ROYAL PLAYA DEL CARMEN BRIDES: were kids allowed for the day? ...and other questions

[JHarris]

It's almost time for our July Brides!!

 

YAY!!!!

 

This weekend I will do my review and post tons of pics! Let me know if you have any questions!

 

For all girls using Fernando and his hairstylist - they are super awesome and hilarious. We couldn't stop laughing or taking pics! I have a pic of him with my sister - classic Fernando! He is an artist. I arranged for my trial session to coincide with our rehearsal dinner. They even changed the hairstyles and look so it would be different. Everyone loved how my makeup and hair looked. He used colors on me that I never thought to use.

 

Marvin - From Maya Diseno: Flowers and centerpieces were amazing. He did a great job. You will not be sorry!! I'm not a fan of rose petals on the table but when I saw how he did mine, I actually liked it. It was tasteful and not cheesy looking. And yes I did pay for the vendor fee. I realized - why am I having us decorate tables? We should be getting ready, taking pics and having fun. Not working!!!

 

If you have your reception in the ballrooms, you will not regret it. It's a beautiful setup and the lighting is nice. Plus it's A/C!

 

I definitely recommend the Mexican trio. Basically they're mariachis. We had them play during our open bar cocktail reception in the area right outside the ballrooms. Everyone loved them. They were characters and hamming it up for the cameras.

 

Just know there will be little hiccups along the way but in the end it'll be perfect as you planned.

[deniden]

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by JHarris 

 

Marvin - From Maya Diseno: Flowers and centerpieces were amazing. He did a great job. You will not be sorry!! I'm not a fan of rose petals on the table but when I saw how he did mine, I actually liked it. It was tasteful and not cheesy looking. And yes I did pay for the vendor fee. I realized - why am I having us decorate tables? We should be getting ready, taking pics and having fun. Not working!!!

 

 

Did you have to pay the full $300 or $350 (I can't remember what it is right now) vendor fee for him to do the setup?

[JHarris]

Hi Deniden,

 

Well, I checked what they charged my card and it was $334. I think it was due to the exchange rate. Generally the vendor fee is $350. And I paid that for my makeup person.

 

I paid onsite but I had one of those travel cards which don't get hit with the 3% exchange rate fee. So keep that in mind if you have to pay for anything with a credit card that doesn't have that feature.

 

If you have the continental president's plus card or something similar that is a good card to use while traveling. Just make sure you notify them that you're traveling overseas and what country so they don't block your transaction.

 

Originally Posted by deniden 


 

 

[JoZee84]

Ok ladies I'm back!  The resort was beautiful!! I am going to post my planning thread soon and the review will be up in a couple of days,  it is VERY long but detailed with room numbers and pictures.  Like JHarris said their will be hicups along the way, just try and stay calm and relax.  All the details will be in the review.  Happy planning! 

[JoZee84]

Ok ladies here’s my planning thread hope it helps give some of you ideas!  We Always knew we wanted a destination wedding, we just didn’t know where to go.  I happened to stumble upon the Real resorts and fell in love with the Royal.  We really liked the fact it was so close to 5^th ave, it was adults only and that the sister resort right next door was a family resort for other guests bringing kids.  We worked with Elsa Tores as our online WC.  She set up a base camp for us and we sent emails (many many many emails) back and forth.  It made planning easy and everything was documented. 

 

Our colors were a light green and light purple like sage and lilac. 

 

My Bridesmaid’s dresses:

The maid of honors band is white.

   

The maid of honors flowers:

The Bridesmaid’s flowers:

 

Our center pieces:

        

 

My Bouquet:

 

All our flowers were done by Marvin from Maya de senio.  His prices were unbeatable and his work is amazing!  He sends you pictures of his work, all you have to do it tell him what kind of flowers your looking for.  He also threw in the flowers for my hair with out a charge.  All together it was $ 610, for the bridal bouquet, maid of honors, 3 brides maids, 7 boutonnieres, 2 corsages, 2 center pieces, and a centerpiece for a sweetheart table and sand ceremony table. 

 

My earrings: (got them at Lord and Taylor) They were a little more than I wanted to spend but oh well I LOVED them!

 

My dress:

 

Our invitations to the wedding ceremony:

My FI painted them with water colors and we printed them out on the comp.  We wanted to make these ones more personal and we only had to make about 20.

 

Our invitations to our AHR:

Ordered from vponsale.com they were very easy to work with.  I just choose a template and changed the colors and wording.  They can customize invitation, color, size, font that you want.  I thought the color was going to be a little lighter but I’m still happy with them.  They send you a sample to your email so you can see them before the order goes through and you can change anything you don’t like.  Everything, the invitations, reception cards, response cards, thank you cards, envelopes with return addresses on them all came out to $130 for 75 each plus some more envelopes and thank you cards.  The envelopes for the invitations have are white but they are a little pearly looking.  Also they are a lot lighter than most regular wedding invitations.  When I first opened up the package I was disappointed at the weight, but the more I thought about it I figured it was better cause it will save me money on stamps.  Most wedding invitations are .61, these should cost the same as a regular letter. 

 

Our sand ceremony kit:

 

We got everything at Michaels was WAY cheaper than getting a kit online or at a store.  I think all three pieces cost like $20 maybe.

All our engraving was done at Things remembered.

 

Our wedding fans: 

Ordered them online, got 25 for about $28.  DIY tags for the strings.  Sorry no pics of them, but they came out really cute!

 

Our favors:

Ordered them online from littlethingsfavors.com, got 12 for $40. 

 

Bridal party jewelry:

Ordered from Jewelryforgifts.com, got 4 for $64. 

I also got them starfish hair pins

 

Bridal party gifts I got pashminas and personalized photo albums.

Pashminas:

I got from NYC 5 for $25

 

Photo albums:

I got from Things remembered

 

Grooms men gifts:

Leatherman knives, we had engraved with nick names and grooms men and best man written in Spanish. 

 

Our cake:

I found a pic online and sent it to my WC.  They had a similar cake in their couture cakes, I just asked for mine to look like the pic and they said no problem.  $190 Tres Leches BABY!!

 

Favors for our AHR:

I ordered the boxes and flowers on orientaltrading.com Ladies, double and triple check this site!  The first time I checked for white favor boxes nothing popped up.  Only crazy colors did.  When I clicked on more colors more kept popping up, but when I typed it in the search box, nothing.  The site does have a lot of stuff.  I all the boxes 120 and flowers 480 for $43.90.  We put some confetti paper and Lindor truffles in them. 

 

Check our shipping charged before ordering online!  I found another site where I could order all the favor boxes for under $13.  Shipping was outrageous!

 

Grooms Shirt and Tie: 

I wanted him to get a suit but he didn’t want to wear one.  I thought it would be more dressy.  But I know he’ll look great in what ever he wears.  As silly as it sounds finding the right tie was TOUGH! It was like pulling teeth from a baby.  We bought SO many before finding the right one.  We ended up getting it from Nordstrams.  Shirt was from Macy’s. 

 

Grooms men shirts: 

For pants they wore Dockers from Khols.  Brown belt brown shoes.

 

Hope this helps for future brides! I hope the pictures come out , if not i'll try posting again

[JoZee84]

Here's my planning thread with pics.

Ok lets try this:  hope it works!

 

http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/thread/74204/planning-thread-for-jozee84-the-royal-playa-del-carmen-6-15-11

[kellygrrrl]

YESS!! GREAT point about the credit card. my FI and I are going to London at the end of July, and while charging our accomodation, I paid an extra 3% on their end AND mine. when I called Visa, they explained this happens with all foreign transactions, so I switched my business to Capital One. same rewards (I always exchange points for the $50 check) and no international fees.

 

Originally Posted by JHarris 

Hi Deniden,

 

Well, I checked what they charged my card and it was $334. I think it was due to the exchange rate. Generally the vendor fee is $350. And I paid that for my makeup person.

 

I paid onsite but I had one of those travel cards which don't get hit with the 3% exchange rate fee. So keep that in mind if you have to pay for anything with a credit card that doesn't have that feature.

 

If you have the continental president's plus card or something similar that is a good card to use while traveling. Just make sure you notify them that you're traveling overseas and what country so they don't block your transaction.

 

 

 

[JoZee84]

Review is finally done took FOREVER! to get all the pics up ! Hope it helps!

 

http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/thread/74210/an-extremely-long-but-extremely-detailed-review-for-the-royal-playa-del-carmen-from-jozee84#post_1625078

 

 

[JHarris]

JoZee! Loved your review!! I'll be putting mine up this weekend. So glad I got to meet you and your hubby!! We were in 920, literally down the corridor from you! I can't believe we never ran into you. LOL.. We upgraded our rooms last minute. So glad we did bc I had all the girls in my room getting ready and ordered stuffed chicken breasts and salads for everyone. 

 

I had Connie too but I used the hair and makeup for my TTD session. I've had my hair curled with a flat iron before and it never hurt. I have a pretty hard head since my hair is long but it definitely wasn't comfortable. The curls definitely stayed with that method - at least it worked for me. She did put in a lot of hairspray.

 

Quick question, did she curl your eyelashes with the back of a spoon? My eyelids were super sore and sensitive by the time she was done. 

 

I did have to touchup the makeup with my own stuff since I had her do basic stuff. 

 

 

[JoZee84]

 

 

Originally Posted by JHarris 

 

JoZee! Loved your review!! I'll be putting mine up this weekend. So glad I got to meet you and your hubby!! We were in 920, literally down the corridor from you! I can't believe we never ran into you. LOL.. We upgraded our rooms last minute. So glad we did bc I had all the girls in my room getting ready and ordered stuffed chicken breasts and salads for everyone. 

 

I had Connie too but I used the hair and makeup for my TTD session. I've had my hair curled with a flat iron before and it never hurt. I have a pretty hard head since my hair is long but it definitely wasn't comfortable. The curls definitely stayed with that method - at least it worked for me. She did put in a lot of hairspray.

 

Quick question, did she curl your eyelashes with the back of a spoon? My eyelids were super sore and sensitive by the time she was done. 

 

I did have to touchup the makeup with my own stuff since I had her do basic stuff. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The room was awesome for having everyone getting ready in.  I didn't have them do my make up.  I've seen many people use the spoon method for curling lashes, personally I'd rather use the lash curler. I hope you had a great honeymoon!  I'm off to finish planning the AHR now.