Jennkn87

Quote: Originally Posted by ladyzr Well I bit the biullet and paid the fee (don't tell fiance or it will come out of my budget ). So glad so many of you have responded and provided your insights as well as experiences. Now on to the templates! But before I digress, I've changed my mind YET AGAIN our new wedding date (potentially) will be 7/14/14 which is a monday but now I'm trying to figure out the weather patterns for dominican republic. I don't really mind the heat but I don't want to be in the middle of a storm for the most special day of my life. Any tips on finding previous BDW brides based on their location and wedding date? I'm hoping and praying for no hurricanes! I would rather do it early summer, but am NOT a fan of being extremely hot and sweating a lot...so thats why I chose the fall! I'm still undecided on my date! I have changed it twice in the last week!!

Quote: Originally Posted by Moments That Matter Good advice, Raquelita0715 - it will go quickly, you'll see, Jennkn87. In the meantime, welcome to our forum community, and Congrats on your dw plan for next fall !!! Here's wishing you all the best with your plans, and that your weddings turn out as Perfectly as you envision - Cheers!!! team MTM THANKS FOR THE WARM WELCOME!!

I'm not even close to 150 yet and feel like it's going to take FOREVER! I need to just start posting on random threads! Lol

Quote: Originally Posted by RandL2015 I'm also only having a MOH and BM as the wedding party. No bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girl or ring bearer. I think my friends are relived NOT to be bridesmaids. What made you choose Jamaica and the Secrets chain?....Just in case I need to look elsewhere! I'm worrying myself a bit! LOL

Thanks guys! It DEF helps to hear peoples encouragement!!

I have NO idea about wedding dresses. I have helped a couple of my friends pick our their dresses but I did not pay attention to all of the fancy words they use for them. I guess I should have paid more attention! I am wanting to go with something simple, and lightweight since we'll be on the beach in the 80-90 degree wedding! I don't even know at this point if I would like something strapless or not..that would be even cooler, but I'm not a fan of trying to keep a strapless dress up! My next biggest decision is...I just recently started looking at "blush" colored dresses and am starting to fall in love with them. I'm all about UN-traditional!! My only problem is..I'm guessing these types of dresses can become pretty pricey at the bridal stores since it's not the "norm". I'm wanting to spend the least amount possible on my dress since I'll never be wearing it again and am hoping to be able to do a TTD shoot after the wedding. I'm thinking I'm going to wear a separate dress for our AHR a few weeks later, which also makes me think I REALLY need to budget on BOTH dresses. Hmmm....more confusion sets in!!

Quote: Originally Posted by RandL2015 I'm using Babs from Wright Travel Agency and she has been very informative and quick to respond back. Sometimes I wonder when does she sleep. Lol!! I'm a night owl, and I would send her an email, she would respond right back. Other brides have used her, and LOVE her. I am beginning to see why. I read A LOT of good reviews on her as well! Apparently Virgilia is their Jamaican specialist. She is the one who contacted me both times I sent my information into them. So far she's been great! I'm still in the early stages of planning though! Hopefully everything works out!

Quote: Originally Posted by jandl2013 Your most welcome Jennkn87! I'm happy to help as this site and other brides have helped me too! I've spent a lot of time on here just lurking and occasionally writing, but i'm trying to actually participate more. I booked through Virgilia, and she's great! I think my coworker went through Patty? I agree with you about this site most definitely. It has helped me the most, but I have used all of them to gain better insight into exactly what I wanted because I had no idea about my vision, my colors, my location...nothing! If you don't really have an idea of what you want then you will definitely get overwhelmed on here with the many many fabulous ideas!! LOL It was difficult, and also we changed our date/location because of home renovations that were done earlier this year. My wedding was pretty much completely planned for St. Lucia 9/27/13 and when we changed the date to May we realized that St. Lucia wasn't going to work for us. The airfare and travel arrangements were quite difficult for my family and friends considering everyone was coming from different countries. It was EXPENSIVE, and my family is way larger than my fh family. For those reasons, we had to start from scratch and we decided on Punta Cana because it was a bit more affordable for the crowd, and had more flights for the various people. It has finally all worked out, but it surely has been one serious roller coaster! So any advice I can give to any newer members...i'm happy to do so! The other advice I can give is try not to stress because planning a DW can be a bit more stressful than a stateside wedding at times. Relax, and be comfortable with your TA and know that everything will be OK. They are just not on US time so most places tend to move at a slower pace which can be frustrating... I'm SOO glad you said Virgilia!!! Thats who I have been in contact with! She seemed soo genuine the one time I have talked to her and the few times we've emailed! I just was worried because I read allll kinds of good reviews on a few of the others on here but nothing on V! That takes a huge load off my shoulders! I was hoping not to have to research any others! Did you feel she got you the best deal? I'm really hoping she gets back with me with GOOD NEWS on the pricing? Did you have any other travel agents give you price quotes to see if they were any different? I'm really afraid I will run into having to change destinations or even just resorts due to money...did this cause a big fuss anywhere for you? I can't imagine having to start from scratch with all of it!!

Quote: Originally Posted by jandl2013 Hi ladies! Congrats on the planning. This site can be overwhelming with SO MUCH wonderful information, but I would suggest using several sites to get a rounded set of ideas to help get your focus on exactly what you want. I used The Knot (Weddingwire.com and Weddingbee.com just to name a few) to get a few ideas and also they (The Knot) have an online timeline directly on the site that you can use that might be helpful in creating a binder manually. My other suggestion would definitely be to get a TA. I also used Wright Travel Agency, and we even used them for our site visit last month. Everything was great so I'm confident that once everyone is booked for our wedding, everything will turn out well. One of my coworkers also used them a year and a half ago and she and her family had great reviews. One other thing i'm going to suggest is that this site has a bunch of us brides that feed off of each other (in case you haven't noticed yet). What this means is the flow of ideas make it very easy to end up WAY over budget. Stick to your budget and your plans. Nothing wrong with getting great ideas, but you can't use them all...LOL! Just my two cents I thought I'd throw in there because that's been my experience so far. I LOVE this site so it's easy to get caught up with the DIY projects, dresses, weight loss, long long lists of ideas, trinkets, and favors and then you are way over your budget and your fiancé has a heart attack. Also, use this site to help keep you grounded with other brides since you might find that some of your family and friends might A) not like your plans initially so they give you hell or don't seem interested in your plans. Other brides are in your shoes so it's much easier to vent, chat, etc. on this site to keep the people around you sane regarding your wedding and early planning pains which may include many changes....including the fiancé! Good luck ladies, and happy planning! Thanks so much for your positive thoughts! You are SOOOO right about reading and loving too many ideas you see on here! I'm already worried about budget and I don't even have my date set in stone yet!! I'm glad to hear you used Wright Travel...which agent did you book through? The one I have been talking to seems to be very good, answers my emails in a timely manner...even late at night!...and is seemingly very knowledgeable about the area I chose. Hopefully this continues! I have registered with The Knot, and Weddingwire...but I always find myself coming back to this site the most!! Thanks again for the gracious words of encouragement!

I have not gotten far enough but to receive the package details. I am sort of confused on some things. My travel agent is working on getting me the rates and packages for October 2014. Does the resort give any incentives for booking a certain amount of rooms? I haven't seen anything about that yet...and am really hoping she can get me something like this. Did you guys book a block of rooms? How far in advance did you do this, and what is the cut off on how soon they have to have a deposit down? I really want to have all of my guests staying closer together but would like to let them have time to save for the trip as well. With the food options - I am hoping to stick with 30-35 guests....so we will be paying a little extra than what the packages include. I am trying to figure out how to do the dinner, as there will be one person there with a gluten allergy, as well as my fiancees father is EXTREMELY picky when it comes to food. That makes me really nervous to have to choose from the 2-3 types of food they sent me on the menus. Does anyone know what the buffet entails? I'm thinking that may be the easier route to go. Also....is it worth it to pay for a bonfire and dj for a "reception" when all of the guests will have all-inclusive packages and be able to drink on those? I'm really constricted on which decisions to make!

Quote: Originally Posted by Sehausle My mom is standing up with me so she will carry my bouqet during the ceremony and my fiances dad is standing with him so he will carry the rings. As far as speeches, we asked our dads to give a speech at our cocktail hour during the champagne toast. Whoever else wants to say a few words can during our reception because it's one long table (we have a smaller group of 21) so it will be quite intimate. We wrote our parents really nice personal hand-written letters and bought them each a little thank you (for one we took them to a nice brunch and to an event in our home-town Charlotte for the other we are taking them on an Tulum Ruins excursion while we are in Mexico). The only other gifts were for the grooms sister who hosted our legal magistrate ceremony ( we bought her a $100 visa giftcard) and my friend who hosted my bachelorette (I bought her a $50 bottle of very nice wine). We ended up saving from not doing a traditional bridal party (though that is not the reason I decided not to have one). In the end we will have everything special we could want without spending an arm and a leg! Your right, I was just talking to a friend today about how much it is going to save us, AND them not having a bridal party. I would love for my close friends to be there, which right now they will be. I do not want to expect people to pay the money, even more so for expensive dresses on top of other things. I'm more and more certain I made the right decision on not having a wedding party everyday! So much less DRAMA and STRESS! (HOPEFULLY!)

I'm not SET on blocking rooms, but I would like to have all of my guests staying at the resort close to each other, it sounds like The Grand is really large, and I really don't want to have to search for everyone and have everyone at separate ends of the resort, I'm hoping that I can figure out a way to do this without my guests having a deposit they have to make RIGHT AWAY! I am afraid that will push people away from coming. But if it get your better rates? It's a tossup.

I read MANY positive reviews on Wright Travel Agency, the maker of this website actually owns the company from what I've read. So I first contacted them, not really knowing anything about travel agents. It made me super nervous considering she is located in California and I'm in Ohio, seems I should be in contact with someone close that I can meet with in person, but I went for it anyways! The agent that contacted me I could not find reviews on here about. I'm not sure if she is newer with the company?....I researched her a bit before contacting her....(I'm a creeper like that )....She has an extensive background in the industry from what I read on LinkedIN, as well as other sites. I also found other brides wedding sites that she had helped coordinate, some I found really good savings from my research. I'm hoping it pans out well and I don't have to start over with someone new. She is originally from Italy, and I believe her husband may be from the Jamaica area. She seemed to know the resorts there and gave me a few to check out even though I had pretty much decided on one (She, however, REALLY approved of the one I was leaning towards as well) She wasn't trying to push me to pick a different one or anything. Now I'm just waiting to see what kind of deals she can get. I may contact a different one just to review the pricing and compare. But I have read NOTHING but awesome reviews on here about their agency!

Quote: Originally Posted by TrooDIVA Hi Jennkn87, We hired a planner to help with executing our ideas and to be the point of contact between the WC at IGRH. She has also been a great resource and sounding board. We are having everything on-site.Yes, the WC takes a long time to get back with you. I don't like the idea of waiting a month until the wedding day to plan everything. We've gotten a lot accomplished thus far. We are still working out the details for the ceremony and reception. Our biggest hurdle is the guest list. We both come from huge families, but want a small, intimate ceremony. We will have a welcome party, rehearsal dinner, and a couple of excursions for our guests. Lots more to do in what feels like so little time. I have decided on The Grand...(I hope at least)...I am waiting for the TA to get back with me with some pricing quotes for bookings. I am crossing my fingers it will work with the budget (we have yet to come up with ) I am getting more and more nervous the more I read. I've read that alot of places are raising their prices up to 10% for 2014...which may make or break the situation. I decided on Jamaica because it was the next place I was planning on traveling..being I've been to Mexico twice and Dominican once. But now I'm wondering which place is cheaper? I never really looked? Should I check out different pricing for different places? Or just stick with Jamaica, and maybe have to pick a different resort if The Grand raises prices and ends up being too much! EEEK...It's def stressing me out! It kills me how much the prices differ when you look at the hotel websites compared to the travel sites orbitz, travelocity, ect...Then I've seen other brides webpages...and through researching that time of the year and that resort..see that some TA's have came up with specials that save almost $800 dollars from what the websites say....It's confusing to me how it all works...I'm just PRAYING that she comes up with really good prices for me....I've spent sooo much time researching resorts thus far, I REALLY don't want to have to start all over again.....

Raquelita- I'm hoping that a year in advance will be enough for everyone to be able to save!...I don't really want to have a 2 year engagement...even though it would be better for everyones wallets! Consider yourself lucky that you are able to do a site visit! It's very stressful never having been to the resort we have I hope chosen! I would love to do that, but then again thats just THAT much more money! I'd rather save and stay longer for our honeymoon!!

I know..I have already thought about that. I don't know if I should tell the TA to wait to see if rate get better or not..plus..will the resort still hold a block of rooms then? Theres soo much that ties into it!

Ladyzr - I have purchased my binder, and have printed off the template from www.russellandhazel.com - it has like 57 pages to it. I haven't made it through all of them yet, but it seems it's going to help alot! I like your binder idea! I haven't done much with mine yet but just put it together. I'm assuming I'm going to have to buy a bigger one eventually!! If you find your link to yours that would be awesome! As for the plane tickets!! Damn straight it's REDIC how much it costs to fly somewhere. This is mainly why I chose to go out of the country instead of getting married in FL. It costs about the same amount to fly to Jamaica...so why not!?! I actually was just telling the fiancee that I received an email from tripadvisor a little bit ago that had a plane ticket price of $473, I didn't look into the details about it, but that is definitely the cheapest rate I've seen thus far!...so HOPEFULLY they will drop a little! That would be amazing! I'm waiting to hear back from my TA about pricing and a date so I can get the word out to everyone that is planning on going so they have almost a whole year to save and plan for the trip!! Once I have that part done I think I'll be able to breathe a little better!! You don't realize how much there is to do till you really start researching...I wanted a simple, cheaper wedding....Everyday I find something else I like! It's going to be really hard to stick with a budget by the time its all said and done!! Ahh!

Raquelita - I totally agree with you I always forget to follow the thread to find it! I'm sure there are other way to tag things persay, but I haven't figured out how yet!! I found that the more and more I read about the resorts the more and more I was unsure where I wanted to go....so I quit looking. I contacted the travel agent I'm hoping can get me the best rates and went by her opinions as well, she seemed to really like the resort I was leaning towards, and also gave me names of a couple of others that I might like as well. (she of course had been to all of them)...it's OVERWHELMING! I haven't had the budget talk with my parents yet. I'm really hoping I can keep it low considering we are going to also have an At home reception when we return! I want to keep it as low as possible for my family as well as his, not to mention US! I'm still waiting for pricing on the resort I have chosen! Eeeek! That definitely makes me nervous!!

Congrats!! We are also planning on choosing the grand for our wedding! May I ask why you hired your own wedding planner? Are you having your ceremony off site? I have read lots of reviews that the coordinator there takes forever to get back with you and you don't really get any planning done until a couple of months before your date... Which makes me really nervous... But everyone has said the weddings always turned out beautiful and had no problems. My TA also assured me she is great! Hopefully!! do you have any of your details set yet on what types of ceremony, reception, parties your going to have? I haven't gotten that far yet!

Having the parents speak is a really good idea! I hadn't thought about that! We have asked our closest friends to attend. I had already told them previously I was not having a bridal party per say. I am happy with them coming for the big day, no sense in having them spend the extra money, ect. To be "in" the wedding as well!

Thanks!

TrooDiva - Congrats! I am also going to go with The Grand ( I am almost 100% positive...it's such a hard decision!!) How did you end up making your mind up on a resort? I have read alot of threads on this site where the girls say the wedding coordinators are pretty lousy at communication until a month or two before your wedding! That scares me! I'll be freaking out! The travel agent I have contacted is a Jamaica specialist through this sites owner- Wright Travel agency. I have only spoken on the phone to her once, and have exchanged a couple of emails. She has gotten back with me promptly and seems to be genuine and knows her stuff about Jamaica! There is no charge to use her...so I said I'll try it!! Hopefully she works out! I am currently trying to decide if I really want to have our wedding in October or not. It's hurricane season, but I don't want to be standing there in the middle of July sweating to death! Ahh! There is sooo much stuff to plan and decide on! Which package are you planning on going with? Or have you decided on one yet?

Congrats! Good luck...the planning can get overwhelming! I decided on my location first. I have spent HOURS AND HOURS researching different resorts once I decided on Jamaica. I FINALLY narrowed it down to two or three with the help from reviews on here, trip advisor, and a travel agent who is a jamaican specialist. Now I have to book a date, which I am now going back and forth on! I can't seem to just make up my mind easily! This is a big stage in life!! There is soooo much information on this site and it seems these girls REALLY help people out when your going through the threads. The only bad thing is..prepare to spend HOURS looking at different threads and reading about everyones big day! It's hard not to get engulfed in all the stories! Again....GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR PLANNING!

Getting married in Jamaica.....But Congrats and good luck with all the planning! Hopefully everything goes smoothly for you!

MeganPhillips - How did you determine how you wanted to plan your reception? Are you having a bonfire on the beach or is this an option they give you? I have only gotten so far as to read through the package information a couple times. I want the gold star package, but will most likely have at least 30 people attend. I am at a loss for what to do after the ceremony. I kind of feel like maybe I should just do the cocktail hour then the reception that is included. But do I pay extra for a party? I don't want to spend a whole bunch of money afterwards when I'm planning on having everyone stay at the resort and will already have their all-inclusive packages. The resort will be getting double the money for drinks right? Ahh! confused!!