Megan's Review (Dreams)

BURROWM · October 16, 2006

Well I am back! We had a wonderful time, despite all the little challenges Brad and I have had to go through to get married!! Our little joke is we had to go to hell and back, but damnit we are married. All little personal things, like me breaking my arm, the dog getting sick two days before we left, the hurricane scares, Brad getting sick, I blistered my lips, we both got Montezumas and now we are home and I have been in bed sick since Thursday night. But we are married!! HA!

So Dreams, wonderful hotel! We checked in with 11 of our guests and they poured a glass of champange for everyone. Started off the weekend great! Everyone got checked in fine, sign your name, hand them a credit card and off you go. My inlaws did get a room with double beds when the requested a king, but that was fixed the next day. And the room they were moved to had an awesome view so they were happy. Erika arranged for Brad's suit to be dry cleaned (my dress travelled fine), which was great, but we had a second pair of pants with the suit that they lost. Sucks because they were nice pants, but I bought them 75% off. The hotel offered to pay for them but by that time we didn't care anymore. We used the dry cleaning again on the trip and had no problems. The hotel was really nice. Very clean and beautiful. All our guests were very impressed with the service. We ate at the Patio, Oceana and the Asian place. The sushi sucks. Brad and I joke that its probably for the best or else that is the only place I would have wanted to eat. Everything else was delicious!! Oh and room service, we ordered that twice. Very good. The first two days we had a problem getting our room cleaned, but we started putting the sign on the door saying please clean and we never had a problem from then on. Only one day did our mini bar not get stocked, but I think it was because they ran out of water. We tried two of the bars to get bottled water and they were both out, but about two hours later everyone had water again.

Wedding stuff, we met with Erika the day before the wedding to talk about the set up. Turns out there was another wedding and a group party the same night as our wedding and they were both going to be set up in the same area as us. We were suppose to have the pinata terrace. I was kind of annoyed that they had been pushing me to be on the terrace only to find out there were two other parties in that area. It worked out great in the end because we ended up at the Oceana pool and it was very private. Nobody was out there. We got married on the beach in front of the Oceana restaurant. The food was great! We had crab cakes, salmon salad, stuffed chicken, beef tenderloin and chocolate mousses, plus the wedding cake. I would have chosen something different from the salmon. I thought it was a green salad with salmon in it, but it was just like a crab cake. Oops, people still thought it was good though. The Dreams service was kind of slow during the wedding. I wish I had planned to do the first dance, father/daughter dance and toasts between courses. We spent alot of time waiting around for the next course to be served. Half way through the meal I tried to change things, but my coordinator was also slow on making it happen. Like I said I want to do the father daughter dance as then next song and she said great, but it would still take 3 songs and by that time we had food again.

I hired Vari from Baja weddings as my coordinator, but for the actual wedding day I had Martha. She ended up bringing Barbara along to help her out and I think just Barbara alone would have been better. Martha didn't seem to know what she was doing. Nice sure, but moved very slow. When Brad and I were walking to the reception after our pictures our guests all started clapping and cheering and Barbara kind of snapped at Martha telling her to announce us. I just felt like Barbara had more experience with the wedding stuff. While I am very happy with the wedding, Baja weddings could use some work. I was pissed that I hired a coordinator, worked with that person for a whole year and then ended up with the office assistant on the day of my wedding.

So more wedding stuff... girls, be sure your dress breathes!! Mine was very light weight and on the beach it was great! The wind was blowing and I stayed very cool. Once we moved to the reception the hotel was blocking any air flow. IT WAS HOT!! I was surprised by how humid it was, but Martha said its only that humid about 6 weeks out of the year. Nobody mentioned that during the planning!! So because it was so hot, once we made it through the dinner and a few dances, we all went up stairs and put on our swimsuits! The pool was completely empty so it was still our private party. The DJ just kept playing and the waiters kept the drinks flowing! The hotel was really great about it too. They didn't kick us out at 10 when the pool closed. Our guests stayed out their until 2 a.m. The waiters left at 10, but not before they brought us 2 cases of beer! They were awesome. It was the perfect way to end the night!! Everyone had a blast! Oh and I had given everyone squirt guns in their welcome bags so they brought those down and we had a water gun fight. It will definatly be a wedding everyone remembers!!

Alright, Friday activities... we did a snorkel cruise through SunRider Tours. They were awesome!!! We had a 3.5 hour tour with lunch and open bar, 17 people, $1300. The guys on the boat were awesome! Nobody's drink was empty before they were refilling it! And the cove we went snorkeling in was amazing!! There were fish everywhere! The guys would throw food to the fish and they would all swarm around us. Totally freaked me out, but it was very cool at the same time. We planned the trip pretty well too. Try and go early before all the other boats get out there. We were heading in for lunch about 1 and about that time tons of other cruises began showing up. For most of the tour we were the only group in the cove. But SunRider was seriously awesome! They were so entertaining. Everyone got a kick out of the crew. And lunch was awesome. We had fajitas with beans, salsa, guacamole, chips and queso. Oh, but I do think the snorkel cruise is where we got Montezumas from. We were all drinking frozen drinks and I am pretty sure they didn't use bottled water to make their ice. Oops.

That night we had our rehersal dinner at Mi Casa. Again, great food, awesome atmosphere. The restaurant didn't have enough tables pulled together for our whole group, but I blame Baja for this. Martha was suppose to get to the dinner first and set out our favors. She of course was late, we had to move tables ourselves. She just showed up, passed out favors and left. The food at Mi Casa was great!! And the restaurant was alot of fun. One of our groomsmen bought us a caricature, we had a mariachi band sing to us and clowns made us baloon hats. It was really entertaining!

Now for all the little vendor things:

Flower Cart: Chuppah and flowers. All perfect. My flowers were exactly what I asked for! The were fresh and delivered to the hotel room right on time.

Sweet Dreams: The cake was awesome! We had a white chocolate cake with buttercream/cream cheese frosting and filling. So moist and sweet. I forgot about the top layer of the cake though! I wanted to eat it the last night of our honeymoon. Nobody every told me what they were doing with it, so I assumed it just went back in the hotel fridge.

DJ: Sorry I don't know his name. He was fine, but it just seems like such a waste of money. He just played songs from CDs I provided. It was great not having to worry about it, but $900 plus tip to hit a few buttons. And I don't know if it was the DJ or Baja, but I would ask for the next song to be something and it was take to long before they would actually play it.

Guitarrist: We ended up getting two guys for the price of one. They brought in one guy to play the traditional music (canon D for the girls) and something spanish for me. I don't know what the guy played he asked me if he could surprise me with a traditional spanish song and I said sure. I don't remember it , but it was very pretty. The second guy played our recessional, Better Together by Jack Johnson. They guys then played some beatles and other classic songs while we took pictures. Wish I knew we were having two, because I only had tip for one. Oops. Its hard to plan ahead because so many little things were changed the day of! If you can, bring a little extra tip money.

Gilda: Amazing photographs!! Gilda was so awesome and easy to work with. She went to Brad's room first and got some great pictures of the guys, then she came to my room and got us getting ready. She was so nice and bubbly. I love all my pictures and the fact that I got them all before I left it a bonus!!

Videographer: Again, I don't know his name. He worked with Gilda, but was wearing a Baja wedding shirt. It was awesome too! We weren't suppose to get our video for a few weeks, but he had it ready the day before we left. It is so good. Brad and I both cried all over again! I highly recommend a video! It all happens so fast so its nice to see it all over again. Oh and Gilda and the videographer both stayed later than what we had paid for. I wasn't planning on tipping them, but I was so impressed we did.

Transportation: Centauro. These guys were great. I thought we were going to have problems because right away at the airport they only sent a car for 8 people and we had 11, but it only took about 5 minutes to get the other car and their was beer at the airport so our guests were happy. The rest of the week they were awesome. Arrived on time every day and always got us where we needed to go. It was awesome having travel prearranged for everyone!

I think that is everything. Let me know if you have any questions. I hope this all makes sense, I am pretty hopped up on cough medicine so I appologize for the typos. All in all we had a wonderful trip! I would like to do the honeymoon over again. After all our guests left Sunday, we were sick and not feeling very romantic. I think we will just have to redo that part for our 1 year anniversary!! Still was an awesome trip and a wonderful wedding!

deleted · October 17, 2006

Megan, thanks for the detailed review! I am so glad that your overall experience was so great. It sounds like you and your guests had the right attitude about everything, and that you had a TON of fun. I hope you post some pics so we can see everything too!

A10CalGal · October 17, 2006

Congrats Megan! Thanks for the quick turn around on your review. It sounds like you made the most of your situation. Good for you! I love that you all ended up in the pool at your wedding reception - I'd love to see those pics

TammyB · October 17, 2006

One thing missing Megan.. I WANT TO see the pictures.. :-) Well it sounds like after everything it was still an awesome trip. How big was the cake, do you have a pic?

Jackie · October 17, 2006

Congratulations,

Welcome home, it sounded like a great time even with the minor mishaps. And the fact that they let you hang out at the pool so late and on top of that came over with a couple of cases of beer is AWESOME. What more could you want then for you party to never end!!!

Jackie

TOESNTHESND · October 17, 2006

Thanks Megan for the review. I hired Natalie the office manager from Baja Weddings for our WC. I think I am going to have her put it in writing that she will be in charge the day of the wedding. That would really piss me off if I had been planning with her for a year and then had someone else. Thanks for the heads up!