Dreams Punta Cana Brides

[drbride83]

I also forgot to mention there is a great little shopping market a few minutes down the road from the resort. They sell a bunch of larimar, coral, and amber jewelery plus vanilla, mamajuana, and other items. If you are walking out the front entrance of the resort, turn to your right and it is a short 10 minute walk and it will be the first bunch of buildings you see on your right. You'll see a white building first (I think it's the police station), usually one of the vendors walks out to the road to greet you so that you come to their booth first. Pretty much all the booths have the same things so it's easy to get a good deal because they don't want you to leave their booth to go to the next if you don't agree with their price.

 

Just be sure if your buying larimar jewlery that you get them to burn it first so you know it's not fake. We asked them to do this at the market and they didn't have a problem with doing it. A friend of ours was sold fake larimar from the vendors on the resort.

[Shelly21]

Thanks for the info drbride83! and congrats to you!

Can you send me the beach setup please? I'm hoping to have my ceremony on the beach as well. Did you find the spectators a distraction at all?

Sorry to hear about the speedo guy...I can't believe people have the nerve to do that!
 

Originally Posted by drbride83 

Hi Ladies,

 

We had the best time, you will love the resort! Here is a recap of the wedding stuff went, it will probably be somewhat randomly since I'm pretty tired. Message me if you have other questions and I will try to answer them. I have pictures of all the terraces (not set up for weddings), and the huppa beach set up so let me know if you want to see them.

 

Arrival/Meeting:

We meet with Carolina the day after we got there, the wedding coordinators office is just around the corner from the reception desk near the cash exchange window. When you arrive for your meeting go right in and knock on the inside door, we didn't see the sign on the inside at first so we were waiting outside for a little bit. This meeting took about 30 minutes and we just went over everything we had emailed about and more and reconfirmed it all plus we added more things. She also let me know the time of our hair hair/nail appts at this meeting. Carolina also told us to bring all of our stuff to her office the morning of the wedding. Carolina was really great to work with and really nice and knows what she is doing, so don't stress about it, everything will be taken care of in this meeting.

 

**We had requested a room for the groom for the night before the wedding and we were told we could pick up the key on Sunday after 4 and had to return it the next morning. We didn't end up using the room though because it smelled pretty moldy (which is common given the climate) probably because it was a handicap room and hadn't been rented out much so it wasn't aired out. It wasn't that big of a deal to us, as I just slept in one of my bm's room instead.**

 

Ceremony (Gazebo):

We got ready in our room, and Carolina brought us the flowers about an hour before the ceremony. After we got the flowers someone dropped off the bill for the wedding ( the amount was what we expected it to be, so there were no surprises). We then met Carolina outside and she brought us over to the lobby and explained how everything would go. We didn't think to bring music to play while the guests waited for us to arrive, but Carolina had some on her ipod and played that which we thought was great.

 

The only really annoying thing (which had nothing to do with the resort or staff) was that some guy in a speedo walks right through the procession and cuts in front of my MOH mid walk! He could totally see it was a wedding because I watched him stop for a second beside another couple that waited for us then decide he had time to walk between my BM and MOH through he obviously didn`t walk fast enough because my MOH had to stop for a second as he cut her off. Other than that the ceremony was great, but some guests had trouble hearing us, since we weren't speaking loud enough to get our voices picked up by Carolina's microphone. Also sometimes the poles in the gazebo can partially block views of the BM's and GM's but they set up the chairs so this doesn't happen much.

 

Reception (Portofino):

Carolina met us out front of the Oceana restaurant (stairs to go up to Portofino are beside the bar in the Oceana restaurant). The view on the terrace is amazing, all our guests loved it as they hadn't been up there yet, and there was a fantastic breeze up there which is a lifesaver when you're wearing your dress!

 

Just to answer the question of one of the other girls here, the terrace is not exactly private because you actually only get half the terrace/bar and the other half is for the guests waiting to get into the Portofino restaurant. It makes sense though that you can't deprive the other paying guests at the resort use of the terrace/bar, but it would be nice if the staff told them to be quieter as there is a wedding reception going on as we are also paying alot of extra money to use this space as well. There was one group of people that were really loud during our speeches and someone had to get up and ask them to be quiet which they did once they were told it was a wedding reception. 

 

To divide the space they set up some palm tree leaves as wall barrier between the reception and waiting area for the restaurant, but you could walk around either side of it and see into the reception. No matter which terrace your reception is on you'll have people who can see the reception, this one is the only one where it seems they are quite close by though, but everything else about the terrace makes it worth it!

 

Food:

*Most of the food we had picked happened to be available at the World Cafe so whenever I saw something on our menu I tried it out. The food at this resort is fantastic! All our guests loved it, no matter where they were eating.

 

Assorted Dominican Appetizers (meat turnovers, chicken wings, etc) - these were good especially if you have people who are picky eaters, but I would probably try something different if you can since you can get these at the World Cafe and at the Oceana restaurant during the day.

 

Dominican Sancocho (Meat Stew) - This was soooo good! Everyone loved it.

 

Chicken Cordon Blue - Very Good!

 

Kahlua Flan - Good, most guests ate it, but I did see a few plates that hadn't been touched but maybe some people might not like flan.

 

Wedding Cake - Very Good. We ordered cake for 30 which fed 37 people.

 

Reception Dancing:

Dinner went on longer than we expected but we still had time to do our first dance plus the other parent dances and play some dance songs before our three hours ran out. We rented a sound system and used our Ipod then went to the disco after the reception. We did have to slide the head table back to make more room on the dance floor.

 

All in all us and our guests had a great time, and would do it all over again the same way. Carolina was great, she came over a few times to make sure everything was going how we wanted it, and the rests of the staff were wonderful as well. I hope this helps ladies and best wishes for your wedding day  

 

[MsClarke724]

Does anyone know about tax and gratuity?  I read that services are subject to 27% tax and gratuity.  However, the wedding coordinator assured me that the packages included tax and gratuity.  I was curious about the additional people I will pay for that are not included with the package (whether I would need . Any one have experience with this or have any input?  It would be much appreciated.

[drbride83]

We did the complimentary wedding package and then added on extras such as silver dinner package, sound system, etc. and there wasn't any extra tax or gratuity added onto anything in our bill and we had 37 people so we had over the package limit. We paid the $620 for the 20 people then paid $31 for each person after that. Kids were half price and they had chicken fingers and fries (might have been vegetables? I can't remember). We did still tip the wait staff and our wedding coordinator at the end of the night though because they did a great job.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by MsClarke724 

Does anyone know about tax and gratuity?  I read that services are subject to 27% tax and gratuity.  However, the wedding coordinator assured me that the packages included tax and gratuity.  I was curious about the additional people I will pay for that are not included with the package (whether I would need . Any one have experience with this or have any input?  It would be much appreciated.

 PM me your email address and I'll send it. I had my ceremony at the gazebo and after seeing both setups I would say the gazebo is much more private. I have photos of the beach set up from both directions (but it's not fully decorated as they were just setting it up when I was walking by). I personally didn't really like the location of it especially if you have to pay extra to have the ceremony on the beach because your right beside the water activity rental stand, it would have been nicer spaced farther away from there and from the beach chairs but maybe you can ask the coordinator to change the location. I didn't even notice the spectators at the gazebo ceremony once I started walking, the only place I noticed them was when they would look into the reception while they were waiting for their drink at the bar or when one couple walked into the reception not realizing it was a wedding but they quickly walked back out so it was funny.

Originally Posted by Shelly21 

Thanks for the info drbride83! and congrats to you!

Can you send me the beach setup please? I'm hoping to have my ceremony on the beach as well. Did you find the spectators a distraction at all?

Sorry to hear about the speedo guy...I can't believe people have the nerve to do that!
 

 

[soon2bmrspierce]

So my free save the date postcards came in the mail yesterday(yay!)...However I mispelld 2 words on the back(don't know how lol) and mom thinks I should redo but I don't think it's that big of deal.Would any of you ladies redo or send anyway?appreciate the feedback

[MsClarke724]

I would redo, but I think it is up to you.
 

Originally Posted by soon2bmrspierce 

So my free save the date postcards came in the mail yesterday(yay!)...However I mispelld 2 words on the back(don't know how lol) and mom thinks I should redo but I don't think it's that big of deal.Would any of you ladies redo or send anyway?appreciate the feedback

[soon2bmrspierce]

 

 

Originally Posted by MsClarke724 

 

 

I would redo, but I think it is up to you.

 

 

 

 Yea I'm thinking I will.I was just so excited to get them.lol

[soon2bmrspierce]

Group hotel booking or individual booking?What are you ladies doing for your travel plans?

[Shelly21]

I might redo depending on cost.

How noticeable is the error?
 

Originally Posted by soon2bmrspierce 

So my free save the date postcards came in the mail yesterday(yay!)...However I mispelld 2 words on the back(don't know how lol) and mom thinks I should redo but I don't think it's that big of deal.Would any of you ladies redo or send anyway?appreciate the feedback

[Shelly21]

I made group booking available, but guest have the option to book on their own if they don't like my pick. So far I think its about 50/50.

 

 

Originally Posted by soon2bmrspierce 

Group hotel booking or individual booking?What are you ladies doing for your travel plans?