RIU RM Palace Brides??

[KimmyG]

Sammysgirl- I'm moving to Indy in June, I'd love to meet up!

[samira26]

Welcome back Kimmy! so glad to hear that you had a great time can't wait to read your review.

 

Two questions did you have a private reception, if yes where and what time. also hoe many ppl did you have in ur wedding?

 

another question how was the weather? is it alreday too hot?

[*Linds*]

Kimmy- I would love to meet up too! Pming you!

[LadyTrunck]

Welcome back Kimmy!!! I'm so glad to hear you had such a wonderful time! Can't wait to see pics

[*Linds*]

Anxiously awaiting your review Kimmy

[JNagan2011]

Welcome back MRS! :) Glad to hear it went well, be ready to be hounded by questions lol ... Can't wait to see some pics and read your review.

 

Well my dress came in yesterday (yay ), but when I tried it on it was quite big on me. I only ordered it a month and half ago and have lost like 2 lbs. The size I had tried on in the stores was the size that I order because it fit like a glove. I just ordered it in a petite instead since I am short. Luckily DB remember this, so they are reordering my gown in one size down (while holding my original one, in case one size down is too small). But now I have to wait until July

[dana]

Kimmy-Congrats and welcome back. Can't wait to hear your review and see pictures!

 

Jen-wow that is really nice of them. I picked mine up and of course it is too big. I knew I should have ordered a smaller size, but the def didn't offer to get me a smaller size. I guess I'll just be paying out the wazoo for alterations.

[KimmyG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by samira26 Welcome back Kimmy! so glad to hear that you had a great time can't wait to read your review. Two questions did you have a private reception, if yes where and what time. also hoe many ppl did you have in ur wedding? another question how was the weather? is it alreday too hot?

I did NOT have the private reception. From everything I had read, if your group is large enough then you essentially get the private reception without paying for one. This was exactly true: we had 50 guests, at Chilis (the best choice), and the entire restaurant was set up and reserved for only us.
The only difference with having it "private" would be the DJ. I decided I didn't want to pay $1700 for the DJ, instead I got both the harpist (ceremony) AND mariachi (cocktail), and I'm glad I did it that way. ALTHOUGH, when we got to dinner it was VERY quiet. No background music or anything. I asked the waiter if he could provide some music and he offered the DJ. I said no, I just wanted any form of background music because it was so quiet. My dad gave him $20 and he said he would see what he could do. 20 minutes later we had a DJ setting up and started playing jams! The DJ stuck around until 11pm, it was perfect. He was playing techno and I didn't want to rock the boat so we just had fun with the techno. If you're easy going then this is a great way to do it... $20 for 2 hours of DJ
Don't stress about the 8:45 dinner time. Yes it's late, but our ceremony was at 5, cocktails at 6:30 and everyone danced/drank/chatted at the cocktail party right up until 8:45. Time went by so fast, then we all walked over to dinner together. There was another wedding party at Chillis at the earlier seating and they were all leaving before we went in. I'd hate to be the wedding party that's being booted OUT, I'd rather be the later seating with no pressure to get out on any time schedule!
I highly recommend the latest wedding possible (5pm). It was HOT AS BALLS!! Any earlier would have been even hotter. Our guests loved the raffia fans that we put on each seat.
Also- DON'T read the weather forecast in advance: I did and it called for 30% chance thunderstorms for each day we were down there. That'll make anyone nervous. Let me tell you- there was not a single cloud in the sky for the entire week we were there (except for the last day). Be ready to roll with the punches but don't stress about things beyond your control!

The meeting with the wedding coordinators goes Fast. Come prepared: make a list of all the things you want to communicate so you don't forget anything. I gave them my raffia fans, guest book, cake topper at that meeting. I told her we wanted to add in a sand ceremony (ask me about that later!). There's no pressure, no sales pitch to add on things, so know exactly what you want going into the meeting. She'll ask about ceremony location, decoration, chairs/covers/bows, cake flavor and decour, bouquet and flowers, live music, etc. No surprises if you've read through this RPRM thread! It is down the street Riu Palace Mexico. Not far, but give yourself 15 min to walk. Don't sweat it, it's really not a big deal. On the way there we walked on the street, on the way back we walked on the beach and checked out the other resorts. (ours is the NICEST!!)

You'll get a bill sent to your room for the wedding which you pay at the front desk, but you pay the photo/video directly, when you pick up your finished products after the wedding. We got the video but haven't watched it yet. The video people offered to let us put some songs on their flash drive, so my groom ran up to the hotel room and loaded some songs from his computer. Im glad we had that opportunity but it was a waste of his time with guests, and put us on the spot to quickly choose a few songs. Might not be a bad idea to burn 5-10 songs on a cd to give to them.
Photo/video people request to be paid in Cash, but all we had was credit card and that was okay too. We had to walk to Riu Yucatan (across from Riu Palace Mexico) to pay & pick up our video, a few days after the wedding.

[KimmyG]

As part of the Caprice wedding package i got my mani/pedi before the welcome dinner (it took about 45min for each one, so give yourself plenty of time: 5pm appt, before 7pm dinner was perfect), hairstyle at 2pm before 5pm wedding (also worked out well), then couples massage 3 days after the wedding (we planned it for the next day but moved the appointment so we could spend more time with guests, do our TTD, etc). Massage was amaaaazing!

 

For the sand ceremony I didn't want to carry vases/frame from home so i winged it: the night before the ceremony I got klepto and hid 2 champagne glasses and one hurricane glass in my purse. I sent them with my groom in the morning and instructed him how to set it all up. We used sand from the ground and changed the words in the ceremony so it didn't say anything about "2 different colors of sand." It worked perfectly. His brother and my sister read the poem that went along with it and it was perfect.

[KimmyG]

There were PLENTY of goof ups:

The cake was nowhere in sight for the first 30 min of the reception (the cake topper was sitting on a table all by itself), They served dinner to the guests 45 Minutes before they served the head table, They made the wrong flavor of wedding cake (not what we'd requested), sent the chocolate covered strawberries to FI's parents room instead of us, forgot to charge us for a certain part then later told us we owed more money, only served wedding cake at the reception and not the desserts that were listed on the menu...

 

You have to go with the flow. None of the above made the day any less special. The welcome dinner was actually a spectacular night and blew away all of my expectations: there were ice sculptures, chocolate fountain, etc...

 

I think my best advise is don't Overplan. When I arrived at the resort I felt like I'd been there before because I'd seen so many pictures and read so many reviews. I'm sad to say this but it took away some of the excitement. If you overplan then you'll freak out when things don't go exactly as planned. I know we all want to map out every detail in advance, but it really took some of the fun away from being there. It was all lovely, but there was no surprise element. I wouldn't have minded the wedding cake being the only dessert except I read too many reviews that said "the wedding cake is barely average but the OTHER desserts are amazing" - so I was so bummed when we didn't have the other desserts. Don't overplan. Don't stalk TripAdvisor. Leave some of the fun for you and your groom to explore on your own