Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda Brides post here

[saramaeryan]

Its true these things can happen antime, anywhere; but still... when we're trying to plan our wedidngs, it gets a little freaky that it hits so close to home! My heart was in my throat yesturday morning when I heard the news. Sad for all at that resort. My prayers are with all involved.

[shan02]

 

 

Originally Posted by staciw 

 

We are having to pay per person on the welcome party we are having, not quite as much as the cocktail hour since we aren't having passed trays. We are not paying to have a private rehearsal dinner though, and yes we already have it rewarded. When is your wedding?

My wedding is December 29 so it is creeping up.  I have to admit that this new wedding coordinator is not as swift as Nadia.  I am finding that it is taking her around 5 days to respond back to my e-mails.  I asked her about reserving for a rehearsal dinner but she hasn't gotten back to me yet.

 

[shan02]

My fiancée couldn't remember the name of our resort (men...) and just heard the word "Grand" and started to freak out.  I had to set him straight on that right away.

[staciw]

I completely agree and I don't like it at all.  I sent an email with a bunch of follow up questions from my visit, she responded days later with the vaguest answers, I then resent it asking for more clarification, five days later hadn't heard, re-forwarded it to her asking her to confirm receipt, a day later she says yes she got it and well get back to me...uggh!

[kmarie]

Hi Everyone,

 

I just got back from my wedding in the Mayan Riviera.  When I left on November 14th I was a Grand Riviera Princess bride.  An hour and a half into our flight an explosion happened at the Grand Riviera Princess in the Platinum lounge.  Our rooms were reserved in the Platinum area.  When we arrived at Cancun Airport we had no idea about the accident.  We got on our bus and proceeded towards our Resort.  Our first stop was The BlueBay Grand Esmeralda.  Several guests got off the bus and then we were told we would also be staying at the BlueBay.  We flew WestJet Vacations and were told to wait in the bus until a rep could come and tell us what was happening.  As you can imagine I was totally confused and everyone was looking to me and my fiance for answers.  When the rep came on the bus she told us there had been an explosion at the GRP and that several people had died, it was so sad.  The BBGE opened an entire building to accommodate us and were just trying to get the rooms cleaned for us.  We spoke with the Front Desk Manager and the wedding coordinator and they assured us they could accommodate our wedding.  It turned out that the new wedding coordinator, Sandra was the coordinator that we had at the GRP.  They were able to put our wedding together in three days! 

The day of the wedding it poured and poured.  In fact it was the only day of the trip that rained... but we hear rain is good luck.  Because of the rain we had to move our ceremony site from the beach to the lounge by the a la cartes.  It was a beautiful setting even with it pouring all around us.  At one point the rain was coming down so hard I had to shout my vows. We had planned a Sand Ceremony and to use the sand from the beach and some blue sand I had brought.  Because of the rain there was no dry sand available.  When I went to pour it it wouldn't come out. I ended up using my finger to loosen up the sand.  We got about halfway through and decided we would finish at home...lol.  We had planned on having our first dance on the beach and had brought and ipod dock to use.  Because we couldn't go down to the beach they allowed us to set up our ipod in the lounge after supper and were able to have a semi dance. The ipod was on shake shuffle and switched songs halfway through...

We ate in the french restaurant which was actually oriental that night.  The food was awesome and everyone loved the wedding cake.

 

My heart goes out to those who died in the explosion.  To know that one of the people was the groom at a wedding three days prior is heart wrenching,  I keep thinking if it was one day later that would have been us.

 

Even though nothing went as planned we had an amazing time.  In the end all we really wanted to do is get married in front of our friends and family and that's what we got to do!

 

So my advice to you is this.... take a deep breath...smile.... and know that its going to be the most amazing day of your life no matter what happens because you are marrying your best friend today.

[trinamh]

I love your perspective and congratulations.  I am also a Grand Riviera Princess former bride and have just switched after several back and forth changes and suggestions.  I actually had to do a bit of investigating myself and BDW was what cued me to the Blue Bay Grand - which is where we will be having our wedding is 2 weeks.  Goodness... my heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones.  We had looked into that week as well.  I had been working with Sandra the wc from the GRP previously and wondered why she had stopped answering my emails, apparently she is here.  I actually getting excited again and am hoping that the BBGE will be even better than our original choice (although I am sad that we won't be getting married in the gazebo - the whole reason we chose the GRP...

 

My broken leg groom and the explosion tragedy are good reminders about expectations and the actual goal.  But I do hope it will be amazing for our guests and ourselves....

 

Trina

[jmulder]

Hi everyone, 

 

Although I have been following this forum since I booked my wedding at BBGE, I have just now subscribed and will be posting regularly!

 

 I will be having my wedding at BBGE on May 4, 2011. We have about 100 guests coming and other than our wedding date and time, I haven't done a whole lot of planning! In the last couple weeks I have been sending Ana tons of emails with questions before I make any decisions but she hasn't been getting back to me other than a couple times when she sent me e-mails with the attachments of menus and add-on features. It's becoming frustrating!

 

Has anyone picked their menu options yet? Are you able to pick more than one as some people don't eat meat, some are vegetarians, etc.? Also, do the menu options have different costs?

So many questions for Ana!!

[shan02]

I had my wedding at the BBGE on December 29th.  It was amazing! 

With 100 people you will probably have your dinner at one of the restaurants which will be at 6p.m.  Having that many people you will have to pick the meal in which all the guests will eat.  They automatically do this after 10 people.

They send you the menu with about 1-2 months to go.  There are some options on the menu that do cost more but the majority of the menu is all the same.  I highly suggest the steak restaurant.  It had to be the best meal that we had there.  Everyone loved the "special cut".

The only thing that we were a bit surprised with was when we went for our meeting with Ana to get the blood tests done she asked for $150 USD in cash for the judge.  A hidden cost that we were not aware of....  Oh well.  It went smoothly and it was a wonderful day.

Originally Posted by jmulder 

Hi everyone, 

 

Although I have been following this forum since I booked my wedding at BBGE, I have just now subscribed and will be posting regularly!

 

 I will be having my wedding at BBGE on May 4, 2011. We have about 100 guests coming and other than our wedding date and time, I haven't done a whole lot of planning! In the last couple weeks I have been sending Ana tons of emails with questions before I make any decisions but she hasn't been getting back to me other than a couple times when she sent me e-mails with the attachments of menus and add-on features. It's becoming frustrating!

 

Has anyone picked their menu options yet? Are you able to pick more than one as some people don't eat meat, some are vegetarians, etc.? Also, do the menu options have different costs?

So many questions for Ana!!

[jmulder]

Thanks! That's good to know. We will be legally married before the wedding date so that we don't have to do the blood tests and spend the extra money down there. 

 

Is the steak restaurant the one without air conditioning? Also, what did you do for a dance floor? 

 

Thanks so much for the help!

 

Joanna

[staciw]

I am going to be having about 100 guests too so we opted for the private dinner option.  We selected 2 appetizers and 2 entrees that our guests will be able to select that night (they don't need to ahead of time).  Not sure how big your rehearsal dinner will be but there is a space that is semi-private inside the Italian restaurant that we are going with.  I was there in October so it was quite helpful.    Let me know if there are other specific questions i can help you with after having been there and having a similar size group.  

 

We did already select menus for our cocktail hour, reception and the welcome party we are hosting and all of the options sounded great.  They do not have any linen options for groups our size (only white), i am actually buying my own burlap overlays to use.