Wedding Information Break-Down:
Venue: Renaissance Island at Renaissance Aruba Resort and Casino
Date: March 26, 2011
Guests: 30
Event: Both the wedding blessing & reception and brunch the next day
Colors: Fuchsia and Aqua
Hi everyone. I am sorry for the delay, as things have been hectic since we returned from our wedding. I will try to give you the most comprehensive review from our wedding as possible to help all future brides or Aruba visitors. If you have any questions though, feel free to reach out to me.
Travel: Beach Bum Vacation (Nanda)Many people on different forums recommended working with Beach Bum Vacation so I called them. I ended up working with Nanda van Zwan there and honestly, had it not been for her, I would have likely been a total wreck. She booked my guests flights, made hotel arrangements and acted as the liaison between my guests and I and the hotel. She was incredible. I definitely recommend contacting her as your Travel Concierge (that’s what they call themselves).
Wedding planner: Juney I had communication problems with the resort and Juney from the very beginning. About 11 months before the wedding, both, my Travel Concierge, Nanda, and I tried getting hotel and wedding information from them for almost 6 weeks before we ever received anything. I actually had to get Marriot Corporate involved in order to have resort send me information about booking my wedding there. I would have given up had it not been that my husband and I were in love with the private island. I should have known better. After we finally made contact, it took weeks to get responses from Juney to even the most basic questions. I know that they say everyone is on “Island time” but this was ridiculous…10 days to find out if we can substitute a side on the buffet? On numerous occasions, I had to get the hotel representative involved to even get a response from him. Eventually, we got the contract and he told us he would get back in touch with me 2 months before the wedding to finalize all the details. About 7 weeks before the wedding, when I still had not heard from Juney, I tried contacting him. Once again, the same thing happened… waiting days and even a week for a response. But this time, it was worse because I did not have anything picked out such as flowers, cake, decorations, food, band, or even my wedding colors because he told me he would help me with it all closer to the wedding. Ultimately, my husband had to get involved and we were finally able to get everything finalized… the DAY BEORE we left for Aruba. Once we got there though, Juney made me feel comfortable and introduced me to a few of my vendors, reviewed all the details, etc. He was a big asset to me the day of the wedding and everything did turn out beautiful (which I will go in more depth about later in this) but the bad outweighed the good. For example, I was very unhappy with a few details of the wedding that he took care of (such as the wrong flowers) and I was not happy at all with the photographer he hired (which is very important). Not to mention, he lost my sand ceremony. Juney said he would personally be responsible for it but left the island without it and then told me for several days that he had it and would give it to me. It was not until a week later and the day before I left back to the US that he finally told me that it was lost. Had I known up front, I would have had another sand blessing done by the Reverend, as I had the extra colored sand. That by far was the most heartbreaking thing to me
So, to sum up… he did pull of the wedding and it was the best day of my life. However, working with him was impossible, I was not happy with some of his vendors and he is not someone I would trust with anything again. And, he and his team lost one of the most sentimental memories I had from the wedding, the sand blessing.
Rehearsal Dinner: Pinchos GrillWe were originally going to have our rehearsal dinner at the resort when my husband decided to change it 6 days before the wedding to a location outside the resort to give guests a change of scenery. Best decision! We worked with Anabela and it was PERFECT!! The food was excellent the views of sunset was breathtaking and the people were even better. We walked it and it took nearly 20 minutes so I recommend a cab to get there (about $8 cab ride) but we loved this place and highly recommend it to anyone. They even did a special menu just for us with a set price and our names at the top. If you don’t have any events here, you should at least have dinner there. Just tell them the bride that lost her grandmother’s diamond earring in the water sent you (they will know who I am.. lol! One of the staff members actually went diving for it and returned it to me the day of the wedding so I could wear it. As I said, the staff there was amazing!)
Gift Bags:It was difficult bringing things to the island to do gift bags so we tried to keep it basic but cute. We ended up making a welcome post card at vistaprint and put useful facts about the island, hotel and restaurants, beaches and bars on it. We put that into the paper gift bags and also stuffed them with: two bottles of rum from Rum Palmera who made personalized labels for us; koozies that we had made in the US with our names/wedding date on them; Tylenol; crackers and snacks; water bottles and travel kool-aid packets for each (that we bought at the grocery store there); bath fizzies; beach chair candles; an evil’s eye (I am Turkish); a postcard with fun facts about the island and shopping, restaurants; wetnaps; mints and an itinerary. I have pictures of them if you want to see them. The guests loved them!! I highly recommend Rum Palmera – they were great to work with and so unique.
Hair: JenniVe I found her information on here as she was recommended by other brides and thank goodness I did. I loved her! She did my make-up and hair the night of the rehearsal dinner as a trial run and also did it for the wedding. It looked wonderful when I left the resort. Only complaint is that it was SO windy there that my hair with the veil was straight up in the air most of the time; so my normally straight hair was back to being paper straight despite all of her best efforts and hairspray. I wish I had pinned the veil down and worn my hair up so it was not such a mess during the wedding/reception. But, that is not her fault at all.. just the wind’s J Also, she is such a great person that she made me feel comfortable and relaxed while I was getting ready which is super important. I would absolutely recommend her.
Steel Pan: BRG SteelpanI knew nothing about them before I got there, and honestly, I still really don’t. We only hired them for the ceremony and cocktail hour so I don’t remember too much since that point in the night went by so fast and I had other things on my mind (like getting married J). I do know that everyone said they were very good.
Officiant: Geoffrey BanfieldWords cannot describe how amazing he was! Every single one of our guests LOVED him and took the time to tell me how his words impacted them personally. We had a blessing and kept it very non-denominational due to difference of religions amongst our families and it was perfect. He made it a very heartfelt, warm and special ceremony with a mix of humor. He is apparently a poet and it definitely shows. The blessings and readings were so perfect and they touched not only the two of us, but everyone at the wedding. We did meet with him a couple days before the wedding and I am glad we did. It gave us the opportunity to get to know one another and it turned out that he was BY FAR the best part of the wedding (other than marrying my husband of course.. J)
Photographer: Elnathan HijmeringI was extremely disappointed with this photographer. We met with him in advance and I explained all the shots that I wanted a couple days before the wedding. We paid for an extra two hours to make sure he was there to take pictures of us getting ready through the end of the wedding; but it turned out that he still missed a ton of pictures. He came to my room and took pictures of me getting ready and was supposed to go to the room that the groom was getting ready afterwards, but it turns out, he never did. However, he left my room 45 minutes before the wedding. So, I thought that maybe he went to take pictures of my guests, the receptions set-up, etc… wrong. I still have no idea where he was. The wedding started on time and afterwards we began taking pictures. Because the sun was beginning to set, he started rushing us through all the pictures to make sure he had enough “light,” even though he had a big lamp. Due to his rushing, we did not get any pictures of the groom with his mom, the groom with his brothers and sisters, the couple with certain guests and in several of the ones he took, my veil was not straight but he didn’t even bother to tell me because he was rushing thought them. It turns out that he missed a lot more than I thought. He did not take any of the groom getting ready nor did we get to take certain posed ones… and it turns out that he didn’t take any of the groom’s brother presenting him with my ring, the centerpieces, the table settings, the seafood table (hors d’ oeuvres), the table/chair sashes, the buffet.. and the list goes on and on. What was so frustrating was that he kept going to sit down behind the bar and I repeatedly had to ask him to get up and take more pictures. I paid him for 7 hours worth of pictures and he only gave me about 250 pictures. And those were even not that good. Luckily my guests took a bunch. I would never recommend him. I don’t even have a single picture of my place settings or buffet. And after spending several thousand dollars for him… it was a complete waste and let down!
DJ: DJ TinoHe was GREAT!! I provided him with a list of songs that we wanted to hear in order of importance and he played every one of the ones that we wanted to hear and mixed those in with the ones he chose. He had people up and dancing for most of the night but also knew when to go into a more romantic selection. The age range was from 9 – 71 and everyone was on the dance floor. He was great to work with and he really made the night a lot of fun. I would definitely recommend him to everyone. He was excellent.
Venue: Renaissance IslandThis was the most amazing place to have our wedding. All in all, it was beautiful and it was the best night of our lives. The decorations were beautiful and the way it was all set up was perfect. There were even flamingos in some of our wedding pictures. I loved having it there! The only complaint was that they did not clear the island prior to our arrival as they promised they would. So, there were a few onlookers standing in their bathing suits at our ceremony (which ended up in some of our wedding pictures).
Hotel: Renaissance Resort and CasinoThe experience we had along with our guests was not a very pleasant one. The staff was rude, the rooms were very below par (the bathtubs have chips, cracks and stains in them) and there were other issues like the elevators breaking down the entire stay. (that doesn’t sound like a problem, but when you are staying on the 6th floor and are walking up and down in heels repeatedly… it’s not fun). We had several very bad encounters with the bar staff who were rude to not only us but to our guests and the other guests at the bar. One of the servers actually yelled at me the night of my wedding – while I was in my wedding gown and standing with my guests – because she didn’t want to make us drinks because she was already cleaning her bar, even though the bar closed 15 minutes later. The attitude at the resort was that they could care less if we were there or not. I would think we would have gotten at least good service and treatment, especially after booking about 70 nights (between us and our guests) at their resort – but that was far from it. One of the first nights we were there, there was a hotel fire on one side of the hotel which was at no fault of the hotels. They put big loud fans in the halls to dry the carpets that were drenched from the fire sprinklers, ran 24 hours a day. So, the floor smelled of smoke, wet carpet and mold and the sound of loud fans were present 24 hours a day for several days. YET – they didn’t even bother to contact any of our guests that were on the floor to offer their apologies, a discount, a room transfer or even something as small as a free drink at the bar. Nothing. Prior to my father in law leaving the resort, he asked to speak to the GM and was denied. They said that the GM only meets with people who “have appointments.” And when he asked to make one, they said that he makes the 3-4 days in advance. Who would make an appointment with the GM in advance? You would only do it if there was a problem, yet, he still never met with him or us. He apparently knew about all the problems we encountered and still never met with us, not even to offer us an apology after our sand ceremony was lost. Put it this way, we were offered a 4 night free stay at this resort to make up for the issues we experienced and we still won’t stay there again. It was a TERRIBLE experience.
As a final note, I will go back to Aruba again for sure! But, I will never set foot in the Renaissance. Well, that’s about as complete as I can make it. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Amber
