Sandy Borie

Hi girls! I just got my wedding highlight video and OMG!!!! I felt the need to share just how magical OCT was!!!!! Here is the link: https://vimeo.com/50983766 We went with Paul Schrank from Playaweddings. . .They did an amazing job and not once did I or my husband feel like we were being video taped. Everything he captured was completely authentic. Worth looking into if you are in the market for a true professional!

Thanks for all of your compliments! For those of you cannot seem to view the pics. . .hold tight, I should be receiving all of my edited pictures soon. As soon as I get them, I will post. Also, my name is Sandy Borie-Szeluga on FB so if you want to friend me on there, you can view lots of pics as well. Yes- My daddy and I walked down to that version of Somewhere OVer the Rainbow and parents of the groom and bride, flower girls, ring bearer, maid of honor and announcer of the bride walked down to Coldplay's Yellow. I am a huge Coldplay fan. It was truly perfect in every way. My bridesmaid dress was from Corinne Moore.

@CamilaS- Thanks! I booked him about 10 months in advance. I would say reach out to him and ask for his availability on your day. The pics in the slideshow were not edited or retouched at all so I can only imagine how beautiful they will look once he works his magic with them. :-)

Here is a slideshow our photographer put together of our amazing day: http://www.juanphotos.com/galleries/#/page/ac5f/sandy--brian/ Enjoy!

Okay girls, here is the much awaited full review of our wedding at Ocean Coral & Turquesa on July 13, 2012 Ceremony: My husband and I opted to do the symbolic ceremony on the beach since we knew we would be getting married at home in a church just three weeks later. I had struggled with getting married on the beach vs. getting married on one of the hotels rooftops for a while and I have to tell you, the decision to do it on the beach area in front of building 1 was one of the best decisions ever. My walk down the aisle was truly magical. Ana made sure to have all of the details we had spoken about in order. Ana made sure my guests went out in the right order and came to get my dad and I when it was our time to walk down the aisle. Our officiant was a woman named Alina Monroy. She spoke beautifully and from the heart. We did the hand ceremony and exchanged our own personal vows. Alina made sure to address certain specifics about our relationship that were spoken about during our initial meeting and truly made it personal like she had known us for years. A lot of our guests mentioned how especially moved they were about our ceremony and hotel staff that was helping out with the wedding commented the next day how they were crying during our ceremony. Something else that was especially nice that the staff does is they make sure that there are no beach passerbys walking by your ceremony as it is happening. My husband and I really like that because we were worried about strangers in our pictures. Also, the beach area in front of building 1 is definitly more private than the other beach ceremony site. Our music during the ceremony was played by our DJ. His name was DJ Temo and he is was great! More on the DJ below. Cocktail Hour: Our cocktail hour was immediatley following our ceremony and was also held on the beach in the same area. The food was AMAZING!!! and the set up was really nice! We chose Menu 1 because we felt that most of our guests would respond to it more than the other menus. We also chose to have open bar because it was on the beach and it would be hard to have our guests go to the bar themselves. We chose to have the 4 peice Mariachi band play during this time and our guests loved this!!! They loved taking pictures with the Mariachi men and it really helped play up the Mexican party atmosphere! One my father's favorite things about our wedding was the Mariachi band! You will see that your guests will get a kick out of it. Our videographer also set up a little area on the beach during the cocktail hour for our guests to say a special wish or blessing for the bride and groom. Our guests really loved this too. Reception: We chose the Lobby Terrace for our reception location and I have to say it was perfect!!! With 50 guests, we felt it would be the best location. The ocean breeze was so great up there and it was not too windy at all like I thought it would be. Most of the packages give you a 3 hour reception. My husband and I decided to spring the money for an extra hour and I have to tell you it was well worth it! The food was absolutely amazing!!!! Our menu consisted of: Tomato & Goat Cheese Salad, Lemon Vodka Sherbet, Surf & Turf, Creme Brûlée. We chose to do the Mexican Tres Leches Cake for our wedding cake. We still have guests talking about the cake and how amazing it was!!! It was soooooo delicious! Presentation of each plate was beautiful! One of the things that truly make a destination wedding special is the intimacy you have with your guests. My husband and I can honestly say that we had time to walk to each of our guests tables (only 6 tables) and talk with our guests, we danced all night with our guests and each other, we never felt rushed or like the night went by so fast like most people tell you. We sat and ate each of our meals and looked around at how beautiful everything was. Not many couples can say that about their wedding day. I would not change one thing!!!! BTW, Ana stays and oversees everything; making sure that everything runs smoothly. Photographer: My husband and I decided from the beginning to hire an outside vendor for the photographer. After lots of research, we decided to go with Juan Navarro. www.juanphotos.com We do not regret our decision one bit. He arrived on time, was extremely professional and was an absolute pleasure to work with. His energy and passion is evident from the moment he starts snapping pictures. I am very good at reading people and their energy; Juan has a very magnetic energy. You can tell he loves what he does. In my opinion, his work is one of the best from the area if not the best. I had asked Juan to do mostly candid shots of us throughout the reception because I did not want to be pulled away and miss any part of our day with our guests. He was soooo good at this!! We hired Juan for 8 hours and he even stayed a little longer to get the very end of our wedding day. I would recommend him to anyone! Videographer: We decided to go with Playweddings: http://www.playaweddings.com. They were amazing as well! Arrived on time and once again very professional. One of my requests for both my photographer and videographer was for everything to be very candid and natural. I did not want to feel like I was being photographed or video taped and Paul from Playaweddings was really good at this. I really don't feel like he was in the room during our getting ready session as well the entire day! He is very good at working behind the scenes and making it seem as though he isn't even there. His work speaks for itself. Check out his website. I cannot wait to see our wedding video!!! Outside DJ- We hired DJ Temo and we were very pleased. We had sent him a playlist of the songs we wanted played before our initial meeting. He met with us and discussed everything we needed to know. He was very professional and provided cold fireworks for both our entrance into the reception as well as at the end of the night. He also provided fun props like balloons and fun masks for our guests. Our guests loved the music and loved the props too! Planner1Events- We ordered gold tiffany chairs, lighting for underneath the tables, and lit up yellow, white & pink Chinese lanterns for our reception thru this vendor and were also pleased with their professionalism and service. Our go to person was Fernanda and she was happy to meet with us a couple of days before our wedding to discuss all of the specifics. Planner1Events also provides many other services. They are worth looking into. I hope my review helped to ease your anxieties, fears or hesitations as you plan! I remember getting very excited when someone would post up their review. It would always help me to feel more relaxed during the planning stage. Feel free to FB friend me along with a message stating your from the forum. I would be happy to accept the friend request. I have hundreds of great pics of the wedding on there!!! Love, Mrs. Sandy Szeluga!

Hola girls! I am back from the most amazing two weeks of my life! I am holding off on posting a full review until I have a some wedding pics from my amazing photographer (Juan Navarro) but rest assured ladies that Ana will make sure everything goes exactly the way you want it!!!! You will not regret your decision to get married at this resort. My fiancé and I want to go back every year for our anniversary. I get teary every time I think about our wedding day! I attached a pic for a little of a sneak peak of how ridiculously happy I was during the ceremony!

@TropicLover- Thank you for the advice on packing. I just got done with getting all of my receipts in order! :-) So excited!!!! @Kleenotes- I am thinking of you this morning! I am so jealous you are already there! I hope I run into you!!!!! I will be on the lookout for you on Tuesday and may peek at your wedding! Don't worry I will not be the person gawking and taking pictures like some tourists do! LOL I 'll just be admiring how beautiful everything will look- including you!!!!! I cannot believe the final stages are here!!!

Hi ladies!! I am in the early stages of packing and was wondering if any of you had difficulty with Mexican customs with the items you brought over for the wedding (i.e. table overlays, fans, table seating holders etc.). Any advice going over the border will help and be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Thanks LeahBecker! No, Kleenotes is!!!! She gets married on July 10th! Hopefully her and I can get together for some drinks at the resort! It's all coming so quick though! I have so many little details to do!!!! Let the mayhem begin!

@AnaS- Wow, you and your hubby looked like you had a magnificent and beautiful wedding! Thank you for the review as well! 18 more days till I marry my best friend! I could not more excited!!!!!

@CamilaS- Honestly, the wedding is a reflection of you and your soon to be hubby so at the risk of sounding a bit selfish. . .don't worry about whether or not your girls will ever wear this color again. I agree that brighter colors do look cool but soft colors can look just as nice. Some girls on here did coral and turquoise because of the resorts name.. . I thought that was cool. My fiancé and I are doing yellow, white and touches of pink based off of my fav color, fav Coldplay song and the type of orchids we chose for centerpieces. Is there a particular flower you love that comes in certain colors? What color makes you the happiest?

@Shanon09- The lobby terrace for sure ;-) that I know of will let you have music. I think if you choose one of the a la carte restaurants you cannot have music because of the other resort guests also eating their meals there. If you choose one of the private reception locations then you can have music (your iPod connected to speakers, live music band that they offer or DJ)

@keenotes- Yes, dessert options are different than the wedding cake. We chose creme brûlée and haven't decided about the wedding cake choices yet. I think we will decide when we get to the resort. Can you email me the choices? @leahbecker- The VillaMarina is a restaurant at the resort and in order for them to accommodate 70 people, I think they would have to shut the restaurant down. They have a section of the restaurant where they accommodate wedding receptions but I think it would be for a smaller wedding party (20-30). When I was down there, they had a small wedding reception happening on the one side of the restaurant and there were resort guests on the other side. I don't know how private you want it to be but it wasn't private. Also, I do believe that the Villa Marina is closed on Thursdays and you could possibly ask Ana if you could hold the reception there on their closed day. The space is def. big enough for 70 people. Hope that info helps. @Shanon09 & Queenbennett- I am going to reassure that yes, you will regret not hiring an outside photographer. OMG, my fiancé and I still laugh when we think of the resorts photographers pictures. When we sat down with Ana last July, she had this amazing photo book with great pics but she told us that she could not guarantee that particular photographer because they send you whoever is working that day. From what we saw, the other pictures were laughable. These are your wedding pictures, you don't want to take a chance with that. About the reception locations- They offer the reception locations off the Lobby Deck (this is a big wide open space overlooking the ocean), a rooftop location (i think they offer this, not sure) and the beach between the months of Nov-May (not sure about the months) because of the sea turtle egg nests on the beach they cannot have any events on the beach after 7pm.

TropicLover--- loving the pics!!! So gorgeous!!!! Congrats to you both!

Hi girls! Does anyone know if our resort allows cold fireworks? Here is a picture of what it is for those of you that don't know what it is.