caporrone

just a suggestion - I don't know if you have a tight budget or what not but what about doing the shoot the day after the wedding in the morning? We hired our photag for 10 hours. the biggest package she offered and we actually split that over 3 days and put them up at our resort as a curtosy. We she shot for 2 hours friday during our cocktail party, all day saturday for the church ceremony at 3 party 7-11 and then we met her the next morning, put our wedding atire back on (which was awesome by the way) and took pictures for a 2 hour shoot all over the resort and trashed the dress at the end. this was totally worth every dollar. our pics were amazing, all the memories captured, and we weren't on a strict time table and totally stressed. shooting the next day just me and marc was super fun, laid back, and we were seriously sooo happy. This may work for some of you, just a suggestion to look into! ~Courte

Hello Ladies. So here is a review of the Grand Lido Breezes Negril For all of you that are searching the Jamaica forum to pick a wedding location I highly suggest you continue to read on. We had our wedding on October 10th, 2009. We stayed at the Grand Lido for the week arriving on a Wednesday 10/7/09 leaving the following Wednesday 10/14/09. The trip was awesome, the Grand Lido was beautiful, and the service was SPECTACULAR! I really can't say enough about how attentive everyone was. If you are looking for a resort to accomodate a larger crowd serach no further. Anything that I wanted, they made happen, any idea that I had they made sure that it could get done. Our wedding consisted of a group of 66 guests, all close friends and family that traveled and stayed at the resort with us for some point of the week to witness us get married. We happened to do things a little bit differently because we are both Roman Catholic and getting married in a church was very important to us. Through some deligent research, I found a Catholic Chruch 2.5 miles down the road from our resort!~ Mary, Gate of Heaven Catholic Church and they too were fabulous!! The church was so beautiful, perfect size, all wooden - it really was soo intimate and memorable. Everyone loved it. The day of our wedding we had reserved with Clive's Transportation (another vendor that I HIGHLY RECCOMEND) Clive himself picked us up with 2 other drivers and we got 2 larger coach buses, that were in very good condition and a private van for our personal arrivals. They gave us an excellant price as well - and they were very attentive. They were on time and waited for the church to let out to take our group back to the resort. The ceremony started at 3pm - 4pm We then had a private cocktail party on the lower pool deck of the main pool that reached out over the ocean inlet - they wrapped lights around the trees and it was gorgeous! We hired a Saxopohonist to play for the hour - and once again, to no surprise Richard was fantastic! The best I've ever heard or seen! The cocktail hour food was awesome, we had fresh sushi, seared tuna, and a bunch of other things. They set up a private bar and had servers walking around with drinks and food trays! That was from 6-7pm. We then went upstairs and inside for the private recpetion in the Banquet Hall. We hired a DJ - Paul ( I believe he was from Sound Illussions) he played everything that we asked for and even took the time to come to the resort 2 days prior to meet with us and understand our music selections. We paid him cash and he did a really great job - NOBODY stopped dancing once and everyone had a full drink and shots were flowing with the private bartenders that worked our party. The banquet room was beautiful. Purple was my theme color so they manually hung strings light on every wall then covered it with purple sheer cloth and looked great. The wedding reception lasted from 7 -11pm and then they opened the Disco Bar downstairs so we took the After party there - and again, had a blast tearing up the dancefloor! I know I am going on and on but really this was as is I had a wedding up here in NJ and transplanted it to Jamaica - it really was Stress free and easy. Clithy Chaddenden and Kenroy Calame worked with us and answered to EVERY requests. They really went above and beyond for us, atleast that is how me felt. They really made us feel like royalty at the resort. Stacey Clarke was our photographer and she was so sweet and an awesome person, aggressive with the shots that she was trying to capture, and had so many creative ideas for our personal shoot the day after. That basically sums up our wedding day. We also did a Welcome Dinner on Thursday and cocktail hour on Friday - all of it was fabulous. Well worth every extra penny! We didn't have any quest complain, they have a nurses station on the resort (just incase) and we certainly put her to work lol. They have a great Spa/ and Salon and many people took advantage of massages and mani/pedis. The rooms were clean and big. The beach was pristine, and the water sprots a blast. All in all - It was soooo much fun I could go on and on and if you want more info - please just ask! Hope this helps making your choice a little bit easier! ~Courtney

Hey Mel - This is something that we did last month at our wedding for place cards... very similar to your idea if this helps give you a better visual... our guests loved it and thought that it was so cute. Tip - the parasol umbrellas wouldn't stay open and were very hard to write directly on them. so i then improvised and wrote our guests name's and tables they were at on sticker paper (blank labels) and cut them to size... then opened the umbrellas that day and stuck on the names and it kept the umbrellas wide open. I stuck them directly into flower foam board and covered it all up with sand as the last step ~CC

thanks Ladies.... I had a lot of fun doing it all ~Cogswellgray, I could see your point to not needed table cards, however we had a group of 66 guests and you know how family gets if they are in the back or near loud music speakers blah blah blah.... you gotta make everyone happy!

I made on power point picture card that were 6*8 and then mounted them on purple cardstock (that was my color) I named each of our 8 tables after a place that Marc and I have been together - we love to travel. I then took one of our favorite pics from each location and wrote a little blurb. it looked awesome and everyone was going table to table reading and mingling. if you need more help i'm willing to send you some ideas. email me caporrone@gmail.com here is an idea... ~Courtney

Here you go girls... We were married on 10-10-09 at the Grand Lido Negril - and it was great. We had 66 people and they really went above and beyond to accomodate us. They made the reception room gorgeous. set up a bar, dj table, head table, cake table and a big enough dance floor. here are some shots I took: place card table reception room head table table centerpieces finally... cake table enjoy - but I highly recco. Jamaica at the Grand Lido - it really was FAB ~Courte

So here are pics of our wedding bands.... I absolutely love love love how they came out. Marc's ring was tungsten size 11. I had his engraved. it's soo strong. he loves wearing it and even works out with it and not a scratch on it. LIke others have said, it does run slightly big so at first he was sized and they ordered him 11.5 and exchanged it no problem. As for my band, we had it custom made thru a molding process so my band fits snug and matches my E ring PERFECT! it was a little bit more than your average ring - but soooo well worth it. I get so many compliments on it! Hope you enjoy ~Courte

some advice - i would agree with most and say DO NOT SHIP. i carried on my dress and shipped 4 boxes of DIY stuff and they all got stuck in customs in Jamaica - it really was a nightmare getting them. we started our trip with a 3 hour delay in customs going back and forth and paying more and more american dollars to get all of it. it was seriously sooooooooooo ridiculous. So def carry on lol! I held that dress the entire way there of course, on the way home, it was a different story haha

great great pics! that was awesome that you had a friend there to capture all of that for you - and that she was good at doing it! enjoy them, you looked stunning

DJ suggestion: we just got back (10-10) from Negril, Grand Lido where we had a wedding of 66 including us. We hired a DJ through the resort, they took care of everything aside from Stacey Clarke, our photographer. It was Paul, from Sound Illusionist and they were great. They had our entire wedding dancing the moment the first dinner fork was set down and they didn't stop once, even my 81 year old gram was boogying. they had a lll the equipment and songs that we wanted, let us have the mic, and even set up our computer with a projector and screen to run a pic slideshow that i put together. they were $1000 for the 4 hour night so we paid them cash with a nice tip added on to that, but they were def worth it the grand lido was great too - very accomadating for our group i would highly consider doing some more research on them as well

so we are back to reality and our wedding is over = ( but i wanted to give an update on Stacey - for those of your reading and still trying to make a decision on a photography Stacey Clarke was amazing. Very professional, a worker, aggressive with the photos that she wants to capture and imaginative. Overall I would reccomend her again and again and we were more then satisfied. I think everyone of our married friends went up to her personally to tell her how great of a job she was doing - because they've all been through it, and wished they had someone like her! I will certainly share the pics when we get them but she took tons and her price was very reasonable - especially for the quality work that she will do for you. Marc and I had a bigger DW so we had a few nights worth of events planned for our guests therefore we hired her and split time over 3 days worth of shoot and paid for her to stay on the resort with us as an extra. we had her shoot a cocktail party and gala the night prior, the wedding day, and then marc and I did our photo shoot that sunday morning alone which was fabulous and we had 2 hours to walk around the resort and really had some fun! anyways - i'm going on and on but Stacey was great bottom line. ~Courte PS - thanks SusieQ , your poochie is so adorable too!

so super cute - do you have a promo code or anything for this vista print "free" sign??

oh man - that really stinks! did you pay extra to expedite it? maybe it's just caught up? good luck, that is what I'm afraid of! keep us posted

very exciting - how can you go wrong with jamaica?! i'm leaving in 23 days! i can't believe how fast it was gone by - my advice, it's never too early to get started! best of luck to you guys

have an amzing time - wish you all the best and remember to enjoy every second!