allieplask

Here are the email responses I received.... (from two separate emails) The red are Tiffany's responses 1. Is it possible to have someone rolling cigars for guests during cocktail hour? unfortunately we don’t offer that service 2. Can we do a fireworks show? Unfortunately no, we do not allow fireworks These are both things that would have to be done by Jamacian vendors - not sure if there is anyone the hotel works with? if its possible? and if you have pricing? We aren’t aware of any Jamaican vendors that offer cigars rolling but if you find one you can contact them directly. 1. We plan to marry on the beach and would like to do a ceremony right at dusk. See attached picture - wedding ceremony_inghilterra. Is that possible - to have candles, lighting on the beach? yes you may do that 2. I also love the wedding of Marisa Axelrod - she was married at your resort last June. See pictures - http://www.celebritybrideguide.com/marisa-axelrod-and-kent-cecil-wedding-photos/?pid=1906. We plan to have the reception at the beachfront restaurant. I would like to rent out the whole thing but will have to see the number of people coming. We would love to have a DJ and dancing in this area as well. ok, no problem 3. Marisa Axelrod's cake was also beautiful. Was this done by the hotel or by an outside vendor? I would love a speciality cake - something beach related. Yes it was done by the Hotel, just send us a picture and we will check with the chef to see if what you send us is possible. 4. I love these centerpieces - http://www.celebritybrideguide.com/marisa-axelrod-and-kent-cecil-wedding-photos/?pid=1897 - and will probably do something similar. I saw similar arrangements on the Tai Flora website. Tia Flora was the ones who did the centerpieces . 5. We will be renting chilvary chairs or white wooden chairs from Tai Flora for the beach ceremony. Is that something I can coordinate through the hotel or do I need to speak with Tai Flora separately. You need to speak to Tia Flora separetely 6. On this website, showing weddings from Iberostar - http://www.weddingsbyiberostar.com/WEDDING-DETAIL-SHEET-IBGRRH.pdf - I really like some of the "Port Maria ideas additional costs." Specifically the ones with the lights going up the columns in the restaurant. Is that something we can do as well? Please let me know how we would coordinate/price that? this picture shows the Iberostar Grand, not the Suites. If you want, you can get this style at the Steakhouse restaurant but you will how to contact Tai Flora as they are the ones that did this setup. 7. We also plan to do a beach bonfire - maybe Friday night (May 24, 2013). We would also like to have a welcome dinner at one of the resort restaurants that night. Obviously I will know later now many will be attending but is it possible to make a large dinner reservation like that? yes you can have dinner for the group in one of the hotel restaurants. 8. I have read that the hotel does a beach party on Saturday nights? Is this something our guests can attend? Yes Is it possible to get an area set up specifically for us? we can reserve a special area . Is there a bar set up on the beach for this party? yes they do have a bar open for the Beach Party. 9. Confirm that I do not need to worry about flowers, etc. until around January 2013? If I need to do things sooner, I will. I will just worry about invitations, save the dates, travel arrangements (we have a travel agent already), etc. until I am notified by you that I need to start "planning." At least 4months in advance you can start contacting the flower Shop Again, I know we have time. I just want to make sure my wedding "vision" can be achieved through the hotel. Please let me know.

I actually received an email back from Tiffany at the Suites this weekend and she answered a lot of my questions. I will post it here later - I am not sure now to copy and paste from the iPad.

Mt travel agent has had nothing but amazing things to say about the majestic elegance - she was trying to get us to look there when we were deciding on a resort. We knew we didn't want Punta Cana as a location from the start but still - have heard amazing things!

i know no one has been on this thread for a while. just wanted to know if any of you have had luck with a cigar roller? i too am looking for one for my wedding in Montego Bay.

Has any one heard anything about having a cigar roller at their wedding? I have seen it done at Sandals. Tiffany at IRHS said they don't work with someone specifically but we could always find someone on our own - my dad and FI reallllllllly want someone hand rolling cigars. I guess I will have to do some research? Also, I have been told the Suites does NOT allow firework shows. That is also something my parents wanted to do for us but unfortunately the hotel will not allow. I have been also told that the chef at the hotel will make custom wedding cakes. They said to email them a picture and they will let us know if that typed cake is possible- happy to know we are not limited to basic white cake with flowers. It seems like all special things - lighting at the reception restaurant, special chairs, etc. are all done through Tai Flora. Has anyone gotten quotes from them for this type of stuff? I have emailed them but never hear back yettttt...

I actually found the picture on the Half Moon wedding website (it's another resort in Montego Bay). For us, picking a venue was the most stressful. We got information from Iberostar, Half Moon, Hilton Rose Hall and the Ritz. Ultimately, we picked Iberostar Rose Hall Suites (over the Beach and the Grand). IRHS had really great reviews. While the Hilton was a nice property, a lot of the reviews said there were TONS of kids running around. The Ritz wasn't a "true all-inclusive" which we didn't like - we didn't want our guests not to be able to eat at certain restaurants, etc. All-inclusive was just easier for us. Half Moon was beautiful and we absolutely LOVED the property but we have a lot of young friends/guests and the vibe at the resort is definitely older. We didn't want something that quiet, even thought that is what my FI and I prefer. Iberostar is a great mix because they have so many dining options, night clubs and daily activities, etc. We thought about doing the reception at IRHS and the ceremony at the Aqueducts - which is why I have all the info - but the FI objected. He didn't want everyone to have to travel from the hotel to a different location. He worried about making sure everyone making the provided transportation, about bathrooms, stuff like that. He said if we are picking a hotel than we are doing everything there - and while I secretly agreed I did want my "dream ceremony." Like I said, I hated the idea of a beach wedding. I was against it from the beginning; however, after I saw this picture, I knew I could be happy. I just don't want people in their bathing suits watching my wedding. Also, try googling "Marisa Axelrod Amazing Race Wedding" - this girl was apparently on the Amazing Race and had her wedding at the Suites. Her wedding was the first one I truly liked that I saw done at the Suites. It seems a lot of people bring so many extras - like decorations, etc. I thought hers was elegant but still done tastefully and didn't look tacky. I wasn't aware of the 90% rule - we had planned on telling guests they could stay at the Suites or the Grand so I will have to ask my TA. To be honest, for a DW I think your guests will stay where you tell them too. Since all our guests will be booking via our TA, she is not allowing them to book at the Beach - even if they want too. That was our solution to that problem. At Iberostar, their "indoor location" is a dome area between the Suites and the Grand. Yes, it's indoors but it's not terrible looking and if it rains, then there is obviously nothing we can do. The other thing to keep in mind is that if you don't have your ceremony at Iberostar, just your reception, the bride whose wedding is at the resort that day has first pick of reception location, etc. What if you found out if you can do a TTD shoot or something at the aqueducts?

Sounds like you had a wonderful wedding. Congratulations. Can I just ask why you used Godfrey Guy for your flowers and not Tai Flora? I know Tai Flora is the hotels preferred vendor - just wondering? Thanks!

Margaritaville sounds fun! I actually have quotes for a catamaran tour aka booze cruise that takes you snorkeling, services drinks on the boat and takes you to Margaritavilla to hang out and play in their water stuff. We are treating our guests to this and the tour will pick us up at our hotel.

We decided to stay at Iberostar RHS and have the wedding there as well. Originally I HATED the idea of an on-the-beach wedding because I didn't want people in their bathing suits standing around while I am in a wedding dress... however, I found this picture: and I thought if we could have the wedding on the beach "during" sunset, it would probably be more private as I wouldn't assume many people are still laying on the beach and sunbathing at this point in the day. I love the entire look of the picture - candles, etc. Very romantic looking. We figured we could take all of our pictures ahead of the ceremony - which I love because I have seen photos of the bride coming up behind the groom, surprising him and that is when he sees her for the first time. I like that moment captured in a photograph as oppose to the walking down the aisle. It also helps alleviate my stress about sweating in my make-up. Last summer when I was in Jamaica I barely wore any because it was so hot! At least my pretty wedding makeup will look good in the pictures! haha. Below is the email I got from Hilton Rose Hall. I also have information from the Ritz Carlton that I can send to you. I do have all the attachments from both hotels in regards to costs if you want to see them. Dear Allie, Thank you for your response. Further to your email. The cost for a plated dinner when staying at the hotel is US$45.00 plus 28% taxes and service charge per person. For 60 persons your cost is US$57.60 X 60 = US$3456.00 Cost of the bar is US$650.00 plus 28% taxes and service charge = US$832.00 for 3 hours If you and your party are not staying at the Resort please see the attached Banquet Guide for prices. The Packages available online are built to remain as they are. I recommend starting with the least expensive package (Cool Runnings US$1200.00) and adding the items that you require. To rent the aqueduct the cost is US$2500.00. The Rose Hall Great House and Johnie Cash estate rental cost is US$10000.00. A cost applys to all request eg. dj, dance floor, lighting ect. I hope i have covered everything but let me know if you require additional information. Thank you once again for choosing the Hilton Rose Hall Resort and Spa.

I was told, by the Hilton, that it is $10,000 to rent the Great House/use the property - it was the same cost for the Johnny Cash Estate. I will look for the information - I can always email it to you, i know I have it saved.

I feel behind too. We have a website and a resort picked. We picked out bridal parties too. But that is it! No colors, no dress, no details! We do have our save-the-dates done, just haven't had them printed yet or sent them out!

Thank you, thank you for clarifying. That's why this forum is so nice - because I read the brochures/information as one thing and since no one at the hotel responds to me I am able to get my answers. The Grand is beautiful and we plan to stay there for the wedding even though our actual wedding will be at the Suites. We just ended up with an invite list with too many kids and we wanted to be able to enjoy activities throughout the week with all our guests - not just the kid-free ones.

Yeah I agree. Originally Half Moon was our first choice but the "quietness" of the resort worried us - as did the costs for our guests to stay there. Ultimately we decided to go elsewhere in Montego Bay.

We are also currently working on our save-the-date cards. We're not sure if we plan on doing invitations yet but here is our save-the-date. We plan on having them printed as postcards (so nice when the business right next door does printing!). The size will be: w-6", h-4.5". Again, I have the Illustrator file if anyone wants it.... We look this idea from Etsy as well. The thought was we didn't want pictured of ourselves on it (especially since our engagement pictures were done in the middle of winter). We wanted our guests to get excited for the destination. This picture works great because 1. we plan to get married at sunset and 2. it seems as Iberostar has a gazebo in the ocean. Here is the link of the STD we "copied" - http://www.etsy.com/listing/85487457/save-the-date-postcard-custom-design Instead of paying $20, we just recreated it ourselves, new font, etc.

Okkk, here is the file of our engagement invite. We found a similar invitation on Etsy and liked it.. Instead of paying the $20 for it, we just made it ourselves in Illustrator and then had them printed on our own too. If anyone is familiar with Illustrator and wants the file, I can email it to you?

when is your wedding?

For our bridal party, nick and I chose two of our close friends and also plan to have Nick's 7-year-old cousin as his groomsman and Nick's 9-year-old cousin as my bridesmaid. We figured since we were having such small bridal parties, we didn't want to give them "jr." titles and they were too old to be flower girl and ring bearer. Of course no one in our bridal party lives near us - Virginia, Maryland, Germany and New York are a little far to ask them all in person. So, we made up cards asking them to be our bridesmaids/groomsmen and also send them some Red Stripe. We figured since the wedding is in Jamaica, Red Stripe is the perfect gift and it's fun! Who doesn't love beer? All of the cards were printed in color on card stock. Since Olivia is only 9-years-old, we did Disney Princesses for her card - much cuter and age appropriate. *Note the font for "wear a pretty dress," etc. on the actual cards was the same typewriter font as the other bridesmaids cards (for some reason the typewriter font is not saved on my laptop). For my other two bridesmaids, their cards were the following. All of the cards were put into special envelopes. The above pages were first. After flipping past the first page they saw the additional three pages that were all organized in height order - the first page was the shortest, the second page only had the header visible and the third page the same. The pages in order are "our day," "your role" and "the details." I wanted to make sure my bridesmaids had all the information before deciding they wanted to be part of our bridal party - especially because we have not sent save-the-dates yet or old anyone where our wedding is (we have only told everyone else the date and Jamaica because we posted it on our website as soon as we got confirmation from the hotel).

Nick and I got engaged on February 12, 2012 at Mountain Creek Ski Resort in New Jersey - with a beautiful yellow sapphire. This picture is one we sent to friends once we got back from our ski trip. I'm going to start with our engagement party. Nick and I are not the DIY type - I prefer professions to take care of all that business. However, we own an apparel and graphic design firm called Sincere Legends (www.sincerelegends.com) and decided that we were going to create our own website, wedding logo, invitations, save-the-dates, etc, etc. Luckily for us, the business next door to our warehouse is a paper printing shop who has been doing our printing. Since we knew we planned on having a destination wedding, we first planned a huge engagement party at a Triumph Brewing Company in Princeton, NJ. We knew since not everyone would be able to attend a destination wedding, we wanted to have as many people attend our engagement party. Of our 250 person wedding guest list, we invited the 140 that lived in the tri-state area. In preparation for the party, we designed our wedding website: www.allienick.com Right now, the website has since been updated since the party but we did have an ENGAGEMENT PARTY tab with info about Triumph Brewing Company, directions to the brewery and information/parking in Princeton. Right now, the ENGAGEMENT PARTY tab has been replaced by the WEDDING INFO tab. We also came up with this "logo" as our wedding logo. In our business, brand recognition is really important so we wanted to do the same for our wedding. We used the logo to make round stickers which we used to seal the engagement party envelopes and plan to use it for OOT bags at the wedding. We met with our engagement photographer, Brad Ross out of Clinton, NJ, and decided to take engagement pictures before the party so we could make a guest book for all of our guests to sign. See some of our engagement photos (more on allienick.com: http://www.bradross.net/engagement/princeton-engagement-photography-allie-nick Unfortunately, we took out engagement pictures three weeks before the party (at Princeton University and at the Brewery) and the photographer didn't have time to make a book for us himself. We took the pictures he gave us and made our own book using Adobe InDesign. We designed it exactly the way we wanted it to look and uploaded the entire .pdf to Blurb (www.blurb.com) to have them print it. The printing only took a week and we got the book three days before the party! The book was a HUGE hit at the party and now we have an awesome memory (and don't have to lug a book down to Jamaica). You can preview our book at: http://www.blurb.com/books/3053205 I will attach a picture of the engagement invitation on Monday - it's at the office on my work computer. BTW Triumph is a beautiful two-story building with exposed brick walls and big beer vats that sit behind two-story glass windows. We did beer tastings of all their seven beers, etc. and it was a great time.

All sound great, we're trying to pick our colors too.. So hard! We want something islandy but still classic..... Found these two threads, I like both palates http://paratinovia.com/inspiration-board-28-baby-blue-canary-yellow-spring-green http://paratinovia.com/inspiration-board-34-baby-blue-yellow-grass

I'm waiting on mine from the TA. Apparently 2013 rates aren't out yet. And flights won't be available until 11 months before the date you need them for. I'll let you know when I know what my TA tells me.

I have not contacted Tai Flora yet - I figured with the wedding so far out I have some time. I actually initially asked the WC at IRHS about the chairs because I have seen pictures from peoples wedding using those chairs. The WC told me they were called chivalry chairs and that they are rented through Tai Flora, so that's how I found out about that. I just wasn't sure if the hotel would take care of arranging that (since TF is the preferred flower vendor of the hotel) or if I had to contact Tai Flora myself and figure it all out? The wedding sheets I found through Google - I am not sure if the website is affiliated with the hotel or not but all of the information is the same as what the hotel has been sending me - and they have one for the Beach, Suites and Grand. I actually found it by googling "iberostar rose hall suites wedding" and the page comes up in all capital letters. I'mm put the links below. We were debating about getting married at the Grand but the prices seemed so much more for what I would assume is basically the same thing? But when I saw the picture of the Port Maria Restaurant with the lights on the columns and the chairs I like, I figured it could be done at either resort (they'd just charge us extra for it). And our travel agent's name is CeCe Loper - she's with CruiseLovers.com but based out of Ohio. It just happens that she is a family friend of my parents and we just figured it was easier since we knew and trusted her. Beach: http://www.weddingsbyiberostar.com/iberostar_rose_hall_wedding_packages.htm Suites: http://www.weddingsbyiberostar.com/iberostar_rose_hall_suites_wedding_packages.htm Grand: http://www.weddingsbyiberostar.com/iberostar_rose_hall_grand_wedding_packages.htm

I'm glad somebody agrees! You are important right now, not us! I hope your wedding is absolutely AMAZING and you have a fantastic time in Jamaica! Def. tell us all about it when you are back!

oh and kfarkas - we are so close to each other! we are from princeton, nj

If you're going to IRHS and end up asking any of the following questions please let me know. I have emailed the WC about them last week but h aren't gotten a reply yet. The below #1-8 are from the email I last sent her. If you don't ask, no worries because I'm sure I'll figure it out by next May. 1. We plan to marry on the beach and would like to do a ceremony near sunset. Is that possible - to have candles, lighting on the beach? 2. I would like to have a speciality cake - something beach themed/related. Can this be done by the hotel or an outside vendor? http://www.celebritybrideguide.com/marisa-axelrod-and-kent-cecil-wedding-photos/?pid=1896 3. We will be renting chilvary chairs from Tai Flora for the beach ceremony (because I don't like chairs with the white covers and bows on the back). Is that something I can coordinate through the hotel or do I need to speak with Tai Flora separately. 4. On this website, showing weddings from Iberostar - http://www.weddingsbyiberostar.com/WEDDING-DETAIL-SHEET-IBGRRH.pdf - I really like some of the "Port Maria ideas additional costs." Specifically the ones with the lights going up the columns in the restaurant. Is that something we can do as well? Please let me know how we would coordinate/price that? 5. We would like to have a welcome dinner at one of the resort restaurants the night all our guests arrive - can we make a large group reservation for that? 6. I have read that the hotel does a beach party on Saturday nights? Is this something our guests can attend? Is it possible to get an area set up specifically for us? Is there a bar set up on the beach for this party? Or do we have the option to have an open bar? 7. Is it possible to have someone rolling cigars for guests during cocktail hour? I have seen it done at weddings before but would assume that would be an outside vendor - can you set that up for us? 8. Can we do a fireworks show? and can we release paper lanterns (like they do at the end of Hangover II). (The last two - about cigar rollers and fireworks are my dad's request. But since he is the once paying for the wedding - how can I say no to asking. Who wouldn't love fireworks!).

Awesome! Yes, please let me know how it is! and what company you are going through. We plan to do the same for our guests - charter the catamaran and make it optional for guests, but i hope everyone comes! Another thing, we for sure have 3 kids attending the wedding - my brother who will be 15 and my FI's cousins (who are in our bridal party) and will be 8 and 10 at the wedding. Do you think the catamaran is appropriate for them - especially since it will be only our guests and not random people? I know the lady I have been speaking with at Island Routes said yes, but i'd like another opinion - preferably from someone who has been on it before. Thanks! And have an awesome trip!