Kerrij's GBP Jamaica Planning Thread, YAYAY!!

Wow it's my turn!! so exciting!

Thank you soooo much too every bride on this forum, the creators, the MODS, the Vendors, everyone has been so amazing and inspirational! I took so many ideas and molded them into our own special DW. All the convos I was involved in or read were so helpful I can’t even explain. If it wasn’t for this forum, I’m not sure how the wedding would have turned out! So I truly thank everyone who is part of this forum!! Maybe I should also thank my boss, for not swamping me with work so I had plenty of time to do work on fun little wedding details and pretty much plan my entire wedding while in my office!! (I wonder if he’s ever caught on. Heheh)

I have never been that little girl who always dreamed of my wedding and had everything planned out. So when I got engaged to my dream man, I had no idea at all what I wanted for a wedding…the only thing I knew was, I wanted 4 bridesmaids and did NOT want a destination wedding…and of those 2 things, neither happened!! Since my brother had a DW and I knew most of my relatives who I’m very close with would not be able to attend, I refused a DW. But when we started planning our dream wedding…camping on a beach with a bonfire and midnight swimming…family wasn’t happy with that either. No one seemed to be happy with what we wanted, so we figured we’d go the easy and less expensive (not by a whole lot though!) way and get married on a Caribbean beach instead of a B.C. lake beach! So here is my planning thread…

The Engagement The short version!

My FI and I had been dating just over 2 ½ years when we went to Mayan Riviera for our good friends wedding (you’ll see her hair in my hair inspiration pic!). On our last full day there and he took me to Cozumel for the day. We rented a scooter, with the funniest helmets! And went from beach to beach to beach! It was soo dead on the island as it was 2 days before the last evacuation day of Mexico during the swine flue outbreak, so at all the beaches were were pretty much the only people there, so it was even more perfect and private! On our 3rd beach we went snorkeling and were diving for conch shells for our bride/groom friend, and when we finished he said, what about this one? And I turned and he was on one knee in the surf holding up my ring! It was truly the most amazing and special moment/day of my life! I've never cried so whole heartedly in my life! Just after a beautiful peacock randomly walked up to us, squaked and opened it's feathers and did a little dance for us! it was sooo cool! here is a pic of it.

The Rings

He picked out the perfect ring for me all on his own! Maple Leaf Diamond centre stone perched up above 16 channel set diamonds and 4 diamonds on each side of the band…love it! Having a custom w band made for it…if you’ve read some of my other posts you’ll know that I’m having issues with it and it was ordered 2 months before the wedding and won’t be done in time in fact they only started it a week ago. So I’m getting a plain gold band…for free! And will get my eternity band after we are back from Jamaica. FIs ring was also custom made but we won’t get it until a few days before we leave, so no pic of it either. here is my ring. i looove it!

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Invitations & Save the Dates

My BIL’s girlfriend made them both. It was a LOT of work as she lives in a different city so communication was difficult. I recommend if you get them made, be sure you can visit the person in person! They turned out lovely but not worth the headache.

Magnetic STD...it's the photo we use for our engagement photo, we took a self portrait right after we got engaged, i still have messy hair and cry eyes but I love it anyway!

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Wedding Party

This was one of the most difficult decisions of the wedding. How did I ask some friends and not others without hurting feelings or making anyone feel lesser of a friend than the other. It was very tough and took me 2 months to decide. And even when I was decided and had asked them, I still wasn’t happy. Even though I wanted 4 bridesmaids growing up, I didn’t want a small wedding group with a huge wedding party. We went from 1 bridesmaid to 5 and back and forth with numbers. Finally we stuck to 3. I had one great friend that I didn’t ask and it broke my heart. I wanted her to be in my wedding but just didn’t know how. Eventually I was given the idea of a Flower Girl!! So there I had it, my 33 year old Flower Girl! And now I've grown soooo close with other girl (my hair inspiration, below) that I really would love her in the party to, but just can't have them all I guess! heheh I guess I'm one heck of a lucky girl to have such amazing friends!

My FI knew right away who he’d ask and left it up to me how many girl I wanted to ask. So his part was so easy!

Travel Agent

If I were to have a do-over, I would absolutely omit the TA. (unless I was able to use one of the TAs on this site who are actually helpful) I used SellOffVacations. It was so difficult to find a TA who would take our group on, and the one we finally found was so awful! Even my FIL to be has had people complain to him about her. I swear it was like pulling teeth for her to do anything. I book so much travel and groups in my day to day job, that I wish I did it on my own as I know what I'm doing anyway.

Resort

We chose the Gran Bahia Principe Runaway Bay Jamaica, firstly Jamaica, because no one has really been there that we know tha would be coming and we liked everything about them. The wedding package was good and the gazebo is so private and beautiful! and i know 4 other couples now who have stayed there and LOVED it! and it's a 24 hr resort which was really important to me for our guests.

This is where our wedding will be and the Dance after dinner will be held here too with a private bar on the beach to the right of the gazebo in the sand! Yay! And we aren't having any color or flowers. just plain pretty white tulle, i want it simple and have the beauty of Jamaica to be our decor.

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Not done yet.......

Monogram

I discovered the monogram on this site! And I think it adds such a great little touch. I had fun playing with it and made a zillion before I decided on this one. Great way to kill time at work!

I can't figure out how to post it yet

Welcome bags

In the welcome bags we will be giving everyone a tie dyed shirt that FI and I made (wow make 50+ shirts is a loooot of work!). I also iron on the “Yah Mon!!” and our wedding date on everyone’s shirts. The wedding party and our parents have special ones that say Mother of the Bride or Best Man, etc. The shirts are for the day after we arrive. I’ve planned a challenge for the entire group which will get them to know the hotel and where everything is and meet new people! Each team has a different team color of shirts. (The blue one in the pic doesn’t show it well though)

Also included the beer mug beads for our first night there we are inviting everyone to meet us at the disco, the beads are so everyone knows who is in our group.

The letter will also be in the bag. It has the invite to the disco night and the challenge, as well as a cheat sheet of everyone who is in our group and how FI and I know them. as well as a map of the hotel grounds.

Can’t have a DIY project without wine!

One of my favorite gifts is a homemade CD of the persons fav songs...so we are putting one we've made in everyones bag...it's not finished yet...i looooove the pic on the CD makes me laugh! and then on the inside we'll put the list of songs, which will include our wedding song!!

Our Attire

FI’s shirt and tie was the hardest one to find. We found him a nice linen suit on sale at Le Chateau and wanted a pale yellow shirt with a tie of some sort…but do you think you can find yellow ties in the winter in Calgary? Heck no! we ended up going white on white and love it! and guess what I found the week after we bought his white shirt…a yellow shirt! Hehehehe Sorry no pics.

My dress! It’s Ivory and slightly shimmery. I'm hoping the sunshine doesn't make it toooo shimmery! I don't have my veil here but it's a double tier that I won't wear over my face, but hangs to my bum. I was going to wear my great grandma’s necklace that is about 100 years old but changed my mind. No necklace and long dangly earrings. My MOH is loaning me a bracelet (her grandma’s/my grandma’s sister) for my something old instead.

This shot was at my alterations appointment last week. I pick it up tomorrow!

Wedding Party Attire

I had a hard time finding the girls dresses as they all have different body types and I wanted them in the same or similar dresses that didn’t cost much… I ended up buying them this dress from LeChateau for $130 each. I wish that I would have just bought fabric and let them choose their design. Oh well! The dress is so pretty and they all look beautiful in them! Here is a pic of me in the change room when I found the dresses and text them pics of it

The guys we put in yellow matching ties from Le Chateau, a white linen shirt from RW&Company, and khaki pants from Winners. We wanted it super casual with a bit of formal.

Didn’t get a pic before giving it to the boys.

Wedding party gifts

Since we bought the wedding party’s clothes, we chose to do a smaller gift for them. For the fellas we bought them personalized mini humidors which were awesome!!

The girls we got them leather covered flasks, they are so awesome I can’t wait to give them! I got them in their favorite colors, pink, hot pink, green, and unfortunately they were out of the blue for one of the girls. boo. got them for about $10 too!

My dad, for walking me down the aisle I got him an engraved pocket watch that is sooo beautiful!

Still not done!!!

Hair

Beautiful Eva is my hair inspiration. I’ll take this picture to the resort to see what they can do. My veil I want to come from underneath some how.

Also my good friend’s hair…she got hers done at the Grand Palladium Mayan..love her hair! Highly recommend GP spa for wedding hair...it didn't budge an inch an was sooo beautiful!

Flowers

I chose not to spend extra money on the flowers. I get my bouqet included in our wedding package. And for the girls they will use parasols and fans. I also got our moms fans too. and the boys don’t really need a boutonniere ..although my FI has one. This is what my bouquet will look like I'm told..

Parasols and Fans and gifts were all ordered off of American Bridal! Even though I'm Canadian and you cant have a Canadian CC, my friend in TX loaned me her card for the order! yay! (She's actually the one who told me about this site after her DW in Mexico!)

These parasols I got in white and were like $5 and sooo prefect! Made my MOH cry when she saw them! I wish I got myself one in yellow, might have to go look in China Town for one for me.hehehe

Fans in white which were about $1 each and so great!

Photog

We chose to hire our photographer from home, as she’s a friend of our sis in law. We are getting a TTD, BD, full wedding day start to finish, and a shoot of one of our events, all for the cost of her trip. Good deal! My only concern is, she doesn’t know the area at all, where a local photog would know all the great places to take us for photos and TTD. But I’m sure we won’t have much time anyway to take off to a private beach, so I’m sure it’ll be just fine! And she’s also going to do a BD session for a few of my friends for free!

Honeymoon

We decided to go all out and splurge on our honeymoon since it will only happen once. We are marrying in Runaway Bay and staying there for our first week. For our 2nd week we are going to Negril with 2 of our friends. Our friends are staying at a non-AI hotel just down the beach from us. And we are staying at a 5 star Couples Swept Away resort, beachfront and all! I can’t wait! I'm looking forward to laying on the beach, wanting a drink, putting a flag in the sand and waiting for the waitress to come over with fruit kabobs to take our drink order!! HEAVEN with my HUSBAND!

Thank you all for reading my thread...Pretty much every single idea came from this website (I was faithful to BDW and never looked at another site, except for one, but i didn't like it) You all helped me plan my dream wedding and I cant' thank you all enough! I'm soooo happy!

10 sleeps til we leave and 2 weeks today until I'm a MRS!!! Love Love Love!!

It all looks fantastic, thanks for sharing. Congratulations!

Everything looks great Congrats -----

Congrats! Wonderful job on everything! You must be so excited! Enjoy every moment!

Congrats everything looks wonderful !

Great planning thread! I love the explanation with every photo, so cute

Congrats, every thing looks fantastic. Have an amazing time.

Everything looks great! Thanks