MY WEDDING RECAPS AT SUNSET BEACH RESORT AND SPA!!!!!!

Hi Everyone!  

Lately i have been posting on this thread and people have been asking for info and pictures of my wedding at Sunset Beach Resort and Spa.

http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/thread/68248/sunset-beach-resort-spa-past-and-future-brides-please-post-here/20#post_1616766

I got married there April 19, 2011.  I decided to make a separate thread and post all my recaps here.  I am actually much more active on weddingbee.com and have been posting my recaps there all week, so i will copy and paste them into one unified thread here for all of you to see and especially for those you planning/considering your wedding at this resort!!

FEEL FREE TO ASK ME ANY QUESTIONS ANY TIME, I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MY WEDDING!!!!!
 

So, first let me introduce my wedding with this pic - I got married at Sunset Beach Resort and Spa in Montego Bay, Jamaica. It has been my dream for years to get married on a beach by the ocean and my husband wanted a small wedding, so this plan fit both our needs perfectly!

My day started by waking up after the most horrible wedding nightmare I had in all the months of planning!  Let me actually tell you that both my DH and best friend told me I was unrecognizable in the two days before my wedding. I was a MAJOR stress ball, i was so afraid of everything not working out. Before i left, i had barely gotten sleep for days. Basically, i let the stress get to me and take over. I wish it hadn't but it had.  The DAY BEFORE my wedding, i woke up and had NO VOICE! This has never happened to me in my whole life where I literally could not speak! And so I was freaking out since I WROTE MY VOWS.  People kept telling me all i had to do was say "I do" and i was like, “no, i have to say my vowsâ€!!! That day before my wedding a bunch of us went on an excursion to Dunns River Falls. It really is funny to look back and remember how i had to carry a note pad all day to communicate.  By that night, my voice was raspy, but starting to come back!  

So the next day, i wake up and am still feeling extreme anxiety so i went to the gym and did a 20 minute work out, which sort of helped. I had breakfast with my family. I refused to speak to anyone because my voice was still not completely there.  I went to get my hair, nails and make up done.  Oh, i was supposed to get a manicure and pedicure the day before, but the excursion tour we went on brought us back to the resort two hours later than they told me and so i missed my nail appts!  Just a little something to increase my stress!  I was able to rearrange things so my MOH got her hair done while I got my nails done.  Once I got to the spa, i started to relax as i realized all i could do at this point was let other people take care of me. and it was fun getting pampered. the lady who did my makeup was a sweetheart who kept making me eat fruit for my throat and would not let me eat cheese!!  Here are some pics:

Here is something I thought was pretty funny.  I slept in our room with DH the night before. But I told him once I leave for the spa, he has to be gone and take his stuff to get ready in his parents room. I did not want him to see me once I started getting ready until our First Look.  So he complied and took everything he needed…..but he missed the point!  As I walking back to my room with my MOH after getting my hair, makeup and nails done, and veil put in, my MOH starts telling me “There’s Sylvain!† And she is pointing to the balcony of his parents room (which is 2 doors down from our room).  So he is on the balcony, not only seeing me, but he was TAKING PICTURES!!!!!! I couldn’t believe it!  My MOH yelled at him to go back in (I couldn’t yell of course!).  I didn’t know about the pictures until after, but now that its all said and done, I thought it was pretty funny that instead of not seeing me before the First Look, he is out on the balcony taking pics of me half ready.  And for the life of him, he could not understand why this was not okay!!!! Here are the pics he took:

Last, here we are in my room getting ready. Since my best friend MOH was the first to get her hair and makeup done with me, she was the one helping me into my dress and tying up the corset.  Since I am currently away on internship, I had no one with at my dress fittings that actually came to Jamaica. So I made a video of my seamstress doing up the corset back.  My MOH learned quickly from it and did a good job!

I also put my fave hanging dress pics below.  You will see I am smiling in the “putting on earrings pic†because I was in the midst of putting on my earring and then all of a sudden I had a camera in my face and I remembered seeing so many “getting ready†pics of this shot before, so I thought it cool and cliché!

RECAP #2 - FIRST LOOK + BRIDE AND GROOM PHOTO SHOOT  (MY PREVIOUS/FIRST POST IN THIS THREAD SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY "GETTING READY RECAP")

Here is the best of our First Look pics and then some of my fave bride and groom shots.  For the First look, you will see me walking down the staircase from the hallway where our room was into a big open foyer type area (where we also later had our dinner reception). It was a beautiful area and a great place for these pics.  First you see DH coming down the stairs, then I was called down. The black and white pic of him looking up and smiling is the actual first time he saw me since being completely ready.  And I LOVE the look on his face!!  Then our photographer told him "Don't look at the bride, don't look at the bride!" (I did not know any of this until after because I did not see him looking!).  So then she had him face away while I walked down.  And here is also where I cried for the first time of many that day. I was just so overwhelmed with emotion the whole day.  Plus I think I was coming down from an extreme period of self-induced stress and anxiety!

It was kinda funny because before these pics I knew that if I cried, it would make for some good pics! But then i did not want to ruin my makeup so I was trying to not to cry!  So after we hug and I take deep breaths, DH runs to get me some Kleenex, so then you see him handing me the Kleenex! Very cute i thought!  Oh, and you can note that in the 5th pic from the top, DH is laughing at me as I am crying!  A trend I noticed throughout all our pics!

The rest of the photos are my favorite Bride and Groom shots....It was SOOO hard to narrow it down. I know some of you have seen my posts about being upset about missing some pics I really wanted.  Well I can guarantee I never once wrote about not being happy with our B&G shots!  We have soooo many amazing photos of us, I could not be happier with them!  And i know at the end of the day, these are the MOST important photos.  We went on the beach and various areas within the resort. Bonus of having my photographer stay at the same resort as me – she had been scoping out photo locations for 2 whole days before our wedding!

A couple of things to note - i LOVE it when DH kisses me on my cheek, so despite our photographer telling us how to pose all the time, I managed to tell him a few times "kiss my cheek" and she got them on camera!  The baby you see me holding is my then four month old niece!  My sister bought her an adorable lavender and white dress to wear!  I loved it!  Last, some of my fave photos were taken at sunset - we had to leave our dinner for a few minutes to go take them and I didn't have time to fix my makeup (i would have liked to put powder to get rid of my shiny face and put more lipstick, but oh well, I still love the photos we got!!).  I also love the photo with my veil over my face. I am proud to say that is one shot I DID remember to ask my photographer to take! Even though I did not wear it as a blusher, I always wanted a photo like that!

RECAP #3 - BRIDAL PARTY PICTURES!

So, this recap will be a little shorter than the others.  My amazing photographer - Kim Chapman - and I had allotted 30 minutes for bride & grooms pics, then 30 minutes for bridal party, then 30 minutes to relax before the ceremony. Well, we ended taking a really long time for bride and groom pics because there were just so many locations all the over resort.  In hindsight, I wish i brought my BMs and did all the photos mixed together. But our idea seemed like a good one at the time.  Then because my 4 month old niece had a serious crying fit at 4pm - right when the ceremony was supposed to start, we ended up starting late!  So time was cut after as well! This resulted in missing more fun shots with my BMs, but really, this is the only part of the wedding that was not 100% perfect and I am okay with that! 

Let me also tell you a bit about my bridal party.  I had asked 6 girls to be my BMs.  One of them lives in New Zealand and was very determined to attend, she even bought her dress, but in the end, she just couldn’t afford it.  My 18 year old niece was beyond excited to be a BM, but sadly her, her brother was supposed to be a GM and their mother (DH’s sister) could not attend.  I had already bought her dress too!  The other girls that did come was my sister (MOH#1) and my best friend (MOH#2) and 2 other really close friends that I always knew would be my BMs.  As for GMs, we had my brother in law.  Then I asked my  best guy friend to be an Usher. I actually really needed someone to handle program/bubbles/fans at the ceremony, and then by giving him a title, I was able to  include him in the wedding party, which I was so excited about!  He even went out and bought a purple shirt to coordinate with my colors!  I was so happy that almost all my bestest and closest friends were able to come to Jamaica and be with us on our wedding day AND be part of it!  I love them all so much!

here is me and my best friend since high school! (MOH#2).  She surprised me with a speech at dinner!  I had only asked my sister to do a speech, but secretly wanted her to do one too, and then she did!  (more tears came of course!)

here is me and my Usher.  He has this thing where he thinks everytime we take a picture, we have our "fake" posed smiles.  And we do have one standing here like that, but then I think we started laughing about it - which made for a better picture apparently!

here is my brother in law with his daughter- i just love this pic!

and last, but not least - family portrait shots, first with DH's parents, then my parents and sister+husband:

RECAP #4 - CEREMONY ON THE BEACH

This was, by far, the best part of the day!  I had really wanted our ceremony to be special and unique for us, and not the same cookie cutter ceremony that they gave to all the DW brides at Sunset Beach resort.  So I personlized it as much as possible.  We wrote our own vows, I had two friends read marriage/love poems (one in english, one in french), and we did a wine box ceremony!  

Picture wise, since we were standing directly in front of the sun, a lot of the pics that my photographer took of the ceremony head on had a bright white background instead of blue sky and water.  Lucky for me, some of our guests got their early and took pics of ceremony site/arch before it began and it turns out they got some of the best photos in regards to color vibrancy.  So I threw in some non-pro pics to go with the pro pics for this recap. Here are the best pre-ceremony pics:

Here I am walking down the aisle – second time I cried that day! I didn’t even think I would, it was just one of those things that as I was walking, it hit me, the: “omg, this is MY walk down the aisle, my once in a lifetime, wait my whole life for this moment, walk!† And so the water works started!  On my wedding video, you can hear me sniffling it back in for the first few minutes until I got a hold of myself!  DH and I decided I would walk by myself part way, and then he came to meet and we walked up to the altar together. So you can those pics here.

Here are my fave pics from during the ceremony:

Here we are locking up the wine box!  Funny story. I had given DH a list to do in the morning while I am at the spa - one thing was making sure the wine box made it to the ceremony site. But one thing that did not occur to either of us was to take OUT the contents.  So during the wine box ceremony, the officiant says, in the script I gave him! "PurpleUnicorn and Mr.Unicorn will now place the wine bottle, 2 glasses, etc... in the box"....so we first had to take the contents OUT, show it to everyone, and then put it back in!  LOL.  Not to mention the bubble wrap I used to protect the wine glasses were still there! I tried to hide it under the ring pillow....fail!  Its pretty funny when I think about it....so typical of us!

Here is our first kiss! Here I had another "moment", as in "omg, this is our FIRST KISS!"  I wanted to enjoy this and I did!  We started just with a regular quick kiss, but then i impulsively wrapped my arms around him and he pulled me in and we enjoyed it!  Everything else around me just evaporated. i was not even aware of the camera clicking in our faces....but it was!

here i am putting DHs ring on his finger!

here we are walking back down the aisle as husband and wife! We were supposed to have a recessional with the BMs following us out, but the wedding coordinator didn't put the music on time and everyone was confused, so we just kinda ended it all awkwardly.  On our wedding video, you see a moment of confused faces, then my photographer shouts "ok, i want everyone over here for a group shot",...and THEN the music started playing, LOL.  

Following the walking out pics is a couple of other ceremony and immediate post-ceremony pics that I like (FMIL blowing bubbles, then my MOH holding my dress for me to start walking over to the dinner area, and a group shot).

The bubbles shot I wanted didn't really work because there were simply not enough people (I had once seen a shot of a bride and groom walking out during the recessional immersed in bubbles and then decided i wanted bubbles!). I figured that might happen, and I give credit to a few of the BMs boyfriends who were just blowing away on the bubbles tubles trying to pump out as many as possible!!  I do see bubbles on the wedding video more so than what showed up in the pics and I am happy with that!

RECAP #4 - DINNER + BEACH BONFIRE RECEPTION

So my reception consisted of a dinner in an open air, covered terrace and a bonfire beach party.  The area we had dinner was a HUGE bonus for me.  All i cared about was that it was private - as in not in the buffet or a noisy a la carte restaurant.  It ended up being a bonus because it was simply gorgeous! I am not sure if my pics capture how beautiful the area was, but i was just like "wow"!  It was by far the nicest part of the resort and i was like "i get to have my dinner reception HERE, yay!"

this first pic is an overview of the area from far. 

Here we are doing the cake cutting.  I had no idea what was going to happen, but basically the wedding coordinator had us cut the cake together. Then apparently the number of crumbs on the plate indicated how many children we were going to have.  So you see a pic of her showing the plate and explaining this to everyone, and then us laughing after which made for a nice black and white pic.  After that, you see me with cake popping out of my mouth (lovely, I know) – I had to feed it to DH directly from my mouth to his. I don’t know too much about cake cuttings, but I was just happy we did not smash cake on each other’s faces!!

Now onto one of my absolute FAVE parts of the day.  Let me tell you, I decided on our first dance song about one year into our relationship!! (and we dated four years before we got engaged!).  The song we had our first dance to was Bryan Adams, Everything I do it for You.  It became “our song†before we officially started dating – long story short, DH (then stats classmate) was flirting with me after hours, put this song on his computer and gave me a nice massage! So, I was just abnormally excited for our first dance!  I had another one of those moments where I felt like it was only me and him in the whole universe as everything else evaporated and I totally enjoyed it and took it all in!!  Here we are:

Here is some twirling - nothing planned or choreographed, just having fun on the spot!  I would have loved to have taken dance lessons beforehand, but DH hates dancing!  It was our compromise that he dances the slows songs at our wedding with me, but thats all he was obliged/commited to!

AND...of course I was enjoying this so much and having another one of my "OMG moments" of the day, that I started to cry! Yup, i cried during our First Dance as husband and wife. I am that cheesy. I am that sappy.  And as you can see by the pic that immediately follows, DH finds this hilarious!

Immediately following the cake and dance, we went into speeches where my sister made me cry with hers. Here I am listening and then hugging her after.  My best firend (MOH#2) also did a surprise speech for me which i was totally thrilled about, but it was not caught on camera.

Now we are move onto the FUN and DANCING portion of the night!! I had been stoked about the bonfire beach party for so long! And here it finally was!  Only blip was that we thought the bonfire would be in the center of  the party...nope, it was far out on the rocks that go into the water.  We could walk there, but the party was not actually near it!! ....Tad bit waste of money, yes, but we went and got some pics, so it was all good, right?!  The dancing you see right in front of the bonfire was actually staged by my photographer!

These next bunch of photos are just my fave from the night.  Funny thing to note - you will notice me dancing with DH and he is wearing his bathing suit shorts!!! That was part of the deal of him wearing a nice suit and tie for ceremony and dinner - that he got to change into shorts after!!  He originally wanted to wear shorts for the entire wedding!!! Its all about compromise, right?       

Also, the last photo is my DJ and my photographer's husband!!! How cute is it that they met working at a wedding and now travel together for destination weddings!! They totally get each other business too. I was just going to go with the resort DJ, but he offered to DJ my wedding for the same cost!  

ok, so here is me, my sis and my mom.

here i am, (possibly tipsy at this point?!) trying to dance like Beyonce to Crazy in Love while wearing my wedding dress! (eek, you can see how dirty it is getting at the bottom now!)

DH in his shorts...

Bouquet toss - for all FOUR single ladies at my wedding! Love how determined my BMs look to catch it! (the BM on the left claims she does not want to get married....ahem, i think pictures speak louder than words!)

and the winner is......BM who is already engaged!

Now a couple of bar shots, including our awesome Jamaican bartender!

More dancing!  Actually this was a slow song my DH was missed (he was changing into shorts I think!).  So i grabbed my Usher. I said i was NOT going to be standing around for one second during any of the slow songs - i hand picked them all!

Our DJ.

That's all folks!!!! I had the most fun ever! I did not stop dancing for three hours straight! All my stress was gone at this point and I just wanted/needed to let loose! I got my voice back too and was screaming it out at the bonfire    

RECAP #6 - ALL MY PURPLE DETAILS!

I saved this recap for last because the others have shown the story of my day - since my photographer, Kim Chapman, did an excellent photojournalistic approach to everything.  Now I am just showing you the product of my endless details decisions I had to make for months!  Its so nice to see it all come together!!

When I first got my photos back, I was upset about 2 major details missing - an overview of my tables and my ring pillow.  In hindsight, I ADMIT I overreacted, because Kim pretty much got EVERYTHING else. And lucky for me, it turns out my guests got nice shots of both my table overview AND ring pillow - yay, happy me!

Here is the shot of me holding my ring pillow and it lying on the bed.

In the second pic, you can see also our wine box that we used for our wine box ceremony. I guess i kind of lied in the title, since not ALL my details are purple. Once I saw that red ring pillow, it became a major must have and a lovely gift from my mother!  Also, I believe I got the pillow during my phase of wanting a red and purple wedding... but ultimately decided against it (but that did not mean I was not going to use my gorgeous pillow!)

here is a close up the name plate on our wine box:

Here are my oh-so-sparky shoes. No picture has ever done their true sparkle justice, but i love these pics just the same!

here are my vows printed on purple paper!  I printed EVERYTHING on purple paper! Our vows, poems for ceremony, wine box instructions for officiant.  I even printed BM day-of instructions on purple paper that I gave to them the day before the wedding!  They all looked at me like I was crazy, but I was okay with it, I liked my purple paper!  

and yup, my programs were printed on the same paper, along with the labels for the bubbles tubes.

Favors were sandalwood fans that were hadned out at the ceremony. Here is someone first holding a program, fan and bubble tube, followed by a guest using the fan!

WELCOME BAGS!

This was one of my fave things I put together. The bags themselves were mini canvas bags with either black handles for the guests, or lavender handles for the BMs bags. And I had "Jamaica" embroidered on each bag in lavender.  In the bags were sunscreen, chapstick, hand sanitizer, gum, granola bar, water, deck of cards with "Montego Bay, Jamaica" written on them, a blank Jamaica post card, a personalized post card with my welcome note written on the back, and a hand made best of Bob Marley CD.  I think that was all.

I just realized that the pic my photographer took of the bags was not on the DVD she sent me! So here is my own picture:

Also in the bags was my "Wedding Week Itinerary".  Just an excuse to use this cool paper I found! And the itineraries were rolled up and tied with purple ribbon of course, then placed in the bags:

Next, here is my bouquet, I added in those crystal hearts! Hearts were another part of my theme. A bee once told me I could call my theme "hearts on the beach". I loved it!  I am not sure what kind of flowers they were.  The bouquet was included in my wedding package and I was told they have tropical flowers. I said I only cared about the colors being purple and white!  I quite liked it

Here were my silk BM bouquets. I got them off of bridesbouquet.com for $10! I had bigger ones for my 2 MOHS ($20 each).

For my aisle along the beach, I scattered a mix of white, purple, and lavender silk flower petals (also purchased on bridesbouquet.com).

Rings!  They are sideways - in case you can't tell, my e-ring has a heart shaped stone!   I also love this one with the veil over our bands because you see a close up of the crystal rhinestone edge on my veil.

Here are my dinner details.  Tables names are the names of where DH and I had our first dates!  We had two first dates at different times.  Before dating, we used to hang out the grad student bar at school called "Thomson House" - so that was the name of the table we sat at.  Since we only had 3 tables total, I was able to  use this idea that DH himself came up with!

Guest book and name place cards. I know with 17 people total, place cards were completely unnecessary. But i always wanted to do them for my wedding and i loved the seashells and they were a total hit.  All my guests loved them and took a ton of pics (including my photog, so these are pro pics)

Now my cake - I was blown away by how awesome it looked. I had no expectation, nor did I care all that much. I told them I want a sand color for the fondant and to decorate with my cake topper and sea shells. Well I had an inspiration pic of a beach theme cake to show them the sand color and they ended up making a nicer looking cake than my inspiration picture!!  And I love this pic my photog took with the real palm trees in the background!

Onto the bonfire details now.  I could not resist these adorable napkins!  Of course they were barely touched, so I have them to use at my AHR this summer!  The mini tiki torches I bought to incorporate DH. He loves putting real tiki torches out on our balcony all the time. Once i saw, i knew i HAD to get them!  

And last, but not least - it cannot be a Jamaica wedding without Jamaican rum!

Wow Sandra...awesome pics. Thnaks for providing so much detail...glad you had a blast! Everything looks fabulous...your guests must have been thrilled! Good job girl!

Thank you!!  I provided all the detail because i know when i was on here planning my wedding, I could barely find any Sunset Beach brides and I wished I had more info.  There were weddings there everyday that week i went, so i know there are a lot of people who get married at Sunset Beach!
 

Originally Posted by Lasallebabe 

Wow Sandra...awesome pics. Thnaks for providing so much detail...glad you had a blast! Everything looks fabulous...your guests must have been thrilled! Good job girl!

Your pictures are beautiful! Congrats!!

thanks! i can;t wait to see yours, we almost had our wedding at Gran Bahia
 

Originally Posted by JayKay 

Your pictures are beautiful! Congrats!!