Shannon and Maurell Get Married at Iberostar Grand Rose Hall Jamaica

You're invited to the Real Wedding of...

Wedding Details

Bride Shannon Groom Maurell Wedding Date June 8, 2012 Location Iberostar Grand Rose Hall, Montego Bay, Jamaica Hometown Palm Beach, FL

Pictures from Shannon & Maurell's destination wedding (click to enlarge):

Why did you choose to have a destination wedding?

We chose to do a destination wedding because the bride's family lives in the north east and majority of the groom's family lives in the south, therefore it would not be fair to choose one of those locations. We also wanted our wedding to be fun, but intimate, and a vacation for everyone!

Once we got engaged, we instantly knew we wanted to have a destination wedding. We scoped out a few resorts in the Bahamas (we did not really care for them), looked into the Dominican Republic and Mexico, but since the Native language is Spanish in those countries, our ceremony would have to be in Spanish and we knew that was not the route we were going for with our wedding. So we could no longer contain ourselves, and thought why are we going on this massive search, when we already know a FABULOUS resort that would be perfect. So we no longer had to look any further, we chose the Iberostar Grand in MoBay, since we were already there and could give a double thumbs up!

Why did you choose your location?

After lots of resort site visits and review reading we decided to have our wedding at the one and only, Iberostar Grand Rose Hall in Montego Bay Jamaica. This is where my husband proposed and after seeing other resorts in person we thought it would be best to go back to our first love of the Iberostar. It is an ABSOLTELY AMAZING resort, wonderful customer service, fabulous grounds, delicious food, and a down right perfect place to vacation, so we knew it would be an easy sell to our guests!

Lucky for us, since we were returning guests, we were upgraded to the presidential suite for our wedding night, Friday, and the remainder of the weekend! We sure were living large, oh I just LOVE that place!!! Check out the picture above, though they do not do it justice.

What were your wedding colors and/or theme?

For our wedding we selected fuchsia and orange with a hint of tan to represent love, sun, and sand, along with bringing a tropical feel.

The Starfish were an additional decorating item. The starfish is seen a celestial symbol and a representation of infinite divine love. In addition to Love, the starfish also holds characteristics such as guidance and intuition. In Christian symbolism the starfish represents the Virgin Mary (Stella Maris which means Star of the Sea) who lovingly creates safe travel over troubled waters and is also seen as an emblem of salvation during trying times.

Every wedding is special in its own right. What made your wedding unique?

For me our wedding was extra special because it was a day all about our love! We had the opportunity to customize every bit of our wedding day and with the help of this site I took that and ran with it! Instead of having just a wedding day, we had a wedding week with our close family and friends, where we were able to plan special event and spend time with one another to celebrate love and life. By spending the time to make DIY projects, I was able to put my heart into our wedding and share that with our guests.

DIY Overload

Thanks to this fabulous website and all the WONDERFUL brides, I built the courage to take on almost every DIY aspect of the wedding I could handle. I love crafting and always enjoyed coming up with my own creations so I really looked forward to this part of the wedding. Though being a perfectionist definitely added to the hours I spent on all the DIY projects. Here is a link to my DIY Message in a Bottle & Passport invites thread: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/74261/our-mib-invites-with-lots-of-pics-and-additional-info

Pre-Travel Brochure (see below)

After learning about good old VistaPrint, I experimented with a few small things: return labels, mousepad, etc., then progressed to more important items. With the help of many brides I was able to compile what I wanted to include on the pre-travel brochure. See pictures below (what a time consuming process)! This brochure went in our Pre-travel Package to all guests. Included: Brochure, Mix CD to get everyone in the island mood, and luggage tags.

Events During Our Week in Jamaica

Though I felt like I was running around like crazy the whole week, we did have some pre-planned events for our guest and some time to enjoy one another. Everyone said they had a fabulous time and it was one of the best vacations of their life! All the hard work paid off! Since some guests came for the whole week and others just for an extended weekend we only planned one group excursion, earlier in the week, and had a welcome party the night before the wedding.

Trip to Dunn's River Fall as a Group

We booked the Cool Running Excursion to Dunn's River Falls with about 15 of our guests and it was such a blast! The excursion included: Catamaran ride out to snorkel, Dunn's River Falls Climb, and booze cruise party after! This was my 2nd time doing the excursion and still had the best time ever!

Welcome Party/All White Bonfire

Instead of having a rehearsal dinner, I pre-arranged for all of our wedding guests to have dinner at the Japanese Steakhouse and then proceed out to the beach for a bonfire and open bar party, the night before the wedding. I informed everyone about this in the pre-travel packet so they all knew to wear white! WHAT A GOOD TIME!!! We had wish lanterns for each of our guest to send off a pre-wedding wish for us.... they were absolutely PERFECT (well worth the hassle of lugging them there)!

One of the major challenges of putting together a destination wedding is finding and working with your ideal vendors from afar. What wedding vendors did you use to put together this spectacular wedding?

Photographer: Misha Earle http://www.mishaearlephotography.com/index2.php?v=v1

Florist: Tai Flora http://www.taiflora.com/

Wedding Coordinator: Janielle (Resort WC)… THE BEST!!!

Wedding Dress Designer: Essense of Australia http://www.essensedesigns.com/index.html

Steel Drum Band/DJ: hired through resort

Invites & all things paper: DIY

You were an active member of BDW and created some great content. Could you please summarize (with hyperlinks) some of your best work for us?

Planning Thread: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/82602/sunshines-a-little-late-jamaican-wedding-planning-journal-long-and-pic-heavy

Post Wedding Sale: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/80320/big-post-wedding-sale

Our Wedding Slideshow by Misha Earle: http://mishaearle.myshowit.com/shannon_maurell

Your wedding was absolutely beautiful! Your posts and reviews will be extremely helpful to our new brides. Thank you for sharing you special day with us at BDW.

Dear members, if you planned your wedding with the help of our community we would love to hear from you! Contact us at [email protected] if you are interested in sharing your wedding experience with BDW. For more information here is the "BDW Real Weddings | Featured Wedding Submission Information Thread". Thanks!