A non-Resort Jamaican Wedding

[sandyt]

I just wanted to throw my post out there for any one that wants to do their wedding/reception at a villa or non-resort in Jamaica. I am doing mine on my own and have had to be extremely resourceful. The property management group through the villa tried to charge me resort fees but in the end I was able to DIY nearly 85% of it.

 

Our wedding is a little over 100 days out right now and so far these are the vendors I have booked with great pricing/recommendations:

 

Flowers - Floral Fantasies

Cake - Margarete - referral by Rose @ Floral Fantasies

Reception Rentals - Chic Events - Sadeki

DJ - Kevan - Jamaica DJ (on FB)

Villa - Paradise Resorts - www.prmsite.com (they included the minister and document handling)

Tent - I went ahead and used my Villa's recommendation on this

 

One way I saved a lot of money but am ensuring success is by bringing in my own caterer and photographer. I am lucky that a close friend is a trained chef with amazing skills, so I was able to barter with him. I also have a BFF with a photographer for a husband so I traded a free 4 night stay at one of our villas for my pics.

[Sax Lady]

sounds great. happy planning

[crisc99]

Hey SandyT,

I too am doing a non-resort wedding. I am having my wedding at Hibiscus Lodge Hotel in Ocho Rios. I am using Wedding Planner Plus to do all my stuff. Michelle, the wedding coordinator/owner, has package deals with the hotel and it includes everything but she also can customize the package which is what she did for us. Some things I prefer to do on my own like my wedding programs. I'm really in search of a good welcome letter for my guests. So many of the posts on here only have welcome letters referring to all-inclusive resorts. I'm really looking for something that mentions places to go to within town and local restaurants. I could just put it together myself I guess, but being that the wedding is only 3 weeks away, I'm kind of lazy. Well, good luck with everything and hope all goes well.

[hwannamaker]

I am also having a Non Resort wedding! We are getting married at the Llantrisant Villa. So excited!!! I was going to do a lot of the planning on my own but decided to save myself the stress and hire a wedding planner and we are so happy that we did!!

[Jamaica Guru]

Hi All:

 

After a year of planning, my niece’s wedding date is finally days away.

 

Date: Saturday July 3, 2010

 

Venue: Bellefield Great House Montego Bay

 

WP: Wedding Belles Jamaica

 

Resort: Rose Hall Resort Montego Bay (80) guests

 

Cake: Noida Cooke

 

I will let you all know how it went and try and post some pics if I can figure it out. As it seems to be hard to do. If not send me a PM and I will email them to you.

 

Hwannamaker: Llantrisant Villa is absolutely beautiful, you choose a great location

 

Thanks for sharing all your info.

[sandyt]

My villa has an "attached" planner but she wanted to charge me crazy amounts for things so I ended up doing a lot of the work myself. Thankfully one of my friends is a wedding planner here in California and is coming along. She is helping a lot (weddingsalamode.net).

 

My cake lady is Margaret Myrie - Mommy's Wedding Cakes.

 

Also, after I went with Chic events, I found this company had much better pricing but could not find any references - Sumar rentals.

[sandyt]

For favors, we found a local company here in California (Home of Back to Basics Embroidery) to do vintage post card luggage tags for a fairly inexpensive price. They are able to use the vintage poster pictures for Jamaica and turn them into wooden post card style luggage tags. On the back side it will have the villa name and the date.

[Flyesha1]

Jamaica Guru,

 

How was your neice's experience with Wedding Belles? I'm getting married at Rockhouse and was considering using them to help plan.

 

Thanks