Sanctuary Cap Cana Brides

Redheadedone · March 11, 2013

Looks like they are booking through August now - at least rooms - I'm not sure about weddings. It's still a pain to get our guests booked (our wedding is beginning of june) but at least they appear to be getting the reservations done eventually. [email protected] is a valid email for them. They just seem to be REALLY slow to respond now. Since we booked our wedding back in July 2012 we've dealt with 3 wedding coordinators and are on the 2nd sales manager. I emailed the current (I hope!) wedding coordinator 2 weeks ago and still haven't heard back from her. Just sent a follow up today. Hopefully I will hear back soon.

KKertz · March 14, 2013

Hi ladies,

Just want to say I'm getting married at Sanctuary Hotel in a month and I've had really good contact with them - but it definitely took some getting used to. In NYC, when I send out an email I get a response within the hour. Obviously you all know it's not like that in the DR. May take a couple days/week to hear back (especially if you're a few months out til your wedding day). But as our wedding day has gotten closer, their correspondence has improved tremendously. It may help that both my fiance and I speak Spanish (and he's Dominican) - but that's absolutely not a prerequisite.

So I know this isn't the best advice - but be as patient, be consistent, be professional - and they will get back to you in due time.

I'll let you know how my wedding goes -

Good luck!!

carori · March 15, 2013

Hi everyone, im getting married next Saturday!! Im also getting more info from Sanctuary but still of course is not perfect and still a couple of details to finish. I really had to be very patient and just go with the flow... I will also let you know how it goes

Redheadedone · March 18, 2013

Yes, that does seem to be the case - the closer you get to the wedding the more I hear they actually respond. I have to say though having my wedding be less than 3 months out and going 3+ weeks with no response is a bit nerve racking. I'd like to at least know that the new management company hasn't completely changed my package options, or they aren't going to tell me "oh, it's 2 weeks notice, all the DJ's are booked" or something like that. My future mother in law has also been trying for weeks and can't get her room confirmed which is another source of frustration. I'm trying to be patient - but it's getting harder and harder. It would be helpful if they'd just send me an email saying "it's still a bit earlier than normal for us to be working out the details or your wedding. If you want to send a list that we can look over to make sure nothing will be a problem go ahead and do that and, unless something will be an issue, we'll start working hard on your details XX days out." Fingers crossed everything works out. I really really loved this resort so I'd hate for something about the wedding to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

bekahlee03 · March 19, 2013

So I just got engaged at Sanctuary and I love the idea of getting married where he proposed. Would love to see how everything worked out for your wedding. Its such a beautiful resort, and love the idea of getting married over in the ocean club area. Hope everything turns out perfect!

Annabel · March 19, 2013

I completely agree. My wedding is less than three weeks out and the hotel staff is responding like never before. Scarlett has been great at answering all our questions and trying to make sure everything is in order. If I could give any advice, I would agree to get everything in writing but don't sweat the response time until your wedding is 4 weeks away. They are pros at weddings and are great at handling the details (once it is your turn).

I am so excited to hear about the recent weddings!

Redheadedone · March 21, 2013

I think a big part of our issues have also been them changing POCs and not telling us. I just found out today that Angela who had been handling our group bookings is now gone and Scarlet is the new wedding coordinator. I got a few emails from Scarlet today so she cleared up some stuff for me.

carori · April 22, 2013

Hi everyone! Sorry I took a long time to write, my wedding was on the 23rd of March!

It was a great day for me, in sum it was what i wished and hoped for, even if it was not what i exactly planned! not to the last detail! I had 50 guests, I married in the Fishing Lodge Chapel, and my cocktail and reception were in the Ocean Lounge in Sanctuary.

Some reflections that might be useful:

Hair and make up: planned it well in time before having to put on your dress. Hair and make up took longer than I thought, not extremely but i planned it just with enough time to spare, this was a mistake; plan extra time for this, just to have time to spare and relax with a glass of champagne! I thought that the hair and make up should be done just in time so that it doesn't mess up, but that was wrong, the quality of the hair and make up was good (done by the resort's bride's stylist, Yesenia, she was great! I loved what she did!) so, i should have planned more time for this before having to put on the dress. As a result I was not relaxed and happy while my friends were helping me put on my dress, like i wished... I hope the photos don't show me being bossy with them!

It was a great idea to try the hair and make up before the wedding, the first time i saw my make up i thought it was too much, but later I liked it. By the day of the wedding I already knew it was ok and i liked it, so no stress there at all!

I underestimated the time for the transport of guests from Sanctuary to the Chapel and back. I trusted everyone would be on time and since I didn't want them to wait for a long time in the Chapel, again my just in time theory didn't work. Also, the wedding was from 4 to 4:30 and the photos from 4:30 to 5, and the cocktail from 5 to 6. This was not a good planning again! I should have made the cocktail at 5:30 or even at 6, to allow time for possible delays and logistics.

I never heard the wedding musicians play before (piano and saxo), so I just took the risk for the music during the ceremony, which was OK. But not great! I wished i had just taped the music I wanted and put a sound system to be honest, it would have been cheaper and exactly like i wanted it. This didn't ruin anything, but it is something I would do different.

The cocktail and reception in the Ocean Lounge looked great! It was really nice, my guests were all party people so we had really a great party, and it was all excellent. The music was great, we made a list of songs, and the DJ of the resort had it in advance, he really got all the songs right! This was perfect. The only songs we brought ourselves and gave to the DJ was the one for the first dance and the one for the bouquet cause I wanted specific songs and versions, this was a good idea too

Another good idea was to have the speeches in the rehearsal dinner, the rehearsal dinner was great! full of really great speeches, but lengthy ones! so, I'm glad I didn't plan for them in the wedding reception.

My wedding planner, Scarlet, she was really sweet, friendly and nice! the week I was there before the wedding she was always available for us. She tried her best on everything she did, and she was really creative, and if she thought something was a bad idea (for decoration for example) she said it, she would not just agree with everything we said, she really added to the ideas and was proactive. We both could have planned better the timings for the logistics but we never really though of a worst case scenario for "just in case" and I was the one who planned the timings, so i wish i would have gone through the timeline with her before the wedding to get her opinion on that specifically.

I didn't want to give specific tasks to my friends, I should have, then they would have help more and not all at once but each one for specific parts of the event.

I wish I had planned for a second dress! I loved my wedding dress and didn't want to take it off, but it was too warm! and the dancing made it worse! So at the end I changed into another dress that I had, but it was not a special dress for the wedding and i had already wore it another day, I wish I had bought a second dress for the wedding.

That's all, at the end of the day we all ended in the pool (with our second dresses!) it was really great!!

The other days were also great, the guests were happy to be there, it was like a group holiday!

I'm open to questions if you'd like to know more, and I hope this reflections were useful

KevNYC · April 23, 2013

Our wedding was AMAZING!!! We just got back, just wanted to share. All of our 100 guests showed up (85 adults, 15 kids) and it was a complete success! Just wanted to share.

KevNYC · April 23, 2013

Originally Posted by KKertz

Hi ladies,

Just want to say I'm getting married at Sanctuary Hotel in a month and I've had really good contact with them - but it definitely took some getting used to. In NYC, when I send out an email I get a response within the hour. Obviously you all know it's not like that in the DR. May take a couple days/week to hear back (especially if you're a few months out til your wedding day). But as our wedding day has gotten closer, their correspondence has improved tremendously. It may help that both my fiance and I speak Spanish (and he's Dominican) - but that's absolutely not a prerequisite.

So I know this isn't the best advice - but be as patient, be consistent, be professional - and they will get back to you in due time.

I'll let you know how my wedding goes -

Good luck!!