Wanna Have a Destination Wedding? No problem mon! PTR - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Wanna Have a Destination Wedding? No problem mon! PTR
Well, I'd like to start off saying that I'm part of a destination wedding discussion board, but they don't allow for people to write things like PTRs. Only a planning thread a couple weeks before your actually wedding. Well, planning a wedding certainly takes more than a couple weeks! I feel like not being able to write a full PTR about my wedding suppresses my excitement for it! I'm thankful that I can write about it here with my PassPorter friends, so my first statement is THANK YOU for making me able to share my excitement with anyone who wants to hop along my happy wagon with me
To get started, my fiancé's name is Gary. We met in May of 2007 at work, fell in love, and have been practically inseparable since. I have some background about our relationship in my first ever Disney TR (link is in my siggy). Gary asked me to marry him at 2:00am on April 4th, 2009, and I, of course, said yes!
Gary and I are DJs, mainly in bars, and secondly for weddings. We've been to almost every venue in the area. My choice for ours? The casino. It was absolutely beautiful. Not long after our engagement, we got a tour of the facility, and although it was extremely impressive, and would have been perfect, elegant, and fit for a princess, approx. $40,000 just for the venue itself wasn't quite going to fit in our budget.
It was one Saturday night when we had Gary's two boys for the weekend (see PTR for the Disney December Surprise )when I was messing around on my laptop, trying to find somewhere else to have a wedding. We already knew what was in Utica. What about Syracuse? Albany? Rochester? Buffalo? NYC? Finger Lakes? Wow wouldn't a DISNEY wedding be cool?
Disney wedding was our next endeavor. We Disney, so wouldn't that be perfect? We didn't want to do anything more than an escape wedding... Oh. Guess that won't work. We have WAY too many people for that... Okay what about a Wishes wedding, that looks beautiful! We started mentioning it to some of our guests and we started to get "Gee that's going to cost me a lot of money to go..." Yeah. Not only do we have to pay for the wedding itself, our stay, park tickets, meal plans, hair, makeup, EVERYTHING, our guests ALSO have to pay for their stay, park tickets, and a meal plan. And if we decide to go out for some FABs one night, that's going to cost a ton too...
Guess we're looking to be cheap-Os but still try to be classy and elegant...
Then I remembered when I was in high school, I once asked a friend "What do you see for my wedding?" and she replied "Honestly, I see you barefooted on a beach."
Remembering that, I went for it. My mom gave me some insights about how when she went to Aruba, they were at an All-Inclusive resort, and they had these really reasonable wedding packages. So I started with Aruba. Couldn't find any packages I really loved for the price. Mexico? Well they're good packages and prices, but man you have to go through a LOT to get married there... Then I came across Jamaica... good prices, GREAT packages, and fairly simple to get married there... Now to just find a resort...
Once you have the country finding the resort is pretty simple. I found the Iberostar Grand Hotel Rose Hall near Montego Bay. Oh and look at that! JetBlue flys into Montego Bay too! How convenient!
The initial decisions started to all fall into place... but what happens when Grandma doesn't want to go?
great start! you will love jamaica!! my hubs and i were married at the couples resort in negril!! we've been back to jamaica many many times since and LOVE, love, LOVE it!!
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So when we were thinking Disney, we were thinking immediate family, grandparents, first aunts, uncles and cousins, and bridal parties. Disney wouldn't have been a big deal, because it's inside the continental US, and if people didn't want to fly, then they could drive down.
I decided that I was going to open up the option of going to Jamaica first to my Grandma (mom's mother) and wait to see what her answer was before opening it up to my Nonnie (dad's mother). Grandma wasn't very keen into flying, and neither her nor Grandpa had Passports so they were a big Therefore I never gave my Nonnie the option, and just told her that it was only going to be the parents and bridal parties.
Well that proved to not really be true, but we really couldn't help it. One of my cousins is the Maid Of Honor and her sister is one of my bridesmaids so how could I not invite my Aunt and Uncle and then it wouldn't be fair if I didn't invite my Aunt and Uncle from the other side of the family... So it turned into immediate family, first aunts, uncles and cousins, and the bridal party.
How on earth can I get married and not share any moment of it with my grandparents though? And that huge Italian side of the family that would probably disown me if they weren't invited to my wedding?
We HAD to have a wedding back at home when we returned from Jamaica. But what should we do? We're already paying for a full out wedding in Jamaica... What are the essentials of having a mini/fake wedding ceremony/reception?
Gary's friend Adam, who is in the bridal party, his uncle is a judge, so we asked him to "re" marry us. Let's see now all we need is a venue with a bar, tables, chairs and possibly a tent, food, a dessert, flowers and some music. Music was easy peasy. Gary is a DJ! DUH! We'll just put on some iTunes playlist. Venue with a bar... how about a bar? Sickenburger holds TONS of people on Saranac Thursdays, and that is the place where we fell in love, why not have it there? They even have a TENT in case it rains! We looked into tables and chairs rentals through Taylor Rental, and they told us to book Jan/Feb of the year we need them, because they have good discounts then. Food... my goodness we LOVE Dinosaur BBQ out of Syracuse and they have a BBQ pit that they can bring anywhere and cook up your food! Perfect! A dessert? Well we're all really Italian in Utica so let's just do some trays of mini cannolis, pusties, and lobster claws. Flowers? Gary's got an in at the flower shop in Rome so that's done. Anything else? Anything? Oh favors. I still don't have anything for that. I'm thinking possibly going to make bottles of wine and making a SpearFredo wine, a couple different kinds for each table.
Well that's coming along smoothly... it's just all in my head though... We're just going to have to pay for things as the money comes along.
Back to Jamaica now, we start to wonder what it's really like down there. We start to hear some bad things from certain people and that we should be careful. We started to plan for a "scouting" trip for June of 2010, to see what the weather will be like in June, meet the wedding coordinator down there, and just get an overall feel of how it is at the resort.
BTW, I had booked the date at the resort July of 2009. All booked for June 15th, 2011!!
WDW Oct . 2012
Since Minnie's chair is gone, I had to find a new place to have our photo taken this past Oct. Not sure this will be the permanent place.
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I didn't know you started this TR, so I'm glad I happened to stumble upon it before I got too far behind!
First, I absolutely love the day you got engaged...it's a very good day...it's the day I got married, but 5 years earlier (April 24, 2004)!
It sounds like you have a lot to plan. It's basically like you're planning two weddings instead of one, and I so don't envy you right now. Been there, done that and don't want to do it again!
Can't wait to follow along to see how everything falls into place!
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OMG, I just started reading your TR and about how you planned to do a scouting trip this month!!
I can imagine that you may have changed your mind with all that is happening in Jamaica at the moment! My coworker who is from there and has family there isn't even going back this summer because she doesn't want to endanger her little girl.
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for making me able to share my excitement with anyone who wants to hop along my happy wagon with me 
)when I was messing around on my laptop, trying to find somewhere else to have a wedding. We already knew what was in Utica. What about Syracuse? Albany? Rochester? Buffalo? NYC? Finger Lakes? Wow wouldn't a DISNEY wedding be cool?
Disney, so wouldn't that be perfect? We didn't want to do anything more than an escape wedding... Oh. Guess that won't work. We have WAY too many people for that... Okay what about a Wishes wedding, that looks beautiful! We started mentioning it to some of our guests and we started to get "Gee that's going to cost me a lot of money to go..." Yeah. Not only do we have to pay for the wedding itself, our stay, park tickets, meal plans, hair, makeup, EVERYTHING, our guests ALSO have to pay for their stay, park tickets, and a meal plan. And if we decide to go out for some FABs one night, that's going to cost a ton too... 
*Melissa
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Flowers? Gary's got an in at the flower shop in Rome so that's done. Anything else? Anything? Oh favors. I still don't have anything for that. I'm thinking possibly going to make bottles of wine and making a SpearFredo wine, a couple different kinds for each table. 
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