bridget917

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you! No words of advice for you, other than if you have a TA that now is when you really need to put them to work! Have you tried contacting the resort to see if they have any info?

Thanks so much everyone! It truly was such a wonderful day and more than I could have ever dreamed of! I'm so anxious to get the "real" pictures!!!! Quote: Is that a Sandals made bouquet? I went the route of getting an artificial bouquet because I wanted something that I could keep. All of my flowers were artificial and everyone was shocked because they looked and felt so real. Quote: We are eloping and I think the reef terrace would be a perfect place to get married as well. All of the sites were beautiful, but what drove us (and, if I remember correctly, most of the brides on this board who have gotten married there) to pick that location is that it is so secluded compared to the others. It was kind of funny though--we were doing our first dance on the deck/patio of the piano bar and I looked down and all of these people were watching us from the pool below! Quote: BTW - were you wearing hot pink sandals in your wedding pics? Yup! I found these hot pink wedges that I just had to have! I got down the "aisle" and the first thing John said to me was "nice flip flops!" Bridget

Quote: How many people did you take with you? We had 12 people come down for our wedding--they all had an amazing time and loved the resort. Quote: Anything else I should know before I go? I can't really think of too much that hasn't be covered here before. John's advice would be if you plan on scuba diving make sure to take some decongestants along just in case! His ears wouldn't pop so he couldn't go down more than 20 feet. They told him to take decongestants daily and that maybe it would help. The price for any kind of medication in the gift shop was outrageous...I'd take anything and everything with you. I know a lot of people on this forum mentioned taking the insulated cups with you. We took them down with us, but not once did we see anyone using them so ours stayed in our suitcases the whole week. The stainless steel ones were a little heavy and weren't worth packing. Other than that, I can't think of anything! Just have a wonderful trip!!!! Oh, and outside of the Market STreet restaurant they post the weddings everyday--you might want to check there the day of your wedding and take a picture of the sign. Ours never made it up there which was disappointing!

I just posted a review and some pics of our 8/16 wedding under the Sandals forum... http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t27832

A few more...

Here are some wedding pictures!

We got back from our 8/16 wedding at SGOR on the 20th--what an experience! I was waiting to post until I had some pictures to share...these aren't the greatest, but they're what I was able to scrounge up for now! I'll do a follow up when I get the "real" pics! Here's my mini-review: SGOR--the resort itself I was blown away by how beautiful the resort was! We stayed in a Plantation Villa Suite on the Manor side of the resort and it was so beautiful! (I have pics if anyone needs them). I'm really glad we chose to stay on that side of the resort. Neither John or I are big beach people so that's why we chose the Manor. It was nice because we felt somewhat secluded and we hardly ever saw our neighbors. I never used our private pool, but John did one time. They kept it in good shape. The staff at the resort was so friendly and always greeted us with a smile. They really treated us like royalty and we had some great laughs with them. Even when John ordered multiple entrees because he just couldn't decide on what he wanted, they'd laugh and say "you're on vacation, it's all included". We'd go back in a heartbeat just because the people were so wonderful. I don't know how they do it, but for such a large resort it really has an intimate feel to it. One thing we noticed was how things don't kick up until around 10 or 11 am, but most of the action has died down by around 9:30pm. We weren't used to the heat and the humidity so that was fine with us! We rented a cabana by the pool one day...I believe it was $75 to rent it from 8-5 and we had a butler. I'd highly recommend doing this if you can...it worked great for us because we had friends and family arriving on three different flights that day and we had some that had arrived the day before. This gave everyone a place to "check in" with everyone else. Can't forget to mention, the food was great too! I saw some people take dessert back to their rooms, so if you're too full just get it to go--I wish I would have! The Wedding Center, Wedding & Reception Arlene was my wedding coordinator at the resort. She did a great job! We met with her for about half an hour the Thursday before the wedding and then didn't see her again until the wedding. She was great and took care of everything just how we wanted it. Everything went smoothly and she did a really good job keeping things moving along. When I got out of the van at the wedding site I was expecting everyone to be seated and waiting for me. Oh no, they were all standing there waiting with their cameras lol (all except the groom and best man of course). She finally got them to move along so we could get started. Reverend John did our ceremony and we both really liked him a lot. He was very friendly and even paused for John to wipe the sweat off his face now and then. The ceremony was different than what I'm used to...I was very surprised with how they'd stop to pose us for pictures throughout the ceremony! We never really knew when it was done! But it was a great ceremony and we were very happy with it! Like most girls on this board, we chose to get married at the Reef Terrace Gazebo. We upgraded to the 1 hour hot and cold hor d'ouvre recpetion. My only complaint is the food--I hate seafood, and everything hot was seafood. I wish we would have had a choice in what was served. I ate some fruit and cheese and that was pretty much it. I was starving when it was over (we were married at noon). The cake was really good and I was sad that we didn't get to finish it all before we headed home. I took two more bites before we had to leave our room to go check out. We went with the vanilla cake (his choice, I would have probably picked chocolate!). The Spa/Salon I ended up having both my hair and makeup done at the salon. I kept debating about the makeup, but I ended up having them do it because I figured they'd be experts at what would hold up in the humidity. I LOVE how they did my hair. I had two pictures I liked and they were able to combine the styles for me. I could not have been happier with my hair--and everything stayed put for the whole day! My makeup was another story. I do like how it looked initially. But they put so much on that it was caking throughout the ceremony and reception. They must not have used waterproof mascara because I had a large smudge under my eye during the ceremony from sweating. I was so disappointed about that--when I did my makeup while at the resort I was able to go in the ocean, pool, etc and I never looked like a raccoon! I honestly don't know that I'd have them do my makeup if I was to do it all over again. I think I managed better myself! The Photo Shop We had a really bad experience at the photo shop. I'm not sure if it was because we took a photographer with us (it was a family member so they let it go) and didn't spend a lot of money or what the deal was. We had planned to purchase a few from the PS if we saw some that we liked. I was shocked to see that they don't do any editing--some of the pictures would have been so much nicer had they done a little editing. And the lady that went over our pictures with us the next day was so incredibly rude! We got out of there as fast as we could. When I asked about buying a few photos on cd she was very short with me and said "we don't do that"...now I KNOW they do that because other girls here have done that, and some family that went with us had some photos taken and they were able to buy them on cd. We actually considered going back another day to hopefully have someone else to work with. I will say that the photographer who was at our wedding was very kind and considerate...no complaints about him. Excursions We only did two excursions--Dunns River Falls and the Dune Buggy Chuka Tour. We enjoyed both--John liked the Dune Buggies more than me. I wasn't expecting to get completely covered in mud but he had a blast driving through it and splattering us. We debated between the DB and the ATV tour, but we talked to some other people and they told us that the ATV tour wasn't anything exciting if it's something you've done before. We live in an area where we're able to ride often, so we decided to pass on that one. We went with 4 other people and were able to work out a deal on the cd of photos--it should have been $120 for 50 pictures, but she gave us 56 for $60..so we split the cost and ended up buying the cd. We didn't purchase anything from our trip to DR Falls. That's all I've got...if anyone has any questions feel free to send them my way! Bridget

I'll gladly help you in any way that I can. I'm working on uploading pictures right now, and once they're up I can send you the link and if you see anything you like I can directly email it to you.

You might be able to get some leniency (however you spell that) if you're doing them the day after...is it someone from home? Maybe just say it's a friend...if they don't know the photographer I doubt you'd have a problem. We used my husbands uncle to do our pictures and they didn't have a problem with it because he was family.

Ours was "Fly Me To The Moon" by Frank Sinatra...it was between that one and "The Best Is Yet to Come". I'm a Sinatra addict, so we knew it would be one of his songs, just took some time to find one we both loved...it has a playful feel to it that made it nice and light for our beach reception!

Hey everyone, I'm back! Not much time to post anything right at the moment (and no pictures to post yet!) but I wanted to pop in real quick! Fortunately for us, Hurricane Fay only sent some rain our way--and it didn't start until Saturday night, probably around 9 pm...it rained hard from probably about 11pm Saturday until sometime early the next morning. By eleven o'clock Sunday morning the sun was shining again! One night of rain isn't too bad at all! And we got a beautiful rainbow! I'll post more as soon as I get a chance

Well, as unbelievable as it seems to me I'm leaving on Tuesday morning! We're actually heading to Pittsburgh on Monday evening and we fly out to Jamaica around 7am! Our wedding is Saturday at noon! I've been so busy lately that I haven't had much time to check in, but I wanted to thank you all for your advice and for answering so many questions for me! I'll check in when I get home!

We debated about what do do, but fortunately we didn't have anyone decide to stay off the resort. But I look at it this way--when you invite people to your wedding/reception, you're inviting them to a specific event and a specific place. If someone decides they don't like where you're having your reception at home or that it's too far for them to travel you don't pay for them to go somewhere else...why should this be any different?

Quote: Bridget- Did you get this information from your wedding planner? I was considering doing something like this following our 1 hour reception but wasn't sure. Maybe it will be different since we are staying at Beaches and there will only be 8 adults including FI and I. We figured if they couldn't accomodate us we would just go off site to eat. Yup, that's what Darma (the WC) told me when I asked her...that it just wasn't possible. However, if you are going to be at Beaches I would think you'd have a better chance of eating together, since it is set up more for families already. I'd just ask your WC and see what they have to say!

Quote: Has anyone done the going to one of the restaurants after the ceremony and order the web streams? Any other advice? I haven't been there yet, but when I inquired into taking our group (12 people plus us) to one of the restaurants, they told us it can't be done because the restaurants are set up for couples...so they can't accomodate a group. Maybe one of the girls who has been there with a group can chime in.

I'm guessing this is the best place to post this. Yesterday at Wal-Mart I noticed that they had large bags of Crayola colored sand for sale for $2.50 a bag! They were outside and the colors I saw were pink and green. I'm not sure if there are any other colors or not. If someone was looking for colored sand for centerpieces it might work out well!

Your pictures are beautiful! Glad that things worked out so well for you in spite of the weather. Congratulations!

Congratulations! Good luck with the name changing process--that is one thing I am not looking forward to!

Here's my e-ring and wedding band (and a picture of them together). It was so hard to take a picture with all the sparkles! My fiance picked them out himself...all I told him was I liked pave and white gold and that I wanted something simple yet detailed, and something that was vintagey looking. I love what he picked out!

Thanks girls I contemplated the Ipod idea--I just hate to spend more money right now. It seems like there is constantly money going out for something! Maybe I'll check with Darma about the CD Player--I kind of thought the same thing, if they have it there for our first dance, then I'd think it would be available the whole hour. I really like the garden gazebo area--I'm just wondering with getting married at noon if it would be too hot to have the reception there (we were thinking most likely the Reef Terrace for the wedding). It would make for some beautiful photo backdrops though, so maybe everyone will just have to suffer LOL!

I don't know anything about it either, but I think it's owned by Sandals. I wanted to say how much I love your logo in your picture--very pretty!

Question for you ladies that have been married at SGOR already--we are doing the one hour hot/cold hor d'ouvre reception. We're not paying for any extra entertainment like steel drum band, dj, etc. Was there a cd player accessible so that we could bring our own music to play "in the background"? Also, Darma mentioned something on the phone about sending me pictures of reception sites...I knew we picked our wedding location, but do you actually pick your reception site as well? Thanks

Now that looks like a fun reception! Glad that things went so well for you! You have a beautiful family!

I know this is an old post, but I was doing a search for vendors for hair flowers and came across it. I just had to laugh when I read the title because I have a Golden Retreiver named Jack and that is exactly something he would do!

So happy to hear that things went well...time for pictures LOL!