Just arrived home from our wedding week at Hotel Riu Montego Bay, Jamaica.  We got married on 6-20-12 and chose the free wedding package and a 4pm ceremony at the Plaza Gazebo, and I am sooo glad we did!  I will tell you why in a minute......  

    The next day we saw a beach ceremony and there were people all around.  The plaza is by far more private. During our ceremony, everyone stayed in the pool or at the lobby bar to watch.  They do rope off an area around the beach ceremony, but there are a lot of people who have no common courtesy, and they stand right behind the rope.  They will be in your photos and I do not believe there is a way to photo shop all of those people out.  

When our ceremony was over, we walked through the pool area, and everyone shouted and clapped for us!  It was soo touching.

   We hired Stacey Clarke as our photographer, she is nothing less than AMAZING!  Our wedding was on a Wednesday and she had another wedding to shoot on the following Saturday, so she stayed at the resort  for the week and we did a TTD session the next morning.  She brought her associate Geoffrey.  He took pics of the groom getting ready and Stacey took mine while I was getting ready.

 During the ceremony,family pics, and TTD session, both of them were working their magic.  As soon as I get my photos I will post them so you can see how amazing they turned out! 

     Now for the reason why I am sooo glad we chose the free wedding package.  If you are having 10 guests or less like we did, this is the way to go.  With the free package you get to pick from 2 bridal  bouquets.  They are not bad at all.  I ended up making my own, but still opted to get the multicolored bouquet and gave it to my little niece to have.  You also get a flower for the groom which we used.    They include a DJ and speakers so your guests can hear what is being said.  The minister has a microphone, and white folding chairs were set up for the  guests.  The free package also comes with some kind of green leafy arch, but I told Nekeisha not to have the guys set it up, because frankly, I think it looks ugly.  The plaza is so beautiful itself that I am glad we didn't spend the extra money on upgraded packages.  You can choose the free package and add things like a runner, chair covers, chair sashes, flowers etc.  For example you can get two flower bouquets and toil to decorate the gazebo for $260.  After spending so much money on the trip itself, I wanted to use that money to go on a couple excursions.  If money is not an issue, then I say go for it!!!!

      There was another wedding on the beach the day I got married.  Not exactly sure what time the other wedding was, but mine was at 4pm which is the last wedding of the day. I recommend a 4pm ceremony bc it is close to dinner time and the "flow" of events went really nice.  We didn't want to get married at noon and then have to wait 6 hrs before our reception dinner.   Our dinner reservations were at 6:30pm at the Steak House, which is the semi private reception included in the free package.  The dinner was delicious and there was absolutely no one else there that night and I am still wondering why.  Your own private server is included in the free package and you get a lot of food to choose from and it is served a la carte.  Make sure to tip your server generously, they work really hard.

  As for the wedding coordinators...... I was not impressed at all.  Now, I wasn't expecting to be catered to whatsoever, but I literally didn't see Nekeisha all night.  No Joke. We arrived at the resort on a Sunday, and met with her on Monday.  I contacted her via E-mail before we left home and asked her if we should set up a time to meet.  She responded quickly, and said that we would meet at 11 am on Monday.  During our meeting, she asked us about songs, the ceremony site, people attending and told us pricing for the "extras."  With the free package, you do have to pay $360 to cover the marriage license and minister fees, which we already knew prior to booking.  We initially wanted the steel drum band, but chose to rent out the disco instead.......  Nekeisha instructed my groom to meet her at the plaza gazebo at 3:45pm.  I told her in the pre meeting that I wanted the wrist bands taken off all of us prior to any photos being taken, and informed her that my photographers would start shooting around 3pm.  She verbalized understanding.  When the wedding day arrived, we literally took forever to get ahold of her to take the wrist bands off.  The front desk told us not to take them off ourselves, and that our wedding coordinator has to do it.  Finally we got ahold of her, and she said we could cut them off ourselves.  4pm came, and I was in my room waiting for her to come and get me.  Since there was no practice prior to the wedding day, I had no idea which way to enter the plaza.  I knew she was meeting my groom at the site at 3:45pm.  We had to send a family member to find her to ask her what to do and also to get my bouquet of flowers to give to my niece.  She came to my room around 4:15pm and walked me to where I needed to be.   When my song started, she told me to start walking down the isle, and I didn't see her for the rest of the night.  I wouldn't have cared at all if I actually knew where I needed to be and when I needed to be at certain

places.  My amazing photographer stepped in and took charge.  What would I have done without her??? =) 

      I guess what I learned from the whole experience is that I should have asked a hell of a lot more questions, and been a lot more specific during the pre-meeting.  Don't get me wrong, she was really nice and answered all of our questions.  It seemed like we needed to know the right questions to ask, in order to get the answers we needed.  Little bits of extra information were not offered, and if they had been, probably would have probed me to ask more questions.  She did not ask us questions about little details that would have made a difference.  A lot of things I didn't even think of asking, I just figured the professional would know.   We didn't get to meet the minister before hand, and the first time I knew his name was after we were married and I found it on the temporary certificate that we signed after the ceremony.  He did do a wonderful job, except that he wasn't made aware of how we wanted the stone ceremony to go.  Ideally, we wanted our guests to take a stone from the table on their way to their chair and write us a little message prior to the ceremony while they were waiting.  Instead, the stones were sitting on their chairs waiting for them, and he had them write a message on the stone during the ceremony.  There was a long awkward pause, and then he continued to go on with the ceremony, and it resulted with my ADD family trying to listen and write at the same time.  LOL Didn't work out too well.  

    At about 8:30pm, after dinner we went to the disco where DJ Love was waiting for us to start our reception.  We had the disco until 10:30pm and then it was opened to everyone else.  I have been to the RIU Cancun and the disco is the same.  I am not a big fan of the disco because they keep dark as hell, and have the colored lights going all over the walls and ceiling.  The music is always cranked up and we had to have him turn it down a little. 

    Just remember to ask all them all of the questions you have, make a list before you meet with the wedding coordinator, and don't be afraid to ask for a walk thorough of the ceremony or ceremony site if you need one.  The resort itself is amazing and there really are no worries and no problems!  

     The best bartenders are Junior and Maria.  Entertainment staff is great, especially Blondie, Megatron, and Yellow mon just to name a few.  They are soo welcoming and you really get to know them while you're there.  If you have any questions at all don't hesitate to ask!  Have a fabulous wedding, and keep a look out for my Pro pics that will be coming soon!