Travel Agent?

JustNoelle · April 21, 2012

Hello Brides,

My fiance and I are getting married at DRC in August 2013. We are extremely excited but very stressed as well. We are completely oblivious as to how to start planning our destination wedding. We have already booked our date and chose our package with DRC and we are now working on our Save the Date (passports).

We plan on sending out our STD's in the next couple of months and we don't know how to add the travel information in them.

I have read what feels likes 1000s of posts and have learned something from everyone. But one thing I still can't figure out... What is the role of the TA with the wedding planning? Why did you decide or not decide to use one? Do they coordinate with the on-site WC from afar? Will they be better able to negotiate room rates? Did your guests end up using your TA or not??

We are sending out 50 invitations and predicting to have approx. 30 guests. Is it worth using a TA with such a small group? And I understand the resort provides a discount code of 20% off. Does the TA have the same same discount (or more)?

We are open to really good TA referrals.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

P.S. I don't know what we would've done without BDW forum!!!

--Noelle

TammyWright · April 22, 2012

You might want to try one of the BDW Travel Agents. We Specialize in Destination weddings. You can contact us HERE!

If you do not know what TA you want to work with, just fill out the form Contact a Destination Wedding Specialist HERE and I will direct you to the best agent that fits your needs.

You can contact us: Contact a Destination Wedding Specialist HERE and I will direct you to the best agent that fits your needs.

jessicajoy00 · April 25, 2012

Hey Noelle,

Having a TA help you with your wedding will make your life much easier. You can focus on the decorations, music, flowers, dress, goodie bags, etc. and your agent will make sure all your guests get down to your wedding. Travel Agent rates are almost always better than the rates offered on the resort web site. The first step is getting group quotes for your resort and travel dates.... once you find a travel agent that you enjoy working with and who has provided you with decent rates, you can enter into a contract and have a certain number of rooms reserved for your group. Then all of your guests will just contact your travel agent to book their vacation and you no longer have to worry about it. When you book a group, you also get extra perks/amentities that you won't get if all your guests book independently... for example, for my destination wedding in February, we got every 16th passenger free... so we ended up getting over $1000 back because we had 40 guests.

I had a destination wedding in Punta Cana in February, and since I'm a travel agent, I was able to do all the group booking myself for our 40 guests. If you want me to get you a group quote for your wedding, just PM me on here or email me at [email protected].

Hope that helps!

~Jess

Amanda Gardner · April 29, 2012

We are using a travel agent. I found it easier for her to communicate with the wedding coordinator and resort. She has also been able to get us good deals without having to do a block of rooms. She will also continue to check for price drops in our resort up until 2 months before the wedding. So far all of our guest are going to use her because of the fact that if you book and then price drops she automatically gives you the lower rate.

Since most communication with the resort seems to need to be during my working hours, I was having trouble getting through to the resort without playing phone tag.

Lizrmt · June 30, 2012

We are using a travel agent. He found us a great group rate and set up a wedding website for us, all we had to do was send the STDs with the website and his contact info. Everyone in our group booked through him and he would send me weekly emails of who had booked. I didn't have to do a thing!