Wedding planninh without a travel agent

[jamieirene]

Hi My name is jamie and I am getting married at the hotel riu caribe july 28th 2012. I am wondering how many of you brides out there are planning your wedding without the help of a travel agent. Thus far my fi and I have booked our hotel are looking for photographers and pretty much everything we have done on our own and im wonderig why I would pay a travel agent to do the my guest booking? Seems like a waste of money! Id like to hear from other brides and get your opinions of if I should get one or keep doing it ourselves.

[TammyWright]

 

 

Originally Posted by jamieirene 

 

Hi

 

My name is jamie and I am getting married at the hotel riu caribe july 28th 2012. I am wondering how many of you brides out there are planning your wedding without the help of a travel agent. Thus far my fi and I have booked our hotel are looking for photographers and pretty much everything we have done on our own and im wonderig why I would pay a travel agent to do the my guest booking? Seems like a waste of money! Id like to hear from other brides and get your opinions of if I should get one or keep doing it ourselves.

well you wouldn't pay your TA.  the resorts and suppliers pay us.  we usually can match/beat internet rates and if any issues come up we are in your corner.

 

We have a great relationship with the Riu resort chain and book many weddings with them a year.

 

also, do you really want to take on the role of TA for all your guests on top of your wedding planning?

 

 

[vacationsrthebest]

I just got married in Cancun and we started using a travel agent then I found better prices on-line that she couldn't beat. So I knew that if I searched the web so would my guests. All I did was create a detailed website using www.mywedding.com and had pages with the hotel info, things to do, resort attire, how to book, different websites to check for pricing and every couple of weeks I updated the prices so people could look and get an idea of how much it would cost them.

 

I did several different trip plans like: Sun to Sun, Mon to Sun, Mom to Mom, Tues to Sun, Thurs to Sun, and Thurs to Tues.We got married on a Saturday so people could come anytime they wanted according to their vacation and budgets. I am a very organized person so this was easy for me to track and update. I even booked the trips for some of my guests and they just paid me directly BEFORE I put it on my credit card and entered their info as the main contact.

 

I also tracked prices for many excursions so I had examples of things people could do and a price idea for them too. We had 35 people come to our wedding and I thought that was a great group size. We even did an excursion to the Mayan Ruin Coba with 22 people and that was a BLAST!

 

Good Luck!

[hairdos11]

I just wanted to say that I have a travel agent and I haven't heard from her in almost 3 weeks and when i called they told me she was out of the office until Thursday.  Her prices are the same as the internet and so far this has been soo stressful because I went to her in the middle of Jan. and now it's March and we still haven't signed anything so my date might be gone for all I know.   I'm trying to decide if I should go with another travel agent or is it the resort that was taking so long with the paperwork.  It's frustrating because I want to get married in Nov. of this year, I'm ready with my money! Any advice out there for me?

[perry1217]

Hairdos - what TA and what resort?

Originally Posted by hairdos11 

I just wanted to say that I have a travel agent and I haven't heard from her in almost 3 weeks and when i called they told me she was out of the office until Thursday.  Her prices are the same as the internet and so far this has been soo stressful because I went to her in the middle of Jan. and now it's March and we still haven't signed anything so my date might be gone for all I know.   I'm trying to decide if I should go with another travel agent or is it the resort that was taking so long with the paperwork.  It's frustrating because I want to get married in Nov. of this year, I'm ready with my money! Any advice out there for me?

 

[hairdos11]

World Travel and Dreams Cancun Resort. 

[X-Chan]

If you're going to use a travel agent make sure you find one that is reliable. I'm not at the booking stage yet but basically the only thing I was looking for while searching for TAs is someone that would get back to me quickly.. and that proved to be a challenge! The first lady I emailed took weeks to get back to my emails, each time asking me if I was still interested and sorry it took her so long to answer. She still hasn't followed up from the last time I told her yes I was still interested. The second lady has promised to call me not once but twice to go over my wedding details. I waited around for her calls at the time she said she would but nothing came so I'm not going to bother with her anymore. The last thing I want is for my guests to be having difficulty contacting the TA regarding their booking.

 

I've finally found a TA that I'm happy with. She gets back to my emails no more than a day later and she gave me thorough quotes on my resort to get an idea of the prices even though I wasn't ready to book yet. Her prices were slightly cheaper than what I could find online so I'm sold! We're going to request quotes again in April/May for booking. It'll be really great to have someone else handle all the bookings for the guests since we have so much on our plate already!

[perry1217]

I would look some more.  Just so you know, if you click the banner at the top of the page you can get referred to one of the TAs that works with this site.  I am also getting married in Mexico - Riviera Maya and am using Teresa Stauring from Vacations 4 Less.  She was referred to me by other brides who have married at my resort and she works with BDW.  I found that she was always extremely prompt in responding to my questions and very patient too.  I have gotten e-mails from her on Sundays and at 10 pm at night - mind you, this is before, and more importantly, even after getting our deposit.  Good luck!