JayKay

I think it depends where your ceremony is being held. For example, our ceremony was in a gazebo with a stone walkway. It would be pretty hard for me to go barefoot. I think if you are getting married on the beach in soft sand, then absolutely you can go barefoot!

I didn't wear a garter and I'm glad I didn't. I think it probably would have falled down all night because it was so hot and sweaty under my dress!! We also weren't doing the garter or bouquet toss so its something I skipped.

We had some flowers included in our wedding package and we chose not to do any extras. I had a bouquet along with my MOH, my husband had a bout along with his GM. Thats all the flowers we had, none for my parents, or his, or anyone else.

We had a destination wedding for a few reasons: 1. I had always envisioned my wedding on a beach. 2. We both have huge families that live all over the place. The guest list was going to be over 400 people if we would have gotten married at home. 3. We were both in University and it was cheaper to have a destination wedding. 4. My brother had a failed engagment in which they started planning an at home wedding, and after seeing the costs and the stress about everything we knew we didn't want that. 5. My husbands brother was married in Mexico (Before I started dating him) and I got to hear all about their wedding in Mexico and how stress free the planning was. 6. Our parents encouraged us to go away and get married somewhere else.

We just returned from our week vacation for our wedding (wasn't really like a vacation though!). Like you, I was looking forward to spending some alone time with my husband after our wedding day. Lets just say we hardly had any alone time the entire week, especially after the wedding. I regret not staying for another week, or even a few days, at the resort, after our guests left so we could enjoy some alone time as husband and wife. I don't think its selfish to want to spend time together, and I don't think your guests will be upset about it, but then again they did travel along ways and spend alot of money, so we felt somewhat guilty for spending time alone. I say if possibly stay for some extra time after all your guests leave, or change resorts. We didn't do this so instead we are going to take a vacation with just the two of us sometime soon.

I can honestly say I have been the 'grooms sister' before. My oldest brother was engaged to be married and I honestly had no intention of being in the wedding party as I didn't really know his Fiance and didnt particularily like her. I was asked to be a bridesmaid and of course I accepted, only because of my brother. Their engagement ended up falling through and they never did get married, but it was just the feeling that I would get to stand up there and be included in my brothers wedding which was a great feeling. I think you should probably have her, and in the end it will probably only help your relationship with her.

We sent out our STDS about a year in advance. We included the resort, and month and year (January 2012). We did have a date booked with the resort at that time, but because our flight schedules weren't out yet, we thought it would be better to not include a specific date. In the end we did have to end up changing our wedding date so it was good that we didnt include the specific date.

We went on a few excursions with our guests, however, we didn't pay for them. We didn't plan anything in advance and once we got to Jamaica kind of asked everyone what they wanted to do. Everyone wanted to do Dunns River Falls, so we booked that, but each person payed for themselves. Its awefully expensive to pay for guests on excursions and we just couldn't afford it.

Following!

We never gave them a deposit, probably because we used the free package. If you are using the free package you just pay for everything extra once you get there.

Beautiful pictures! Im sure your pro ones will be stunning!

We didn't plan on having any speeches but there were some short ones about a minute each that our families and bridal party did. Nothing was planned though, but we were a small enough group and all at one table that it was easy to see and hear everyone and what they were saying during their speech.

We looked into Transats wedding packages when we choose them for our travel. Ultimately, we ended up going with the resort packages just because the wedding planners are way more familiar with their own packages rather then transats. Also, our travel agent advised us to use the resorts if at all possible, just because it can be way more to deal with when you are dealing with transat for the wedding packages plus the resort. In the end we choose to go with the resort just because it was a lot more simple.

Thats where I got mine from as well.

Congrats Erin, your photos are beautiful!!! The excursion to Mystic Mountain cost us 135 dollars each. That included the chair lift up and down, the bobsled, the ziplining, and use of the pool and water slide. It was pretty expensive but was definetly worth it, and Im so glad we did it! Also, you are at the top of the mountain and get the most beautiful views of Jamaica! I would recommend it for sure. I definetly agree, it is all about personal choice. I think if you are having a large group (we were only 16 people) I would go with the Dolce VIta as it is way more private and offers the authentic wedding recpetion and dinner feel. It wasn't very busy in the grill the night of our wedding, so maybe thats why there were no people even remotely close by. I guess its all about whats more important to you.

I used to resort florist. Actually we had a free wedding package and my bouquet was included. They had a bunch of different ones to choose from and thats the one I choose. I really loved it and was kind of sad to have to leave it behind in Jamaica!!

Ill answer what I can. We too went to Dunns River falls, and not everyone went in. There are lots of benches and a ledge that overlooked the falls that my mom and aunt (who didnt go in) were able to watch us come up the falls from. Also, we didnt know this at the time, but if there are people that arent going to be in the falls its cheaper for them to get into the park. So make sure you ask for the discounted price when booking your excursion. There were no clocks anywhere! It was a pretty big pain in the butt always asking for the time. We had an alarm clock in our room but it kept randomly resetting itself. We then found a channel on the tv that had the time (or so we thought) but we learnt it was 20 minutes to slow. We did bring our own little travel alarm clock, and it was so helpful. Everyone else ended up buying watches so they could know the time. And some of the rooms didnt have any alarm clocks in them. I would highly suggest bringing your own and advising your guests to do the same. My chair ties were actual chair ties. I ordered them off wedding linen direct. The people at the resort put them on the chairs for the wedding and also moved them over to the grill for our dinner. As to the actual gazebo decoration, that was all provided from the resort, i didnt bring any of that. I just choose a bouquet that I liked and didnt request any changes, so Im not to sure if you can request different colors or not.

Here is a picture of the clear starfish in my bouquet: I also had my blue starfish I was going to put in my bouquet as well, however, my bouquet was actually pretty small and having both of them in there looked pretty weird, so my bridesmaid had the blue starfish (the one I will be passing around) in her bouquet.

I would definately recommend him to anyone. Although we don't have our photos back we seen a few just from his camera and they look to be pretty amazing! He was so easy to work with and fun but professional at the same time! Also, his prices are pretty good compared to some others we looked into hiring.

In Jamaica it seemed to rain every day, but only for a short time period. Although, the second day we were there another brides wedding was moved in doors because it poured for like two hours, right when she was supposed to get married. It downpoured on our wedding day at about 1pm when we were in the spa and i was getting a little nervous, but it didnt last long at all and we had beautiful sunshine for our ceremony!

I was kind of prepared for a little drama from the inlaws but didnt expect there to be so much! However, I'm not going to dwell on the negatives, but rather forus on the positives and remember that we had an amazing wedding ceremony that is truly why we were there!

Our wedding ceremony was aboslutely amazing, not one thing I would change!!

Yeah it was not ideal or how I thought my vacation would be, but I'm going to just remember all the good times we had with other family and friends that joined us!! I wouldnt change anything about my ceremony as it was perfect! I can't say enough good things about Merrick. He was so professional, yet so easy to get along with and it felt really comfortable having him taking our photos. I'm really anxious to see the photos! We loved the resort and would love to go back, just the two of us! They did a pretty good job of my hair. Just had to fix a few peices but nothing major! We had a hard time choosing which photos we wanted from the resort photographer because most of them were not that good at all. And alot of our guests said that he would follow Merrick and take the same picture after he just took it.