PhillyGal

Yes, we had 100 people at come in for our wedding at the Iberostar and it is VERY accommodating for that many people. It is big enough that you are not going to be bumping into everyone every 5 seconds but small enough that you'll be able to find your guests whenever you need to... It was perfect!

I just wanted to let everyone know that I finally was able to go thru all my emails and get back to everyone (i think) and i sent the pics out to the people that wanted to see pics. I also put some questions together that people asked and put the answers in an email too. So, if i didn't get back to you or if you want to see the email i put together or if you want to see some wedding pics, please let me know!!! toni0325@yahoo.com is the best way to reach me

they told me you can't set everything up on the beach because they can't get electricity on the beach - but maybe things have changed since then, i dunno.

I've been to both. I ended up getting married at the Iberostar. The beaches are much nicer in Negril than in Montego Bay/Rose Hall, overall. However, the Iberostar had the nicest beach I've seen in Montego Bay. No one from my wedding party complained about the beach at all. It was perfectly fine. When we visited Beaches Negril, the first things I noticed were that it is VERY kid friendly - there are Sesame Street characters everywhere. If you have a ton of kids coming, then this might be ok - if you don't, then it may be annoying. Also, I noticed when we were waiting for the wedding coordinator to come get us in the waiting area, my husband and I got REALLY bit up. There were sooo many bugs there, I guess because of the jungle-type feel and all the trees. This is why we chose the Iberostar - it is only 25 minutes from the airport (we had 100 guests and didn't want all those people to travel over an hour to Negril), the Iberostar does 1 wedding a day, all the other resorts can do up to 7 i think, and it was family friendly, but not kids overload... We honeymooned in Negril, though. Negril is beautiful!!!

did you have any music playing during your reception dinner? yes, we made a "Dinner CD" and had the DJ play it Also, how much in advance did you start discussing details with the wedding coordinator? about a month before is when she sent a details checklist - this is when were supposed to decide on flowers, centerpieces, set up, welcome party details, etc but we really did it all when we got there. even the food was determined when we arrived to Jamaica Was anything determined before you actually got to Jamaica? she just knew how many people we were expecting, and that we wanted a welcome party friday night, also that we wanted to rent out the steakhouse on sat. night - but all the little details were decided when we got there

Ok, i'm going to try to answer as many questions as I can. I don't mind because I wish I had someone to answer all my questions before I went. It would have at least put my mind at ease a little bit, maybe. did you use the minister/rabbi they provided or did you bring/hire an outside one? we brought a rabbi with us. we have a family friend who's a rabbi who lives in Florida, so she met us there and conducted the ceremony. However, you have to use their minister to pronounce you husband and wife and help you sign all the papers when the ceremony is over How did you like the steel drum band for the ceremony music? they were good, but they didn't play the right song. We asked them to play One Love for everyone when they walked down the aisle, but were supposed to switch songs when I walked down. They didn't do that - they continued One Love - but whatever - not the end of the world. Did you have open bar at your reception? NO. We had what was included which was beer and wine. Was it expensive? Open Bar is soooo expensive, especially when you have 100 people (it would've been 1000 bucks an hour more!!) What we did was have a cocktail hour on the terrace with appetizers and open bar. We pretty much told everyone that there would be just beer and wine and if they wanted to drink something else, to bring it with them. The problem was, there is no beer and wine bar set up. During dinner, they come around with wine, so if you're a wine drinker, fine. But the staff was kind of just standing around and people would have to find someone to ask if they could get a beer or wine, and the staff would go into the backroom to get it. We had to ask them to pour beer and wine into plastic cups and go around to our guests and serve them. I'd say skip the open bar - the couple people who wanted mixed drinks, walked to another bar and they said it wasn't bad (it's not right around the corner, but it's not like a 20 min trip) But make sure to somehow have the beer and wine available for everyone to drink too!! Did you have a cocktail hour between the ceremony & reception? yes, with the steel drum band. Did you bring your own centerpieces? NO How about any other decoarations? no, the steakhouse was set up great, and we used the florist for the centerpieces and they brought our aisle markers into the steakhouse as decorations, too Was the DJ worth the money? i guess, i don't how we couldn't have had one How many hours did you have a DJ for? 3.5 hrs - My husband is a musician so the music was the most important part of our wedding weekend. We made our own CDs for the DJ to play. We had a "dinner CD", 2 "dance cds", a "special song CD (father-daughter, etc)" and a "slow song" CD. It took us like 2 weeks straight to perfect these CDs. We ended up ONLY playing the dinner CD and Dance CD. Everyone was having such a blast dancing, that we skipped the father-daughter, mother-son dances AND didn't play ANY slow songs!!! But it was great. Noone complained (except of course my husband's mom at the end...) whatever. But basically the DJ just had to hit play. Like I mentioned before, he messed up with our introductions, didn't play the right introduction songs - and we were pretty pissed. But when dinner started, he just had to push play and all was good. Except the dinner CD ended and he had the last song play 3 times in a row. But, I can't tell you how he'd be with his own music... Was Sandy very reliable with any request you had? Pretty much. She always made time for us, which was great. She's good at giving information to people (florist, staff). When we got there, she sat with us for over an hour and it was probably at the end of her workday. I would suggest you make a list so you can go over it with her when you get there. It's really difficult with emails. I felt that if I sent her a list of questions over email, she'd answer like 3 of them and the rest she didn't answer or gave me a half-assed answer that left me even more confused. How was the reception food? AWESOME!! We had filet and salmon and both were really good!!! Do you have a list of things you would vs wouldn't do again specific to the Iberostar? WOULD: get married at the same location on the beach, would eat at all the restaurants during our stay, would have a welcome party with the same band, would have the steak and salmon as choices for dinner, would make our own CD, since everyone loved our music choices, would go to Negril for our honeymoon after the Iberostar, do the same thing with our welcome bags, even though they were the biggest pain in the ass (we did beach bags with our logo, and gave tie dye towels as favors, along with a zillion other things - guests knew who was in the party because the logoed beach bags and tie dyed towels were easily spottable!) WOULDN'T: if we could do it over, we'd want to meet with the DJ and MAKE SURE he knew what to do with the introductions, talk to the steel drum band to make sure they knew what song to play for the bride (this was something we depended on Sandy for), made our guests stay longer than just 3 nights, oh, one thing, i'd definitely do differently is NOT LET MY HUSBAND GOLF 2 DAYS IN A ROW BEFORE OUR WEDDING!!! (one day was plenty!) Overall, the resort was awesome. Mike and I actually went on a trip to Jamaica December 07 to check out resorts and we never saw the Iberostar (we chosed it based on process of elimination). We got so lucky!!! It was awesome! And everyone loved it. Everyone loved meeting and spending time with each other. I just wish i had a chance to relax more. Hope this helps!!

I sent some pics out via kodak gallery to the people that sent me their email addresses. if you want me to forward you the pics, send me your address and i'll be happy to send them your way.

Ok, i am in the process of posting my pics. I have to go through them all and pick and choose what to put up, so you guys don't have to go thru all the drunk pics of me, my husband and our crazy guests!! So this afternoon, i'll REALLY REALLY try to get them up!!

Send me your email addresses and i can send you some pictures. I have a zillion!!! I'll try my best to answer your questions: did you rent out the steakhouse for your reception? yes Was the DJ set up in the steakhouse or outside it? he was set up outside the steakhouse but there were a couple speakers in the steakhouse, so it was fine. Was there room to dance? yes, after we ate dinner, everyone got up and danced in the area outside the steakhouse. people either stayed in their seats in the steakhouse, most people danced and some people sat outside of the steakhouse and watched everything (there's still tables and chairs outside set up) Did you have your ceremony on the beach or terrace? on the beach How was the setup? set up with maybe 10 rows of 10 chairs with aisle markers - everyone faced the ocean. it was really beautiful! Do you have pictures of the wedding ceremony you can post? I don't know how to post pics, i'll try. Also, did you bring any table decorations for the dinner? no we had the flower people do the centerpieces and they did a terrific job. they also brought up the aisle markers from the ceremony and put them around the steakhouse. Did you get your hair and makeup done at the spa? yes! and it was sooooo great! i would definitely recommend the spa staff. I got my nails done 2 days before the wedding, then they got messed up because of the water or something, and they redid them for free on the day of my wedding. can you guys tell me how to upload photos??

Hi all, i'm wondering if anyone used Digipix? I am having such an issue with them. I had my wedding on a Saturday night. They told me to come Sunday morning to pick my 50 included pictures that I already paid for that came with my package. Nobody was in the Photo Shop when they said they would be, and I had to leave the resort to start my honeymoon. They put the pics up online on their website 3 weeks later but the thumbnails are so small. How do i pick my pictures when I can't see them? And he's good about responding to my emails but says that they have to stay this size because of copyright reasons. The slideshow feature on the website doesn't work. And if you try to sign in to buy the pictures (like my guests may want to do), that doesn't work either. So, i keep telling him that I had a 100 people at my wedding, so people are obviously going to want to buy pictures. But they're not, if they can't log in OR see what they are purchasing. Anyone use their services? What was your experience?

Hi guys! I got married at the Iberostar Rose Hall on December 13th! We had 100 come to the Iberostar for our wedding. I would be happy to answer any questions you have! My email is toni0325@yahoo.com - So this is what I discovered when i got to the hotel - Loreto used to be the wedding person at the Iberostar Beach, but when the Suites opened up, they transferred her there. Sandy is the prime contact at the Iberostar Beach. I think that the reason it's hard for Sandy to respond right away sometimes, is because she's not just a wedding coordinator, she is the one that has to sit and take restaurant reservations too, sometimes for like 4 hours a day. Also, when i was there she worked like 7 days straight, so maybe she'll take like 2 or 3 days off. I dunno. But, basically, don't worry. I was so scared before i got there about how things would go, and my wedding was absolutely amazing!!! And Sandy was great. Granted, we did have some things that went a little wrong, like we made a CD for our music and all the DJ had to do was play it, and he decided to play one song over 3 times. And my husband wrote a really easy list of the names for our introductions and what songs to play and he totally messed it up and my stepdad had to do our introduction. That was a mess. Oh, and i am having some issues with the photographer about viewing the pictures he took. But overall - the welcome party, ceremony and reception were all great and our guests LOVED the resort!!! They were only upset that they didn't book a longer vacation. Feel free to post or email me!!! I never went over to the Suites so I have no idea about them. But Iberostar Beach was great if you have kids coming! Good luck!! Toni

Hi! I'm having a 90 person wedding at the iberostar rose hall in jamaica. i own a custom printed apparel company so it's only fitting that i designed my own logo for the bags and t-shirts. my mom really wants me to do printed towels too but i don't want to go overboard with the logo thing. i'm looking for some cute beach towels or even white ones that i can send to my tie dyer, who will hopefully give me a discount because it's for my wedding!!! has anyone come across good quality, but inexpensive towels? my fiance is a musician so incorporating some music related stuff into the bags would be cute too!! I want to do something special for the kids who are coming too, but i don't know what... this is tough!!!

There are a whole list of add ons, if you PM your email address, I can send it to you. We are doing a welcome party on the beach on Friday night (wedding is Saturday) and we're having a private bar right on the beach and the cost is $8/person per hour for drinks and i think $14/per person per hour if you want to do appetizers and drinks. we are going to have the party after dinner so everyone doesn't just come then break up and go to dinner then everyone has to find each other again. we are telling them to do dinner then come to the party and hang out and when the party is over at least we all will be together to plan the next thing... i have asked Loreto 30 times if we can do desserts at the welcome party and everytime i email her, she answers like 5 of my 10 questions and I am still clueless to half the things i wanted to know about, so my fiance and I are going to call her next week. We are doing the dinner at Tony's Steakhouse and I guess having the reception with a DJ on the terrace afterwards. My fiance is actually in a reggae band in Philadelphia, and his whole band is coming to the wedding, so we'll have to find some time for his band to play. I hope Loreto can set that up... I keep hearing everyday that more and more people want to come to the wedding. It's CRAZY! I expected 40 people tops!

I'm getting married here on December 13th! We have almost 90 people booked!!!! I can't believe it. How has Loreto been with correspondence with you?? How many people are coming to your wedding. I'd love to stay in touch - it may help to keep us both sane:)

Thanks everyone. My mom actually just called me to tell me that maybe it isn't such a great idea to have a planned cocktail party. But i do think that on the "itinerary" that we're putting in everyone's OOT bags, we can put that we're hanging out at such and such bar from such and such time, so after you're all unpacked, please feel free to stop by and have a drink... this will make people not feel obligated, but if some people are like, "hmmm, what should we do now?" it will give them an option... right? Also, I told my mom that i think that the hotel won't be so crowded anyway (we're still technically going to be there in off-peak season) so with a wedding crowd of 80 people, we'll pretty much take over the place so privacy issue won't be a big deal, I doubt...