futurejohnson

Hi monarch, I ordered all of my cups and beach bags from www.discountmugs.com. We didn't get stadium cups, but instead got plastic ones with screw-on lids and straws, kinda like the ones they sell at Starbucks. Our guests loved them and the cups were really handy throughout the week, especially in the pool. And as for your question re: the menu, we had our dinner at the Dolce Vita and ordered the caesar salad, roasted thyme and squash soup, the chicken, and tiramisu. Everybody loved the soup and chicken, but I'd avoid the caesar salad and get something different. And yes, you have to pick 1 menu for everybody, unless there are people who are vegetarian or have allergies. Hope this helps!

Hi FleetMac bride, We rented out the gazebo but didn't hire the bartender....it just wasn't worth it to us to spend $1,800+tax on alcohol at an all-inclusive resort (we had 60+ people with us). During the 3 days before the wedding, our groomsmen tipped the maid $5USD per day and wrote a note asking for their mini-fridges to be stocked with just beer (the resort provides Caribe beer in your rooms). We ended up having around 60 cans of beer, in addition to 6 litres of rum, vodka, and whisky.

Hi Tekeya, Thanks for letting me know, I will definitely ask Donnalee for a copy of the marriage certificate now.

Thanks everybody!!! BusyBee123 - Haha yes It's Mrs. Johnson now! But I guess not officially yet, since I'm waiting for the marriage certificate to change my name. Donnalee said it'd take 2 months to get my certificate!

Hi tamandrob, Thanks!! You'll definitely have a great time down there! The gazebo rental + DJ was $500.....if you want the gazebo without the DJ, then it's only $250. I think the gazebo is a great idea if you have a large enough group, and if lotsa people will drink and dance. We had 65 people with us and almost 2/3 of the group was under the age of 30, so the gazebo/dancefloor was packed and everybody enjoyed it. Quote: Originally Posted by tamandrob Congrats on being a Mrs!!! Thanks for the great review, they are always so helpful. I am glad that you had a wonderful wedding even though there was a few minor hiccups!! Reading a review like this just makes me even more excited to go I can't wait!!!! Your pictures are gorgeous! I love the one of you two in the pool!!! How much was it to rent the gazebo and dj? I wasn't planning on doing that but think I will look into it. Thanks again and congrats!!!!!

Hi everybody!! I’m finally married and back from the GBPJ!! I had the best week of my life so far, and for all you ladies who will be getting married at GBPJ, you made a great choice! I’ve received a lot of helpful information from BDW over the past year, so I will do my best in providing a thorough review in the hopes of “paying it forwardâ€. So this might be kinda long lol. Wedding Planner: We dealt with Donnalee for the last few months leading up to the wedding, and we also met with Donnalee the day we arrived at the resort. Throughout my entire experience with Donnalee, I never had any issues with her being rude, or unhelpful, etc. On the contrary…she was always very nice and polite, and always had a smile on her face. So it’s unfortunate that other brides have had issues with her….she was great with us! There were 2 weddings on my wedding day, so I think Chandlyn was more involved with the other wedding, whereas Donnalee was more involved with mine. Donnalee was very helpful and ensured that all of my requests were met. Since I brought my own flowers, she gave me a centrepiece for the head table free-of-charge. I didn’t bring any decorations for the gazebo or any chair ties, but since my colour was bright pink, the resort had pink tulle on hand and Donnalee ensured that the gazebo and chairs were decorated nicely. (We originally weren’t planning on doing chair ties, but I’m glad we opted to pay the $2.50/tie because it really made a difference in the pictures.) Also, we had 4 surprise guests on our wedding day, so even though we hadn’t accounted for them, Donnalee made sure that they were included in our wedding dinner. (Sidenote: I don’t think she even charged me for the 4 extra people afterwards!) Weather: If you’ve been to the resort, you’ll know that it rains for about 10 minutes every afternoon….no biggy, the grey clouds come and go. Plus it’s super windy out by the gazebo, so it keeps you cool. However, 2 hours before our ceremony, it started thunderstorming and it proceeded to downpour for about 1.5 hours. Totally freaked me out, because I really didn’t want to get married in the lobby. Chandlyn called me 45 minutes before the ceremony and asked whether to move the wedding to the lobby, so I begged her to wait another half hour because I finally started to see some blue sky in the distance. Thank goodness I waited, because 10 minutes later, the rain stopped. Chandlyn and Donnalee quickly set up the chairs by the gazebo, and everything turned out perfect. Only downside is that the wind stopped dead after the storm, so it was extremely hot and humid. I stuffed a handkerchief into my wedding bouquet and used it as a sweat napkin throughout the ceremony LOL. Hair Salon: Loved my hair! I didn’t even have to show the salon a picture, but they did a great job and the hairspray/freezing spray they used was so crazy heavy-duty, nothing moved all day/night. Ceremony: We wrote our ceremony script ahead of time, so I sent it down to Donnalee a few days before we left and she gave a copy to the minister. The minister was awesome and everything turned out perfect, except for a couple things: 1) This is pretty ridiculous, but they don’t stop the poolside entertainment during your ceremony, so throughout my ceremony, I could hear club beats and guys on microphones coming from the pool. I tuned it out and was off in my own little world, but I know a lot of my guests complained about this afterwards. I wrote this in my comment card after the wedding, but I’m not sure if this will change in the future. 2) Some stupid kid was snorkeling by the wedding gazebo and at one point, started yelling “SHARK! SHARK!†Again, I was off in my own little world and didn’t even notice, but a bunch of guests told me afterwards. Other than those 2 issues, everything was great. Our ceremony was at 3:15pm (originally 3pm, but there was a slight rain delay), which gave us enough time to take pictures before the sun started setting. (Sun started setting around 5:15-5:30pm….it was pretty dark by 6pm.) Cake: Delicious! We added an extra layer for $40, and we’re so glad we did since we had 65 guests with us. We chose vanilla, vanilla raspberry, and coconut. Everybody told us it was delicious. Downside: We didn’t get any of the extra cake afterwards, which we didn’t care too much about, but it would have been nice to try the other flavours. I spoke with Donnalee about this a few days later and she felt really bad…she had instructed them to leave it in my fridge after the wedding, but they never did. Oh well. If you care about saving the cake, I suggest you bring your own container and have somebody scoop it up for you. Steel Drum Band: They were awesome! They played for the entire hour after our ceremony and really added to the Caribbean setting. Dinner: We had our dinner at the Dolce Vita and the menu we chose was: caesar salad with chicken, roasted thyme and squash soup, stuffed chicken and risotto, and tiramisu. Not many people liked the Caesar salad, so I’d probably avoid ordering that. Everybody loved the soup, and the chicken was also really good! Our dinner was supposed to be at the Garden Grill, but when we got to the resort, we found out that the Garden Grill was under renovation so both weddings were held in the Dolce Vita. Since our wedding group was larger, we were in the main room while the other bride was in the circular room off to the side. It was a little awkward having 2 weddings in the same restaurant and I felt really bad because our wedding group was a little loud. We originally planned to do all our wedding speeches at the gazebo after dinner, but the best man brought a bunch of Bristol boards with him with pictures on them, so he asked to do his speech at the restaurant since the lighting was better. So it was a little awkward because the other wedding probably heard his entire speech, and all the hootin’ and hollerin’ from the pictures. Reception at the Gazebo: AMAZING!!! So so glad we booked out the gazebo and hired the DJ. We didn’t pay for the bar set-up because I thought it was ridiculous to pay $1,800 for liquor at an all-inclusive resort. So instead, we just asked Donnalee for a table to be set up in the gazebo with ice and cups, and our groomsmen left the dinner 15 minutes early to set everything up. We brought our own inflatable palm tree cooler (http://amazingpartystore.com/storefront/productdetail.aspx?idproduct=33301&idcat=2597) which we filled with ice and bottles of pop/mix. For the liquor, the gift shop sells 26ers for $20USD, which is pretty expensive considering you’re in Jamaica, so one of our groomsmen spoke with a bartender the day before and managed to get 1L bottles of vodka, rum, and whisky for $10/bottle! Ended up spending $60 on 6 litres of liquor, another $25 on bottles of pop/mix (which we just got at the gift shop), and we had around 60 cans of Caribe beer, which the groomsmen got from the maids since they stocked the mini fridges daily with Caribe. I think they left her $5USD and a note asking for their fridge to be stocked with beer instead of pop/water. Worked like a charm! As for the music, we had an entire playlist prepared on our iPod, but the DJ was awesome so we never even used our playlist! He played all the newer top 40 hits, and a few requests that we had on our iPod. The gazebo rental was supposed to be from 8:45-10:45, but our groomsmen kept slipping him money for more music, and we ended up having the gazebo until almost 11:30-11:45! Everybody had a blast at the gazebo and kept saying it was their favourite part of the night. All in all, even though there were a few minor hiccups, we had an amazing wedding and our guests kept telling us it was the most beautiful wedding they’d ever been to. Yes, there were a few things that could have been changed, and I could have complained about a lot of stuff…. (ie. not getting the leftover cake, not getting a room upgrade, or robe/slippers, or a welcome fruit basket, having 2 weddings in the same restaurant, etc), but in the end, that stuff didn’t matter to us. The resort was beautiful and everything turned out perfect! Just one tip: Bring Tide-to-Go and make sure you have it handy on the wedding day!!! I got a bleeding nose when I was back in my room changing for the gazebo reception, and two long streaks of blood fell down my wedding dress. I quickly took the dress off and used Tide-to-Go, and not one trace of blood is left on my dress. Amazing!!! Plus one of my groomsmen spilled red wine on his linen pants, and again, Tide-to-Go erased everything!! Anyways, I’ll attach a few pictures that our photographer gave to us….we flew him down with us and he took over 6,000 pictures during the entire week. He edited around 200 while in Jamaica and gave them to us as a teaser, and will be giving us another 1,000 pictures shortly.

Hi Tekeya, just wondering if you were charged for your seat covers?

Hi acw271011, We arrive on the 22nd in the morning! Looks like I'll just be missing you!

Hi everybody! We're getting married in 3 weeks and I was just told by Donnalee that the Dolce Vita has already been requested by the other wedding that day, so we are doing our wedding dinner at the Garden Grill. Has anybody eaten there before, and what menu did you pick for your wedding? Any suggestions on what's good and not good? Thanks!!!

Hey GBPJ brides! Just a quick question to all of you, might sound kinda stupid/weird, but I figured I'd ask anyways in case somebody was interested! I'm getting married at GBPJ on Monday, October 24th, 2011, and will be at the resort from Saturday, Oct 22nd to Saturday, Oct 29th. Just wondering if there are any brides getting married before/after me who are interested in sharing wedding decorations during the week, or selling them to me while in Jamaica after you're done with them? We're already gonna be bringing down 50+ welcome bags stuffed with goodies, so I'd really like to avoid lugging down decorations if somebody's already brought them there. My bridesmaid dresses are pink, but aside from this, I don't really have a set "wedding colour" so I'm open to anything that matches, or white works too....if you've got lanterns, luminaries, or any other decorations that you wanna share/sell, please PM me and we'll chat! Thanks!

Hi Mekanabr! Thanks so much for all your helpful info!! Just a quick question - did you end up using parasols during your ceremony, and if so, did they hold up in the wind? Thanks!

@ mekanabr - Your wedding is coming up so soon, you must be so excited! I'm really interested in finding out how the parasols hold up, so if you could let me know afterwards, that would be awesome! I look forward to hearing about your wedding after you come back! Have a great time!!

Hey GBPJ brides! Just had a quick question for any past brides out there. I wanna bring parasols for my BMs to carry instead of bouquets, but from everybody's pictures, it looks super windy there in the afternoon. From your experience, is it possible to carry parasols while walking down the aisle, or would it be too windy to hold them up?? Thanks!

Ames9782, I'm getting married at GBPJ the day before you! I'm on October 24, 2011!

Tris, I totally agree with you! There aren't many things we're splurging on for the wedding because for us, the whole point of going to Jamaica is to keep it simple and to focus on what really matters. (And to be able to afford buying a house LOL) We're not doing flowers, no centrepieces, no big fancy $50k wedding in Toronto...the only thing we feel is worth splurging on are beautiful photos, because it's the only thing we can look back at 50 years from now. And to show my future grandkids LOL. The last thing we want is to come home from a beautiful wedding and have crappy pictures to show for it, so I think we're gonna bring a photographer from Toronto because his pictures are amazing. (www.unionphoto.ca).