Any Gran Bahia Principe Runaway Bay Brides out there?

[ehpage]

Hey, they were glasses.. they will have them in stock right now in the summer plastic glass department.

 

here's what you'll need:

 

plastic tumbler glasses from zellers

square mirrors (3 in a pack) from dollarama

led closet lights (takes 3 x AAA batteries) from dollarama

ribbon to wrap around the lights

the purple gems I got from Michaels but you can pick them up anywhere (mine came on a wire stem, which i cut them all off)

fake flower to float inside it - i got my green orchids at dollarama

clear plastic "drawer cushions" you know like the clear rubber things you put inside a cupboard door to stop it from slamming.. this is what I put on top of the light so that the glass would not slip off it. I got a pack of them at dollarama and you could not see them but they worked GREAT! the glass didn't move one bit.

 

So just put the rocks in the bottom of the glass, fill with water and put the flower inside (note that brightly colored flowers may bleed their color, dollar store ones worked great - expensive michaels ones bled like crazy)

put the light on top of the mirror and the glass on top of the light and volia you're done!!

 

they were inexpensive and I personally think looked GREAT!!

 

Also if anyone is doing a "purple" theme.. i have about 30 chair ties and some table runners i'm willing to sell.

 

Originally Posted by a084596 

erin,

were your centerpieces actual vases or drinking glasses - I can't tell the height by your photos.  I really love them and want to copy them.

I;m not sure where to look at zellers.  I couldn't find them but I will go to another zellers.

 

 

[ehpage]

my menu at the Italian

 

Caprese Salad

Penne Napolina

Risotto Chicken with Ricotta

Tiramisu

 

Everyone LOVED the meal!! it was fantastic!!

[BusyBee123]

Thanks for sharing your menu! Glad to hear people liked it! We're doing the same menu, but were debating between the penne napolina, the spinach ravioli and the squash soup for the second course! I LOVE squash soup, but my FI is convinced its not "italian" enough! lol!
 

Originally Posted by ehpage 

my menu at the Italian

 

Caprese Salad

Penne Napolina

Risotto Chicken with Ricotta

Tiramisu

 

Everyone LOVED the meal!! it was fantastic!!

[JayKay]

Did you have to get your ceremony script you wrote approved?  And did they say it pretty near word for word?
 

Originally Posted by StephAli 

 

BusyBee,

I had a non-religious ceremony and that was the same script they sent me....needless to say I chose to write my own!!

 

Good Luck!!

 

 

 

[tris]

Hey Ladies!!! I am back home

 

Our wedding was beautiful. Everything we could have ever hoped for. I know all of us at one point questioned booking with the GBP because of communication issues but honestly I don't regret it one bit. Once you get there and meet with Chandlyn & Donnalee you see how ridiculously busy they are and you completely understand. They are both the sweetest, most patient ladies.

 

I'll share some of my thoughts from the day and I'll be sure to give you all pics as soon as I've got them! I was dreadfully sick for 4 days (the 2nd of them was my wedding day, and the 3rd, and worst, was when we did our TTD *sad*)

 

Firstly, DON'T STRESS the small stuff. My husband (weeirrrd) and I spent the last few weeks before the wedding stressing over getting menus, wedding favours, centerpieces, etc done and in the end it really meant nothing... the best bit of advice I can give is trust that everything will be alright, because it will be

 

Okay, so onto my thoughts.

 

- I never thought this would be one of my favourite things about my wedding but honestly the minister was amazing. We had written our own vows and our own script and last minute decided to scrap it and go with what he had. He asked us how religious we wanted it and we told him somewhere in the middle... our grandparents appreciated it. This man was amazing. He was so sweet and pulled us in the end and gave us the most beautiful advice. Don't be scared of the script. It's beautiful and simple. He didn't do any scripture, and he spoke about the ocean and how relatives who passed on were still with us (super special for FI who lost his grandma this past year). And after we said our vows he said to my DH "and now she's yours forever". It was really sweet.

 

- We were dummies and misunderstood to meet in the lobby so we were late for the wedding! Haha. I joked with DH that I wasn't showing up

 

- We didn't use the resort photog. We brought our own and she was a dream. (I'll leave you with one teaser pic she sent us). As I said before I was super sick but still decided to go with our full day TTD we had planned. I had to cut it short because I was literally puking in the trees every 10 minutes, but props to DH for still kissing me in pics! Haha. We didn't get all the pics we wanted, but what can you do.

 

- Tai Flora was great. Flowers were all awesome and came on time.

 

- We brought our own centerpieces, programs, menus, etc (pretty much everything) and the planners were awesome about it. I sent my bridesmaid and our best man to help set things up (with diagrams), but otherwise they did everything. Donnalee even told me that she wanted to hire me to decorate her house. She said that they do a LOT of weddings (there were THREE on my day alone) and she had never seen someone put so much into it and come with such beautiful decorations. Aww <3

 

- We hired the steel drum band to play our ceremony. Worth all $400. All our guests loved it and you can't really describe walking down the aisle to steel drums. We never got a list of songs but we decided when we got there.. they played "one love" by bob marley for the wedding party & pachabels cannon for me. After the ceremony they played for another half hour or so and everyone loved it.

 

- We switched to the free package. Everything was great. Minister fees were $200, Steel Drum $400, flowers were $300(ish), and we had 2 extra guests ($50). We didn't do chair ties, Jamaica is beautiful enough

 

- I wasn't going to get my hair done but after talking to some brides and feeling the WIND I booked an appointment. Without a trial it was $66... I didn't want to waste vaca time with a hair trail so I trusted her. I'm pretty fussy about my hair but she honestly did a fantastic job. Pretty much exactly what I wanted, and they use a spray there that they joked was "cement spray". Hair didn't move, haha. My bridesmaids actually did their own hair then went down and tipped her $10 to spray the crap out of their hair too. She loved it. My hair was still good for our TTD the next day, no lies.

 

- Our dinner was the Italian. The food was great. They set up 2 tables of 8 plus a sweetheart table for us. We did speeches. I'm glad we did. Everyone cried... it was wonderful. They didn't seat anyone around us until we were almost done eating so we never noticed. For our size group it wasn't worth it to book the restaurant out. Our cake was vanilla raspberry, so good, but I'm not really a cake person, and I couldn't really enjoy any of the food because I was sick, but everyone told me it was great.

 

- We didn't book the gazebo. After the dinner we went to the disco but were dissapointed that they wouldn't play our ipod of music. Honestly the DJ was awful. His mixes were dreadful, the song choices were really bad and the music was WAY too loud. I know it's a club setting but it could have been a LITTLE quieter. DH is a DJ so it was the worst for him, haha. Either way, our parents & grandparents were not having a good time so we all went to the kareokee. Our group took over the place and it was so much fun. Who would have thought kareokee reception? haha. Oh well, it worked. I went to bed at 1:00ish, still sick, and DH and the wedding party partied into the night and only got back at about 5:00.

 

- I met Erin She was beautiful and really sweet.

 

In the end, the wedding was so beautiful. EVERYONE cried at the ceremony. My grandpa, who's in a wheelchair walked me down the aisle (actually getting up for 3 steps at the end, with my help). My mom said it was the most romantic wedding she'd ever been too.

 

I'll leave you guys with one picture from our TTD. We did pics on horses, then went to a waterfall, and then were supposed to go to Nigrel (stupid being sick), instead I slept for 4 hours then we did beach pics on the resort beach. Anyways, here is one of our photogs fav (and the only pic I've seen so far!!). Any questions ladies, please let me know

 

[BusyBee123]

Wow Tris...that picture is STUNNING!!! I had ruled out getting horses for our TTD as we're going to Dunn's River Falls, but now I'm reconsidering! Did you have to go far to rent the horses for those photos?  And you would never have guessed that you were sick! You look beautiful!

 

I'm so glad to hear all of the positive reviews! Its so reassuring and makes me more and more excited for my big day!  I was really concerned that the minister might say something awkward, or too religious for what we are looking for, but now I can't wait to meet him!  Maybe we'll leave him some improvisation room for our ceremony!

 

One question, I know you were super on the ball with decor!  How long did you spend with Chandlyn/Donnalee when you met with them? I've heard that the meeting is short, and I'm just scared that I won't have enough time to explain where some of the decor should go and what I want it to look like! It can totally make or break your whole look, so I just want to make sure that if I'm lugging it all the way to Jamaica, that it gets used!  Maybe I should start drawing out some diagrams too!

 

Congrats again Tris and thanks so much for sharing your experience with us! Can't wait to see more photos! 

[tris]

Thanks! We love it too! I can't wait to see the rest.

 

As far as Dunn's River goes, I don't know if you'll be happy with it for a TTD. We went to a waterfall about 5 min away called "Mahoe Falls". We visited Dunn's River on an excursion and it's the most touristy place on the island. It's gorgeous but there's no way you'll get pictures without tons of people in the background. The place we went is not touristy at all! There were literally only 2 other people there with us and it was all ours (and it's only $5 a person to get in)! I'd really recommend checking it out. It's not as big, but still great for pics, and really private.

We did horses first. It was on our way, I forget the name of the place we went but they charged us $76 for 2 horses for 1/2 an hour. They were really great about it and gave us "2 of their prettiest horses". We hired a driver for the day and he was supposed to take us to Negril after but we ended up going back (so his cost was about $100, it would have been $275 for the whole day). He was amazing, he even stopped at a gas station to get me gingerale for my tummy and paid for it himself. If anyone is interested in getting his contact I'd be happy to share. He looked after our stuff and knew the island really well. Great guy.

 

And thank-you, I was trying to "be pretty"... it's really hard when all you want to do is puke. Ughh... Such bad timing!

 

We cannot stress how much we loved the minister. He made us tear up .

 

We met with Chandlyn 2 days after we got there for about 15 min. Really, you can have as much time as you'd like with them. There was another bride there that literally was with her everyday... it was irritating because we waiting almost an hour to meet with her because the bride & her mom wouldn't stop stressing. DH and I are pretty laid back so we just took 15 min to answer the simple questions (and confirm everything we had emailed about) and she told us to drop off all our decor the day before the wedding. At that time we brought it to her and gave her a brief explanation. Then we saw her again at the rehearsal when she took us through everything. They're both available to talk to at anytime you want though (as long as they're not at another wedding).

 

I was concerned with with centerpieces not being put together correctly too... that's why I sent my BM (with instructions). Chandlyn picked her up after the ceremony (after we did group pics) and took her with to the restaurant. Everything was perfect.
 

Originally Posted by BusyBee123 

Wow Tris...that picture is STUNNING!!! I had ruled out getting horses for our TTD as we're going to Dunn's River Falls, but now I'm reconsidering! Did you have to go far to rent the horses for those photos?  And you would never have guessed that you were sick! You look beautiful!

 

I'm so glad to hear all of the positive reviews! Its so reassuring and makes me more and more excited for my big day!  I was really concerned that the minister might say something awkward, or too religious for what we are looking for, but now I can't wait to meet him!  Maybe we'll leave him some improvisation room for our ceremony!

 

One question, I know you were super on the ball with decor!  How long did you spend with Chandlyn/Donnalee when you met with them? I've heard that the meeting is short, and I'm just scared that I won't have enough time to explain where some of the decor should go and what I want it to look like! It can totally make or break your whole look, so I just want to make sure that if I'm lugging it all the way to Jamaica, that it gets used!  Maybe I should start drawing out some diagrams too!

 

Congrats again Tris and thanks so much for sharing your experience with us! Can't wait to see more photos! 

 

[acw271011]

congrats! isn't it fun to do that part? I've got mine hanging here at home and some days it drives me nuts knowing I still have to wait 6 months before I can wear it!!

 

Originally Posted by Natalie2012 

Got my dress today....deposits are in...hurry up April 2012!! So sooooo excited!! This forum has been fantastic!!

 

[JayKay]

Tris- Congrats on being a Mrs.   Thanks for sharing!

[keriltz]

OMG Tris - You looked beautiful!!!!  Such an amazing picture!! Congrats!   I'm leaving in 2 weeks tomorrow and am somewhat stressed out because i haven't stressed about anything so far! Haha  I am not bringing anything from home except my dress and rings, do they provide everything else?  Also you made me stress less about the ceremony that was probably the only thing i was worried about that i don't want it to be religous at all so if he has stuff to say that's not that saves me from trying to find something!! 

 

Originally Posted by tris 

Hey Ladies!!! I am back home

 

Our wedding was beautiful. Everything we could have ever hoped for. I know all of us at one point questioned booking with the GBP because of communication issues but honestly I don't regret it one bit. Once you get there and meet with Chandlyn & Donnalee you see how ridiculously busy they are and you completely understand. They are both the sweetest, most patient ladies.

 

I'll share some of my thoughts from the day and I'll be sure to give you all pics as soon as I've got them! I was dreadfully sick for 4 days (the 2nd of them was my wedding day, and the 3rd, and worst, was when we did our TTD *sad*)

 

Firstly, DON'T STRESS the small stuff. My husband (weeirrrd) and I spent the last few weeks before the wedding stressing over getting menus, wedding favours, centerpieces, etc done and in the end it really meant nothing... the best bit of advice I can give is trust that everything will be alright, because it will be

 

Okay, so onto my thoughts.

 

- I never thought this would be one of my favourite things about my wedding but honestly the minister was amazing. We had written our own vows and our own script and last minute decided to scrap it and go with what he had. He asked us how religious we wanted it and we told him somewhere in the middle... our grandparents appreciated it. This man was amazing. He was so sweet and pulled us in the end and gave us the most beautiful advice. Don't be scared of the script. It's beautiful and simple. He didn't do any scripture, and he spoke about the ocean and how relatives who passed on were still with us (super special for FI who lost his grandma this past year). And after we said our vows he said to my DH "and now she's yours forever". It was really sweet.

 

- We were dummies and misunderstood to meet in the lobby so we were late for the wedding! Haha. I joked with DH that I wasn't showing up

 

- We didn't use the resort photog. We brought our own and she was a dream. (I'll leave you with one teaser pic she sent us). As I said before I was super sick but still decided to go with our full day TTD we had planned. I had to cut it short because I was literally puking in the trees every 10 minutes, but props to DH for still kissing me in pics! Haha. We didn't get all the pics we wanted, but what can you do.

 

- Tai Flora was great. Flowers were all awesome and came on time.

 

- We brought our own centerpieces, programs, menus, etc (pretty much everything) and the planners were awesome about it. I sent my bridesmaid and our best man to help set things up (with diagrams), but otherwise they did everything. Donnalee even told me that she wanted to hire me to decorate her house. She said that they do a LOT of weddings (there were THREE on my day alone) and she had never seen someone put so much into it and come with such beautiful decorations. Aww <3

 

- We hired the steel drum band to play our ceremony. Worth all $400. All our guests loved it and you can't really describe walking down the aisle to steel drums. We never got a list of songs but we decided when we got there.. they played "one love" by bob marley for the wedding party & pachabels cannon for me. After the ceremony they played for another half hour or so and everyone loved it.

 

- We switched to the free package. Everything was great. Minister fees were $200, Steel Drum $400, flowers were $300(ish), and we had 2 extra guests ($50). We didn't do chair ties, Jamaica is beautiful enough

 

- I wasn't going to get my hair done but after talking to some brides and feeling the WIND I booked an appointment. Without a trial it was $66... I didn't want to waste vaca time with a hair trail so I trusted her. I'm pretty fussy about my hair but she honestly did a fantastic job. Pretty much exactly what I wanted, and they use a spray there that they joked was "cement spray". Hair didn't move, haha. My bridesmaids actually did their own hair then went down and tipped her $10 to spray the crap out of their hair too. She loved it. My hair was still good for our TTD the next day, no lies.

 

- Our dinner was the Italian. The food was great. They set up 2 tables of 8 plus a sweetheart table for us. We did speeches. I'm glad we did. Everyone cried... it was wonderful. They didn't seat anyone around us until we were almost done eating so we never noticed. For our size group it wasn't worth it to book the restaurant out. Our cake was vanilla raspberry, so good, but I'm not really a cake person, and I couldn't really enjoy any of the food because I was sick, but everyone told me it was great.

 

- We didn't book the gazebo. After the dinner we went to the disco but were dissapointed that they wouldn't play our ipod of music. Honestly the DJ was awful. His mixes were dreadful, the song choices were really bad and the music was WAY too loud. I know it's a club setting but it could have been a LITTLE quieter. DH is a DJ so it was the worst for him, haha. Either way, our parents & grandparents were not having a good time so we all went to the kareokee. Our group took over the place and it was so much fun. Who would have thought kareokee reception? haha. Oh well, it worked. I went to bed at 1:00ish, still sick, and DH and the wedding party partied into the night and only got back at about 5:00.

 

- I met Erin She was beautiful and really sweet.

 

In the end, the wedding was so beautiful. EVERYONE cried at the ceremony. My grandpa, who's in a wheelchair walked me down the aisle (actually getting up for 3 steps at the end, with my help). My mom said it was the most romantic wedding she'd ever been too.

 

I'll leave you guys with one picture from our TTD. We did pics on horses, then went to a waterfall, and then were supposed to go to Nigrel (stupid being sick), instead I slept for 4 hours then we did beach pics on the resort beach. Anyways, here is one of our photogs fav (and the only pic I've seen so far!!). Any questions ladies, please let me know