Hacienda Tres Rios Brides Post Here!

[JenG05]

Great magazine page! Your wedding was beautiful.  Congrats, again.

[JenG05]

Hello Dayna, I think you won't have any problems finishing your planning on when you arrive.  All the food is really good, you almost can't go wrong.  I've been to the resort before and the food was amazing.  There are a lot of good options for ceremony and reception locations.  Allibe showed me some pictures of a ceremony on the pier that were amazing.  I am still considering the pier because I would rather not have it on the sand.  Good luck.  I'm sure it will be beautiful.

[JenG05]

Hi Ladies,

I'm not sure how to word the ceremony location on the invitations.  Did you provide a specific description on the invitations?

[Samantha88k]

I didn't write anything specifically about the ceremony location on the invites but I am planning to send out a brochure (vistaprint) along with our luggage tags about a month before everyone leaves and in that brochure I mentioned what attire would be appropriate for the actual wedding and reception.
 

Originally Posted by JenG05 

Hi Ladies,

I'm not sure how to word the ceremony location on the invitations.  Did you provide a specific description on the invitations?

 

[Dayna8]

JenG

 

Thanks for the advice about reception areas and preparing when I arrive. I have not asked Allibe about ceremony/ reception pictures but maybe I should thats a great idea. Also on my invitations I did not put a specific location, instead I more or less put a time..Like I had the resort name, city, etc, and then put at sunset....I don't think you need to specify if everyone will be there you know. 

[damitAPRILurCOOL]

Hi everyone!  My hubs and I got married at H3R on 11.11.11.  We wish we could say it went smoothly, but it didn't.   It sucks because everyone before us had an amazing wedding, but unfortunately, we just lucked out.  The day before our wedding, Allibe (whom I planned everything with for a year) had an emergency so she couldn't be there.  She had left my wedding to be coordinated by Luis and her assistant, Guillermo (I think that's what his name is?).

 

I'm basing our bad experience with the H3R team on the fact that as a part-time wedding planner/coordinator myself, the second most important aspect of our wedding (the most important aspect, of course, being that my hubs and I got married) was that neither myself nor my groom had to worry about ANYTHING on the day of - which the team failed at.  Since Allibe was not there to coordinate all the things we had discussed prior, Luis was supposed to but he just did NOT step up to that role at all.

 

During the planning stages of our wedding, I actually took control on a lot of the coordination.  Allibe was there to help me with pricing, vendor recommendations, etc, but when it came down to planning the specifics - I did it all (which I was fine with).  For our wedding day, I ensured that we wouldn't have to worry about anything by planning absolutely every. single. detail.  So all Allibe had to do was be there.  I had everything planned, sent the documentation to Allibe and all the vendors, put together diagrams of what I wanted, everything.. Yet, despite all the little details that I planned (and some left unnoticed because of choices the H3R team made), the biggest disappointment was the fact that the groom ended up having to coordinate a lot of things that day/night since there was no coordinator.

 

To be fair, regardless of everything that didn't go as planned, everyone had an amazing time.  We had 70 guests at our wedding and a lot of our guests told us that it was the "best wedding ever" which was a huge compliment when I felt that everything was going wrong.  To be honest, there was only one part of the wedding day which people knew there was something wrong, so all the little things I cared about.. no one else did or even noticed.. so it wasn't horribly bad.

 

Anyway, I'll get down to the nitty gritty so you know what didn't go as planned, but I'll start with the good:

• The resort is absolutely beautiful!!!  We were worried because we didn't do a site visit prior to the wedding, but there were definitely no complaints here.  They kept it well maintained throughout our whole week there.
• All the wedding food choices we tasted were DELICIOUS.  On the day of our wedding, the food was even better than at the tasting.
• The cake and dessert entree were both soooo yummy!
• The alcohol was high-end and free-flowing all night.
• The servers (on the night of the wedding) were amazing.  They were VERY attentive to our guests.  A couple things to point out: Everyone was drinking and after dinner, some guests were still hungry so the servers even went out to grab pizzas from the pizzaria for them!  How awesome is that!?  Also, at the end of the reception, our guests jumped in the pool and the servers had towels waiting for everyone coming out!  So thoughtful!
• We were able to do a sky lantern ceremony which was, by far, the most amazing part of the night.  It was awesome!  It is pretty dangerous to do when everyone is drunk though (unfortunately, my MOH got burned from the fire), but it really was worth it!  Everyone, except my MOH, loved the experience and the pictures of it are amazing!

 

Food:  We arrived the Sunday before our Friday wedding and we had our food tasting on Monday afternoon and our cake tasting on Tuesday evening.  So in case anyone is wondering, there's enough time to do it in the same week!  All the food choices we tried were delicious.  For our first course, we tried the campanario salad, three maria salad, and roman lettuce salad with creamy anchovy vinaigrette.  We chose the three maria salad.  It was a more "basic" choice that we felt everyone would enjoy even though all 3 were yummy.  For our second course, we decided we would have the same split entree for all of our guests (non-vegetarian).  We tried: 1) hacienda chicken & san juan fish, 2) 7 chilies chicken & caporal fish, 3) beef tournedo & grilled shrimp.  We chose the hacienda chicken and san juan fish because not only was it so damn good, but also of the 3 choices.. it was a little safer choice than the rest.  But like I said, they were ALL SOOO good.  What REALLY amazed us was how good they cooked chicken.  It was so tender and moist, not dry like typical wedding food is.  The night of our wedding, we thought the quality wouldn't be as good on the chicken, but it was still so good if not better!!  For our dessert course, we were given the option of having 3 dessert choices on one plate: coffee creme brulee with strawberry compote, flan with cajeta, and red wine canoles stuffed with cheese and pear mousse.  Ugh, they were all sooo good.  Thankfully, we were able to have all 3 on one plate and didn't have to choose just 1!  [i have pictures of the food from our food tasting if anyone wants to see how they are plated.. let me know!]

 

Cake:  We tasted: red velvet with cream cheese frosting, tres leches cake with strawberry filling and buttercream frosting, pecan praline cake with cream cheese frosting, and a caramel cupcake with a salted caramel buttercream frosting.  We chose the red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  It was the best out of all the ones we tried, but we weren't completely in love with it at our tasting mainly because it didn't taste like the typical US version of a red velvet cake.  However, surprisingly, on the day of the wedding, the cake was soo good!  We got a lot of compliments on how good it was!  (As well as how good the rest of the courses were!) [i also have pictures of the cake slices we tasted from our cake tasting.]

 

So.. what could have possibly gone wrong?  Like I said, Allibe was called out because of an emergency and unfortunately, everything I expressed to her did not completely translate to Luis and Guillermo.  I was very particular about a lot of things and how a lot of things were displayed, so I had specifically requested a lot from her.  That was probably the biggest problem because I'm sure that someone who isn't so particular wouldn't have had the expectations that I had. 

 

• Luis knew that Allibe was gone, so on the morning of the wedding, he should have let me know.  This would have avoided A LOT of stress because I would have been able to tell him (or even my bridesmaids) what needed to be done, how everyone was supposed to line up, basically everything he did not know.  (PS.  He did not know ANYTHING!)
• I had brought a lot of stuff to use for the decor/setup.  For the most part, it was set up correctly, but just not when I had expected.  There was a table in which they just threw our decor on it, so it looks horrible in pictures.
• Luis did not line-up our wedding party for the ceremony even though Allibe was supposed to.  She was also supposed to coordinate with the officiant to determine which side I was supposed to stand on depending on the direction of the wind (so my veil/hair would blow away from me).  My groom had to do it, so he basically had to scramble to get everything together last minute.
• Like I said, there was only one time that our guests knew there was something wrong.  It was right before I was supposed to walk down the aisle.  They had the wrong ceremony music.  Unfortunately, our wedding party ended up walking down before me and walked down to the wrong music too, but I wasn't around to hear it in order to catch it.  When it came time for me to start walking, I heard the wrong music and gave Luis a look of, "What the hell is this music? It's wrong!"  Luis tried to make it better by saying he would get the right CD, so that I could walk down to the right music.  I ended up waiting through 1 whole song (~4 minutes) for him to try to get the right CD, so of course my guests were like.. what's going on!? since they could see me just standing there.  After that song finished and he still didn't have the right CD, I decided to just walk down to whatever song was playing at that time.
• I designed/put together ceremony programs and fans for our guests and they were supposed to be put closer to the ceremony setup so that our guests could take them.  Unfortunately, they setup the table so far away from the ceremony setup that no one knew to take them!  This was frustrating because of all the time, energy, and money spent on these!
• Allibe was supposed to direct our guests from the ceremony to the cocktail hour, but no one did.  They all, eventually, found their way.
• Our favors that had our guests' names/table #'s attached were not set out like they were supposed to be which caused my groom to have to look for them which also caused our reception program to start little later than expected because no one knew where they were sitting.
• The events of the reception didn't go as planned because of the lack of coordination between the DJ and Luis.
• We purchased fireworks and planned for them to go off during the cake cutting.  It cost us $1000, but it was SO SHORT (10 drums that lasted 20seconds, if that)!  For that price, it's definitely not worth it!  Save your money!  By the time most guests realized there were fireworks, it was over!

 

Some tips:

• If you can afford it, do a hair and makeup trial OR bring your own hair and makeup team!  Like I said, I absolutely hated my hair and makeup, but there was no time to change it on the day-of because we ran out of time.  OR ensure that the hair and makeup team arrive on time.
• Regardless of how busy the weekend is, fit in a wedding rehearsal, so everyone knows what they're doing and where to go.  We decided to forego a rehearsal because of the different times everyone was arriving to the resort, so in lieu of a rehearsal, I had sent out a pamphlet to my wedding party prior to leaving describing everything that was going down on the day of.  It still woulda been a good idea to actually go over their line-up/placement prior to the day-of.
• I depended A LOT on Allibe and everything I had planned with her, but she just didn't pull through like I needed her to.  Given, she was away because of an emergency, but she should have made sure that Luis would step into the same exact role that I had expected her to be.  Either don't depend solely on her OR hire a (separate) day-of wedding coordinator!  I have absolutely NO faith in Allibe, Luis, and their whole team when it comes to actually coordinating the events of the reception and as the bride and groom, you really don't want to worry about anything!

 

Vendor reviews:

• Hair and Makeup by Alexandro Makeup.  They arrived late and with 11 women getting hair/makeup done, this was NOT a good thing.  We ran out of time at the end, so one of my bridesmaids didn't get her hair done like she wanted.  It was rushed through at the end.  I actually hated my hair and makeup, but unfortunately, since we ran out of time I couldn't fix it. It was a mixed review from everyone else who got hair/makeup done though - some girls liked it, some didn't. 

• Photography by Daniel Galang Photography.  They are based out of San Diego, CA so we flew him and his wife (his second shooter) out for our wedding.  They did an AMAZING job!

• Videography by Marco Cossu and team.  I had hired 1 videographer which included a wedding highlight video, 3 copies of the fully editted wedding day on blu-ray, and all the raw footage.  Shipping was included.  We also rented a video projector and screen to show montages throughout the night.  On the day-of, I expected one person, but a different person showed up.  Matthew(I think?) was great though.  His presence was not intrusive at all and he was friendly to all our guests.  There was a miscommunication when it came to the projector and screen rental though.

• Flowers by Latin Asia Flowers (Saku).  Some things you can't really control.  I had specifically asked for full bloomed roses for my bouquet and the bridesmaid bouquets, but received bouquets of tight buds.  Everything else she did for me was fine.  After the wedding, I asked her why they weren't like I wanted, and she was honest with me and told me that the roses didn't bloom and open up like she hoped they would before the wedding.  She had the choice to either use the buds she had (in the right color) or use fuller roses that did bloom a little more (but were not in the right color - ivory, not white).  She made the choice to use the right color (white roses) in tighter buds.  Because of this mistake, she compensated by using a lot more roses throughout the cocktail hour and reception area than she was supposed to.

• DJ/Emcee by Mayan Vibes (Bijan Zade).  I don't have much to say about him.  He played the music I asked him to play.  He was not a recommended vendor from the hotel and someone I found on my own.  Just to ensure smoother coordination, I would suggest just going with what the hotel recommends.

[damitAPRILurCOOL]

Our wedding day highlight video courtesy of Marco Cossu and team: http://vimeo.com/32215392

 

Our wedding day photo teasers can be seen here: http://www.danielgalangblog.com/?p=2215

[Samantha88k]

Sorry to hear that Allibe didn't come through for you. Thats a major bummer, but you tips make me feel a tad better. I am very Type A so I could see myself expecting more than what is possible. I would LOVE to see the pictures of the food!! I have been talking to Allibe a little about cake options but she just told me whatever I want I can have, so it was great to see the actual flavors they  let you try! Did you choose those or were those the options they provided? The food pics would be great too seeing as a list of different options can translate so differently to so many different people! Thanks again for the helpful review and CONGRATULATIONS!!!!]]

 

Oh, 1 more thing, where did you purchase your lanterns?
 

Originally Posted by damitAPRILurCOOL 

Hi everyone!  My hubs and I got married at H3R on 11.11.11.  We wish we could say it went smoothly, but it didn't.   It sucks because everyone before us had an amazing wedding, but unfortunately, we just lucked out.  The day before our wedding, Allibe (whom I planned everything with for a year) had an emergency so she couldn't be there.  She had left my wedding to be coordinated by Luis and her assistant, Guillermo (I think that's what his name is?).

 

I'm basing our bad experience with the H3R team on the fact that as a part-time wedding planner/coordinator myself, the second most important aspect of our wedding (the most important aspect, of course, being that my hubs and I got married) was that neither myself nor my groom had to worry about ANYTHING on the day of - which the team failed at.  Since Allibe was not there to coordinate all the things we had discussed prior, Luis was supposed to but he just did NOT step up to that role at all.

 

During the planning stages of our wedding, I actually took control on a lot of the coordination.  Allibe was there to help me with pricing, vendor recommendations, etc, but when it came down to planning the specifics - I did it all (which I was fine with).  For our wedding day, I ensured that we wouldn't have to worry about anything by planning absolutely every. single. detail.  So all Allibe had to do was be there.  I had everything planned, sent the documentation to Allibe and all the vendors, put together diagrams of what I wanted, everything.. Yet, despite all the little details that I planned (and some left unnoticed because of choices the H3R team made), the biggest disappointment was the fact that the groom ended up having to coordinate a lot of things that day/night since there was no coordinator.

 

To be fair, regardless of everything that didn't go as planned, everyone had an amazing time.  We had 70 guests at our wedding and a lot of our guests told us that it was the "best wedding ever" which was a huge compliment when I felt that everything was going wrong.  To be honest, there was only one part of the wedding day which people knew there was something wrong, so all the little things I cared about.. no one else did or even noticed.. so it wasn't horribly bad.

 

Anyway, I'll get down to the nitty gritty so you know what didn't go as planned, but I'll start with the good:

• The resort is absolutely beautiful!!!  We were worried because we didn't do a site visit prior to the wedding, but there were definitely no complaints here.  They kept it well maintained throughout our whole week there.
• All the wedding food choices we tasted were DELICIOUS.  On the day of our wedding, the food was even better than at the tasting.
• The cake and dessert entree were both soooo yummy!
• The alcohol was high-end and free-flowing all night.
• The servers (on the night of the wedding) were amazing.  They were VERY attentive to our guests.  A couple things to point out: Everyone was drinking and after dinner, some guests were still hungry so the servers even went out to grab pizzas from the pizzaria for them!  How awesome is that!?  Also, at the end of the reception, our guests jumped in the pool and the servers had towels waiting for everyone coming out!  So thoughtful!
• We were able to do a sky lantern ceremony which was, by far, the most amazing part of the night.  It was awesome!  It is pretty dangerous to do when everyone is drunk though (unfortunately, my MOH got burned from the fire), but it really was worth it!  Everyone, except my MOH, loved the experience and the pictures of it are amazing!

 

Food:  We arrived the Sunday before our Friday wedding and we had our food tasting on Monday afternoon and our cake tasting on Tuesday evening.  So in case anyone is wondering, there's enough time to do it in the same week!  All the food choices we tried were delicious.  For our first course, we tried the campanario salad, three maria salad, and roman lettuce salad with creamy anchovy vinaigrette.  We chose the three maria salad.  It was a more "basic" choice that we felt everyone would enjoy even though all 3 were yummy.  For our second course, we decided we would have the same split entree for all of our guests (non-vegetarian).  We tried: 1) hacienda chicken & san juan fish, 2) 7 chilies chicken & caporal fish, 3) beef tournedo & grilled shrimp.  We chose the hacienda chicken and san juan fish because not only was it so damn good, but also of the 3 choices.. it was a little safer choice than the rest.  But like I said, they were ALL SOOO good.  What REALLY amazed us was how good they cooked chicken.  It was so tender and moist, not dry like typical wedding food is.  The night of our wedding, we thought the quality wouldn't be as good on the chicken, but it was still so good if not better!!  For our dessert course, we were given the option of having 3 dessert choices on one plate: coffee creme brulee with strawberry compote, flan with cajeta, and red wine canoles stuffed with cheese and pear mousse.  Ugh, they were all sooo good.  Thankfully, we were able to have all 3 on one plate and didn't have to choose just 1!  [i have pictures of the food from our food tasting if anyone wants to see how they are plated.. let me know!]

 

Cake:  We tasted: red velvet with cream cheese frosting, tres leches cake with strawberry filling and buttercream frosting, pecan praline cake with cream cheese frosting, and a caramel cupcake with a salted caramel buttercream frosting.  We chose the red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  It was the best out of all the ones we tried, but we weren't completely in love with it at our tasting mainly because it didn't taste like the typical US version of a red velvet cake.  However, surprisingly, on the day of the wedding, the cake was soo good!  We got a lot of compliments on how good it was!  (As well as how good the rest of the courses were!) [i also have pictures of the cake slices we tasted from our cake tasting.]

 

So.. what could have possibly gone wrong?  Like I said, Allibe was called out because of an emergency and unfortunately, everything I expressed to her did not completely translate to Luis and Guillermo.  I was very particular about a lot of things and how a lot of things were displayed, so I had specifically requested a lot from her.  That was probably the biggest problem because I'm sure that someone who isn't so particular wouldn't have had the expectations that I had. 

 

• Luis knew that Allibe was gone, so on the morning of the wedding, he should have let me know.  This would have avoided A LOT of stress because I would have been able to tell him (or even my bridesmaids) what needed to be done, how everyone was supposed to line up, basically everything he did not know.  (PS.  He did not know ANYTHING!)
• I had brought a lot of stuff to use for the decor/setup.  For the most part, it was set up correctly, but just not when I had expected.  There was a table in which they just threw our decor on it, so it looks horrible in pictures.
• Luis did not line-up our wedding party for the ceremony even though Allibe was supposed to.  She was also supposed to coordinate with the officiant to determine which side I was supposed to stand on depending on the direction of the wind (so my veil/hair would blow away from me).  My groom had to do it, so he basically had to scramble to get everything together last minute.
• Like I said, there was only one time that our guests knew there was something wrong.  It was right before I was supposed to walk down the aisle.  They had the wrong ceremony music.  Unfortunately, our wedding party ended up walking down before me and walked down to the wrong music too, but I wasn't around to hear it in order to catch it.  When it came time for me to start walking, I heard the wrong music and gave Luis a look of, "What the hell is this music? It's wrong!"  Luis tried to make it better by saying he would get the right CD, so that I could walk down to the right music.  I ended up waiting through 1 whole song (~4 minutes) for him to try to get the right CD, so of course my guests were like.. what's going on!? since they could see me just standing there.  After that song finished and he still didn't have the right CD, I decided to just walk down to whatever song was playing at that time.
• I designed/put together ceremony programs and fans for our guests and they were supposed to be put closer to the ceremony setup so that our guests could take them.  Unfortunately, they setup the table so far away from the ceremony setup that no one knew to take them!  This was frustrating because of all the time, energy, and money spent on these!
• Allibe was supposed to direct our guests from the ceremony to the cocktail hour, but no one did.  They all, eventually, found their way.
• Our favors that had our guests' names/table #'s attached were not set out like they were supposed to be which caused my groom to have to look for them which also caused our reception program to start little later than expected because no one knew where they were sitting.
• The events of the reception didn't go as planned because of the lack of coordination between the DJ and Luis.
• We purchased fireworks and planned for them to go off during the cake cutting.  It cost us $1000, but it was SO SHORT (10 drums that lasted 20seconds, if that)!  For that price, it's definitely not worth it!  Save your money!  By the time most guests realized there were fireworks, it was over!

 

Some tips:

• If you can afford it, do a hair and makeup trial OR bring your own hair and makeup team!  Like I said, I absolutely hated my hair and makeup, but there was no time to change it on the day-of because we ran out of time.  OR ensure that the hair and makeup team arrive on time.
• Regardless of how busy the weekend is, fit in a wedding rehearsal, so everyone knows what they're doing and where to go.  We decided to forego a rehearsal because of the different times everyone was arriving to the resort, so in lieu of a rehearsal, I had sent out a pamphlet to my wedding party prior to leaving describing everything that was going down on the day of.  It still woulda been a good idea to actually go over their line-up/placement prior to the day-of.
• I depended A LOT on Allibe and everything I had planned with her, but she just didn't pull through like I needed her to.  Given, she was away because of an emergency, but she should have made sure that Luis would step into the same exact role that I had expected her to be.  Either don't depend solely on her OR hire a (separate) day-of wedding coordinator!  I have absolutely NO faith in Allibe, Luis, and their whole team when it comes to actually coordinating the events of the reception and as the bride and groom, you really don't want to worry about anything!

 

Vendor reviews:

• Hair and Makeup by Alexandro Makeup.  They arrived late and with 11 women getting hair/makeup done, this was NOT a good thing.  We ran out of time at the end, so one of my bridesmaids didn't get her hair done like she wanted.  It was rushed through at the end.  I actually hated my hair and makeup, but unfortunately, since we ran out of time I couldn't fix it. It was a mixed review from everyone else who got hair/makeup done though - some girls liked it, some didn't. 

• Photography by Daniel Galang Photography.  They are based out of San Diego, CA so we flew him and his wife (his second shooter) out for our wedding.  They did an AMAZING job!

• Videography by Marco Cossu and team.  I had hired 1 videographer which included a wedding highlight video, 3 copies of the fully editted wedding day on blu-ray, and all the raw footage.  Shipping was included.  We also rented a video projector and screen to show montages throughout the night.  On the day-of, I expected one person, but a different person showed up.  Matthew(I think?) was great though.  His presence was not intrusive at all and he was friendly to all our guests.  There was a miscommunication when it came to the projector and screen rental though.

• Flowers by Latin Asia Flowers (Saku).  Some things you can't really control.  I had specifically asked for full bloomed roses for my bouquet and the bridesmaid bouquets, but received bouquets of tight buds.  Everything else she did for me was fine.  After the wedding, I asked her why they weren't like I wanted, and she was honest with me and told me that the roses didn't bloom and open up like she hoped they would before the wedding.  She had the choice to either use the buds she had (in the right color) or use fuller roses that did bloom a little more (but were not in the right color - ivory, not white).  She made the choice to use the right color (white roses) in tighter buds.  Because of this mistake, she compensated by using a lot more roses throughout the cocktail hour and reception area than she was supposed to.

• DJ/Emcee by Mayan Vibes (Bijan Zade).  I don't have much to say about him.  He played the music I asked him to play.  He was not a recommended vendor from the hotel and someone I found on my own.  Just to ensure smoother coordination, I would suggest just going with what the hotel recommends.

 

[damitAPRILurCOOL]

Hi! Here you go!

 

Appetizers:

This is the Campanario Salad:

 

This is the Three Maria Salad (our choice):

 

This is the Roman Lettuce Salad with Crispy Bacon, Puff Pastry Grissini, Parmesan Cheese Slices, and Creamy Anchovy Vinaigrette (Basically, a fancy Caesar Salad):

 

Main Courses (We asked for split plate):

Hacienda Chicken and San Juan Fish (FYI - The chicken is actually the tall roll covered in the green sauce. The fish is covered in the white sauce. SO GOOD!)

 

7 Chilies Chicken and Caporal Fish

 

Beef Tournedo and Grilled Shrimp (The shrimp were ginormous!)

[damitAPRILurCOOL]

Dessert Course:

Coffee Creme Brulee and Strawberry Compote (the size of this at the wedding was NOT this big, it was tiny.  also, it didn't have the hard sugar top that typical creme brulee has, but it was still sooo yummy), Flan with Kiwi, and Red Wine Canoles

 

Our cake tasting:

 

The 2 chocolate cupcakes were supposed to be a caramel cupcake with a salted caramel buttercream frosting.  It was just a chocolate cupcake with vanilla ice cream on top, so totally not what we wanted, BUT it was still really good.  They do a really great chocolate cake (not too rich, just right sweetness).  As good as it was, we decided against it because chocolate isn't always liked by people.  The 2 pieces on the right were tres leches cake with strawberry filling and buttercream frosting.  The 2 pieces on the left were pecan praline cake with cream cheese frosting.  The piece on the top is red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

 

And about the lanterns, we ended up just buying them from ebay and bringing them with us.  The hotel was charging us like $10/lantern which was crazy expensive because we bought them for less than $2/lantern on ebay.