Well, I guess one of the benefits to having a wedding at a resort that only does 1 to 2 weddings a month is that you get the all-star treatment. From day 1, it was wonderful. We were a group of 36 people arriving 2 separate days and had our own separate check-in upon arrival. Wherever we and our guests went, we were known as being "part of the wedding." I was given flowers at least 3 times and I think we lost track of how many bottles of champagne we were given through out the course of the week.
As part of our wedding package we were given an upgraded room and were quite thrilled to be given one of the ocean front suites complete with his and hers bathrooms --- great for getting ready for the wedding. And my husband was thrilled to be able to host a Super Bowl party while in Cuba.
One of the nicer things was that the resort booked us all into the ala cartes as a group which means we pretty much took over the restaurant when we had it --- the Mexican one night (Mares pool) and then the Cuban (Mares beach) the other night. The following night was the Air Transat beach party which we were all able to enjoy, at least until it started to rain, but even then it was more of a mist.
We met with the Zulema (Public Relations) 2 days before the wedding to get the finer details sorted out which really wasn't much. Later that day I picked up the invitations to give to our guests and was slightly surprised that they were in French. When I mentioned to the Public Relations woman (can't remember her name) that it would seem sort of useless to give an invitation to my guests in a language they can't understand, she said that they would print up something and 2 hours later, they had lovely invitations printed up. That really was the only semi-glitch.
The day of the wedding started out with a rainbow and then the rain came. They guys in the group biked to the driving range and were thoroughly soaked but happy that they could partake in the pre-wedding typical ritual. The sun came out about 10 minutes before the ceremony. The ceremony ws held in the wedding gazebo and on their part the ceremony was simple -- just the Cuban wedding code in Spanish and English but I had asked 3 friends/family to do a reading which made it more personal/less formal. There was not a dry eye in the house. We did use the photographer from the resort but also had a friend take photos and with everyone else taking photos, now have likely around 1,000 to choose the best from.
The reception was in the Romantico restaurant (Luna beach) right on the sand -- everyone kicked off their shoes and had a great time. We hired a Cuban trio to play which was nice. They actually played and sang the 80's song "Endless Love" in Spanish and it sounded so much better than English! It was an excellent meal of proscuitto and pineapple, seafood skewer, champagne/strawberry sorbet to cleanse the palet and then filet mignon, mash potatoes with hollandaise and vegetables.
OK, so this review may be a bit long, but I just wanted to extoll the virtues of a wedding at Luna Mares. Yes, the place could use a paint job, but so can my house at home and for $1000 (including taxes) this resort is well worth the money. And because of the reasonable price, we were able to have a nice group of friends and family to join us in our celebration. All of our guests were quite satisfied with the resort and that included the more seasoned travellers as well as the 1st time travellers. As we had been to Luna Mares 3 times previously, we knew what to expect and knew our guests would find it more than adequate. Again, I do think the biggest bonus is that because they do not do a lot of weddings, they go out of their way to make it special.
Topic: Re: Wedding Reiview of Sol Rio de Luna y Mares (Read 1919 times)