Need your help! Turks & Caicos Venue Decision: Seven Stars vs. Gansevoort

[sss39]

Hi everyone!! 

 

I'm so glad I found this website, your advice is much needed! I'm visiting T&C this weekend to check out Gansevoort and Seven Stars. I can't seem to decide and I'll have a better idea when I visit each site. However, just wanted your advice on any brides who had their wedding at those resorts. 

 

I'm also concerned with welcome dinner/cocktail, rehearsal dinner, day after brunch.. where did you host your events? 

 

Gansevoort has been flexible with their rates but I don't like the fact that I have to hire a separate WC on top. Seven Stars are not flexible but I have developed a good working relationship with Bettina and she's been great so far. 

 

Please help!! 

[BeachCzarina]

How did your visit go? I'm thinking of having a cocktail reception at Gaansevort. Would love to hear your impressions of the place.

 

 

Cheers!

[lm3682]

We got married at the Seven Stars in April with 35 guests and were very pleased.  I've been meaning to write a review because we just had such a great event.  Even thought I'm very Type A, I had done all my planning remotely (never visited the property) and was just hoping everything would come together. They really exceeded our expectations and did everything possible to make sure things were the way we wanted them. They were very responsive in the planning process and everything on the night of the event ran very smooth. We really felt we could just enjoy our wedding. I had worked with Niki, the onsite wedding planner for everything, and she was great. She also worked with Bettina on the night of our wedding because Niki was several months pregnant. Bettina was quite engaged that night and I thought she was great. She had not been involved in the planning (at least to my knowledge) but she was up to speed on the whole event. I did not feel like I had gotten a switcheroo or anything like that.

 

I booked nearly everything through the hotel. They booked our music (three different bands/musicians), flowers, cake and the pastor. They gave me the name of a guy for transportation and we booked our own shuttle from the guest hotel to the Seven Stars. The hotel arranged taxis home for the guests. We booked our photographer and videographer ourselves. The venues that the hotel set us up in were outstanding (we had one area for cocktails before and then dancing later, then another area for the dinner, plus the beach for the ceremony).

 

The food was much better than I expected (I had just assumed good to slightly better than average 'wedding' food because that's what you pretty much seem to get a at a wedding). We got lots of compliments on it. My family in particular would not have said it was good just to make me feel good, and they thought it was great - the appetizers and steak especially.  People raved about the coconut cake (the hotel had booked it through a third party baker).  I had given them a picture of a cake and said 'just make it look kind of like this' and they matched it exactly. We also had four pies that the hotel chef had made and they were excellent. Service at dinner was very very good. We had one bartender for the drink service after dinner and while he did a great job, he probably could've used a bar back, if not a second bartender.

 

We stayed at the hotel after the wedding and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a gorgeous property (and very impressive when your guests walk in around the pool). We're planning to go back for our anniversary. Overall, we highly recommend the Seven Stars for a wedding!

 

 

 

[sconn1]

After many hours of researching a T&C wedding location, I'm seriously considering Seven Stars.You mentioned that you booked nearly everything through Niki. Did you have to pay an additional service charge to Seven Stars since they booked the music, flowers, cake, etc.for you or were you billed directly by the vendors?

 

Thank you ahead of time!! It's so hard to try to estimate all of the hidden fees!

[lm3682]

Hi, sorry for the delay, just saw your response. I got one bill from the Seven Stars for all the services they booked for me. I did not pay the vendors individually. My quotes and the final bill were itemized though, so I knew what each aspect cost. For instance, the cake was quoted higher than I expected/budgeted, so I asked for a layer to be removed to bring down the cost a little.

 

I did pay one lump sum deposit to hold my date, paid a second installment about 30 or 60 days before the wedding and then paid my bar bill (we went by the drink, not open bar) when we checked out of the hotel after the wedding. They took care of paying the appropriate amounts to each vendor from what I had paid them. The payment process was quite easy this way; I didn't have to worry about missing any vendors.

 

The only exception to the above was the taxis that our guests used to go home from the reception. The hotel arranged them, but we just gave every couple $10 to pay the driver. Using the taxis had actually been a (very) last minute change I made to the plans (I made the change from a shuttle to the taxis the morning of the wedding - which Niki graciously and effectively managed).

 

Hope that helps! Let me know if you have other questions...I wholeheartedly recommend the hotel and working with Niki for a wedding.

[sconn1]

Funny timing that you and I are online at the same time! I haven't been active on BDW since I asked about your experience at Seven Stars.

 

Thank you for the additional information. I guess my question was a bit confusing. Did you happen to price any vendors on your own before having Seven Stars take care of everything? Since the resort charges an additional 20% fee to book and pay vendors on your behalf, I assumed the final cost would be pretty high. 20% is a lot! The information I received indicates they receive special rates with certain vendors the resort regularly works with. Even so, I am thinking I will have to contact the vendors, ask for quotes, and then compare theirs to the resort's quotes. Sounds time consuming!!

[lm3682]

Oh, sorry for misunderstanding your question. I solicited a few bids on my own, but not all of them. I contacted a few vendors myself and also found some 'quotes' on this forum to help validate what I was paying. I found a steel drum player to be about $100 cheaper on my own. When I mentioned it to Niki, she matched the price. I also found a Jetsetter hotel price that was better than what was in my package and she matched it (I didn't really feel this was overcharging, they just happened to run a special after I had booked.) Otherwise though, the prices aligned with what I could get on my own. I also had a couple instances where she flat out told me to book something myself (photographer, the guest shuttle to the wedding) because having her do it didn't make sense. So while I may have paid more here and there, I don't feel I got overcharged. Yes, the 20% stings, but I do feel I received a value in having Niki coordinate with everyone. I had enough on my plate to not worry if the cake was going to get there in time and who should they contact when they arrived, etc. etc.  I was quite focused on price overall for my wedding, but did have to relax a little bit and not worry about getting the best price on every line item or I would've driven myself crazy.

[sconn1]

That's a good point! I don't want to have to worry about when the cake arrives, etc. For some reason, I was picturing 20% being added to a number of services. I guess there wouldn't be too many charges added to my resort "tab." Plus, I definitely plan to book the photographer myself. I'm assuming that will be the highest outside vendor bill.

 

Thank you again!!

[jenaya]

I am also considering Seven Stars and Nikki has been wonderful! I just started the process and waiting on my final quote. She sent me 3 options for photography. Which ones are you guys using (or have used). I really love Tropical Imaging but was wondering if anyone was considering any of the others.

[lm3682]

I worked with Eye Spice (Jon Nickson) for my photographer and he worked out great. I chose him because I thought his pictures are less 'art-sy' and he was also a little more reasonably priced. I appreciate the gorgeous shots that Tropical Imaging takes, but many of their shots seem more artistic (for example, a close-up of a brides neck, with the groom's hand on her shoulder). I knew those would be nice to look at it, but I would never frame those types of pics. I wanted pictures of us at our wedding and Jon captured those beautifully. He was quite flexible as well. He communicated promptly with me via email, was willing to take a 'must-have' list of photos and turned the photos around to me before I even left the island. This was really great to get to see our pictures so quickly while we were still on the high of the wedding. We bought the rights to the photos so we got a CD of about 500 pictures (we had him come for an hour of our rehearsal dinner and then on the big day, from getting ready through to our first dance). He's very quick in taking pictures - not much posing, but kept it moving so we had plenty of time to go to our own cocktail hour (per our request). He got some great sunset shots.  Probably the only thing I wished he would've have done was to more vocally 'get people together'  and ask them for some shots during the cocktail hour. He was definitely in the background, which was fine for most of the wedding, but I wish I would've have requested a few more candids of our guests. I think had I done this, he would have had no problem with this request. I was very pleased with our photos though and have a whole wall of them in our house.