whatkat, you can't go wrong with shangri-la. and no problem with your questions. i still love talking wedding-speak.
1. if you want, you can move your party to solana lounge which is situated by the cliffs area. you won't clearly be able to see the ocean when it gets the dark, but the atmosphere there will still be priceless. in my opinion, i wouldn't bring the party outside shangri-la because the wait for the vans, the 15 minute ride to town, and then the wait to be seated at another place might douse the party mood.
2. we had our after-party in a 2 bedroom villa. we didn't hear anything from management. we purposely requested for villa #12 because it was at the farthest end of the resort (by Chi Spa). i think villa #11 was empty so we really had no neighbors. and unlike other 2 bedroom villas closer to the public pools which was inland and did not have an ocean view, villa #12 was situated high so we shared the same water view that presidential villa #10 had- for a fraction of the price! villa #12 was huge with two separate "buildings". the first had the living room and the bedroom with two double beds. the other building was just for the master bedroom. and the pool in this villa was not some rinky dink "plunge" pool. one could actually do laps. there's a covered outdoor dining area, another outdoor shower area, and two loungers in their separate area that look out to the ocean. i can't do approximations too well, but i would guess it would not be hard to fit 50 people in this villa.
3. we opened a tab with the bar for a few hours. we had requested that when the tab reached PHP 85,000 net, that it be closed. by the time it closed, it was well after dinner. but then, we still had complimentary water and red/white wine the whole night. wine was brought in from ralph's liquor. we could not afford a real open bar package; it was too prohibitive.
another plus with having the after-party in our villa was amanda had previously
smuggled in caseloads of san miguel pale and light. our butler made sure they were chilled for the after-party. left over wine bottles from the reception were also brought back to the villa. if you favor hard liquor, then amanda can bring those in too. and the best part is if you don't open some bottles, she can return those to ralph's liquors for a refund.
sandd, nice to see you out here again. i myself only had a grand total of one phone call to amanda during our preps. would-be brides, please note- amanda will not gush with you about your wedding plans. she will not shriek in delight with your plans for the centerpiece. what she will be is she will be professional to the utmost and will deliver what you need. i was a bit put off with that one phone conversation i had with her because she sounded really business-like. but i came to realize afterwards that that was what we needed anyway. we didn't need a friend or a supplier to call "ate". we needed someone that knew what she was doing and delivered, period.
mystify, that's how we started ours as well- with dreaming! count your pennies, move back the wedding date if you have to, and scale down on the guests- it can happen. it did to us.
