How long has the booking / investigation process taken?

[Alyssa]

Ladies, i need some help - i am really frustated with the process of finding the perfect location and then getting them to respond to us with quotes and information without it taking 4 months!

 

i am starting to feel like i am either:

 

a. the most impatient person ever

 

b. crazy

 

c. have expectations that are too high (like a phone call back after a message a week ago?)

 

 

WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE LIKE?

[TammyB]

I had the same problem when I first started to plan things. I think they look at your wedding day and say "oh she has plenty of time". Are you mentioning in your first email to the vendors when your wedding date is? YOu may want to word it in a way to make them think is sooner versus later. Then when they ask, just tell them the correct date, but hopefully you will have already received some information.

[Alyssa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TammyB I had the same problem when I first started to plan things. I think they look at your wedding day and say "oh she has plenty of time". Are you mentioning in your first email to the vendors when your wedding date is? YOu may want to word it in a way to make them think is sooner versus later. Then when they ask, just tell them the correct date, but hopefully you will have already received some information.

thanks tammy! i have told them the dates and all that - i am just really frustrated. there are so many pieces that can not fall into place until you have a location (you know!! LOL)

[JENESIS]

It took me at least 6 months just to get the location. Could have been longer. I absolutely hated it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[boscobel]

I think that is the most frustrating part. I doubt my decision everyday, and I only took a little while to make up my mind. I wish I had debated options more, but I am impatient as well, so just wanted to get it over with.

 

I didn't really have trouble hearing back from people, but then again, you are dealing with Hawaii and they say that everything is ssslllllooooowwwwwwwww and relaxed in Hawaii. They may not feel like they are taking a long time.

 

Good luck!

[~Melissa~]

Hmm yea I can see how you would be frusterated not getting a reply after a week. That's waaaay to long IMO.

 

It took us about a month, I think to narrow it down to a specific resort. I knew we both wanted Nuevo Vallarta (PV) the problem was which resort. There were 3 that we were choosing from and I think I used tripadviser alot o read peoples good and bad reviews to see if it was for us.

 

I also made up an excel sheet of the wedding packages each resort had and compared their prices on everything from wedding fee, chair fee, champagne fee, dinner fee, photographer, length of stay at resort etc etc. Then we sat down and decided which one was for us and our guests.

 

Hope this helps if you need any assistance PM me.

[Heidi]

we were engaged in December 06 and didn't even narrow down to a country until March 07. Then, we decided on Jamaica and eventually picked our resort. LOTS of research happened before that though.

[foxytv]

We got engaged in June 2006 and I immediately started researching places. We narrowed it down to the DR pretty quickly and from there I started researching resorts. I picked my Top 5 resorts without looking at prices. Then, I only looked at resort prices, not wedding package prices to get an idea of what guests would have to pay. I sent those top 5 choices to Tom and he picked his favorites. (Luckily, he picked my top 2 .... so we chose the lesser expensive one for the wedding and moxpensive one for the honeymoon.)

 

That process took about 4 months.

 

It was 10 months after we got engaged that we secured the resort and wedding date with the WC ... and not until May-June of this year that we were able to get 2008 wedding pricing.

 

Hope that helps!

[jajajaja]

I don't understand why vendors are so slow either. They must have a ton of business so their slow responses don't really matter. It's so frustrating though...I feel your pain.

 

Personally, I got so fed up with a WC that I ruled them out altogether. I mean, if they are slow to respond in the beginning when they are suppose to be selling the place, what will they be like when you are SOLD?

 

When choosing places, I created spreadsheets- basically what each place will cost us, what is included in packages, what we would have to buy beyond basic packages, the pros and cons. After that we sat down with all the spreadsheets and chose one that we thought most suited our needs. I think we made the BEST decision by doing this. I just didn't want to go over budget and regret it.

 

It took us probably a couple of months to choose. The longest process of course was collecting the info and I think you already have a head start by having the forum. I wish I found this forum when I was banging my head against a wall.

[MikkiStreak]

If you have a travel agent picked out- ask them to get the package information for you on the resorts. Some of the TA's whose business is geared toward DW's will have package pricing in their own files already, and even if they don't- the resorts respond faster to a TA than they do the bride.

 

Our TA has always done this for us. I just give her the name of the resort and she sends me the package pricing in her files. If I'm interested, then she'll get the optional items pricing list for me. And if she's been to the resort, she'll send me her online album of photos to look at so I can get a feel for it...

 

Before I started involving our TA, I felt like I was losing my mind. The response time was horrible and it was taking forever. We looked at resorts and wedding planners in St. Thomas on our own for 4 months, then moved everything to Mexico and tried getting info on our own. After a month of only getting one response back, I got fed up and asked our TA to get involved. Within one month of working with her, we had looked at about 10 resorts and then made our decision.