HELP Grand Palladium Brides!!!!

[zuzelh]

Just wondering - does anyone know anything about the spa services at the hotel? Do you recommend them for nails/hair/make up?? How long do they usually take?

[SnowAngels]

Good you asked ZUZELH! The Spa is nice, however, I didn't choose to have my hair done there, because the humidity kept dropping my hair of any style anyway (I kept my hair half up, half down). If you're planning a complete up-do then maybe it's worth it .... I'm not completely sure though.

I had a manicure, pedicure, polish change while at the spa. Thank goodness I had a girl with a steady hand for my wedding day's french manicure, because when I went back just for a polish change a week later, the esthician had white under my nail, had to re-do a few nails, was very slow.

 

I RECCOMMEND YOU BRING YOUR OWN NAILPOLISH!!!!

 

They only carry very muted shades of pink/neutrals .... nothing fun and vibrant. My friends who came with me for the manicure all ended with very toned down nailpolish, not really summery-beach colours that might've matched their dresses better.

[turk]

Dana

Be careful about the photographer. We brought our own but she was also a guest. This topic was discussed earlier in the forum. They do not allow outside photographers unless they are actually a guest of the wedding and staying at the resort. The fee is now $75 for a guest pass. I would definitely get this clarified before you go. It may just be they do not permit another Jamaican company to do the photos? The other option would be to book her a room for the one night even if she doesn't stay. You only have to provide a meal for her if you want to. Either way she will have access to all the restaurants.

 

Zuzelh

I did have my hair, makeup, and nail polish change done at the spa. It took less than 2 hours total. I must say they did a very nice job with my hair(very, very fine poker straight). I did do a trial run earlier in the week though just as a test. It was very windy on our wedding day(though sunny!) and it didn't budge much at all until about 930pm after we started the first dance, etc. As for the make up, I'd do it yourself. It wasn't worth the $45; however I went with a more natural look being that I usually do not wear anything but lipstick. I guess if you want to pile it on, it may be worth it. Nails....I had them done in the US before we left with a french manicure and had them do a polish change. I highly suggest this, otherwise you will be spending alot of time preparing in the am. I opted to get a massage instead! Yes, it was great!

 

FYI...If you plan on buying some spa treatments as gift for your guests or for your wedding party, buy in advance online. #1 You get a discount. #2 they do not have gift certificates onsite. Yes, this is hard to believe, but dealing with these people was the worst part of our trip. I had more issues trying to buy my dad a massage than you could imagine. Put it this way, it was so bad that we ended up getting it comped! So we didn't have to pay, but it wasn't worth the hassle. If you have a problem, ask to speak with the manager, she was the only one with a brain cell!

 

Petals.....Congrats!!!!!!!!

[Lexico]

Hi Ladies,

I have read a few of the reviews of your weddings just of late and feel a bit relieved. I'm a bit stressed! I'm a displaced Mexico Bride and am actually getting super excited to depart for our wedding (after such a huge let down being advised our flights were cancelled to Mexico).

 

I leave in 2 weeks and have not heard from Jascynthia at all! I don't know if I should just go with the flow and trust that everything will work itself out once we arrive at the resort and meet with her, or panic and having everything firmed up prior.

 

I'm going with the Tropical Pkg.....I'm confused about the menu options.

and we don't have a location for the reception yet - can I just confirm the location of our ceremony with her too when we get there - since it seems like I'm not getting a reply.

 

Snow Angel - thank you for your review. If you have any information to pass along that would be fantastic. All of this was arranged already for our Mexico departure, and now it's all up in the air again.

 

Petals - CONGRATULATIONS!! I'm really looking forward to seeing your pictures and reading your review! I hope you are having a fantastic week!

How was Jascynthia?

 

Thank you ladies!!

Cheers

Lee

[zuzelh]

Thanks for the advice... I was originally going to get the wedding package for spa treatments, but it looks like I'll just be getting hair and nails done there. I can't wait!

[danalauren22]

Thanks Turk,

Since my last post we actually booked a different photographer. She will be a guest at the resort for four nights, I'm guessing she will also have to be included as a wedding guest! So what is the deal then, just pretend she is a wedding guest with a love of photography? We actually lucked out with her, she is a wedding photog looking to break into destination weddings, so we bartered trip for shoot and photos, then she can use us in her portfolio. Plus we are doing a TTD shoot the next day!

 

Lexico- I feel your pain, we had everything booked for Mexico as well, and now are scrambling to get it all done for our June 29th wedding. I especially look forward to hearing your feedback since we seem to be in the same boat. Good Luck and keep us posted!

[zuzelh]

danalauren22: When I talked to Jacynthia, she told me I could bring my own photographer from the US... So, what you're doing should be OK! The only thing we couldn't do is use other vendors from Jamaica. So, I'm bringing my own photographer and I paid for his hotel/air!

[trinkit]

Hi Girls,

 

I just got married at the GP Jamaica on May 14th. I thought it would be useful for me to post a review. No, let me preface with that we were supposed to be married at the GP in Mexico, but was cancelled 6 days before we were supposed to leave…can we say STRESS!!!! I have stayed at the GP in Mexico 3 times, so I knew what to expect out of the hotel chain. We had 2 ½ years to plan Mexico, and 6 days to pull Jamaica together. At the end of the day, we had a few glitches, but I can honestly say that we had the most AMAZING wedding day, and probably worked out 10 times better than Mexico would have.

 

I was not able to receive one single response from Jacynthia prior to me arriving, this was a bit frustrating for me since we had such a tight timeline to pull this together. I decided to call, I called everyday until I was finally able to speak to her. My main concern was that our ceremony was confirmed and that we had a nice place for our dinner. She reassured me and told me it would be a great day.

 

My biggest beef with this hotel is the reception. When we checked in, all of our guests had an ocean view but us. Now, this was my 4th GP stay, plus our wedding, plus I sent a request prior to our arrival. I was pissed! Also, we have an 18 month old son, no crib in the room and nothing about our wedding or the meeting with Jacynthia. Not a great start to the trip. I understand they were at 100% capacity due to the swine flu, but come on, let’s use some common sense. In any event, after 3 days of bugging them, we finally got moved to an ocean view….and what a view it was! They could only give us a jr. suite, but we were fine with it.

 

The day after we checked in, I went to see if I could speak with Jacynthia about our meeting. They had to call her and told us to meet her at 12:00. When we arrived back at 12:00 there were about 4 or 5 brides waiting to talk to her. There were 15 weddings there that week. Yikes! She was a very busy lady. I saw here there several times past 9:00 pm and she even came in on her day off (Sunday) when I was there. Anyway, once we got to sit down with her and go through everything it was great, she is good to deal with. I was a bit worried because she was scribbling notes on different pieces of paper, but everything turned out great (minus a few glitches).

 

Flowers:

I had asked about getting green cymbidium and purple orchids for my bouquet. She said “no problemâ€. She was supposed to get me a price, but I wasn’t able to find her after our meeting. In any event, my flowers were BEAUTIFUL, but the total cost was $528…ouch! Now, that did include a bridesmaid bouquet, 4 boutonnieres, and 3 corsages. But, I was not expecting that, so just a warning! Oh, also I got a white orchid for my hair. I had to call a few times before my ceremony to track my flowers down so they could bring them to me for my hair orchid. I think their normal practice is to deliver them to the ceremony site.

 

Ceremony:

Our ceremony was scheduled for 2:00. Not a drop of rain all week and wouldn’t you know it, big nasty black clouds roll in at about 1:15. I was so sad! Luckily, they are on “Jamaican time†and waited for them to pass, so the ceremony didn’t start until about 2:45. The back-up location is the spa (which is nice), but I really wanted the beach! Anyway, the ceremony was amazing. Jacynthia had given the dj some other couple’s wedding cd, so luckily one of our guests had her ipod with our songs on it and they quickly created a new play list…â€no problemâ€! The minister was great, he made me feel very calm. We also did a sand ceremony that was very special. Note - you need to bring your own vases and sand. Flowers, chairs, set up was very nice.

 

Pictures:

I was disappointed that you are forced to use their photographers, but after everything we had been through I just wanted to get married. The pictures they took are nice, but I think we could’ve done better. At the same time, it is pretty hard to screw up the beautiful Caribbean Sea as a back drop. They were obsessed with making us kiss for the all the pictures, so we had a good laugh at that. After your wedding day you meet them in the gift shop and pick out which pictures you want. We got the $500 package, so got 100 digital, 18 prints and a slide show to music. It was nice to be able to leave Jamaica with all of our pictures.

 

Cocktail Party:

Since our ceremony was so early, we decided to have an appetizer/cocktail party between the ceremony and dinner. We chose to do it at the gazebo on the cliff…great location! We hired the steel band. It was tones of fun! We also wanted a big bucket of red stripe, so Jacynthia arranged that for us as well, the cost was $100 for that (the red stripe that is). Cost of the reception was $15 per person (min. 25 people).

 

Dinner:

We had our dinner at the Blue Lagoon (private area) because we wanted to do a slide show and this was the only way. Cost was $300 for the Blue Lagoon and $250 for the projector. Which they didn’t set up properly, but luckily there were some techy geeks in our group to fix it! We chose our menu from the Italian. It was good! I had asked for chocolate wedding cake, but it was white, “no problemâ€, our guests said it was the best wedding cake they every had. We had place settings, wine stopper favors, goodie bags for the kids, and little vases with sand, shells and candles for the tables – everything was set up how I had asked. “no problem†Instead of the traditional clinking to kiss, we made our guests to a Bob Marley shot (type of drink) or sing a Bob Marley song. It was fun, even the waiters got into it and sang to us. We had a great time! After dinner we went to the Infinity Bar to listen to the Reggae band, it was awesome. I had SO much fun!

 

Resort:

The resort was amazing, food was great, everything was awesome. Don’t believe the bad stuff you read. Is it perfect, no, but hey – you’re on vacation. Just go with an open mind and don’t get bent out of shape if everything doesn’t go “perfectâ€. Just enjoy!

 

 

If anyone has any specific questions, or you want to see some pictures, just email me at [email protected]

 

Thanks!

[trinkit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ~*petals*~ That is really interesting... so, according to that, you could book one the Tropical or Romance package, and just pay the $300 fee plus the lower per-person charge ($30, $40) to have a private reception! The reason I went with the Caribbean package is because Charmaine told me that the per-person charge for a private dinner would be higher than $50/person if you did a private dinner with one of the less expensive packages!

Yes, I had the Tropical package. The Caribbean is to get the special menu. With ours, we could order what ever we wanted from the a la carte menu. We found the food just awesome at the a la cartes.

[~*petals*~]

Hi Ladies!

 

I'm back from my GPJ wedding & Negril honeymoon and I just wanted to tell you that everything went well. My guests had a great time & we heard no complaints- everyone was talking about how nice their rooms were and how much they loved the grounds.

 

The day of the wedding it started pouring rain (HARD) around midday and it only let up for a while around 3pm.... before it started drizzling again. The gazebo area got soaked and was all mud so the wedding got pushed back about an hour and we held it at the spa instead. It was GORGEOUS!

 

A couple nights before the wedding, we ate at the Indian restaurant while a wedding reception was taking place at the Blue Lagoon and kept an ear out to listen to the DJ and timing of the dinner/speeches.. and noticed that the dinner service, cake, speeches, etc took up most of their time allotment. (Another BDW bride mentioned this as well...)

 

So we decided to use our iPOD with their speaker/microphone setup (they have a jack so you can plug your iPOD directly into their speaker system- no need to bring a dock or portable speakers). Instead of paying $900 for the DJ to play dinner music, we paid ($175 I think?) for their speaker setup, and got the steel drum band for 1 hour to play for the ceremony instead- it was the best decision! They were wonderful!

 

We rented the Blue Lagoon and had the seafood appetizer and beef & shrimp as the main courses. I brought centerpieces and they set everything up perfectly. We had 57 guests and did a U-shaped setup. The dinner service did take a really long time, so after dinner was over, we just did speeches and the cake-cutting, and then everybody went upstairs to Infinity Lounge after everything was done.

 

All in all, it was great! My only complaints are minor in the grand scheme of things: it was VERY difficult to catch up with Jascynthia, they don't mention that lobster is only available seasonally in their materials (I would've chosen something else & made that the meal choice in my invites), and my flowergirl basket & little ringbearer box disappeared completely (they were in the suitcase with the centerpieces). The guests had a great time and the wedding day was beautiful despite the rain!

 

Posted a couple teaser pics here: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t43088

 

Let me know if you have any questions!