Secrets St James/Wild Orchid Weddings 2012/2013

[muneera0302]

So glad to hear I made a good decision on switching from Iberostar to Secrets!! I'm super excited to get more planning underway!! When is your big day? Are you bringing in any outside vendors? I'd love to hear more about your wedding!

Congrats to you too! You did great picking secrets. It's beautiful. It's more secluded and romantic yet everyone will truly enjoy it and remember a great wedding. My big day dec 20. I have outside vendors for flowers, photography and hair/makeup. I'm actually having it at Seawind beach club which is on the same property as secrets. We are staying at secrets wild orchid and absolutely love it. We decided to have it at Seawind because we can rent out the entire place, they allow kids there, more options for wedding planning and food, and more importantly we can stay at secrets and walk right to Seawind. They share the same property. I'm using Dwayne Watkins for photography, jan flowers for decor, and rashel Edwards for makeup. Our photographer is costly but his work is amazing so I def think its worth it. I'm bringing a lot of decor myself, and material for draping since I wanted certain colors.

[angelsj247]

Hi how are you!  I am getting married at Secrets Wild Orchid November 20, 2013, we leave in about 3 weeks.. YAYY!  There packages are pretty firm.  You can't taken anything away you can add to them however.  They will send you an extras list and you pick and choose from there.  We have 31 people going including my fiancee and myself.  We got the free wedding package and we adding on from there. It saved us a ton of money.  There other packages are a little pricey.  We decided not to do a private reception just for the mere fact that we as well as all our guests paid to eat and drink there in the price we paid to go. So we will be eating at one of the restaurants at the resort and then going to the bars to celebrate as our reception.  I had all our bridesmaids flowers, my bouquet, and the bouts all made by a florist I know where we live.  That way you can bring your flowers home and it saves you a ton of money if you have a large wedding party.  If you have any other questions feel free to ask away!  Congrats and good luck on your planning !

Are you able to reserve a table at a restaurant or do you have to just see if they have room for all your guests and wing it.

[SWOK]

Quote:

Originally Posted by angelsj247 


I am unsure as well. I would like to get married there, but if it ends up to much of a hassel or if its more than a couple hundred cheaper then i would get married in secret here first. I would do my anniversary the day of the ceromony then.

Jen & Angel,

 

We are going to get married in the states before and keep it hush hush. I think either route is fine. The only difference I see at Secrets is $300 for a wedding fee vs $150 for vow renewal. We just werent comfortable sending our birth certificates and other personal information via courrier to another country. All we are instructed to bring down is the marriage certificate when we come. I think each way has pros and cons -- bc we were just discussing the anniversary thing yesterday and haven't decided!! I will say that my cousin got married in Jamaica in 2007 and is divorced now and the US said that their marriage wasn't even legal in the first place bc something was wrong with the documents. lol Guess it doesn't matter now!!

 

Im so excited to get there!!! Trying to organize 65 people people coming in less than 41 days!!!!   GOOO BUCKS! ( we are going to be there for the OSU vs Michigan game and are setting up a provate screening!)

[SWOK]

Hi everyone! For those of you who have already travelled this year...what did you do for travel between airport and hotel?? And what was the cost??

[muneera0302]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SWOK 
 

Hi everyone! For those of you who have already travelled this year...what did you do for travel between airport and hotel?? And what was the cost??

our hotel package includes transfer between airport and secrets, you should check to see if you could get that as well. if not, i saw shuttles for about $10-20 per person that will go to secrets

[krisf1986]

I am getting married here first because it saves $150 and you dont have to worry about wending stuff and waiting months for your marriage certificate. Also when I get there I do not want to have to fill out paperwork! I want to relax and worry about other things than filling out paperwork!

[Jennkn87]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SWOK 
 

Jen & Angel,

 

We are going to get married in the states before and keep it hush hush. I think either route is fine. The only difference I see at Secrets is $300 for a wedding fee vs $150 for vow renewal. We just werent comfortable sending our birth certificates and other personal information via courrier to another country. All we are instructed to bring down is the marriage certificate when we come. I think each way has pros and cons -- bc we were just discussing the anniversary thing yesterday and haven't decided!! I will say that my cousin got married in Jamaica in 2007 and is divorced now and the US said that their marriage wasn't even legal in the first place bc something was wrong with the documents. lol Guess it doesn't matter now!!

 

Im so excited to get there!!! Trying to organize 65 people people coming in less than 41 days!!!!   GOOO BUCKS! ( we are going to be there for the OSU vs Michigan game and are setting up a provate screening!)

Thats soooo crazy that they said it wasn't legal!!!! That definitely makes me sway towards just getting it done here first, lots less stress, less money spent, and you don't have to worry about wondering if you could run into problems in the long run! My dad is a HUGE OSU fan! Someone just said the other day..."your going to play your wedding during football season???" Hmm....because thats the FIRST thing I'm worried about! LOVE your idea of having a private screening! My family/fiancee would LOVE that! Send me the details of how you are doing that if you can!! Thanks! 

[pzl101]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jennkn87 
 

I'm bringing up the subject of...Legal vs. Symbolic ceremony. Who is doing what? Is it easier do the legal thing before you head down for your DW? It seems to me with the little research and threads that I have read it would be ALOT cheaper. I would worry what day we should celebrate our actual anniversay on? If we decide to do it this way (which I'm leaning torwards the more I read) I would do the legal part HUSH HUSH, where only the FI and I were there. No one needs to know the ceremony on the beach is "pretend"! What is everyone elses thoughts?

Hi jen,

 

We're doing the legal ceremony in Jamaica. We want one anniversary and want the beach ceremony to be legal. The whole point of us having a destination wedding is to get married - for us personally, it seems silly to get married at home. With Jamaica, I don't think there is any more paperwork that what you need in the US. As long as the wedding is conducted according to the laws in that country, it's legal worldwide. A lot of people in the States don't know the requriements and just assume it isn't legal. I've checked the US Embassy in Jamaica's website (http://kingston.usembassy.gov/family_issues2.html) and that's clear as day.

 

Secrets will take care of it for you, all you have to do is send in the required paperwork a few months before. Every couple is different and has their preference, good luck in making your decision.

[pzl101]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jennkn87 
 

I'm bringing up the subject of...Legal vs. Symbolic ceremony. Who is doing what? Is it easier do the legal thing before you head down for your DW? It seems to me with the little research and threads that I have read it would be ALOT cheaper. I would worry what day we should celebrate our actual anniversay on? If we decide to do it this way (which I'm leaning torwards the more I read) I would do the legal part HUSH HUSH, where only the FI and I were there. No one needs to know the ceremony on the beach is "pretend"! What is everyone elses thoughts?

oh and in terms of cost, I think it's an additional $150 to have it legal. For us, it's really important for us to have the beach ceremony legal so we're OK spending the +$110. (It's ~ $40 to file a license in NYC) For others, they may choose to spend the $150 elsewhere.

[pzl101]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jennkn87 
 

Does anyone know who the resort photographer is? I am trying to decide if I want to hire an outside photographer or not! 

I haven't found any specific info on the resort photographer but according to AlexisinJamaica, she said she was happy with the pics they took. I selected the Secrets Ultimate package which comes with 50 photos but for me, that's not enough and I didn't want to chance it that they would be just OK so I hired an outside pro photographer as well. Pictures are very important to me so I am willing to splurge. I am going to follow Alexis' advice who also had an outside person and tell the hotel photographer to shoot more of the cocktail hour/my guests and let my outside pro take more of the ceremony/getting ready/first look/sunset etc, the photojouralistic style