SunandSand's Dreams La Romana Wedding Review --- A DREAM!

[Sunandsand]

Hi there,

We're baaaack!!! Hubby and I married on the beach at Dreams La Romana on July 14, 2010. It was magical. Here's my long-winded review.

 

(In case you can't see the photos, go to We're Married - a set on Flickr

 

 

First Impressions

From the minute our bus got on to the resort I was impressed. Everything was clean, bright and beautiful. You are welcomed with champagne and we didn’t even have to wait at reception. Everything was quick and smooth.

The rooms were lovely and clean and I was very impressed with the free mini-bar and free-room service. After taking advice from this forum, we stayed in building 7 (5 was booked) and everything was clean and new.

My whole group LOVED the hotel and my in-laws are already planning to go back. Only negative --- mosquitoes. TONS of mosquitoes. I don’t think I’ve had so many bites in my life. Ad unfortunately most of the bugs are near the beach so that meant we spent most of our time at the pool. Boo, because I love salt-water. I would just run in and stay in the water and as soon as I came out, I’d go to the pool and spray bug spray. I think our group used bottles and bottles of bug spray and after-bite. We never went anywhere without it. Not even dinner.

 

Yanna

Great! We met with her on Monday morning and within half an hour, we were done. She took care of everything we wanted and was willing to work with us on some issues (she only charged us $65 for the photographer and videographer to come to the wedding and didn’t charge us a second time for the TTD session.) She set up all my decorations and was on top of everything. I think this may have a lot to do with the fact that I sent her photos of everything ahead of time. She had all my files and knew exactly what I wanted so it was great.

She also arranged for breakfast in bed the next day and when we came back to our room on our wedding night everything was beautiful. I won’t give details because I want future brides to see for themselves.

 

The Spa

Alex did my hair. She was great with me and we did a trial – perfect. She also did my brother’s girlfriend’s hair though and that didn’t turn out so well. I suggest you come with your own photos and speak up. Still my hair looked great and then she just went out to the garden and got some flowers and added them to my hair for free. Yanna also arranged for champagne to come to the spa while the girls and I were getting our hair done. That was fun (and no cost).

 

 

Décor / flowers / cake

I was so impressed with my cake. I have seen photos of so many ugly cakes and I was adamant that I wanted mine to be taller. Funny enough, they made it tall … and HUGE. We could have fed an army but it looked great. I brought my own sugar flowers and the pastry chef did a great job of decorating the cake.

The flower arch looked WAY better than I imagined. I was so happy with it. The bouquets were great too although the boutonnières could have used extra pins because my husband’s kept falling.

 

img-351 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

The Ceremony

We did the wedding on the beach and there were a lot of people but I didn’t care. The only thing I would suggest is finding someone to keep people out of the ocean in front of your wedding. One a$$hole actually lay on his sunbed in the water right in front of us until another hotel guest kindly went into the water and asked him to move. We didn’t even know the man who did it but we were so grateful. Arnaud, our photographer, was able to photoshop out any wayward sunbathers in our final photos.

Elke from the spa (who is AMAZING) officiated our wedding. Our niece read from the bible. My brother’s girlfriend read from the prophet and our kids read “Oh the Places You’ll Go†from Dr. Seuss. I gave Elke a rundown of how the ceremony should go and she was great. We had a symbolic ceremony (we got married in Toronto the week before) and they were very good about making it look “realâ€. They even created a document for us to sign with our witnesses that looked really legitimate.

Having Elke officiate was free-of-charge. So that was a great savings as well.

It rained until about 3:00 and the ceremony was at 5 so I was starting to have a small heart attack at about 2:00 p.m. but it all turned out. Thank God. I think it was God’s way of reminding me to let go of all the small details. As long as I got married on the beach, who cares if a couple of things didn’t go as planned.

 

 

 

Reception

We had the Seaside Grill. Originally we had the Deck but because of the rain, they moved us indoors. In hindsight, it was way better because it was air-conditioned and everyone was comfortable. We rented a speaker from Long and McQuade in Toronto ($14 including insurance) and plugged in our iPod. Way better and cheaper than hiring a DJ. The food was amazing! Steak was great and so were the appetizers and dessert. The wait staff was also really great.

I brought all the décor and Yanna arranged it. Everyone was impressed and it looked stunning!

Because we rented the whole grill, after 11:00 we went to the Seaside Grill Bar, outside and just took our speaker with us and continued the party there. Yanna told us we’d have to take the music off because people would complain, but we made a deal with her that if anyone complained, we would turn it down and no one complained. They’re mainly worried about people sleeping in the hotel but the rooms are pretty far from the seaside grill so we were fine. It was really hot outside so at about 12:30, hubby and I went back to the room and changed. I really didn’t want to take off my dress but I was dying.

 

 

HDC Photography

Arnaud came and did videography and Milian was our photographer. They were great and the photos were stunning, although the video was a bit “standard†for me. Mind you, I’m in television production so it takes a lot to impress me and they did it in a couple of days. I’ve asked him for the raw footage so I can also edit some stuff so my fingers are crossed. I also wish we had more time to have family portraits done for each of my guests. By the time they got around to taking photos of each of the families it was dark and the background was not great. I wanted everyone to have their own family photos on the beach or at least with a great background but we focused so much time on our photos that we didn’t get around to the families until late. Boo.

 

img-600 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

Travel Woes

So the wedding and hotel were magical. The airline / travel company, however, were a nightmare. They actually decided to change have my group to an earlier flight without telling me so when we got to the airport, they told half of us we missed our flight. It was a disaster. Hubby, myself, my brothers and a couple of extra people didn’t get to the resort until Sunday. They extended some of our stays for an extra day but it took them all week to sort things out so I was always on the phone or in the lobby with the rep. Then when they were finally ready to sort things, they told us they wouldn’t buy us the new flights unless we signed a release stating we would not take the matter further. That’s when I blew up. I mean BLEW UP. We didn’t sign anything and they changed our flights, but needless to say, we will be taking legal action. There were so many changes that came with changing our flight -- extra taxes, different baggage allowance, etc. that the whole travel part of the trip was a disaster. All of it! The travel agent – I will name her --- Beula Jackson from Sunquest --- has not even contacted me to apologize. Coward. I want her head on a platter, believe me. Anyway, I’ll try to forget about that and concentrate on the wedding day and hotel, which were lovely.

 

I wish all the future brides the best of luck!

[nsimpson]

LOL! to the Conquest TA...More and more I strongly believe in supporting our BDW TAs they know what they're doing!!

 

Thank you so much for your great review! I am impressed with every detail that you provided. Especially the bit about the "wedding document" that they created for you that was a really nice touch I think. I too will be looking for that option to give the ceremony the "real" feel!

 

So glad to hear about Yanna's performance I will admit that I was a bit nervous having her assigned to my wedding since she is new and Tiara will be on vacation during my wedding. But you have put any anxiousness to rest -- THANK YOU so much for that!

 

I could and probably will say a tonne more but I'll PM you and not bore the readers!!

 

Thanks and congratulations on being a Mrs!!!

[nsimpson]

Okay, had to come back and comment on the pics...LOVE them!!! Yea HDC!!!! You were just stunning in your dress and DH looked good too!!! Especially love the pic of the two of you on the chess board (totally belongs in a magazine)!!

 

Awesome stuff!

[Thomasjsgirl]

Congratulations! Your pictures are wonderful!

[Mischaka]

Congrats hun!!! your pictures are beautiful!!!!!

[KarenM]

Congratulations! Sorry to hear about the miserable travel experience, but glad it didn't ruin your trip. Your pics are great!

[wendyjd]

Congrats on a great wedding and for not letting the crappy travel ruin the week. I love your pics. I gotta steal the chess set pic. FI always comments on the chess sets at EVERY AI we visit. Everything was great. Love the archway.

[jk1101]

You 2 are a stunning couple - beautiful pictures - love the cake!

congratulations on a beautiful wedding!

[msjulie5475]

I loved your photos. You two looked amazing!

[Cindy*]

Congratulations on your wedding. So sorry to her about your travel problems. YOur photos are beautiful!