Couple: Kelly & Nick ~ Wedding Date: August 29, 2020 ~ Resort: Unico Riviera Maya ~ Photographer: Jessica Gattone Photography ~ Travel Agency: Romance Travel Group
Why did you choose Romance Travel Group?
Romance Travel Group was referred to us from a friend who had a wonderful experience attending her brother's wedding in Mexico planned by RTG, then they utilized RTG for their own wedding which we were lucky enough to attend in the Dominican Republic. It was clear after hearing about their experience that RTG would be the right fit for us as we planned our wedding in Mexico! What led you to choose a destination wedding? We loved the intimate setting that the beach provides for weddings, limited decorations are needed when you have such a beautiful backdrop. We are both lovers of nature and the outdoors and couldn't think of a better place. We also have family that lives all over the U.S. so travel was going to be a part of our guest's plans regardless of where our wedding was held. How did you select the resort? What were the deciding factors? When looking at resorts we knew we wanted our ceremony on the beach so we searched for a beautiful beach, which is not hard to find in Mexico! Then we knew we wanted an adult-only resort with a unique feel. We looked at several chain style resorts but wanted something one of a kind with wonderful food and expansive pools, this led us to UNICO 20 87! Describe what it was like working with the wedding coordinator at the resort? What went well? Any challenges? Our on-site wedding coordinator Diana was absolutely amazing! She was kind, courteous, and compassionate. She offered suggestions to make our day perfect!
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Melissa & James were married at Hard Rock Vallarta! ~ Photo credits go to Nick Vaquerano @NickVaquerano on Instagram ~ Wedding Gown from Chantilly Place in Chelmsford, MA ~ Travel coordination provided by Romance Travel Group
Why did you choose Romance Travel Group?
To be perfectly honest, we had no idea where to start when we started planning this. I googled “destination wedding planners” and came up to another wedding planner. I started off by saying I knew NOTHING about this but this is what I had in mind. They were super condescending and after that first call, to this moment almost two years later, still never received their quote. I didn’t need to though, I knew I didn’t want to hear back from them. Romance Travel Group was a website I had stumbled on while looking for resorts so I looked into my history to find them. That’s when I reached out and scheduled a call with Shelli. Again, I told her I knew absolutely nothing about wedding planning or destination planning and she said “that’s okay! Tell me what you want to know.” I knew then that I’d be working with her through this process. Were there any objections from your wedding guests about your decision to have a destination wedding? If so, how did you handle overcome those? Yeah, definitely. No one really *said* anything about it directly, just dealt with more “it’s so expensive” remarks. Shelli set up our website super early (August 2018 to be exact) and so when guests came to our engagement party (we invited the same people we were going to invite to our wedding) we had this whole set up talking about where to go to book. One of the biggest things I guess I didn’t realize was such a big deal until like yesterday when I went to book my cousin’s wedding was that Romance Travel Group offers you the ability to pay the wedding off slowly. From the date of our engagement party to the final payment due date, there was exactly 12 months. That was plenty of time for people to make payments. So we let everyone know that they could book online, pay a small deposit and then make monthly payments. For our loved ones that still couldn’t swing it, we just told them we totally understand and would miss them there. At the end of the day, it’s our special day and we were doing it our own special way.
Why did you choose Romance Travel Group? Romance Travel Group was recommended to me by a friend who also had a great experience. Having a team local to MN was super helpful as well!
How did you select the resort? What were the deciding factors? My (now) husband and I always knew we wanted a destination wedding so picking the resort was the hard part! We asked Shelli for recommendations of places she or her team stayed at…as we picked our resort sight unseen! Crazy, I know. Our deciding factors were being a middle-of-the-road price point for our guests, family friendly and a good location. We read a TON of reviews. The Riu Palace Cabo hit all of those notes after lots of back and forth. What were some of your biggest fears about having a destination wedding? Some of my biggest fears relate to the earlier question…when you plan a destination wedding you HAVE to accept from the get-go that not everyone is going to make it. We talked to those we knew we needed there first (my grandparents, the Maids of Honor, Best Men, immediate family etc…) and once they were on board, we went full steam ahead! There were of course a few people important to us that couldn’t make it and we knew early on we had to be good with that. If you don’t visit your resort first (like us) there was a huge nervous factor of what if we hate it…but we still went with it. I also brought my own stylist. I was TOO nervous to put my hair/makeup in the hands of someone I have never met. I also have very difficult hair and don’t wear a ton of makeup so I needed to make sure my hair/makeup and I would be on the same page on one of the best days of my life!
What led you to choose a destination wedding? Our families and most of our friends are split between LA and Chicago, so at least half of the group was already going to have to travel for the wedding regardless. So, we thought it would be fun to have a vacation together with all of our favorite people! Having a destination wedding was helpful in limiting our guest list, since both Mark and I have big families and lots of friends.
How did you select the resort? What were the deciding factors? We weren’t able to visit any of the resorts before deciding, so I did a lot of research on a variety of sites. Using the list of proposed resorts from RTG, I read resort reviews on The Knot, Wedding Wire, Trip Advisor, Yelp and Google. I also watched walk-through videos on YouTube and looked at hashtags and geotagged pictures on Instagram! I was very nervous about making sure it was going to be a good choice for all our guests, so I even did keyword searches on the reviews to make sure there were no reports of bed bugs, food or alcohol poisoning, etc. I went to great lengths! But this all made me feel comfortable and confident in my selection of Now Sapphire!
We highly recommend these wedding/travel planning angels! Romance Travel Group was amazing and so incredibly organized! They are true professionals at what they do. They helped us pick a resort for our destination wedding as the first and most important step to planning a destination wedding. I had independently researched over 100 resorts and was feeling so lost as to how to facilitate a destination wedding. I reached out to Romance Travel Group online and got a response within 2 hours!
Shelli asked what were our top priorities for a resort and sent us a list of her top 10 picks. The resorts they work with are luxury and inspected personally by their team frequently. From that list we chose Azul Beach Riviera Cancun and to be married on top of the hotel skydeck! The Azul Beach Riviera Cancun resort is part of the Karisma chain and was the most fantastic and beautiful resort any of us had experienced. I would recommend this resort to any bride, as they know exactly what they are doing with weddings and they made our special day better than a dream come true. We cannot express enough gratitude to the staff at Azul for making us and our guests feel like royalty. Shelli made us a website so we sent out a save the date with the link and our guests had all the info they needed to book and get the travel in order. Shelli and her team took all of the stress off of us organizing all of the travel and setting up everything with the resort. She negotiated a contract with the resort for us and so we knew what to expect and knew everything was in order. Shelli and Heather with Romance Travel Group took excellent care of our wedding planning, travel and guests start to finish. I really do not know how we would have done it without them. We will 100% be using Romance Travel Group in the future for our vacations. We cannot thank you enough! Amanda and Andrew The happiest day of our lives! Our wedding was a dream, and we are so grateful for our parents, friends and family for celebrating with us! Venue: Dreams Los Cabos Suites Golf Resort & Spa ~ Destination Wedding Travel Agent: Romance Travel Group ~ Photo: Pink Palm Photo ~ Videography: Romanza ~ Hair and Makeup: Loscabosmakeup ~ Floral and Rentals: The MAIN Event CABO ~ DJ: Encore Event Technologies ~ Dress: Bridal Boutique - Maggie Sottero ~ Paper goods: Minted Why did you choose Romance Travel Group? We had read great reviews about Romance Travel Group and had two couple friends that had used them for their own destination weddings. After talking with Shelli on the phone, we were confident that she knew what she was doing! What led you to choose a destination wedding? We wanted a wedding and vacation all in one. We wanted it to be smaller and intimate with only our close family and friends. We created memories that we will never forget! How did you select the resort? What were the deciding factors? We wanted an affordable, all-inclusive resort in Cabo. Shelli helped us narrow it down to Dreams Los Cabos. We have nothing but wonderful things to say about Dreams! It exceeded our expectations! The property was beautiful, the restaurants were nice, all of the employees were friendly. Our couples’ massage at the spa was incredible. The club on property had a fun karaoke night we all went to on Thursday night. It was everything we wanted for our wedding weekend.
I began planning my wedding two years in advance with Romance Travel Group. Shelli was wonderful to work with from the start and got the ball rolling right away. I was also pleased that Shelli never tried to change my mind, or sell me on a different hotel. At that time, the hotel had not yet began officially booking wedding dates for 2018 but Shelli put me in contact with my wedding coordinator right away, and helped me negotiate an excellent rate. Shelli, and now Heather also, answered every email I sent. Even when I received an out of the office email, I would quickly receive a response from them as well. I made lots of mistakes in relaying information for my large party and the two of them always corrected it without seeming the slightest bit inconvenienced. As the big day got closer, Shelli and Heather double checked with me to make sure I was in touch with the florist and the spa at the resort. Romance Travel was like an extra bonus set of wedding coordinators. They also sent gifts and swag a couple times along the way which I thought was really sweet!
Why did you choose Romance Travel Group? I received the referral from a friend who worked with Romance Travel to plan her 104 person designation wedding. The confidence that Shelli made me feel was great. I was very impressed with her responsiveness and her knowledge and experience on destination weddings. How did you select the resort? What were the deciding factors? El Dorado Royale was recommended to us by Shelli after we told her the things we wanted from our destination wedding resort. Such as good food and a place that could accommodate a large (75 person) destination wedding. She found us the most perfect resort to have our wedding! Tell us about your wedding dress – How did you find it? Who went shopping with you? How do you feel wearing your dress? I found my wedding dress at David’s Bridal. My dress was perfect. I did not want to spend more than $2,000 on my wedding dress. I invited my Mom, Sister, Mother -in-law and sister in-law. David's has a huge selection so I tried on probably 60 dresses. I knew as soon as my sister zipped my dress that it would be the one I would ware on the big day. It just felt right. |
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