Jellyfish Restaurant

[LindsayOO]

Hi Ladies! I'm new to this thread and haven't officially booked yet but am hoping to! We are hoping to get married January 12, 2013...Matye is holding the date for me for now....My fiances mother owns a travel agency and actually got us a crazy deal through Sunwing...we paid $400 each all taxes included to go to Punta Cana for 4 nights 5 days the first week of June...got to choose which resort we want to stay at and they take us to a few different resorts so we can see where we want to have our wedding..and if you book with sunwing for your wedding trip they credit you the money back...so basically its free as long as you book with Sunwing (and have about 30 ppl going to your wedding).  I never thought I would be able to preview resorts before booking and this is like a dream compe true! So if any of you can get the time off check with Sunwing if they still have spots available!! We are going to meet with Mayte and have dinner one night at Jellyfish so if you have any questions send them my way and I'll be sure to check it out for you!!

[Kirsten]

LindsayOO, we stayed at the Majestic Elegance last year and held our wedding and reception at the Jellyfish. The Majestic Elegance was awesome! All of our guests agreed that it was one of the best resorts they'd ever stayed at. I highly recommend it. The rooms are very clean and beautiful (just as they look on the website), the food is great, beach is amazing and not crowded like on other resorts, service and staff are excellent, and there's so much to do on the resort! We just came back from a week's vacation at the Grand Palladium Bavaro and you can't even compare the two resorts...the Majestic Elegance is by far our favourite. We'll definitely go back! And if you need an awesome photographer, contact Phil Steinguard or his nephew Michael Steinguard. They shoot tons of weddings at the Elegance and the Jellyfish and stay at the Elegance several weeks of each year.

[sunny55143]

Hola ladies! We just got back from the DR and the rehearsal dinner at Jellyfish last Friday was AMAZING! We would have loved to do the wedding there too, but they didn't have any Saturday dates. The restaurant is beautiful, the food was delicious and Mayte is just awesome. I sorta enjoyed working with her more than our own WC initially Like Kirsten said, she is super busy but will do an amazing job when it's your turn. She told us she had a late night wedding until 3am one day and then had to be ready for a 7am sunrise ceremony the next morning - she is a rock star. We still want to be there it was such a great week! Good luck with the rest of your planning, I wish we were still anticipating our fabulous time!

[LindsayOO]

Thanks Kirsten for the tips!! Funny thing...my fiances sister got married at Majestic Elegance and used Phil as her photographer so I'm familiar with both lol!! Unfortunatly ME is just too expensive now (when we went 3 years ago it was brand new and only $1500/person..now we got quoted over $1700..too much to ask our guests to pay)..but we are looking into the Majestic Colonial..its closer to our price range of $1500..we are also looking at Dreams Palm Beach...you just cant beat the gazebos at the Majestics though so we'll see!! I'm hoping with the fire the Colonial will go a little cheaper lol...so excited to go in June and check out Jellyfish! FI isn't sold yet but I'm hoping once we are there he will be!!

[cinnagirl]

To those of you that are doing open bar for your reception, how many hours did Mayte quote you for that?

 

On our quote we have open bar for 2 hours following dinner, however I wanted open bar the whole night until we leave. I went back to Mayte asking if we could do 5 hours instead, and this is the response I got, "After the 2 hours you can do more if you want, but wait auntil know what happend, a wedding day is long and so emotional!!!" I'm not really sure what she means. Advice?

[venus909]

Yeah she suggested 2 hours to start for us too....  we have 1 hour cocktail hour, approx 1 hour beer and wine for dinner and then 2 hours open bar... if you think about it, that's 4 hours after the ceremony for our guests...

 

I think what she means is, to wait and see if after those 4 hours everyone is still up to partying and not drained out and ready to head back to the resort.

 

You can always do the math for the extra 3 hours and have that cash on hand in case you decide to extend the party... but I'm thinking for budget purposes she's holding you to the 2 hours and you can always add more if needed....

 

Hope that helps.

[AquaCait]

We've decided that we are just running a tab all night.  Granted, we have a whole lot of people that don't drink, so it was pointless to pay for them for the open bar...and I've heard that it typically works out cheaper...

Originally Posted by cinnagirl 

To those of you that are doing open bar for your reception, how many hours did Mayte quote you for that?

 

On our quote we have open bar for 2 hours following dinner, however I wanted open bar the whole night until we leave. I went back to Mayte asking if we could do 5 hours instead, and this is the response I got, "After the 2 hours you can do more if you want, but wait auntil know what happend, a wedding day is long and so emotional!!!" I'm not really sure what she means. Advice?

 

 

[Kirsten]

Trust me. You're fiancé will love the Jellyfish as soon as he sees it! Yes, rates may go down a bit for the Colonial this summer...probably a good time to book! We paid $1400 for our trip to the Grand Palladium Bavaro last week, and $1750 for the Majestic Elegance last year, and we noticed a huge difference between the resorts. If you can swing it, I totally think you'd get that extra few hundred dollars of value and more out of the Majestics. They're great! Good luck with your research!

[venus909]

I have a timing question for previous Jellyfish brides...

 

My group is staying at the Melia which from what I understand is "next' to the Jellyfish.  Our ceremony is at 4:00pm.  I'm trying to figure out apprx. what time the bus would pick the guests up from Melia to go to the Jellyfish.

 

I'm working on printing out timelines and since I'm using vistaprint I wanted to get them sent out.

 

does this sound about right?

 

2:00pm - guest meet in Melia Lobby to be picked up to go to the Jellyfish

4:00pm Ceremony at the Jellyfish

4:30pm - Cocktail hour at the Jellyfish (Bride and Groom photos)

5:30pm - First Dance followed by Dinner

7:00pm - Dessert & Dancing

10:30pm - After party @ Caribe Lobby Bar at Melia

 

I'm not exactly sure about the last one...  I would love to stay at the Jellyfish all night... but we are also trying to reduce the alcohol costs so we were thinking of going back to the hotel and dance at there bar/disco that usually has live music on the weekends.

 

what do you think?  What looks like it needs to be tweaked?

[cinnagirl]

Ohhhhh...when you put it like that, I totally understand what you mean. That definitely helps, thank you! I just spoke with my fiance about it and I think we'll stick to the two hours open bar since that's when people are going to drink the most anyhow, and then go per drink for the rest of the night. 

 

Are you having welcome drinks as well? Is that included in the cocktail hour price or is that a separate item all together?

Originally Posted by venus909 

Yeah she suggested 2 hours to start for us too....  we have 1 hour cocktail hour, approx 1 hour beer and wine for dinner and then 2 hours open bar... if you think about it, that's 4 hours after the ceremony for our guests...

 

I think what she means is, to wait and see if after those 4 hours everyone is still up to partying and not drained out and ready to head back to the resort.

 

You can always do the math for the extra 3 hours and have that cash on hand in case you decide to extend the party... but I'm thinking for budget purposes she's holding you to the 2 hours and you can always add more if needed....

 

Hope that helps.