Majestic Bride Destination Wedding Advice

Majestic Bride Destination Wedding Advice

Majestic Bride Destination Wedding Advice is Part 2 of a fantastic interview with one of our Liz Moore Destination Wedding brides. If you want to check out Part 1, click the link! We love when our brides send us copious amounts of information about their wedding. Meaghan has provided us with details about her ceremony, reception, regrets, and a review of our company.

Majestic Mirage – Wedding and Resort Review

Dates: November 26th – December 10th, 2017

Wedding Day: November 29th, 2017

Departure Location: Vancouver, Canada

Travel Airline: Air Canada Vacations

Wedding Timeline:

Symbolic Ceremony: Majestic Mirage Beach Gazebo at 4:00 pm

Cocktail Hour: Majestic Mirage Piano Bar from 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Reception: Majestic Mirage Ballroom from 6:30 pm – 11:00 pm

Number of Guests: 38

Wedding Coordinators:

During my 16 months of planning, I was in contact with two wedding coordinators: Ileana and Maria.  Maria is the Wedding Coordinator Manager, and she attends all the weddings.  I met Maria upon arrival at the resort and then she was there during the ceremony.  Ileana was my designated wedding coordinator for the entire day, and we met her the second day we arrived.  We went through the wedding guide we had submitted and gave her additional items that we wanted to be set up (this includes the ceremony music on the USB, guest board, candles, cake topper, etc.).

I gave Ileana a piece of fabric from my bridesmaid and matron of honour dress to see if they could colour match the dyed roses.  She brought a sample of the dyed rose to me the very next day, and it was perfect!  They are AMAZING at what they do.  Please don’t worry about a thing.  I know it’s hard to say this, but trust me, they have done so many weddings!  For example, in May they had about 70 weddings at their resort!  One of the things I would like to acknowledge is how calm they both were, which eased any worries I had.

Rehearsal:

There is no rehearsal. However, we asked Ileana if we could have a minimal rehearsal for the ceremony at the beach gazebo because we had a lot of questions from our bridal party.  We all met the next day and did a quick run through it.  I would highly recommend this as it eased the worries of my mom.  And I got the majority of my tears out of the way at this time J

Liz Moore Destination Wedding Review

Hair & Make-up:

I HIGHLY recommend Anna Nuet for your hair and make-up artist.  She is a phenomenal artist with so much talent.  I showed her a picture of how I wanted my hair, and she only looked at the image once and was able to recreate it exactly!  Also, I had no idea how I wanted my make-up, so I told her that I trust her to determine what would look best.  I did airbrush, and fake lashes and the makeup came out AMAZING!  I have never in my life felt that beautiful.

Anna also did hair and make-up for my matron of honour, bridesmaid, and mom.  So there were 4 of us in total getting hair and make-up done.  Anna arrived at 8:30 in the morning and she did all of our hair and make-up, ready for the ceremony at 4:00 pm.  With this in mind, remember that she is there for over 7 hours. Please remember to offer your hair and make-up artist(s) food and beverage!  We ordered room service and asked her to order whatever she would like because she has to eat too!  This is just common courtesy.

Food While Getting Ready:

During the meeting with Ileana on the second day of arrival, she asked us what time we would like the appetizers to be sent to our rooms.  I got ready in my parent’s room, and my husband got ready in ours.  I said 1:00 pm …. We were starving by 11 am.  We did go for breakfast at the buffet, but that was quite early.  So I would advise you to do room service if you want an actual meal.  The appetizers are small and may not feed your entire bridal party.  And I was craving food rather than cupcakes J

Photography:

A colleague/guest of mine was our photographer, so I cannot provide any comments on the hired photographers nor those from the resort.

Videography:

Manuel Colon was our videographer from CoresFilms.  He was great to work with; we haven’t received the video, but I got to see some of the takes, and they were beautiful.  Note: we asked for a very basic custom package (2 pm – 6 pm coverage of the bride getting ready, ceremony, and photos after).  My husband didn’t want to be videotaped as he got ready.  We were able to bargain and get a better price than listed initially.  So keep that in mind when you are thinking about having your wedding videotaped.

Ceremony Music:

Selecting the ceremony music was a challenge for me because we needed quite a few songs. Here is our breakdown: 3 songs for guest seating, one song for bridal party procession (bridesmaids coming down the aisle; groomsmen and groom waited at the end), one song for bride entrance, one song for kiss & signature, one song for exiting, two songs for toast and after the ceremony.

Punta Cana Destination Wedding

Ceremony:

It was a symbolic ceremony, so it was short and sweet.  Oh, and my mom and dad both walked me down the “aisle”, so the boardwalk is wide enough for three people. Our upgraded decorations consisted of the white garden chairs, table, and flowers on the gazebo pillars.  These flowers, with the centerpiece, were moved to our head table, so we didn’t have to buy any additional flowers.

Cocktail Hour:

We were busy with photographs, but I think the piano bar was a great location.  They even had a musician playing the piano according to our guests.  The piano bar is close to the ballroom as it is on the same floor (2nd floor) so this was ideal.  Ileana came to the piano bar and guided us all to the ballroom at 6:30 pm.

Caribbean Destination Wedding

Reception:

Upgraded reception decorations were just the centerpieces on all the tables except for the head table (flowers from the ceremony were moved to the head table).  We bought medium-sized tea-light candles from Ikea and placed them on the head table.  Also, we didn’t buy any additional decoration packages.

We did our entrance, followed by shots (take a shot and find your spot), then we had dinner.  We chose the Classy Buffet option, and all of our guests were very pleased.  The steak was AMAZING!  Best steak, next to my dad’s 😉  We then did speeches followed by father-daughter dance and our first dance.  Then it was party time!  Take some time filling out your DJ form.  We chose the resort DJ, and they were fantastic!  Our guests sent us requests, and we added them to the list of songs we love – the DJ played them all!  Everyone was on the dance floor, and they all loved the songs that were being played.

My brother-in-law was our MC, and if you can get a family or friend to do that job, I would recommend it as it is so much more personal.  At 9:30 pm we cut the cake, and we partied until 11 pm.  We then went to the disco (I kept my dress on) and partied until 3 am and then made our way to the sports bar for some food.  Remember to give shots to the bartenders AND the DJs.  They don’t drink unless you give them a drink.  So include them in your festivities, after all, they are making your night amazing!

Regrets:

The only regret we had is that we wish we had extended the time at the reception an extra hour, but we had no idea everyone would still be dancing at 11 pm. Luckily there was disco 😉

Additional Advice:

Take your time to enjoy every moment …this was what a bride posted on this website a while back and she was right.  Remember to take everything slowly and take in every second.  I did this and time didn’t fly by quickly, and it didn’t feel like the wedding “flew by.”  It was perfect.  That was the only way to describe the day.

Write your “Thank you” cards before you get to resort and place your tip inside the envelope with the card.  We gave cards and tips to my hair and make-up artist (Anna Nuet), Videographer, Wedding Coordinators (Ileana and Maria), DJ, and the Bartenders & Staff for the reception.

Organize a spa day for any ladies that would like a massage or other services the spa offers.  We booked everyone a month before the day before the wedding.  The same day the men played golf.  It was relaxing especially the day before getting married.  Oh, and do the water rituals after a ton of fun!

Destination Wedding Advice

Travel Agent Review

Liz Moore Destination Weddings:

Liz was excellent from start to finish.  One of the biggest things for planning a vacation (and a wedding) is the response time for e-mail communications.  Liz was exceptionally quick at responding to all of my questions as well as my guests’ questions.  There was never a time when she didn’t respond, even when she was out of the country.  She was always willing to help out and provide clarification when needed.  We first communicated over the phone, and this is what made me feel very comfortable with having her as our travel agent.  The trust developed from there, and I knew I was in good hands.

We had a cancellation of our flight from Vancouver to Punta Cana which resulted in canceling the Royalton Resort and all of our guests’ deposits.  I was panicking, but Liz had a very calm approach in finding a new resort.  This was very comforting, and things worked out for a reason because the Majestic Mirage was spectacular.

A huge thank you to Liz for helping us create the most amazing memorizing with our family and friends!

Did you like Majestic Bride Destination Wedding Advice? Check out more advice here.



Paige Moore

Director of Communications for Liz Moore Destination Weddings. She enjoys writing about all things wedding, travel, and fashion. Notably, she has a BA in Communications and currently located in Sydney, Australia.
@Paige2Travel Paige Twitter@Paige2TravelPaige Instagram