VGirl’s Wedding Review ~ Moon Palace Resort, Cancun Mexico~ April 24, 2010

[vgirl17]

VGirl’s Wedding Review ~ Moon Palace Resort, Cancun Mexico~ April 24, 2010

So I decided to start off this holiday weekend right by posting my wedding review finally!!! I wanted to start off by thanking all of the BDW Brides (and grooms) on this forum, especially the Moon Palace Brides!!! The information and ideas posted on here has been invaluable for planning our wedding and there is no way we could have had the wedding of our dreams without you girls!! I wanted to return the favor and post as much info as possible relating to our wedding planning and actual wedding. Our wedding was truly amazing and I am so glad we chose to do a destination wedding!!! Please feel free to post any questions that I did not answer and I will try and answer them as often as I can. Thanks!!!!

Summary:
Miami Coordinator: Claudia
On-Site Wedding Coordinator: Kalena
Wedding Date: Saturday, April 24th 2010
Wedding Week: April 21st – April 28th @ Moon Palace
Room Block: Sunrise Side
Honeymoon: April 28th - May 2nd @ Sun Palace
Rehearsal/Welcome Dinner: Friday April 23 7:00 p.m. @ Arrecifes Restaurant – Brazilian (on the Terrace)
Ceremony: 5:00 p.m. - Bugambilias Gazebo
Reception: 7:00 p.m. - Caribbean Terrace (on top of restaurant @ Moon Grand)
Professional Photographers: Tammara and Grant Terry of Tamm's Photos - Wedding Photography Intro (outside vendor)
Guests: Bride & Groom + 35

NOTE: pictures on this thread are non-professional photos. (Except for the very last photo)

P.S. Since this review is very long, I will be posting several posts at once, the last post of this review will have “End of Review.†So that you know my review is over and you can post comments or questions.

Contact with Wedding Coordinators:
I knew from this site that contact with the Miami and onsite wedding coordinators is pretty sporadic and sometimes can get frustrating. I guess since I knew this in advance it didn’t really bother me when I wouldn’t get a response for a couple of days to my e-mails, etc. I got most of my answers from this site and just kept it really basic when it came to working with the coordinators. I just requested my venues and reserved the mariachi, etc. and told myself I wouldn’t stress over anything. Most of what we needed to take care of happened after we got there. I just brought everything we wanted to use and we worked out how it would be set up once we got there. Claudia in Miami was really sweet and great to work with. I did have issues getting a hold of her at times but nothing critical. She can only take requests when it comes to gazebos etc., so when I started wanting to reserve specific locations etc. she assigned me to Kalena and gave me her e-mail so I could coordinate with her directly. I LOVED Kalena!!! She was SO sweet and really easy to work with. She suggested we use the Caribbean Terrace for our reception since it was available and it was PERFECT! She also made the day run so smoothly and saved the day for us when my husband forgot to put our first dance song on our iPod. She made some great suggestions during our meeting and was so organized that everything went perfectly! She also helped us organize the processional and when we should do the sand and lazo ceremonies, etc.

Wedding Package:
We chose the Complimentary Wedding package because we knew there were no substitutions with the other packages and there were some things included in the big packages that we didn’t need or want to pay for. This allowed us to customize everything we wanted. We had the old “Free†package at first but our coordinator said that the new “Complimentary Package†(which was $300… so I don’t know where they get the meaning of Complimentary from??) included the bride’s bouquet ($146), groom’s boutonniere ($42), blood test fees ($100), small cake ($89 - we didn’t need this though), and translation from English to Spanish of all the required docs you bring (usually $45-$80). We figured it came out cheaper to just pay the $300 since we were going to get everything besides the cake anyway. We did however pay the $90 to get our marriage certificate translated to English because I didn’t want to deal with it once we got back.

Here are the things we added to our package:
Ceremony flowers ($45x2): $90
Large Cake: $210
DVD for ceremony: $360 (priceless in my opinion)
Extra hour for DVD: $160 (priceless in my opinion)
Mariachi for Reception: $580
Audiovisual (Stereo iPod set-up, speaker system, upgraded lights): $635
Bamboo table runners ($17x5): $85
Horse Drawn Carriage: $130
Bride’s Hair and make-up: $86
Dress pressing: $36

Deco Cancun:
I contacted Zuniga (Deco Cancun) directly via e-mail to get quotes on lounge set-ups and other options they had. They were really easy to work with and I was REALLY surprised at how reasonable their prices were. We ended up getting two lounge set-ups, the lantern light structure, floral centerpieces and fuchsia throw pillows plus we had to pay for set-up. They let us use the paper lanterns we brought because I wanted to use fuchsia and green instead of the standard white and also let us use our acrylic ice rocks and submersible Floralytes in the vases of the centerpieces. We just dropped all of that stuff off to Kalena on the day of our meeting and she took care of the rest.

Here is what the cost breakdown was:
Lounge furniture for 8-10 people: $120 (x2) = $240
Large fuchsia lounge cushions: $5 (x10) = $50
Large buffet structure (over lounge area) with my lanterns: $190
Centerpieces as per bride´s request with Lilies, roses and orchids with tall bases: $63 (x5) = $315
Delivery, set-up, break down: $200.
Total: $995 + 11% tax = $1104.50

Website:
We started off by creating a website at Veronica and Patrick's Wedding - wedding website by mywedding.com . It’s a free site and I’m really glad we didn’t spend the extra money to create a more elaborate site because it really had everything we needed and allowed our guests to ‘tentatively’ RSVP online after they got their Save the Dates to give us something to go off of before formal RSVPs would be due. It was also a great way to keep our guests up to date with information.

Save the Date:
We wanted to send out our Save the Dates a year in advance but didn’t end up sending them out until the beginning of August. I don’t think it really mattered though because most people already knew that we were going to Cancun to get married and those who really wanted to be there for us made it happen. We included our website address and password and asked that they tentatively RSVP online so we had some idea as to headcount.

For the STDs we used Stardream metallic cardstock (in onyx), Stardream text weight paper (in quartz) and plain 5x7 black envelopes from Discount Blank Invitations, Card Stock, Envelopes and More from CutCardStock.com. We purchased the satin ribbon from Joann.com (Offray in Azalea) since they didn’t have that color in any of the stores. We used our inkjet printer to print the base and then just used a craft paper cutter to cut them to size. For the magnets we used Avery Magnet Sheets and used a large paper cutter to cut them. We were able to fit 6 magnets per sheet and attached them to the STDs using clear photo corner stickers purchased at Michael’s. Everyone really loved the STDs and it was fun seeing our magnet on people’s refrigerators 

Invitations:
I absolutely LOVED how our invitations came out! They took a lot of time and effort but I think it was worth the end result  I am a DIY girl all the way and this took a little longer than I estimated it would. We sent them out the first of the year with an RSVP date of February 17th. That gave me two months to get together OOT bags etc once I had a final count and by then most people already knew if they were going or not anyway.

I purchased the 6x6 Pink Azalea Metallic pocketfolds from paperandmore.com for $40/pack of 50 (x2) and found that the cardstock was cheaper there as well! I used Fairway Green and Black Onyx metallic cardstock. I used some Stardream Crystal metallic text weight paper that I bought from cutcardstock.com for printing the text on (had to use a laser printer for this particular color of paper…because ink jet would not print nicely on it). I got the ribbon and the Swarovski crystals off of eBay sellers. I had my daughters helping me glue the crystals on each invitation and they were so proud of being able to help me with them. I took a completed invitation to the post office to have them tell me how much it would cost to mail and then had our logo printed on custom postage stamps at stamps.com. I rounded our postage up to the next increment because I didn’t want to chance any of our invitations being returned to us. Also an FYI, they also charge extra to mail square envelopes because they say they are non-machinable (which is crap because we could tell that they ran at least some of them through their machines anyway!).

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[vgirl17]

OOT Bags

I am SO GLAD we did OOT bags for our guests! They were really surprised when they got them and really appreciated the gesture. We kept it really simple because we were running out of time and money. I wished I could have also included personalized insulated mugs (discountmugs.com) for each person but we just couldn’t afford any more extras (not to mention we were also running out of luggage space!). We put most of the money into the bag itself and we were really happy with that decision. Most people didn’t bring a beach bag and we saw them carrying them around everywhere (shopping, to the poolside, etc.) We purchased 24 Reusable Cotton Canvas Shopping Grocery Tote Bags for $63.98 from an eBay seller (qualitylumber) and created an iron-on with our wedding date and starfish logo. They were the PERFECT size for a beach bag and had a nice texture to them. They also took the iron-on really well.

We gave 1 bag per couple and included:

•A Wedding Week survival kit that included:

oMini bath puff (container of 5/$1 at the Dollar Tree)

oNail file (Dollar Tree)

oAnti-bacterial gel (purchased 2/$1 at Dollar Tree)

oFirst Aid kit (from Dollar Tree) and added:

-Chapstick (Costco)

-Shout wipes (purchased a couple of boxes that were on sale at Staples)

-Asprin and ibuprofen (individual first aid packs)

-Alka Seltzer

-Immodium (just in case! Haha!)

•A sodoku puzzle book (purchase for $1 ea. at Michael’s)

•Two lanyards with badge ID holders (zip closed kind) to hold room card keys (purchased from eBay).

We didn’t know how we were going to go about handing out the bags but it really wasn’t that difficult. As we saw people we just went to grab them from our room or brought them with us to dinner etc, if we were going to meet up with someone. We were able to get all of the bags out to everyone without any problems.

 

Bride’s attire:

I absolutely loved my dress! I was REALLY worried about it because it was really heavy and I wasn’t sure if it would be too hot to wear in Cancun. I’m so glad I stuck with it and didn’t go for a smaller dress  It had the Spanish feel I was looking for and went perfectly with my mantilla veil. The heat wasn’t a big issue because our wedding was at 5pm and it was already cooling off by then (but still warm of course). It was so heavy to carry in the airport that we didn’t worry about getting it wrinkled because it would have been a struggle to try and keep it straight or hanging. We just gave it to Kalena at our wedding meeting on Thursday morning and she had it pressed and delivered to my mom’s room the next day. We flew on Mexicana Airlines and they let us use it as a carry-on so we just stuffed it in the overhead compartment!

 

 

Dress: Maggie Sottero - “Daria†in diamond white

Veil: Elbow length mantilla veil with beading - in think it was by Bel Aire Bridal?

Shoes: Stuart Weitzman - “Peekapoo†in fuchsia. I also added shoe clips that I made out of Austrian crystal clip-on earrings that I bought off of eBay. They were perfect!

Crinoline: I bought the crinoline off of another bride on weddingbee for $20 and dyed it fuchsia using 3 boxes of RIT Fuchsia dye. I did it all in my kitchen sink and it was really easy! I love how it came out! It was a David’s Bridal medium fullness crinoline.

Hair flower: I bought a Real Touch flower from an Etsy seller that was selling knitted baby hats with flowers on them. I got it for $9 + 2.99 shipping I think.

 

Groom’s attire:

My husband is 6’6†so it was a challenge finding him a linen suit that wasn’t going to cost us a small fortune. We found studiosuits.com from other brides on this site and got the perfect custom suit for my husband for $99! We added the satin lining to his pants for an extra $5. We loved the suit and it fit him perfectly. We got it in the beige linen color which looked beautiful at our outdoor ceremony. It arrived about 3 weeks from the time we ordered it in a small soft package from Fed Ex (It was shipped from India). He got his shirt from the Van Heusen Outlet and his shoes are Stacy Adams (Modena Bike Toe Oxfords in Cognac) from Macy’s.

 

Bridesmaid’s attire:

Dresses: Jasmine Bridal B2 Belsoie Collection. Dress B9084 (comes with optional straps) also avail. for Jr. Bridesmaids. The material we chose was Peony taffeta (with a raspberry iridescence). It gave us the fuchsia/hot pink color I wanted and looked great in sunlight and in the evening. They came in tea length but we had them shortened to cocktail length instead.

Shoes: Fuchsia satin peep toes from the Nine West Outlet for the ladies

Jr. Shoes: Fuchsia satin low heels from Sears (for 2 of my daughters).

Hair flowers: I made hair flowers out of pretty flowers that I found at Dollar Tree and hot glued them to hair clips that I bought at Michael’s. They were optional for the girls to wear but they all ended up loving them and using them for the wedding. The only thing I wish I would have done is have them wear them on the same side. It wasn’t a big deal but you can only see half of their flowers when they are all facing the same direction in certain pictures. I’m really glad I did these and they were SUPER CHEAP and easy to make!

 

Groomsmen’s attire:

We helped our groomsmen order the matching pants to my husband’s suit from studiosuits.com in beige linen. We purchased their white embroidered guayabera shirts from a shop (I can’t remember the name) on Mission Street in San Francisco. They all just wore brown dress shoes to match. I love how they looked together.

 

Rings:

Bride’s Engagement ring: My husband actually proposed to me with a pink sapphire ring (he knows I LOVE fuchsia pink) because he wanted us to create my ‘dream ring’ together. My engagement ring was custom made with a diamond halo surrounding a cushion cut diamond and eternity band. My husband also had them put a hidden pink sapphire on the inside of the band  I wore the pink sapphire ring on my right hand during our wedding ceremony.

Bride’s wedding band: I just wanted an eternity band that was similar to my engagement ring. We originally went to the SF Diamond District to look at them but the one that matched my band the best was over $1200! I didn’t want to spend that much on my band so we kept looking. I started looking on eBay to see what I could find and I found the perfect ring for a LOT LESS!! The specs were even better than the one I saw in person for $1200 (color and carat weight). It was from eBay seller (5th-ave-jewels). When it came in I was ecstatic! The quality and color of the diamonds were just as described and I will definitely be purchasing from them again.

Groom’s band: My husband’s band is a 14k white gold polished and brushed beveled band by Benchmark. We knew right away that was HIS band when we saw it. We ordered it from Mainsail Jewelry in Union Square (S.F.) and they were great. The only scary part was this particular jewelry store does not offer refunds (only exchanges within 30 days). But the price they gave us for the ring for was a great deal better than other Benchmark bands we had looked at so we took the deal. The band came in my husband’s size a week later and it fit him perfectly! He still loves it and so do I 

 

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[vgirl17]

Bridesmaid Gifts:

For my bridesmaids I purchased embroidered waffle weave spa robes from smartypantsboutique.com, Collin Stuart fuchsia flip flops to wear at the reception from Victoria’s Secret, and an embroidered tote bag from an eBay vendor. I also made their necklaces and earrings for the wedding. I think some of the guys liked the spa robes too because I had at least two of my bridesmaids asked me where I got them so they could get one for their husband too! They also said the flip-flops were the best gift ever!!! … I’m sure their feet were ready for a break by the time we got to dancing at the reception and the fuchsia flip flops looked so cute with their dresses!

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Groomsmen Gifts:

We got all of the groomsman Leatherman utility knives and had them engraved with each of the guys’ nicknames on the side. They REALLY loved them and we figured they would come in handy for all of the camping that we do and when the guys go on their fishing trips.

 

Group Booking:

My parents are members of Palace Resorts so some people booked through their membership however we also wanted to open up a Group Booking so that some of our guests would have the option to put a down payment to book (2 nights) and pay the rest when they arrived. We booked our honeymoon (we had them make that reservation for the Sun Palace) as our ‘down payment’ for the Group booking because my mom had already booked us a presidential suite for our wedding week. We were on the Sunrise side so I made sure our Miami coordinator had our Group reservations booked on the Sunrise side as well. It is a HUGE resort so I would recommend that your guests request the same side that you are on if they book on their own to make sure everyone is in the same general area. It will make it a lot easier to get together if you share the same lobby, pools, etc. A word of warning though… if your guests request king size beds they will most likely be more spread out and further away because there are only so many king rooms per section.

I guess we ended up having enough room nights for the free reception so we didn’t have to pay the per table charge at our reception but we did end up paying to extend the reception and for all of the extras we got.

 

Rehearsal/Welcome Dinner:

We didn’t want to have a lot of planned activities for our guests so we decided to just do a rehearsal/welcome dinner before the wedding so everyone could get to know each other. It gave everyone a chance to do what they wanted on their vacation and still the option to hang out with everyone if they wanted too. We had our rehearsal dinner on the terrace of Arrecifes (the Brazilian restaurant) on Friday night at 7pm. It was pretty windy that evening but I still preferred being out on the terrace to being inside. The food was really good but it was mostly just a LOT of meat (not that that’s a bad thing usually) but if I could do it over again I think I would have gone to Los Caporales (Mexican on Nizuk side) or La Trattoria (Italian at the golf course). They also have a nice atmosphere but there is more food variety. You do have a variety of salad bar options (with a few other items) however once they start going around serving the meat on sticks it makes it a little difficult to leave the table. It also took them a little while to get around to all 37 people so that’s another thing to consider when dining with large groups. All in all everyone had a great time and enjoyed being out on the terrace overlooking the pools and the novelty of being served different types of meat on large skewers. I’m really glad we got together before the wedding day because by the time the wedding rolled around everyone already knew everyone.

 

 

Hair Salon:

I had my hair appt. at noon at the Sunrise salon with Alberto. I had emailed for an appointment a couple of weeks before our wedding using the e-mail address Kalena gave me. I brought a picture of the style I wanted and I think Alberto did a FANTASTIC job! (not his fault it was so windy that day) I loved it! He also did my makeup and I loved that too! I brought lashes with me and he was able to put them on with no problem. I am SO glad I made my hair and makeup appts. early because I didn’t feel in a hurry or stressed the whole time. I was done at about 2:30pm (I think) which was great because I still had other things to do before our 5pm ceremony and the important stuff was already out of the way. I made the appt. early because I figured it would give me time to fix my hair and makeup if I didn’t like it.

 

Ceremony:

Bugambilias Gazebo: This gazebo was actually my last choice when selecting a wedding gazebo however I LOVED it and am so glad we got married there! The walkway leading to the gazebo is made of tile surrounded by river rocks (Chapel gazebo has tile also but the Tucan gazebo does not because it’s a longer aisle) and there are beautiful palm trees in the background for most of our pictures (non-pro). You really can’t go wrong with any of the gazebos at the Moon Palace. They are all beautiful! This was also the closest gazebo to the Sunrise side but the furthest from our reception area. Our guests ended up taking the lobby to lobby shuttle over to the reception area while we took pictures.

 

Décor:

Aisle runner: We requested the tan isle runner for our ceremony. I’m not sure if they even use the red ones anymore but I wanted to be sure ours was tan.

Parasols: I bought 6 green parasols for my bridesmaids and two fuchsia parasols (lunabaazar.com); one for me and a mini one for my flower girl for pictures. I gave them to Kalena at our meeting and asked her to use them as décor for the ceremony too.

Chair sashes: We brought fuchsia satin chair sashes for the reception and had some extra that Kalena placed on the aisle chairs for the ceremony.

Rose petals: We purchased freeze dried rose petals from flyboynaturals.com (120 cups of Very Berry mix) that we were going to have put down both sides of the aisle. It ended up being too windy so we just used them for the petal toss. I loved how gorgeous the rose petals look in pictures and when they were being tosses at us they looked like they were floating in the air! It was beautiful. I do wish it wasn’t so windy so that we could have actually used them down the aisle but they would have all just ended up off to the side.

Floral arrangements: We ordered two tabletop arrangements from Kalena at our wedding meeting at the last minute. I just told her I wanted fuchsia roses and other fuchsia or pink flowers like stargazer lilies, etc. They also added a little green with the Bells of Ireland flowers that I had added to my bouquet (as Kalena suggested). They were really pretty and I’m glad we got them. They weren’t huge but they added some color to the table. After the ceremony they moved them to our cake table for the reception. We thought it added a nice touch and the cake table looked much better with them.

 

Horse and Carriage: This was SO WORTH the money!! I knew I wanted to get the horse and carriage from the beginning but I did not expect so many people to have such a strong reaction to it! I can’t tell you how many people told us after the wedding how beautiful it was when they saw me come around the corner in the carriage or that they ‘lost it’ when they saw my husband watching me coming around in the carriage. My husband also said he knew I was going to be coming in a carriage but didn’t think it was going to make the moment seem so magical! I highly recommend it!

 

Lazo Ceremony:

We incorporated the Mexican Lazo Ceremony into our wedding before we performed our sand ceremony. My step-dad read the lazo wording and then he and my mom placed the lazo around my husband and me. I love that we now have it as a keepsake of our wedding and can pass it down to our kids to use.

Sand Ceremony:For the sand ceremony we used a box picture frame that my husband sealed (only the area where the sand will be) and placed a hole in the top of. We used an engagement picture for the ceremony but will replace it with a family wedding picture once we get them back from the photographers. We purchased the glass sand containers at Michael’s for about $1 or $2. The resort already has some standard wording options so it was easy for us to add our kids to the ceremony and also have them add sand to the frame. It was so windy during our ceremony we had to keep the frame from falling over by supporting it with the flowers and bottles of sand!

 

We had seen in previous weddings at the MP that the bride and groom stand behind the table for the entire ceremony (for pictures) but my husband definitely did not want to do that so we told our wedding coordinator at our meeting that we would like to stand in front of the table for the entire ceremony. The only time we did go behind the table was to sign the documents.

[vgirl17]

BOUQUETS AND BOUTONNIERES:

Bridal Bouquet: I requested medium and fuchsia pink roses with a white satin sash (Included in Complimentary package). We also decided to add a little bit of green with the belles of Ireland. I added a crystal starfish to the top of the bouquet that I had purchased at www.bouquetjewels.com and added my mom’s rosary with a borrowed diamond cross (belongs to my friend/bridesmaid) on the handle of my bouquet. The lighter pink roses were a little too light for my taste but they were still gorgeous so I didn’t worry about it because the bouquet looked gorgeous and I LOVED it! I thought they did a great job.

Grooms Boutonniere: We requested a fuchsia pink rose with green flower for my husband’s boutonniere. I also asked them to add bent blades of grass to try and coordinate with the groomsmen’s boutonnieres and it was PERFECT!!! I really loved how his boutonniere came out!

Bridesmaid’s bouquets: This was one thing that I was stressing out on in the beginning because they were so expensive to get through the Moon Palace but I found a perfect solution! I ordered 100 long stem pink roses in various shades from Cancun florist with flowers, roses, gifts and balloons delivery in Cancun for around $220 and was able to make 6 BM bouquets and 4 corsages out of them! I was going to place the order online before we left to Cancun but ended up being so busy that I didn’t have a chance to. When we got to Cancun I just called them from the resort and ordered them. They were so easy to work with and even delivered them to the Moon Palace with no problem. I would recommend you order them early because since I called last minute (Thursday for a Friday afternoon delivery) he had to get the roses from about 3 different sources and couldn’t really get fuchsia pink but thankfully he was able to get a couple different shades of pink for me. The colors ended up working out great in the end and I wasn’t going to be too picky about the shade of pink at this point. I also had brought some silk green orchids that I purchased from afloral.com to add to the real roses because I knew those would be very expensive and didn’t want to deal with trying to order them. I had brought ribbon and floral tools with me (you will need pruning shears to cut the stems, floral tape, and pearl pins to pin the ribbon on top) to make the bouquets. I learned how to make bouquets and corsages on YouTube and it was surprisingly easy!

Groomsmen’s boutonniere’s: I did these at home and was SO GLAD I did!!! I would have preferred to use real flowers however this was one less thing for me to worry about once we got to Cancun and cheap to do I was glad I went with silk. I purchased a spray of Real Touch green cymbidium orchids and cut the blooms off, then created the boutonnieres using floral tape and ribbon. They came out sooo good!!! They looked great in photos AND in real life. I also used the extra blooms for our cake flowers.

 

 

CAKE:

Cake flowers: We ordered a simple 3 tier cake that they decorated with Real Touch roses and orchids that we provided. I bought the Real Touch roses from afloral.com (they came in a bouquet that I took apart) and I can’t remember where I purchased the Real Touch orchids (also used for boutonnieres).

Cake topper: I purchased a plain metal letter “C†cake topper off of eBay for $14 and applied Swarovski Crystals that I purchased online myself. We loved our cake topper and it was worth doing it DIY to save about $150!

One layer was marble, one layer was Vanilla and the other layer was strawberry. We got to taste the vanilla (day after wedding) and strawberry (just one bite though) and they were both really good and I heard the marble was good too but I didn’t get a chance to taste that one. They gave us the top layer of cake in a to-go container when our reception was over so we took it back to our room and were able to have some with our honeymoon breakfast the next day 

 

RECEPTION:

We had our reception on the Caribbean Terrace (above the restaurant on the Moon Grand side) and it was the PERFECT place for us!!! It has a view of the ocean and infinity pool below and the palapa made the perfect covered dance floor area. There was also already a bar there that was used for our wedding reception bar. It was closed off for our wedding so we didn’t have any random guests coming up there.

For our reception we hired the mariachi to play while we ate dinner. I thought they were really great and my husband really wanted them! He said we were in Mexico so the mariachi had to play at our wedding! Our guests really enjoyed listening to the music also.

Tables: We had five 6ft. round tables for our reception. We sat at one table with our four children and our guests sat at the other 4 tables. I brought fuchsia satin round table cloths (tableclothsfactory.com) and fuchsia organza swirl overlays (prestigelinens.com) to be used on the tables and satin fuchsia chair sashes (tableclothsfactory.com). They looked just how I wanted them too and I LOVED IT! I also rented bamboo table runners from the Moon Palace for each table. We ordered our centerpieces from Zuniga (along with our Lounge area set-up) but I asked them if I could have them use my fuchsia acrylic ice rocks (from eBay) with my submersible pink Floralytes (from eBay) in the vases and they didn’t have a problem with it. I love the way they made the centerpieces glow fuchsia! We also brought votive holders that I had glued green Swarovski crystals onto and ended up using the LED tea lights that we had brought instead of the real tea lights because it was SO WINDY that night! I didn’t think I’d like the way they looked but they were great! I wish I wouldn’t have even bothered with the real tea lights because whoever set up our tables didn’t even bother to take the real tealights out of the holders before dropping in the LED tealights How lazy is that! Not a big deal I know but it was a little irritating to see in pictures.

We also created place cards using 3â€-4†white finger starfish with a tag that had each person’s name on it. Our table names were the names of five Mayan Ruins (Chichen Itza, Tulum, Coba, El Rey and Ek Balam).

 

Favors: We had custom shot glasses made by discountmugs.com. We chose the frosted votive/shot glass and used only one imprint color (rhodamine red) so the price was very reasonable. We ordered 72 since it was just around $20 more than ordering 36. We figured we could use the extras for our bar. We also included a shot glass vile (shotwizard.com) filled with tequila (Don Julio from the resort) with a little tag on it that had a saying we always use when we take shots in our family. Our guests really loved the shot glasses and we love how they came out.

Reception dinner: We ended up choosing the Italian menu at the last minute because we hadn’t really gone over all of the options and our coordinator forgot to get our selection at our meeting because we went over SO MUCH other stuff. She called our room and needed to know what we wanted so I just told her “Uh, I don’t know… what do you suggest??†and Italian was one of the options she mentioned so we went with it. We also added chips and guacamole (everyone loved snacking on it) and beef medallions (I heard they were great from another bride and they were!) and they added them at no extra charge. Everything was really great! There was something for everyone… even my super picky best friend (my MOH)!! If she liked it, anyone will like it! Haha!

 

We ended up extending the reception since no one was ready to go when the time came and I honestly don’t even remember what time we ended up leaving. After we took the lobby to lobby bus back to the Sunrise side we all decided to go and change and meet up at Club Andromeda to finish off the night.

 

DVD:

I am SO GLAD we purchased the DVD! We also ended up paying extra so that the videographer would stay for part of the reception as well to get the first dance and speeches, etc. They used the music that we provided to our coordinator for our ceremony and also used our first dance song for the DVD. I thought it came out great and I was able to see so many things that I didn’t get a chance to see on the day of the wedding (ie. My husband and guests waiting for me to arrive before the ceremony, etc.) I think the DVD is invaluable. The price was about right for the quality. I would highly recommend getting a DVD of your wedding if you can. You don’t realize how important it is until they day has flown by and your wedding day is over. It goes by so fast that it’s nice to be able to relive the moments later.

[vgirl17]

PHOTOGRAPHERS:

We chose to use Tammsphotos for our wedding photography. Photography was EXREMELY important to us so we wanted to make sure we made it a priority. We couldn’t have made a better choice! They are a husband and wife team (Tammara and Grant) that was with us for all of the major wedding events (and more!). We had seen other weddings that they’ve done at the Moon Palace and their pictures were AMAZING!! They were easy to communicate with prior to the wedding and gave us a discount on our package since we had to book them for two nights (due to the MP policy of no outside vendors) at the MP. I thought they were extremely reasonable for the quality of their work (and the amount of time they spent with us) and we really LOVED working with them! We booked their room for the night before the wedding and the night of the wedding. We met them the morning before our wedding and went over some basics and to get to know each other.

Rehearsal Dinner pics: That night they met up with us at the main lobby so that we could head over to our rehearsal dinner. It gave them a chance to see our group in action and probably helped them to know who the “key people†in our group were. They fit right in and everyone loved them.

Wedding Day pics: The next day I had a hair appointment at the Sunrise salon with my daughters at noon and my bridesmaids had their hair appointments at the Spa on the golf course so Tammara met me at the salon while Grant was with the guys. It was really nice having her there and she’s been there so many times for weddings that she was almost like a wedding coordinator too!! LOL! She was so helpful!!!! When we got back to the room I still had to make the bridesmaids bouquets so we were starting to run short on time to take pre-wedding pictures so Tammara started to help me with them! We got some pictures of me before I got my dress on (for the hubby) and then some pics after the girls got there to help me with my dress (and I’m sure there were some in between all of this too). After the ceremony we took some group pictures and some family pictures then we headed over to the dock with our wedding party to get shots by the water. The pictures they took there looked like they are going to be amazing. They sent us one as a teaser until we get the rest back and I was ecstatic!! After that we headed over to the life size chess board and took a few shots there with our wedding party. It started to get dark by then so we started to head to the reception and the rest is history!

Trash the Dress pics: With our package they also threw in a post or pre wedding photo shoot so we chose to do a trash the dress session a couple of days after the wedding. Tammara and Grant were going to be in Playa del Carmen so they suggested we go there for our shoot since I had mentioned we wanted some ‘in town’ as well as ‘beach’ pictures. We hired a taxi cab from the MP to take us to their hotel room in Playa and asked him how much it would be. He quoted us $80 (round trip) but once we got to Playa we realized we wouldn’t need him to take us back for a few hours so asked him if he wanted to stay and take us to 3 or 4 spots we would pay him $100 total, otherwise we were just going to pay him for one-way and send him packing. He seemed ok with it and said he would stay so we ended up having our own personal taxi for the entire time we were at Playa (arrived around 4pm and left around 8pm)! It was great because we were able to go from location to location in a nice clean air conditioned taxi cab! Tammara and Grant had already scouted out some locations for us to shoot at and we had a blast!! It felt like we had already known them forever and we had a lot of fun that day. Grant had mentioned this taco place that they had went to that had awesome .90 cent tacos al pastor so after we had gotten a ton of photos taken we all headed over there and all ate some of the BEST TACOS I have ever tasted in my life (and a couple of beers to wash them down of course )!!! And I’m MEXICAN!!! We even bought the taxi driver dinner since he had hung out with us all day! From there we went our separate ways and the taxi driver took us back to the MP (about an hour away). We ended up giving him a $20 tip since he was so cool about everything and made the day run even more smoothly!

Photog Overview: Although we haven’t gotten our pictures back yet we did get a chance to see some on their cameras and they were incredible. Tammara and Grant were a great couple and fun to hang out with but more importantly they got the job done… and beautifully. We can’t wait to see the rest of our pictures and I’ll be sure to post them as soon as we do. I would highly recommend them to anyone!!

Courtesy of Tammsphotos.com

 

Overview:

I can honestly say that I am extremely happy we chose to have a destination wedding at the Moon Palace. Even though it wasn’t stress free (what wedding is) I’m SURE it was much less stressful than putting a wedding together at home and it turned out AMAZING. It also allowed for us to have the wedding of our dreams within a reasonable budget! There were times (before we got to Cancun) when I wished we had just eloped and just left to Cancun with our kids and no one else but in the end everything worked out and everyone had an amazing time! We were also so thankful to have so many of our friends and family there to celebrate such an important event in our lives with us and our children. So many people told us that they were SO GLAD they came to our wedding and that it was worth every penny. The Moon Palace was the perfect place for us because there was something for everyone.

 

 

 

End of Review

[Mischaka]

very very beautiful wedding!!! you looked absolutely stunning!!!

[JENISE]

Thanks so much for the review. Everything look amazing.

Love you e-ring (looks a lot like mine)

Love your horse and carriage ride. Those pics must have been so beautiful. What a unique entrance.

You are a beautiful bride and I'm really happy to hear you had a great time. Congrats on becoming a Mrs.

 

(My, your hubby is tall!) lol

[KGirl99]

thanks for the long-awaited review!

[AishaB]

Wow what an indepth review. It is really great. It looks like everything was just wonderful and you guys had a great time. Congrats!

[SouthernSweetie]

Veronica, thanks so much for "paying it forward." Your review was so detailed that I'm printing it to highlight some of your wonderful advice and ideas. I really appreciate the time that you put into helping to make the rest of us MP Brides' special day even more spectacular!

 

Now I'm even more excited!