Dreams Cancun - Questions for those married here!

[chipotle99]

Rachel, yes, it's the ballroom!  I had wanted the ballroom because I wanted to party till 1 in the morning...and this wasn't allowed anywhere else.  11pm is too early for my crew.  And in the end, the ballroom was perfect because it started to rain, about 30mins after my ceremony!  So here's my review little by little, or else it'll never get done!

 

Overall:  Dreams was the perfect place!  My family had a blast, I had 85 total guests, including 9 kids under 12 years old.  The Seaside Grill had the best steak we had EVER tasted, I mean, better than Ruth & Chris', def high quality.  The service was phenomenal, which I thought was the norm in Mexico, but turns out it's only Dreams! On honeymoon, we went to Tulum and then to Excellence Riviera Maya, which was 5 star all inclusive.  We felt the restaurants were better at Dreams hands down!  We heard so much about breakfast at Excellence, and when we got there, all we could think about was how much we missed Dreams and world cafe.  Oceana was fabulous too and a family favorite.  I also loved Himitsu, though don't go in there expecting authentic sushi...it's def the mexican version.  Delicous nonetheless.  It was laid back and the beach was by far the best we saw!  We went to Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Riviera Maya.  None had a nicer beach than Dreams!  Only Tulum came close, near the ruins, but still not so much a wading type of beach, more like a ride the waves beach there.

 

Wedding coordinator:  I had Cecilia, who happened to do my wedding on her birthday!  She was FANTASTIC!!!! I mean, I cannot rave enough!  She was dealing with all 85 guests, my demanding parents, and trying to organize our large wedding party along with many vendors.  She pulled through in every way.  She kept checking in on me and I saw her behind the scenes the whole day making sure everything ran smoothly.  She did an A+++++++++ job all the way.

 

Wedding vendor: I had Julieta wedding florist, who I raved about in the past for her amazing prices and great communication skills.  Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that you get what you paid for.  Had I been a little more uptight about things, she would have ruined my wedding!  She failed on EVERY front.  I had paid her to decorate the gazebo, FAIL. Her sorry job looked like crap, it would have looked better with nothing at all. Paid for a 12 piece mariachi. FAIL.  Only 8 showed up and played for 2hrs instead of the contracted 3hrs.  Paid for the ballroom to be decorated.  She showed me professional pictures of ballrooms she had done.  All lies, I do not believe for one second any of those photos were hers!  She charged me $400 for lighting that she never put up, $800 for draping that she never put up, and $400 for a white shiny dancefloor.  This was the absolute worse!  She put up these blocks of white painted unfinished wood with raw sharp edges, in a long skinny formation that looked like a landing strip!  It was so horrible that I would have rather kept the rug, but by the time I saw it, the guests were already seated!  I'll post pictures soon, but it was sooooo horrible. Had this happened here in the USA, I would have sued her for lying and straight out robbery and deception. On top of everything, after the wedding, she "lost" her cellphone and "went out of town" so she could never communicate with me regarding what she had done. Anyway, I wish I could delete previous messages where I recommended her.  Good communication definitely does not mean good work in the end.  I should have paid Dreams' high prices, everything they did for me was quality work in the end.  Here's a pic of the horrid dancefloor:

 

Bouquet: By Dreams.  Better than anything I could have imagined! I was really vague and asked for a "colorful bouquet with calla lilies".  Cecilia pulled through and gave me this gorgeous bouquet with calla lilies and fuschia and blue flowers, my wedding colors!  It was so amazing!  Same for the boutonnieres and corsages, all fantastic!  We also got the sweetheart table centerpiece included in the package, here's a pic:

 

Ceremony:  We were running late because my makeup got there late, and I really wanted to do the first look on the pier.  We ran back from that and the ceremony started 1hr later than we had stated!  It was fine because our guests were hanging out in the terrace with drinks and taking pics.  We had mariachi live for music, and it was great!  We had the sound system and my brother officiated.  We wrote our own thing since it was symbolic.  It was perfect (see pics on my prev post) and lasted about 30mins.  After that, everyone just went to the terrace and had drinks, and the Tower provided free evening snacks every night so we didn't even pay for cocktail hour.  With 85 guests, it would have cost me another $2k to do cocktail so we skipped it and I'm glad we did!  We all got free drinks and food anyway and people thought that it was a real cocktail hour! lol.  Here's a pic of our place cards, custom made shot glasses!

 

Reception:  We had the mariachi lead the wedding party into the reception hall, it was quite a scene, everyone loved this detail.  I had given Cecilia a million details to do: chair sashes, napkins, table numbers, seating charts, guestbook table with framed pics.  It was a ton of work and she pulled through with everything! Even put our seating chart on this really nice stand.  The ballroom was pretty bare and not the prettiest place, but we had a blast and partied until we got kicked out at 2am!  There was 1 waiter per table, and they were great, they even danced with us!  They kept coming around the dancefloor with trays of shots which kept the party going, and our guests kept choo-choo training around in a conga line, at one point there were 60+ people in a conga line and 2 waiters were shooting shots into the mouths of each person in the conga line! (there's a pic of this on my photog's website).  It was great!

 

 

 

 

[chipotle99]

oops, sorry, I didn't insert the images correctly, gotta look that up again, but I think the links should work.  More on the next post.

[chipotle99]

Let's try again:  The horrible dancefloor by Julieta Wedding Florist:

<IMG>http://lh5.ggpht.com/_vyOV17g6aRA/TPH-822AIlI/AAAAAAAACoA/XJlbxD2byBY/149000_10150327731060104_718000103_15740696_5709786_n_2.jpg </IMG>

 

Shotglasses as placecards

<IMG>http://lh4.ggpht.com/_vyOV17g6aRA/TPH-9O4qmTI/AAAAAAAACoE/yhDG87SrQlc/s640/149656_965962985280_916948_52082073_2992183_n.jpg </IMG>

[chipotle99]

Ok, never mind, I obviously don't know how to insert pictures.

 

Anyway, to continue with the review:

 

 

Music/DJ:  I had Balance Band.  They were SOOO FANTASTIC!!!!  I was worried no one would dance since they play a lot of salsa and not everyone is into that (I am though..hehehe).  We had a DJ the first 2 hrs and then 3hrs of the band.  Both were sooo great! The DJ had everyone on the dancefloor the entire time!  Then the band came on and played Black Eyed peas, Beyonce, Salsa, they took requests from the crowd, had us doing conga lines and other dances, no one was sitting down at ALL until they stopped playing at 1am. They sound so good, they could be famous rockstars, I'm so serious, you guys have to check them out, it really made the party something to talk about.  http://www.balancelabanda.com/

 

Cake:  I used Dolcet, and I am so glad I did!  Zaida, the owner, made me a coconut cake with raspberry lime filling that was delicious, and the cake was so gorgeous!  We ate the 3milk cake Dreams provided the next day, and it was yummy too, but I don't think Dreams could have pulled off the cake we wanted.  Dolcet works with Fondant, and she is really an artist!  My cake was the talk of the party, it was sooo cute!  I had the figurines made by mudcards on Etsy, and Zaida came to the hotel 3 days prior to pick up the figurines.  She made the firetruck and cake out of fondant.  I loved it!  Her prices were a little higher than Dreams, but well worth it ($7/person instead of $5 at Dreams).  Here's her site: http://www.dolcetcakes.com/home

Here's a link to see my cake (since I obviously can't figure out the imbed thing): http://lh6.ggpht.com/_vyOV17g6aRA/TPIFAl1t6cI/AAAAAAAACoM/DP9BONy8UAQ/s720/Screen%20shot%202010-11-27%20at%2011.28.48%20PM.png

 

Makeup:  I used Fernando.  He did a kick ass job as all the previous raves say.  His hair guy was amazing too and did all of my girls' hair.  I wouldn't have used anyone else. 

 

Food: How could I forget, the best part! We had a creamy soup in a breadbowl which was delicious, the Dreams salad, which looked cool but not everyone liked (had beets), and a Dreams trilogy of steak, shrimp and fish.  It was off the hook and everyone loved it!  Hard to please a crowd with meat too, we chose it 3/4 done.  Then we asked them to bring out the churros at midnight as a snack since we had cake for dessert.  It was great, everyone enjoyed them. They were filled with cream, the most delicious thing ever! When you're in Mexico, do Mexican! Churros instead of chocolate cake was great.  Also, one of my guests has a gluten allergy, and I brought over gluten free cake mix, which they made and decorated with chocolate covered strawberries and the like.  It was so nice of them to do that, and they made an entire special menu for her, she was a happy camper.

 

I think that's it for now, feel free to ask Q's, again my photog's site is:  http://jessiechophotos.com/

[jana297]

Gosh, I am full of panic. I just booked Julieta for our wedding. Paying her for Gazebo decor etc. Do you have any pictures of what your gazebo looked like when she decorated it?

 

I'm happy that everything else went ok for you!! You looked beautiful and so happy!!

[peterpanpixiedust]

Nice pics and great review Chipotle!  I'm sorry about you florist.  You looked so lovely!  85 guests!  That's amazing!  Congrats girl!
 

Originally Posted by chipotle99 

Ok, never mind, I obviously don't know how to insert pictures.

 

Anyway, to continue with the review:

 

 

Music/DJ:  I had Balance Band.  They were SOOO FANTASTIC!!!!  I was worried no one would dance since they play a lot of salsa and not everyone is into that (I am though..hehehe).  We had a DJ the first 2 hrs and then 3hrs of the band.  Both were sooo great! The DJ had everyone on the dancefloor the entire time!  Then the band came on and played Black Eyed peas, Beyonce, Salsa, they took requests from the crowd, had us doing conga lines and other dances, no one was sitting down at ALL until they stopped playing at 1am. They sound so good, they could be famous rockstars, I'm so serious, you guys have to check them out, it really made the party something to talk about.  http://www.balancelabanda.com/

 

Cake:  I used Dolcet, and I am so glad I did!  Zaida, the owner, made me a coconut cake with raspberry lime filling that was delicious, and the cake was so gorgeous!  We ate the 3milk cake Dreams provided the next day, and it was yummy too, but I don't think Dreams could have pulled off the cake we wanted.  Dolcet works with Fondant, and she is really an artist!  My cake was the talk of the party, it was sooo cute!  I had the figurines made by mudcards on Etsy, and Zaida came to the hotel 3 days prior to pick up the figurines.  She made the firetruck and cake out of fondant.  I loved it!  Her prices were a little higher than Dreams, but well worth it ($7/person instead of $5 at Dreams).  Here's her site: http://www.dolcetcakes.com/home

Here's a link to see my cake (since I obviously can't figure out the imbed thing): http://lh6.ggpht.com/_vyOV17g6aRA/TPIFAl1t6cI/AAAAAAAACoM/DP9BONy8UAQ/s720/Screen%20shot%202010-11-27%20at%2011.28.48%20PM.png

 

Makeup:  I used Fernando.  He did a kick ass job as all the previous raves say.  His hair guy was amazing too and did all of my girls' hair.  I wouldn't have used anyone else. 

 

Food: How could I forget, the best part! We had a creamy soup in a breadbowl which was delicious, the Dreams salad, which looked cool but not everyone liked (had beets), and a Dreams trilogy of steak, shrimp and fish.  It was off the hook and everyone loved it!  Hard to please a crowd with meat too, we chose it 3/4 done.  Then we asked them to bring out the churros at midnight as a snack since we had cake for dessert.  It was great, everyone enjoyed them. They were filled with cream, the most delicious thing ever! When you're in Mexico, do Mexican! Churros instead of chocolate cake was great.  Also, one of my guests has a gluten allergy, and I brought over gluten free cake mix, which they made and decorated with chocolate covered strawberries and the like.  It was so nice of them to do that, and they made an entire special menu for her, she was a happy camper.

 

I think that's it for now, feel free to ask Q's, again my photog's site is:  http://jessiechophotos.com/

[chipotle99]

Hi Jana,  well it's still before your wedding so you have time! Did you pay with paypal?  I would try to get a paypal refund, which they offer for fraudulent transactions which this is.  If you decide to go with her, make sure you use credit cards instead of your checking account on paypal in case she doesn't pull through like she did to me, then at least you can try to get refunded through your credit card as well.  She did such a crappy job at gazebo decor and charged me only like $50 then what dreams would have charged.  Dreams did an amazing job at everything I contracted them to do.  Cecilia and Claudia are really on it, and if it's not too late for you, I would go with them for everything.

 

I still managed to have the most amazing wedding ever! But this Julieta lady really gave it her best shot to ruin it. Most of all, nobody seemed to care about the decorations and we still had a great time, but it's that feeling of feeling straight out robbed that bothers me the most.  In the end, she's just a small detail in the big picture, there is no way I'm giving this woman more credit than that.

 

Thanks everyone for your comments, your time at Dreams will be amazing!  After visiting 3 other 5 star resorts in the area, I still feel that Dreams had the best service, beach, food, and definitely wedding gazebo hands down!  Sure, the rooms do need updating, but I spent 8hrs there max and 99% of that time was fast asleep
 

Originally Posted by jana297 

Gosh, I am full of panic. I just booked Julieta for our wedding. Paying her for Gazebo decor etc. Do you have any pictures of what your gazebo looked like when she decorated it?

 

I'm happy that everything else went ok for you!! You looked beautiful and so happy!!

[jana297]

Thanks for your advice. I am very fortunate that I did not pay her any $$ yet. She just finished giving me a quote. I was planning on giving her our deposit this week.

 

I am so happy that none of that really mattered on your day! You deserve to have that special day and you looked amazing!!

[clgriffi7]

I am really interested in not paying for the cocktail hour.  If I end up with more than the 20 ppl included in the package, I know my fiance will not want to pay extra for the cocktail hour (I forget the exact amount but it is maybe $23 per person after tax & tip).  By not paying for the cocktail hour were you able to get extra guests at the reception for free? 

 

Based on your cocktail hour on the terrace, do you have anything you would change?  Were you able to get it decorated at all, if not - would you have wanted to?

 

Sorry for the odd questions - not sure how to ask what I am after.  I want the feel of a nice cocktail hour while guests listen to the Mexican Trio, but saving money if the guests won't know the difference would be fantastic.

 

Thanks

Courtney

 

Originally Posted by chipotle99 

After that, everyone just went to the terrace and had drinks, and the Tower provided free evening snacks every night so we didn't even pay for cocktail hour.  With 85 guests, it would have cost me another $2k to do cocktail so we skipped it and I'm glad we did!  We all got free drinks and food anyway and people thought that it was a real cocktail hour! lol.   

 

 

[chipotle99]

 

 

Originally Posted by clgriffi7 

 

I am really interested in not paying for the cocktail hour.  If I end up with more than the 20 ppl included in the package, I know my fiance will not want to pay extra for the cocktail hour (I forget the exact amount but it is maybe $23 per person after tax & tip).  By not paying for the cocktail hour were you able to get extra guests at the reception for free? 

 

Based on your cocktail hour on the terrace, do you have anything you would change?  Were you able to get it decorated at all, if not - would you have wanted to?

 

Sorry for the odd questions - not sure how to ask what I am after.  I want the feel of a nice cocktail hour while guests listen to the Mexican Trio, but saving money if the guests won't know the difference would be fantastic.

 

Thanks

Courtney

 

 

None of my guests knew I hadn't shelled out extra $ for cocktails.  The new terrace and tower lobby are so beautiful that there are no additional decorations I could even think of putting up.  The furniture is all new and classic style.  By skipping out on the cocktail hour, I did get 10 more guests for dinner.  You should just look at what hour you will be there, I think snacks get placed at 4pm, so it was perfect timing for us.  The appetizers are warm and cold (we had egg rolls, empanadas, and shrimp with cheese, pastries, fruit) and they put a ton of them out.   Also, what we did was tip the tower bartender $100 before the ceremony.  If you pay for cocktail hour, there is 1 bartender for every 10 guests.  So essentially, you are screwing over the poor 1 bartender that happens to be there that night.  Ours was one man for 85 guests.  The tip helped him feel like he was getting compensated for his hard work, and he did a fantastic job.  Everyone tipped him on their own too, so he was happy to make $$$, I was happy to only spend $100, and everyone was happy in the end.