soonCB

I don't think you would need the legal documents for Jamaica if you are just having a cymbolic ceremony rather than a legal one. We got legally married in Jamaica and it was a breeze since the officient handled everything. You just need your passports

Congrats mizpriya! I just finished our photobook with Adoramapix. We ordered one a little while ago and love it. They have a sale on right now until the end of May for 30% off which is great! I finally decided on them after reading MANY reviews from www.photobookgirl.com. I would definately recommend that website to anyone looking into different photobook companies or ideas.O On another note, we have been back for awhile and I finally finished my planning thread. It kinda got short near the end, but I'm willing to answer any questions any one has as this website has been a huge help for me in planning my weddin and getting ideas. so THANK YOU!!

Attire: We got the men's pants and pants from http://www.studiosuits.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1400 and the shirts were from Le Chateau outlet.

Okay . . .I am ready to finish completing my review! I was waiting for the Pro Pics before I continued and they just came today!!! To start, our Photographer was Misha Earle and she did an absolutely AMAZING job. She was great to work with and our guests all commented on how great she was too! All the picture from the wedding were done by Misha Here is Misha's website http://www.mishaearlephotography.com/index2.php?v=v1 Our wedding venue was Firefly and it was absolutely perfect! It was everything I imagined! We had a fairly small wedding. Tara Hirst at White Light Events managed everything on the dat of the wedding and completed all of the set up and decorations. She did an absolutely AMAZING job! I highly recommend her! Here is her website http://www.whitelighteventsja.com/

We did this and it turned out AWESOME!!! Here is a pic of ours. I made the sign in word with similar wording. We used a Canadian wood puzzle maker from etsy and we were really happy with it. The seller we used was memory lane puzzles.

PASSPORT WELCOME BOOKS As I mentioned before this was a BIG hit with the guests! I got all of the ideas from this site.I ended up finding the plastic photo books in a clearance bin at Superstore for 50 cents! This is something I did not take a picture of before we gave them to guests so I had to take a picture of our "not so perfect one". You will get the idea. I made the entire book in word and printed the pages on cardstock except for the "meet the guests" pages which I had printed on Photo Paper. In my opinion you could do the whole book this way and it would still look great. I just added backgrounds for extra color. The cover page of the guest's books fit perfectly and was not too small like ours is in the picture. I took most of my ideas from the following threads. If anyone would like a copy of our welcome book just message me. The file is pretty big and word is a bit finicky to work with. http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/71042/activity-book-pictures-and-template http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/54124/my-passport-welcome-books This is the thread I probably "borrowed" the most from. She had such GREAT ideas. http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/69230/welcome-book-inspired-by-rach220 I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR THE SIDEWAYS PICS. I TRIED EVERYTHING TO MAKE THEM SHOW UP PROPERLY, BUT IT DIDN'T WORK . I forgot to post above that we had tags which I purchased from www.myownlabels.com with a groupon. Below is a picture of the tags. The sticker above on the back of the books is also from that website.

SusanMike2013- have you received your voucher? We have travelled already and are having trouble getting any info from Sunwing. Our travel agent isn't getting back to me either! when I called Sunwing they said the voucher would be in our e-docs, but it was not. I am a little disapointed as I am already itching to go back to Jamaica!

OOT BAGS All of our guests appreciated the OOT bags. We did one per couple or one for every single person. I definately noticed guests using their goodies. I tried to keep our OOT bags to a minimum and "essentials". Our guests really enjoyed the Welcome booklet and multiple guests commented how much they enjoyed them and what a great keepsake they were. Each Bag included the following: - A bag which I stamped with fabric ink. The bags are from Dollar Tree and were a great find. I tried "iron ons" on a few bags, but they didn't work for me. I know other brides have done this and haven't had any issues, so maybe I did it wrong. - An "Oh Sh!t Kit" Which included: - Kleenix (Dollar Tree, $1 for 6) - 10 pack of advil/ Tylenol (Dollarama $2) - Aloe gel ($1.50 Walmart) - SPF Lip balm ($ 3.00 for 4 from Target in USA on sale) - Propel single packs ( I can't remember the price on these, but they were bought in the USA) - Tide to go single use ( I also found these in the USA and I think it was $5 for a 12 pack) - Hand Sanitizer from bath and Body Works ($10) - Tums ($ 2 for a 3 pack) - Small pack of Trident Gum (4 in a pack for $1 from Dollar Tree USA) Here are a few templates for the Oh Sh!T kits which were borrowed file from other brides. I used an Avery kit for the bags and it worked GREAT. - I included keycard holders; however, most of our guest stayed in the Standard rooms which had an old fashioned key and not a key card. I did see some guests using them to carry money though ( I got these from Specialist ID and it came out to $20 for 30 tags including shipping) here is the template for the insert which I just printed on business cards - Double walled Tumblers ($5 each from Superstore) - Welcome Books - banana Chips which were bought in Jamaica and brought to us by Ophellia Will Upload pictures of the Welcome book soon. cards.docx stick men.docx cards.docx

PASSPORT WEDDING INVITATIONS Our wedding colors were Orange and Purple and we used a company in Manitoba to make our invitations. I was 110% satisfied with the results! They looked so professional and our guests loved them too. We used Enchanted Moments http://enchanted-moments.com/.

Okay, so our wedding has come and gone . . . .I can not thank the members on this site enough for loads of information, encouragement and great ideas that helped us plan our special day. I borrowed a lot of ideas for projects and other elements for our wedding from other brides on this site. I am sorry if I don't recall all the posts, but I need to give credit, where credit is due. THANK YOU!! The planning process for me has been filled with a lot of ups and downs, but you WILL make it through and everything will be awesome. If anyone has any questions or need any more information on certain things, just ask. I would be happy to help out as this site has been invaluable for me. WEDDING PLANNER/ TRAVEL AGENT Since we knew we wanted an off resort wedding we opted to use a wedding planner who specialises in Jamaican destination weddings. We live in Manitoba and I had contacted a wedding planning agency here regarding our wedding and they recommended Ophellia McNight with Bridal Affair Destinations. I should note that Ophellia is based out of the Toronto, ON area and we communicated through lots of email contact and she would call too. We used Ophellia for our wedding planning and as our travel agent. First of all I need to say that Ophellia is very knowledgeable about Jamaica and any question I had she was able to answer and provided advice when needed. We communicated with Ophellia A LOT throughout the planning process. This was a very "up and down" experience for me as I felt Ophellia was invaluable at times and at other times she just increased stress. Let me explain. As I noted above, Ophellia was our wedding planner and travel agent. At times guests complained that she did not respond to them in a timely manner, but this I do not blame her for because she is clearly a very busy person. Our actual wedding day was (almost) flawless and I need to credit Ophellia for her hard work that made that possible. Some of the things that caused more stress for us was more detail oriented things which I had thought would have been dealt with earlier than they were. For example, we were informed 2 weeks before our departure that we needed our birth certificates in order to get married in Jamaica. This wouldn't have been an issue except my husband was born in another province and did not have his. Ophellia requested that I send her a certified copy of mine, so they would have it in Jamaica. After stressing over this for several days, eventually Ophellia informed me that we could just send her copies of our passports and driver's licence with no certification required. We ended up doing that and were never asked for anything else when in Jamaica. The second big thing was being informed of major extra costs the day before we left for Jamaica despite informed Ophellia over a week prior that we had "extra guests" that invited them selves. In the end Ophellia sorted this out, but it was something that should have been dealt with earlier. There were a few other things that were overlooked such as specifics about how we wanted the wedding cake and the DJ did not have our play list although I had sent it to Ophellia in advance. All in all Ophellia was good to work with and as I mentioned above our wedding was WONDERFUL thanks to her planning and her vendors in Jamaica. Also as you can see on Ophellia's website, she plans GORGEOUS Weddings. The Resort- Riu Ocho Rios There are a lot of pictures of Riu Ocho Rios on the net, so I will not post any more on here. Ophellia was VERY VERY helpful in helping us choose a resort.The resort itself is very nice and the staff were great; although, I will note that they have terrible customer service. We had left an envelope at the front for one of the vendors to pick up and when they "lost it" after they told the vendor it was not there, they were not apologetic at all for the situation. Other than that situtation, our stay at the resort was WONDERFUL. We stayed in a Junior Suite which was very nice and although we had a "garden view" room, we had a very clear view of the ocean which was nice. While we were at the hotel apparantly their phone system was not working properly, so I was unable to make local calls which I was told I would be able to. The hotel staff was not helpful with this and just told us we could buy a phone card. On the plus side there is FREE WIFI in the deluxe wing which we took advantage of and the extra restaurants were a nice bonus too. We ate at Tushima during our stay and it was great! I would recommend this to anyone staying at the resort. We also really enjoyed the Mamme Bay steak house and the St. Anne Buffet. You will definately NOT go hungry at this resort. There is always something to eat. I know it is mentioned in many other areas, but if you stay at this resort you HAVE to try the jerk chicken on the beach! It is AMAZING. It rained a couple days we were there and they moved the chicken outside the buffet which was a nice touch. Views from our balcany ENTERTAINMENT One thing I was impressed with at the resort was the Entertainement crew. Each show we watched was very entertaining and the staff really made sure guests were involved and having a good time. It did start a little late 9:30PM, but since we were on vacation this wasn't too much of an issue. On some nights our little one fell asleep during the show since it was so late. TOURS While in Jamaica we did Dolphin Cove, Dunns River Falls, Mystic Mountain, and the Culture and Regae Tour to Bob Marley's house. We booked most of our tours through the Sunwing desk at the hotel and it was a great experience. We really enjoyed all the tours we did. If you go to Ocho Rios you HAVE to do Dunns River Falls. It was absolutely unforgettable and kids are able to do it too. The guides are awesome! We really enjoyed Zip-Lining at Mystic Mountain as well. We booked a "glass bottom boat" tour through Scuba scribe which is approved by the resort. I am not really sure why they sell this as a tour because you can not see anything through the bottom. The captain and tour guide were very sweet though and took us on a "Glass Bottom Sight Seeing Tour" instead. They really tried and we enjoyed it. They were knowledgeable about the different areas in Ocho Rios and even let us get out at a small beach with a water fall to take pictures. It was really nice to get out on the water.

I didn't see your response until now. It was absolutely WONDERFUL!! I am working on a planning thread. Hopefully will be done before the weekend.

Everything looked AMAZING!!! Good Job!

Hey ladies, just wanted to post a quick update for what was used in our OOT bags. Most people seemed to use the cups and the bags. We packed double walled tumblers with straws for everyone. We also saw people using the actual beach bag quite a bit. Although I loved putting together the oh Sh!t kits, I am really not sure if anyone used the stuff in them. I know for sure done used the Aloe. We had also packed Tylenol, gum, lip chap, propel (this was used), hand sanitizer, tide to go, Kleenex, and tums. We also packed the kits for ourselves and most of the stuff we didn't use. I made welcome books for everyone with indie on the resort, about Jamaica, and games. These were a big hit. Although I am not sure if people used them, they sure did enjoy getting them and lots of people mentioned they are a good keepsake. The final thing we included were Id badge holders. I didn't realize before we left that R rio ocho rios, the standard rooms have actual keys and a huge keychain attached to them, so guests couldn't use the holder for their room key. I did see a few guests using them for tip money and other things thoug. Overall I think they were a great item yo include and we definitely used ours.