Any Grand Palladium brides?

[tammikins]

Well I’m back and still recovering. The wedding was absolutely amazing. Our travel agent got us first class airfare for the way there. We were also supposed to get a room upgrade (as palladium advertizes free room upgrades for honeymooners, and we were legally married a week prior at home). That never ended up happening for whatever reason but i wasn’t about to complain.

 

The day that we arrived we got a letter asking us to meet with Erika the next day. When we met with her she asked us about all our preferences. She asked if we had a chance to see the ceremony sites, which we already knew we were going to have the ceremony at the beach gazebo. We got to pick out colors for the ribbons on the columns of the gazebo i think the choices were pink, red, yellow white and some sort of blue. I opted for yellow, as that was the color of my BM’s dresses. I saw a wedding later with white ribbons, and just a heads up, the white ribbons make the gazebo look yellow in comparison. We opted not to have the red carpet either. For flowers I went through the book and didn’t really find anything I loved so I asked her for a tropical bouquet with lots of yellows and purples and go easy on the roses. Here is what I got:

 

I loved it!!! It was absolutely perfect. Erika also said that the rest of the flowers at the wedding will match my bouquet. She also asked about the cake. There were three choices, vanilla, chocolate and tres leches. I chose the latter because I heard it was the best. It was quite yummy.

 

I had a bunch of stuff i needed to give Erika; programs, wedding favors, cake topper, sand ceremony stuff, etc so we had to go back to our room to pick all of it up. Save yourselves the trip and bring it the first time. We also had to bring my dress and Dave’s suit for steaming and money to pay the minister, which i thought was included in the price but apparently not. She also asked which photographer we were using and arranged for her to meet us in my room and her assistant at the gazebo.

 

My dress got back to my room the day before the wedding. The day of the wedding the flowers were waiting in the room. I kicked Dave out and started getting ready about 2 hours before the wedding with my bridesmaids. I was able to see the gazebo from my room and we spied on the boys from time to time. I also skyped my grandparents who couldn’t make it to the wedding. I did my own hair and makeup with i was really worried about but i am so glad i did because it turned out great, held all night and didn’t cost me a small fortune. The photographer showed up at the right time and i put on my dress after she got there. Then we went downstairs. Erika offered a cart to come pick us up, but since we were literally 20 feet from the start of the walkways to the gazebo, i told her that i would walk.

 

Erika came driving up right before the ceremony and said that on the CD that I gave her all the pre-ceremony music worked fine, but my walking down the aisle song and recessional weren’t working. So she asked me what they were, and since they were so common, it turned out that she had them on her ipod so there really wasn’t a problem. She stood half way down the aisle off to the side and told my bridesmaids when to walk – they walked together because i didn’t have a MOH and it looked so great, very casual and beachy. Then she gave the cue for dad and I to walk.

 

After that the ceremony was a bit of a blur. The speaker was great. He made us laugh so much that it made me much less nervous. Also, the sand ceremony was amazing. All the guests loved it. We signed so documents, and went to do a champagne toast. Afterwards we took photos with the guests and then all the guests went to do their own thing and Dave and I went to do more photos. I cant comment much on the professional photos because it’ll be another month or so until i get to see them.

 

Close to 7 pm people started gathering at La Laguna where we were having our reception. It was decorated very nicely. They had cloth things going from each pillar up to the middle near the roof. The tables were really well set. Dinner was so beautifully presented and was much better than any of the a la carte restaurants we went to – and the a la cartes were damn good.

 

My friend MC’d the reception. We spent a very long time going through the order in which we were going to do everything. Our photographer thought we should get photos of our first dance, dance with parents and cake cutting, so we had to re-arrange the whole thing. It still turned out great. There were a few little hiccups at the reception. First, when we were called to our first dance, for some reason the wrong song started playing – instead of a nice slow song we got the bouquet toss song – Madonna’s Like a Virgin. It was hilarious and we eventually got our original song on. Also, for the cake cutting my cake topper was not on the cake. I didn’t really mind too much. But we got our stuff back in a box the next day and I assumed it would be in there, and on the last day when we were packing i noticed it wasn’t in our things. It was a holiday and Erika wasn’t working so we never did get it back. Also, I figured since the reception was 4 hours, i thought dinner would be 1.5 hours, which would leave about 2.5 for dancing. I made my playlist about 2.5 hours long. Well the dinner took waaaaay longer. So in the end we had to skip a huge chunk of our playlist, but that was ok because we only played the good songs and skipped the “fillerâ€.

 

After the reception was over, we wanted to go to the disco, but we were all totally content sitting at the bar. Before I went to the bar i changedout of my dress. The room was turned down with swans and red rose petals all over the bed and we champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. It was such a great time and all the guests said it was the most beautiful wedding they’d ever seen. We even had a bunch of people crying at the ceremony

 

[Sarah_K]

Tammikins-First, Congratulations!!! I'm glad everything went smoothly. How does it feel to have it all over with??

 

Second, WOW, your flowers look amazing!!! (I might be bringing a pict with me and asking them to recreate your bouquet...if that's okay with you) The picture of you and the rest of your wedding party is fantastic. You will have to post a link to more pictures when you get them!

 

Thanks for the great review. I'm sure I will have a bunch of questions as my day draws near.

 

Thanks and Congratulations again!

[meg444]

Congratulations Tammi! Everything sounded great and you looked absolutely beautiful!

Great detail in the review!

That's almost too perfect that 'Like a Virgin' came on for your first dance, hilarious! haha

Your bouquet turned out great!

 

Just a few questions...

from your photo, it looks like you have the guests seated in a horse-shoe, is that right? I love the idea of not being separated far away at a head table.

What time was your ceremony at? Did you find it worked out good with the sun setting and having enough time for photos?

How were the mosquitos at that time?

 

Congrats again!

Nice to hear such a great review and put all of us future GP brides at ease.

Can't wait to see more pics of your special day!!

[tammikins]

Hi Sarah, feel free to borrow the photo. lol. it was such a pretty bouquet. I couldn't take it back with me but i took a few flowers from it, ironed them between some paper and stuck them in a book, so at least i have a few pressed flowers from the bouquet now.

 

Meg -

Yes, it was a U shaped table. We had 23 people and it worked out perfectly with people sitting only on the outside of the U. Our ceremony was at 3:30 so we were done right around 4. that left 3 hours for photos. It was really the perfect time because we got almost an hour of daylight after the ceremony was over and then we had the sunset and some dark shots, so make sure your photographer has good lighting. As for the mosquitoes, Yes, they were bad. In fact i'm a little sick now so i went to get tested for malaria (nurses always diagnose themselves with the worst disease they can think of ). I'm all good tho. A little bug spray kept all the mosquitos away, although i did have a few huge ones on my arms and legs on wedding day. Bring your own bug spray though, because at the resort its about 5 times more expensive.

 

Oh, and someone asked this before about the fabric decorations, its $120 for some fancy thing where they put little christmas lights inside the fabric and supposedly it looks really pretty, but i haven't seen it in person. Let me know if you have any more questions

[ChristinaP]

Congrats Tammikins!

You looked gorgeous (from the one photo we have of you...can't wait to see more!).

 

My one question (for now!) is did they have champagne for you and your guests right after the ceremony? If so, where was it?

 

Thanks for letting us all know how it went.

[tammikins]

Hi Christina,

Yes, they had champagne right after the ceremony. it was served from a table set up off to the side, about 30 feet from the gazebo. It was served by a waitress from the beach bar thats right there. They didn't have champagne for everyone during dinner. I suppose you could ask for it, but its not like everyone were given a glass automatically for toasts at dinner.

 

Oh, another pretty funny point, for those wondering about privacy. Erika certainly did her best to keep it private. Of course you can't control the people snapping photos from the "sidelines", but right before I was about to walk down the aisle, there was a couple that tried to cross the 'aisle'. From where I was standing, it looked like Erika told them to wait a minute, and when they tried to go past her, she literally shoved them back to wait. It was hilarious; thats why in all my walking down the aisle pictures I'm laughing. Cant wait to seethose pro photos....

[ChristinaP]

Too funny! Nice to know you had someone directing traffic. Really though, who does that? It's not like people can't see the bride about to walk down the aisle.

When do you expect to get your pro pics back?

[tammikins]

They said about 6 weeks, so I'm hoping to have them by the end of the month... I'm seriously dying to see them!!!!

[demetriosbride]

Any February 2010 brides? We are so excited!! We will be there from Feb 13~27th!!

 

Can any 2009 brides tell me if you usually get the wedding spot that you want? Or is there usually weddings going on at the same time?

 

Thanks

[ChristinaP]

Quote:

Originally Posted by demetriosbride Any February 2010 brides? We are so excited!! We will be there from Feb 13~27th!! Can any 2009 brides tell me if you usually get the wedding spot that you want? Or is there usually weddings going on at the same time? Thanks

Wow! I guess you are pumped. You have only a month to go! Fire away any other questions you have that you may not know already, or feel free to share any info. you may have.

Although I am not an '09 bride, I do know that they only book one wedding per time slot. I was told this by Rocio when I was trying to get a later time for our ceremony, and couldn't. You should not have a problem.

Also to everyone here...I e-mailed Rocio a question yesterday afternoon and received a response within a few hours! Must have caught her at a good time.