Palladium in Riviera Maya

Ashley -

I have not BUT we are getting married nearby (finest, playa mujeres) and I'm not sure how you found the resort, but I'd highly rec reaching out to DestinationWeddings.com. I used a woman from there that 7 of my friends (really just friends of friends of friends lol) used and she made it so easy. We told her our non-negotiables and budget and she listed a dozen resorts with their prices, along with all of their pros and cons. I can send you her info if you'd like, I cannot recommend her enough for destination weddings! Also, she's FREE. lol

View Quoted Comment Hi Bailey! Yes please!! Ironically we are actually leaning towards finest punta cana now instead of Palladium because the pricing seems to be so much better! Any advice or contacts you have I would greatly appreciate!! Thank you so much!

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Omg what a small world!! We picked Finest because they're owned by Excellence, and we have been so loyal to Excellence resorts for years because of their outstanding service. Price wise, I think we're going to end up spending around 24k for 80-90 people.

We had planned for 50-60 at about 21k, but a lot more people said yes than we anticipated. So that's definitely something to keep in mind!

We did outsource our DJ, photographer, and videographer and we have to pay $600 per vendor if you outsource, so we did rack up some serious $$ doing that as well. Finest was on the higher end of our budget but I think we made the right choice for us!

Her name is Amy Birkland-Peterson and her email is

a peterson at destination weddings .com!

Had to write it like that so it didn't get blocked out!

She can answer literally ANY question you may and honestly, she probably provided us with 20+ resorts within our budget Let me know if you have any questions I can totally answer for you!

Also worth noting - Amy does ALL the booking for the guests.

You literally just send the save the date (via email, we also did physical tho) and there's a link for your guests to book DIRECTLY with Amy.

DW also gives perks, we actually earned $2,000 off our stay with Finest because we had x amount of rooms booked! They make it a seamless experience for your guests!

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Wow!!! That’s so funny, it is a small world!! So we were thinking-hoping it would end up being a smaller wedding about 25-35 guests and originally we were thinking about checking out Excellence Punta Cana because there are good reviews about the resort a food but then found out it was adults only so we started leaning towards Palladium but after comparing the wedding packages the Finest seems so much better for the price.

I have been so confused as far as guest numbers because everything online says to plan for about half of your guests actually attending but it sounds like that isn’t always the case! Lol! So how were you able to give them the number of guests attending? We haven’t sent out invites yet because we don’t know for sure where it’s going to be yet and we don’t know what to tell the resort because we haven’t sent out our invites!!

So I have to ask, is it better to outsource photography etc., that’s another thing I’ve been really worried about. How did you end up making that decision? I haven’t been able to find any reviews on the resort photographer so I’ve been blindly deciding to just go with the one that they offer…

Right!! Yeah, we initially wanted adults only but we realized it wasn't too realistic with some of our loved ones and that was important too!

So, we invited 136 people. But we have big extended families, and we assumed a lot of them just wouldn't be interested. Welllll we were wrong LOL. There's still time, and a lot of our guests have still only given verbal commitments, so we very well may only have 50 guests when it's all said and done!

We made an excel sheet of everyone we wanted to invite, and did "green" "orange" and "red" categories. Green was for "they will absolutely be there and we know it" (parents, best friends, etc) orange for "possible!" and red for "def not." We counted the green and orange and gave that as our headcount. But honestly, it's irrelevant until 30 days before the wedding.

Basically how the guest count works:

You pick a package, which all of them only cover 20 guests anyway. Tell them how many guests you expect, and which venues you want...and then that is literally it. They will give you additional pricing per person (finest is $45 per person for anyone above the 20 head count) and you don't actually have to pay anything other than your own room booking until very close to the wedding. I would assume at that time, you'd get the final bill but we aren't there yet! For this reason, we have a very detailed spreadsheet and we're using 80-90 people so we can overestimate instead of under!

As far as the photographer goes, I knew from the start I'd likely outsource. Once you request wedding information they will give you more info on the vendors they use and those vendors will send you their samples, and they honestly just were not up to par personally. They weren't bad, but I was not willing to skimp on pictures or DJ! If pictures aren't super important to you, I wouldn't stress it. I love the dark, earthy, and romantic style of photography and the style the resort provides is very much natural and unedited. Think 2010 family portraits! No hate on them, just not my style!

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To RSVP, the guests have to actually book a room (deposit required only! $50 pp if you use DW.com). I believe Finest takes the final headcount 30 days out and whoever hasn't booked is considered as a "decline".

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Wow! That’s a really good idea with the excel spreadsheet, I’ve been doing the old fashioned hand written “list” hahaha! I think we will try that, thank you! So we have been working with someone from Liz Moore and she told us that in order to save our date we had two options which I found very confusing… did you run into this choice when trying to book?

This is what she sent me…

If the wedding date and time you want is available, we would have 2 different options with Finest for a group that you should start thinking about:
1. Group room contract - I believe Finest requires 15% of the group total amount down as a deposit. For example, if the total of your rooms adds up to $20,000 for all guests, the deposit could be approximately $3,000. This holds the number of rooms that you need for your group and room categories that you request.
2. Get a Group Promo Code - By moving forward with a group promo code the following applies:

-Group must be a minimum of 5 rooms for 3 nights
-Promo Code provides a rate for each room category that is honored until 60 days prior to travel date
-No cancellation fee up to 24 hours prior to arrival
-No deposit required -- credit card provided to hold the room is charged the full room price 30 days prior to arrival (this includes your room)
-Round-trip airport transfers are included
-You would not need to place a deposit down on rooms, as no rooms are held for the group. Your guests could book and hold their rooms and not be charged until 30 days prior to arrival. If something changed and they needed to cancel they would have up to 24 hours prior to arrival at the resort to cancel.

I don’t really understand this part because we weren’t planning on paying for our guests rooms??? I’ve been a little apprehensive about paying this upfront, it seems weird!

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Hmm, we didn't have either of those but I think I can give you some insight! We actually didn't get an option, Amy just told us what we were doing haha

So we had initially said 60 guests max, and Finest had us pay $100 per room that we wanted to reserve for our guests. So 60 guests (most are couples) we reserved 30 rooms = our deposit was $3,000. It was not charged immediately --

Once the Save The Dates went out, each couple that paid their deposit knocked off $100 from our deposit. After 30 days, Finest charged our card the remaining amount which happened to be like $1,500 I think? That $1,500 will reserve the remaining rooms for our guests, BUT the remaining $1,500 went 100% towards the cost of OUR room.

So while you're paying to reserve your guests rooms, you're not actually paying for them at all! All the deposits charged will go towards you. I think this is something similar to the first option your agent gave you!

The second one sounds a little iffy to me, I would be scared to have guests book and cancel since they never had to put down a deposit, it kinda takes the commitment out of it you know?

People can still book if we run out of rooms, but those 30 rooms will be in the same block and just ensured that at least 60 people (assuming the 30 guests are all couples) would be guaranteed a room. I told my closest friends to book ASAP incase the rooms ran out, since Finest is a smaller resort I didn't want them to lose their opportunity and have to stay somewhere else! Sorry I keep thinking of more stuff after I hit post

View Quoted Comment Haha don't apologize, I appreciate everything you're saying! So that makes sense and of course the resort has to hold people accountable if we say that guests will need those rooms, totally understandable but our travel person didn't explain it very well. You actually said it better than she did haha! It just worried me a bit to have to put a deposit down when we don't even know for sure if people are definitely coming! At this point though would it be messed up to change travel agents? I definitely don't want to hurt anyone's feelings but I feel like ours really isn't explaining things well and responses have been sooooo slow!! I'm sure it has to do with the laid back vibe of the carribean too! Lol.

View Quoted Comment I’m so happy to help! Even with my fiancé’s sister in law giving me advice, it was still scary to navigate not really knowing anything! I totally get that, but rest assured the numbers can definitely change throughout your planning and it won’t affect anything majorly!


I don’t think it would be rude, honestly you have to think how many people drag agents on for weeks, months, and never even book anything. That’s kind of apart of the trade, albeit it sucks! If she’s a lil to relaxed for you now, you def don’t want that kind of confusion closer to your big day!

The slow responses are a def no for me, especially with destination weddings because you’re usually not picking decor and finalizing everything until you’re a few WEEKS out. Imagine a slow reply then, I’d die 😂

View Quoted Comment Hahaha you are so funny!! The slow responses drive me crazy and yes soooo early on!!! Also, I've noticed that the wedding coordinator at Finest keeps asking me if I'm using an outside source to book rooms and flights, it makes me wonder why she keeps asking so much!

View Quoted Comment Hahaha thank you 😂 are you dealing with two different women right now? Like a coordinator at Finest and a travel agent? It sounds like someone really wants the commission 😂 If you change agents, I’d totally encourage you to reach out to Amy and see what you think!

View Quoted Comment Yes, Christine from Finest and our travel agent. I think I'm going to wait a little and see how it goes once we have the date set and if she's still super slow I'll try contacting Amy. So when will you be at Finest?! Our plan is May!

View Quoted Comment I spoke to Christine directly for a time as well! You’re right, she is slower than molasses at replying and I just let Amy do it now 😂


Omg May is just around the corner!! I literally can’t wait to see your pictures and hear all about it! I can send you our DJ and photographer if you’re looking for recommendations too!
We’re going in October, so we have a looong way to go unfortunately. I’ve always dreamed of a fall colored wedding, even if it’s at the beach haha

View Quoted Comment Okay so it's not just me!!! I was thinking maybe she just didn't like me!


Omg I know!!! May is definitely coming quicker than it ever has before! We decided May because I love the Spring knowing that winter is over, I hate being cold!! Fall will be beautiful and I know what you mean about the fall colors they are gorgeous!! We both have September birthdays on the same day so I did think about having a fall wedding but wanted to space it out a little especially since my birthday isn't just mine anymore! Even at the beach it will be beautiful for sure, I can't wait to see your photos either!! Don't forget about me!!!
Now the more that I think about it maybe I should hire off-site, I really don't know how qualified their photographer is and one of the most important things to me is having great photos to look back on! Would you mind sending their info to me and maybe the DJ? I did read a review ( I don't think it was at Finest) of one of the DJs down there playing all rap music at someone's wedding and oh my gosh, I could not imagine how horrifying that probably was for the couple!!! I can't even imagine!!! 😳

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Hahaha nooo it's not just you! I remember Amy telling me that Finest does reply quite slow, it was one of their "cons"! That's so lovely, I've always been a winter girl as spring around here is SOO hot!

I'm a september baby too! The world is even smaller lol. You guys share a birthday?! Talk about meant to be! Our wedding is 5 days before his birthday, so hopefully that makes our honeymoon extra special! Hahah I promise I won't forget if you won't!!!

Absolutely! So my first choice for photography was Monica Lopez, and she wasn't available so I chose Amber Kelley (also known as Tulum Photography). Monica actually has some shots on her Instagram at Finest! I'm using AUDIOCANCUN for the DJ, because they have the most/best reviews online!

Their Instagram handles: @monicalopezphotography @tulumweddingphotos

Amber Kelley: $2,800 and it includes: two photographers, (100 photos per hour) sneak peek 1-2 weeks post wedding (100-200 images). They also offer expedited options to have the photos done in 10 days! She actually asked me how much I was wanting to invest, because I think her site says 3k+. I told her 2,800 was my max and she said she could make it work! I was a little off-put by the way she types, but I did A LOT of research on her and I saw some others comment about it too, but the reviews were still raving! She types with a ton of happy faces and exclamation points. Idk why, it just felt fake because of that but I assure you, shes real LOLXD

AUDIOCANCUN: They have several packages but we got the "2" package which is listed at $1,100 but I also got a glass LED dance floor, 2 extra hours of coverage (packages cover 4 hours, I wanted 6!) some misc charges for equipment moving, and a photobooth for 2 hours! Here's the breakdown:

$150 USD for ceremony sound system and microphone.

$300 USD 2 extra hours DJ music for cocktail

$1,600 USD DJ package and Glass bottom Dance Floor (4 hours)

$350 USD Photo Booth Service for 2 hour.

TOTAL: $2,400 USD

I felt like it was a lot. But I have this like, huge fear that nobody is going to get rowdy with me so I made sure to invest a lot in the DJ I would be soooo upset, can you imagine making a whole playlist and then they just play whatever they want, even if it doesn't go with the crowd? Mortifying