Once my fiancé, Bob, and I were engaged, the first thing I told everyone was to start saving their pennies. Bob proposed Jan 14, 2013 the day after we returned from our very first Caribbean Cruise vacation. We (ok, I ????) had always talked about getting married on a beach somewhere, so I started looking into resorts and found the Barcelo Bavaro Palace Deluxe.

Fast forward 1 year... We were planning a last minute vacation to check out two options for our wedding week. Unfortunately I waited a day too long and missed the deal for BBPD and we ended up at the Bahia Principe Punta Cana (Royal Golden ) It is a chain we have stayed at before, and one of our favourites, so we weren't disappointed. We met with their wedding staff and also booked a meeting with Laura Genao, a wedding co-ordinator at BBPD before we went on vacation.

We were met by Laura in the front lobby. She was very sweet and extremely helpful. We were taken through the conference centre and shown the ballrooms on the way to her office. We discussed what their options were and given a package of information to take with us. As Laura had another appointment, we were taken on a tour of the ceremony sites, the restaurants, a grounds tour and shown a few of the different style guest rooms on the Palace side and the adults only Bavaro Beach side by another WC.

We decided to go with BBPD over Bahia Principe, more for our guests than ourselves... Some are very seasoned travelers with a more posh taste and others, this is their first time doing an all-inclusive resort vacation. We thought this would be best for all,our guests, even though it was pricier than Bahia Prinicipe.

I have been in contact with Laura by email ever since. She is always very quick to respond to any of my questions and keeping me in the loop when she has to follow up with other departments before she gets an answer. So far, we have picked the Mint Breeze Package and I have booked a welcome breakfast for our first morning on the resort where we will be giving our group their welcome bags; booked our rehearsal dinner and our wedding dinner. I have yet to choose colours, though. The colour swatch page is a bit difficult and i may have to choose two options and decide in person when we arrive. I still have to choose my flowers and cake as well.

We booked the travel arrangements through Bridgid McMahon of Centrum Travel. She has been a phenomenal find in this process. I just happened to stop in the office on a whim and discovered her through sheer luck just before we left to check out our resort choices last January. She is a certified destination wedding consultant. And a fantastic person, too!

Soooo that's it so far.....as the next few weeks fly by, I will keep posting about the plans as they come up.

WeddingWire.com has been one of the resources I found to be truly helpful. I found MagnetStreet.com through them. A wonderful site for invitation stationery. And our photographer Katya Nova Photgraphy. More on these in future posts.

That 's all for now!