Wedding Review- May 1st, 2009 ROR

[jessicachantel]

I am back and married woohoo! I thought I would leave an honest review of the resort/wedding for all you planners out there. We planned this wedding quickly (in two months) after cancelling a big at home wedding because I am currently 7 1/2 months pregnant:)

 

Resort: Was gorgeous! It rained a couple days but never for very long. The one exception was our wedding day which I will talk about later.

The food was excellent. You are in great hands in this resort. I have travelled a lot and this was by far the best food. The customer service was good overall (the only problem I had was with the photoshop lady and a tour booking lady who do not technically work for the hotel so no complaints)

 

Now down to the wedding:

Meeting with the co-ordinators:

We met with the Chandlyn the wedding co-ordinator two days after we got there (she must have been busy because we went immediately there upon checking in but was not available until wednesday while our wedding was on friday) We are really laid back and didn't mind though. Once we got there she showed me what was included in the free package but never mentioned ANY upgrades. If I hadn't have read about them on here I would have never known. I upgraded my bouquet (it cost $150 I believe) and ordered two rose petal bags ($40 each) which seemed expensive but we had two flowergirls who would have been very disappointed if they had no petals. We also ordered the aisle runner for $45. We were told our reception would be at the steak house (again given no other option). My fiance said Mammee Bay? They said yes and everything was Irie. I was told my party was to be in my room fifteen minutes before the wedding and the guests and groom on the beach fifteen minutes before. We also gave them the ceremony we had written to give to the minister and told them about our ipod and let them know we had hired the photoshop for the wedding.

 

Meeting with the spa:

I had booked my hair appointment a month before but decided to check in the day we got there. They didn't have me in the system so I was relieved I did.

 

Meeting with photoshop: We also checked in with them when we arrived. We reconfirmed our package and made an appointment to view them the day after the wedding.

 

Day of the wedding: It was raining like mad when we woke up! We went to drop off our centrepieces with the co-ordinators who weren't there so we just left them in their office with a quick note explaining how to set them up. We then got the front desk to call them to ask about the backup in case it was still raining for the ceremony so we could let our guests know. They said Mammee Bay which we were fine with. I had made my hair appointment for 11:00 am which the spa ladies thought was too early for a 4:00 ceremony but I assured them it would be fine. I really wanted to relax and eat before the wedding. I was worried about the rain though so my wonderful fiance went to the front desk and asked if there was an umbrella I could use. One of the front desk men lent me his personal umbrella which was so kind!! Nikki did my hair perfectly which I was impressed with because we didn't do a trial and I just brought her a pic. I was out of there by 12:30.I then spent about half hour with the family and then me and my fiance went and had a liesurely lunch at the buffet. By then it was 2:00pm and time to go upto my room as my flowergirls and ringbearer were meeting me to get ready. It was around this time the sky decided to clear up and it was absolutely gorgeous! We were back to the ceremony at the beach:)I did my own makeup and got dressed while my sister in law did the two girls hair. My fiance also got ready in the room with us. At about 3:30 my fiance went downstairs with the other guests to get the music ready. I sent him with a spare copy of the ceremony just in case. At 3:45 the co-ordinator rung up that she was coming to get me. My dad and I, along with the two flowergirls and ringbearer were waiting. She showed up with my bouquet but not the boutounniere for the ringbearer or the flowergirl petals. When we got down there she brought the bags of petals, which were LITERALLY two Giant bags of petals in crappy plastic bags! We had thought they would be in little mesh bags or something for $40 dollars! They were like sandwhich bags lol. So just a warning, bring baskets or bags or something to put them in:) There was also so many petals 4 flower girls would have had enough to throw! Looking back I wonder why Chandlyn didn't let us know that one bag would probably have been enough....

 

Anyways that aside when we got there the co-ordinator was ushering us to start going but when I was looking I didn't see the photographer so I insisted we stop (not like you can do it over again). We had to wait a little bit but Michael showed up (this was a surprise as we didn't pay for the head photographer- he was just available). We then started the ceremony and all went smoothly. The only thing that was odd was the minister sounded like he was reading our ceremony for the first time but it was still beautiful. Immediately following this, we toasted and did pics with the family and us. We had an hour and forty five minutes of time but decided to save 15 minutes for the reception.

 

It was around this time that I asked my fiance about the minister not knowing the ceremony. He said that he came down and asked him and the co-ordinators had never given him the ceremony!! My fiance said the minister was quite peeved! I feel bad for the poor guy, but considering all this he did an excellent job. We really wanted to tip him but he was gone so fast and we didn't think the co-ordinators would actually give it to him.

 

After al of tis we had about an hour to kill so everyone just had drinks by the pool bar. At this point my mom went to go bring the cake topper from our room to the restaurant (It was really expensive so we were being extra careful with it) She brought it to Mammee Bay and was told there was no wedding there tonight so she tried to find the co-ordinators to sort things out. In the end, me and my fiance ended up having to walk all the way across the resort to the plantation to see if we were there (they didn't know) then get front desk to get the co-ordinators. When we finally found them she said she had said she had told us the steak house and we were like ya, Mammee Bay! and she said no the plantation! But I swear to you, she DID say Mammee Bay because I remember being like good, that is where I want it. The change in restaurant really wasn't a big deal with us, what really had us exasperated was that all of our guests including the photographer were told Mammee Bay so we had to go hunt them all down to tell them the "new" location.

At 6:30 we all arrived at the plantation (same menu as steakhouse) There were two other wedding partied there but we were all pretty separated and couldn't hear each other. The food came quite quickly (all fed within an hour). We had our own music via an ipod and stereo. The photographer said he would come around 8:00 for the cake cutting and first dance but we probably waited until 8:30 which was fine. This time however, it was someone different than Michael and the shots he got weren't great. I think we ended up picking out one or two out of maybe 35 taken. The free cake wasn't the greatest tasting which is weird because we ate all the different kinds of cake there and they were GREAT! It wasn't all that important to us anyways but if it is to you, you might want to upgrade to something other than the sponge cake.

 

After this, the hunny and I went for a walk on the beach while the rest of te guests continued the party by the entertainment.

 

All in all, I was pleased with how everything went. You just have to be laid back. My advice though is be well informed of your options before you go (maybe I am just used to people trying to upsell to me:) and have BACKUPS!

 

As for the photography, I thought the price was a little high at first and I am picky about photography (Who likes cheesy shots?) but I thought Michael did a fine job. I think there were about ten pics that took my breath away and many other good shots (We got 77 in total).

 

 

Another note: My parents tried to set up a surprise breakfast the next morning for us but were told only we could so in between the ceremony and reception we asked Chandlyn to set one up and she said no problem. We had no clue about cost or anything but my parents were prepared with over $100. The next morning promptly at 9:00 am we were brought a HUGE breakfast: Coffee, orange juice, two omelettes, bacon, two cheese plates, two meat plates, two salad plates, toast, a basket full of pastries. We were pleasantly surprised when we checked out and told it was complimentary:)

 

If you have any more questions for me, just let me know!

 

A pic from the day:

[Butterflyf369]

Thanks for the review. Definately some tips to keep in mind. Hope you will be posting some additional pics. You guys loked great and I loved your dress and shoes.

[michellepicksbrent]

Thank you for sharing your review! Congratulations

[~*Kathy*~]

Congrats and thanks for sharing your review! I love your dress!

[~*petals*~]

Nice review! Your dress is so pretty and flowy.

[Soon To Be Mrs. Gomez]

Congrats! Pretty dress!

[OROBride1008]

Congrats!! Thanks so much for your helpful review!!!

[kitty_kat_uk]

congratulations! thanks for your review.

[MarieSam]

Your dress was awesome!! I love that you wore such a vibrant color

[tylersgirl]

You dress is so pretty and your sandals look great with it Congrats!