Montego Bay, Jamaica – 2016 – Day 1-3

Jamaica no problem.

I had the privilege to photograph my friends, Naomi & Steven’s wedding in beautiful Jamaica – more specifically in Trelawny, Montego Bay. I have never done a resort stay before so it was a new experience for me. We stayed at the beautiful Royalton Whitesands which is owned by Sunwing. We had over 20+ guests of whom majority were volleyball players.

The flight from Toronto is about 4 hours and Jamaica is 1 hour behind Toronto. The airport shuttle takes about 45 minutes from Montego Bay Airport to the resort.

I travelled with the videographer – Jess Cheng and we were booked a Diamond Club room. Diamond Club gives you some more perks than the normal bookings. These include, a separate private Cabana beach area (which I never used), the ability to make reservations for certain restaurants on the premises, a special Diamond Club room for your use (food, drinks, services etc). I can’t forget to mention your pillow options.

Your room key is actually a nice little bracelet that you just tap against your door to get in. Now onto our room. Jess and myself shared a room that is suited to fit a family with a king size bed, a fold out futon and bunk beds with a bathroom that is so long and large (Family Jacuzzi Ocean View Suite). There is also a option for a butler but that is strange to me. There is also a mini fridge in the room that gets restocked (I think this is a perk of Diamond Club). There is free WIFI covering the whole resort including the beach.

The main event of the week long stay was obviously the wedding day on the Tuesday (we arrived Saturday). Each and everyday, the Royalton hosts weddings every 3PM & 5PM. The Whitesands resorts offers a main buffet with 3 specialty restaurants – Italian (the best one in my opinion), the steakhouse and the teppanyaki. Also around noon on the beach, there is jerk chicken and Jamaican beef patties being served. The resort also offers a kiddie pool, waterslides, 2 family pools and 1 adult pool. The beach area is actually quite small to my imagination. The adult pool with the built in bar overlooks the beach volleyball court which is built on uneven concrete and a thin layer of sand (watch out for stubbed toes). There is also nightly entertainment.

The beach volleyball court leads onto the main stretch of beach that the resort owns as well as a Diamond Club members only beach with cabana’s to the left of it. The beach is patrolled by security guards as the actual beach is public and there are vendors who will stroll the beach and try to sell things. They are not allowed to approach the guests and must stay by the shoreline. There also is a feature of a little private island (manmade) and also the gazebo where the wedding ceremonies take place.

The resort also includes a Kids Club, a coffee / ice cream bar, sports bar, spa and gym facility as well as a water sports excursion centre where you can take out kayaks, paddle boards, sail and even for a price parasailing.

Resort life in a sentence is all about relaxing, eating, sun, sand, tanning – repeat. I can tell you that I for one am not made for resorts per se, but when it comes to working (photographing a wedding), it sure makes it more worthwhile. Now onto my week as a photographer and friend at the Royalton Whitesands.

Day 1

The sun rises at 530AM and the heat comes with it quite quickly.

For scouting purposes and just the explorer in me, Jess and myself ventured out of the resort and walked the street to find some locations to shoot the couple. (the resort cannot guarantee safety outside o the resort) We ended up walking the road for awhile and passed by a few other resorts and some local homes. Under British rule, they drive on the left so be warned to look both ways when crossing the streets. The locals that we did meet and strike up conversations with were incredibly friendly folk.

When we returned to the resort, we rallied up a few of our group and grabbed a van to town with our driver Andrew. He took us from Trelawny to Falmouth and told us stories and information along the way.

He was very informative. Apparently our resort is owned by Sunwing and is owned by a Canadian. The story of Rose Hall is about a man named Sam Rollins who married his first wife Rosa whom he built a white house for on top of a hill. She passed away and he re-married. Sam passed away naturally but then the new wife ended up remarrying. She murdered that husband and remarried then murdered that 3rd husband and in the end was murdered by her lover who was a slave. They do tours of the home and show you where each person was murdered for $20 entry.

Andrew drove us through the rich neighbourhood area, main tourist strip and pointed out Usain Bolts Highschool and the land where squatters have built homes. Our little taxi trip with Andrew through the city was nice but being a Sunday and Mother’s day, not much was happening. We wanted patties but the place to go was closed. We drove through Sam Sharpe Square and got out of the van to walk what was open of a little fruit market on a street. It’s not highly recommended for tourist to walk alone or venture into town without a local. For majority, the locals will leave you alone but also depends on your vibe. Apparently the large KFC in town has the most traffic and when you are in Falmouth or passing through, you need to stop there and grab some chicken as locals have told us. We stopped by a little touristy spot where Andrew said we can bargain and I picked up 100% blue mountain coffee beans that were priced at $70USD for $35USD. Andrew wanted to take us to the best look out spot to overlook the whole city – Richmond Hill but he called ahead and it was closed. Our last spot before heading back was Scotchies – the best place for Jerk Chicken on the island. We got 1/2 chicken, 1/2 pork, balmy (cassava) and festivals (sweet fried dough) and fresh Limeaid. They have their famous jerk sauce made of scotch pine nuts. To be honest, the food reminded me of Chinese food but nonetheless tasty. Between 7 of us, it was $7USD including tip.

We came back to the resort and just chilled/napped by the pool for about an hour before part of the group went on their lagoon excursion. Jess and myself stayed back and ventured the resort to scout spots to shoot. We didn’t make reservations early enough so we ate at the main buffet. There is a good selection of food ranging from american favourites – pizza, fries, burgers etc to a variety of Jamaican dishes like ackee fish, boiled dumplings & plantains to my groups favourites – ox tail and curried goat.

Day 2 – Group Excursion day!

We booked Sunwing Catamaran & Dunn Falls day trip – $106USD.

Woke up and went for a morning workout session. Grabbed breakfast at the buffet then off we went with our group of 20 with Cool Runnings for Catamaran and Dunn Falls with Chino our driver and Debby our guide. We booked a 20 person group of our own. We had one small stop before making our way to St Ann’s Parish – Ochos Rios. We were taken to a place where we had a light lunch of jerk chicken, coleslaw and beans with rice before embarking on a catamaran to Dunn Falls. The catamaran we thought was a private one with just our group but we were wrong. We hopped on and within 10 minutes or so we were anchored and got into the waters for snorkelling. After snorkelling, we had patties on the boat while we sailed to our next destination – Dunn Falls. You can opt for the wet hike or the dry hike. Dry hike is by far the better option. Wet option you need water shoes to climb (you can purchase for $10 USD or rent for $5USD). What sucks about the wet hike is that you are basically with your group and hold hands majority of the way up. The dry hike, we decide our own pace and there are several areas along the way up that you can get into the waters and we sure did. My dry hike group – Joseph x2, Kim, & Mimi went up the fresh water falls and came back down at our own pace to slowly meet up with our group (they were the last group to climb). The climb up is the same way the wet group comes back down.

We ended up leaving a little late but once we returned to the catamaran, it becomes a boozy boat. Unlimited alcohol plus patties were given out. The waves heading back were HUGE and you could feel each ripple of the wave as the catamaran would go flying up and then come down hard. Our group was good and the staff loved all of our guys. This one lady kept coming around dancing with alcohol (bottle and then a tray of drinks) on her hand and dancing when the boat was crashing those waves. Pure skills there.

We returned back to our resort after an hour – hour half ride from St Ann’s. Awaiting us was Jess, the videographer who stayed on the resort for the day. We ventured outside the resort to take some clips and shots of the couple on the streets. We even got some advice from the locals about marriage. We were hoping to get back in time for golden hour but the sun was already setting during our walk outside. Jess and myself made reservations for the steakhouse while everyone else went to Zen – japanese teppanyaki (which apparently sucked and was really bad). Our steaks were pretty decent and the creme brûlée was tasty but the mac & cheese was more of a casserole and dry.

Day 3

Wedding day!

I keep waking up early but its all good since the sun rises at 530AM each day and Jamaica is an hour behind Toronto. The wedding party met at 9AM to do a walkthrough and then off to the races we went with the bridesmaids getting ready at 930AM and the groomsmen to start getting ready around 1030AM. Things went slightly behind schedule but otherwise we did pretty good. It was a very humid day for sure and windy at times. Jess and myself tried to work fast with our filming and shooting but alas we didn’t get many shots that we wanted in the end (or at least what we had planned). We got to the beach for the bridal party and family shots and the weather started to shift as dark clouds started to loom. We were back down for 430PM and 5PM the ceremony was to begin.

As the ceremony prep was finished and the bridesmaids started walking down the path to the gazebo the skies were slightly darker but still the light emitting from far out was magical. Once Naomi and her parents started to walk down, the Jamaican skies decided to bless them with some liquid sunshine. It made the ceremony even shorter as things needed to get sped up to get everyone out of the rain as quick as possible. This left barely any time to get shots of the whole thing. The dark clouds above made way for a burst of light leaking far out on the side that made it soft yet a slight golden glow. Once the ceremony was completed, everyone hung under the gazebo to avoid the rain and until they setup our cocktail hour and steel drums in the same space. The rocks off to the left of the gazebo make for beautiful photos for sure. The skies cleared and going into reception we had smooth sailing in terms of rain.

After cocktail hour was over, 30 minutes to set up the reception area. They chose non tented seating area poolside. 3 long tables of 12 with buffet styled dinner. We had a live band and they were amazing. Tons of speeches and games. The reception went smoothly with music, drinks and dancing flowing everywhere. The night ended with the bridal party deciding to jump into the infinity pool. Bridesmaids went first in their dresses, Groomsmen went in matching boxers and bowties. With this group, even the guests decided to join in and jump in as well.