Flight – Delta

No delays to or from Jamaica – great service.

 

Travel Company – Apple Vacations

This company handled our bussing to and from the hotel – all very nice people.

Apple Rep @ the hotel was very helpful. She told us about sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen & different things about the climate/area (ex. Make sure you use the showers after you get out of the ocean – the salt water crystallizes on your skin which will get you sunburnt faster!) She also told us about excursions too. My husband and I didn’t do any excursions we were fine with hanging out at the hotel. Some of our family went to the Great House – they took a tour about the property but heard the story about the old owner that killed her husbands and such – they seemed to like it but actually took a taxi & paid the entrance when they got there – they didn’t book through Apple because it was more expensive. They paid $20 entrance each and then paid about $8 a person for the taxi. I think Apple quoted them $40.

 

There’s also a bus that can take you to the shops off-site. I believe it leaves every hour and comes back quarter past every hour, don’t quote me on that but I think that’s what she said.

 

Check-In:

We got there about 1:30pm and our room was ready for us. We got an ocean front room (1234) which also had a great view of the wedding area. The room had a King size bed w/ a couch which was a pull out. The room did smell a little musty but I guess this is pretty common. Once the room got opened up a little it was just fine. After the 1^st afternoon I didn’t notice the smell anymore.

My sister booked a regular room and hers wasn’t ready until about 2pm – but it was still ready before the check-in time of 3pm.

 

We got there on a Tuesday(May 14) & had the Bachelor/Bachelorette Parties that night, the rehearsal Wednesday(May 15), Wedding Thursday(May 16).

 

The day we got there we stopped by the Guest Services (right off of the terrace) where the wedding coordinator’s office is to set up a time to meet. I scheduled it for the next day at 12:30pm. (I asked her again what time my rehearsal dinner was the next day – even though I totally forgot that I was the one that actually picked the time for it on my final details sheet.)

 

 

 

Bachelor/Bachelorette Parties – Tuesday Night

We all split up and it was nice because we didn’t run into the guys for a good amount of the night since there are a few bars at the resort. The guys loved the Music Bar w/ Richardo. At the end of the night we all ended up at the Mango Club/Disco at the Suites. Everyone is so sweet and then even sweeter when they see you’re getting married! It was a blast!

 

 

 

Rehearsal Day – Wednesday

I went to my meeting – it was actually with the WC’s assistant, Vanessa. She went over the final details sheet that I had sent her about 4 months earlier. I brought my wedding binder which had contracts and the final details sheet. Everything was pretty much the same as I had put down on the sheet so there weren’t any issues.

At that time I also brought down my centerpieces and other decorations and said where I wanted things. I gave her our ipods, 1 with the ceremony music & 1 with our DJ music. I picked a U-shaped set up at Uncle Tony’s & I’m really happy we did. We had Us and our matron of honor & best man sit at our table & then everyone else on the sides.

We also went over how I wanted to do wish lanterns on the beach after the reception. She was very sweet and eased me greatly! It’s kind of nice to just dump all of that stuff on someone else so you don’t have to deal w/ it the day of!!!

We decided on the rehearsal at 6PM followed by the dinner at the Cajun restaurant at 6:30PM.

I forgot to tell my husband’s parents that they should go to that too since they had to walk down as well…whoops! So the rehearsal would have been done well before6:30 but we started a little late…no problem though.

Dinner at the Cajun Restaurant:

We all sat together at a long table. Apps and dessert were a buffet – soup & entrée were ordered off the menu.

The service was great and the servers were very entertaining. They did a couple table tricks which my group really seemed to like. Also at dinner, after we ordered food but before everyone went up for apps I said something along the lines of “Thank you for coming, we know it’s not easy to take this long off of work, etc” and handed out little gifts we had gotten everyone. I got the girls bracelets from Etsy.com & a little card that said “Thank you for being here with us while we Tie the Knot!” the bracelets had a little charm of silver tied in a knot. I also got the girls wine stoppers w/ a starfish on top. The guys all got a flask set (flask, funnel, & 4 shot glasses) which had a mustache, their Names, Gamer Names/Tags(huge video gamers), & our wedding date engraved on them. & since the Dad’s aren’t huge drinkers we had personalized knife items sent to their houses since travelling w/ knives weren’t a good idea.

After dinner the guys all changed (since they had to wear long pants to the restaurant) and we all ventured down the Pirate Beach Party. My hubby & I were a little upset since we were told it would be on Thursday so we weren’t able to schedule a bonfire on the beach, but I’ll talk about that later.

The Beach party entertainment people consisted of a lot of the Star Friends decked out in Pirate attire. The host was entertaining. The fire eater was actually at this event so we were happy we didn’t pay extra to have him at our reception since I’m sure the routine was the same.

I checked out a little early (~11:30/12) since I didn’t want to drink too much or stay up too late the night before my wedding.

 

Thursday – Wedding Day

I woke up around 8:30am and couldn’t fall back asleep – not nervous but very excited!

The best man & his fiancé-one of my best friends switched rooms for the night so she slept in my room and my husband slept w/ the Best Man in their room – we kept a little bit of tradition. Around 9:30/10 the girls and I went down to the buffet for breakfast. They were so funny trying to keep my hubby and I from seeing each other, even w/ us at breakfast around the same time! I didn’t see him at all which I think is quite impressive since we were at the same resort most of the day.

My dress, my matron of honor’s dress, & the hubby’s outfit arrived steamed and ready to go just after 11am. My matron of honor & one of our friends made an appointment to get their nails done at 11 so I just hung up our outfits and headed over for my hair appt just after that(Scheduled for noon). I emailed the Spa(which is at the Suites) about a week/week & a half before we left to make hair & makeup appointments for me and some of the girls. I think I emailed her for the price list about 4 months before hand though. Originally we had appointments for 3 of us to get our hair & makeup done and 1 for just hair, but last minute we added the extra makeup appt and it wasn’t a problem. With hair and makeup it was $165 each (bride & other girls all the same price). For the most part I everyone loved their hair & makeup. I first showed her a picture of a little what I wanted & told her to do it a little different than that. As for changes I had her pin a couple hairs down a little to get it perfect in my eyes but very minor changes – so I was very impressed & relieved since I didn’t have a trial! As for makeup I told her what colors I wanted on my eyes – staying in the browns – and the color of my lips – something w/ a brownish tint & it ended up being perfect!!! I was sooooo nervous since I didn’t have any trials & the ladies at the Spa did amazing! Also, I wanted fake eye lashes but had heard they don’t do them, so before I left I bought some stuff and tried at home. Since my skill wasn’t very great at putting them on I figured I’d go without, then I saw eyelash glue on one of her tables when we working on one of my girls and asked her about them. She said she puts them on but you have to bring your own. So I ran back to the other resort and grabbed mine. She used her glue since she liked it better and I was fine with that. They stayed on through most of the night. They started to come up off the edge at the end of our reception and then one went haywire at the Disco…but since I was sweating so much through the day I was happy they lasted so long into the night! (I ripped them off at about 2am at the disco and I don’t think anyone noticed)

After hair & makeup we headed back to the room. I think it was around 3:10 or so. My photographer(Stacey Clarke) arrived shortly after I got back. The wedding was scheduled for 4pm but the WC said for everyone to be ready and down there at 3:30PM. My dad, my matron of honor, & I stayed in the room and the WC came up and got us around 4 to bring me down. I think I put my dress on at about 3:31. My photographer saved me! My dress was supposed to be altered so my dress wouldn’t slip down while my bra rode up. She grabbed the sewing kit and sewed my bra and dress together to help the situation – I can’t explain how amazing she was! Life saver!

The wedding went really well! I made the ceremony script and the pastor was great!

We did have 2 bikini baring girls walk in our background and take their sweet precious time. I ignored them and it was fine. Later on I did find that our videographer moved and showed our guests in the video so I didn’t have to see them in my video…so thoughtful!

 

 

After the ceremony we did a few shots w/ the videographer and then did our pictures w/ the photographer & her assistant. Stacey was awesome and got a lot of cool poses. I don’t have them back yet but I’m sure they look amazing!

 

While we were doing a few alone shots the rest of our group went to the Lobby Bar (A/C!). We were able to join them and hang out for a little bit before the photographer wanted to take some sunset shots. Just after the sun set it was 7pm so then it was off to Uncle Tony’s for semi-private dinner(Barely noticed the other guests, we were seated first and the ones I did notice while I went up to the buffet for apps were all very happy for us).

I’m happy I went with the U shaped table set up, it was perfect for our group of 20 people.

I brought 6 cylinder vase centerpieces, those were put on tables on the sides of the U and the arrangement from the signing table was used as the head tables centerpiece. The WCs also added some nice little vases w/ tea lights in them for in between the centerpieces – I’m really glad they did because I was debating bring something like that but just really didn’t want to bring any more décor since we already had a full bag for decorations/gifts.

The food at the steakhouse was great! & the Service was quick. We did best man/matron of honor speeches after we ordered our food. Also, sometime during dinner one of our family members suggested that they each say a memory about us. Just about everyone said something & it brought back some great memories) I was worried that we were going to be late for the DJ but we actually had extra time and everyone had more time to socialize.

 

8:30-10:30PM We had our reception on the Bob Marley Terrace. We cut our cake there(strawberry cheesecake) and also had the resort DJ. We gave the DJ an Ipod with a ton of songs that we liked on it. I think he had some of his own music on before we got there. I’m sure we would have been fine w/ his music but we wanted to be sure we had everything we liked. We also had them set up a bar w/ national drinks. Our group really liked the bartender, he was pretty interesting. I brought decorations & a guest book for the terrace and the WCs did a great job decorating with them.

 

 

10:30PM Wish lanterns on the beach. The WC explained to everyone how to do them and they were pretty cool. She only had one lighter but there was a smoker in the group so she had another and it went off pretty well. (I got the lanterns from artifacts.com I think)

 

I brought small cake boxes and the WC boxed them up and had them at the front desk for our guests to take to their rooms.

 

After all of that most of us headed to the disco to dance the night away! I wore my dress and I’m glad I did! Everyone there was so happy for us and it was a great way to end our night! We stayed until it closed(~4am?)!

 

The next morning we got breakfast in bed around 10:20am. It was good and it was nice to spend a little extra time with my new hubby.

There was also champagne in our room the night of our wedding. Nice touch.

 

 

Videographer – Resort

I think it was about $450. Totally worth it and it was nicely done. He did a little video colleage of it all and then there was the whole ceremony also on the DVD. We had a little trouble getting the DVD – I guess he sent it over to the resort in the morning and apparently the person that came never brought it. So at about 8:30PM he burned another copy and ran it over to the resort himself. I’m not sure if that was his issue or the resorts. We got the DVD within 3 days of the wedding and we watched it as soon as we got home. He prints a couple of the shots on the DVD case and DVD which I thought was a nice touch. During our ceremony we had a couple creeping people walking in the background in bikinis and thankfully he cut to our guests when this happened so from the video you can barely tell they were there. I was very pleased w/ the video.

 

 

Photographer – Stacey Clarke

She’s amazing! She was very sweet and super helpful! I think we went above and beyond! I haven’t gotten all my pics back yet (only some sneak peaks) but I’ll be sure to share when I do!

 

 

 

Pirate Beach Party – We were a little upset that we didn’t get to schedule the bonfire on the beach for our wedding night since they said it was on Thursday but actually ended up being on Wednesday (I guess they try to pick a night there’s not a wedding to do it.) In the end though I’m glad we didn’t pick it since I don’t know how I would have liked the sand sticking to my feet and legs since I was sweaty.

 

Steaming Outfits – I called the day before the wedding and got our outfits steamed. I should have called earlier but I totally forgot. I think I paid an extra 50% to get it done faster but the most expensive thing to steam was my dress which was starting off at $14.50 so I didn’t really mind paying extra. I also got her to steam our rehearsal outfits in 2 hrs (from pick up to drop off) which I didn’t expect but she was great.

 

Paying early – We asked if we could pay for part of the wedding ahead of time since we didn’t want to max out our card on the trip, plus we get rewards for using that card. We paid $2000 ahead of time. It took a little while for her to reply on that issue but I think it’s because she had to find an authorization form for us to fill out. But it was still done before we left so we were happy.

 

General Estimate invoice- they sent us an estimated invoice beforehand which was nice so we could make sure that they were going to charge us correctly.

 

Welcome bags- We made welcome bags for everyone. They included flip flops, sunscreen, first aid stuff, and other stuff to keep them busy. It also included a letter to everyone saying “Thank You, etc, etc” and had the times for the wedding and rehearsal. I left a line for the rehearsal since I didn’t have an exact time. I didn’t do the letter until a day or 2 before we left. Everyone seemed to like the bags and were pretty happy about the sunscreen in them! Another piece of advice – bring more sunscreen than you think you’ll need! We were lucky some of our family members left their leftover sunscreen when they checked out otherwise we would have ran out!!!

 

Resort Workers – Amazing! So sweet, respectful & well mannered! Loved them all!!!

 

 

Our guests all received a bottle of Appleton Rum in their rooms, we were told that they received it because they were part of our wedding room. It was a nice touch from the resort. Irronically our room didn’t have a bottle of rum in it but one of the parents left theirs for us since they didn’t want to haul it home. But they did bring us 2 bottles of champagne when I believe we were supposed to only get one. (One the night of the wedding & one the morning after)

Other thoughts: Wear Sunscreen! & Bring more sunscreen than you think you’ll need! We went through a ton!

Overall I was very pleased with the resort..pictures do not do it justice!!! It was worth it! Worth every penny! I'd do it all over again!