Are you sure you understood their policy correctly? They are saying,"commercial purposes". To me,as a photographer, it sounds like I have to pay $1,000 if I decide to use those images for commercial purposes. It's pretty common. This is why they even said that it is photographer's responsibility. Because it would definitely be mine!! Commercial usually means selling the work. If you are the only person who'll be seeing the images, I don't look at it as commercial work. I would not try to sell your images(and my contract prohibits that) to magazines,TV,making post cards,calendars with images of the resort,etc.
$1,000 vendor fee is absolutely unheard of. See if you can double check on these points.
Also, what happens if your friends decide to shoot a wedding for you, do they all have to pay that fee? Probably not...wink...wink...photographer=friend