Hi Ladies! My name is Charlotte and I'm from London, ON, Canada. Reading about all your plans is so fun!! Have fun with it ladies, it goes by so fast. My wedding is coming up on Nevember 7, 2011 (So soon!) and our guests are staying at the Gramd Palladium, however we are getting married off site at a private villa. We went to Jamaica for a quick budget friendly trip in March, to check out a few things for our wedding (villa, caterer, transportation company, wedding planner and a site tour of the Palladium), so I may have some helpful info for some of you. The food is VERY important to us on our wedding day and we really wanted to be certain we get a high quality meal. While you certainly can get a great meal on a resort, you can also end up with the same mediocre meals served in the buffet's, for your reception dinner. Secondly, we wanted to create a memorable atmosphere somewhere private. Not to put down anyone wanting to marry on the beach, but I wouldn't choose this option for my wedding day. It's ackward for guests who are dressed up (high heels) and if it's windy (it usualy is) it can cause major problems with hair, blowing sand and sound. But, it can be perfect and beautiful too...just maybe a little risky. We wanted our guests to experience a change in atmosphere (plus we wanted to avoid them wandering off entirely) so we rented a 6 bedroom villa in the hills, 20 minutes from the Palladium. It's called the Hammerstein Highland House and it was previously owned years ago by Oscar Hammerstein who wrote the music, for The Sound of Music, on the very balconies if this villa! I love that little tidbit of history. The cocktail reception will be around the pool, and a tent will be set up for the reception with our chef/caterer preparing the food fresh, on site. We taste tested our caterer (The Seahorse Grill) in March and LOVED it. Best snapper I have had in my life and the tenderloin was melt in your mouth good. We have a Wedding planner, Denise Taylor and she is awesome. The minute we met her, we hit it off and she is very responsive to our every question. She has been in the business for years on the island. PLUS, her husband is a Raggae artist and producer...... a VERY good one (music on itunes) and they have a boat charter company. With all said and done, we are still spending $18,000, so it is not by any means a cheaper option. Our full bar for 6 hours and meal is $100/person and we are having almost 70 people. Transportation is VERY expensive in Jamaica.....beware and consider that when thinking about an off resort wedding. That was a shocker. We have a great company who is very reliable and fair priced. We used the same guy everyhwere we went in March and he was awesome. Still expensive though. If anyone has any questions, let me know. I can pass along conact info and we have been to Jamaica 3 times and stayed at the Riu Ochos Rios, Sunset Beach Resot and the last time in March the budget friendly Holiday In Sunspree. Our site tour of the Palladium was great - we saw everything. The place is gorgeous and massive. Look forward to chatting again!