Well, hello! Hoping for advice...

[Robyn Louise Photography]

Welcome to the forum!

[Oscar_Ernie]

I'm sorry I can't be of much help (we're choosing a "wedding factory" type of place), but there are so many wonderful people here that I'm sure you'll at least get some great jumping off points. Welcome to the boards...they're so addicting, but I can't help it because everyone has been so kind!

[NotYourAverageDW]

Congrats and Welcome.

 

I vote Jamaica! :-) No advice though about the whole planning as I'm in the early stages myself.

 

Good luck and happy planning.

[tvt]

Hello, I feel like we're twins! I'm also Tara (but spelled differently obviously) and an event planner. And didn't want to put my job into the wedding, KWIM?

 

That said, we're getting married at Las Caletas in Puerto Vallarta. The wedding coordinator there is amazing and I have do so little planning, it's great!

[Jenn]

to the forum! There are a ton of beautiful places to get married that are smaller... We decided on Jamaica because the residency requirements were more lenient for a legal ceremony, and from the East Coast, most people were able to get direct flights. Negril is a fabulous location because its a little quieter than MoBay and Ochos Rios and has a lot of small resorts. The cliff section of Negril is fantastic, but if you have kids coming, some resorts have age restrictions - just to be aware.

 

Like you, we wanted a smaller resort. We really wanted to essentially have most of the resort rented out, with a max of 20-30 people. When we found Coral Cove (Jamaica Weddings :: Jamaica Bed and Breakfast :: Coral Cove Jamaica) which is about 30 minutes outside of Negril, we knew that it was perfect, and for us - - it definitely was just that - perfect. Rockhouse is beautiful, but booking them was difficult because of the minimum room requirements. The Caves is insanely nice, but also very expensive. We spent part of our honeymoon there, and it would be a gorgeous place for a wedding, but I doubt our guests would have come based on price. Tensing Pen and Catcha Falling Star are supposed to be amazing as well. You may want to look into private villas as well, though that would probably require a little more planning on your part for the wedding.

 

We were lucky that our resort didn't charge us to hold rooms. The website says they do, but they didn't. Because its a small place, I think they were a lot more lenient. We were given a 2 week hold on the rooms we wanted - essentially the entire resort. We individually emailed/called all of our guests, and just skipped the STD (Save the Date) step. We had our website setup at this point with all of the info and within the 2 weeks, we had most of our guests booked. Now, I probably nagged a bit during this period to get people to book, but it happened. Over the next 5-6 months we had people drop out and others book, but we ended up with almost the entire resort booked and it was fabulous!

[Jenn3878]

to the forum! Best of luck with your planning!