Girasole

Welcome to the forums Emma! Congrats on your engagement & happy wedding planning!

I wish we would have done this but we just ran out of time! Let me know how it goes Janine...we may need to go back & do it : )

Welcome to the forums and congrats on your romantic engagement! We really determined what type of weather we wanted (Canada vs Caribbean), then we decided all inclusive vs not, then just started looking at each resort that met those requirements. We also met with our TA and had her break down some of the resorts for us.

Congrats & welcome to the forums! You will find tons of helpful information here!

Pinchem to roberts...you will love the resort! We just got home from there & it was so much fun and beautiful. My parents literally only spent an additional $75 while they were there (on t-shirts, ha). We spent a tad more but it was so well worth it. Make sure you take plenty of sunscreen. I know that my DH & I very pale and we blew through 4 bottles of spray lotion. They sell it there but it's very pricy! Also, a must...benadryl cream or hydrocortisone cream for bug bites. The bugs loved me down there so I was so glad I packed this.

Congrats on your legal day Karen!! You looked beautiful! Happy wedding to everyone that got married this week/weekend! Amy, I tend to agree with Karen...let them have fun with it & you just enjoy.

Hi Michelle! We were in the Italian Village which is very "family" oriented. Our room had a kids room with bunk beds, their own TV & sink and then the adult room which was huge. Our room was the Tuscan Oceanview Family Suite. It was amazing & I would highly recommend it. This was an upgrade for us from the caribbean village but as Meagan said...you aren't in your room much so any room will do.

Hi everyone! I would have to agree with almost all the statements above. I would have loved a 6:30 wedding & reception @ sunset but there was no way I was paying $6000 to do that plus whatever extra fees would have came up. We ended up doing ours at 4 pm which was fine but I think when you go to the beach you have certain expectations...some want the blue water others really want the sunset. I would have paid up to about $200 for that time slot but not $6000. Photographers - I agree they should allow outside photographers. I understand the resorts want to make money off their photoshop but they should understand that this is such a special day for brides & if their photographers aren't trained and have the experience as independent agencies then they should accept that loss. I would have loved Tropical Imaging to do our photos the actual day of our wedding on the resort and the photos done by the photoshop...they were just OK. Plus the photographer wasn't pleasant & really didn't try to find good shots, I felt like she just took pictures for the heck of it. Food - we upgraded to a private dinner reception which was very nice. I would have just liked to have more than 1 option for my guests without extra fees. Wedding Coordinator - very difficult to get ahold of the WC in Miami and I felt like they weren't really concerned about our wedding rather they just wanted to "sell" us more things. As for the WC on site - they are fabulous! They were constantly calling to see if we needed anything and they were just on top of things. So Jen, you can let Beaches know that Patricia & Shayna are awesome! Upgrades - I have been a Sandals signature member for some time and because of that we asked for room upgrades for everyone when they arrived. Everyone except my parents got it which really upset me (you know...being the bride and all). I think I would have rather they asked me who should get the upgrades. My parents were in the French village which had dehumidifiers in the room which I found very tacky. When you go to a 5 star resort you don't expect to see that. Wedding upgrades - very pricy and the extra items were not great. We ordered cupcakes for our guests to take back to their rooms...$2.00/cupcake & they didn't even have icing on them. I was very disappointed in those. Also, they didn't bring the boxes for the guests to take them back to their rooms so we used paper plates. I would have loved the shell isle runner but it was just too expensive. If they lowered the prices of those things I think they would get more brides interested in upgrading to those things. Overall, I would have to say we were happy with our experience. Of course we could pick at things when asked but I know my DH & I had a great vacation/wedding. Chrissy

They look great!

We had a jack & jill shower before we left so instead of taking them all on the plane I gave a few out there & just took 2 or 3 with us for the other people not at the shower. As for cost...we only had 9 people so we made a bag for everyone but I know if we had more it would have been per couple for cost purposes.

I would have to agree with Meagan & Kelly. We used the resort and greenery around their garden gazebo to be our backdrop & it was perfect.

Congrats & Welcome! We just got married in T&C 2 weeks ago, it's beautiful.

The taxi's are really vans down there & they hold about 6-8 people each.

Thanks Janine! We had so much fun! Shoot me a PM with your home email & I can send you our home pictures to see the resort, beaches, etc...

Kelly, welcome home!! When are drinks!

We bought a portable Logitech that has a 3 hour battery life (also can be plugged in) and the sound was awesome & we actually turned it down over dinner so we could talk more. Knowing Bose I am sure it works much better but we paid $30 for ours at Best Buy and it worked great for our small wedding/reception.

Congrats Stephanie! Your photos are beautiful!

Welcome to the forums, you will find a ton of great information here!

Congrats & welcome to the forums!

Congrats & welcome to the forums!

I thought it was pretty good but I think they definitely have formed a little plot around Lexy & Alex (since he kept saying Izzy) and I'm not sure what will happen to Bailey, she was pretty traumatized. Great job on the finale though...I just hate summer, I like my shows, ha!

You look gorgeous!

I agree with Shannon...don't believe the weather. Ours said rain the entire wedding weekend & all we had were a few clouds.

A friend of ours is an engineer professor & uses his tungsten in science experiments to show his students & it has yet to break or scratch, haha

Thanks everyone! We had a lot of fun doing our photos & got to see some of the island which was awesome!