El Dorado Royale (EDR) Brides - POST HERE!

[Mamzaleg]

I feel it depends on the season and the month, it was not super windy just a nice ocean breeze( it felt really nice for us) when we got married there on 4/30/12. So I think you are getting married in a nice hot season that it should hopefully not be that windy, but it always depends on the day and weather,but don't let that stop you from what you really want. We had a wonderful day with perfect weather and nothing went wrong at all, we felt we were given the 5 star treatment. So do what makes you happy and what you dream of it.

Thank you! You are totally right and that is what I need to keep reminding myself! With beautiful scenery and 90 friends and family surrounding us, the day will be wonderful regardless of wind and make up! Thanks for helping me keep things in perspective!!!

[kelseyrenee]

Great idea to just switch to the ceremony side that makes your veil/hair blow back and not into your face! My WC is Ingrid from Lomas and she's been so great! Takes her from 2-6 days to respond to an email but she has been very thorough and gives honest opinions. Hope everyone else is having a pleasant experience with their WC because it should be a fun process! I'm getting my hair done at the casita spa and am wondering about anyone else's experience there with how well the stylist can replicate what's in a picture? I need to remember to be vocal and not passive about what I want! Not getting my makeup done because anytime I've ever had it done professionally I have not liked it. I feel like it ages me rather than makes me look better. Experiences with makeup at casita spa? Also, I'm starting to wonder about the ceremony. I know I need to have music on an iPod and label the songs but how do you know what will be said during the ceremony? Does the WC give you script options or do you create it on your own? How long have ceremonies typically lasted? Mine will be symbolic because we are getting legally married in the US before we go to Mexico. The process to legalize a Mexican marriage in the US is too complex and takes too long from the time you get home for my taste. Plus I'm avoiding the Mexican blood tests! Thanks, ladies!!

[jnitschke]

Kelsey,  First I have to say that I loved my hair and make up done at the Castias Spa.  My stylist was Vicky, and she was the best.  I absolutely loved her.  I did a trial with her the day before and I'm really glad we did.   We tried out a couple hair and makeup looks, it gave us time to play.  I had an idea of what I wanted, but in the ended we did something a bit more unique.  Her first attempt on eyeshadow was a bit more color than I wanted, so we did a totally new look until we found what looked good.  Vicky was very responsive and easy to work with.  On the day of everything went so smoothly and I felt gorgeous.  As for the script you create the script and give it to the onsite WC, they will give it to the officiant.  So music timing and what is said is totally up to you.  Our ceremony was about 20 minutes, we did the symbolic ceremony too.  A few posts ago I posted our webcast, if you want to check it out.  I also have pictures posted with some close ups on my hair and make up. 

 Quote:

Originally Posted by kelseyrenee 

Great idea to just switch to the ceremony side that makes your veil/hair blow back and not into your face!

My WC is Ingrid from Lomas and she's been so great! Takes her from 2-6 days to respond to an email but she has been very thorough and gives honest opinions. Hope everyone else is having a pleasant experience with their WC because it should be a fun process!

I'm getting my hair done at the casita spa and am wondering about anyone else's experience there with how well the stylist can replicate what's in a picture? I need to remember to be vocal and not passive about what I want! Not getting my makeup done because anytime I've ever had it done professionally I have not liked it. I feel like it ages me rather than makes me look better. Experiences with makeup at casita spa?

Also, I'm starting to wonder about the ceremony. I know I need to have music on an iPod and label the songs but how do you know what will be said during the ceremony? Does the WC give you script options or do you create it on your own? How long have ceremonies typically lasted? Mine will be symbolic because we are getting legally married in the US before we go to Mexico. The process to legalize a Mexican marriage in the US is too complex and takes too long from the time you get home for my taste. Plus I'm avoiding the Mexican blood tests!

Thanks, ladies!!

[jnitschke]

For anyone in wedding shopping mode, DHgate.com is having a sale with a $10 off coupon and $30 off coupon right now.  I used DHGate to get a bunch of stuff for my OOT bags and favors.   Thought I'd pass it on since I got an email about it today.

[LKocelko]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kelseyrenee 

Great idea to just switch to the ceremony side that makes your veil/hair blow back and not into your face!

My WC is Ingrid from Lomas and she's been so great! Takes her from 2-6 days to respond to an email but she has been very thorough and gives honest opinions. Hope everyone else is having a pleasant experience with their WC because it should be a fun process!

I'm getting my hair done at the casita spa and am wondering about anyone else's experience there with how well the stylist can replicate what's in a picture? I need to remember to be vocal and not passive about what I want! Not getting my makeup done because anytime I've ever had it done professionally I have not liked it. I feel like it ages me rather than makes me look better. Experiences with makeup at casita spa?

Also, I'm starting to wonder about the ceremony. I know I need to have music on an iPod and label the songs but how do you know what will be said during the ceremony? Does the WC give you script options or do you create it on your own? How long have ceremonies typically lasted? Mine will be symbolic because we are getting legally married in the US before we go to Mexico. The process to legalize a Mexican marriage in the US is too complex and takes too long from the time you get home for my taste. Plus I'm avoiding the Mexican blood tests!

Thanks, ladies!!

I also had Vicky for hair and makeup, and didn't care for my makeup at the trial. I didn't do a hair trial, because I really wasn't super picky. I just brought in a few pictures to give her an idea of what I wanted - all up, loose curls, off my face. I knew the wind was going to be going so I didn't really care too much how precise it was. The day of the wedding I was much happier with my makeup.

 

Like mentioned you create your own ceremony - I know my WC gave me a sample layout of the order things typically go in. Check out this thread for some inspiration:

 

http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/21660/share-your-ceremony-script/370

 

I thought mine was going to be long (it's posted in the thread) and it honestly was probably only about 20 minutes or so. We did the symbolic as well. Good luck!

[MrsHK]

Hello El Dorado Royale brides! Congrats on your upcoming weddings! This post is for any brides interested in affordable decor for your big day.

 

I'm a newlywed from Vancouver, Canada that lives down here in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. I have quite a few decor items leftover from our wedding in May, mostly in a rustic vintage style. I've decided to rent things out to brides that don't want to lug things like vases & mason jars down here to Mexico, and have priced things quite fairly compared to the resorts' prices. 

 

I have a lots of different types of bottles, mason jars, vases and lanterns, as well as a variety of other items like wooden signs & frames, table runners, rustic birdcages, string lighting and even a portable sound system.

If you want a Style Me Pretty or Ruffled type of wedding in Mexico without a huge price tag, I'm your gal! So far no one has had to pay an outside vendor fee at all, as they tell their WC that they have brought the decor themselves. I'm also always interested in buying items that brides bring down and would like to sell after their weddings, please send me photos of anything you'd like to sell!

If you'd like to see some photos and a price list, please send me a PM with your email address and I'll send you all the info. Also if anyone has any questions about the area, ask away! I've lived in Playa Del Carmen for two years and know the whole coast quite well. Happy planning ladies!

 

Here's a couple of photos of some items we used in our wedding and that are for rent, but I have lots more:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jennifandr5]

 

Hi Girls,

 

I haven’t been very active on this site but it was a huge resource for information while planning my wedding and thought I should give back by writing a review.  My wedding was this month, 11/7/13.  We had 25 guests and had the ceremony at gazebo 55 and the reception at Tucanes.  We brought ALL and I mean ALL of our decorations (except the gazebo sheers and bamboo ceremony runner) and ended up with 4 additional suitcases of wedding stuff and my dress and his suit.  Keep in mind that one of these suitcases was actually one of those huge plastic golf club bags which came in handy because we were able to bring tons of fragile items since it has a hard case.  We were so worried/stressed about customs so we made copies of all the receipts (which was suggested on this site!) and printed pieces of paper that said “DESTINATION WEDDING DÉCOR, PLEASE BE GENTLE THANKS†and we stuck these in each suitcase that we were checking.  Mostly we did this so that if customs opened our bags and wondered why we had 20 bottles of advil or 40 maracas they wouldn’t think it was shady.  It turns out they did go through our bags at some point because my brooch bouquet that was wrapped in bubble wrap was re-wrapped and taped with tape that said “customs†on it- but either way they let everything through and even let one of our overweight bags through with no charge.  Otherwise it can be more than $50 per bag so be sure to budget for that if you are bringing a lot of stuff.

 

Pros

-I have to say that having worked as a catering manger/event planner myself the wedding staff at the resort is awesome!  They are very organized, professional and they followed all of my directions to a tee.  We picked this resort b.c they do so many weddings and we were so happy with how it was done.  Overall we really were pleased.  However, there are obviously a few things that we can nitpick about but keep in mind  if we were doing this over again we would not have chosen another resort and our wedding was absolutely wonderful!!

 

-24 hour room service was a huge with our group! But on 2 separate occasions they just never showed up.  No big deal we fell asleep anyway.

-I may be partial but in my opinion gazebo 55 is the best ceremony spot and tucanes is the best for reception.  The chapel is SOOOOO adorable too!!

-although the food wasn’t that great (which I will get to later) the breakfasts were AWESOME. Loved the breakfasts. Room service, buffet and restaurants.  Best meal of the day!

-the spa services are fantastic!! Massages are great but I was seriously WOWED by how amazing the hair and makeup was.  I absolutely loved it and I chose the spa package as one of my promos so they did my hair and makeup for free both for the night of the rehearsal dinner and the day of the wedding. My bridesmaids loved theirs too and they are picky!  SO IMPRESSED!!

 

Cons (but remember, overall we loved our wedding and our trip)

1.The wifi is very spotty and each guest needs to pay to have it (there are no free wifi areas on the resort) so it is very difficult to stay in touch with your guests.  We did share our password with a few guests but it’s not really feasible to do this for your whole group.  My suggestion would be to make an agenda ahead of time so people know where to meet and when, but if you decide to change something when you get there it can be tough to spread the word.  Communication while at the resort was a big stresser for us and some guests got annoyed when we forgot to tell them we were changing something.

 

2. We were really disappointed with the fact that the resort does not make it easy to eat dinner with large groups.  It’s impossible to reserve tables for more than 4 or 5 guests and it is such a bummer when you want to have a nice dinner with the ppl that travelled all that way.  They should really be more accommodating of this since there are so many groups travelling together.

 

3. It was so hard to get dinner reservations in general- they say that you don’t need them but we were turned away so many times so if you are staying in casitas, make reservations for dinners on your first night for the whole time you are there.  We didn’t do this and we wished we had L

 

4. The concierge is really useless and also gave us lectures for not making dinner reservations right away (we were busy with wedding stuff!).  They tell you they will call you a cart to pick you up, but they don’t- they just know that one will be around soon so you end up waiting anyway.  Also I asked 3 times for them to add a lamp to my room, (the casitas rooms are REALLY DARK and it was super annoying) they said they would send a lamp and never did. GRR

 

5. Food-let me preface this by saying that we live 40 minutes from NYC and have very high standards when it comes to food.  We chose this resort in large part because we heard the food was amazing.  I would say it is better than some other resorts but certainly wouldn’t say it was amazing by any stretch. The food at our rehearsal dinner was REALLY bad and the food at the wedding was ok but nothing special.  *But as I mentioned above, they are awesome at breakfast! And the Mexican food is REALLY good (I mean come on- I should hope so)

 

6. The set up fee was $250 which was more than we expected (we did have a lot of décor but weren’t expecting it to be this high) they also charged us an additional $50 to hang lights and decorations across the ceiling of tucanes instead of just around the edges but this made a HUGE impact on the room and was totally worth it. So all in all it was $300 for set up.

 

7. They lost my cake toppers, and a bag with sunglasses and my ipod cord L but they returned almost everything else.

 

8. So as I mentioned we had our reception in tucanes and it started pouring ¾ of the way through.  The DJ came up to me 3 or 4 times and told me that the roof was leaking onto his equipment and that they were going to have to end the party early.  You would think this would have really made me mad but I honestly didn’t care b.c it was towards the end of the night and I was so happy that everything went smoothly that I told him it was fine.  But the wedding coordinator was nowhere to be found so i thought they should probably have kept someone nearby to deal with it. In the end they ended up with a tarp and didn’t end early- not sure why- but I think a lot of people would have been really upset if this happened to them.

 

Additional Tips:

-We had our wedding on a Thursday so there weren’t many weddings going on that day which was a good thing. Fri-Sun there were so many going on at once but I don’t know if or how that affected each wedding.  Plus we were eligible for more promotions since it was on a Thursday.

-if you are planning to have the donkey at your cocktail hour (which we did and he was a HUGE HIT) remember that if it rains he can’t come- so check with the coordinator if there are certain locations where he can come rain or shine.

-nobody told us November is rainy season! Wish someone would have mentioned that to us.  We were only focused on hurricane season but check into rainy season too.

- we hired an outside vendor for photos and a video so when I get that back towards the end of December I will send it out!

I am not that great with checking this site so if anyone has any specific questions or wants to remind me to send the photos and video feel free to email me at [email protected]

 

See some of my fave pics below. I included venue pics and some of the decor and my favorite little details! but I should get the professional photos and the video at the end of december. 

 

Also- the 9th photo down is an example of the instruction list i gave the wedding coordinators with photos. They said it was very helpful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AllieH]

Jennifer - what a gorgeous wedding!! I love the banners above the gazebo, and in Tucanes. congratulations to you & your new husband. 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jennifandr5 
 

 

Hi Girls,

 

I haven’t been very active on this site but it was a huge resource for information while planning my wedding and thought I should give back by writing a review.  My wedding was this month, 11/7/13.  We had 25 guests and had the ceremony at gazebo 55 and the reception at Tucanes.  We brought ALL and I mean ALL of our decorations (except the gazebo sheers and bamboo ceremony runner) and ended up with 4 additional suitcases of wedding stuff and my dress and his suit.  Keep in mind that one of these suitcases was actually one of those huge plastic golf club bags which came in handy because we were able to bring tons of fragile items since it has a hard case.  We were so worried/stressed about customs so we made copies of all the receipts (which was suggested on this site!) and printed pieces of paper that said “DESTINATION WEDDING DÉCOR, PLEASE BE GENTLE THANKS” and we stuck these in each suitcase that we were checking.  Mostly we did this so that if customs opened our bags and wondered why we had 20 bottles of advil or 40 maracas they wouldn’t think it was shady.  It turns out they did go through our bags at some point because my brooch bouquet that was wrapped in bubble wrap was re-wrapped and taped with tape that said “customs” on it- but either way they let everything through and even let one of our overweight bags through with no charge.  Otherwise it can be more than $50 per bag so be sure to budget for that if you are bringing a lot of stuff.

 

 

[krobb317]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LMV2784 
 

Hola Ladies!  I am finally booked for May 18, 2014!  Does anyone else have Marisol as their WC?

Hi I'm a little late to the thread but Congrat! I am the week after you! May 23rd! I have Marisol as well…I asked her several questions about 10 days ago from her and haven't heard…are you experiencing this as well?

[AllieH]

hello ladies! we are back from our quick trip to EDR, and it was just and amazing as we remembered from our wedding moon! They did goof up our reservation, but were able to upgrade us into the premium section (Building 3, right by the Health Bar). we loved the location, and our room. 

 

here are some photos of the white gazebo area as requested: 

the panoramic - ignore the "dip" - my hand isn't too steady..it's really a pretty  line in that area. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

as for the wind- this area does stick out a little more into the ocean/on the beach than the casitas gazebos which are closer to the walkway, or the presidential or chapel gazebo which is a little more sheltered on one side. it's probably equally as windy as Gazebo 55 - which is to say, some days it's pretty windy, some days it isn't. 

 

Tips: 

 

Make sure you get reservations at least one night in Fuentes, the Culinary Theater. We really enjoyed our evenings there (we did it twice!). And of course D'Italia Casitas is still the best of their restaurants. We really enjoyed Kampai for breakfast & Lunch, and La Isla had a great lunch as well. 

 

We saw several of the shows this time - do NOT miss the Circus show - it was really awesome! we also enjoyed the dance show - I think it's superstar or something like that, and the Mexican show was fun to watch too. we passed on the fire show since we saw it before (but it was good!). 

 

Other/misc:

We had sunny mornings but cloudy afternoons, with some rain as well. Not the best weather, but we were in paradise and certainly made the best of it. 

 

We didn't get to go out with Samba Catamaran to Isla Mujeres due to the weather - but the staff at EDR all had really good things to say about them. They were quick to refund our money after we had to scratch two attempts to go, and had great/fast communication prior to our trip, and I would definitely book with them again. 

 

We did the 90 minute "membership" sales pitch and our concierge set up the anniversary package as our amenity - 2 free 25 min massages (which we upgraded to 80 minutes!), candle light dinner on the beach and the rose petal decorations in our room. the 90 minutes was worth our time, even though we had no intentions to buy into the program. 

 

If you need a transport company to/from the airport - I can recommend cancuntransfers.com. we had a private ride, $82 for both of us, round trip. they were a bit hard to find in the chaos of sharks at the Cancun airport, but one of the airport security pointed us to him. they were on time for our pick up as well. no complaints, and not a shared ride! 

 

If there are any questions I can answer, please don't hesitate to ask!