Turks & Caicos Wedding Planner

Hi All--We are just starting our destination wedding planning & we were hoping to get some suggestions or recommendations on wedding planners in T&C. Any info (good or bad!) would be helpful! Thanks

 I just got married in T&C a little over a month ago at the Somerset with 85 guests.  Originally when we booked the wedding, the hotel employed a coordinator who was to take care of us.  She ended up quitting, and for us it was a blessing!  Diane from Island Harmony took over as our planner.  As soon as we spoke with her all, our nerves subsided.  She was FABULOUS.  She is originally from NJ but has lived on the island 7 years now and has her own event planning business.  She was a GODSEND!  She picked right up where the other coordinator left off and had so many connections to vendors on the island and so many great ideas!  We inundated her with emails, and she was always so quick to respond, highly organized and was just the sweetest woman ever to work with.  She genuinely cares to make your day special and did her best to make it exactly how we envisioned it.  For us, she went above and beyond what we could have expected and we would recommend her to anyone!!  Her email is: [email protected]

Brianna

Kendal23 - I'm in the same situation.  I'd love to hear some honest reviews.  

We have a total of 3 planners on island (yes that's 3 total).  Diane from Island Harmony, Teresa from Tropical Destination Management and then Nila Destinations.  Diane and Teresa are both owners of their businesses, Nila has employees who are hired to coordinate. Eden is currently doing the weddings for Nila but is leaving this summer and I don't know who is taking her place.

Some of the hotels have in house coordinators if you use them.  Others (Sommerset, Gansevoort) actually hire Diane or Teresa for their weddings so if you go with them you don't need to hire someone separately.  Lately we have done most of our weddings with Diane or Teresa, with a smaller percentage with Nila.

This is a small island (the entire country of 9 islands has less than 20,000 people).  If you are not good at what you do here, you will not be in business for more than a season.  We all work, play, have kids in school together, play sports etc, so word gets around lightning fast if someone is not doing a good job.(we call it the coconut telegraph!)  All of these businesses have been established on island for 4+ years.  

If you have any more specific questions let me know. 

If you check our blog, we will always mention the coordinator in our wedding posts if there was one.  You can search Island Harmony/Tropical Destination Management/ or Nila and the weddings they coordinated will come up and you can see their work if that would help.

Krys

We got married at the Seven Stars resort a month ago and used their onsite event planner, Niki Flowers. She was excellent and I would highly recommend her. I'm fairly anal and she not only made the planning process easy, she delivered on everything promised. Our wedding and reception (with 36 people) went flawlessly. Part of the reason I initially chose the Seven Stars was because I wanted an in-house planner. I couldn't bear the thought of incurring a 10-15% charge on top of my wedding bill to pay an outside planner.

Niki has been at the hotel for several months and has hosted/planned a few weddings there. She is from London though and planned over 100 weddings in London. She is currently on maternity leave (our wedding was her last event) but her assistant Betina was very involved on our day as well. She is assuming Niki's role for the next few months and she seemed very put together. If your wedding is several months out, I wouldn't worry about starting with Betina and shifting to Niki when she's back, as both were very capable and knowledgeable about our wedding.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for all the terrific information! This is really going to help kick start our planning, thanks again!

-K

Hey Kendal,

I have been emailing back and forth with Diane from Island Harmony the last few weeks and am about to book her.  I used to be a wedding planner and have been incredibly impressed with her.  She is fantastic, professional and very well versed on everything with the Island.  She also has wedding packages that can replace the ones that come with the hotels, so you are not double paying.  You can't go wrong by talking to Diane!

Good luck!

Karey

Briana, thank you for your post here. I just emailed Diane per your suggestion, as I too am considering T&C as my destination. I think we'll have 100 guests, which narrows it down to just a few places. It was helpful to know that you had 85. Can you recommend the best way to search for hotels (anywhere in the Caribbean) that will accommodate 100 guests? Also, how did you narrow it down to T&C?

Thanks again for your helpful post, and I hope your wedding was everything you hoped it would be.

Best,

Melanie

The best way to search in the T&C is www.turksandcaicosreservations.tc  (I have no affiliation with them, they are just known on island as the place to get the best service and best deals and have everything in one place)  They have all of the hotels/resorts listed on one site and they keep up to date information of all booking specials.  Pretty much any of our main resorts should be able to m 100 guests.  The most popular here are The Regent Palms, Grace Bay Club, The Somerset, The Gansevoort, The Sands, Ocean Club/Ocean Club West, Seven Stars, West Bay Club and we have a few more.  You can check our blog listed below for what weddings look like at each of the resorts.  If you have any other questions on resorts feel free to ask me, I have lived here 16 years and am happy to help.

Krys

Hi Melanie,

We had some specific criteria that we used to narrow our wedding destination down to Turks and Caicos:

1) Really nice, clean beaches

2) Easily accessible from the US (most of our guests flew out of the northeast mainly NYC and Boston)

3) US dollar currency and english speaking

4)Cheaper accomodation options for our guests

I did a ton of research and it just sounded like T&C would be perfect. After picking the island, I searched hotels/resorts online (I actually used the website Krys suggested above a lot - very helpful) and picked 4 of them that we thought we'd like and actually took a trip down there about a year before the wedding to scout it out. 

I think the planning trip was the best thing that we could have done.  We really knew what we wanted and where to tell people to stay once we met with all of the hotels.  We got married at the Somerset, but knew this was going to be way to expensive for our friends to stay at... most of our guests stayed at the Sibonne (realllllly budget friendly and literally right next door to the Somerset) and the Sands (moderately priced and located on the other side of the Sibonne).  Then there were a few people who stayed at the Alexandria, and one couple at Point Grace.  All were in close proximity (Alexandria was the farthest down the beach).  Good luck with your search - T&C will not disappoint AND Diane from Island Harmony is fabulous - you'll love her!