lilnadz

When my husband and I decided to do a destination wedding in Jamaica, we thought it would be best to hire a wedding planner....which we decided to go with Dawn Sherman of Jamaica Elegant Weddings. Overall our experience with her went well, although there were glitches within the process (I know that no wedding can go perfectly smoothly, but if I didn't note these things and give an honest review I would feel horrible) so here it goes... I first contacted Dawn back at the end of 2010 and told her of my husband and I's plan to get married at a private villa in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She was very accomodating and easy to work with...until we got to the issue of payment. We were told that we could either wire transfer or western union her our first payment, which we felt safer using a wire transfer. She said that she would accept payment in either US dollars or Jamaican dollars. We sent the payment in US dollars and then asked for it to be changed into Jamaican currency. Little did we know that her bank account did not accept Jamaican dollars....The issue of changing currencies continued for a little more than a month, during which time Dawn semi-implied that we had never sent the payment and said she was going to cancel the vendors (which of course added more stress). I had hired an investigative team from our bank to find the tranferred money, and when they told me that it was an issue on her end, all I could do was keep telling her the money was there and it was just an issue of changing the currency (we even had to pay EXTRA to make sure that the money arrived efficiently). Eventually this situation was solved, and we were able to move forward with the wedding plans. As far as the wedding planning went, Dawn was very understanding and compliant. She sent two different wedding presentations in which I specified flower colors, cake color, etc...When we arrived in Jamaica she came out to the villa the day before the wedding and sat down with us to discuss final arrangements. The wedding would be at 2:00 so she said she would arrive around noon. The next day she was late (the reason being traffic) which of course is understandable...just I would think for something as big as someone's wedding you would want to be early...but no biggie. The set up, cake, and everything was gorgeous...so everything on her end went fine...until I walked down the isle. My first name the ENTIRE ceremony was mispronounced by the priest!!!! I even stopped him at one point and corrected him, but he went right back to his "old way". I was furious to say the least. On one of the most important days of my life I couldn't even get my name said correctly?? Even afterwards Dawn mispronounced my name! It made me feel like they didn't care about my ceremony or my special day at all, and only worried about preforming the ceremony and leaving. Although, they ended up staying a while after the ceremony and celebrating with our families. Overall I would recommend Dawn Sherman as a wedding planner. When it came to the planning and making sure everything was the way I wanted it she was very accurate and on top of her game. Her services were very reasonable priced, the cake was gorgeous, the photographs were lovely, and overall our wedding was a success.It is clear to me that she is very good at her job. I have read other reviews about her services on this site and agree that she is a great woman and provides a great service to destination brides in Jamaica (there must have just been something about my wedding!) Just make sure if you do use her services, to pay in US dollars if possible and to make sure the priest knows how to say your name correctly!!