Mireyas planning beach/hacienda wedding journal * pic heavy

[yeya99]

 

 

Here are a few tid bits of the wedding preparation leading up to the main event.  My hubby wanted a beach wedding and I wanted to have an authentic Mexican wedding at an Hacienda. In preparation I sent STD to inform every one that we were getting married in Cancun and since the wedding date was in peak season we had to urge our guests to start making plans as soon as possible because of the drastic prices increase during peak season.  Dec 19 –Jan 15. Avoid these dates like a hawk as travel prices are 3 times as higher for everything.  Had we known this before we made the deposit we would have picked another date.

 

I decided to make my own message in the bottle informing guests of the wedding date, our wedding website and suggesting pre packages and preliminary bookings. I also did a magnate for the fridge.  Message in the bottles are easy to make but they are very time consuming if you want them very detailed as I did.   I ended up ordering everything and putting them together.  If I had to do it all over again I would pay to have them made as I did not save that much money plus it would have been less stress on my end. 

I bought beach sand, mini shells, Raffia, glass bottles, corks, and mailing boxes from

http://www.sandartsupplies.com/StoreBox/message_bottles.htm

 

 

 

I went to Michaels craft store to buy the big outer shells, thin chain, I got the pearls from the craft section at walmart, and just used parchment paper to give the message that old world washed up beach feel.  The metal plates with  our initials were done in Mexico. I got the idea for this from http://marsinvites.com/invitaciones/catalogo/sunandsand/sunandsand.htm

 

 

Below is my rendition of their bottles. The only other thing that I did order from Mars Invites other than the metal plates was a personalized seal so that I  could seal the  wedding invitations with a real wax seal ( I really wanted the a REAL wax seal to go with my rustic Hacienda theme. The boxes provided by sand art are the perfect fit for shipping so dont fret lookig for a shipping box.  I did use a glue gun to hot glue the ends of the boxes  together as an extra precatuion so that the boxes would not pop open in transit.

 

I infused my corks with Gardania scented oil. This I also purchased at  Michaels craft store. I  soaked up the  corks in the oil for a day and they were nicely incufused. When all the guests got their STD they said it semlled hevenly when the opended the bottle.

 

 

 In case the message in the bottle was not enough I also sent a fridge magnet so that people could keep the wedding date in mind often as they could and hence not forget to book for the destination wedidnt. I got really cute personalized  magnates made from ebay. They have great deals so check them out. Turn around time was lightning speed!

 

 

http://myworld.ebay.com/r.space.on.the.web

 

 

this was our final magnate

 

 

Will follow up tomorrow with what I came up with for the wedding invitations! 

 

[morgan7]

i love the message in the bottle it must have taken you awhile though!

[JayKay]

I love your message in a bottle STDs.  They look great!

[KCB2011]

The messag in a bottle is such a neat idea...I really like the monograms on the front!

[yeya99]

 

Official Wedding Invitations.

 

 

 

I searched high and low till I foud something that I was completely in love with and that I felt could combine a  beach and hacienda theme wedding.  I found a designer in Australia who did the art work for me and sent it PDF file. He could have done the whole printing and everything for me but I was short for time so he agreed to just sell me the design. After he emailed me the file  I took it to a print shop and get my invites printed, scored and folded.  Design  from http://trisus.com.au

 

 

I chose to make my own inner envelopes with papel amate . Papel amate is Mexican bark paper. It has been crafted for centuries since  the pre columbian era in Mesoamerica and this paper is still made today.  

I loved this paper because it tied in with the Mexican  rustic theme that I was going for plus the texture and color that I chose gave it that  beach look to it.  I ordered the paper from

http://empapelarte.com.mx/tienda/default.php?cPath=1_86_23&osCsid=e359b5ac44d661b7d79a189437649bcb

They have all sorts of colors and you can get the paper in solid or perforated form.  After getting my long blocks of paper I went to the closest Kinko’s store and used their huge paper cutters to cut the large  sheets of paper squares to make my envelopes.  I could have used scissors but it would have taken hours and the cuts would not have been as precise.  The paper guillotine was awesome and saved lots of time!

 

From ebay I purchased  14K Gold  Plated 12mm Sea Shells Drops Charms Beads. They were super cheap.  I bought 50 for about 7 usd. =0)

 

I used natural twine to tie a bow around the inner envelope of the invite and attached the gold charm to the bow.

 

 

Since the destination wedding was going to be in a nice tropical place I decided to add a flying butterfly inside the invite.  These babies are awesome paper butterflies that come out flying when the guests open the invite, it's a wonderful surprise!  I purchased the butterflies in different colors from :  www.flyingbutterfly.com  In the picutre obove is an example of the monarch butterfly that I purchased.

 

To see a video of the butterfly flying go here:

http://www.magicflyer-shop.com/index.cfm

 

Finally I inserted the invite in a large square linen envelope and  got personalized mailing stamps made from zazzle.com  I chose designs that reflected a mix  of our two ethnic backgrounds. I also made sure the stamps also captured the destination wedding.

    

 

 

 

 

 Invites got one of each stamp above and were sealed with a special red waxed monogram seal of our initials.  I really wanted to put a authentic  wax seal to encompass the whole hacienda theme. It gave it  an elegant touch just like the old days.

 

 

 

Since I had plenty of the Gardenia scented oil that was used to infuse the corks for the message in the bottle STDs',  I  dabbed a bit of the oil on the outer envelopes as a final touch!  They looked good and smelled amazing too! LOL 

[KCB2011]

Those are great invitations!  They are so unique and you can tell they have a personal touch to them.

[yeya99]

Locations

Welcome Cocktail and Mayan Ceremony @ Avalon Bacarra Cancun Hotel

 

Here are pics of our Mayan Ceremony Set up and outsidle cocktail area where we enjoyed food and drinks and music.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Coming from two cultures I did my best to combine both.  Since I am Roman Catholic I cannot get married anywhere that is not a church.  With that being I decided to have a Mayan Ceremony on the beach followed by a cocktail hour accompanied with a batucada. (Brazilian drums) to get the party started.  With this we killed two birds with one stone and we used that cocktail hour as our welcome cocktail.  Everyone got to meet each other break and ice and were warmed up ready for the official ceremony.  Being that my  hubby is of Pakistani decent I asked the shaman to tweak part of the ceremony for us.  In the Mayan ceremony it is customary for the bride and groom to exchange a crown of flowers to crow each other.  In Indian and Pakistani weddings they exchange floral garland necklace.

I also decided to serves appetizers reflecting my hubby’s culture.

Flavored Lemon and Mango margaritas were served as drinks

Canapes that were served were

Babaganus-with mint infusion in coconut and red curry curry, 

Falafels                                                          

Vegetable Samoosa

Mini Lamb kebobs

Tandoori style shrimp

 Mango Mouse.

We drank and ate and had a good time but we made sure to send everyone to get a good night’s rest early enough as the next day was going to be exhausting!

 

 

Small clip of the Mayan Ceremony and cocktail hr festiveties.

 

 

[yeya99]

Oh man I had written a detailed thread on the Cathollic ceremony and reception but this computer of mine erased it. Will follow up tomorrow so stay tuned for more!

[Carolineandtaylan]

I love all the details you did in your wedding. I am als planning getting in a hacienda by the sea in mexico (Hacienda Corazon and Hacienda Del Mar). Thanks for posting your are giving me lots of inspiration. Love your mayan ceremony!!!!

[yeya99]

Nice!  Hacienda Corazon looks amazing!!!!  We had our reception at hacienda La Esperanza.

 

Its not on the beach though but the whole estate grounds are lovely.    Our Catholic ceremony was at a chapel on the beach and then we moved the whole party to the hacienda. It was about 30 min from the Cancun tourist zone.  I cant wait to get my official pics and video! 

Originally Posted by Carolineandtaylan 

I love all the details you did in your wedding. I am als planning getting in a hacienda by the sea in mexico (Hacienda Corazon and Hacienda Del Mar). Thanks for posting your are giving me lots of inspiration. Love your mayan ceremony!!!!