Selecting an All-Inclusive Resort
& Securing a Room Block

Now you have questions, I’m sure! Let’s have a little Q&A –

 

Q.) Is the No Fee “Resort Selection and Room Block Planning” service the right choice for us?

A.) If you want to choose an all-inclusive resort location (like an all-inclusive beach resort in Playa del Carmen, for example) for your wedding and need help narrowing down the myriad of options and room block choices available to you, then the answer is yes. If you’re looking for an off resort location, a private property, or other non-inclusive location then our Full Destination Planning Package  is what you’ll need.

 

To sum it up – Our no fee venue selection and room block service is offered for all-inclusive resort properties ONLY. 

 

Q.) What is included in the No Fee Venue Selection and Room Block Planning service?

A.) This service includes:

• A destination wedding travel planner to help you determine the perfect venue for your wedding. We may initially discuss many resorts with you but will narrow down the options and full wedding details of up to 3 resorts that fit your wants and needs.

• A dedicated travel professional that will work one on one with you and your guests to help them through the entire booking and travel process. No 1-800 numbers or call centers – you will receive a direct number to your dedicated travel pro.

• A one page website with all your travel details, for all your guests to access at any time.

• Our complimentary wedding planning software, that includes a customized destination wedding planning checklist and the ability to create and track timelines, guest lists, budgets, décor details, and more, all in one place. You can even invite collaborators to share details (and tasks) with you.

• A booking website.

• If you have contracted a room block through our no-fee room block selection service and decide to cancel after the contract has been signed and the room block has been secured, a cancellation fee of $500 will be incurred. This fee is in addition to any other fees or charges specified in your contract and is not refundable.

 

Q.)We think we might want a destination wedding but don’t know where to start. What do we do?

A.) Start by giving us a call at 619.669.5167. We’ll take some time to learn about you and what you want for your wedding. We’ll ask you all kinds of questions – preferred dates, number of anticipated guests, what types of locations you’re interested in, ceremony and reception details, and a lot more. We want to know as much about your wedding wants and desires as we can, so we can recommend the perfect resort for you!

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Q.) Why don’t you charge for all-inclusive properties? How do you make any money?

A.) We don’t charge a fee to help you choose a location and secure the room block for your all inclusive destination wedding because the resort actually pays us. Simply Classic Events has an in house travel agency so the all-inclusive resorts pay us a commission when you and your guests book their rooms at the property. Due to this we’re able to allow any commissions we may receive to cover the initial planning and venue selection costs. And we only get paid if you and your guests actually travel, so it’s much like the commission you pay (but probably weren’t even aware of) when you book your normal vacation travel online.

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Q.) Doesn’t that make it cost more for us?

A.) No, it doesn’t cost any more to work with us for your destination wedding at an all-inclusive resort location. In fact, you’ll save a lot of time and frustration when you work with us and possibly even get some extra event perks, depending on the resort!  Resorts kind of love us wedding planners because they know that when we call, we’re for real. We’re not kicking tires. We’re not goofing around. We’re calling because we have actual clients that might actually stay in their resort, bring a bunch of their friends, host their wedding at their location, use local vendors, and more. And most couples aren’t aware that a commission is typically already built into the price you pay when you book a room at an all-inclusive resort anyway. So, no matter how you book, the price is pretty much the same but if you work with us to book your wedding and room block you’ll have the advantage of the same price, but with the perk of having an awards winning travel planning team to help in your initial planning stages!

 

Do you know what happens if you don’t use us to book your destination wedding? You end up doing all of the work yourself, you don’t have your own personal advocate, you pray hard that it all works out, the resort pockets that fee as extra profit, and you pay the same amount you would have anyway – without all of the benefits you would have gotten if you had worked with us. Sad for you and sad for us. 🙁

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Q.) Will you be at the resort to handle all of our details on site during our wedding?

A.) That’s completely up to you!

Most of the all-inclusive resort properties have an onsite “wedding coordinator” that they provide to you to help you make basic wedding choices. Think of this person as your on site wedding order taker, since they primarily help you add the items on to your wedding package that you’d like.  Once we help you choose your venue location and set up the room block and travel details for you and your guests, the property will typically assign a coordinator to you that will work with you specifically on your wedding details. From that point forward our team will stay with you through the wedding day, managing all room and travel details only. Since this process works for about 25% of our couples we normally attend all of the destination weddings that we help book and set up room blocks for. But this is completely up to you!

 

Once we’ve booked your wedding venue and you feel comfortable handling the rest of your wedding planning on your own, that’s great! If you feel like you’ll want us to be your complete wedding planner and help you with ALL your planning details from the beginning of the planning process – both leading up to your wedding day and once on-site – our full-service destination wedding planning service can be added.

 

Sometimes  our couples begin planning their wedding with the resort’s coordinator and as they get closer to the wedding they begin to feel like they need more help than they originally thought they might. If this happens we are happy to step in as your wedding planner up to 70 days before the wedding day for a reduced planning fee of $4500 plus our travel expenses.

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Q.)What’s the process for booking our destination wedding?

A.)Here’s how that works –

  1.) You call or email us and we get started on all your details. This is the start of the discovery process.

  2.) Once we have all of your details we’ll contact some of the resort location options for date availability

and come back to you with logical resort options, wedding details and pricing, room block pricing

information, and more.

  3.) Now you’ll choose your favorite resort and make a deposit to book your wedding venue.

  4.) The next thing you’ll do is make a deposit on your room block.

  5.) Once booked, the resort becomes your main contact for wedding-related details (unless you reserve us for total destination wedding planning as well) and they will assign you an onsite wedding coordinator.

  6.) We’ll set up a one page web site to share with your guests that lists all the details about your wedding resort.

We will continue to be your main contact for all room bookings and will be with you until after the wedding is complete. We will also contact each of your guests to help them book their room and travel details, so you don’t have to be the main contact for this. That makes a lot less work for you!

 

The on-site wedding planner will contact you as your wedding date gets closer and will work with you to help you choose all the fun stuff – the flowers, the DJ, your photographer, the menu, and more.

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Q.) Since the resort has an on-site wedding planner, why would we use Simply Classic Events as our on-site event planner? What are the benefits?

A.) For some of our couples, the resort’s on-site wedding coordinator is sufficient to handle all of their needs. Keep in mind that the resort coordinator is primarily responsible for “taking your order” so if you have pretty standard requests – meaning that you don’t plan on deviating from what’s included in the resort’s standard wedding package – and your wedding is not extravagant and does not have many details, then you’re probably fine to work directly with the resort’s on-site coordinator. This works well for about 25% of our couples.

 

But if one of these sounds more like you –

• You’re more particular about the details being just right

• You have specific requests that are important to you

• You might want to bring some of your own vendors from the U.S.

• You’re not choosing an All-Inclusive resort

• You’re having more than 50 or so guests (20 or more total rooms)

• You’re planning multiple events over a few day period (a welcome party/sunset yacht cruise, wedding day, day after brunch, etc.)

…then you’d benefit greatly from having our staff as your on-site destination wedding planner.

 

We will do things like be your main on-site contact, work directly with the hotel staff to finalize and execute your event details so you don’t have to, ensure that your events and wedding day details are set up according to your specifications, build the timeline of the day’s activities for you and your guests to help things run more smoothly, help with after wedding details, and more.

 

If you choose us as your full-service destination wedding planner, we’re with you from the beginning of the process, every step of the way, and until after the wedding day.

 

Not sure which destination planning service is best for you? Please give us a call at 619.669.5167 and we can answer all of your planning questions.

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