Any Gran Bahia Principe Runaway Bay Brides out there?

[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!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

[MIssdonne]

Thank you for the post! BTW your flower it so beautyful!!!

[tamandrob]

Thanks for the helpful tips Missy and Congrats!!!

 

Does anyone know if you get quotes for flowers (BM, GM) directly through tia flora or do you tell Chandlyn what you would like in the forms and she gets quotes? I am a little confused about this.

Thanks

[katelynn]

Glad to hear that you are back and everything went well. I was thinking about you the day we were leaving (your wedding day) and I have to say the weather was the best that day. Your pictures so far are amazing too, you both look so happy!

 

It was awesome meeting you after my mother announced prob 10 times that she had found "my bride friend"! lol, our two groups were deffinately the craziest I saw all week. We are also planning a trip back and there are many people that want to come with us, I have to say I have no complaints from the week, it was sooo amazing! We are deffinately going through a post Jamaica funk now too as there were so many fun times and memories made that week.
 

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!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tekeya Thompson]

Who did u get ur flowers with?

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!!!  :)

 

 

 

 

 

[cupcake1382]

Your post was perfect!! Not depressing at all! I really enjoyed knowing the little minor things that will definitely help when we go. Your pics are great, cant wait to see pro ones!!

[sskelly]

Awesome pics Missy and Eric! I am glad you mentioned the idea about not having the wedding set up. I know there is a wedding the same day as ours at 1:00 and ours is at 3:00. Do you think that is enough time in between?

[JayKay]

Congrats!! Your pictures are beautiful!!  Did you get your hair done at the spa?
 

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!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BusyBee123]

Congrats on your beautiful wedding Missy!!! Your pics look fabulous and it definitely looks like you enjoyed your time there!

 

Thanks a bunch for all of the tips! Its great to hear all of the good things, but its nice to hear some of the things that could be worked on as well! I think all of us expect this perfect day, and although the day may very well work out beautifully in the end, this puts it in perspective.  

 

With all of the talk about people using their ipods for music, I would never have thought that they didn't have the connector cord! Good to know! 

 

I have to admit I'm surprised that they had closed one of the restaurants the night of your wedding!  That would be disappointing! Especially considering I've already listed the restaurant and time on my website and invites as they confirmed it when I first booked the wedding. 

 

All that being said, I knew from the beginning that it would be important to be flexible with a destination wedding...especially one that will run on island time!  Sounds like you took it all with a grain of salt and made the most of it!  Good for you!

[mekanabr]

Thanks for the info Missy!!  Love the tips and your pictures are beautiful!!  Thanks for sharing