Listennnn!  This was no ordinary podcast episode!  This was a powerhouse episode featuring Randy Bowman, one-half of 876Sounds, a local DJ and Entertainment Company in Jamaica.

Tandy and Hugh Bowman are the business on the wedding entertainment landscape here and will have your clients happy and rocking until the last chair gets cleared away from the reception!  They are approachable and amenable and will make your job so easy as a planner that you will just hire them and consider your DJ and entertainment needs handled.

At some point, this interview somehow got flipped and Randy became the "interviewer" and I the "interviewee" as she had a confession that put me right on the hot seat!

This lady has personality and presence and leaned on her journalism background of 10 years to somehow manage to pull out all kinds of details about my background in weddings, to how I am viewed in the industry to how I run my team and work with my preferred vendors....and I didn't even feel the subtle shift until I was on the other side of the mike lol!

Listen all the way to the end to see why you need this crew as a part of your local vendor team and let us know your thoughts in the comments.  

876Sounds: Randy + Hugh Bowman

Website: https://www.876sounds.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/876sounds

IG: @876sounds

Email: [email protected]

In today's episode, we had a candid conversation with Sara Stanford of Bliss Bridal Boutique in Jamaica.

Sara shares her passion for making women look and feel their best selves on their wedding day as she creates an experience of self-love and helps her client feel their most beautiful on their wedding day by accentuating all the positives of their bodies and finding that elements that make them shine in their wedding gown.

Sara also provides a wedding day concierge service for both local and international brides who want to order their gowns and have them shipped to Jamaica.  She can be available to you on your wedding day at the venue along with her seamstress to handle any last-minute adjustments or alterations.

You can find Sara at:

www.blissja.com

[email protected]

IG: @blissbridalja

0.02  Hi, everyone, thank you so much for joining me on another episode of Chat Bout Weddings. I am so grateful that you have joined me in this meet the vendor series, where I am talking to local wedding professionals in Jamaica, who are at the top of their game and are able to support our international friends who come to Jamaica and bring their clients here to get married, who are able to support them at the level of their brand. Today, I'm really, really excited because the guest that I have today is not only a friend, but a wedding vendor partner, and I have gone through many, many, many wedding doors with this photographer, and will continue to go through many doors with him.

2:11 Thanks Ophellia. Hello to you and your audience. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for the invite. It's always exciting to share on wedding photography and so on. But today you're asking me to share about myself. Which is, yeah, it's a challenge for me, you know, because I'm sometimes shy, but let me give it a shot.

3:09  I started out like any other photographer doing landscape photography, model photography, all different types of photography to find out which one I really liked. And then because I'm a person who loves nature, so I drifted towards landscape. And then I like people. So, I kind of fell into wedding photography, because of the combination of adding people to landscape, microphotography. And I think weddings encompass almost all genre photography. So that that that that is what makes it exciting for me.

5:00  If you have five weddings back to back at the exact same location with a similar setup, you somehow managed to tease out a very different-looking wedding for every single bride. And that's something about you would that I completely admire. But I am so grateful because no bride wants the exact same wedding as another bride. And no matter how familiar the spaces to you, no matter how many times you've shot there, you somehow managed to create a wedding experience and a wedding album for each client that looks very different from the client before.

6:07 No matter how small a venue is, all it takes is one step from left to right, to get a different angle. So it's so easy to have different looks for each wedding. And that's what makes it really exciting for me, knowing that it's not repetitive, it's not the same for each bride, for each groom.  It's always different, personalities are different. I kind of tend to naturally drift towards certain types of shots based on the individuals and their personalities. 

12:32  There are two things that you mentioned a while ago, that go hand in hand. And I figured this out early on in the game. As photographers we focus a lot on the technical aspect of photography, it gets into the camera setting, right? gets into lighting, right? Making sure that picture quality is excellent. But a big part of the puzzle is actually the mood of the client. If you totally ignore the vibe, the mood, if the client is unhappy at the time of the photo session, no matter how good a photographer you are, technically, you're not gonna get good pictures. Wedding Photography is really about emotions, really about capturing things as done fall in love between the bride and the groom. So there's, there's no way to Photoshop, an emotion, there's no way to Photoshop, the vibe of the couple.  My photography will fail if my clients are unhappy on their shooting day.

Merrick Cousley Photography

Email: [email protected]

IG: @merrickcousleyphotography

Website: www.merrickcousley.com

Podcast notes for our chat with Chalene Roye-Myrie of Krafted by Design.

2:56  Okay, what's design? Is it something completely new, I don't feel that there is very much that's completely new in the industry. But I do believe that there are people like the professional that I'm about to introduce to you who has an amazing eye and a unique spirit and is able to marry those things and co-create with her clients and bring forward something that is completely different, gorgeous, using probably seemingly the same things.  And without further ado, I would like to introduce my friend and I think an amazing wedding designer in Jamaica, Mrs. Chalene Roye Myrie of Krafted by Design.

4:36  Hi Ophelia. I'm not even sure what to say with that introduction. My head keeps growing and growing. Thank you so much. I mean, it means the world to me. That someone with your level of experience, and me I mean, relatively new to the business just going on five years, that you think so highly of what we do. So thank you so much. I'm trying to prevent my head from growing! Thank you for that introduction. And Hi everyone. 

5:25  I know your story's a little bit different from most people's. And by the way, everybody, I just have to say this, I just have to throw this in there. This lady wears very many hats. She has all kinds of sides, all kinds of things going on and half the times I'm saying to her, I just look at you and I get tired because I don't know how you do as many things as you do with the same 24 hours in the day as the rest of us. But Chalene,  tell our audience how you got started in the wedding industry?

6:35  Well, in terms of the way I I started, I was probably perhaps similar to a lot of wedding professionals in terms of planners.  I did a planning on designing for my wedding and it happened that the company that did my wedding decor at the time, she wants to move on, right? She wants to move away from that. And my husband and I were like hmmm I'm a creative at heart. I like to design, I do photography. So I said to him, I mean, let's try this.

12:10 Chalene discusses what makes her different from other planning and design firms.

15:55 What are the things that you want other wedding professionals to know when they are ready to work with you? How do they engage with you initially? How do you prefer to start that relationship? What are the things that you would want to know offhand from them in order to kind of just get going with that?

16:24  All the ways to engage with Krafted by Design to start your planning process

18:57  Chalene discussed her design style and aesthetics

24:15  Ways you can connect with Krafted by Design

www.kraftedbydesign.com

Email: [email protected]

IG: @kraftedbydesign

FB: @kraftedbydesign

As a resource to connect you with local Jamaica wedding professionals who can support you at the level of your brand, my "Meet the Vendors" series was created to introduce you to the best vendors that the island has to offer.  These are top-tier vendors who are seasoned, not only in art and craft of what they do, but they provide that exceptional Jamaican hospitality that you have come to expect from our local wedding professionals.  Pair this with the pride they take in their brand and their company offering and you have pure, world-class gold!

3:36 This week’s guest is my hidden gem, one of a kind, “coup de grace” vendor that I pull out as the finale when a client says custom, crafted cocktail bar!

5:18 our bartender Gossett  “Gussi Badz” likes to think of himself as “the baddest thing on two feet in a bar” and I totally concur!

9:55 He likes to know where his clients are coming from so that he can figure out their regional palate and work with what their tastebuds are used to.

10:25 Gossett loves to start crafting his cocktails by deciding on his sweet, sour, his spirit and then a modifier

*A modifier is a cocktail ingredient, usually alcoholic and typically a fortified wine or a liqueur, that both softens the base spirit, and adds flavour to the drink.

11:25 Gossett likes to craft cocktails, beverages and wine-based cobblers, etc but tells us how the base of these differ and how he stacks the different elements for different types of drinks

19:38 Our cocktail enthusiast's favourite drink is anything with mezcal with a hint of spice like a scotch bonnet ring!

20:25 – His fav cocktail is called Paradise Island and it’s a twist on an Amaretto Sour. He uses I part Amaretto (Disarono preferably), 1-part simple syrup, 1 part lime juice, 1 part overproof rum, and 3 to 4 dashes of aromatic bitters and garnish with a mint sprig and a lime wedge. Ensure that you bruise the mint sprig and add it to the top of the drink. Check out the link below to a video to see him do that.

Check out Gosset in his element creating the Paradise island here.

22:18 All the places you can find Gossett – IG: @gussi_badz_cocktail_enthusiast / [email protected] / Whatsapp: 876-877-6236

25:18 Gossett considers himself a “liquid engineer” with his fantastic crafting abilities and we completely endorse his new moniker!

It is very simple to get married legally in Jamaica.  You do not require blood tests and the residency requirement is only 24 hours.  You can take care of your marriage license ahead of time and get married the day after you land.  Here are the details for reference.

Picture Identification (Passport, Driver’s Licence or any form of National Identification);

Birth Certificate;

Final Divorce Decree / Decree Absolute / Divorce Certificate (If applicable);

Death Certificate of former spouse (If applicable); and

Documents supporting any change of name (If applicable).

Letter of Consent if you are 16 or 17 years of age. (Letter is required from your legal parent/guardian and is to be signed in the presence of and certified by a JP or Notary Public for overseas party). (If applicable).

All documents need to be certified or notarized. Please do not send your originals as they will not be returned. They will be retained on file here in Jamaica at the Registrar’s office as proof of your marriage.

If your documents aren’t in English, you’ll need to have them translated by an official translator and then certified by your local Ministry of Foreign Affairs or your nearest Jamaican Mission or Honorary Consulate.

We also have a service locally in Jamaica that can have that done for you if we have enough time ahead of your wedding. The translating service will take about 2 business days.

As a special note, a few countries require a further step in order to accept your marriage documents for formal use. They require an apostille. I have only had that done once in my career and the couple has been from Peru. This requirement is a further certification or legalization, if you will, by the Embassy or Consulate of the country of residence of the client. This means that my couple needed to get the Peruvian Consulate in Jamaica to apostille their marriage certificate before they were able to legally use it in Peru to perform their formalities.

I am not aware of any other country that requires it but will update the podcast notes if I find any other.

Additional Resources:

Applying for a marriage license in Jamaica on your own:

https://moj.gov.jm/services-and-information/marriage-licence

Officiant Resource:

Damion Austin / On Call Weddings

 - [email protected]

 - 876-475-2269 / 876-528-6199

 - IG: @oncallweddingsja

I know that I have been off the grid for a minute but I have been wearing my other "hat" as the President of The Jamaica Wedding Professionals Association and have been working on creating covid compliant protocols for the local wedding industry professionals who do off resort weddings.

This episode shares an update on where we are and our next steps.  Stay tuned for how things are going locally and how wedding professionals and clients are preparing to return to the business of weddings in Jamaica! xo

Navigating a business and balancing a family is never easy.  Is there really such a thing as multitasking?  Is work/life balance a myth or reality for a mompreneur?

After 23 years in business and 17 of them as a mompreneur, I have a few things to say about the topic.  Sounds off in the comments if anything resonates with you!

See you next time when we connect to Chat Bout Weddings!

Based on the crazy schedule of content creation and utter exhaustion this week, this podcast episode is doing double duty!  

This is a virtual (pictures) walkthrough of The Cliffs Hotel in Negril.  In this episode, I share my thoughts on the property, why I love working there, and how you can use the property to your best advantage.  I tell you about my favourite things to prep you for the actual video walkthrough that I will be doing there in May.  If there is anything in particular that you need to know/want to see, be sure to leave me a comment so that I can make it happen!

In its original format, it is on my Facebook page at Wedding Business Coach Jamaica with pictures so that it makes complete sense.  In this format, it is in your ear and you can listen and then look or you can just go straight to my videos on the Facebook page and have a look + listen there.

I am committed to providing this weekly content here and sometimes we just have to get scrappy! xo

Welcome to the first episode of The Chat Bout Weddings Podcast. This community has been created to support your destination wedding business by providing content on planning your clients' destination weddings in Jamaica, regardless of where you are in your planning career. One thing that we all need is professional and reliable resources and relationships that allow us to plan and execute weddings seamlessly for our clients. Working in Jamaica, for some people, throws up a few pain points that I would like to help you solve on this podcast journey. 

In the spirit of transparency, I recorded and dumped the first episode of this podcast and this is a second recording because I really have a lot to say about how to navigate destination weddings in Jamaica. And I know that some of it will highlight things that impact you and your clients that nobody else wants to talk about. But I really feel that I can throw a light on. If I have to be really honest, I thought long and hard about some of the content that I would be sharing here over the next few months and how different stakeholders will feel about it. But I walked away from the doubt comfortable in the feeling that eventually, this will benefit international professionals and their couples who want to get married in Jamaica, as well as local wedding professionals who work hard to build their businesses and support their clients who want to work with them. 

Let's start with me making myself clear about where I stand. I champion offsite custom weddings, I encourage all of my colleagues and other destination wedding planners to connect directly with local wedding professionals, and to build relationships with those of them that they feel can support them at the level of their brand. In that way, they can plan the wedding that their clients envision without feeling constrained by hotel rules and policies. And of course, the often astronomical costs that come with planning a destination wedding on site. 

Hang out here with me every week, and I will make a Jamaica destination specialist out of you yet!