I got married at the Iberostar Rose Hall Suites on Saturday, January 12, 2013. I stayed there from January 10th – 17th with a group of 56 people in total.  This was the best experience of my entire life and COMPLETELY exceeded my expectations!!!!

 

Travel Agent/ Kimberly Felix – A++

 

Kimberly Felix (www.honeymoonsic.com; [email protected] ) was an absolute joy to work with!  She answered every email within the hour and provided so much useful information to me and my guests.  She worked very hard to get rooms for my last minute guests even after the hotel had sold out.  Everyone loved working with her and I will absolutely be a repeat customer.  She went above and beyond by upgrading our room to a gorgeous terrace with a beachfront view at no additional charge and had a bottle of Jamaican Rum, a Fruit Tray and a $50 spa credit certificate waiting for us on arrival :)  She even made surprise dinner reservations for us and many of our guests at the specialty restaurants....major bonus points for that!!!!

 

 

Hotel Check in – A+

 

Super speedy – took less than 5 minutes; received delicious, frosty “dirty bananas” upon arrival :)

 

 

Rooms – A+

 

Room was beautiful! It was very clean, had a fabulous view of the beach and ocean, and I loved the rain shower head. We also had a Jacuzzi tub in the room and we took a bath in it our last evening.  Beds were very comfortable, furniture and decor was super cute lots of closet space and our mini bar was restocked every day :)

 

 

Food – A+

 

We ate at the buffet a lot - I found that there was a large enough selection that I never had to eat the same thing twice if I didn't want to. There is definitely something for everyone including Jamaican faves like curry goat, escoviche fish and oxtail as well as more American food like hamburgers and pizza.  It is all DELICIOUS!!! My husband loved the morning omelette station. The service here was outstanding as well. Most lunches were at Aunt Ruby’s steakhouse. We also ate at the Gourmet Restaurant, the Mexican restaurant, Mare Nostrum and the Cajun Restaurant (at the Beach).  Other members of our party ate at the Beach Hibachi restaurant and loved it. The food is one of the best things about the property.

 

 

Drinks – A+

 

The drinks at IRHS were great.  As an all inclusive, the alcohol flows quite freely.  The liquor is very good quality and the house wine is really quite tasty (I am a major wino back in DC!)The service at the bars was all fantastic. Cassandra at the pool bar was AMAZING!!!  All the waitresses and servers were wonderful.

 

Service – A+

 

OUTSTANDING! The best service I have ever experienced at a hotel or resort. Every staff member at this resort seemed to go out of their way to make you feel important. No request went unheard and even though Jamaicans typically run on "Jamaican time", we never experienced this.  I do encourage you to tip generously, as these people work very hard for every dollar they earn and often have what you or I would consider appalling home lives. The service was so great everywhere that we were tipping left, right and center. I will miss being called “my lady”

 

 

Make-Up Artist/Rashel Edwards – A+++

 

So many fabulous things have been said about her and they are all true.  She is professional, on-time, expedient, courteous and a genius at what she does.  Not to mention that she drives 3.5 hours one-way from Kingston to get to Montego Bay.  She did airbrush make up for me, my two sisters, my mom and aunt in 4 hours and we tipped her quite well.  There really is no other makeup option in my mind outside of Rashel.  She is INCREDIBLE!!!!  I did my own hair and I thought it looked pretty good :) My makeup lasted the entire evening and I was sweating quite a bit, as it was rather warm.

 

Photographer/Sandy May – A

 

Sandy was a recommendation from another IRHS bride who lives in Washington D.C. as well.  The cool thing about her is she is a 35 year photojournalism veteran from Minnesota and has a studio there, but she “winters” in Jamaica and has shot many weddings all across the island for several years.  I enjoyed working with Sandy, but would have appreciated a bit more styling and direction when it came to poses for shots of my husband and I alone together.  She was affordable at $1400, however her coverage was only for 4 hours which didn’t event last through the wedding dinner/reception since she arrived on-site at 2:45pm.  Her Jamaican home is 2 hours away from the resort and she doesn’t like to drive on the road past 7pm, so she arranged to have a shooting partner local to Montego Bay, Chantel, arrive later to shoot from 7pm – 10:00pm and I paid an extra $400 for this.  I’ve only seen a few "sneak peek" photos so far (below) but based on these, her prior work and my interactions with her on site, I think the rest will be great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tai Flora and other decor – A+

 

I think Tai Flora sometimes gets a bad rep on this site, but I have to say they were nothing but easy to work with! They responded to my emails promptly.  I told them my hard floral budget of $800 and sent them some inspiration pics and they nailed it to the tee and the on-site delivery and set up process was flawless.  I loved everything they did.  I am not picky about flowers and they used a lot of orchids, which I think are cheaper, but they were beautiful.  I would definitely recommend them as they work very closely with Nicole and team all the time.  They did a great job on the wedding arch arrangement (which they moved to the sweetheart table at the reception), the bouquets and corsages as well as the reception centerpieces and wedding cake.....loved it all!!!  The only complaint I had is that I specifically requested and paid $30 extra dollars for 3 wrist corsages as opposed to pinned corsages (for the moms and one of my aunts) and yet I got pinned corsages the day of.  No one knew or cared but me, but still, it was the principle of the matter.   

 

I also purchased & brought several items (from www.efavormart.com) myself to add color and pizzazz.  Nicole and Tai Flora did a great job of using them beautifully at both the wedding and reception.  I left it all down there for future brides to use, so if your wedding colors are purple, hot pink or fuchsia, you are in luck!  I will caution that we had a check another bag on the way down to haul it all :)

 

•              Fuchsia Chair Sashes  - 60 total

•              Fuchsia Satin Table Runners – 7 (for wedding dinner round tables)

•              6"x 25yd Tulle Rolls - Fuchsia  & Purple (for the wedding ceremony arch)

•              2 3/4 Organza Ribbon – Fuchsia  & Purple (for the wedding ceremony  arch)

•              500 Rose Petals (the for aisle and the wedding dinner tables) – Fuchsia

•              12 - 16 inch Paper Lanterns-Purple

•              12 -  20 inch Paper Lanterns-Fuchsia

•              Battery operated Tealight Candles Flameless

•              Purple Tablecloths

•              “B” Cake Topper – theknotshop.com (my sister bedazzled the hell out of it  -GORGEOUS !!!!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wedding Coordinators/Nicole & Tiffany – A

So….after having my DREAM wedding and watching several other weddings on property during my honeymoon – each different, yet beautiful – I have come to the conclusion that Nicole & Tiffany are, by far, the hardest working women I know!  People have said this before, but I think it’s important to re-iterate that they do weddings every, single day – they eat, sleep and breathe wedding planning.  In fact, Tiffany was joking about how many texts she gets from Nicole while she’ s in the shower about wedding details for one guests or another.  They are PROFESSIONALS and they will give you the wedding of your dreams.  Anything that you can envision, no matter the detail, they can make a reality. No, they do not have time to answer every email or return every phone call they get because they are literally running around the property from 9am – midnight executing weddings and wedding related events. 

My advice for future brides is to 1.) Use the reviews and blog comments on this website to answer the bulk of your questions and 2.) Make a list of all unresolved questions/open items.  Record these items in the “Last wedding details” document they will send you 3 weeks prior to your wedding and review them again at the coordinator meeting.  I thought I was going to have to go over a laundry list of issues, but Nicole had all of my emails printed out, answers to every question and everything completely taken care of.  No matter what you want your wedding to look like or be, they have seen it before and will make it happen….rest assured!  They are extremely flexible & accommodating and you can tell that they are beloved by the rest of the resort staff; Nicole & Tiffany can get anything they want in that hotel.  The only reason they don’t get an “A+” is because of the lack of responsiveness via email which was highly frustrating at times.

 

 

***FREE** Meet & Greet/ Blue Moon Music Bar the Beach – A

 

I stumbled across this idea somewhere on this site and just had to give whoever mentioned it kudos.  We did a very casual meet & greet on Thursday evening at the Blue Moon Music Bar from 6:30pm – 7:30pm before everyone went their separate ways for dinner that evening.  Technically, this bar is closed until 10:30pm when the live band or karaoke starts up.  It’s actually a great way to have a private meeting space at no cost, because no one else is in there.  We didn’t do any food at all.  Nicole just asked one of the hotel bar bartenders to come and tend bar for us and she also asked them to play a little house music over the speakers for us. This was a very nice, air-conditioned room. The meet & greet was a really nice, informal way for the families and friends to meet and mingle prior to the “official” wedding activities – our fathers actually met one another at this event.  I made name tags for everyone saying “Hi, my name is JOHN, and I am Alicia’s/Matt’s friend” and they were a hit!  We had a really good turnout....almost every IRHS guest dropped by for a while to say hi.  This is also where I gathered everyone’s room’s numbers, which was crucial to have for the remainder of the weekend.  Matt and I actually left the gathering at 7:30pm to make our surprise dinner reservation at the Gourmet restaurant that our travel agent booked for us :)

 

Pics of blue moon music bar: http://www.oyster.com/jamaica/hotels/iberostar-rose-hall-suites-all-inclusive/photos/restaurants-bars--v1857860-23/

 

 

 

Rehearsal Dinner & Welcome Party/Mare Nostrum & Bonfire on the Beach – A

 

For anyone who’s wondering, yes – you will have an actual wedding rehearsal.  We did ours at 5pm the day before the wedding.  Nicole told us about it on Thursday during our wedding coordinator meeting and it only took 10 mins :)

 

It does not cost anything to book your guests in for a rehearsal dinner, so we did a one from 6:30 – 8:30pm the evening before my wedding.  All wedding guests were invited to attend and we paid the day pass fee for the four off property guests who attended.  All I did was tell Nicole that we'd like to reserve a restaurant for 55 people.   I had wanted Gourmet, but there was a wedding going on, so we did Mare Nostrum (Mediterranean) instead.  Just know that they will give you the whole restaurant if you have enough people, but if they ask if you want it private say NO or they will charge you to have it private.  Again the food was delicious!  We decided to do surf and turf, since I didn’t feel like figuring out everyone’s entree selections for this meal.  The servers asked every guest how they wanted their steak cooked and/or if anyone wanted double steak or double lobster.  The dining style is half/half: they serve you the soup and main course, while the appetizers/salad and dessert are buffet style.  I really liked this because it kept the dinner moving at a good pace and no one was starving while waiting for their food to be served.

 

 

Immediately following the rehearsal dinner, we treated our guests to a welcome party on the beach from 8:30 – 10:30pm including a bonfire, open pool bar and a steel pan band.  It was a quick walk around the pool from the Mediterranean restaurant to the bonfire which transitioned really nicely.  Make sure you spring for the bar charge for at least the first hour, because he pool bar is closed at night and you won’t have convenient access to drinks if you do not.  This was an AWESOME event, and I actually only did it this way at Nicole’s suggestion, but it turned out so incredibly well, I have to strongly recommend this to anyone doing a rehearsal dinner the evening before your wedding.  After we kicked off the event with a picture collage video and some welcome/thank you comments from my husband, we opened the floor up to toasts/speeches since I didn’t want any of those at the reception.  We did have to request and pay $150 extra for a microphone  & A/V equipment, but again, Nicole and team went above and beyond by holding up the projection screen when the beach winds got very strong

 

 Our toasts lasted for about an hour (which was a little longer than I was hoping but everyone was just so loving and supportive it was worth it!)  The only thing I wish would’ve done differently, is had the steel pan band come for the second hour (9:30 – 10:30) as opposed to the first hour (8:30 – 9:30).  They basically played two songs at the beginning and then sat at the bar for an hour while the toasts were being made.  When I asked them to play again, they started balking saying they were only paid for an hour, so I was like “yeah, but you sat on your ass for most of that time” so they got back on their drums and played for about 10 mins :)

 

The guests really enjoyed it this event.  It probably took and good hour and a half for the entire bonfire to burn down to the embers and the ambiance was very romantic.  I’m really glad we didn’t have food at this event, because the beach was SUPER windy and it would have been really hard to eat with the sand flying everywhere.

 

 

 

My dad standing in front of the bonfire

 

 

 

Wedding & Reception – A+++++

 

Saturday Wedding Timeline

• Ceremony on the Lazy River Island  @ 4:30PM (before the sun went down which happened at about 5:30 in January)
• Cocktail Reception on the Terrace 5:00 – 6:30PM
• Dinner/Reception at the Aunt Ruby’s at 7 – 11:30PM

 

I realize that most brides go to Jamaica to get married on the beach because it seems romantic, and I watched several brides do this...and it was nice.  However, the beach was SUPER WINDY the entire week that we were there and many wedding guests looked like they were blowing away during the weddings, not to mention that must have been hard to hear anything during the ceremony even with a mic.   

 

I brought my own chair sashes, rose petals and decorative tulle in my wedding colors for the wedding arch.  Nicole and Tiffany, again, did a wonderful job decorating the area and making it pop.  I’d be remiss not to put in a plug for holding your ceremony at the Lazy River Island, as that is really the “stage” of the resort.  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but the entire resort actually stopped and watched my wedding.  There were people on balconies, on the bridges, behind the trees....the bustling and busy resort, completely ceased all activity for 20 minutes and the only thing you could hear was the minister’s voice and the waves crashing on the sand.  We had so many other resort guests and staff members coming up to us afterwards telling us how beautiful the wedding was.  I don’t know if I’ve ever in my life had that much attention focused on me at one time.  It was the most amazing experience of my life....I felt like Princess Catherine!!!!!  It actually rained 15 minutes before my ceremony and when I walked down the aisle double rainbow appeared.  I took it as a sign from God :)

 

 

As soon as the ceremony was over, everyone but the wedding party and our families were dismissed to a cocktail hour on the hotel terrace (at no additional charge) which overlooked the ceremony site.  I requested and paid for champagne, punch,  water, a fruit & cheese tray, beef cocktail patties and jerk chicken to be served at the cocktail hour....everything was delicious (as per usual) and a few of the guests also used this time to pop back into their rooms to freshen up.  No need for open bar at this though because the hotel bar is right around the corner :)  We used the cocktail hour time to take all of our pictures around the resort with our photographer, Sandy May, which probably took about an hour and 15 minutes in total. My husband, the photographer and I then headed to the cocktail hour for the final 45 minutes and took some more casual photos with the guests.

 

The wedding dinner/reception at Aunt Ruby’s  outside patio  at 7pm  was private.  The DJ, Tim, (my husband’s cousin who is a professional DJ in Washington D.C.) was set up at the front of the area with the sweetheart table against the left wall and the cake table in the back left corner.  The dance floor area was right in front of the DJ and six round tables of ten were arranged around the rest of the space.  It was absolutely gorgeous!!!  Nicole & Tiffany used all of the decorative items I brought down and arranged them beautifully – they truly transformed the space. Once we were introduced, we did our first dance.  Then we sat down, my father prayed and we started our dinner.  The food was DELICIOUS!  I had chicken; others had steak, chicken or salmon.  Make sure you ask your guests what entree selections they’d like to have before the wedding (ideally you can include this in your invitation, but if not just send a quick email  like I did the week before your wedding).  You don’t have to confirm guest entree selections until your on-site meeting with the coordinators.  Contrary to what other brides have posted, myself and the wedding guests all thought the standard house wine was great, ESPECIALLY the house red wine), Mistico.  It was delicious Spanish Temperanillo and I took a picture of the bottle to look for it when I get back home!  I drank the white wine at the wedding because I didn’t want to take the chance of spilling on my white dress, but thoroughly enjoyed the Mistico every other day of the trip.  Save your money on the wine upgrades and stick to the house selections :)  I would also encourage future brides to splurge on the international open bar for your guests as not everyone drinks wine & beer and you want to make sure that everyone in attendance is enjoying their preferred drink of choice.  We also paid for an hour more of the reception.  The workers have to take a bus back at 10:30, so if you want it till 11:30, it's an extra $150 and that goes to the workers to pay for taxis to get them home – totally worth it b/c everything goes by so fast and we wouldn’t have been ready to shut the party down at 10pm.  Nicole even set up my laptop at the Wedding Reception by the DJ so that people could download their pics to my computer....which was awesome because then I could see lots of pics the day after :)  Halfway through the dinner, my husband and I left to change into our casual outfits and we came back and danced the night away only stopping for the cake cutting at 9:45pm.

 

 

 

Father/Daughter Dance

 

Aggie War Hymn

 

 

After Party/Mango Walk Club – B

 

After the reception, some guests retired to their room, but several guests went to change and we later met up at the Mango Walk Club, the on-site club at the Suites. The DJ that day was off the chain, and the crowd was good, but it was really smoky, so much so that my uncle had to leave after 20 minutes because it was bothering him so much :(  This was a good way to keep the party going for those who weren’t quite ready to end the wonderful evening.   

 

 After-after party/Mexican Restaurant (Maria Bonita) – B+

 

 The Mexican Restaurant opens from 11pm – 7am and they have sandwiches, hotdogs, salads and a grill that does steak, chicken and hamburgers cooked to order.  We went to this restaurant afterwards and the cook is very friendly and accommodating.  My husband actually got a late night snack from this place 5 out of the 7 days we were at the resort. We finally staggered back to our room at about 2am happy as can be.