The Now Riviera Cancun

[hammy0426]

Just finalized my locations and times!  48 days to go! Yeah!!!!!!!

[lisadias]

Wow Hammy that's quick! Congrats!

[all the love]

For those of you who have already had your wedding at Jade or are finalizing menus, is there the option to have special meals for certain people  (ie. someone who doesn't eat fish, or a children's menu option) or is it just one set menu for everyone?

 

Thanks!

[hammy0426]

I know that there is a kid's menu offered for children under 12 -I don't know what they offer in terms of food options but I think that it was $20-$25 per child.  Regarding different menu options; I am doing the Divine sit-down dinner.  I am choosing the same 1st and 2nd course for everyone and Pilar is allowing me offer all three of the dinner options to my guests.  the only catch is that I have to confirm what entree each person wants prior to the reception.  Although.... this is not that different from traditional weddings -you could add the option of entrees to your wedding invitations.  Or depending on how many people you have, you could do one of the 6 different buffets offered.  I believe that one of the recent brides did this and was able to mix and match a few items within the buffet menu so that she liked everything on it.  Hope this helps
 

Originally Posted by all the love 

For those of you who have already had your wedding at Jade or are finalizing menus, is there the option to have special meals for certain people  (ie. someone who doesn't eat fish, or a children's menu option) or is it just one set menu for everyone?

 

Thanks!

[all the love]

Thanks for this info, that's exactly what I was hoping for!

[MPopp]

The bouqet was part of the Eternity package. It wasn't in the wedding book. I just sent her a picture of what I wanted. I paid $12 a flower for the single calla lillies I did for the BM's.  
 

Originally Posted by primavera 

Thanks Michelle! One more question, was the bouquet you chose part of that package? I can't remember seeing it in the wedding book. We are going with the eternity package as well.

[MPopp]

Okay ladies...here is my detailed review as promised! I know other brides have written reviews recently in great detail, so I will try not to be too lengthy.

 

First off, I just want to say that everything turned out even more perfect than I could have imagined!!! It was an amazing 4 day celebration with 48 of our closest friends and family! So for those of you who are concerned or stressed, take a deep breath and just have faith that they are wedding coordinators for a reason and are damn good at what they do!! Our guests are still raving about how awesome the resort and wedding was! All of our friends keeps talking about who's next to have a destination wedding because it was just that incredible. And of course, I may be a little biased

  

We went with the Eternity Package . I have to admit I was a little nervous before the wedding with the lack of communication and time it takes for the wedding coordinator to respond to emails. Maybe I am impatient, but it drove me crazy waiting at least a week (in most cases) for a response. However, I was VERY pleased with Pilar after meeting her and how wondeful the wedding turned out!

 

When we first arrived we were taken to the Preferred side to check in and were greeted by Pilar after check in. We set up a time to meet with her the following morning to discuss all the details. That night we had a welcome dinner at the buffet for all of our guests. I had put together a welcome packet (letter, info about wedding/welcome dinner, resort, etc) for the guests and I my sister (who arrived the day prior) give to Pilar. They gave this to each of our guests upon check in for no additional cost which was really nice. We would have preferred to do one of the a la carte restaurants but with the $23 pp fee that comes along with it, we just couldn’t swing it. The buffet dinner was actually really good and the service was outstanding!!! They have a very big selection at the buffet and all of the food was really good. However, a lot of it was not that warm so that was disappointing. But I guess you can’t expect too much from a buffet. I was really happy we did the welcome dinner as this was a great opportunity for us to pass out the koozies we made and thank everyone for traveling all the way to Mexico to share in our special day. After dinner, when we wanted to make a quick thank you speech and a toast, I grabbed the manager of the buffet (can’t remember his name for the life of me right now, but he was awesome!) and asked if they could pour a glass of champagne for all of our guests for a toast which they did right away. Also was the perfect opportunity for us to pass out gifts for the bridal party.

 

Second and third day we allowed guests to enjoy there time there and do as they pleased. For the most part everyone hung at the pool and the beach each day and we had a blast!

We met with Pilar the 2^ndmorning and she seemed to have taken pretty detailed notes of everything we had discussed. We just finalized last minute items, such as when we were going to give her our decorations, doing a sand ceremony, when we needed our bouquets, dress & suit the day of the wedding, when we could do a walk through of the Bamboo Room to make sure everything was set up as we liked, etc. Pilar gave us the final quote then and we paid her in full.

 

Day of the wedding- I was supposed to meet with Pilar at 10 am to give her the remaining decorations for the wedding. We made tissue paper poms to be hung from the ceiling and since we didn’t really have anywhere to put them, we didn’t want to “puff†them out until the night before the wedding. I went down there at 10 am and she wasn’t in so I just left them in her office. I got my hair and make-up done at the spa. I brought pictures of how I wanted my hair to look and brought all of my own make-up. She did a great job and how my hair turned out was exactly how I envisioned it! I brought my own flowers to put in my hair and she did that for me. I didn’t do a trial run. You can do one, but I think it was around $150. I decided to schedule the appt earlier enough in the morning that I could just have one of my friends redo it if I hated it which luckily was not the case.

 

After my hair and make-up appointment, I stopped back into Pilar’s office to make sure our bouquets and dress would be at my room by 2 pm as we had discussed in our meeting and she still wasn’t in. I talked to Anna and she told me Pilar wouldn’t be in until later, but she would make sure that the flowers and dress were there before 2 pm. We needed it early because we decided knock some pictures out of the way (me with the girls, and my husband with the guys) before the ceremony. The dress came on time and the flowers didn’t arrive until after 2. Pilar was sick while we were there and explained she had been at the doctors. Funny because I have received a lot of compliments on the bouquet, but it wasn’t exactly what I had asked for. I wanted peach/coral roses with white calla lilies and the roses ended up being more of a red color than I had wanted. I told Pilar it wasn’t what I wanted and she offered to rearrange the flower or take the roses out, but I just decided to go with what she gave me. All of my BM’s said that they would like great in the pics and you wouldn’t be able to tell the color difference and they were right! I look at pictures of it now and I really liked the way it looked. Although in person the flowers were not that fresh-  tips of the calla lilies were a little brown. And the single calla lilies I got for the girls had a lot more green than white on the actual flower, but for me not a big deal. I would suggest that if you have exact colors you want that flowers to be stress that with Pilar and maybe ask to see samples.

 

Ceremony- Pergola. It was calling for rain the day of our wedding and it was overcast all morning and then…the sun came out right as we were taking pictures and then for the ceremony JIt was really windy though. I honestly didn’t even notice the day of until watching the wedding video. We brought our own chair bows and they set them up for $1 per chair. They also set up conch shells along the white runner down the aisle for free. They looked really nice, but they weren’t really practical since the aisle wasn’t that wide and a lot of people tripped on them. Just something to consider.

 

 

Cocktail Hour- Blue Bar. Awesome Location- right next to Pergola and outside of the Bamboo Room. Pilar tied a few of our chair bows on the cocktail tables which was a nice touch and something we didn’t ask for. We made cocktail menus as we created our own drinks. They placed the menus on all of the cocktail tables and a few at the bar. I was seriously SOOO impressed with how well the cocktails turned out. We just sent Pilar the ingredients for the drinks (we chose 3) and didn’t really know what to expect. They all turned out so yummy! One was a Bellini and they even had fresh cut up peaches at the bottom of the champagne glass. Didn’t spend much time at the cocktail hour because we were busy taking pictures.

 

 

Reception- The reception was held immediately after the cocktail hour. As soon as everyone was seated and the bridal party entered dinner was served. We had the reception from 6 – 11 pm and it seriously flew by!!! Once we got booted, we continued the party at the sports bar.

 

Food at The Reception- The food was incredible! Although we had the Eternity Package, we upgraded to the Devine dinner package for $5 more pp. We gave our guests the choice between the Salmon or the Filet & Shrimp. I had the filet and shrimp and it was delicious! Guest who had the Salmon said it was great too. We chose some Bailey’s chocolate dessert and I didn’t get an opportunity to try it but everyone was talking about how amazing it was.

 

Cake-We went with the cake in the package for 25 guests. We figured that since dessert was already served with dinner and not everyone eats cake (myself and husband included) that the small cake would be fine and it was. We went with a yellow cake with a strawberry filling. It was nothing fancy. It was one of the options for the Eternity package. I only tasted the small amount that was smeared on my face but everyone said it was delicious.

 

Decorations- We had Pilar and her crew did an AMAZING job of decorating the reception. It honestly turned out better than I could have imagined. Pilar even went to get something to add to the table with the place cards because she thought it looked too empty. We brought the majority of our own decorations. She hung our poms from the ceiling and also outlining the edges of the room. It was a nice surprise because when I asked for this in the meeting she told me they could probably only hang them from the center of the room. We also brought our own table numbers and place cards. The table numbers were pictures of significant places in our lives (where we met, got engaged, fell in love, etc). Pilar set up a table when you first walked in to the reception that had the place cards and the photo mat we brought for guests to sign. We brought our own centerpieces. They were vases filled with sand with branches with small poms on them. Turned out really nice. Pilar provided the sand for us. We didn’t bring table runners, but Pilar used a few of our extra chair bows and ran them down the center of the bridal party table and it looked great.  We also brought our string lights be hung for the bamboo. We had bought 5 strands of 100 lights thinking that would be enough and it actually only was enough to cover the area right behind where we were sitting. So if you plan on doing this and want all the bamboo lit up, be sure to bring more lights!

 

DJ- We didn’t have a DJ. We used the sound system, brought an ipod and my brother and law mc’d. Worked great.

 

Photographer – close friend of ours is a photographer so she did our photos.

 

Videographer- We went with Oscar who is included in the package. We did add a few hours to what was included. He filmed the ceremony, while we were taking photos, a little of the cocktail reception, and stayed at the reception until we were done with the cake cutting, bouquet and garter toss. He was awesome and the video turned out fantastic! The turn around was ridiculous- he got it to us before we were even home from our honeymoon! I would definitely recommend him.

 

Sand Ceremony- We ended up doing this and I thought it was a nice little touch and the speech that goes along with it. Since we weren’t originally planning this we didn’t bring our own vase or sand, but I would recommend bringing your own if you’d like to have the sand your wedding colors J

 

Overall Food at the Resort- Really really really good! I have stayed at lots of all inclusives and this by far was up there with some of the best I have been to. All of our guests raved about the food as well. The crème brulee at the French restaurant was incredible…a must try. My favorites were the Japanese and the French restaurants.

 

Overall Review of the Hotel- Amazing resort! The grounds and rooms are all very clean and modern. Even the regular rooms were very spacious. All of the staff (with the exception of a bartender who wouldn’t serve one of our guests before he tipped him and told him that) were super friendly and accommodating. Service at the restaurants can be slow. Just go in with the mind set that it is Mexico and things do take longer and you will be fine. At least that worked for me ha. The room service on the other hand was really quick and everytime we ordered we got out food in less than 30 minutes.

 

Congrats brides and happy planning! You picked an amazing place…I wish I could relive it all over again!!!! I’d be happy to try and answer any questions you might have.

 

Michelle

[primavera]

Michelle, Thanks for your review and for answering all my questions!!

[all the love]

Thanks for your review Michelle! It makes me feel so much better about our resort choice reading such a positive review.

[hammy0426]

Michelle, thanks for the review.  I am so glad that so many of the recent brides on this thread post such detailed reviews.  It really helps to hear how wonderful everything turns out. 

 

Two questions for you; I am familiar with the pouring of the sand but what else does a "sand ceremony" entail?  and my second question is about the two walls of windows in the bamboo room.  I was thinking of hanging beaded curtains but I am not sure how many windows there are or how tall the windows are...can you estimate for me?