Dreams Riviera Cancun - Brides post here (new thread)

[ZachJess2013]

They will give you the credit of whatever the cocktail hour price is in the wedding guide x 20.  We had our guests meet at the beach bar while we took pictures.

Doesn't the beach bar close at like 6p tho?

[loripanori]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrsSmith2BMex 

Hi Lori

We are having a legal wedding on Jan 6. Mu wedding planner says only symbolic ceremony has sand ceremony but it is something that we really want to do and include our childen ( we have both been married before and so it's a blended family sand ceremony), where you able to personalise your legal ceremony ? And how long did your wedding certificate take to arrive ? Thank you x

 

Hello!

 

We had a legal wedding and it included the sand ceremony!  Our minister's was named Pedro, and he did all of the legal ceremonies we saw that week.  I'm not sure if maybe they sometimes use different ministers that don't include the sand ceremony?  We didn't request it, or ask for it to be included, it seemed to just be included by default.  So I would assume you would be able to have it if you wanted.  We went over the legal ceremony script with the wedding planner, and didn't make any changes, but I think you probably could if you wanted to personalize it in some way.  They seemed quite flexible, even though it was a legal ceremony and not symbolic.  We were given a copy of the marriage license to take home with us, but it was completely in Spanish.  The translated & certified version arrived probably 3 months after our wedding date (we were married April 18th, and it arrived here sometime early in July).   

 

You can see most of what was included in the legal ceremony in our wedding video, if you're interested...  this is the video that was taken by the resort videographer (included in the ultimate package).  I hope this helps!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRv6MIAelSc

[loripanori]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZachJess2013 


Doesn't the beach bar close at like 6p tho?

 

The beach bar does close at 6pm...  depending on what time your reception starts, that might not work for you.  In the winter months it gets dark quite early, so a lot of the receptions start earlier.

[MrsSmith2BMex]

Hello! We had a legal wedding and it included the sand ceremony!  Our minister's was named Pedro, and he did all of the legal ceremonies we saw that week.  I'm not sure if maybe they sometimes use different ministers that don't include the sand ceremony?  We didn't request it, or ask for it to be included, it seemed to just be included by default.  So I would assume you would be able to have it if you wanted.  We went over the legal ceremony script with the wedding planner, and didn't make any changes, but I think you probably could if you wanted to personalize it in some way.  They seemed quite flexible, even though it was a legal ceremony and not symbolic.  We were given a copy of the marriage license to take home with us, but it was completely in Spanish.  The translated & certified version arrived probably 3 months after our wedding date (we were married April 18th, and it arrived here sometime early in July).    You can see most of what was included in the legal ceremony in our wedding video, if you're interested...  this is the video that was taken by the resort videographer (included in the ultimate package).  I hope this helps!

[MrsSmith2BMex]

Thank you for this so helpful your wedding was lovely x can't wait for ours 😃

[Wedding2014]

I also just found a post I made shortly after getting home containing a lot of the price breakdown... We were only given $400 credit for not having the cocktail hour, which was less than the actual cost for 20 people (I think they charge $26 per person. Anyway, thought I'd repost it in case it helps anyone.

for the 300 dollars higher than signed fee, did you contact the hotel about it? Or credit card company?

[JBarks]

I have a couple questions about the gold plated dinner menu:

 

- do the planners require your guest's meal choices way ahead of time, or are guests just given the options at the reception and pick at that point?

 

- did anyone make/bring their own menus?

 

- were your guests allowed to choose between the gold menu two options, as well as the vegetarian menu? I'd like to choose the lamb and seabass options, but I think picky eaters might take advantage of the vegetarian option, if I can have all three options.

 

- did anyone order these meal options and have comments on quality?

 

Thanks ladies!

[Savs1027]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZachJess2013 


Doesn't the beach bar close at like 6p tho?

yes, our ceremony was at 3:30 because it was in december. During the summer that probably wouldn't work.

[loripanori]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wedding2014 


for the 300 dollars higher than signed fee, did you contact the hotel about it? Or credit card company?

 

We didn't pursue this issue...  I don't think it was an actual billing error, more an unfortunate side effect resulting from how they do the billing.  We didn't realize this in advance, but basically the wedding coordinators give you your final total in US dollars and then you have to go to the front desk to pay your bill.  However, the front desk will only bill in pesos.  So they convert your bill from USD to pesos, according to their exchange rate.  They charge your card in pesos, and then the credit card converts this BACK to your local currency, and usually charges a fee to do so (usually around 2.5%).  So it's quite likely that the currency conversion rates at the hotel and at VISA aren't equal (especially since there are usually different rates to convert from USD to pesos, vs. pesos to USD).  Plus a fee gets added on to the conversion.  I don't think there's much you can do about it, other than paying in cash.  And I've heard that some credit cards have no foreign currency fees, so that might be something to look into.   

[loripanori]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBarks 
 

I have a couple questions about the gold plated dinner menu:

 

- do the planners require your guest's meal choices way ahead of time, or are guests just given the options at the reception and pick at that point?

 

- did anyone make/bring their own menus?

 

- were your guests allowed to choose between the gold menu two options, as well as the vegetarian menu? I'd like to choose the lamb and seabass options, but I think picky eaters might take advantage of the vegetarian option, if I can have all three options.

 

- did anyone order these meal options and have comments on quality?

 

Thanks ladies!

 

A lot of times the wedding planner will try to get you to stick to a single meal choice for everyone (plus a vegetarian option).  In the menus where it lists the appetizer, soup, salad, sea bass OR lamb, and dessert - what they actually want you to do is choose either the sea bass OR lamb to be served to everyone, in combination with the app/soup/salad/dessert that is listed.  I know some brides have been able to talk their wedding coordinator into having two choices for their guests though - in those cases, I'm almost positive you will have to send in the numbers in advance.  It's either a week or a month in advance, I forget which.  We only finalized our menu after arriving at the resort, so I'm sure a week or two ahead of your date would be fine.  My guess is that you'll still be able to have a vegetarian option, because they wouldn't want any vegetarian guests to not be served a meal.  But I would definitely confirm that you can have two meal options for your guests, because they will try to get you to stick to one only.  

 

My husband and I are both picky, and we honestly had a hard time finding anything on the menus that we would eat.  We had the ultimate package but ended up going with the beef wellington from the silver menu, and changed the soup, salad and dessert that comes with it (even though we had never had beef wellington before, lol).  Anyway, it wasn't our favourite meal of the week.  But they were very flexible in terms of working with us to make a menu with items we would actually eat, so that was a plus.