Excellence Riviera Cancun Brides?

TrishaJ34 · August 9, 2012

Welcome Jessica! I'm also pretty new too. My date is 7/12/13. So, we can compare notes on the process as we move forward :0).

For those of you that already got married there- do you think it's too hot and humid to wear your hair down? I want to cover my ears up, but don't want stringy, sweaty hair- not the look I'm going for!!!

TrishaJ34 · August 9, 2012

Oh, and I wasn't a fan of the portfolio from the excellence photogs either. It seems pretty pricey to add hours and get a decent number of digitals. We won a 'finalist' package from the destination photography package contest on this website, so we get amazing photographers at a heavy discount. Pretty awesome! I rarely win things, so this was pretty exciting!

SunsetLove · August 9, 2012

Originally Posted by TrishaJ34

Welcome Jessica! I'm also pretty new too. My date is 7/12/13. So, we can compare notes on the process as we move forward :0).

For those of you that already got married there- do you think it's too hot and humid to wear your hair down? I want to cover my ears up, but don't want stringy, sweaty hair- not the look I'm going for!!!

At the ceremony itself, there was a perfect beach breeze and no one was hot at all - our ceremony was at 5:30pm. However, we went to the Martini Bar to take some pictures before the ceremony and I was sweating like crazy on the way there and back. My dress also felt like it had 800 layers so I don't know if that had something to do with it

JessicaC07 · August 10, 2012

Originally Posted by TrishaJ34

Welcome Jessica! I'm also pretty new too. My date is 7/12/13. So, we can compare notes on the process as we move forward :0).

For those of you that already got married there- do you think it's too hot and humid to wear your hair down? I want to cover my ears up, but don't want stringy, sweaty hair- not the look I'm going for!!!

I was wondering the same thing about hair. I want to have my hair down, but I'm worried about it making me too hot. Congratulations on winning a photography package! That's awesome! I'm really not sure what to do about photography. On the VIP photo website, there are some pictures that I actually really like. However, there are a lot more that I don't like. I just ordered my Save The Date's today!! I actually designed them myself on VistaPrint and I think they look really good. I'll post a photo once they arrive

JessicaC07 · August 10, 2012

Originally Posted by SunsetLove

Congrats on booking your wedding at ERC! You will LOVE it! I personally did not use the in house photographer because I didn't like a lot of what I saw on their website. We had 24 pictures included with our wedding package and since we hired an outside photographer, VIPs didn't even bother to show up for the wedding. However, after talking to them - they let me choose 10 pictures from our romantic dinner on the beach that was included in our package. I honestly had a really hard time picking 10

As for our wedding photographer, I cannot recommend Photos In Cancun enough!!! Derek and Lorena were awesome to work with, they responded to emails quickly and were a blast on the day of the wedding. I still haven't done a review on them yet (sorry guys!) but I plan on giving them an A+++++ because they're just AMAZING! Here is a link to their website (http://www.photosincancun.com/) and of course I'll share a couple of my own wedding photos below I apologize in advance for the photo montage of myself and my hubby LOL

Thanks!! I am so excited! I will definitely check out Photos In Cancun. I love the picture of you and your bridesmaids in sunglasses, with your glasses being teal colored. Super cute!!! I plan on teal for my bridesmaids as well - I might have to steal the photo idea!

Tiners17 · August 10, 2012

Jill and Sunset Love, thanks so much for your great reviews and helpful tips. You pictures looked so beautiful. Congrats to you both!!

I was wondering if you are able to pick a few choices for the main dinner at the reception, and then let the guests chose before we all get there, or if you can only pick one??

BunnyBride · August 10, 2012

Originally Posted by JessicaC07

I was wondering the same thing about hair. I want to have my hair down, but I'm worried about it making me too hot. Congratulations on winning a photography package! That's awesome! I'm really not sure what to do about photography. On the VIP photo website, there are some pictures that I actually really like. However, there are a lot more that I don't like. I just ordered my Save The Date's today!! I actually designed them myself on VistaPrint and I think they look really good. I'll post a photo once they arrive

I havent been on here in a while and all the pictures are all so beautiful!!! So jealous of everyone planning-I LOVED ERC!

About the hair-I have long naturally curly hair. I had my hair done at the spa and they put in extensions in(I brought the clip in ones myself to add more volume at the end of my hair). They blew out my hair and then curled it, so I would have big curls, some pulled away from the top part of my head and the rest flowing down. As soon as I stepped on the beach my hair fell (became somewhat straight) because it was so windy out on the beach. I also wore a veil, so that also might have helped it lose curl. I thought I would never lose the curl since I have curly hair. It was very hot out-we had it at 5pm on the beach-but I think even if I had my hair up, I would still be just as hot.

Jill Conner · August 14, 2012

I'm not sure about the dinner choices. I heard that you can have two dinner choices, as long as you know who is having what before you arrive. We only had one dinner, the chicken, and everyone loved it. For some reason it almost seemed better than most of the dinners we ate at the resort restaurants all week, but maybe that was because I was starving and didn't have much to eat all day! ha! I showed my friends and family the meal lists prior to the wedding just to get a feel for what everyone thought "looked good", and then just picked what seemed like it would please everyone. Of note, we had some sort of Avocado soup with our meal... and I was NOT looking forward to having soup outside on a hot summer day, and the soup was AWESOME. Holy cow... everyone kept talking about how delicious it was! So if you're having trouble picking a soup, that's the one I would try! Just ask Gloria, but I'm pretty sure you can have a choice of two meals.

Jill Conner · August 14, 2012

I wore my hair up, and I think I would have been MISERABLE if it was down. I think another reader posted on it, but the WIND is also a problem as much (if not more) than the heat/humidity. Our ceremony at the beach gazebo had a WONDERFUL breeze, but had my hair been down and not so-well secured in my up-do (and mind you I did NOT want a "tight" up-do) I feel like it would have been blowing EVERYWHERE. I probably would have been fussing with it the entire ceremony. If you wear your hair down, I guess you'll just have to keep your fingers crossed @ the direction the wind is blowing, and hope your hair isn't in your face the entire time! I also did not wear a veil because I was concerned about what it would do in the wind...

Later in the evening while we were having our crazy 20-person dance party I was also glad my hair was up, because I do feel it helped me stay cool at this point. I think overall I looked a lot less disheveled as night night wore on because my hair was up!

That being said, you want to feel beautiful on your wedding day, so I would take all of this into consideration, but ultimately make sure you look like you've always dreamed. The spa will make you beautiful, so no worries!

Sunset Love---> Your hair and make-up looked beautiful! I know I don't know you other than this blog (so I have no idea what you look like on a daily basis!), but I think your make-up looked amazing & natural & not like you were wearing too much at all! Isn't that so funny how you feel like you have so much on your face but it ends up looking so good in the pictures!?

Jill Conner · August 14, 2012

I personally did not sue the in-house photographer because I also didn't like a lot of what I saw on their website. Gloria gave us the option of having pictures taken (similar to engagement pictures) with the in-house photographer at some point during our stay at the resort since pictures were included in our package, but we opted to spend the time with family & friends... the time was more important to us than more pictures at that point. Maybe they would have been fantastic, who knows.

Also, as SunsetLove mentioned in a previous post, because we were using an outside photographer, VIP did not show up at our ceremony. We did; however, have VIP take our wedding video. This was included in our package, so we figured "why not". I will be honest, I wasn't expecting much when we picked up the DVD at the resort. I thought it was going to be just a regular video of the ceremony (something my Dad would shoot on a camcorder), and that was it. It was surprisingly nice! It was edited very nicely (the intro and end of the video), and the ceremony is in the middle. It was so nice to see little clips of my friends and family and my groom before the ceremony since I never got to see any of this. It was also set to the music that we had on our iPod for the ceremony, which was super-cute and unexpected! I was really happy with it, but again, and I had absolutely no expectations.

We used Juan Navarro as our wedding photographer, and I can not recommend him enough! Juan and his staff were AMAZING. Very easy to communication with before, during, and after the ceremony. Very professional, fun, and AMAZING photographers. I haven't posted my formal review yet (sorry!!!!), but I have nothing but good things to say!!! We also did a "trash the dress" cenote session on the Monday morning following our Friday evening wedding, and I also can't speak highly enough of this! It was AMAZING. I stare at our pictures and I can't believe they're us! Crazy! My husband and I were saying the morning of the cenote TTD that we would be happy if the pictures were horrible because we had SO MUCH FUN that morning with Juan & his crew. Then we got our "sneak peek" of pictures, and holy crap (sorry if that is not PC) but they are beyond my wildest expectations!!! Please check out his work, again, we have nothing but good things to say: http://www.juanphotos.com/

Also, if you have a facebook account, I would find Juan and "friend him" or "like" his photography site. He is always posting pictures of the weddings he shoots, which was really fun for my husband and I to look at before our wedding. It's also another great way to get familiar with his work. I'll post a photo montage of us also, even though I kind of already had in a few other posts... sorry for anyone who gets tired of looking at us! hahahaha!

Here's a few from the day of our wedding...