beckys98

@@Soon2bmzbrooks This is the same company! Sheldon is Kevan's associate!

Hi @@Soon2bmzbrooks - I got married last month and we used "DJ Dutch" AKA Sheldon at http://jamaicaweddingdj.com/They are the preferred DJ for our resort and the price was I think $190 per hour. The resort was going to charge us $150 per hour to rent the sound system (to play an iPod) so it was a no brainer to just do the DJ. Sheldon was really great and we had several conversations with him prior to arrival in Jamaica. During our reception he checked in with us several times to make sure we were okay and happy with everything - which was more than our wedding coordinators did! They offer other services like tent rentals and lighting as well. But I would definitely recommend them for DJ services!

Of course! Happy to help! I'm still planning to put a thread on here with all my details to help future brides, I just haven't been able to get to it. But I'll answer any questions you have! Congratulations!

Our wedding was at Iberostar Rose Hall Suites in Montego Bay. We loved it and it was perfect for our group! We wanted to balance what we wanted for our wedding with our guests needs and budgets and it hit the sweet spot!

@@TinkerSofi My husband and I moved in together 3 years ago but I was TERRIFIED. I really loved living alone and he had previously lived in a dumpy apartment with 3 other roommates that was always disgusting and messy. It was the definition of a bachelor pad. More like a fraternity house! I know I can be a little uptight and particular about things and he is pretty laid back so I just wasn't sure he'd be able to handle me every single day. I was so scared and then I got so scared that I was scared. Why was I so scared? Did that mean that it wasn't the right decisions? And on...and on...and on...I would spiral. Never for a second was he nervous. Basically he made the decisions that he wanted to live with me and never gave it a second thought! Fortunately his confidence gave me faith that it was the right choice and we took the plunge. Well, I can distinctly remember a moment about 2 months into it while we sat in our barely furnished living room and it hit me. What was I so scared of!? Sure, I'd like it if he was a little tidier but he sure comes in handy when I'm trying to reach tall things! Coming home to him every day just felt so natural that I couldn't imagine what life was like before! Surprisingly, I became less up tight because he brought that out in me. Even when he goes out of town for work now I get a little excited to have the house to myself and eat what I want and watch what I want on TV, but when I actually come home and he isn't there I am a little sad. I have a hard time sleeping when he isn't there. I just like it better when he is around! As simple as that sounds, I like everything better when he is around! I totally understand the nostalgia for the "dating" phase - I frequently spend time thinking back on the memories because I don't want to forget the experience - but knowing that we are officially family just makes me so content and grateful. I'm 100% sure you'll feel the same way! It'll be even better than you imagined and it'll quickly feel like HOME and where you were always meant to be

I had a travel agent try to get us to book Beaches. It is certainly family friendly, but for us it would have catered TOO much to the kids. We only had a handful of kids coming so we wanted entertainment for them, but we didn't want dancing Sesame Street characters running around either We settled on a family friendly resort that had a kids club and kids water park and it was perfect.

We did not get married there - we got married at Iberostar Rose Hall Suites in Montego Bay - but we looked into it as an option. Our main concerns were the resort size was a little bigger than what we wanted but also they do multiple weddings per day and I saw some brides having like 11 a.m. ceremony times! That sounded awful to me But since you have a lot of lead time maybe you can get your first choice of ceremony time? Happy planning!

My nails grow really fast too! I got a gel manicure on the Saturday before my Thursday wedding. I would have preferred to do a coral color, but I got a very light pink color so the outgrowth wasn't as noticeable - it looked pretty ridic by the time we got home from the trip but I didn't care at that point! I really didn't want to take the time away from our guests to get my nails done at the resort so it worked well for me. I think it still looked fine

We used "Is This Love" by Bob Marley!

Hi Diana! Congratulations! I got married in Montego Bay last month and it was the best experience of our lives! If you search you can definitely find an abundance of information on here. But most brides in Jamaica use Floral Fantasies or Jan's for their florals - we used Floral Fantasies for our reception centerpieces and they were gorgeous. Tai Floral was the preferred vendor at my resort, which provided my bouquet as part of the package, but when I tried contacting them for quotes for the centerpieces I never heard back past the original acknowledgement that they got the email. My resort did not charge a vendor fee for the florist if they just drop the flowers off, which was the case. If they would have come on property to set up than there would have been a vendor fee. As for Photographers, again, there are MANY options! We used Stacey Clarke and many brides have issues with her responsiveness (or lack of) and the turnaround time to get your photos (4 months) but her style photos matched what we wanted. SunGold and WPAJ are very popular as well as Misha Earle. Many photographers will cover the resort vendor fee (Stacey did) so definitely inquire about that. If you're hiring a DJ - DJ Kevan seems to be the unanimous pick! We had his associate DJ Dutch (Sheldon) and he was really great to work with. Happy planning!

Our situation was a little unique because my husband is Jamaican - there was some expectation on our guests' part that he would show them some things off-resort. We did a dinner (free) and beach bonfire at the resort the night before the wedding. We also planned 2 optional excursions - a shorter one the day before the wedding and a full day 2 days after. We provided transportation but did not pay for the actual excursion for them. We had a facebook group for our guests so we created an event within the group and asked people to RSVP so we knew how many vans we needed to get people there. We skipped some traditions (for example, we did no mailed invitations) so that we had extra room in the budget to pay for the transportation and I think our guests would agree that it was worth it! We also spontaneously ended up taking a bunch of people for jerk one night as well - we did not pay for that but my husband coordinated everything.

Yes! @@Km444 @@NoRad I used Stacey only a month ago but in the weeks leading up to our wedding I considering backing out of the contract because I'd heard so many issues about her responsiveness (or lack of). Unfortunately, your situation is the norm. Most brides get their photos somewhere in between the 4-5 month mark. On the upside, I have never heard of a bride not getting them and they are ALWAYS thrilled with the photos once they receive them and say they were worth the wait. I've literally seen dozens of brides tell this same story about her. So, waiting is no fun, but I wouldn't worry. You'll get them! Do you have her phone number? Leading up to the wedding we reached her via Whatsapp and she responded right away. I haven't tried to reach her since but you could try that or give her a call.

Everything breakable for the wedding plus my wedding dress went in one suitcase that I carried on. We handed off one carry on sized suitcase to a family member to take. We definitely could have checked that one because we each only checked one bag (and had 2 each free) but I was too paranoid checking any of the wedding stuff. That one had everything for our welcome bags and I just thought if it got lost that would completely defeat the purpose of a WELCOME bag. We really tried to keep it to a minimum though. Every time we had an idea or thought of something else to add on I reminded myself that we'd have to lug it down there! I was so glad that I fit my dress in the suitcase because it was one less thing to carry, and carrying a tall garment bag is not easy. I carried my sister's dress to Mexico for her DW in a garment bag and it was a huge pain. The dress ended up with wrinkles in the exact spot I had it slung over my arm!

We did a message in a bottle guest book as well! We are going to read them on our 1st anniversary. However, we were at dinner with 10 friends last night and found out that NONE of them put a message in - some of them missed it completely, which is a bummer because it was on the table with the escort cards and it was also announced at the reception. The bottle was full so some people did it - I would just say make sure you announce it a couple times and maybe also have it out at any other event you do during the trip.

Oh wow! I like the dress on you a lot better than on the model! There was a thread on here somewhere that had brides in side-by-side pictures in their dress compared to the model. Like 95% of them I thought the dress looked way better on the real bride!

We did not do invitations. In fact, we did an electronic save the date via paperless post and directed to our website and that was it! We told people not to wait for a mailed invitation so they weren't expecting it - because we needed them to put their deposits down WELL before we would have sent out the invitation. Like you, we couldn't see the value in spending the money. The money we saved we put toward providing transportation to an excursion while we were in Jamaica. We aren't a very traditional couple though and all of our guests had internet access so it fit us! No one said a word about it to us so I assume people were a-ok with it! We had 66 guests at our wedding a few weeks ago so I don't think it hurt our attendance

I'm married too but that is such a unique dress! Love it! And your flower girls are adorable.

Thank you! I need to start my recap thread with the rest of our details but I haven't had a chance with work trying to kill my wedding glow

We looked at Rockhouse but we wanted a beach and we also had our nieces and nephews coming, plus we ended up deciding that proximity to the airport was important since most of our guests only stayed 4 nights. We got married at Iberostar Rose Hall Suites a few weeks ago and were absolutely happy with our decision! It was a good balance of the cost to our guests and the costs to us. Some resorts, like Dreams, practically give you the wedding for free but our guests would have paid 3x as much to stay there. We had 66 people at our wedding - we paid extra for a private reception with an upgraded bar and also had a dinner and beach bonfire with steel drum band the night prior and our tab to the resort was about $7k. Plus our DJ was about $500. Our travel, welcome bags, photographer, etc was on top of that, but I think that was reasonable for the actual wedding day costs. Like I said, no regrets about our resort choice and our guests LOVED it. If we had stayed for a honeymoon we would have gone to Negril and considered Rockhouse for that! It is so gorgeous.

I feel you on all fronts. We had some hiccups that are really frustrating and definitely a few regrets as well. Among other things, my husband's friends put together a video/slideshow and surprised us by playing it at our welcome dinner. It was awesome and so touching - but my friends and family weren't represented and we felt bad about that, even though we had nothing to do with it. I left the party too early on our wedding night. There are definitely people I didn't spend enough time with (most of our guests only stayed 4 nights). My husband and I only had 24 hours alone before coming home (and some of which was on our TTD photo shoot). It is majorly depressing to think that was honestly, truly a once in a lifetime experience and it is over. I'm constantly asking myself if I showed enough appreciation to our guests. Part of this is because we didn't have a bridal party, which I don't regret, but did we do enough for those would-have-been friends and family so they know how special they are to us? I just hope so. BUT, my husband and I have been together so long (9 years) that I didn't expect we'd feel any differently after making it official...but we do! We absolutely have that newlywed glow and my heart has never, ever been so full. The gratitude we feel for having the entire experience is something we'll carry forever. Not to mention we're starting to dig through the hours and hours of video we have from the week and it is so fun to watch! As much as I want to go back in time, we can sort of relive it whenever we want. I try to focus on all that when the regrets creep into my mind. Also, I didn't LOVE wedding planning and coming back to summer and more free time gets me through! It is pretty liberating to get home from work at 8 p.m. and just be done for the day! No to-do list to tackle or guilty feelings for not tackling it. We're making fun summer plans with our friends and some travel plans for 2016 to distract us - while also trying to convince all of our unmarried friends that they should get married in Jamaica when their time comes so we can live vicariously through them! I think we've convinced at least one couple

Gorgeous! The smile on your face says it all! I feel like $380 for all those alterations isn't so bad...I only had my dress hemmed and the bustle put in and mine were $180! All the bustle is is a hook and eye so I'm sure that took about 5 minutes. haha. Congrats!!

We did not hire a professional videographer because the cost for video of ONE day of our amazing trip wasn't where we wanted to spend our money. We bought a GoPro and we are currently going through so much video of the entire week to edit into a video we can share with our guests. There is so much fun stuff on there! We did have someone record the ceremony on the GoPro as well and it turned out great! It records in high definition and the sound quality is perfect - you can hear the whole ceremony even though it was crazy windy. Not professional, of course, but definitely will give us a way to relive the memories. Trust me, all those feelings will come rushing back when you watch the video...whether it is professionally done or not!

Wow! Wow! Wow! You look gorgeous! I really love your dress and I'm glad you didn't have to go with the lace up back - I love the buttons down the back. I feel like the dress is such a great combo between a traditional dress and being light and beachy. Great choice!

AHHH! Love your Vegas pictures!! How fun. The red lip looks awesome on you!

Congratulations! I always say picking the resort is the hardest part, but now that I've gone through the entire process I'm not so sure. Not to scare you! It definitely is the biggest decisions but sometimes the little stuff is more annoying. This forum really helps though 9 months is plenty of time! We picked our date/resort last July and then really did nothing for our June wedding until January - I didn't even try on a dress until January - so we pretty much did everything in 5 months. Happy planning!