Barcelo Grand Faro Wedding Review

[Mac811]

The short review: DO NOT GET MARRIED HERE.

 

Have a look on trip advisor for corroboration

 

The resort is fine, beautiful grounds etc, the food at the buffet is ok, server and bartenders great, but everything else is ridiculous. From the minute we got there to the minute we left everything was just a joke. Things we thought were set up and taken care of before arrival were not organized and we spent every day prior to the wedding running around like crazy, not to mention that I didnt even enjoy my own wedding because I was running around constantly trying to fix things.They tried to stiff us on the room upgrade that was included in our wedding package. It was an exhausting fight for everything that was supposedly included in the package and things we had arranged beforehand. The WCs were useless. I gave them a really simple word document that contained everything, and we just wanted a very simple wedding. The rehearsal dinner didnt have enough seats. The menu was wrong and the food was cold. The WCs were no where to be seen on the wedding day, they showed up 5 mins before the ceremony with the flowers, which were the wrong flowers, but I'll talk about that later. They screwed up our seating plan which was easy to follow, the food was awful, cold tasteless and inconsistent. They gave meat to my veggie guest, regular dessert to my diabetic guest. Not everyone got dessert. And that brings me to the flowers.

 

Sergio Farias of Flowers and Events Los Cabos

Everything seemed fine until I actually got my flowers. He was very responsive by email. My flowers were not what we had agreed on and were browning. But this was something that I just figured was one of those things that was out of your control and not worth stressing about. Until my flowers disappeared at the end of the night. All of them, all the bouquets, table flowers everything. One minute there then gone. I had given my bouquet away and told my family to take some flowers for their rooms. No explanation yet as to what happened. Makes me wonder if theyre recycled since they didnt look that fresh in the first place and werent what I had asked for, maybe they went to another wedding the next day....$700 and poof.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some disasters

 

But, one saving grace was our photographer. He is a genius. I wont name him here so he isnt associated with this bad review, but he will get a glowing review elsewhere.

[Victoriabride]

Oh that's awful So sorry you had to experience this on your big day. On the bright side though, at least you have amazing photos to enjoy for the rest of your lives!

[chantel333]

I just put my deposit down at the resort. This makes me so sad.

[sanyo1]

I am also very sorry to hear about your delimma. I too have placed a deposit for wedding May 28, 2016. I will be traveling with a larger group and can only imagine what lies ahead.

Edited April 29, 2015 by sanyo1

[Mac811]

There weren't many reviews out there about this place before I booked. The trip advisor reviews were pretty good, but as my date got closer and we couldn't back out all of a sudden the reviews started getting worse. We went through 3 wedding coordinators, they just kept quitting. I kept thinking that maybe things wouldn't be that bad, that maybe the demands of other brides were too high. So wrong. I wish I could of changed my plans. I even tried to stay on top of things on the day of the wedding. There were small things that turned in  to annoying things because of there incompetency. For example, I looked out of our window as I was getting ready and the ceremony site and they were putting black sashes on the chairs. I had requested white. I called the WC and she tried to assure me that they weren't black, so I told her I was looking right at the guys putting them on. 5 mins later she came out and told them to change them. Then I watched them put orange colored ones on. I called again and she tried to tell me they were ivory colored. After pressing she admitted that they were orange, and that the white ones hadn't been cleaned form the wedding the previous day! Why lie? They also used pins to pin the table cloth to the table. My niece cut her self, my 1 year old son had one in his mouth, and I stepped on one.......Every single one of my guests also had problems.....We were so embarrassed. We also never got some of the things promised in the wedding package, like the arrival gift, and champagne/honeymoon breakfast in bed the day after the wedding. So please be aware that all those little things listed on the package may not materialize when you are considering if its worth it.

 

I don't know what I could of done differently

They knew I wasn't happy and tried to give us stuff to make up for it, like dinner on the beach, a massage a free night stay, but really, nothing could make up for it. Full disclosure: they did refund us a few hundred $

 

Best of luck, and I'd be happy to answer any questions

[Stacy815]

We had an amazing wedding here! We had 81 guests.

 

We had our wedding on August 8, 2015 at Barceló Grand Faro. Everything about this venue and its staff was amazing, particularly, it's Wedding coordinator Stephanie.

The original wedding coordinator was Cynthia Sosa, who left the company about a week after we signed our wedding contract. While this worried us, Stephanie (Estafanie) was our wedding coordinator, who stepped right into the position and we could not have imagined a better, more accommodating wedding coordinator. We cannot put into words how much we appreciated Stephanie's responsiveness during the stressful wedding planning process. She is simply an amazing wedding planner.

Barceló is very high-volume for conventions and weddings. The wedding staff is extremely busy, however, their schedules did not prevent them from answering every last question that we had. Once we arrived, naturally, there were last-minute wedding hiccups that happened. Whenever something wasn't perfect, Stephanie came to us to make it perfect always telling us "leave the stressing to me."  In fact, the outside vendor that rented us our Chiavari chairs pulled a last minute bait and switch fee, trying to charge us a "set-up fee" for placing the cushions on the chairs the morning of the wedding! While she had no responsibility to do so, Stephanie took control of the situation, went out of her way and made sure we did not pay anything above what we were quoted.

The hotel bakery made our cake for us exactly how we wanted. The hotel actually didn't offer strawberry shortcake. We sent a picture of the cake to Stephanie, along with the name, and the hotel bakery researched it and made it for our wedding perfectly.

Our flowers were done by Sergio Farias of "Flowers and Events Los Cabos," recommended by Barcelós wedding staff. His flowers and bouquets were exactly what we wanted. We brought our own table linens and overlays and he had no problem working with what we brought, actually insisting that it was a better financial choice to bring our own linens.

Our Photographer was Tim King from San Diego, California. We didn't feel comfortable using a photographer that we did not know so we brought ours with us. He captured the unforgettable moments of our wedding beautifully.  

Our pastor was Diego. Usually you don't hear too much about the quality of a wedding pastor. This man's words were beautiful, so much so that our families have commented on his wonderful words since the night of our wedding. We could not have asked for a better pastor to preside over the wedding.

Our wedding could not have gone more smoothly. We recommend this resort for anyone who wants a beautiful destination wedding where you can be sure the hotel staff will handle your every request.

 

Out of privacy, we did not post personal pictures of us online.  Please trust that this hotel is awesome.  Stephanie is fantastic and you will love your wedding.