cantwaittobemrs

Congrats! So great to hear everything went well!!!

Welcome home and Congrats!!!

Yay I have been waiting for you to get back! I actually saw you at the ROR! I didn't think we would be able to see any of the weddings on Saturday because our plane was supposed to leave at 4:30 which would mean we would be leaving the hotel at noon. But our plane got delayed (to 9:30 at first then midnight), so we got to stay later! We were at the lobby bar playing cards when you and all of your party came up dancing and having a great time! You looked so beautiful, and so happy, and everyone was having such a great time!! Congrats!!! And even though you can tell how happy you are in the pics, in person, you just glowed!! Congrats again!

There is a charge for the bar because there isn't a bartender there normally at this time. I did the free package, so no help on that, and the private reception can be at the Seagrape, Pool, or Plantation... Not sure about the pool as I never saw it set up, but I know the other 2 you have room to dance.

I really liked Michael and the job he did, and honestly we brought cash for him on purpose because paying a 5% fee was crazy to me. In fact, we didn't use credit cards down there for anything because when I called them to see if there were fees, it ranged anywhere from 3-6% for using it out of the country. Yes carrying cash might be riskier, but now-a-days, I would rather have a set amount of cash stolen from me then my credit card! When I first saw this thread I knew it was going to turn out badly for Michael, but the way I see it, the man spends 6 out of 7 days of the week working from 9 am to 10 pm. I'm sure he doesn't have a lot of patience for the problems he was having with the credit cards... And think of this... several gas stations in the US are now not taking credit cards for gas because the charges aren't being covered for by the money they make on gas... so this doesn't seem as absurd to me... Sorry for the long rant!

Only 13 people so I wouldn't worry about it. My TA did tell me the cake didn't change sizes no matter what package though (I laughed as well when I saw 40 people then cake for 10).

We used mugs, and they really were great with keeping the drinks cold. I think if we would have just used cups, no one would have used them. Plus having the mugs in the pool helped keep the pool water out. I found some plain black mugs for a dollar at family dollar and wound up going to 3 of them around town to gather all I needed. Then I just used a silver sharpie to write their names on them.... very cheap yet effective!

They were little edible pearls that they put on themselves... I thought they would be really hard, but they weren't hard at all. And I wouldn't worry about 1 layer, thats what they told me, but I got 2... I think its pretty much whatever they decide to do that day haha!

This is a pic of our cake. Originally in our meeting I asked if it was going to be 2 tier because if it was I wanted one white, one chocolate, but she said since there was only 13 of us, it would only be one. I was happy when I saw this one come out though.

I just booked him for the extra hour, I am so glad we did, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten any of the pics of the 2 of us!

Here is the link to the other thread http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t23240

Well, I know originally we chose it for several reasons. First we weren't sure if we would have any children coming with us, second we knew we wanted Jamaica, and third because we checked comments on several hotels and weighed our options. We loved that the Riu was large enough that when we wanted time to ourselves we could easily do so (several of our guests and my in-laws stayed the entire time we were there). The Riu is generally known for great service as well, so this also helped. They do have several wedding packages that help, but we really chose there because of the hotel as several places have wedding packages now. Hope this helps. (And by the way, we LOVED it there, the only other place we went by on the way into Ocho Rios that looked comparable was the Gran Bahima sp?)

Michael took the pictures. He did a wonderful job, and really meshed well with everyone there. We were very pleased with him, the only thing we didn't like was that we were on a tight budget and couldn't get as many as we wanted to!

Since we didn't get the free bouquet Nikki changed it out to be a free bag of rose petals for the aisle... This is what one bag looked like.

Yes we used Michael, he was wonderful. I was a bit apprehensive at first... but he took some great pictures and was really great with my guests! Everyone loved him and his personality really fit in with our group (sarcastic haha)!