ashleyp13

As soon as we got to our room, I took my dress out of the garment bag and put it in the opposite side of the closet from my clothes and hung something in front of it so you could not see it, then on the morning of the wedding, as soon as my fiancé left the room to go meet up with his groomsmen, I hung it up in the doorway. Most of the wrinkles fell out from the humidity alone, then one of my bridesmaids used my travel steamer ($20 from bedbath&beyond, and well worth it), to get the few remaining wrinkles out. I would not trust letting your wedding dress out of your hands. Too risky. What if they lose it or mess it up. Things are not as organized on this resort as they should be. The wedding site is amazing, and overall I loved my wedding, but it is SO laid back, it's almost to a fault when important aspects of your wedding are concerned. That travel steamer is very powerful and there is no reason to send your wedding dress out of sight. Too scary! My dress was more traditional as opposed to destination-like, and if it can work on my dress with a train and beading and everything, it can work for anyone. Hope this helps!

I would really not pay for a cocktail hour. I thought about it when I was planning, but I am so glad I did not choose to because it would have been just giving money away for no reason. There is literally free alcohol everywhere you turn on this resort. Unless you are having a very large wedding where you would need a lot of bar staff to accommodate your group, there is no reason to pay extra for this. They automatically set up rum punch on the beach right after your reception, this is standard, and I didn't know that beforehand, I thought it was an "extra," but they do it free for every single wedding. And if rum punch isn't enough for you, you can walk ten steps in any direction and find yourself at one of the bars.

I just got married at ROR on July 14 To your question about the beach party conflicting w/ your reception: it really won't at all. First of all, this resort is ENORMOUS. They could have 5 separate events taking place along their beach without the guests noticing any other event taking place. Also, the beach party is not until 9pm, and your reception will probably be much earlier than that. Usually all the receptions are at 6:30, but I cannot speak for certain about a private beach reception. Either way though, you will be fine because it is SUCH a long beach. I had a semi-private dinner reception, and it was the best food we had the whole 12 days we stayed there. The beef tenderloin was so tender, I cut it with my butter knife.The free cake was amazing, and much bigger than it needed to be...a 3 tier cake for only 15 ppl. They also served beer, wine, and champagne during dinner without an extra charge. There were two other semi-private receptions going on at the same time as mine, and we really didn't notice them as one was on the other side of the restaurant, and the other was on the floor above us. There were no other non-wedding people eating at the restaurant during this time. And the way the restaurant is shaped, we were kind of on our own little terrace with three sides enclosed, so it really felt more private than I expected. I thought it would be more like a long table set up off to the side in a crowded restaurant, but that was not the case at all. We had two waitresses to ourselves and they were very attentive. I didn't rent the nightclub or anything because we only had 15 guests and I thought that would be very awkward to have a whole club to ourselves. We are just going to do our dances at our at-home reception. Basically after the dinner reception we all went and changed into our "cocktail attire" and met up at one of the bars and had drinks. Worked out very well. Just FYI even though you didn't ask about this, I really cannot imagine how they charge anyone extra money for having an "open bar" at any of their events, except that they know that before the bride gets there she doesn't realize that there is really not anywhere on the resort where you are not 5 feet away from an open bar. So people are paying a lot of money for them to set a up a folding table and carry alcohol from the bar five feet away and set it up for them. I am glad I did not pay extra for that because I would have felt like I had really wasted money. The ceremony is 30 minutes, minister fee is $360 USD. Another quick piece of advice for you, check to see what time the sun sets in Ocho Rios during your wedding so you know when you're trying to plan things, especially pictures, beach dinners, etc., because it sets EARLY there, like 6pm in July. It will be dark during your reception for sure.

ashleyp13 - 07/14/2012

Krysta, can you email me the attachments you received from Keisha as well? [email protected] That would really help me out!

Those are so cute! I really might totally copy your idea, lol )

Hello everyone! I just booked my July 14th, 2012 wedding at ROR a few days ago...eeeek! I have been reading about the resort for a while on these forums, and it has been really helpful. Just thought I would say hello now that I am official