Melissa's Barcelo Maya Wedding...

[MelissaH]

Okay girls...get your coffee...popcorn ...whatever makes you happy...this is a long one

 

First let's start with our airport adventure....our luggage was something like 50kg over weight (did you know they charge $10/kg you're over weight??) so instead of paying $500 we paid $160 and got upgraded to first class where they allow you more weight, feed you like a king, and get you drunk

The flight was awesome...so smooth and we really were treated soooo well being in first class!

 

Our flight landed at the Cancun airport at around 7pm, our luggage was first off (bonus!!) and we were on the bus heading to the resort by about 8pm.

We arrived at the resort around 9:30pm and by the time we checked in (they upgraded us to a junior suite!! woo!!) and got to our room all the buffet restaurants were closed. They've changed things at the resort since the last time we were there - there used to be snack bars open late, but they all close around the same time as the buffets. We decided to order room service because we were starving (despite having a huge meal on the plane!) and holy cow it was one of the best meals we've ever had - it actually made me glad we missed the buffet haha. After dinner we unpacked our bags, watched a little TV and crashed - we were exhausted after a day of travel!

 

The next morning we had an appointment with the doctor (they have an onsite medical office) to get our blood tests done.... I don't even want to get started on this, but I'm going to tell you all about it anyway just as a warning for any of the girls who decide to get married at the Barcelo - ASK FOR THE DOCTOR TO TAKE YOUR BLOOD, DO NOT LET THE NURSES NEAR YOU WITH ANYTHING SHARP AND POINTY!&*#@)%*#%

 

I went first because needles don't bother me (John needed some time to work up to his hehe). She couldn't get any blood out of my right forearm, fine, whatever....so she tried my left forearm....nothing there either....so then she tried MY WRIST...like right where that knobby bone is on the inside of your wrist....HOLY FRIG I've never felt pain like that before. Anywho, no blood there either...and when she was pulling the needle out she slipped and scraped it across my hand so now I have a nice big cut across my left hand (I'm sure it looks great in my pictures!). I was so upset/in pain that I started to cry...first time I've ever cried because of a needle. Because I was so upset she decided that she was going to try to get blood from John to give me a break.

 

She said she couldn't find any veins in John's arm...he has BEAUTIFUL veins in his arms...nice big blue ones...everywhere....I'm not a nurse and I'm pretty sure I could take blood from him hehe...so she decided she was going to take blood from his wrist too! It hurt him so much he passed out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He came to after a couple of seconds but it was so scary! But right after he came around she tried to go after him with a needle again...like are you friggin kidding me? After that there was no way he was having them take any more blood! He was absolutely livid...they had gotten about 1mL of blood from him and he made them call the doctor (who was about an hour and a half late coming to work that day) to see if 1mL was enough to do the tests. Thank God it was or they would have had some issues

 

Once I calmed down I had to go through all the poking and prodding again, and they finally managed to get some blood out of my right wrist this time.

 

So that was the end of that...we were outta there so fast you wouldn't believe it! I swear they had no idea what they were doing!! We asked one of our guests (who's a nurse) what she thought and she was shocked...she looked at us both and said we both have beautiful veins and she'd have no problem getting blood from us...

 

Anywho, on to bigger and better things!

 

After the butcher's...I mean doctor's....we met up with our WC from the resort, Gabriela. This girl is so awesome! We were in and out of her office in half an hour and had absolutely everything planned (and didn't even feel rushed)!! She had big binders full of pictures of everything...different set ups for the ceremony and reception, flowers, cakes, food, everything! And we had 3 awesome menus to choose from for our reception (we chose ceasar salad, a "mixed grill" appetizer plate which was a chimichanga, a quesadilla, a big spare rib, a big chicken wing, and a stuffed jalapeno pepper...it was all sooooo yummy!, then for the main course we chose a ribeye steak with grilled veggies and baked potato, then a vodka infused sorbet to cleanse the pallette hehe and then a chocolate truffle with vanilla ice cream for dessert).

 

All we had to do now was wait a few days until the wedding to start!! (Oh and make a trip into PDC to find some favours for our OOT bags because of that place I ordered from earlier not shipping my stuff! We ended up finding the cutest shot glasses and filled them with Jose Cuervo, Baileys & Kahlua filled chocolates - everyone loved them!)

 

We spent most of our days before the wedding lounging by the pools and greeting all our guests as they came in a few at a time each day (we were lucky enough to figure out about what time they'd all be arriving at the resort and managed to meet all of them in the lobbies as they came in!!). It was so relaxing! I only had one little stress attack and I don't even remember what it was about now so it really couldn't have been that important hehe

 

On the Sunday we met all of our guests (except the few who weren't arriving until Monday) at one of the buffets for a welcome breakfast - we hit a little glitch there but the buffet staff worked it all out for us (one of the managers told us she'd have a section reserved for us, but when we got there that manager was nowhere to be found, there was no section for us and they told us they wouldn't set aside a section for us, but i batted my pretty eyelashes.....and yelled a little bit...and they sorted it all out).

 

Tuesday (the big day!) came up super fast...John and I didn't stay in separate rooms the night before, but in the morning we exchanged our gifts to each other (he bought me the prettiest gold anklet), gave a quick kiss and he left to go to his brother's room. I caught up with my parents for breakfast and then went back to the room to finish up a couple of last minute things. At around 11:30am my WC called to say that my flowers were there and asked if she could bring them up to the room. She dropped them all off and holy cow they were gorgeous! After that my sister and I headed to the spa to get our hair done. My sister's hairdresser was about half an hour late so it put us a little behind, but no biggie. Both of our hairstyles turned out beautiful! Mine wasn't exactly how I'd wanted it, but it was pretty close, and still super pretty anyway! We didn't get out of there until about 2:10pm and we still had to get back to the room, do our makeup, get dressed and all ready to go for 2:55pm. It was a bit of a rush but we did it and we looked hot hehe

 

At 2:55, Gabriela came up to the room to make sure we were ready, and took us down to the cute little golf cart they have for weddings, they have it covered in little flowers...it's too adorable! She let us (I had my sister, mom and dad with me) take a few pictures and then she drove us over to the wedding site.

 

The set up was absolutely beautiful! The mariachi band was there playing some nice soft music, John and our best man looked soooo good standing up at the front of the aisle, I just wanted to run down there and hug them hehe

 

I was able to hide behind a shower (don't worry girls, it doesn't look like a shower from the side the guests were looking at it from...just looks like a stone wall!) so no one could see me before I walked down the aisle, it worked out perfectly. My sister walked down the aisle first...it was too funny because she decided she couldn't walk in the sand in the shoes she was wearing and kicked them off halfway down the aisle (the guests couldn't see them though, thank God LOL) and when I started to walk down the aisle with my parents we had to try and find a way to manouver around them without it looking too obvious We had a good laugh though, it helped to kind of relax us all a little bit. Oh and then I realized just about where we hit the shoes that I'd left my copy of my vows in a bag that I'd handed off to my uncle/videographer just before we were about to walk down the aisle...so that was kind of funny too because I think all my guests heard for half of my walk down the aisle was;

 

me: "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god"

dad: "dont you remember them?"

me: "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god"

mom: "can't you improvise?"

me: "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god"

 

We managed to grab them quick before everyone got seated and it didn't end up being too much of a deal!

 

The rest of the ceremony was kind a blur...I was just so excited to be up there!!!!!!!!! Everyone else said it was beautiful though LOL

 

After the ceremony we were all served champagne and then we started our family photos with the resort photographers. They were OK but I felt really rushed and like they really didn't care about the pictures, they just wanted to get out of there. We spent just about an hour with them and then met up with Erick Rodriguez (from Claudia's team) who took us to Akumal for the rest of our photos.

 

I can't say enough about Erick...he was so awesome! We had originally planned to go to Puerto Aventuras to do our photos on the beach there, but he told us that he had checked out Puerto beforehand and their beach hadn't really recovered from last year's hurricane and that he knew of somewhere that would be much nicer. We ended up at Akumal (the dive center & resort). The beach was busy, but he found us a nice quiet spot and spent about 45 minutes with us. He made us feel so comfortable and relaxed, he kept us both laughing and took some awesome shots! His assistant Mike was awesome too - these guys were so much fun to work with!! I'd highly recommend them to anyone!

 

Erick & Mike dropped us back off at the Barcelo shortly before 6pm...we both headed to the washrooms to freshen up a bit, and then waited for our guests to arrive at the banquet hall.

 

We didn't have a receiving line or have anyone welcome the new couple as we entered the hall...I couldn't be bothered with all that stuff...we just kind of chilled out in the lobby and mingled with our guests until we were told that the banquet hall was ready (in the meantime they were serving these super yummy lime slushy drinks...i couldn't get enough hehe) we let everyone go in first and we followed and went right into our first dance and then father/daughter dance. John dances like my dad. My dad is a terrible lead. But it was fun!

 

After we got that out of the way we had one of our close family friends say grace (it was so beautiful!) and then dinner was served....everyone ranted about how good the food was!! I was so happy we picked what we did....even the presentation of it all was fantastic! And the waitstaff were phenomenal...they were so fast and friendly and everything was timed just right! During dinner we had planned to play our own music, but our WC had put in a CD with some beautiful soft music and we decided just to keep that on - it was so pretty!

 

In between courses we had a couple speeches...(me, then John, then my dad and John's dad)...we didn't want everyone doing toasts so we told them that if they wanted to wish us well that they could grab my dad or my uncle and they'd take a video of their well wishes. It ended up working out really well! Especially for those who wanted to say a few words but aren't really comfortable getting up in front of a crowd.

 

After dinner we did the cake cutting (I couldn't resist, I had to smush) and the bouquet and garter tosses...it was so hilarious...the bouquet toss was pretty normal, but when the garter toss came it got interesting. John had a headlamp that he uses when we go caving up north in the summer...he put it on and climbed under my dress to "Hot in Herre" by Nelly...he had put a bag full of things under the chair without anyone knowing and started pulling them out and tossing them over his shoulder one by one so it looked like he was grabbing them from out of my dress. I almost peed my pants laughing. I really hope someone got pictures because it was too friggin funny.

 

Then we had a wee bit of dancing (we only had the reception hall for 3 hours which kind of sucked...but we could have paid extra to have it longer) and we all headed off to the theater for the show. After the show we were going to head to the disco for more dancing but it had been such a long day that John and I just wanted to crash! We left all our guests to do their own thing, but most of them were in the same boat as us and just went to bed hehe

 

That was it for the night (well...that's all I'm telling you at least hehe)

 

We did hit those few minor glitches, but everything worked out just fine and the wedding was absolutely beautiful. I really couldn't have asked for anything more!!

 

The rest of our trip was spent relaxing, spending time with our family and friends, and drinking as much as possible

The weather was great, the resort is absolutely beautiful and we had so much fun! I'd highly highly recommend the Barcelo to anyone!!!

 

Sorry for the novel LOL I'm sure I could have written more, but I'm sure I've already bored you enough by now hehe

I've got to go pick up my spoiled brat of a bird and then clean up the house a bit but tonight I'll be back upload my pics, I promise!!

 

 

As promised - here are the pics! http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t4239

[LCBride2007]

wow - great review! your wedding sounds like it was a blast to be at - i love that she kicked her shoes off half way down the aisle. and i really hope you got john at the garter toss - what a riot!

 

congrats again - and i can't wait to see some pictures!

[*JillD*]

Melissa, it sounds like everything was beautiful and you had a wonderful day! I'm so glad to hear that you liked Erick from Claudias team, I hired Citlalli, so its good to hear that her team is good to work with, I've only heard good things about them. I can't wait to see your pictures!

[MrsV-to-be]

Aww - congratulations Melissa! it sounded like it was just about perfect!!

your story about walking up the aisle without your vows cracked me up!!

 

can't wait for pictures!

[DreaW]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mexicomelissa Okay girls...get your coffee...popcorn ...whatever makes you happy...this is a long one First let's start with our airport adventure....our luggage was something like 50kg over weight (did you know they charge $10/kg you're over weight??) so instead of paying $500 we paid $160 and got upgraded to first class where they allow you more weight, feed you like a king, and get you drunk The flight was awesome...so smooth and we really were treated soooo well being in first class! Our flight landed at the Cancun airport at around 7pm, our luggage was first off (bonus!!) and we were on the bus heading to the resort by about 8pm. We arrived at the resort around 9:30pm and by the time we checked in (they upgraded us to a junior suite!! woo!!) and got to our room all the buffet restaurants were closed. They've changed things at the resort since the last time we were there - there used to be snack bars open late, but they all close around the same time as the buffets. We decided to order room service because we were starving (despite having a huge meal on the plane!) and holy cow it was one of the best meals we've ever had - it actually made me glad we missed the buffet haha. After dinner we unpacked our bags, watched a little TV and crashed - we were exhausted after a day of travel! The next morning we had an appointment with the doctor (they have an onsite medical office) to get our blood tests done.... I don't even want to get started on this, but I'm going to tell you all about it anyway just as a warning for any of the girls who decide to get married at the Barcelo - ASK FOR THE DOCTOR TO TAKE YOUR BLOOD, DO NOT LET THE NURSES NEAR YOU WITH ANYTHING SHARP AND POINTY!&*#@)%*#% I went first because needles don't bother me (John needed some time to work up to his hehe). She couldn't get any blood out of my right forearm, fine, whatever....so she tried my left forearm....nothing there either....so then she tried MY WRIST...like right where that knobby bone is on the inside of your wrist....HOLY FRIG I've never felt pain like that before. Anywho, no blood there either...and when she was pulling the needle out she slipped and scraped it across my hand so now I have a nice big cut across my left hand (I'm sure it looks great in my pictures!). I was so upset/in pain that I started to cry...first time I've ever cried because of a needle. Because I was so upset she decided that she was going to try to get blood from John to give me a break. She said she couldn't find any veins in John's arm...he has BEAUTIFUL veins in his arms...nice big blue ones...everywhere....I'm not a nurse and I'm pretty sure I could take blood from him hehe...so she decided she was going to take blood from his wrist too! It hurt him so much he passed out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He came to after a couple of seconds but it was so scary! But right after he came around she tried to go after him with a needle again...like are you friggin kidding me? After that there was no way he was having them take any more blood! He was absolutely livid...they had gotten about 1mL of blood from him and he made them call the doctor (who was about an hour and a half late coming to work that day) to see if 1mL was enough to do the tests. Thank God it was or they would have had some issues Once I calmed down I had to go through all the poking and prodding again, and they finally managed to get some blood out of my right wrist this time. So that was the end of that...we were outta there so fast you wouldn't believe it! I swear they had no idea what they were doing!! We asked one of our guests (who's a nurse) what she thought and she was shocked...she looked at us both and said we both have beautiful veins and she'd have no problem getting blood from us... Anywho, on to bigger and better things! After the butcher's...I mean doctor's....we met up with our WC from the resort, Gabriela. This girl is so awesome! We were in and out of her office in half an hour and had absolutely everything planned (and didn't even feel rushed)!! She had big binders full of pictures of everything...different set ups for the ceremony and reception, flowers, cakes, food, everything! And we had 3 awesome menus to choose from for our reception (we chose ceasar salad, a "mixed grill" appetizer plate which was a chimichanga, a quesadilla, a big spare rib, a big chicken wing, and a stuffed jalapeno pepper...it was all sooooo yummy!, then for the main course we chose a ribeye steak with grilled veggies and baked potato, then a vodka infused sorbet to cleanse the pallette hehe and then a chocolate truffle with vanilla ice cream for dessert). All we had to do now was wait a few days until the wedding to start!! (Oh and make a trip into PDC to find some favours for our OOT bags because of that place I ordered from earlier not shipping my stuff! We ended up finding the cutest shot glasses and filled them with Jose Cuervo, Baileys & Kahlua filled chocolates - everyone loved them!) We spent most of our days before the wedding lounging by the pools and greeting all our guests as they came in a few at a time each day (we were lucky enough to figure out about what time they'd all be arriving at the resort and managed to meet all of them in the lobbies as they came in!!). It was so relaxing! I only had one little stress attack and I don't even remember what it was about now so it really couldn't have been that important hehe On the Sunday we met all of our guests (except the few who weren't arriving until Monday) at one of the buffets for a welcome breakfast - we hit a little glitch there but the buffet staff worked it all out for us (one of the managers told us she'd have a section reserved for us, but when we got there that manager was nowhere to be found, there was no section for us and they told us they wouldn't set aside a section for us, but i batted my pretty eyelashes.....and yelled a little bit...and they sorted it all out). Tuesday (the big day!) came up super fast...John and I didn't stay in separate rooms the night before, but in the morning we exchanged our gifts to each other (he bought me the prettiest gold anklet), gave a quick kiss and he left to go to his brother's room. I caught up with my parents for breakfast and then went back to the room to finish up a couple of last minute things. At around 11:30am my WC called to say that my flowers were there and asked if she could bring them up to the room. She dropped them all off and holy cow they were gorgeous! After that my sister and I headed to the spa to get our hair done. My sister's hairdresser was about half an hour late so it put us a little behind, but no biggie. Both of our hairstyles turned out beautiful! Mine wasn't exactly how I'd wanted it, but it was pretty close, and still super pretty anyway! We didn't get out of there until about 2:10pm and we still had to get back to the room, do our makeup, get dressed and all ready to go for 2:55pm. It was a bit of a rush but we did it and we looked hot hehe At 2:55, Gabriela came up to the room to make sure we were ready, and took us down to the cute little golf cart they have for weddings, they have it covered in little flowers...it's too adorable! She let us (I had my sister, mom and dad with me) take a few pictures and then she drove us over to the wedding site. The set up was absolutely beautiful! The mariachi band was there playing some nice soft music, John and our best man looked soooo good standing up at the front of the aisle, I just wanted to run down there and hug them hehe I was able to hide behind a shower (don't worry girls, it doesn't look like a shower from the side the guests were looking at it from...just looks like a stone wall!) so no one could see me before I walked down the aisle, it worked out perfectly. My sister walked down the aisle first...it was too funny because she decided she couldn't walk in the sand in the shoes she was wearing and kicked them off halfway down the aisle (the guests couldn't see them though, thank God LOL) and when I started to walk down the aisle with my parents we had to try and find a way to manouver around them without it looking too obvious We had a good laugh though, it helped to kind of relax us all a little bit. Oh and then I realized just about where we hit the shoes that I'd left my copy of my vows in a bag that I'd handed off to my uncle/videographer just before we were about to walk down the aisle...so that was kind of funny too because I think all my guests heard for half of my walk down the aisle was; me: "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god" dad: "dont you remember them?" me: "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god" mom: "can't you improvise?" me: "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god" We managed to grab them quick before everyone got seated and it didn't end up being too much of a deal! The rest of the ceremony was kind a blur...I was just so excited to be up there!!!!!!!!! Everyone else said it was beautiful though LOL After the ceremony we were all served champagne and then we started our family photos with the resort photographers. They were OK but I felt really rushed and like they really didn't care about the pictures, they just wanted to get out of there. We spent just about an hour with them and then met up with Erick Rodriguez (from Claudia's team) who took us to Akumal for the rest of our photos. I can't say enough about Erick...he was so awesome! We had originally planned to go to Puerto Aventuras to do our photos on the beach there, but he told us that he had checked out Puerto beforehand and their beach hadn't really recovered from last year's hurricane and that he knew of somewhere that would be much nicer. We ended up at Akumal (the dive center & resort). The beach was busy, but he found us a nice quiet spot and spent about 45 minutes with us. He made us feel so comfortable and relaxed, he kept us both laughing and took some awesome shots! His assistant Mike was awesome too - these guys were so much fun to work with!! I'd highly recommend them to anyone! Erick & Mike dropped us back off at the Barcelo shortly before 6pm...we both headed to the washrooms to freshen up a bit, and then waited for our guests to arrive at the banquet hall. We didn't have a receiving line or have anyone welcome the new couple as we entered the hall...I couldn't be bothered with all that stuff...we just kind of chilled out in the lobby and mingled with our guests until we were told that the banquet hall was ready (in the meantime they were serving these super yummy lime slushy drinks...i couldn't get enough hehe) we let everyone go in first and we followed and went right into our first dance and then father/daughter dance. John dances like my dad. My dad is a terrible lead. But it was fun! After we got that out of the way we had one of our close family friends say grace (it was so beautiful!) and then dinner was served....everyone ranted about how good the food was!! I was so happy we picked what we did....even the presentation of it all was fantastic! And the waitstaff were phenomenal...they were so fast and friendly and everything was timed just right! During dinner we had planned to play our own music, but our WC had put in a CD with some beautiful soft music and we decided just to keep that on - it was so pretty! In between courses we had a couple speeches...(me, then John, then my dad and John's dad)...we didn't want everyone doing toasts so we told them that if they wanted to wish us well that they could grab my dad or my uncle and they'd take a video of their well wishes. It ended up working out really well! Especially for those who wanted to say a few words but aren't really comfortable getting up in front of a crowd. After dinner we did the cake cutting (I couldn't resist, I had to smush) and the bouquet and garter tosses...it was so hilarious...the bouquet toss was pretty normal, but when the garter toss came it got interesting. John had a headlamp that he uses when we go caving up north in the summer...he put it on and climbed under my dress to "Hot in Herre" by Nelly...he had put a bag full of things under the chair without anyone knowing and started pulling them out and tossing them over his shoulder one by one so it looked like he was grabbing them from out of my dress. I almost peed my pants laughing. I really hope someone got pictures because it was too friggin funny. Then we had a wee bit of dancing (we only had the reception hall for 3 hours which kind of sucked...but we could have paid extra to have it longer) and we all headed off to the theater for the show. After the show we were going to head to the disco for more dancing but it had been such a long day that John and I just wanted to crash! We left all our guests to do their own thing, but most of them were in the same boat as us and just went to bed hehe That was it for the night (well...that's all I'm telling you at least hehe) We did hit those few minor glitches, but everything worked out just fine and the wedding was absolutely beautiful. I really couldn't have asked for anything more!! The rest of our trip was spent relaxing, spending time with our family and friends, and drinking as much as possible The weather was great, the resort is absolutely beautiful and we had so much fun! I'd highly highly recommend the Barcelo to anyone!!! Sorry for the novel LOL I'm sure I could have written more, but I'm sure I've already bored you enough by now hehe I've got to go pick up my spoiled brat of a bird and then clean up the house a bit but tonight I'll be back upload my pics, I promise!!

Melissa,
Loved the review.... I was trying to so hard not to laugh out loud in class today (subbing 8th grade math) with regards to your Doctor incident....I'm soooo sorry that happened...I can't believe they did that.
Everything else sounded beautiful and fun...loved the garter toss idea, maybe I can get erik to do that.
Can't wait to see pics.
Congratulations.
Andrea

[cheese_diva]

Yeah! I'm so glad everything worked out.. puts things into perspective when you're able to pick food and flowers there.. what the heck are we worrying about! lol I can't wait to see more pictures!!!

[CourtneyV]

Melissa - great review. Sounds like it went great (even with the glitches!). You've made up my mind about a legal ceremony though - I'd rather not have blood drawn from my wrists and have Aaron pass out lol. OMG, garter toss is hilarious!! What kind of stuff was he tossing out?!

I just saw your picture (really, posting one is just cruel!) - it looks like there is no one on the beach - no one would guess that it was actually crowded!

Can't wait to see more pics!!

[~Melissa~]

AWE! Wow, I just love to hear wedding stories. im so happy your day was everything you dreamed of. That sucks about the needles.. hence why I won't be doing the legal in Mexico. heheh. So did you take a video of the ceremony? It sounded so awesome! Can't wait for more pictures! thanks for the great reveiw!!

 

Were you a boogie dancing bride?!

[destinationbride07]

kewl welcome back

[LisaG]

Wow Melissa - what a great review. The garter toss was hilarious!!! Can't wait to see more pics!

 

It makes me more at ease about you picking your flowers, set up and food when you got there. That's what we are doing too! Yeah - glad it all worked out!!