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Hello Brides!! My fiancé and I are getting married at the Grand Palladium Vallarta Resort & Spa in November 2016! We have put down deposits and have a couple of decisions left to make for now. I was hoping for some input from others who have had a wedding here, attended one, or any advice in general about destination weddings would OF COURSE be super helpful Right now we are trying to decide on whether to have a private dinner or stick with the "semi-private" option that is included in the wedding package. I'm wondering if any of you have input on either option, and whether it's worth it to pay the extra fee for the private. If you have had your wedding here, and did the semi-private, any input as to what that was like would be wonderful! I'm just not sure what to expect!! Thanks in advance, and i look forward to hearing from you all!!

Hi ladies, I have been checking off a lot of things on my to-do list lately but one item that keeps coming up is the Grooms Gift the day of the wedding day. I am starting to write my letter to him but I'm trying to think of a fun gift. He loves, loves, loves watches so I'm thinking of going that route but I wanted to hear what you ladies are doing or have done. I know there are tons of threads but I wanted to hear more recent ideas and maybe inspire some of our newer brides out there! @@TinkerSofi @ @@calgarybride2015 @@Wafflesmom @@snswedding2016 @@beckys98

Hello Everyone, Can you all suggest me some beautiful summer beach wedding dress which should be in trend 2015 for my childhood friend. Her height is 5'3 inch and little fatty too.

So I'm seriously considering getting the "tape in" hair extensions prior to the wedding because of my fine, flat hair. My stylist said she will install them for a decent price, and they are said to last almost 3 months after installation. I was thinking of having them install about two weeks before and have them colored the same time. I also bought a groupon for a Brazilian Blowout, so not sure when I should do that (before or after the hair extensions) Has anyone tried these? How many weeks prior to the wedding did you have them placed? Were they annoying? Worth the cost? Discuss.

Hello! I was wondering if anyone planned a farewell breakfast, lunch or brunch on the resort after the wedding. I'd like to do something to thank guests for coming to the wedding face to face but would like to avoid the cost of another formal event especially since we're staying at an all inclusive. I was thinking the buffet but my concern is that we'll likely be 30-35 people and I know that you can't get reservations at Now Larimar. I'd like everyone to be able to sit together. Has anyone come up with a creative solution? Thank you!

Hi ladies, I just got back from my wedding site visit at the Hard Rock Riviera Maya. I'm posting my review that I also just put up on Trip Advisor as I had a really hard time finding any information on a wedding review of this resort in particular before I visited. I'd like to know if anyone is having the same experiences as I am or have had to this point. Particularly with the home office in Miami. I'm dealing with Andrea Perez and she's awful. To be honest, if my deposit wasn't already paid to this resort and 40 guests room deposits already paid, I would probably move elsewhere. Whilst the actual venues to get married are much nicer than other resorts and a bit more private (eg- the palapas over the water vs a gazebo right in the pool area), I'm not sure it's worth all of the aggrevation I am going through just trying to get finalized costs and a contract to sign to move this wedding forward! We have guests attending from 4 different continents and that's stressful enough to deal with! I don't need the added stress of problems occurring in the run up to my wedding or worse, day of! I would also post pictures but unfortunately, my husband got into the hot tub with his iPhone in his bathing suit pocket and, well... good bye all pictures we had taken! Even the rice bag trick didn't work. The phone is fried. Thanks. Here's my review... We visited this resort for 4 nights just prior to Easter for our wedding site inspection. We booked this resort for our wedding this coming July without having previously visited or seen the resort firsthand and went off pictures from the internet and the recommendation from a travel agent based on our needs/wants. This resort needs to step it up in the service department majorly! Across the board, the service we received at times was appalling and downright rude. We're due to have our wedding here in July 2015 with approximately 40-50 guests in attendance and I wish I could change resorts. But unfortunately, we're too far down the line with planning and room deposits to switch so we'll have to make do. In comparison to our experience at this resort, prior to arriving at the Hard Rock, we spent 3 nights at the Excellence Riviera Cancun where the staff and service were, well... excellent! It was such a let down to then arrive at the Hard Rock and to be let down from the get go. Here's our experience... Check in: We rented a car and drove ourselves to the resort. The bell hops met us at our car and unloaded our luggage promptly and took the car via valet (free parking). So far, so good. We were offered a glass of some neon blue (non-alcoholic) drink as we walked in. It's disgusting. Took one sip and put it down. In comparison, we were offered a glass of champagne AND a cold wash cloth at the Excellence. The check in desk is chaos. They don't have enough personnel behind the desk to keep up with guest demand at peak times. We were about the 3rd group in line and waited about 30 minutes to get to the desk for our turn. We were checked in, told our room wasn't ready but were being upgraded (score!) and to come back in about 15 minutes for our key. Fine. We were fitted with bracelets and given a photocopied map of the resort. That was it. No explanation of the map (which isn't very clear or big and a bit difficult to read), not direction to go to the bar up the hallway if we wanted a drink, nothing. We felt a bit lost and were already feeling a bit put off given how well we were treated at the Excellence only 2 hours earlier. We came back about 15 minutes later, got our key and room number but given no other information. I had to ask what we were meant to do, if the bell hop was going to bring our bags up, if we had to go get the bags, etc. It was all very confusing and annoying that the desk staff didn't seem to go out of their way to explain anything. We also realized that we had different colored bracelets than most people and it was only after we met with our on-site wedding planner the next day, Natalia, that we found out these were VIP bracelets. Wouldn't that be something the check in desk should have told us?? Weirdly, where our room was (8325), there wasn't an elevator located near by, but the stairs were right there. So the bell hop wound up carrying all our bags up the flights of stairs. It was all very strange. The room: It was just okay. The rooms are definitely on the small side. It was nice to be upgraded from a garden room to a sky terrace room (which we've also booked for our wedding in July). However, they gave us what I call a half terrace room in which it only has 2 chairs and a hot tub upstairs. The other terrace rooms we saw across the way had a bathroom, 2 lounge chairs and an 8 person table and chairs in addition to the hot tub. Not sure why they skimped and gave us a room that didn't have all the amenities they advertise for the sky terrace category?? The mini bar was a bit of a let down. The Excellence gave us bottles of wine, snacks such as Oreos and Snickers bars, etc. The Hard Rock just gave the basics in terms of drinks (coke, diet coke, juice, water and beers). Weirdly, they give 2 cans of Dos XX and 2 cans of Tecate light. I was pretty surprised by the Tecate light as this is pretty cheap beer and I wouldn't think the Hard Rock, with the prices they charge, would cheap out on the mini bar and top it up with this cheap stuff. In comparison, the Excellence gave us 4 nips bottles of Corona and 4 cans of Corona light. On the 2nd day, the mini bar filler came around whilst we were still in the room. He told my husband he would come back but when we came back after a long day at the beach, he never did. We called to have the mini bar refilled (the book says you can call any time for a refill on the mini bar) and were given a bit of attitude by the operator who told us they had completed all of the mini bar refills for the day. Eventually they came and refilled it that evening but not with everything we had used. The coffee and coffee maker were fine. Annoyingly, they never gave us any brown sugar which my husband likes. I kept thinking they would fill it up each morning and include what was missing but they never did. The iron and ironing board were bad. The ironing board cover was very worn and threadbare. The iron barely worked and dripped hot water all over my husbands foot when he tried to use it. We didn't try to use it again after that. Bathroom toiletries were fine. Basics were there. What was nice at the Excellence is that they also offered a toothbrush travel size Colgate toothpaste which I thought was an extra nice touch that perhaps the Hard Rock could take on. We had an issue with the toilet in our room from day 1. You would flush it but then the toilet would keep running. We called maintenance who came up the next morning whilst we were out and 'fixed' it. Unfortunately, it still wasn't fixed and required another call to maintenance. We finally gave up after the third call and just gave the handle a jiggle to make it stop running. Housekeeping was hit or miss. They only give you the bare necessity number of towels. So we only had 2 at any given time. What was extra annoying was that we had the roof terrace with hot tub but were never given any towels for the hot tub! We looked across at other similar rooms, all which had 2 rolled up towels next to the hot tub. We called housekeeping who very rudely interrupted us when we were requesting towels to say that they should already be up there. We told her there were none and we would like some but they never showed up. Not at all during the 4 nights we stayed there. We finally started getting them from the pool towel hut. Beds were comfortable and pillows fine. Pools: We didn't spend much time at the pools. This is primarily because the hacienda side pool was teeming with children who weren't really being supervised by their parents and on the heaven side, I was taken back about 12 years to my college spring break days with booty dancing competitions, which wasn't really the atmosphere we were looking for either. My husband walked through the Heaven pool side to go get us drinks and some drunk girl who was up dancing decided to slap him on the rear end as he walked by and then her equally drunk friend decided to slap him in the privates! I mean, really out of control. What is wrong with these people?! And what is wrong with the bar staff that continue to serve them or the fact that none of the staff around the pool/DJ area said anything to these girls?! Beach: We spent most of our time at the VIP beach on the hacienda side. Primarily because it actually had shade (the Hard Rock must want people to have heat stroke with the lack of shade/umbrellas they provide) and because it was less chaotic than the pools or regular beach. The sand is pretty awful. Rocky and can sometimes hurt your feet. Not powdery at all. The swimming was fine. There was great snorkeling right in the protected coves off the beach. We saw plenty of fish, including 2 resident barracudas and a baby barracuda. The grounds: Can be pretty appalling in some instances. We were shocked at how poorly the grounds were made or put together in some places. There is a giant pool that sticks up in the middle of the sidewalk in one area (not sure what it's purpose is), but someone ripped it out of the ground and threw it to the side. That evening, we were walking to the Heaven side and I nearly broke my ankle because it was dark and I didn't see this 6 inch wide hole in the ground. Another time, walking through this large courtyard area where they seem to hold concerts or team building exercises, we came across a giant pile of rusty screws. Just lying there right in the middle of the walk way. No idea how they got there or why. I saw a spotlight type light, meant to illuminate a tree just ripped out of the ground and thrown to the side with the electrical wires still hanging out the bottom of it. There also seemed to be quite a bit of trash thrown about. Presumably by drunk guests who have no class and throw their garbage anywhere they like. There were cracked tiles in some of the floor areas and the inside of the one elevator ride we did take was disgusting. Fingerprints everywhere and the wallpaper like covering they had over the glass window side of the elevator was half ripped off and torn to shreds. Really bad looking. Bar/restaurants: The restaurants on the heaven side are leaps and bounds better than on the Hacienda side. The Brazilian on the Hacienda side was so so. We found the cuts of meat were not the best and they were quite fatty with veins running through the meat. We had a third plate on the table which we dedicated just for dumping fatty pieces of meat that we didn't want to eat. By the end of our dinner, this plate was overflowing. The Italian and French on the Heaven side were excellent, as was the service. Really top notch. The Mexican on the Heaven side was equally good. The pool bar food on either side is disgusting. Don't bother ordering chicken wings. They are horrible and forget blue cheese. I'm not really sure what they put on our plate. It was white and very runny but really had no cheese. The lunch is just so so. No matter which restaurant you go to, it's primarily the same buffet food. We had lunch at El Toro one day, and they'll put meat on the grill for you... don't bother with this. The meat is cooked burnt on the outside and then raw on the inside. What would be good is if there is somewhere you could go that just had plain salads or chicken wraps or club sandwiches. These are all on the room service menu but annoyingly, you can't order it anywhere at the pools or restaurants for lunch. The breakfast is decent. Lots of choice, you won't go hungry. We ate one morning in the Hacienda side Mexican restaurant which is reserved for VIP or timeshare sales. You should avoid. It's noisy and there's not enough room at the food station. It's annoying listening to the reps constantly trying to sell other guests on these timeshares and the waiter service is crap. We were nearly done with our breakfast before they came around offering coffee and practically left before they brought it to the table. We watched other guests just get up and walk over to the coffee service station and serve themselves rather than wait. In hindsight, we should have just done this. The bar service at both pool bars is terrible. Our first day, first drink we went to go get, we went to the Heaven pool bar. It's chaotic and you're not really sure where to stand or where to order. We finally, after 10 minutes, managed to get the bartenders attention to order our drinks. He never said hello, never smiled. In fact, he seemed downright annoyed we wanted to order drinks. He started walking away before I had even finished telling him what we wanted. I had to call him back over and then tried to hand him our 2 insulated mugs which he rudely just replied 'take off the covers'. We stood there gobsmacked. The very first drink we try to order and this is how we're treated?! So rude. He couldn't have been less bothered to help us. We found this to be the case most of the time at both pool bars on either side of the resort- chaotic, never know where to stand to order, and bad and sometimes downright rude service. On the flip side, the 2 gentleman waiters who brought the food/drinks back and forth on the VIP beach Hacienda side were wonderful. Energetic and always had a smile. We didn't mind tipping them because they worked so hard and were very grateful. Overall in terms of service, with the exception of the VIP beach servers and the servers we had at the italian, french and Heaven side Mexican restaurants, the service is terrible at this resort. Never smiled at, ignored most of the time and it almost seemed like they were annoyed when you would interrupt their casual conversation among each other if you needed anything. As a comparison, at the Excellence, no matter which member of staff you passed walking by- a bartender, bell hop, chambermaid, someone changing a light bulb, they ALWAYS stopped what they were doing, looked at you and gave a friendly 'hola' with a smile, Now that's the kind of service and staff I like to see! Not these morbid mopes who look absolutely miserable. Wedding on-site coordinator: Natalia saved this trip for us. She was great. Met us in the hacienda lobby the 2nd morning we were there, gave us a tour of the entire resort, told us we had VIP bracelets, answered all of our questions, showed us all of the wedding venue options at the resort. She is the only reason we are still having our wedding here. She provided me with some reassurance that this wedding with my 40 guests won't be a complete disaster. Especially as the service in the 'home office' in Miami is terrible. Our contact in that office is horrific. The information she provides and the quotes based on our requests are not organized, hard to follow and come in drips and drabs in different emails. I've finally told my WOW (not sure what this stands for but these are travel agents who are Hard Rock specialists) wedding travel agent in NY to deal with her as I could no longer without losing my cool. So I've basically cut off all communication with this woman in Miami which is not good considering this is the woman who needs to put my contract together and final costs before anything can move forward at the resort itself. But honestly, I've given this woman everything she could possibly need to quote my wedding, including my own 20 page look book with picture examples of exactly what I want everything to look like from the flowers to the table setting to the papel picado hanging over the dance floor. And she still tells me she doesn't know what I want. It's unbelievable. There are also fees for setting up in different locations, fees if you want them to place a program on each chair, fees for everything. So she includes line items for set up fees in my quotes, but it's not clear to me what is included in these line items! All very confusing. We also found the Hard Rock contracted vendors to be wildly overpriced so we are actually bringing in outside vendors for multiple things such as the flowers, DJ, photographer, hair/make up, etc. Even with the $500 outside vendor fee per vendor, it still works out cheaper. Hard Rock needs to make their prices with their vendors more competitive if they want to retain the business! Our budget for this wedding is about $15k and at least half of that is going to be with outside vendors, if not more. Also incredibly annoying is that we're staying a total of 10 nights for our wedding. We are getting 7 nights 'comped' due to our wedding guests, HOWEVER, we are paying a good sum of money to upgrade to the Sky Terrace Suite room (comped rooms only go up to platinum room category) and are paying full price for the last 3 nights. Because of the 'comped' room rate for 7 nights, we only earn 3 nights worth of resort credit, which is $500. The inflated prices they charge for the resort credit activities, we can hardly do anything, which really doesn't seem fair that we're the bride and groom and are bringing all of this business to the resort and we get the least amount of resort credit out of all our guests? Just doesn't seem right. We want to have as good a time as everyone else and we won't be able to do everything we want to because of this. I can understand if we weren't paying to upgrade on those 7 nights, but we should at least earn something for the money we're paying above and beyond the comp rate. So that's it really. Did we have the worst time? No. But would I return if I didn't have to for my wedding or another vacation? No. There are less expensive resorts that are much nicer and where the service is much better. I think you're paying for the Hard Rock name here and it's just not worth it. Sorry, one last thing... we are not going with a Colin Cowie set up for our wedding. For the price they charge and the fact that you can't change a single thing about the design (even if you want to use real flowers vs fake flowers they have in some of the packages) it's simply not worth it. This was confirmed when I saw the black and white themed set up on the beach. It looked pathetic. I felt so sorry for the bride and groom. The chuppah looking thing with the crystals hanging down looked like it had seen better days. It was rickety and cheap looking and looked like it was about to fall down. The hooks with the glass balls of flowers lining the aisle looked drab. Save your money on these Colin Cowie packages ladies and just go with the complimentary wedding and pay to customize. You'll be much happier! This way you can get the colors you want, the flowers you want and don't have tacky crystals hanging everywhere.

Hey Guys, I was just wondering Who is the best DJ in UK? Or how to determine the best Wedding band?

We got married at the Grand Sunset Princess on June 20th, 2015. The majority of our guests stayed at the Platinum Yucatan Princess hotel (adults only) but the wedding took place at the resort next door. We had two families attend with their children. Guests staying at the Platinum Yucatan Princess have access to all three Princess hotels. It was a perfect day. I’m struggling to combine the right words to accurately express how blessed, grateful and elated we feel. We keep replaying our wedding week in our heads and we know that it was a unique, epic, ‘once in a lifetime’ event that we will never forget. I truly enjoyed myself. I was in the moment and as everything was happening around me I knew it was an epic experience. I took in all the love and really felt it. A few days to ourselves June 13-17 We decided to leave a few days before the group and I can’t say this enough, but it’s honestly the best thing one could do. We had time to unpack, set up, meet with vendors, run some errands. When our guests arrived we were ready for them and were ready to spend time with them. I can’t even imagine arriving at the same time. I would feel like I was constantly trying to catch up. Sunwing Vacations We were lucky that they cancelled our Sunday flight and rescheduled it to the Sat June 13th. We stayed one extra night at the resort courtesy of Sunwing! Yay! Our group rate for our guests with a price drop was $1250 double occupancy. The rooms were gorgeous and our guests were very happy. We received 1 free trip for every 10 people. We ended up receiving two free stays. Since we stayed for 11 days and upgraded our rooms we ended up paying a difference of $1600 for both us. Well worth it though. We received a free upgrade to Elite Class which included 30kg each + 20kg each just incase. Our travel agent was able to negotiate this for us. It helped us out a lot indeed. PACKING We ended up bringing with us 4 luggages, 2 large carryons, suit, dress, and my sister brought 1 luggage for us an another BM brought another luggage for us. NOTHING BROKE!!!!! And we didn’t lose anything. We cleared customs just fine. We got the green light, literally, and off we went to the resort. All my tumbler packing tips I received from @@calgarybride2015 CHECK IN We were so impressed with the hotel when we arrived. It was so pretty and luxurious. Our check in went smoothy and the concierge staff was really excited for us as they knew we were getting married. They upgraded our room by one category. The hotel was fully booked the entire time we were there. My sister also travelled with us and she booked a swimout platinum room. The room was stunning. Her room was ready as soon as we checked in at 10am. Our room was ready at 3pm. We left our bags in her room and went over to the buffet. We checked in on June 13th and the rest of our guests check in June 17th. Nobody had any issues with their rooms. Nobody had to make any changes. It worked out perfectly. The guests that were there for R&R somehow got the rooms with the swimouts that were further away from the party pool. The party crowd had the rooms close to the party pool. Our group was quite loud. The resort suddenly had life when our group arrived. The nice thing about the rooms close to the party pool is that you couldn’t hear anything when your balcony door was closed. Tropical Storm The day we arrived it was raining non-stop. The pilot announced that it was a little misty and that it would clear up by the afternoon. I think the pilot just wanted to make us happy and get us off the plane because that was far from the truth. The storm was actually a tropical storm category 1. It lasted from Saturday until about Monday night-ish. There was no escaping the storm either. We tried to drive out to Tulum and it was even worse there. We started getting nervous because everyone said that usually the rain passes but that this actually very strange. The staff at the hotel kept saying that it hadn’t rained for weeks prior to this…all things I didn’t want to hear. I was nervous about our outdoor wedding events because I kept checking the forecast and it kept saying, rain, rain, rain, rain… I finally cried a bit on Sunday and decided to just let it go. We made sure to work on all the last minute details and ironed out the things we needed to get done. Monday: We met up with Katy from Love and Lace. We rented quite a few décor pieces from her to personalize our wedding reception look. She was extremely patient and easy to work with. I truly recommend working with her. We had 6 luggages with just our clothes, and gifts, and welcome bag items, I can’t imagine bringing décor too. Meeting with Wedding Coordinator We met with the wedding coordinator on the Tuesday and she was very nice. We went through all the details and it felt very official. She went through the décor details and a few details with our ceremony. We added a few things and added a bit of a script for a ceremony. We also asked the officiant to do a ceremony in Spanish and English. I didn’t translate my vows but we thought it would be nice to have the ceremony in English and Spanish. Finally the weather turned and it was nice and sunny. Welcome dinner: The majority of our guests arrived the Wednesday and we booked a welcome dinner at 6pm at the Mexican restaurant La Hacienda. Everyone came out. We were worried people would be tired and it would be too rushed but it worked out fine. We decided to bring all our welcome bags with us. My dad arrived late as he arrived a little later so we gave out the bags as we waited for him to come down. The food was delicious and the guests loved the bags. They were so impressed with the details and snacks. I think everyone’s favourite items were the snacks and the hangover kits. Handing over those bags was like handing over a newborn. We were so proud of them, people thought we totally over did it , but we were happy to be able to do that for our guests! J Some of additions in mexico were candies from Sam’s club, post cards, sabritas (chips). Welcome bag fails: I had ordered plastic hotel key covers from a vendor on ebay and instead of mailing me the covers, he sent me 1000 grommets. Ya, no. We purchased small bottles and made labels for aloe Vera and sun lotion. We thought that we would be able to find somewhere that carries bulk sun lotion and aloe…but no. They sold them in the smallest volumes and they were still pretty pricey and though they were stores outside of the typical tourist areas. TBC....

Hi All: We just locked in at Generations Riviera Maya for February 2015. Are there any others out there who are also getting married here? Hopefully so! I thought I would get a thread started to exchange ideas and help each other through the process since this is a new resort and we will be among their first weddings. 2014 Brides - please chime in if you are getting married in 2014.