JayKay

I think its personal preference. I knew that the day I stood in front of my family and friends at my destination wedding would be my legal wedding. Thats mostly why we chose Jamaica, as its so easy to get legally married there, compared to Mexico, or DR. For us it was really important. If we had wanted to get married in a different destianation, such as DR, we probably would have gotten legally married before we went. I have heard of a lot of brides just simply going to the courthouse with there fiance and having a hush legal ceremony and didnt tell anyone. You could possibly do that. Then you woudlnt have to worry about your mom trying to make it bigger then you want. And that way no one will know any different on your wedding day in the DR.

Thats a huge reason why our Travel Agent we used wouldn't even consider Sunquest for our wedding group.

Ill try to answer what I can! Your wedding is fast approaching, you must be getting so excited! 1. Our group had all our reservations pre booked when we arrived at the resort. They handed us a piece of paper will all the dates and restraints for them. If your tour company doesn't do this (which turned into a big headache anyway) I believe you book them when you arrive, as soon as you can if you want certain restraints and times. 2. We had a few guests in section 17, which was a pretty nice section. Close to everything. We were way over on the other side in section 23. It was far away from everything. 3. I was really happy I brought my own shampoo and conditioner!! The stuff the resort provides is crap. My husband didn't even use it, and he will usually use anything. It was that bad! If you plan on doing Dunns river falls, bring water shoes. You can buy them at the resort but they are crappy and expensive. I also wish we would have brought our own snorkel gear. You can rent some from the hut at the resort for free, but you only get them for an hour and the entire week we were there all the equipment was rented the entire time. Some of our group bought some there, which was really expensive and cheap quality. Bring your own if you plan on snorkeling! 4. Because we were in the club golden section our pool towels were included in our room when we arrived (From what I understand if you are not in the club golden you have to get them from the towel stand with towel cards that are left in your room). It was really nice, however, we had no idea that you can exchange your towels once a day at the towel hut. We used the same pool towels all week because no one mentioned that we could exchange them. I also wish I would have known that the spa doesn't take cash. Everything from the spa (such as bridal hair and makeup) gets charged to your room. 5. We would tip the bartenders a dollar or two every couple of drinks. If you tip with every drink you will be really poor really quick. The drinks they make are really tiny cups so they sure don't last long. The maid cleans the room twice a day, so we would leave a couple bucks in the morning and a couple bucks in the afternoon (if we were back in our room, most days we left in the morning and didn't go back until the evening to get ready for supper). We found that when we tipped the maid our room was cleaned better and our mini fridge was well stocked. We brought about $150 dollars worth of American $1s. We went through probably half of them in the week we were there. Hope that helps! 

It can be overwhelming at first. We found it useful to write everything down for places we were considering, then that way it made it really easy to eliminate some to narrow our choices.

We were married in Jamaica in January of this year and we used Merrick Cousley photography. He was amazing to work with and we love our photos. His prices are really affordable! Check him out. http://www.merrickcousley.com/

I would highly suggest Maui. Its stunning there, romantic, and beautiful to have your wedding!!

Welcome!!

I felt very overwhelmed when we first started planning our destination wedding. We found it helpful to first make a budget, and then second list what we wanted from our wedding, such as an all inclusive destination, fairly close to airports, cheap for our guests, large enough resort so people can enjoy themselves ect. We from there narrowed it down to a few resorts. We then used a travel agent, which I highly suggest doing, to help us narrow it even further. Ultimately it was the cost that helped us choose our wedding resort. Good luck!

Have you looked at the cost of the other destinations you are considering? Maybe one of them is significantly cheaper which would allow you to go to your dream destination for an amazing honeymoon? Might be a good compromise!

Congrats!! Your photos are amazing! Looks like you had a great wedding day!

Welcome!! Happy wedding planning!

beautiful photos!!

Your dress is stunning! And what a savings that was! I noticed your wedding is tomorrow! I hope you have an amazing day in your beautiful dress.

Join Pinterest if you have not already. There are so many unique hair dos that you should be able to find something on there that you are looking for.

Thats exactly what we did and it was pretty rough in the beginning. I'm a saver and my husband is a spender. I found it really hard that my savings were no longer just mine, but ours. I worked really hard to save up that much money. We have a joint account that we both contribute money to each month for bills, a joint savings account, and each our own seperate accounts where we get our monthly allowance and we can spend it how we want, no questions asked.

We sent out about 55 invitations and we ended up having a total of 18 people at our wedding. We knew most of the people wouldn't come but felt it was nice to still send them an invitation.

My now husband and I were living in two different cities when we were mailing out all our STDs and invitations. We just put both our names with the address I was living at. That way they knew it was from both of us, not just me. When we sent out our thank yous after the wedding we included a little thing about our new address so everyone knew we had a new address. Maybe you could do something like that.

Looks exactly like Etsy! Thanks for sharing.

I have never heard of this happening. The only thing I can think of is that the plane leaving from your city is going to more then one destination, therefore only allowing so many seats per destination. Are you working with a travel agent?? If not I would strongly suggest working with one who may be able to help you come up with a better solution.

I hadn't planned on doing anything either before the wedding as I'm pretty clumsy, but I was pressured into going! Turns out all I got was a cut up knee, but nothing a wedding dress couldn't hide! Glad I could help!

We did a welcome cocktail party and it was nothing formal and basically we left it up to our guests if they wanted to come or not. We understood if they wanted to enjoy their vacation and if not everyone came we wouldn't have minded. Everyone of our guests did come so it was really nice to just relax and allow our guests to get to know each other for the ones who didn't know each other. We didn't plan any excursions before we went, but we did an excursion the day before the wedding (probably not the best idea to climb Dunns Falls that day hah!) and we also left it open to whom ever wanted to come.

Transportation to the gazebo is including even in the free package. The guests were on their own to get down there, but I was taken along with my bridal party and my parents (they both walked me down the aisle) on this little golf cart van thing down to the site. And they make it so you are hidden until you walk down the aisle, so no one can see you before. If you are contemplating going up a package just for that, its not worth it as its included in the free package. Government fees are the minister fees and all the fees to get your marriage license (the resort does everything for you). We paid about $1600 in total for everything for Merrick Cousley. I know his prices have gone up, however, I'm not sure what they are now. We went with just the basic package which included all our photos on a disc that we were free to print out on our own. He would be considered an outside vendor, however, we never had to pay an outside vendor fee for him to come to the resort to do our photos.

I would suggest going to the thread for that resort where you will have past and future brides of that resort that can direct you and help answer your questions!

Welcome! There are tons of other brides on here who have done weddings in the states. Good luck finding the perfect location!

Welcome! Check out the Jamaican section. There is tons of information on there to help you select your perfect venue!