hey Francine, a great way to avoid much of the stress would be to hire a wedding planner, like acw said, most know what they're doing lol... i got married in Jamaica recently and opted to do all the shopping around myself... in my opinion, YES!, you would definitely avoid much of the cost associated with resort packages by booking the vendors yourself. My wedding photographer was Courtney Chen, he was recommended to be by a friend and i'm glad i went with him, his work speaks for itself, he has a face book page and you could Google him. If you're also shopping around for a Makeup Artist i could recommend Charlie Montag Makeup Artistry, i had a few trials with a few other MUA's before coming across her website. she was excellent, price point was fabulous and very professional. i had 9 bridesmaids, along with my mother and my mother in law and she was nothing short of amazing... check her out if you're still shopping around for vendors https://www.facebook.com/CharlieMUA .........My decorations were done by Nishy Weddings, i think they have a website so you could also try googling them as well... overall, my budget was $5,000 (USD) and it came well under that..