Scott-Pierre

Quote: Originally Posted by Mello78 Wow very beautiful! What time did your reception end? We had the poolside form 6:30-10:30... but they let us party until 11 pm. So we got a half hour free. I think the wait staff was having fun too and that they forgot to keep track of the time! Worked out for us! After the reception some of our guests went on to the disco or the beach to continue partying.

Blackrose222- Yikes... that sounds way too familiar! I am waiting on the BBB to process my claim. I really hope u don't have to go thru what I went through and so many others. The good thing is you have alot of time before your wedding! Keep us updated!

Congratulations! You were a beautiful bride! I know what you mean about needing a vacation to recover from the whole wedding process. It was exhausting!

Quote: Originally Posted by amqueens Any recomendations for a TA? So,if the beach party is by the Seagrape on Saturdays,does that mean u can't have something there that day? Any suggestions on where to do dancing and drinking? Thanks for your help!! TA Maureen works with the ROR and was married there herself. I used her and she was able to answer questions about the resort and weddings that other TAs may not be able to b/c they didn't get married their themselves. During the day there are people on the beach in front of the Seagrape. Lounge chairs are lined up right in front of that area. I am not sure if you could have that area cleared for you during the day and honestly I wouldn't recommend it. You would have so many people walking through that area that I don't think it would feel private at all. I had a great time at my poolside reception so I would recommend that for drinks and dancing. It is made private for you and the lighting with the pool behind you provides a great ambiance. There is a seperate walkway through the pool so people don't have to walk through. We only had 2 very rude hotel guests walk through our reception and they did it purposely. I saw them watching us from afar and I think they wanted to be nosey. I gave them a few "nice words" as they walked by. No one else bothered us. You could also do the disco before it opens at 11 pm for the rest of the resort. There is alot of info about the disco in other threads. Hope this helps!

It sounds like everything went well with your stay. Yikes... I hope that my reception wasn't the reason that they forgot to light your candles. You guys should have come and partied with us! You looked gorgeous on your wedding day! You and your husband are a beautiful couple! I am glad that we got to meet after chatting on the forum. Congratulations!

I posted some pics of my poolside reception under the Jamaica thread. I hope these help to give you an idea of how the set up looks. AnnaC- Your mom was sooo much fun! Don't be embarrassed! She was on that dance floor from the moment we got there until the moment we left! I was peeking at your ceremony too! You looked gorgeous!

Hey Ladies! Here are some pics of my poolside reception. I hope these help to give you an idea of how it looks. These are not pro shots, just some gathered from different friends. We kept the table set up simple. I made number cards and did place cards with people's names so they would know where to sit. They moved my fans from the ceremony to the reception for decoration. We just had a simple candle in the middle. All the guys doing a shot. You can kind of see the bar in the background. The dance floor was in between the tables and the bar. It worked out well. People could sit on the bar stools if they didn't feel like dancing, and still feel like they were part of the party. Even my mother-in-law got her party on! So much fun!!! We had to get in the pool! they treat the pool at night with chemicals so that prevented people from actually jumping in! The bartenders said we were the first! LOL! If you are thinking about the poolside reception.... DO IT! It was soooo much fun! I wish we could go back and do it again! All my guests LOVED it!

Quote: Originally Posted by Jenna in Jamaica Great review, and you look beautiful. I am doing poolside reception also and was worried because someone else said it was a waste becuz the beach party was so loud...where you around there on Sat. night. Do you think it would be too loud? thx We had our reception on a Friday night, so I can't say for certain how loud the beach party would be. The Sat night that we were there the beach party only lasted an hour before it rained and they moved it to the main stage. There was a show going on the night of our reception and we did not hear a thing. The beach parties take place right underneath the main stage. I wouldn't let the beach party stop you.

Quote: Originally Posted by amqueens Congrats!! Glad everything went well. U guys look great! How much was the poolside reception? I don't know if I should do that or have the semi private and then do poolside dancing or the seagrape!! The poolside reception was $55/pp and that covers the buffet and open bar. It sounds like alot, but if you think about what you would spend for that back home it doesn't even come close. For us, it was totally worth it! Especially after I had dinner one night in Mammee Bay and found it to be less than fantastic.

Quote: Originally Posted by TA Maureen Congratulations! You were a beautiful bride! I am so glad everything went so well. Lee's was supposed to give one of your family members a cell phone free of charge so that they could contact someone at Lee's at any time. I will have to let Norma know that this did not happen. That stinks about the Air Jamaica flights and being stuck at HI. Just out of curiosity were they flying to PHL? Tai Flora does do a great job with flowers so I am glad that worked out after the fiasco you went through! Maureen- They did give them a cell phone but I think there was some miscommunication about it. The phone required a $25 setup fee to turn on. My parents decided not to use it in case they would be charged. I had friends leaving on Saturday with Lee's so my dad just went to the lobby at that time and spoke with the driver. All worked out. No, the Air jamaica flight was into JFK. It was awful! The way they treat their customers is a shame! There was no advance notice that the flight was cancelled so over 200 people were stuck in MBJ. My husband and I felt awful for our guests!

Quote: Originally Posted by Flasong OMG I love his face too! That is priceless. Looks and sounds like you had an amazing time! I have a question about your ttd session at Dunns River Falls..was there alot of peopel there when you went? Did you feel safe going there on your own as opposed to going with a travel company? My friend/photographer is traveling with us and is very hesitant about us doing a ttd dress offsite being that we are tourists and he will have expensive travel equipment with him. We went to Dunn's on Monday morning at 9 am. There weren't that many people when we started b/c there weren't any cruise ships docked. We spent 2 hrs there and closer to the end there were more people. They tend to stay on one side of the falls b/c the rocks are less slippery, so we stayed to the other side. I would just take another person with you to stay with the equipment. The photoshop manager went with us and kept our bag and the equipment so we wouldn't have to use a locker. It worked out fine. No one bothered us. Several people tried to sell us stuff but we just said "no thanks" and moved on. People see you are in your wedding attire so they try to stay out of the pics. I would say go and do it.. you will regret it if you don't. It is literally right down the road from the ROR, less than a 10 min taxi ride.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes! We are back! We had a great time! My review is posted with a few pics under the review section.

I LOVE the minister's face in the previous pic! LOL!

http://i576.photobucket.com/albums/s...e/LSC_5084.jpg

Alright... it's a long one! Hope this can help someone the way so many of you have helped me! FLIGHTS/TRAVEL We used TA Maureen for our travel. She was very helpful with answering questions about the resort since she had been married there herself. She sent cute little travel bags with all of our flight info. Two of my guests really loved them! It was a great way to keep everything organized. We flew American Airlines out of Savannah, Ga and connected in Miami. No issues in or out of Jamaica. One bit of advice for the customs form going into Jamaica: On the US flights, they will tell you that only one head of household needs to fill out the second side of the customs form per family. This is true for arrival into the US, but in Jamaica they want each individual to fill it out. Save yourself the time and fill it out before you arrive. We used the transfers provided by our travel company, Jamaica Tours Limited. They went fine and only made one other hotel stop before we got off. We did stop for the rest room and a snack. Maureen set up private transfers for my family through Lee’s Tours. They were a little hard to get in contact with to confirm the return time as they are not on the resort all the time like the other tour companies. I had prepaid, so it was no big deal. They arrived at the right time. Some of our family flew Air Jamaica… AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS!!! Their return flight was suddenly cancelled and they sat at the airport for hours. They were finally offered rooms at a bug infested holiday inn. Their flight left 12 hours later at 2 am! They had booked this on their own and did not use Maureen, she had suggested that we not use them. ROR We were greeted with rum punch and check in was smooth. We were the only ones to arrive at that time so it was quick. The bell hop that took us to our room was awesome! He explained everything around the resort and remembered our names when he saw us days later. Some of the bell hops that helped our families were not so helpful. We booked an ocean view suite…. AMAZING!!! Room 1361… PERFECT! It is on the corner so you see all of the resort, the pool, and of course the ocean. The room overlooks the beach ceremony site so we got to see some weddings before ours. If you can, get this room!!! There are ants in all of the rooms, but we have been to the Caribbean before so it really didn’t bother us. The only issue we had with the room was the fridge. We had to ask 3 different times for it to be fixed. Other than that, it was great. Leaving a dollar or two did get a better cleaning job from the housekeeper. FOOD I thought the food was okay. Before I give my opinions I have to say that I was completely spoiled last year when I stayed at the all-inclusive Excellence Riviera Maya. So I think I was unconsciously comparing the food to that place. St Ann’s buffet is the best bet b/c there is a greater variety. Breakfast was always good… I LOVED the potato croquettes and the cinnamon French toast! They also have yummy freshly squeezed fruit juices and smoothies. Mammee Bay wasn’t so great, I am guessing we just ate there on an off night since everyone else has given it good reviews. Tushima, the Japanese place, was our favorite. Who would have thought sushi in Jamaica would be so good! Our waiter even hooked us up with a to-go plate!! Yum! You can skip Sir Richard’s … salty and not good. The 3 of us that ate the crab bisque all paid for it the next day…. :x! I was a little disappointed by the lack of variety in the Jamaican food. I did not see any oxtail the entire time I was there. The curry goat was very fatty. Most of the meats were really fatty in the plantation. I am funny about meats so if its too fatty, its not good. The drinks were good. The French Kiss and Dirty Banana seemed to be the faves among my guests. ENTERTAINMENT The shows were ok. The best parts seemed to be the contests they held among the guests before the shows started. Our best man and his girlfriend won the Ideal Couple contest…. HILARIOUS! We have them on videotape! My husband also won a contest the last night we were there!  I was surprised by some of the dancing during the shows. Some of the moves were pretty sexual, which did not bother me, but there were some families in the audience. The entertainers work really hard and they are there from sun up to sun down! They were really friendly and always made you feel welcome. RENOVA SPA I had a polish change done the day before my wedding. I can’t remember the lady’s name but she did a great job. I got a French manicure and I have never had one last so long. It just started chipping today… a week after! I got a chance to meet AnnaC from this forum in the spa. It was nice to actually meet someone from the forum. The day of the wedding my mom, my MOH and myself all got our hair done. Rose did all 3 of us. She did a great job on my mom’s hair… it still looked perfect the next day after she slept on it. My MOH was not so happy with her hair. Rose took a little liberty with the style and my MOH was not a fan. I thought it looked fine. It was a very humid day so my MOH’s curls were droopy before the ceremony. My sister touched them up. My hair came out ok, I had the same problem with the curls. If I had to do it over I would have done my own hair and had my sister do my MOH’s. AnnaC’s husband was in their getting his mani/pedi so I got to meet him too. He was so relaxed… I was sooo nervous! NIKKI – WEDDING COORDINATOR We worked with Nikki for our wedding. The day after we arrived we went to the front desk to see if Chandlyn was available. They gave us a time to return and we met with Nikki. The meeting took less than 20 mins and we planned everything. We bought a sand ceremony, fans, cake topper, table number cards, reception place cards, and a guestbook. Nikki took care of everything. Since I had my fiasco with Bittersweet and did not have any flowers, we used Tai Flower. They were perfect! The flowers matched my MOH’s dress better than what the Bittersweet ones would have! Everything happens for a reason!  I got a bridal bouquet, MOH bouquet, 4 bouts, 2 corsages, a hair flower and upgraded the ceremony décor. We upgraded the ceremony chairs to white for $5/each and got the aisle runner for $45. All well worth it! I am glad AnnaC got to use the chairs as well. They look so much better in pics! WELCOME DINNER The night before the wedding we did a welcome dinner in St Ann’s . Our families had not met each other so we wanted to introduce everyone. Nikki had them set up some tables for us. We handed out our OOT bags here. We also decided not to use the free wedding cake so instead we asked if we could use it as a birthday cake since we had 5 friends with birthdays around our wedding date. It was no problem! They gave us a yummy guava cake. It was different but good!  We were so loud singing happy birthday! LOL! A lot of the people in that room helped us sing. It was great! WEDDING CEREMONY I have a friend that is an awesome photographer so she took pics of us getting ready and also of the guys arriving to the ceremony site. Nikki came to the room at a little before 2 pm. She forgot the hair flower so had to run back down to get it so it started our ceremony a little late. No problem! It gave me a little extra time and gave my husband a little more time to sweat! Since my room overlooked the ceremony site we got to watch set up and saw when my husband arrived. Nikki and her staff did an amazing job! Everything was set up just right with the fans placed on the chairs. We gave her a CD with the 3 songs we wanted for the MOH and best man, my song, and then the end of the ceremony song. Each song was played at just the right time. I was so nervous about my husband seeing me since he kept turning towards the direction I was walking in! Nikki called her staff on her cell to tell him to turn the other way and one of my friends yelled at him to make sure he didn’t peek! LOL! The weather for that day had been overcast in the morning but the sun came out just in time for our ceremony! Everything was perfect! The best feeling is when I stepped on that aisle runner and my husband and I made eye contact for the first time! What an amazing feeling! I just stared at him the whole time I walked. My nerves were gone once I saw him. My daddy helped me too by talking to me the entire walk from the pool to the aisle runner. The ceremony was great! We had Sheldon and had given him a script with the vows that we wanted. The resort vows are 5 mins long and seemed so quick for all the anticipation leading up to the wedding. I actually used bits and pieces from some of the girls on this forum! Sheldon did a great job and he was really friendly. We did a hand ceremony and a sand ceremony. He cued us through certain things and added some nice parts to the vows. We did have a religious ceremony. After the ceremony we took photos on the beach. The sky started to turn overcast so we took a few and then decided to try later for sunset pics. We used the Photoshop and had originally booked Michael. He had an out of town emergency so we got Lincoln instead. He did a great job! I think my group frustrated him! There were over 40 of us and it was hard to direct everyone with it being so hot and the kids started getting grouchy. I am glad we got him and we saved money! They compensated us with some free pics on our disc since we had booked Michael and he wasn’t available. Karen, the manager of the photoshop was awesome. She was really friendly and guided us through what we needed and didn’t really need. On Monday after the wedding we did a shoot at Dunn’s River Falls. She drove us there in her own car so we wouldn’t have to waste money on a taxi. She also took us to a convenience store to save money on some things we needed to buy. We were really impressed with the photoshop. O’Neill is also great. He walks around at night and takes shots in the resort that you can later purchase. He has a great eye and we got a great sunset pic. The pics are a little pricey for the candid shots… but worth it! POOLSIDE RECEPTION The poolside reception was the BEST DECISION we made!!!! We took some shots with Lincoln at 6 pm and then headed to the reception. They did a great job setting it up. They moved my fans and centerpieces to the tables for décor. The lights in the pool also added to the ambience. We had great waiters and 3 bartenders since we had 41 people at our reception. It was buffet style and the food was some of the best we had during our stay. They provided plenty and most people had 2 or 3 plates. Everyone raved about the sausage which I unfortunately didn’t try. The ribs were amazing! And the cinnamon corn on the cob was yummy! I did not hear one complaint about the food! We used our IPOD for the music and rented the DJ equipment for $90/hr (much better than the $150/hr for a DJ). We made playlists for dinner and dancing and my husband’s cousin was MC. The equipment included a microphone. We got a cake from Sheila’s Bakery. It was YUMMY!!!!!! We got the vanilla with the strawberry filling. The cake was huge! We ended up giving a lot to the wait staff at the end of the night. Everyone had a great time! Me and my girlfriends ended up dancing on the poolside swim up bar and on the little round tabletops in the pool. We had a great time! The waiters poured shots in our mouths and gave us bottles to give each other shots. The wait staff definitely got some entertainment from us! LOL! We had such a good time and it went by so fast! The wait staff was great and helped us carry our things back to our room. They hooked us up with some extra bottles of champagne to take to our room. They told us we were the first wedding party to dance on the swim up bar and gave our reception an “11†out of “10â€. Lincoln came back to the ceremony for an hour to take pics of the cake cutting and some dancing shots. My friend took pics the rest of the time. EXCURSIONS We were so busy hanging out with all of our guests that we really didn’t have time to leave the resort. We did go to Margaritaville on Saturday night. We had a great time. A bunch of us piled into the free shuttle. Admission is free for ladies on Saturday and $15 for the men. The music was great and I definitely sweated my hair out! LOL! AnnaC’s mom went with us… I can’t believe how young her mom looks! She was fun! We did Dunn’s River falls on Monday but just for pics. It was hard maneuvering on those rocks in my dress! But we got some awesome pics! Several of our guests went snorkeling, rode the jet skis, went shopping in town, etc. Everyone had a great time. You can haggle with any price. NEVER settle for the first price offered. Vendors do set up in the lobby every other day so you don’t need to spend money if you don’t want to pay for a taxi. Overall we had a great experience. It was fun to be on vacation with both of our families and all of our friends. I was sad when everyone left! Our wedding day couldn’t have been more perfect… I have NO complaints! Let me know if you have a any questions!

I forgot to mention... just keep every single correspondence attempt that you make and any emails. You will need them if you have to take some action against her. Hopefully you won't.

Hey blackrose222- I updated my experience under the flowers thread. You should read it. I am sorry that you are in this situation too. I have filed a complaint with the BBB so hopefully it will help to bring a better outcome for you. If it makes you feel better, the real flowers I got last minute at the resort were amazing! I forgot all about Bittersweet when I was there!

Hey Ladies! I am back and married! Of course I didn't have the Bittersweet flowers, but everything happens for a reason! The flowers from Tai Flower were amazing! They matched my MOH's dress better than what the Bittersweet ones would have! I still ordered all of the items I originally wanted and was very pleased! I returned home to a UPS note on my door saying they attempted to deliver the Bittersweet package. It had a note that COD was due in the amount of $22.26. Is this chick crazy! I had paid her in full! Whatever! That package can rot at UPS until they send it back to her. I am not going to pick it up b/c I will not be responsible for that COD or the return postage. I recieved the refund of the final payment from my credit card company. I filed a complaint with the BBB to get my down payment back. I will keep u updated!!!

Hi Ladies!! I am off to ROR in the morning! I just wanted to thank everyone for answering my questions and giving me such great ideas! I could not have done my OOT bags without you girls! I will have a full review with pics as soon as I can! Happy planning!

FINAL UPDATE: NO FLOWERS!!!! I leave early tomorrow morning and have NOTHING for the wedding to take with me. Thank God for the florist at the resort! I will end up paying a whole lot more, but at least I have a backup. Hopefully my credit card will receive a refund before I return from Jamaica! If not... it's going to get ugly. FUTURE BRIDES: Please save yourself the stress and aggravation.... do NOT use Bittersweet.

Okay so here's the update. I attempted to call her yesterday and got the voicemail. I left a message stating I wanted a refund b/c obviously she did not send the flowers as agreed. I FINALLY got an email response back stating she did ship the flowers 3 day shipping and spent $99. Am I supposed to care that she had to spend that much money b/c she waited til the last minute She said she hadn't responded t all of my emails b/c she just hasn't been around to check her email. WHATEVER! What kind of business doesn't check their email daily? So she did send the tracking number... FINALLY! When I checked it, it showed that she hadn't sent the flowers out until the 10th of Sept. In her previous email she stated she would send them out on Sept 4th! Almost a week later!!! In her email she said she GUESSED they would arrive on Monday, which is the day before I leave!! WTF! I sent her an email saying that I had saved all of our previous correspondence and that if she had no intentions of mailing the package on the 4th and sending me tracking info then she shouldn't have said she was going to do it. Common business practice is to not promise something unless you are going to do it! I let her know that this caused me unnecessary stress and that she needs to get her business together. Even if I do get the flowers on Monday this has left a BITTER taste in my mouth. If I had to do it all over again, I would have went with someone else and lied about my wedding date to ensure that the flowers arrived well before my wedding. I ordered in May and now I MIGHT receive them the day before I leave for Jamaica. Maureen- you are right, it is good that everyone sees her responses. It definitely opened my eyes considering she was on here instead of emailing me an approval pic of my flowers! Blackrose- you should be okay since you have a few months to go before your ceremony. Just make sure she doesn't wait until March to send them to you! Thanks to everyone for their well wishes! I will let you know if I actually receive them on Monday!

Great idea! I think that would definitely save time on searching and get brides the info they want more efficiently! Quote: Originally Posted by ashly87 I wish there was a Riu planning thread (I know there's one that lists wedding dates and important links to info such as reception info., etc.) but the Jamaica forum has soooo many Riu threads (I'm not getting married @ Riu and it's no big deal to pass through the Riu threads, but there are also a lot of threads that don't have it in the title so I click on it just to discover its yet another Riu thread) I think it'd be helpful to have a Riu section in the Jamaica forum where people can post all of their questions, discussions, etc. like how there is the "Jamaican Vendors" and "Accomodations and sites" section. that way people getting married there can easily find and post their info and people not getting married there don't have to go through tons of Riu threads =)

Dr BrainFreeze - Thanks for your post! I do feel a little better knowing that I do have the backup of Tai Flora at the ROR... it just stinks that the flowers most likely won't be what I really want b/c I know that they may not be available last minute and they will be super expensive! Glamourina - I was following your thread closely and I just had a sinking feeling in my stomach that my situation was not going to turn out well. It seems that we are not the only ones that have been shafted by her. I am glad you finally got your money back! I saw your review and the pics... your flowers turned out gorgeous anyway! AnnR- It doesn't seem fair that Bittersweet is allowed to be on here after screwing over several brides here on the forum. She shouldn't get any extra exposure! To update everyone I sent an email this morning demanding a full refund. Another day has gone by and no response to my NUMEROUS attempts at contacting her and no flowers. I plan to blow her phone up today until she finally answers and gives me the refund. I have never had such a bad experience and I hope that no one else has to go through this. Thanks to everyone for all of your positive wishes!

Hey ladies! Thanks for all of your posts! Well another day has gone by and no response to email and NO flowers. Yesterday I sent another email and told her how unprofessional her company is with their broken promises. No response to that either. It's looking like I won't have the flowers b/c they were obviously not shipped as promised. I am in the process of picking out some backups for when I get to the resort. Thank goodness I am so busy with other last minute stuff that I am really just over this! I hope that I have been able to help other brides avoid this disaster! Happy plannning to you all!

Quote: Originally Posted by barrow I need to chime in on this. I am already married a whole month. My wedding was in August and I ordered my stuff from Bitter sweet since May. ofcourse the chic was quick to reply and get my cash, but now that she did not follow through on any of the items i ordered, I asked for my deposit back. She has been giving me the run around. Her e-mail sends an auto-reply that she is out of office. I am done. I am reporting her to the BBB of canada. I am just trying to figure out her zip code. I should have know something was no good when a website does not have an address to the company or a phone number. I am so angry. She was the worst vendor I delt with. Barrow- Did you ever get in touch with Bittersweet or get your money back?