Past or reciently married brides in Jamaica I need help!

[kternasky]

So i'm just starting wedding planning and i wrote down my "ideal wedding" list (see below)

 

Any suggestions/advice on places? Is my budget even do-able??

 

 

Location: All inclusive (adult only) Jamaican hotel
Date: Feb 2012
Budget*: $6,000k total that includes:
- Air
- Flight
- 20 friends/family attendees (*note - their travel/hotel is not included in the above budget)
- Personal Wedding Consultant
- Private Beach wedding at sunset. (Similar to the Vision in White package at Sandals ie. Set up under a white frame adorned with a
flowing eyelet fabric w/chairs for guests) and also includes:
   - Preparation and ironing of the wedding dress and grooms tuxedo/suit
   - Bridal Bouquet & Groom’s Boutonniere
   - Pre-Recorded Musical Accompaniment (or acoustic guitar player)
   - Marriage Officer
   - Preparation of Marriage Documents
   - Certified Marriage Certificate
- Photographer (1-2 hours for ceremony and pre-reception, no prints just all on disk)
- Private Outdoor Reception a(bout 3 hours) that includes:
   - Dinner
   - Cake
   - dj (or access to sound system and we can do our own w/ipod),
   - All alcoholic drinks (including champagne for toast)
- Transportation from airport and back for all

Thanks for any  help!!

 

Kelly

[QueenDiva]

Welcome to the forum! I see alot of brides on here with a budget of about 5K, it all depends on what type of resort you're looking for. Most brides on here have their wedding at ROR (Riu Ocho Rios) and I think they are all-inclusive. You can go under "Jamaica Accommodations" to see the resorts that others get married at. Good luck!

[Lua]

Welcome!!!!

 

To be completely honest, I'd be shocked if you could do what you want with a $6000 budget.  

 

 

Just to give you an idea, my FI and I had a budget of $5K.

We are doing the "Free Wedding Package" at the Riu Negril in which we get our wedding for free providing our group book at least 5 rooms. $3K was spent right off the bat for the 2 of us for 7 days, all inclusive (incl. flight) taxes in. The free wedding includes set up of our ceremony, the coordinator, bouquet + bout, champagne for 10 people, cake for 10 people and a semi-private reception (along with a few other things). We still have to pay $360 on top of that for the minister. *IF* we wanted a private reception, (which would be nice) it's an additional $2K. That would have brought us over budget right away, so that was a no go. All the little extras cost $$$ unfortunately.  For us, we chose a DW to save $, so we're not bothering with any extras except for an upgraded cake and champagne (since we have 24 guests). I also only spent $500 on my dress and he only spent just over $100 on his outfit.

 

At least you have lots of time to shop around and save up!  And hey, if you can figure it out for $6K, I commend you girl!!!

[kternasky]

Thanks, I really am struggling with these silly "packages" resorts offer for extra money.  I don't want to be cheap by any means, but we're already paying a lot to travel and stay in a higher end room for these all-inclusive resorts so I am finding it hard to justify the extra costs for a reception.  I feel like we're paying double since we're already paying once for food/drinks. 

Has anyone forgone the traditional reception route and just had the ceremony on the beach w/toast and cake? 

 

Suggestions on great things to do after wards? 

 

I wouldn't mind getting a table at the resort restaurant for dinner, and then having drinks/dancing later.  It really doesn't have to be private for my 20 guests.

 

The hotel we're currently looking at is Secrets Wild Orchid, Jamaica in Montego.

[Tiffanya21]

You can definitely do that girl. Just tell your planner/coordinator that you would like to reserve a spot at one of the resturants for all your guests after the wedding. They will do it, it just won't be private. This is what we are doing. You could even do a morning wedding, then maybe plan an activity after so you will still be with all your guests, just not eating like at a traditional wedding. Look around, there are plenty of other options!

[QueenDiva]

Maybe check with an independent wedding planner in Jamaica. Two that I know of off hand is Ari and Helen G . You can usually find Helen  G in the in this forum (Jamaica). There's a thread somewhere on this site about different budgets and there were quite a few with 5K. I don't know exactly what they included, but you may want to do a seach just to take a look. I would contact the 2 independent WC's above to see what they say