Just Married At The Riu Palace Cabo 6/27/14 With Pictures

[abeals11388]

Hello!!

 

I wanted to give yall an update on our June 27th wedding at the Riu Palace in Cabo!!

 

First let me just say that I often doubted the idea of having a destination wedding because not all my family and friends were able to make it, but after having our destination wedding I have to say my husband was totally right about it being easier on us and so much more fun!! Now, I know that our wedding could have been fun here in Texas, but Mexico was a GOOD TIME!

 

Guadalupe "LUPITA" was our wedding coordinator. She was good, not the best person I've ever worked with, but she got the job done I suppose. She wasn't very quick at responding to emails. With our package we were supposed to get Riu Wedding shirts. She was supposed to get me the correct size and she never did. My husband got his. She did understand what I wanted and definitely tried to do all she could.

We ended up having a total of 24 guests. We picked the Royal package because it included everything we needed/wanted. We had 5 children and 19 adults. They made us pay the $27 extra for the children (which I didn't totally agree with) even though it was for the "extra" cake and Champaign for the "extra" people. Like I said, I didn't totally agree with. They are CHILDREN and don't drink Champaign and they really didn't even eat the cake, but it's water under the bridge now!  

 

Our wedding was on Friday June 27th at 4 pm on the beach. Time was perfect!! It was pretty warm, but that's understandable in Mexico around this time of year! I had planned on our wedding party going bare foot on the beach, but the sand was just so hot that I couldn't even handle the heat! We ended up wearing sandals.

 

We opted out of a reception with the resort because we did a dinner cruise on the CaboMar. BEST $3,000 WE'VE EVER SPENT!!! Yes, it was $3,000. We rented out the whole boat for our wedding party and it was a PHENOMENAL time! The dinner cruise was at 6:30 pm. We had about 1 hour after the ceremony to take pictures, grab drinks, etc. before our transportation met us to take us to the marina (which is about a 15 minute drive). We did have to pay $20 per person for transportation to/from the dinner cruise. We somehow ended up with a substantial amount in credits from our wedding party booking through our travel agent that we only had to pay about 1/3 of the price out of pocket. If we didn't rent out the whole boat we ran the risk of other people being on the boat with us while we were celebrating our wedding, which was not appealing to us at all. SERIOUSLY though BEST $3,000 we've ever spent!!

 

Since we opted out of a wedding reception with the resort Lupita put together a "farewell" dinner at the San Jose restaurant on Saturday night. All our guests were able to get together and enjoy each others company before we all headed back to reality. Good food with a BEAUTIFUL view!

 

Our rehearsal dinner was on Thursday (the night before the wedding) at the Steakhouse. FOOD WAS GREAT!! I had surf and turf and the sirloin was ON POINT! All our guests raved about how great the food was! After our rehearsal dinner we asked all our guests to meat us downstairs to kind of figure out what we were going to be doing for the wedding since the coordinators really don't go over a "game plan" with you. Every one joined us and it turned into a meet and greet really! Some of our guests had never met each other so this was really fun!

 

We brought our own photographer, my uncle, which was the best idea we ever had!! It did cost us about $2,200 to get him to the wedding, but we paid for his flight (from Hawaii) and his portion of the room (my aunt came with him). I thought $2,200 wasn't bad considering the resort wanted to charge $1,900 for4 hours of photography and videography. We ended up getting 3 full days of photos!! We did a "trash the dress" photo shoot the night of the farewell dinner and it was absolutely PERFECT!! Best investment ever!!!

 

The cake was decorated as we wanted, SIMPLE! We brought a cake topper and some rhinestone ribbon to put around each layer of the cake!

 

We stayed in an Ocean view Suite and it was EXCELLENT! My girls and I got ready in our suite. It was perfect! Our suite was on the "SHHH" side of the resort and every other guest was on the "loud" side, which kind of sucked... We were really hoping to be a little closer to our guests, but it's okay.

 

I did not utilize the salon. One of my bridesmaids did my hair (as well as everyone else's hair) and I had my nails done before we went.

 

Oh, can't forget our flowers. UMMMM..... EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED. I only purchased a few flowers from the vendor (the prices are kind of crazy). I did see on this blog the older arch from the Riu and immediately decided I wanted a Huppah. Another $350 well spent. Our Royal package included brides bouquet and grooms boutonniere. I made my bridesmaids bouquets and the groomsmen's boutonniere's. You couldn't even tell they were fake and my girls went home with a souvenir! Our wedding package also came with 2 medium size floral arrangements that we originally didn't want at all, but I'm glad we decided to put them on the Huppah! THEY WERE GORGEOUS!! I did purchase 2 additional boutonnieres for my dad and my step dad. I also purchased 2 wrist corsages for my mom and my step mom. Those flowers died really quick!  

 

Overall I was REALLY impressed with the Riu Palace and the wedding department! I went in knowing exactly what I wanted and my expectations were pretty high, but it's safe to say my expectations were met!!

 

Feel free to leave questions and comments!

 

I've attached photos! My uncle did the photography! These photos are copyrighted. DO NOT STEAL THEM!

 

[acw271011]

Congrats on being a Mrs! Cabo is gorgeous and it sounds like you had a wonderful wedding! Your pics are gorgeous!

[atennille]

Congratulations !!

[maredith]

Congratulations!

[susie q]

@@abeals11388 Thanks for the review!! You've given me some great ideas! Would you mind emailing me the pics, I don't have enough posts. Thanks!!! Congratulations!!!

[hyoungquist]

Congratulations!

[jazzzy23]

great review!!  thanks for all of the info.

[TinkerSofi]

Wow you and the whole weeding looked gorgeous! Great pictures as well

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[spjwedding]

Congratulations!

[jazzzy23]

Did all of your guests stay at the Riu Palace?  I am looking into doing our wedding there, however I know it can be pricey and I don't want my guests to be stressed by the pricing.  I like the idea that they can stay right next store at the Riu Santa Fe (I've stayed there before and it's awesome as well).  However, I'm concerned that most people may opt to stay there and I'll have to pay an additional fee for so many people to be at the Palace that day.  Thanks for the input!