Now Sapphire Weddings Formerly Paradisus Riviera

[Mya062813]

 

About 4 weeks prior to our wedding we sent all of our guests a luggage tag, suggested packing list & brochure I created on vistaprint with all sorts of information to prepare them for their trip.

 

I've attached our wedding brochure, feel free to use the ideas or tweek for your wedding.

 

 

 

Attached is the packing list, feel free to use it as it or tweek for your upcoming wedding. 

 

 

 

Below is the link to the etsy store that we got out white leather luggage tags from.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/107959592/wedding-favors-key-west-paradise-luggage?ref=shop_home_active

 

Wedding Brochure.pdf

Packing List.xlsx

[Mya062813]

Instead of a rehearsal dinner we asked everyone to join us in the Lobby Bar (Moments) at 6pm the day prior to the wedding for Happy Hour.  It gave everyone a chance to meet & get to know each other a bit before the wedding.  It was casual & informal, our guests then disbursed on their own to dine at the restaurants of their choice.  (please note for groups of 4 or less the wait is not too bad in the restaurants.  However for larger groups it can be an hour as the restaurants are on the small side)

 

At the happy hour we have each guest a logoed canvas beach bag.  I found these on etsy as well.  We had them lined & imprinted with palms trees the location & the wedding date.  We felt our guests may not use the bags after the wedding if they had our names on them, everyone loved them.  By handing them out at the happy hour we avoided the $4 delivery charge the hotel wanted to charge us.  We felt since it was all inclusive our guests didn't really need an official OOT bag with items.

 

We also had door knockers created for each guest, on one side was the Do Not Disturb Sign & on the other was our welcome letter.  I don't have a pic at this moment but I can upload one later.  We put them in an envelope, labeled each with the guests names & sealed them with a seal I made on vistaprint.  The front desk was able to hand these out at check-in at no cost to us.

 

http://www.etsy.com/listing/150331895/reserved-for-amy-1-additional-lined

http://www.etsy.com/listing/118463837/wedding-door-hangersdo-not-disturb-signs

[Mya062813]

When arriving in Mexico & going through customs the wedding dressed was obvious so they knew we were getting married.  This sparked them to ask if we had wedding favors, we of course said yes.  We were then asked to scan our bags & the wedding suitcase had to be gone through. (we had all sorts of items in the suitcase for the wedding, one 50 pound suitcase of stuff:-))  They did not take anything but were very noisy & asked if we had receipts with us for all of the items, we did not & I panicked but the lady let us keep all of the items.  I would suggest having your receipts just in case.

[Mya062813]

We brought our own paper lanterns (I bought them at party city) which we hung from the pergola at the Tequila Terrace.  The resort wanted to charge us $100 + service charge to hang these, we hung them ourselves to avoid the fee.  We brought the paper lanterns, scissors & fishing line.  The resort provided a ladder.

 

We also brought our own ribbons for our chairs, I brought them on-line for less than a $1 each.  https://www.bbcrafts.com/shopping/card-checkout-result.shtml  The resort wanted to charged us $1 per chair + service charge to put them on the chairs, we did them ourselves.  I made my own reserved signs for the first row for our families.

[Mya062813]

Ladies the Tequila Terrace is a deck & it does have small spaces in it.  Be sure to let your guests know to wear flats, wedges or thick heels.  Regular heels will fit in the cracks & someone could get hurt.

[Mya062813]

We never met Anel in person we worked with Ramon once we arrived at the resort.  Be sure at check-in to ask to setup your appointment with Ramon so you can walk the space, give them your wedding items & review your details.

 

We used the sound system provided for $150 per hour + service charge.  It came with great lighting & they handed out long balloons to each guest half way through, seemed a little hokey but the guests loved it.  We had to provide our own music which we had on an iPod & listed out each play list (1st dance, cake cutting, dinner, after dinner dance music, etc.)

 

We had the saxophonist for the ceremony & really liked him.  We hired a Mexican trio through the resort for our cocktail hour.  It was a nice touch.

 

We had 26 guests & one child (1 years old).  To avoid all the additional fees for the 26th guest we told them to keep the cake, champagne toast, cocktail hour & open bar to 25.  One of our guests was pregnant so she could not drink.  We just had to pay for the additional dinner.

 

We chose Tres Leches for our cake it was delicious!!

 

We eliminated the additional dessert & just had the wedding cake & added 2 additional hors devours during cocktail hour.

[Mya062813]

Time Line:

 

3pm Hair (my sister did my hair in my room)

4pm Makeup (at the spa, careful they wanted to go a little heavy with the eye liner.  They adjusted as I asked)

5pm B&G began to get ready in our rooms (photographers arrived) (groom went to a friend's room, we did not have a bridal party)

5:30pm groom arrived at Tequila Terrace to being greeting our guests

5:45pm guests & all of our family (including my dad) began to arrive

5:50pm golf cart picked me up to take me to the lobby, long walk to the Tequila Terrace:-)

6pm the ceremony started

Champagne toast was offered to our guests after the ceremony, we did not do a toast during dinner

6:30pm-7pm we did pics with our families & all of our guests on the beach

7pm bar opened & cocktail hour began

7:30pm-8pm we went off with our photographers to take pics around the resort

8pm first dance

8:10pm dinner served

9:30pm cake cutting

9:45pm-11:10pm dancing

[Mya062813]

Tipping:

 

Service Charge is not included in the wedding package so you are on your own to tip.  We asked Ramon for the number of staff so we would be prepared.  We handed cash at the end of the event to each server, bartender, the captain & the sound guy.  We went the next day to thank Ramon & tip him.  Since we never met Anel we did not tip her, I was not comfortable leaving the tip with someone else in hopes she would receive it.

[Mya062813]

We created a website for all of our guests on the knot & listed it on our save the dates:

 

http://annetterivetti.ourwedding.com/

[Mya062813]

We used the private airport transfers provided in the Divine wedding package & found them to be very professional & on time.  Our pickup at the airport had a sign with our names on it as we exited the airport & was a white Mercedes & back to the airport was a small van.

 

We had the couples Swedish massage included in the package, it was great.

 

Since I didn't use the hair services offered in the package the spa told me I could get a manicure or pedicure, I ended up not using either.

 

We did the romantic dinner on the beach.  Somehow our reservation was not logged in even though we submitted it with our form & reviewed it with Ramon.  The servers were very accommodating & were able to found our reservation.  I recommend finding out when sundown is & going an hour or so before.  Once the Sun sets it mosquitoes come out & it is very hard to see your dinner:-)  We had our dinner the night before we left, the second night after our wedding.  It gave us a chance to have some alone time.