My Nov.9/09 Wedding Review (Majestic Colonial, Punta Cana)

[Karen Aucoin]

So like others have said this site had helped me so much while planning my wedding that I thought I would share our wedding experience. I'll start off by saying that we have been to Punta Cana twice before for weddings at other resorts and have had something to compare our resort/wedding to.

 

The resort is beautiful and the staff are so friendly and helpful. Our check-in was a breeze and we were able to receive our upgrade and got a suite. This room is HUGE!! It was so nice to have the extra space and we even had a big get-together one night on our terrace with over 20 people. It was also nice for getting ready the day of the wedding with having so many people plus our photographers.

 

My wedding coordinator throughout the entire experience was Maritee and she was wonderful to deal with. While communicating by email she was always very quick to respond and I tried to keep my questions brief and right to the point. We had arrived late on Saturday, November 7th and Maritee had arranged to come in on her day off to meet with us in order for us to get married on Monday the 9th. This was so sweet of her and I really appreciated it. Our meeting was set for 9am and went so quickly and easy my fiancé looked at me after and said, "That's it?" as we just went over the location and little details. I had brought a suitcase with things such as our sand ceremony set and chair sashes, table runners, place card holders and decorative shells and starfish and had the rest of our things back up in our room. I had planned to have a couple of our guests arrange things like our fans for the chairs and the cake decorations and topper, guests book etc. but Maritee said to bring it all to her and she would do it all. She added our ribbon to all the fans and had everything arranged perfectly. We did keep our favours and added those to the table just before dinner.

 

When we had booked our trip I knew that November was the tail end of hurricane season but in what I had read and experienced in the past I wasn't worried about the weather. Any time I have been there and it's rained it rains hard for 10 mins and then it's done. Well, not the case this time. When we arrived on Sat evening it was pouring...again, all day Sunday and in our meeting Maritee said that the backup plan would be to move things inside. I didn't think much of it assuming that with all the rain surely by Monday it would be done. Not so much, I woke up Monday to more rain!!! I went up to deliver our Ipod to Maritee and she told me that with the forecast saying 60% chance of rain that we would need to move everything inside. I was really disappointed but it's the weather, nothing I can do about it. She told me that our ceremony would be in the lobby where the tour desks are normally set up and that our reception would be in one of the conference rooms. I was supposed to get married in the Gazebo and then have our reception at the Parrot Bar. I went to get my hair done at 11am and hoped that maybe the weather would clear up before the afternoon and maybe we could go back to the original plan.

 

Spa appointment - I had booked appointments for my mother and I online and then went to the spa the day before to confirm our appointments. My mother and I had both brought pictures from home and we were both happy with the outcome. I would have liked my hair to be a bit more loose and flowy but with the weather I understand that lots of hairspray is, and was, required. I had my nails done prior to arriving. Left the hair salon in the rain and went to my room to get ready.

 

Room Service - On the recommendation of our photographers I ordered room service for all us girls and our three photographers around 12:30. It arrived after 1:30 which was fine for us but if you're on any kind of a timeline keep that in mind. (I find room service at any hotel to be slow so I wasn't too bothered by this) I can't tell you if it was any good as I didn't eat any of it because I was addicted to the thin-crust pizza from the buffet so grabbed a couple of slices and brought it to the room after my hair appointment.

 

Ceremony - at 2:30pm is finally stopped raining. By this time everything was set up in the lobby and our guests were gathered and ready to get this show on the road. The groomsmen were all going to start grabbing stuff and moving it down to the Gazebo but ended up leaving things as it was maybe because those darn black clouds were still lingering. It was better than I had expected and my only complaint was that the songs we had chosen to walk it to were all now cut so short as it was a much shorter walk than it would have been it we had gotten married in the gazebo. Also, I had seen in someone's photos how they had brought chair sashes and then there were some yellow ones still attached underneath. I actually had one of my guests in charge of taking off the yellow hotel ones if they were still on the chairs with the sashes I had brought and when I walked in I was surprised to see both. I later realized that they are permanently attached and therefore cannot be taken off so it looks like there are two on there. Overall our guests said that they were glad they were inside and had a bit of a breeze and that it was still set up beautiful. I still wish I had had my "outdoor wedding" but it wasn't so bad. In the end I still got married and had my friends and family there to celebrate with us and that's what matters.

 

Pastor Rick York - Pastor Rick made our ceremony so personal and I loved having our guests involved in our ceremony by doing readings. We also incorporated the sand ceremony and had so many compliments on how it was such a nice touch. Our ceremony was approximately 20-25 minutes and I could not have been happier with the decision to use Pastor York and do our paper work here at home just before we left.

 

Dinner - Our dinner was supposed to be at the Steakhouse and was moved to the other side just in case it was still raining. The Seafood side provides a bit more shelter from the rain blowing it. I hadn't been to these restaurants before so didn't even know the difference. Our meal was great and the table looked awesome. Our table runners were set up and we had shells and starfish that we had brought as well as our sea shell place card holders and our glass starfish plates and seashell and starfish chocolates. The meal was surf and turf with the Chateaubriand and Grouper. From those who had the lobster throughout the trip they actually said that they preferred the grouper. The lobster is very different there than here at home.

 

Reception - We were supposed to be at the Parrot Bar and then the conference room was our back-up plan but Maritee had called me earlier in the day to say that our reception would be in the Sports Bar. In the long run this proved to be awesome as they gave us an open bar and a DJ which we hadn't planned on doing. They had it decorated with our lanterns and chair sashes and our cake looked awesome. It was great and I wasn't disappointed to be inside at all.

 

Photographers - Based on the reviews and photos on this Facebook group I had booked Phil and Michael Steingard. Anyone who has been on this site knows that their work is unbelievable so I don't need to say much except I was so happy to have had them. I even had one of their co-workers Jamie join them for the day and all three were so great to work with. The time flew by and I can't wait to see all of our amazing pictures. My guests went on and on about them all week and everyone is really excited to see the final outcome of all those shots!

 

Flowers - I had decided to go with Enchanting Memories for our flowers again based on the reviews and pictures on this site. I was so happy with them and can't say enough about how easy Pat and Debbie were to work with. They looked so real that one lady on the plane was saying how nice they smelled and my sister handed my mother the bag with her bouquet just as we came into the Punta Cana airport and my poor mother got stuck at customs as they didn't believe her that they were fake! Everyone commented on them and I'm now able to keep my bouquet as a souvenir.

 

If you have any questions feel free to ask. I have a ton of pictures but I don't know how to add them into this review, so you can add me on Facebook: Karen Aucoin, Calgary Network or you can PM me and let you know what type of pictures you'd like and include your email address.

Happy Planning,

Karen

[~Nicole~]

Karen congrats on your wedding! Great review! I can completely relate to your story of the events of the day regarding the rain as I had the same issue, but I'm so glad you didn't let it ruin your day! Attitude makes a huge difference and everything sounds so wonderful! Congrats again and thanks for taking the time to do a review!

[Woodsylou]

great review! Glad you loved it! can't wait to see some pics! congrats xxx

[Vikki]

Congratulations-even with the rain it sounds like you had a wonderful day.

[Patti]

Karen, I'm so sorry that you didn't get to have the wedding that you dreamed of and planned, however, I'm very happy that you were pleased with what you got. Bottom line is that you accomplished your mission and now, you are happiily married. Congratulations to you and your husband!! Thanks for sharing your review.

[krainone]

Thanks for the great review! It's super useful to us newbies!!

[destination_diva]

Thank you so much for the review. So sad that your outdoor plans got rained out but you kept your spirits high and were determined not to let it ruin your day good for you. I hope I can be as relaxed. I am going to see if I can find you on facebook to see some of your pics. This resort is one of my top picks and I'd love to see how your photos turned out indoors.

[bamcandr]

I am deciding about havinga  wedding here and am so lost as to the cost of everything! If you don't mind me asking about how much was it for your guests? And also about how much was it for your total wedding? I hope thats not too personal I'm just trying to figure things out. Thanks so much!

[jrod07]

thanks for sharing!

[Caprice35]

Congratulations. Seems like everything worked out, despite the rain