$500 to bring in my own photographer!

Exactly. You NEED to take a stand against this. You should call the resort yourself and tell them they need to drop this fee or you'll take your business elsewhere. Tell them they can lose the $500, or lose thousands. It's their choice. You shouldn't have to put up with this.

I agree with Jonathan----

and I would go to the reservations side of the business too. The wedding is almost treated like a separate entity in a lot of the resorts, so if you go to the wedding coordinator, they don't really care as much because some other bride will fill your shoes on that date.

But your wedding has far more impact on the resort revenue on the reservations side. $3-10K for wedding expenses doesn't give you as much negotiating power as the impact of your reservations going to a different resort. If you have 50 guests (for even 1/4 of their capacity) who stay for 4 days, you're talking about $45-50K in revenue leaving their pockets for a different resort. So that reservations manager is going to take you a lot more seriously than the wedding coordinator.

Anyways, just my opinion.....

I would like to thank you for being so vocal on this subject. Although you are a photographer yourself and therefore going to be very passionate about it, I appreciate it. I already paid the $500 for an outside vendor and then a week ago got an email about needing to also pay for my photographer to stay at the resort for 3 days!!! Absolutely ridiculous. I hate that I even gave in to the $500 BS fee.

Thanks for all the brides who gave their opinions and spoke their minds about this subject. It really helped me.

I have Cecilia Dumas scheduled, and although can't find much about her, look forward to not having to use the resort photographer.

I am shooting a wedding in Mexico this friday and am staying at the hotel the wedding is happening at... most photogs other than local I am sure would like to stay at the Event space..... plus they will be there so maybe you can get them to cover the rehearsal dinner or ? something.

I can tell you all my TA went to bat for me on this issue - also voicing they are losing over (well over) $50,000 in bookings and the hotel would NOT budge. I read all the correspondence and he truly fought this, taking it to management. They would not budge
IT IS INFURIATING>!!!!!