enjoyed that aspect. His fee is $300 and the resort charges $90 as a vendor fee to have him there. He donates his portion to families, and projects in the community so it was a pleasure even having him there.

4) Photo Phil Steingard- this man is AWESOME! No other words. Best decision we made. We met with him ahead of time for a little while because we were flying in our cinematographers and they would be working together. We thought it would be important for them to meet, feel out one another’s styles, and to make a plan for the day ahead because they would be in each other’s way otherwise. Phil was TOTALLY open and willing to work and share ideas with my video couple. If it weren’t for Phil, I would have no idea what was supposed to happen the day of the wedding. We had exchanged a few phone calls when I was back home, but this meeting was great for finalizing everything. He was like a stand in wedding coordinator and I loved having him there. He met with the guys early in the morning to take all sorts of cool pics (haven’t seen them yet but he shows you his progress as he goes right on the camera and the hubby says they were GREAT)! He came by my room just after the salon and took detail photos and pics of me with the dress. He then orchestrated the “meeting” between my hubby and I at the bottom of the lobby grand staircase. It was emotional and beautiful and of course I shook and cried like a little child. The hubby teared up too.  In fact I don’t think there was a single dry eye in the room. It was beautiful. He then took us to take some shots around the resort. I was a huge fan of utilizing the golf carts- if you ask them they order them for you. My dress was really tight and tough to walk in because it flared like crazy at the bottom. Also, it was a hot day and I was in full make up and hair get-up so this helped control the sweat factor. We took pics all over and headed back to the room and then reunited at  the ceremony. After the ceremony Phil took our whole group to a little area with a lot of greenery to  take group shots with all the different families that made up our party. He joked with guests and got them to laugh and smile at all points of the evening. The man has so much wit and charm and charisma, its hard not to laugh around him. At the reception Phil was part of the party, getting down with guests, keeping everyone chatted up and entertained all night long. It was so great to have him there. He was BFF’s with everyone there by the end of the night and even shared a few dances with our guests. He posed everyone and made the process of picture taking a blast. We met Phil two days after the wedding for our TTD. Our cinematographers chose to do a separate TTD the day following the wedding because the tools and shots they need are so different from Phil’s shots. Phil was totally understanding and was the first one to suggest this arrangement. During Phil’s TTD, he took us around the resort property to catch up with some shots he missed on the day of because of time constraints. We trashed in a jungle type of area just minutes from the resort (walking distance). It was a really cool day so we were lucky with that. We continued to trash on the beach. Phil was great at giving direction and using light to create some awesome shots. I asked for a few more up close face shots and Phil reassured us that there would be plenty. I haven’t received our photos yet since we only got back days ago, but I am confident that they will be gorgeous.

3) Cocktail hour:
After our champagne toast, our photographer Phil had our guests take some group shots near the Elegance Club building. After some guests got wet because the Colonial sprinklers went on, guests were told to go to the cocktail hour on the Sea and Sea terrace. At our preliminary meeting, we had to choose from a list of hors' deurves and decided on approximately 9-10 selections from the cold, hot and premium list. We were told that the selections would be 3 pieces per person for each. Naturally we thought this would be sufficient. We were notified by guests that they quickly ran out of food. When I asked how this was possible- I was told there simply wasn't enough. My sister took photos of the event and showed me photos from cocktail hour. There are clearly not 3 pieces per person- there were plates with only one piece per person. Not particularly happy about that as we paid $1.50 - $3.00 usd for one person for one appetizer, or approximately $20 usd per person for this service. This is an issue I would take up with them later but no one was available due to holidays. I am yet to sort it out with them. A food photo:

We got a few items from the cold, hot, and premium selection. The shrimp and caviar things were yummy (as I was told), the puff pastrys or I think they called them samosas with mushrooms were EMPTY- nothing inside them… just dough… so I guess it depends on what you get.

Our signature drink, the Coco Loco was presented beautifully and the guests found it to be refreshing and light for the hot late afternoon. The water we had prepared was ready and available to guests throughout the cocktail hour. Photos above.

Note- if you guys are going with having a private reception and cocktail hour, make sure someone you trust is there and knows what is going on (quantity of food that should be there, how you wanted everything) just to speak up for you if things are off. We wanted the entire experience to be a surprise to our guests so they had no idea if something was missing - until they quickly ran out of food and approached me at the reception to ask because I had been raving earlier about the quantity of food that would be there. The hub’s and I were off takings pics so neither of us could control the situation. Assign someone a leadership role to monitor things and to get your guests to the reception on time so they don’t stand around like mine did.

At the time of the cocktail hour, my husband and I were on the beach taking photos. When we returned for our 6:30-7:00 reception at 7:05pm, I was shocked to see that guests were standing around on the terrace uncertain of where to go or what to do. Again, my husband had to approach someone and tell guests that they had to go down to the beach for the reception and to be seated so we could make our entrance. My husband’s brother came to him and my husband told him to get the guests and direct them downstairs. We didn’t see our wedding coordinator by the terrace, though she came by when we were hiding from our guests ready to be introduced by DJ Mannia. The inefficiency in transitions and direction was extremely bothersome the entire evening.

Guests made their way down after my husband and his brother told them where to go and we made our entrance.

3) The reception:

The setup was BEAUTIFUL. Our coordinator copied exactly what we wanted for the centerpieces, I couldn't be happier(I brought pictures of how I wanted centerpieces and I clearly explained how I wanted my vases and candles set up). I asked for a tropical flower- preferably a  pink or purple orchid to be submerged into the mid sized vases with the floating candle. This was executed beautifully. I also asked for three of these mid sized vases to surround the center vase and to have five of the small votive vases (2x3 sized ivory votives) to be on the table.  I wasn't sure why she didn't use all the vases or candles we gave her when we first met- but regardless it was gorgeous (she only put 3 of the small ones too). I brought 36 candles and 20 vases, so there were more than enough to use and I could have found a ton of places to put them since I specifically told her “I want candles EVERYWHERE”. It was still gorgeous and guests were raving all night about the set up and how they didn’t expect it to be so beautiful. They noticed all the little details.  
The menu cards and table runners and set up couldn't be more gorgeous, however, the menu has a few misspellings (which were unfortunate considering people would like to think of their wedding day as perfect, and a lot of money was put into this to make sure everything is great). I’ve attached pics of everything below, but these are the mistakes I noticed right away:
a) It says “staters” instead of “starters”
b) It says “Lobster grilled with clarified lobster” – what does that mean?? I think its supposed to say clarified butter.

I could tell the menu cards were done by hand (there was a bit of glue peeking through) but they were pretty and the color matched perfectly.

By the way, I hate those awful styrofoam swans!!!!!

At the beginning of the reception, our coordinator had left the party under the direction of a guy whose name I will not mention (will speak more of him shortly).

This is where the service aspect of the wedding was just WAY OFF. The reception started out beautifully and we had a great time. However, some things were bothersome: servers sitting around not doing anything, guests having to go out of their way to ask for water refills, vodka (which we brought). There was a tree nearby where the workers sat, and when somebody would come up to the bar area, they would jump up and run to the bar to help out. At the end of the evening, I approached the gentleman directly to ask about fruit platters as I discovered that there was a sweet table with cake and other stuff but no fruit or coffee/tea anywhere. The first time I asked him, he pretended he didn't hear. The second time I asked him, he clearly wasn't listening as he was standing there and STARING AT MY CHEST. The third time I asked, I got frustrated and said "You are not going to find the damn fruit down my chest- I promise you". I got annoyed, walked away and told my hubby what had happened. When he approached the guy for the fruit and coffee, it was brought out. It’s a good thing my husband speaks enough Spanish for them to understand what we wanted, but the language barrier was there and it was uncomfortable. My husband tipped each server, the chef, and the guy toward the end of the night to encourage them to work to a standard of service that we expected. We understand they work many hours, and had no problem with tipping them. However, this did little to encourage anyone because in the end of the evening, my husband asked for 5 plastic plates to be brought out so some of our guests could take cake back to their rooms. He received a lot of bad attitude for that. After about 5 minutes, 5 plates were brought out. My mother-in-law and I stood by the cake to wait for a piece to be cut. The guy was in a bad mood or pissed that we had asked for plates after 11 pm (it was 11:15pm)- so he proceeds to slam the cake knife in to the cake, angrily pulls out huge messy slices and slams them down on the plates. He then takes each plate and shoves them at my mother in law saying "here, here, you want cake, take cake- here’s two plates, you wanted five- take all of them!"  This happened right in front of me so I remember it clearly. I got particularly aggravated at this point because my mother-in-law was the one who suggested we even stay at Majestic. She had stayed three years earlier and had a fantastic time. This time was nothing but aggravation and poor service. Nasty servers and bad attitude really tainted this wedding experience. My husband went as far as to incorporate the servers into the party, not only tipping them but also giving them shots of vodka we brought with us because they asked for it. They gave him a plastic cup and asked him to fill it up half way for them to take turns to drink. My husband is a nice guy, and wanted them to enjoy each other also, and this was right after 11pm, so he agreed to do it. The staff was very happy to drink our vodka.

Regardless though, our guests danced and ate all night long and for buffet food it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be. The mushroom soup was thick, but tasty. The seafood soup I didn’t try. The Caesar salad was ok, and I didn’t try the salmon and caper salad. The meat from the carving station was terribly dry- even my hubby who has NEVER said no to a piece of beef, passed that one up. I heard from guests that the potato gratin was really good. The lobster was a little cold and dry for my liking, but not bad. I don’t really remember much else as I was up boogying away all night. I heard the mahi mahi was really good and I think I had a bite of chicken and it was ok.

Our wedding cake was YUM. It was done neatly because I begged our coordinator to make sure it was straight and that the butter cream wasn’t wavy and uneven like I had seen in pictures that others had posted. It was perfect- clean, pretty, and very tasty. We got chocolate with strawberry filling. Our guests enjoyed it. (Since this cake was not part of the package, we paid extra for the flowers).
See above!

4)DJ Mannia: Very kind, understanding guy. What a trooper he is. We have that whole Russian Jewish aspect of our experience that complicated his job a bit. We were in contact before and he told us to get together a list of 65 -70 songs that we wanted (Russian ones). He reassured us he had done Russian and Jewish weddings before and to just relax (a difficult feat for two control freaks). Anyway, we came up with a list, downloaded almost all the songs from YouTube, but were extremely concerned because of the quality of the songs. For example- some songs you could hear clapping in the beginning or end of the song and we had no idea how to edit it out. We stuck all the songs on a flash drive, met with DJ Mannia on the day we arrived and he was so calm, considerate and reassuring. He even assured my hubby that he would come up with the music for a Hora, because we had difficulty finding one and it is an extremely important aspect of any Jewish wedding. We also ordered a projector from him (6x6 but it looked smaller) as well as a light up dance floor ( I think 12x12- ~30 people can fit on it). On the day of the event, the dance floor was AWESOME. Our guests were so impressed and excited to get on it. Our entry song was a bit weird because it took a while to get into the chorus (I got a feeling that tonights gonna be a good night)- but it could just have felt that way because the second the music came on we came out- we were worried about timing because of the poor transition between cocktail hour and the reception so we just wanted to get out. The rest of the evening was smooth sailing. DJ Mannia played a ton of the songs we had on our list and filled the gaps where he thought they needed filling, also the MIXING was PHENOMENAL. The transitions between songs were great, he worked out all the little kinks we were worried about (cut parts with clapping). Our guests walked away asking us for CD copies of all the songs he played for us. EVERYONE WAS THRILLED. We also let him know that we wanted him to mix it up- 4 fast, 2 slow, one Italian song, one Russian, just to make sure he didn’t bunch them by type. I think he really listened through all the songs because they just fit almost naturally together… it was great.

5)Videographers/Cinematographers:  So, let me start by saying that we were initially supposed to work with Florian of VideoPuntaCana. He is extremely helpful and responds to emails quickly. His work is nice and some of the best I have seen in Punta Cana (I really shopped around). We had Florian booked up until about two weeks before we left and we found out that our good friends would be able to come. They happen to be AMAZING cinematographers. We flew them out because we wanted them desperately and they were available (not very common). We let Florian know that we would be changing our plans and he was SO understanding and nice about it. No hurt feelings or angry business talk. He was awesome and extremely professional.

Our cinematographers are a fairly new company called VISUALAZ from New York. They are by no means a steal in terms of cost but you get what you pay for. Their work is unbelievable. The amount of time they devoted to us there to capture our story was ridiculous. They worked from the moment they set foot off the plane. I was worried about whether they were eating and sleeping!! They brought a ton of equipment (all used throughout the week). They worked with us the evening of their arrival, the entire day of the wedding, and the entire day after the wedding and when they left us  in the evenings, they went to go film time lapses of stuff like the moon and stars for our video. The quality of their work is impeccable. They are both absolute sweethearts and they just love what they do. The passion emanates from them every second of the day. They got down and dirty with us too, filming shots under water (which I was terrible at), in the pool, in the jungle, and anywhere else they saw a cool shot. Cinematography was THE MOST important thing for us since we both come from large families and important people like our grandmothers couldn’t make it to the Dominican Republic. We also didn’t want the typical 3 hour long documentary style film that spends an hour and a half capturing our guests dancing. We wanted it to be more of a story that captures the love we have for each other. It was just a different preference in style. We wanted to be able to send high lights of our film as thank you DVD’s.

We decided to work with them back home because they created our photo montage which was so cool. We played the montage at the reception on the screen that DJ Mannia brought for us. It was a big hit and very sentimental as it incorporated a lot of the guests who were there.

The cinematographers, Igor and Valerie, are a young couple- they are fresh , creative, full of ideas and willing to push the limits of their abilities- they were so much fun to work with. We really enjoyed them in their professional capacity and as friends.  I would HIGHLY recommend them to the brides out there willing to put in the extra money for quality video. Keep in mind you will have to fly them in, put them in the same hotel, and provide for their transportation to and from the airport, as well as their service fee. I would give these guys rave reviews! They are a 100 on a scale of 1 to 10.  Check them out here: http://visualaz.com/