Iberostar Rose Hall Brides - Post all info/questions here!

[Angel & Sy]

Toni! I just finished looking at your pics, and I love it!! The ceremony site looks picture perfect, it's exactly what I had in mind for a beach wedding. Thanks for giving us a much better idea of the wedding set up! I have lots of questions, but I need to get things organized in my head and I don't want to bombard you! Here are a couple that I do have:

 

- Did you bring your own centerpieces? How about any other decoarations?

- Was the DJ worth the money? How many hours did you have a DJ for?

- Was Sandy very reliable with any request you had?

- How was the reception food?

 

That's all for now! Thanks again!

[irishfrog]

Philly Gal! Thanks so much for sending me the pics. Your wedding was beautiful and I'm so excited to be going there now!

 

Do you have a list of things you would vs wouldn't do again specific to the Iberostar? Just curious as I find these really helpful in the planning!

 

Contrats to all the other Iberostar brides to be! Can't wait to keep in touch and update each other on all the planning!

[bricupero]

Phillygal-

 

Wow, the information you are sharing is wonderful. I am planning a DW at Ibersotar Rose Hall for July 31st. Can you please send me the pics of your wedding/reception. Also, if you do not mind, can you send me the prices for renting out the steakhouse/DJ/and anything else you may find useful. brynnricupero@gmail.com

Thanks,

 

Brynn

[PhillyGal]

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!!

[dushantz]

Hi PhillyGal,

 

Thanks so much for your information on the Iberostar Rose Hall. I'm considering it as a choice for my DW. All your info is most helpful! Can you send me the link to your pics? dushantz@hotmail.com I'd love to see some genuine pictures of the location/wedding instead of all the pro pics on the website. Thanks in advance!

[Steph0601]

Hey PhillyGal,

Thanks so much for all the information!! Just a couple more quick questions - did you have any music playing during your reception dinner? Also, how much in advance did you start discussing details with the wedding coordinator? Was anything determined before you actually got to Jamaica?

[dushantz]

Thank you so much for sending pictures. Your ceremony looked lovely!

[PhillyGal]

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

[fungirl97]

PhillyGal -

 

I'm sure you are over sending pics but could you please send me a couple. I am still deciding where to have the wedding and this was one of my choices.

 

Thanks so much!

 

rlbell25@yahoo.com

[Angel & Sy]

My date is booked! May 26, 2010!!