When to have a place booked???

[KelZavs20]

If you already know the date you want, I would say get it reserved as soon as you know the resort you want!!

March/April tend to be BUSY for tropical places....in terms of occupancy at hotels - that is their high season. You might not have flight prices available, or room rates, but you should be able to lock in your wedding package price.

[richarsd]

Like KelZavs20 said, anyone planning April or March 2011 really needs to book NOW. We confirmed our wedding date 2 weeks ago and already the judge is almost fully booked for April 2011 already (and he only takes booking a year in advance). Also, we were originally going to be staying at the Grand Palladium Punta Cana but already the resort has so many rooms reserved for that week that they have to switch us to the Grand Palladium Bavaro...not a big deal as it's all the same complex but my point is that April and May are the busiest months. Other months are less busy but if you're going anytime in peak season (December to May) you should definitely be booking a year in advance! group rates come out 12 months ahead but you can always reserve just for you and your FI with the judge and the resort.

[destination_diva]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knbell22 Hi there and welcome to the forum! Have you narrowed down which resort you would like to get married at? Or at least which area/country? If you are planning on a March 2011 wedding, I would definitely get a jump start and nail down your date. I am a June 2011 bride and in the past few weeks, i have seen many dates for June being taken so If you know which resort you want to get married at, I would definitely get in contact with the WC there and see what you need to do to secure your date. You may want to first check with your WC to see what the cancellation policy is. I know that at our resort, we can cancel up to 6 months before the wedding and still get our deposit back. That allows some time to still see what rates will be like. So it was easy for us to just send the deposit and secure our date knowing if for some reason the rates end up looking really high, we still have the option to pick a different resort. Hope this helps Happy Planning!

Wow this is great advice knbell22! Thank you for this insite. We are planning a November 2011 wedding and I was at a loss as to when I actually need to book with a resort and send out the STD's. Now I know that I'm still ahead of the game and my goal is to definatly stay ahead of things as to not get overwhelmed.
Thanks again

[QueenDiva]

When I was trying to reserve my date at the resort, it was so difficult because they would not allow me to put a deposit to hold the date until the 2011 rates came out. I was terrified someone would get my date as she said it was a popular date that had been requested since October 2009! That should show you how in demand these dates are, lol!

[hockeymom97]

Def make your reservations as soon as you can!! We were still debating on resorts last month so I was in full research mode.....I talked to one resort last month that had no availibility in the room category we wanted...and I talked to another a couple of weeks ago that had NO rooms available at all the week of our wedding (granted, this was a smaller resort so they fill up quickly, but still....)!! So we decided we really needed to get this moving and I finally called to make our reservations at Beaches and there was only one wedding time slot remaining for that day, and I took it!! I'm just waiting for an invoice from our TA to make it all final but I have my fingers crossed!!

 

So my point is...if you have a particular date or resort that you really want I would book quickly. If you are more flexible and would be ok with switching dates/times/locations, then you can probably wait a little bit, But it's nice to get it booked so your guests can start planning and saving as well

[bikegirl]

I would book it....pretty much YESTERDAY or if not possible (hehe!), then as soon as possible.

 

I find that you need to book the exact wedding date first because you can do pretty much anything, such as getting travel quotes and putting down deposits for things like photographers (good ones get booked up to and over 1 year in advance)...