St. Thomas Wedding Recap

[Willow188]

Hi all! My wedding was on March 6 on St. Thomas, and I thought I would post my experience and advice to help anyone with their planning.

 

We had our welcome party the night before the wedding at Bolongo Bay, and it was beautiful! Lorie was amazing, and it went really well. We were originally going to have it on the beach, but it rained that day and all of these AWFUL bugs came up and started attacking people. (My legs looked diseased.) So she moved it to the restaurant which was still beautiful, and we were still able to have the bonfire outside. The only thing that upset me was that we paid for a steel drummer to play for three hours, and he played for maybe 20 minutes and used a recording for the rest of the time. I could have just brought CDs to play on their syste and saved several hundred dollars.

 

The ceremony was at the Wyndham Sugar Bay's St. John Terrace. It went really well, but I definitely had to be the organized one. Monica at the Wyndham was very nice, but she didn't really know what was going on. She forgot to put a few items out before the wedding, and so the top of her head is at the bottom of our video. I'm glad our photographer and cantorial soloist knew what they were doing because she didn't. She wasn't even around to cue the processional. However, everything was gorgeous, and I was very happy.

 

We had a dinner reception later that night at Herve restaurant, and, while it was the best part of the day. So gorgeous and the food was amazing. Even if you don't have any wedding activities here, you should definitely recommend it for your guests.

 

I would HIGHLY recommend using Ashley Photography. She was SO nice and full of ideas for amazing photos. She worked very well with the guests and made us both feel so comfortable. And she's very flexible - if things get changed around she'll just go with it. Extremely pleased.

 

A few things I learned:

 - If you're going to ship anything down to the island, do it way in advance and be prepared for it not to get there. We were pretty lucky that only one of our four boxes disappeared, and it was full of the least important stuff. Because we had shipped it down early we were able to quickly re-order everything in time.

 - The Superior Court is still operating like it's 1970. They use typewritters and have have everything in manilla folders instead of computer files. Make sure you confirm that they received your license application well in advance.

 - Be super organized!

 

All in all, I'm SO happy with the wedding!

[JQLong]

 

 

 

 

Congratulations on your wedding!  Thanks for the excellent post.  I am actually getting married at the Marriott Frenchman's Resort next year...May 2012.  I considered the Wyndham but I did not get a warm & fuzzy feeling after speaking with the other coordinator at the Wyndham...he seemed very unconcerned when I spoke with him. Anyway....Thanks for the great advice regarding the license...We are scheduled to arrive on the Friday and therefore we only have a day to pick up our license.  Thanks again!

[MsFoxxy]

Thanks so much for posting these tips!  Like the previous poster, I am having my ceremony at Marriott Frenchman's Reef, but I did look at Wyndham briefly.  I couldn't get the pricing request on their website to work... I'm already biased anyway, because my fiance & I toured the Marriott when we were in St. Thomas on a cruise last month & he proposed to me right there in the gazebo!  So, though we haven't put down the deposit yet, I'm 99.9% sure that is where we'll be getting married.  The date is set for Oct 6, 2012.  I will make sure to send our marriage license early & check over the phone to make sure it gets there... I'm glad that you shared this advice!!!

[kim0806]

Thanks so much for the tips!  Do you think one month is far enough in advance to ship boxes? Sorry to hear one of yours got lost, did you have it insured?

[moemarx]

Thanks for the tips!  How long did it take for your packages to arrive and was it expensive?

[krenae]

Thanks for the review and congratulations!  I'm getting married at the Wyndham next March.  I haven't dealt with Monica much yet since I just put my deposit down a few weeks ago, but I hope everything goes smoothly.  Did you stay at the Wyndham or another resort?

[beachbunnybride]

very helpful which resort did u actualy stay at and how was it. we mite be doing sugar bay but not using there wedding packages and going with island bliss weddings

[beachbunnybride]

hi we are sugar bay too any issuse soo far have u been b4???

[Niki12]

I am newly engaged thinking about a wedding at Marriott's Frenchmen's Reef this June 2013. Being you got married there last May, would you recommend this venue? Any suggestions/feedback would be extremely helpful and appreciated!! Thank you!

[Niki12]

I am newly engaged thinking about a wedding at Marriott's Frenchmen's Reef this June 2013. If you ended up choosing this venue for your wedding/reception, would you recommend? Any suggestions/feedback would be extremely helpful and appreciated!! Thank you!