Nevada-Las Vegas

NEW Help Me Please Cermony and In Suite Reception Considering PH

Hi there,

I'm new here and this is my first post.  I am still ways out before my actual wedding we picked 9/7/2013 for our date so I am still in the early stages of planning my Vegas wedding.   I'm trying to contain my excitement, but I'm not even gonna lie...I'm SUPER excited. lol.  However, I already have tons of questions...can anyone help?

So, originally I was planning on doing a Valley of Fire ceremony and an in-suite reception afterwards.  However, my mom quickly shot that down and these are her exact words, "Do you honestly think you are going to put me on a 45 min. bus ride to the middle of the desert, where I will then stand in the blistering heat for 10 min, to then just get back on a 45 minute bus ride for you two to take pretty pictures for 1 hour???  And what about your grandmothers...you want them to STAND???, they'll be dropp'in like flies from heat stroke!!!!  Needless, to say this is not what I wanted to hear...but mother knows best!  FYI, my FI great grandmother will be joining us as well and she is over the age of +85 no way to get her on the rocks, make her stand, and deal with heat.  I had to put on the bride brakes.

So, these are my new thoughts:  Do hotel wedding and afterwards in-suite reception at same location to keep it simple for guests.  Again, still in early stages of planning but I'm thinking 40 family members are coming.  Here's the dilema I fell in love with rooms at Planet Hollywood.  They look hip and modern and that's important to me (I'm 24) and I want this occasion to be a fun party from beginning to end. However, I also wanted to get married outdoors rather than chapel. Now one other issue: in general my FI's family has a much higher income than my side of the family.  My family is going to be struggling to pull this off so I need to keep the expenses down on their end for air fare and hotels (they are traveling with 3).  I feel fairly confident I can cover most of the expenses on my own (with the right package) for ceremony and reception. 

1. Does Planet Hollywood allow you to get married by the pool?
2. Which suite should I have my reception in Panorama, Boulevard, or Apex?  (I would like to book the room for 3 nights) but please let me know if you think it is more reasonable to book a smaller room the first night.
3. I know Apex is hard to book can anyone who used this suite let me know how much they paid and the date they used it on?  Just so I can get an idea if this suite is finacially feasable for me to use.
4. Do you think the rooms are going to be fairly affordable for guests the weekend after labor day? (For some guess that means under at least $125 a night and that's pushing it.  However, I do have some guests in the party that will have no problem upgrading their rooms as I said before huge finacial gap between the families).
5.  About how far out do I need to be from wedding date to start booking the ceremony and reception?
6. Packages:  The Princess Bride- This is the package I'm considering the most b/c it includes Panorama suite for two nights plus Cocktail & Hors d'oeuvre reception plus cake, $275 floral credit etc.  However, there are a lot of things in this package I don't want such as Rehersal, garter, welcome ammenities, breakfast in bed, gift certificate to spice market, etc.  And the reception says it is for 30 where I'm thinking I'm going to have 40  cost $7500.  I do not want to spend over 10K, but could probably stretch myself.  My question is am I saving money by using this package or is it going to cost me more when all said and done b/c I am 10 people over.? Plus our families like to drink a lot I really wanted to just do the bar ourselves.  Any suggestions, experience?  (Aware of Twilight package and I HATE the idea of Red Carpet...it gives me anxiety, too long to explain my thoughts on that I will spare you the gorey details).
6A.  Would it be more affordable in the long run to customize my own package and then use MasterPiece catering and do the bar myself.
7.  And final question, sry bare with me I had more questions than I anticipated should I use the photographer that is included in package or am I going to get more photos and better quality for my money by hiring an outside photographer?

Sry this is so long...I told you I was excited!!!  But in all seriousness I would really appreciate any advice anyone could give me.  The more feedback the better.
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Re: NEW Help Me Please Cermony and In Suite Reception Considering PH

  • Congrats and Welcome to the board!!

    I can offer no advice on the PH weddings as I was a Caesars bride.

    Room rates for PH for the weekend after Labor day are $209 a night for 2012, hopefully you can find a promo code that will take the price down.  I've haven't seen the room rates much cheaper than that for PH but maybe others can chime in with ideas. 

    We booked our ceremony and photographer 14 months out as the specific time of day you want may book early.  I would call them now and see what their availibility and if they are even booking for that far out yet or find out when you can put a deposit down.

    It will be cheaper for you to use Masterpiece catering and bring in your own alcohol especially since half the items in the wedding package you don't want.

    You should try and bring in your own photographer as well, you may not like the photographer PH uses and at least you can have all of your pics done by a photograper that you chose and you will get more photos.

    HTH

  • We're getting married at PH in May and we are bringing in another photographer - it's an additional fee of $150 to do so.  The reviews on Cashman are OK - some brides loved them - but I think it depends on which photographer you end up with.  I didn't want to chance it so I booked Tyler Freer and he is just so, so nice & easy going.

    Our families and the majority of our guests are staying at NYNY because the rooms are half the price of PH - we just couldn't justify the extra money to stay at PH.  We did however rent one room at PH to get ready in so we wouldn't have to walk through the casino to get to the chapel - but our guests will have to do so - but they are aware of it and don't have a problem doing so.

    Can't comment on getting married at the pool but the girls in the chapel office have been amazing to work with.  They answer emails really quickly and have made planning so easy!  Send them an email and you'll have an answer by tomorrow for sure :)

    Good luck with your planning!!
    BabyFruit Ticker BabyFetus Ticker
  • Welcome to the board!

    Since you're well ahead of the date, one piece of advice I'll mention is don't choose your bridesmaids yet.  Weddings have a way of bring out the 'best' in people and sometimes BM choices become regrets if chosen too early.

    Once nice thing I can say about PH is that being part of Caesars, you won't have to pay any BS resort fee on top of the quoted rate, so that will help.  As far as rates in general though, there are less expensive options in close proximity so I'd recommend just putting together a wedding website that has several options for guests' price points.  We got married at MB so I gave guests average rates and coupon codes for MB, Luxor and a couple others so they wouldn't have to do the research themselves.  Smartervegas.com is very helpful for coupon codes.

    You should get a room block set up with PH about nine months out; it won't be the best rate but it will let the slackers who book late still get a room.  They won't charge you for setting up the block, they just hold the rooms until 30 days out.

    If you're going to use a third party photographer, which is highly recommended in Vegas, you can book those as early as you feel comfortable with as they get booked up quick for weekends.  We booked ours about 13 months out.

    Married in Vegas - June 2011


  • I looked into using a suite at PH but they were super rude to me. They wouldn't even discuss letting me see the suite, and said they couldn't even let me book it unless I also booked 10 other rooms as well
    *MyBio-> 07.05.2012* UPDATED: 06/08* Daisypath Anniversary tickers Daisypath Anniversary tickers
  • irishwife714irishwife714 member
    First Comment
    edited February 2012
    Hello.
    I am a Planet Hollywood bride.  We booked the Notebook package.  They are extremely flexible with adding and exchanging parts of the packages.  My package included a pianist but I wanted a guitarist, so they changed it.  One of the other packages had the Vegas sign photo shoot included and the Notebook didn't, but I wanted to add it, so they did, same for the bridal up-do appointment.  The wedding coordinator I've been working with, Ali, has been so wonderful and answers my emails very quickly.   She helped set up a limo to get our marriage license and a limo to take us to dinner.  She has also answered many of my other small, control freak questions, without judgement.  I have had a very good experience so far.

    If you want the in suite reception in a large suite, it would be best to get a package that included the suite because from what I hear, they are hard to book otherwise.  I believe that the only choice for a ceremony is in their chapel.  I don't believe they do ceremonies anywhere else at Planet Hollywood.
    My budget was $7K and we booked the package and rooms for well under that, leaving room for us to do a dinner at Maggiano's for $2500.  Our wedding is in April of this year (spring break time) so our rooms were in the $100-250 range.  The weekends are always more expensive.  If you want to stay at PH and keep it cheap, try to have the wedding during the week. 

    We booked PH in January of 2011 with the wedding in April 2012.  We didn't book the rooms until July 2011.

    I would email Ali and with a package in mind and then see what kind of substitutions they can work with.  I'm pretty sure they are willing to mix and match.  We were sent the details of our package (with all my add-ons and deletions) but they also sent us a form to add on more if we so choose. 

    Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions.  :)

  • Hi,

    We have booked a PH Apex suite for our post dinner reception (party) in April and from memory we have paid $825 a night, although staying at PH for 4 nights we are only using the Apex for the night before (so we have the suite the whole day to get ready) and the night of the wedding.

    We were obviously lucky as most of our guests managed to pick up a special with rooms for $66 a night through a PH web special so if you have the time it may be worth holding out for a deal.
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