We've been back now for a few days from our May 5th wedding and I waffled about wether to write a review or not and whether I should start without pictures. I figured since I found everyone else's reviews so helpful that I shoud share my experience too. Now, I want to start off saying that we did have a wonderful time and chose a destination wedding because I didn't really care about matching table cloths and centre-pieces etc. We were however, a bit disappointed with the service we received from the weddings department at ROR.
I pre-arranged a meeting time with Chandlyn so that I could plan an excursion with some of our guests and not have to worry about double-booking myself. We met at 9am on Saturday, kinda. I was directed by the front desk staff, up the stairs to Chandlyn's office. We actually didn't meet with Chandlyn at all, but with her new assistant Kenisha. We went through the standard checklist and chose our location (beach gazebo), ceremony type (civil), music type (steel drum band), cake flavor (chocolate), flowers (light pink roses & orchids) and when we wanted our champagne toast (at dinner.) I gave Kenisha a box with our cake topper, some shells for the cake and our sand ceremony vases/sand. She then told us our dinner would be at the Plantation which I thought was weird because we didn't request this, so I questioned it but she assured me that this is the location of our dinner. Only as we were leaving the meeting did Chandlyn realize that Kenisha had made a mistake and corrected it. I would have felt really bad if we, and our 26 guests, had crashed someone elses wedding dinner at the Plantation, problem solved though.
On the wedding day, I woke up and ran to the balcony to check the weather, sunny and clear, AWESOME! My MOH and I had a breakfast date, then went to the spa for the total bridal package. We got manicures, pedicures, make-up and hair styles done. We had Nicole and Karine and they were fantastic, so friendly! They did a great job!
After we were all beautified, we went by to my parent's room where Chandlyn was to meet us and escort us to the beach. Kenisha was to meet my husband on the beach. Well, with 2 minutes before the wedding is supposed to start, there is still no Chandlyn in our room so we walk down to the beach on our own. We'd seen a couple of weddings take place earlier in our trip so we kinda knew what to do. Once I'm down there, Kenisha tells us to line up at a certain point and wait for the music to start walking down the aisle. Once I get to the gazebo the minister (yes, i said minister) starts reading from his Bible about gathering in the prescence of God and made us repeat our vows saying "in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit." He went on and on with this religious ceremony, the whole time, I'm feeling quite uncomfortable because we are not religious in the least. Obviously, the wrong officiant was called out to perform our ceremony. Oh well, it got the job done, we're married, we're on the beach, lets enjoy it!
As soon as our guests behind's left their chairs, Chandlyn and Kenisha start taking the chairs to set up the next wedding at the arch next to the gazebo, actually, we have maintenance men setting up in the background of our ceremony pictures too. They also had taken down the standard white tulle that is normally wrapped around the gazebo to use on the arch and used some frayed pink fabric instead for our wedding. I asked Kenisha if we will see her at our dinner and she assures me she will be there.
FFWD a couple of picture-taking hours later and me, my husband, the MOH and best man are outside of Mammee Bay waiting for either Kenisha or Chandlyn to give us a bit of direction on how the evening will play out. Kenisha rushes past us saying she has to go to a rehearsal but will be back as soon as it was over. This is that last we saw of either Kenisha or Chandlyn on our wedding day. I thought this was a little ridiculous since the co-ordinators felt another couple's "practice" run was more important than our actual wedding day.
Earlier in the day I had asked our photographer to take a few good pictures of our cake toppers since they were custom made and I loved them. When we got into Mammee Bay, he asked where the cake was, I had no idea! As we were finishing up dinner I asked the waiters about our cake and he said he didn't know anything about a cake. I took a few deep breaths and figured we could do without cake since there's a dessert buffet but I really wanted my cake toppers back. We also inquired about the champagne, which of course, the waiters hadn't received any instructions about either. After about 20 minutes or so, the waiter comes out and says they've found a cake and would we like for them to cut it up. I explain that it's kind of traditional to have the bride and groom make the first cut into a wedding cake so they plunk the cake down onto our dirty table and left us to cut and serve the cake with a butter knife. I wasn't surprised when we cut into the cake and it wasn't the flavor we ordered. It was white cake with strawberry fillilng and was delicious, but still another mistake made - at least I had my cake toppers back! I gave up on the champagne and told them not to even bother but the best man insisted we have our champagne and eventually he rounded up a couple of bottles.
After our champagne toast and cake cutting we called it an evening. Those who wanted to, stayed to watch the evening's entertainment, other's went to bed. Depsite all of the mistakes made, we were married, we were in Jamaica, the weather was beautiful and we got to share it with our closest family and friends. It was a great day.
Now, I realize I come across as bitter, high-maintenance, hard to please etc but I'm really not and that's why I wasn't sure if I wanted to write a review or not. We felt very disapointed after having read the many fantastic ROR wedding reviews here, and how great Chandlyn was on your wedding day. I felt that we were treated like we weren't as important as her other brides. I know she's got multiple weddings per day to co-ordinate but she should have only been 2/3 as busy as normal as there were only 2 weddings on our date.
At this point, I wasn't the least little bit surprised that we never received our fruit basket, spa gift or "surprise gift". I didn't let it ruin my wedding day though! We did have a great time and I will post some pictures as I receive them.
Again, sorry to be Debbie Downer, I just thought I owed it to all you great ladies on BDW to share my experience since I learned so much here!
After the Ceremony
How many people does it take to bustle a pick-up skirt?
the elusive, slightly pale (but delicious) "chocolate cake"
Back from our ROR Wedding - now with pictorial goodness! 
You look gorgeous in your dress! And I LOVE the cake toppers!
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