Back from Wedding at ROR - Now a Mrs. Yay!

[Pochaccobaby143]

Hey Ladies,

 

I'm back from the most beautiful wedding and the greatest honeymoon ever! I'm now a Mrs. Yay!!!!!

 

So here I go with my review I know without all you past brides I would have never gotten through the tough planning times. Here are the pros and cons and i'll try to be as detailed as I can.

 

Upon Arrival:

 

There was really no wait, we arrived at 6pm and they checked us in right away. We asked about the upgraded room that was part of our package and the manager told us there are no rooms with good views until tomorrow so check in after 3pm the next day. We arrived at our room and we see 2 double beds pushed together. We immediately went back to the manager and told them we are getting married and would like 1 king size bed or at least 1 queen sized bed. Amoy the manager told us she can give us a jr. suite but the view was really bad. After debating on this we accepted the room and when we got to building 1 room 1371 found the room to be beautiful but Amoy was right the view was horrible. It was of the dirt road and the side cabanas. We decided to stay in that room and make the best of it.

 

While on the line, we were offered rum punch. I didn't have any but everyone said it was great. We of course were starving and we went to the main buffet restaurant for dinner.

 

Food and Drinks:

 

What can I say other than wow, i'm very impressed. I'm a very picky eater and I found the quality of the food to be excellent. The only bad thing I can really say is , don't waste your time at Mandalay the Asian restaurant, i'm asian and the food was not asian at all. This is also one of their a la carte restaurants, it was not worth us waking up early and making reservations at 8am. The entire stay there, we ended up eating at St. Ann's which was amazing, the variety for breakfast, lunch and dinner was great! The 1st night there we had grilled lobster that was made right in front of us! We also ate at the Plantation Restaurant which had amazing curry food. The Jerk Hut had authentic jerk and ackee and saltfish. The food is plenty so don't eat too much you might not get up and leave the room. In the room, there is a 4 bottle liquor dispenser which was so amazing. There is a huge mini fridge fully stocked with, seltzer, orange soda, diet coke, red stripe beer and of course bottles of water. The was restocked every other day in my building. In building 3, a few of my friends and family complained they didnt get a restock but they went and ask the reception and they gave them extra bottles of water. The italian restaurant Piccolo was not that good. The only thing there that was good was the fried calamari, tiramisu and the pizza. I'm from NY and the pizza here was actually decent. Most of the bartenders were great except for the few that had attitudes cause too many people were waiting for drinks. Try the frenchkiss , it's a mix of pina colada, strawberry daquiri and pineapple juice and rum. This was the most popular drink there, and try it and you'll see why. There are so many bars everywhere , you will never go thirsty.

 

Meeting with Planner:

 

Though I worked mainly with Chhandlyn the entire time during my planning when I arrived she was busy so I sat and met with Nikki. Nikki was such a delite. She was so sweet and she really made me feel special. Pretty much anything I requested I got. I brought down, place settings, disposable cameras, table decorations, thank you note cards, menu cards and ceremony kit. I told her where to put it and she placed it beautifully! Originally, I was told if I had 30 or more guests I would have my reception at Mammee Bay Restaurant and I would have round tables of 8 people. In total, I had about 42 guests and after meeting with Nikki she told me last minute we will have the reception dinner at the Plantation Restaurant and I will have a T Shaped table. I was quite frustrated since I did already make the table cards and brought them down and wasted money printing them. But like I said before, i had to make the best of things. Nikki did give me my wedding gift, a bottle of rum cream in a mug. We then went over my additional options, I went with the runner and I chose the tropical bouquet. I also purchased all my girls a bouquet and we also got bouttenieres. We arranged a reception rehearsal dinner the following day at 6:30pm at St. Anns.

 

Rehearsal Dinner:

 

I originally reserved for 25 people for the rehearsal dinner since not everyone was there yet and during that day somehow we reached almost 35 people. St. Ann's restaurant was not ready for us when we arrived so we had to wait for them to set up the table. This was a bit annoying since our group was just standing around waiting for them to set up and blocking people trying to get to the buffet. This went well and very smoothly.

 

The Big Day!:

 

The day started with me getting up and running over to building 1. This is about a 10 min walk , a few minutes if you run, the property is huge but beautiful! I went over to my MOH's room to get ready.

As a surprise to my girls, I treated them all to get their hair done for the wedding. It cost about $100 per person not inlcuding the tip. The spa/salon are not organized at all, after confirming the time with them the day of and the day before they still confused the time but our stylist Rose was amazing! She totally hooked us up , our hair was so perfect and she works very fast , so even though our scheduling was off she gave us plenty of time to get ready.

We all met and got ready and a few minutes before the wedding Nikki came and brought me our bouquets and Michael the head photographer came to take some pics of us getting ready. Ladies I highly recommend Michael and his staff, Karen was great as well. The shots he took her priceless and I couldn’t have gotten it done without him. So please don't skim on the photography. At 4pm, Nikki led my girls down and then she came to get me. I chose my song to be Canon D by Pachebel. Everything was set up perfect; the flowers were amazing the runner looked great. I felt like a true princess with so many paparazzi around me hehehehe.

 

During the ceremony our officiant helped with everything we had to say. He was nice and I know he was hot in his suit. It had to be about 97 degrees outside that day! My ceremony was about 30 minutes. We gave our vows for him to read to us and for us to repeat. We did have a microphone so everyone was able to hear. Immediately after the ceremony, my MOH and bridesmaid got to work with Michael to do all the group shots and all the important shots. Please plan this ahead since Michael works by the hour. I wrote and went over all the shots I wanted with my MOH ahead of time and this saved us a lot of time. While we were taking pics, Nikki arranged for some cocktails to be served to the guests. This was a nice touch since everyone was quite parched from waiting in the heat. The photos took place by the lagoon gazebo which is where I had my wedding, but I also took pics on the beach. Everything came out really well and Michael was able to take 540 pictures in 2 hours of time. The photoshop is not opened on Sundays so he put all the pics for us on a disk and I emailed him all the ones I wanted. My package included about 70 and I am purchasing a few more.

Our reception was held at the Plantation Restaurant along with 3 other wedding parties. I chose the 2nd level and this was very private. You don’t need to waste your money booking a private reception it’s already private. Though there were 2 other wedding receptions taking place, ours was the largest and I’m sure the loudest. The other weddings had about 10 to 25 people max. The food was decent nothing special. I wish they had more options for the appetizers. It was a semi buffet, the entrée was served. The wedding cake was a really cute 3 tiered chocolate and vanilla butter cream cake that was actually very good. I was shocked since many brides out there complained their cake was bad. I guess this time the chef was on point.  My cake was simple and decorated with fresh tropical flowers matching my bouquet. I would not recommend to upgrade the cake, most of the guests were so full since they have been eating and all day. The only bad thing was that since there were 3 wedding receptions at the same time our food was extremely delayed. I was completely done with my dinner b4 the last person was even served. My guests were a little upset but they understood the staff was busy. After the reception, we all met at the disco and partied there until late night.

Everyone was congratulating us and it was so nice! We did not receive our breakfast in bed the next morning, we waited about an hour and was starving so we just ate at the jerk hut. Not a big deal to us but make sure you do remind them about it.

I hope this helps, if you have any other questions, I’ll try my best to answer them for you all!!!

 

PS I will be adding pics very soon

 

[AnnaC]

Thanks for the review! Glad to hear that everything turned out well.

[Quietstorm]

Thanks for taking the time to write a review!! Glad you enjoyed the day

[Pochaccobaby143]

Thanks Ladies, it was my pleasure!

[mrstorrestobe]

Great review! Can't wait to see pics!

[kdnicholer]

Congrats and can't wait to see the photos!!

[nikicrosby]

yeah...thanks so much for the review...I may have a few questions for you in the upcoming months.Congratulations!!!

[Pochaccobaby143]

No problem Niki i'm here to help

[ajlbuaxo]

Thanks for the info! Cant wait to see the pics!

[futuremrsmartez]

thanks for the review i ay have a few questions our day is 1/30/2010 and we are expecting 45-60 guests