Any Gran Bahia Principe Runaway Bay Brides out there?

[missmeliss]

Congrats Missy! Thanks for your feedback. I know I would be worried about everything getting setup before my ceremony.  I love your bridesmaids dresses great colours!

[Cassierose]

Hey Guys!!

 

I've been home for a couple weeks now and life has been hectic. I haven't had time to catch up on all of the thread i've missed but i have read a couple pages and i thought i'd help answer this question about the gazebo....

 

We rented the gazebo from 845-1045, minus the dj and the bartender. We used an ipod and THANK GOD my sister's boyfriend brought a docking station, because Chandlyn informed me once we got there that they did not have an ipod set up for us unless we used the dj. THIS WAS NOT WHAT HER EMAIL SAID TWO MONTHS EARLIER. But like i said, we luckily had a docking station with us anyways and the sound was AMAZING!  It was not windy at night and the music was definitely loud enough and sounded great. i am SO GLAD i didn't waste my money on the dj- its not worth it. But let me back up a little bit...

 

We ate at the Grill and the food was great. we finished dinner and got down to the gazebo and waited for the lights to turn on. And waited.And waited. after about 15 mins I went myself to the lobby to ask them to turn the lights on. Then i went back to the beach and waited some more. Someone from the hotel staff finally decided to turn the lights at almost 9:30. We were livid. 2 hours is not a lot of time as it is-especially when you're paying hundreds of dollars. Once the lights were turned on we had an awesome dance party. I assumed they would compensate us for the lost time. Since we didn't have the dj i couldn't see why we couldn't have the 45mins that we were shorted. But nope. At exactly 10:45 the lights were turned off. Thankfully, my sister's boyfriend came through for us again. He had seen how the guy had turned on the lights from the electical box behind the gazebo at the start,so Mike went back there and flipped the switch. We danced for a couple hours longer and no one even noticed

 

Before the ceremony i had been worried about not having the bartender at the gazebo. We really couldn't afford the extra cost, but i didn't really want ppl wandering off to the pool bar all night long. So the night of the ceremony (actually, while we were waiting for the gazebo lights to come on) we sweet talked the pool bar servers and they were going to let us take a couple trays of drinks down to the gazebo. One of the girls had been eye-ing up my mom's hat for the past couple days and my mom on a whim gave it to her right there. She was so excited about it that they ended up mixing up a couple huge jugs of rum punch, and another kind of punch and set us up with cups and ice and every thing. So in the end we had our own self-service bar in the gazebo after all!

 

All in all, our stay was incredible. The resort is beautiful and i found the rooms and the pool to be very clean. The restaurants and buffet are great. I definitely suggest having breakfast in the smaller buffet. Its never as busy as the big one. When u get your reso for the japanese restaurant ask for a Teppanyaki reservation. It was hands down our favorite. Our least favorite restaurant was the Dolce Vita. My maid of honor and i got our hair done at the salon and the girls there are awesome. Im a hair stylist myself, and they did a way better job than i could have down. My hair was beautiful.

 

Anyhow, thats all i can think of for now......oh! about the birth certificates- we had sent her un-notarized short form copies a couple months prior. I brought the actual documents with us to show Chandlyn ( un-notarized as well obviously) and she didn't even glance at them. Said it wasn't a big deal. So all that stress about not having the right documents was completely unnecessary. That brings me to another thought. I expected to see Chandlyn again after the wedding day, just to tie everything up. She didn't contact us again at all. We were there for 4 days after the wedding and i finally went looking for her just before we left. Good thing i did, because she wasn't even sure if she had our address to send us our marriage certificate. So, to sum things up- our stay and the wedding was amazing. I would for sure go back to the resort. There were a few small glitches which were extremely annoying at the time, but they worked themselves out.

 

I'll try to check this site more often if you all have any questions...And i'll see if i can load up some pictures as soon as i get them back from my photographer

Originally Posted by FleetMac bride 

Katelynn,  your pics are stunning I am having a friend take mine and am a little worried. The photograher's seem to be so much money so I hope I get some good ones yours were great love the one oof you two walking down the beach so pretty. Your hair was really nice also did you get it done at the spa and how long did it take? I love the orchids in your bouquet is that what they look like tinted cuz I was also going to get a white bouquet and get some of the orchids tinted turquiose.

 

Acw- Great question I would like to know as well Katelynn did they make you leave after the two hours? Was it windy at night in the gazebo I am bringing luminaires to add some ambience and was hoping I woud be able to use them.

 

[Cassierose]

Oh i just remembered something else!

 

half our party was in one wing and the other half was in the new wing exactly on the other side of the resort. The place is huge. I wished i had walky-talkys. If you have a large group, totally look into bringing some cheap ones.

[Cassierose]

for some reason the site is holding on to my first post....so my comments are sort of out of order here...

[acw271011]

Congrats Missy and welcome back. Wow - your dress is gorgeous!!!  You look great, both of you and you have my colours!!!! LOL Now I know how mine will look and my FI is wearing almost the same colour too. Your flowers are beautiful - did you use Tai??

 

Thanks for all the little tips. All good to know. We have at least 2 other weddings same day as us, one immediately before at 1 and one immediately after at 4 or 430. Our's is 2:30 so I can see time being an issue at some point. I haven't been overly finicky about gazebo decorations, but I definitely want them to put sashes on the chairs since I'm paying for them. And yes - we have a cake topper with flowers intertwined so now I know to get them not to put it on too early. We're November so I'm not sure the temps will be as bad as April/May. And definitely I'll get someone in charge now of getting stuff back for us.

 

Glad you had a wonderful day. Your pics are great. Can't wait to see the pros.

 

Originally Posted by missy&eric2011 

Hello Ladies...

 

We sadly, we are back...Missing Jamaica terribly and feeling lost without my previous purpose of planning a wedding!  We stayed for 12 amazing days and everyday was more beautiful than the next!  During our stay, I was able to meet a fun and absolutely beautiful fellow BDW bride, Kate who's wedding party was a boisterous as ours! hahaha!

 

First off...the wedding was beautiful...the planning with Chandlyn went smooth and easy and I felt very worry free!  Just like all the other ladies...the ceremony was beautiful and overall, I have to say it was near perfect!  Having gone through it though...there are a few tips that I have to give you all that I feel would have been helpful to know in advance...Nothing horrible...just good to know...nothing I had to deal with...but made my FI (now DH ) a bit frantic!

 

1.  Check with the coordinator regarding any wedding that may be before or after yours...there was one other wedding the same day 2 hours before ours and they ran over their time and the coordinators were not down there to usher them out...so our wedding party kindly asked them to leave at 2:50...the BM's and I were already on our way to the gazebo and none of our decorations were set up!!  When we arrived at the gazebo path, I was told only 3 chair sashes were on the chairs and she had to tie 25 more yet; I didn't see it but I guess she was tying up the gazebo sashes as we were walking down the aisle.  This also meant that the music that I had planned to have playing while guests were being seated, never got played. (again...only something that DH and I knew didn't happen)

 

2.  Have someone that knows how to run your Ipod or whatever you are playing your music from.  The DJ didn't know how to operate our Ipod touch, nor did they have the cord to hook it up to the sound system.  One of our GM's daughter's ended up operating it.

 

3. Bring a microphone cover for your video camera if you are filming it...a friend of our taped the ceremony and did a beautiful job - only to find out you can't hear a word due to the wind!  Going to have to find someone that knows a bit about sound editing! 

 

4.  You may book your restaurant and have it confirmed, but that may be changed at the last minute due to closures.  We were confirmed for the Italian, but it was closed the night of our wedding - we had it in the Grill on the elevated area at the center of the restaurant (absolutely awesome setting - felt very important!  hahaha!) and it was still great!  Get the cheesecake - it was awesome! 

 

5.  If you have a cake topper and it is hot and humid...do not put it on your cake until you are ready to take the pictures and cut it....our cake appeared to be melting (and our topper was not heavy at all!) and the topper fell off, taking some of the cake with it!  (was actually slightly funny!) They quickly came to the rescue and turned that part to the back, re-arranged the flowers and topper and you couldn't tell one bit!

 

6.  Be sure to check all you stuff that you give them when you get it back (if you want it back)...initially, they only gave us back half of our chair sashes and we spent the next few days trying to locate the rest of them (normally it wouldn't have been a big deal - but we were short 30 of them and I plan to use them at our AHR next month!)  Thankfully we did get them though...the only thing that we never found was the base of our cake topper, which I'm sure went in the garbage with the frosting chunk that it landslide-ed off our cake with!  hahaha!  No big deal!

 

7.  I emailed 3 times requesting that we all be grouped together...we were no-where near eachother at all!  We were in the center in building 13...and everyone else was in every other direction...our room by far was the best view and greatest location...you had to walk a mile to get to everyone else's room until we learned the routes to cut across the pool.  It honestly wasn't too bad though...being as we all met either at a restaurant, the pool, the bar, etc...it really didn't affect us at all...none of us spent much time in our rooms anyways!

 

 

So these are just some things that I thought would be worth mentioning - again, not at all issues, just more like tips...it was nothing that was by any means a huge deal, nor did it in anyway affect our stay; we are already planning an anniversary trip back!  The resort is beautiful beyond words, the people are amazing and absolutely wonderful, and the wedding was one of my dreams...Just being detail oriented and all, these were things that would have been helpful to me. 

 

 

Sorry...didn't mean to sound like a depressing post?!  That wasn't my intention...Hopefully a few pics will help?!  lol!  Just some from our guests...have yet to see an pro ones!!!  GRRRR!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[acw271011]

that's cool. it means I'll get to do like a few other brides here have been able to do and creep your wedding!!  lol it just means I'll take a little trip down and watch. didn't want to scare you...
 

Originally Posted by welshmother 

Hi, we are getting married at midday on the 18th.  We were going for 11am but opted for midday instead.  We arrive on the 15th (8 of us in total) we wanted the wedding quite quickly after arriving so we can then relax, plus I don't have to worry about not fitting into my dress by the end!!  We fly from Gatwick on the 15th at 9.30am I think it is.

 

We got engaged at the Bahia 2 years ago, it is magical, the staff etc are amazing.  There are a few places in the UK that do the sand ceremony kits so I may look into it x
 

 

 

[missy&eric2011]

Thank you so much ladies!  I appreciate all you wonderful comments!  I want to do it all again!!!

 

 

Katelynn...It was so great to meet you and I'm sure we have a picture or 10 of you and I together that will surface from someone at some point!  But I definitely didn't see a group as crazy as either of ours the following week we were there either!  haha!  Us northern-ers know how to party it up!  We jumped in the pool with our clothes on (dresses we wore to the rehearsal) the Friday night before the wedding and were told we were being too loud...so we were all pretending to be silent sharks as I whispered the JAWS theme...yeah...we were way weird!  ha!   Gotta love the rum!!

 

 

Okay...down to serious stuff!    I am hoping that I remember everyone's questions...

 

 

I did have my hair done at the spa...I also did a trial 2 days before the wedding...I brought in a picture and they were amazing at creating it on me...they also have a magazine in the salon with a bunch of styles too that you can pick from.  My mom, sister and 2 other bridesmaids had their hair done there as well, and it turned out beautiful on all of them...and they all went off of pictures from the magazine.

 

 

The flowers that we all have are actually fake...we brought them all along with us and I got stopped a few times going through the airport and they told me I couldn't bring them!  haha!    But we did order gazebo arrangements and cake flowers from Jan's...I got everything set up with them as to what I wanted and got a quote...I gave the quote to Chandlyn, paid her, and she took care of the rest - she also gave me a receipt after I paid her the money.

 

 

Our wedding was at 3:00 and the previous wedding was at 1:00...the coordinators stated that they were Jamaican and that was why it took so long (Jamaican time - lol!)  But I think our ceremony didn't start until closer to 3:30 and we were just getting done (after doing some pics, toasts and first dances) at close to 5:15...so they didn't take all that much longer really than ours...But I would think if the coordinators are on top of hustling people out of there, it wouldn't be so tight - especially if there's only an 1.5 hour time frame between weddings.  It doesn't sound like any previous brides ran into this issue...

 

 

We had 2 photographers and one of our GM brough walkie-talkies...those were put to good use (though it was an after-thought when things were looking to be delayed) our GM brought one to the photographer with me and one to the photographer down by the gazebo...we could have used them a little earlier though!  hahaa! 

[Dutchie600]

Missy OMG!! GORGEOUS!

 

Ok Two Questions for you ( I know Im sorry)

I LOVE your wedding colours and Flowers, I need to know where you got those Gorgeous flowers from.

and Where did you get those Bridesmaid Dresses?? I love them!!

 

Also to Everyone. Im Currently Looking into buying my wedding Dress.. My First try on will be this weekend. Its apparently a super depressing experience if you have some serious curves like me. I fell involve with this designer and I wanted everyone input/ favourites... Im not really familiar with textures of dresses as of yet.

 

heres the website.

 

http://www.morilee.com/bridals/julietta

 

Thanks!!

 

Jenn

[Dutchie600]

Annnnnd that was I fell IN LOVE .. but my mac decided to spell something different for me.. my bad

[JayKay]

Those are all beautiful dresses!!  I thought I knew what I wanted when I went to try on dresses, and like you I have serious curves.  I picked a dress that was totally opposite from what I thought I wanted!!  Just try on as many as you can in different styles, and fabrics so you know what looks good and what you like!  Good luck!
 

Originally Posted by Dutchie600 

Missy OMG!! GORGEOUS!

 

Ok Two Questions for you ( I know Im sorry)

I LOVE your wedding colours and Flowers, I need to know where you got those Gorgeous flowers from.

and Where did you get those Bridesmaid Dresses?? I love them!!

 

Also to Everyone. Im Currently Looking into buying my wedding Dress.. My First try on will be this weekend. Its apparently a super depressing experience if you have some serious curves like me. I fell involve with this designer and I wanted everyone input/ favourites... Im not really familiar with textures of dresses as of yet.

 

heres the website.

 

http://www.morilee.com/bridals/julietta

 

Thanks!!

 

Jenn