Destination Wedding help???

Our wedding will be held in 45 days in Boca Chica, Dominican Republic. I opted to work directly with the resorts wedding planner and it is has been beyond challenging. The level of customer service is not that of what you would get with a professional wedding planning service. Please contact a professional trained in Caribbean weddings. I found several and should have stayed the course with my original plan. They will guide you through the legal documents you'll need as well. There are specifics to documents that will need to be in place before the ceremony. We also found out that we will need to be at the resort 3 days before the ceremony /9 confirm this is not required/ or required of you. Despite all the challenges I'm so excited to get married on the beach. I'm sure you'll have a beautiful wedding as well!!!

I'm getting married in Punta Cana DR. Got a wedding planner local who initiated it. Now I will be planning with the Miami office. The week of the wedding I'll be working directly with planners in the resort.

Thank you guys for sharing. @Shawna I'm sorry you are having such bad customer service experience.

I'm getting married in the Cayman Islands. We have a wedding planner through Carnival Cruise. We wilk be married while on a cruise but, our wedding will be on the beach. She sends me pictures of the sit up and it helps.

We are not having our DW in the Caribbean, but, I would suggest a travel agent. We are working with Justin from Beach Bum Vacations. Working with a travel agent has saved us so much stress. I would also suggest a resort with a wedding planner or coordinator so they can help finding all the needed vendors.

We are using liberty travel for the resort arrangements. They set up a website where guests can rsvp and make payments ahead of time!

Ok good to know. I'm looking into travel agents . Just want to make sure I get the best price we can.

I'm using destinationweddings.com for our wedding in Mexico and have had a great experience with the wedding planner. Just now going to start working with the resort wedding planner so I don't have any feedback on that.

@Jocelyn F I see please let me know how your overall experience is when your big day has come. I signed up also for destinationwedding.com and will see how this goes.

I highly recommend getting legally married here in the States then having a ceremony at your DW location. This will make it much easier to get certified copies of your marriage license at the time of your wedding and in the future. Please keep this in mind for name changing, insurance benefits and all the other fun stuff surrounding post marriage paperwork. Best wishes!

FH & I are getting married in JA next month. Definitely research hotel wedding packages. We purchased one at the Riu Montego Bay and it comes with so much including the officiant and a Day of Coordinator. Any wedding communication is done through email with the DOC. It's great to have one. We're going to go over details at a planned meeting a few days before the wedding. Absolutely get a travel agent. She handled all of accomodations for guests and made my life so much easier. Guests might still call you with questions, but for whatever I didn't know I just redirected them to the travel agent.

We are getting married in Ocho Rios Jamaica at Moon Palace. Definitely work with a travel agent - Mindy @ Beach Bum Vacation has been amazing! Not only do they get you the rates, but has helped with communications with the resort and the resort wedding planner. Anytime I have hit a bump, she has helped.

Jamaica seemed to be easiest for having legal ceremony there. Just make sure you get all of your documents to the resort 3-4 months before the ceremony, and they get everything for you. Because Jamaica's primary language is English, you won't have to pay extra to have the docs translated to get it legal in US. Our resort is handling everything for us, and we are supposed to get the license within a few weeks for legality in US.

We're going to RIU in Montego Bay. Only because we have family who has stayed at this resort and recommended it, as we've never traveled to Jamaica. First thing we did was look into getting legally married here, so we don't have to deal with the hassle of it after. Secondly, if recommend contacting the coordinator of the hotel. They'll help you tremendously. Ask how far before the ceremony you need to arrive at the hotel. This can differ depending on if you ceremony is legal or symbolic. I'd ask about pricing for the number of guests. The base packages the hotels advertise are for a certain number of people. Beyond that, costs increase. Hidden costs. They'll probably send you a PDF of all of the things that come in the package you select for the wedding and then gives you a list of upgrades.

Outside of contacting our coordinator, there wasn't much to do. We booked our trip on our own and the wedding through the hotel wedding site. We didn't opt for a travel agent because, again, we've had family who have done this so many times on their own that we just didn't need to pay an agent to help us. When you book your trip, remember transport to and from the airport and hotel. We're only going to have four other people with us, so it was really simple to plan. Good luck!!

@Nicole F and Krystal G that's the resort the FH and I love.I already reached out to the Wedding email and they sent me over PDF of different Packages. How early did you guys book your date. I asked about a deposit fee to secure date and they were like it's not one just pay for your package when you get there. If you ladies could share your wedding experience when the big day comes. I would greatly appreciate it.

@HitchedbyMV thank you for pointing that out with the legal stuff will keep that in mind.

I know it is a bit trite, but I am getting married at Sandals St Lucia and they are literally handling everything. Sandals is very much used to destination weddings and they have been super responsive. You get a wedding concierge, a remote coordinator, and an onsite coordinator for when you arrive. There are Sandals in Jamaica if you are open to going that route. I worried it would be too commercial but they have been wonderful (and easy) to work with so far.

Thank you @Jaylynn. Sandals has been around forever and St. Lucia I heard it's beautiful there but I really like the RIU. Thank you for your recommendation and I think my biggest concern was responding don't want to get there and be like omg but they have been great at responding to my emails.Fingers Crossed.

I agree it may be easier to get legally married in the states just sounds like less of a hassle. I had to put a deposit down to hold the wedding date and a deposit to reserve the rooms. Once guests start depositing in to rooms, the money we put as a deposit can go towards the wedding package or our room. I like that Destination weddings.com has payment plans availabe.

We are getting married at the Hyatt ziva rose hall in Montego Bay next April. We just got back on Sunday night from a wedding preview (they have an amazing deal on this). It is a beautiful resort and we love our wedding coordinator at the resort. We are using Deborah from beach bum vacations to do all of our travel plans for us and our guests. She is also in touch with or wedding coordinator so she is involved in the entire planning process. I second previous posters when they say that working with beach bum vacations leads to great prices. We are super happy with them and are absolutely in love with Hyatt ziva/zilara.

Congratulations!! We are doing a DW in Montego Bay at the Iberostar Rose Hall Suites Resort. We looked at the Hyatt Ziva Rose Hall but the wedding coordinator there was not very quick to reply to my emails and often times didn't even respond to emails. The Iberostar wedding coordinator has been extremely helpful and very responsive to all emails I have sent. We also did not want to have a reception after the wedding, just a simple dinner, and with Iberostar they were very accommodating with our request. We went through Liberty Travel. We priced a lot of different resorts in different countries.