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Hi everyone! I know there are already quite a few Azul Fives Forums, but none that I have seen for 2016 brides! So I wanted to start one. I am currently waiting to hear from the resort on whether my wedding date is confirmed in November 2016. Anyone else start the process of wedding planning at this resort for 2016? Let's share stories along our planning adventures!! Congrats everyone, and I look forward to hearing all your plans for your upcoming wedding at this gorgeous property.

@sassylouxx @jwences Hi ladies. Congrats on your upcoming destination wedding! Azul Fives has been a really popular resort lately. There have been several brides that have had their weddings there. I've given you two here that are very recent so I know they'll be helpful for you in terms of costs and sites, etc. Definitely do a search up top under Azul Fives and you'll get several threads that will be helpful to read through. You've picked a very nice resort. The reviews from past brides are great! http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/topic/78768-tinkersofis-planning-thread-azul-fives-august-13-2015/ http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/topic/78916-snswedding2016-planning-thread-jan-9-2016-azul-fives/ Good luck and happy planning!

Sorry for all the back to back posts. Just trying to get caught up to date with all the planning decisions so far! Guest Count After 2 reminder messages through paperless post, most of our guests put down deposits one month prior to our deposit deadline. We were shocked…including our TA! As soon as our rooms started to go, our TA allowed us to hold rooms under certain names without a deposit if we knew they were coming for sure. She held them until a week before the deposit deadline but everyone paid prior to that. Initially we held 15 rooms/30 seats from Toronto only (to maximize our inventory) with a $300 deposit from the bride and groom + an extra 6 land only rooms (for our East coast guests) for an additional $300. Our TA suggested that since we only had a few coming from Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver -that if they could commit right away and put down a deposit than we didn't need to hold inventory. I messaged my guests coming from those cities to see if that was possible as well as offering to put down their deposit for them if they could commit. Currently we have 45 adults 4 children and 4 babies! Our deposit deadline is over and our final payment is due at the end of October. I suspect we'll have a couple more bookings. Venue choices at Azul Fives Ceremony Despite all of the comments we have still decided to go ahead with our vision for our beach ceremony. The beach location is quite close to the pool and does get quite busy but we're hoping with the time of day for our ceremony, that it might help (4:30pm). There is also going to be a new beach location option opening up at Azul Fives - so far there hasn't been a date set for its opening but rumour has it, it will be this summer! I'm really hoping for this option for our wedding! Reception After seeing all of the venue options, we really loved the Garden area for the reception. It looks gorgeous especially with extra lighting set up. Plus we thought it would be nice to have a change of venue from the ceremony to reception. Of course the Sky Deck is pretty spectacular for either ceremony or reception but does cost extra. We decided to use that money somewhere else in our wedding budget (sky deck cost $1700). Colour Palette I started with wanting an ocean blue palette and then started narrowing down my range of blues from there. I ended up decided on the palette below with grey accents. Food As I mentioned in my first post, the food is really important to us. We love good food and we have a bunch of foodies that will be coming to the wedding. From the beginning we were definitely leaning more towards a plated meal than a buffet. We actually found a menu option we really liked for a great price. Our reception menu is: Appetizer: Beef Carpaccio Entree: Pork Rib Eye Dessert: Chocolate Mousse & Passion Fruit Creme Brûlé with Mango Coulis Note about dessert: This was not the option listed for this menu choice but we loved the app & entree option but the dessert was supposed to be Mexican Flan and neither of us are really a big fan of flan. I asked my WC if we could substitute it without an additional cost and she suggested these two options and we were so happy with both! I'm probably one of the very few brides on here not doing a cake. Sean and I talked about it and we both agreed that wedding cake often goes to waste as people don't see it or they are too full from the meal that comes with dessert already. Also we prefer dessert (like the options we've picked) over traditional wedding cake. Again allocating the money we would have spent on a cake to a different area. I'm not worried about it being not enough food. We'll be stuffing our faces all week with good food plus there is always 24 hr room service and late night snacks at the lounge! Our basic wedding package also comes with a semi-private dinner at one of the restaurants. We're using it as our rehearsal dinner. The menu for that is: Appetizer: Smoked Salmon Entree: Nut Crusted Chicken Breast Dessert: Apple Crisp We're inviting our entire guest list but asking people to RSVP on our website. The semi-private dinner is complimentary up to 40 people (children eat for free if they order off of the children's menu). While we are more than happy to pay for any additional guests ($25 per person), we completely understand if some guests would prefer to have an evening alone..after all it is their vacation too! Hopefully with an RSVP list we won't be paying for guests who are not there (it has to be paid prior to arrival through the resort). Music Most of Sean's family are string musicians (mom, step dad, sister, nieces) and I originally wanted them to play live but once I started looking into it, it became a logistical nightmare. Flying with violins and violas are one thing but trying to get a cello down there is pricey (it needs its own seat)! Plus I didn't want them to be worried about their instruments on vacation and the humidity etc. We decided having them record it and playing their version would be the best compromise. So far we've decided on them playing the bridal party entrance (Wonderful Tonight - Vitamin String Quartet arrangement) and the processional (Hoppipolla - by Sigur Ros but the Erskine Quartet arrangement). My good friends will be singing and recording their versions of our recessional (Little Romance by Ingrid Michaelson) and our first dance (Forever by Ben Harper). We really wanted to include all of our artistic family and friends!

noo, so I had made a suuper long entry and it got deleted . I'll do my best to replicate it. Ok so now the fun begins! The wedding band this was literally the first thing I bought. I spent more than I had hoped on it, but then I thought that if I was going to spend my money on something, this should be it. I'll be wearing it for the rest of my life! The band is a matching set with my e-ring, which actually took a lot of work to match. Long story short, it didn't fit well wit my e-ring so I had to send it back a couple of times until it finally got fixed. It was frustrating to say the least but now I can't wait to wear it The Flowers If there is one topic that gets me roiled up, is the price of the natural flowers at the Karisma properties. HOLY COW! that's all I have to say haha. To give you an idea, they cost more than what I would pay here in Canada, and they don't allow outside florists. So, I'm boycotting the whole thing and using fake flowers, except for my bouquet. This is what it looks like: and these will be the bridesmaid ones: The Ceremony So as I said before, I needed that terrace for our wedding! which we managed to get, for a surcharge of $1700 . We decided to pay it because it just went with what we had envisioned. We don't get much for the $1700, it's still basic decor, so just white garden chairs and you get some perks, but nothing like their $3000 packages, which is fine. I found this picture of the terrace at Azul Beach. I like the one at Azul Fives better but just so you can get an idea We are not doing much in terms of decor, just renting two white sheers for the gazebo and placing some pomanders along the asile in alternating chairs that I got from Michael's. This is what they look like, please forgive the fact that they're hanging off my cabinets haha, I wanted to see how they looked against white: That's pretty much it for decor for the ceremony, we might add a small (fake) flower arrangement on the table but I'm letting nature take care of the rest . The Reception Because I love that terrace so much, we're also having our reception here. We also upgraded this and we're paying a surcharge per person added on to the price of the menu. We decided on a buffet style menu a long time ago, even before we knew when or where we would get married. We just wanted our guests to eat as much as they pleased . We chose a BBQ style menu which has so many options that I think anyone would be able to find something they like. In terms of decor, I bit the bullet here, we're paying for one of the packages for the tables. These are not cheap, but I basically only have to bring my centerpieces. I posted a picture before and here is another one of how the place setting looks: Then these are the centerpieces I put together: The bridesmaid bouquets will double as centerpieces so there is less stuff to bring. The little blue round thing is actually a filled cookie called an alfajor. They're traditional in Argentina, where I'm from, and my mom has a business here where she makes them. Those will be our favors and they'll go in the little box. They can be stored quite well for a few weeks so they'll taste great even when bringing them from home Most of this stuff I got at Michael's, except for the lanterns (Ikea) and the favor boxes, which I got a long time ago from Ebay. They were one of the first things I bought and I paid somewhere around $36 for 100 of them. Then this is what our sweetheart table will look like. You really have to use your imagination for this one! haha it makes me laugh every time. The middle bouquet will actually be my bouquet. Now I realize I should have started this thread a long time ago. I just noticed I have a lot of things planned so I have to write these novel-sized entries to catch up and show you guys everything so far haha. Most of this stuff I've posted randomly in different threads but it's nice to have it all in one place. That's it for tonight. I think I managed to put everything I had written in my previous entry that got deleted. Next up, my personal favorite, the attire