NATASHA

Quote: Originally Posted by MEAHGAN OK-so here I go:) Photographer-Gilda Badillo A++++ I really liked her and wish I had hired her for longer because we did sparklers at the end and the hotel next door did HUGE fireworks that I wish she could've taken pics of-but oh well! We were one set of those fireworks. There was a private party later in the evening that you also might have been able to see - their show was about 10 minutes!

Gorgeous - what beautiful lighting you had on the shots when you were in the gazebo!

Quote: Originally Posted by AQHARIDER Natasha- WOW! Everything looked so nice, thanks for sharing so many of your pictures with us, they are wonderful! I love all the candid pictures of your guests, everyone looks so happy. You and your husband look radiant on the beach- you can truly see the love and happiness shared between you on that day. Your reception looks beautiful- I love that you had firedancers and fireworks, my FI and I have been debating those, now I think we should do both. Who were the couple in black leading your group in dance? That looks like tons of fun! I'm sure you'll answer all that in your review...I'll wait! Congratulations Natasha- everything looked perfect! I'm working on a "what I would do/what I wouldn't do" post, but here's a preview. Here's the number one piece of advice. I would definitely have the firedancers. If the budget is tight, cut out flowers. Honestly, the properties in Cabo are beautiful and adding flowers goes unnoticed. I cut a few flowers but, looking back, could have removed another $230 from the flower budget without even noticing it. The firedances were $675 and Maye did not recommend tipping them. TOTALLY worth it as it makes your wedding so different than any other wedding you have attended and they were there for a long time. The fireworks are $2000 for 2 minutes. We loved them and so did all of our guests (makes weddings more fun for guys who all came up to me and claimed they were pyrotechnic fanatics). However, if you are budget conscious - 1 minute would have worked just fine. They are really nice fireworks - very professional and impressive. NOTE TO BRIDES - you will get a bit of soot on your dress. Not a big deal to me, but should be noted.

Quote: Originally Posted by gkashmira I think you may be right! Natasha gave me the name of a dressmaker here in Studio City near where I work. I need to go take some secret pics! Good point about the alterations being included. The other thing I think might be better is that I think I can ask them to change things when stuff doesn't look right or fit the same... I wonder if the dressmaker could "swing by" a store that carries it and pretend to be browsing and just check it out... hmmmmm..... Hi Kash - she carries a lot of different maker's dresses so she may already be familiar with it. If not, she has access to additional pictures as she is a reseller. Here's what I learned relative to keeping the price down when replicating a dress: a) The fabric you select will affect the price. If you tell Liza a certain price range, she can show you the fabric. Try on several different dresses with your dressmaker - she is experienced and can see PARTS of the dress vs. the whole dress to know what neckline will work best, etc. and can offer advice on how to keep the cost lower while still working with your body type. c) There may be a cheaper dress that is close that you can buy and then alter. d) The less beads/beadwork, the cheaper the dress. Any kind of hand-finishing needed will automatically raise the price. The dress you are looking for is really only as expensive as the lace and the fabric you chose underneath which is great. I would take both pictures (the real and the knock-off) into Liza and tell her your budget. She'll tell you what you can get within that budget from her and you can take it from there. Once she agrees on a price, whether she makes it from scratch or alters another dress, all fittings, etc. are included so it's really easy to know exactly what you're in for. I loved my dress - it fit perfectly and we did A TON of modifications to it. Yes, it was $2000, but that's because the dress that we started with was $1700 because of the designer and fabric.

I liked DJ Ricardo. He was professional, followed the playlist, adjusted the types of songs based upon what my guests were enjoying, and worked well with the on-site coordinator. He didn't speak a lot, but I didn't do any introductions, etc. so there really wasn't a need in our case. Maye has said (jokingly) that he's definitely not shy on the mic if that's what's called for.

Oh - that's so sweet. Thank you. I am loving seeing all these photos. I can't wait for Dino's! I get to relive the wedding. Shawn was so happy he was beaming and I just love seeing that - over and over I don't get tired. Plus, when I was in the moment I missed SO many things.

Quote: Originally Posted by A10CALGAL Thanks for the info & pics Karla! So, I guess what I'm thinking, based on the hair/makeup situations described by Janet, is that this would be a fun place to have a girls spa party the day before the wedding. I probably won't book them to do my wedding hair & makeup. You know, I had a spa party at the Hilton. It was fabulous. Their massage therapist are really great. We had about 15-20 people there and everyone said either, "That's the best massage I've had" or "That's the best massage I've had in a long time." I had two massages and found them great. Just a thought - you might want to consider them. They gave me a 20% discount for having a group there.

Hi Everyone, So, to throw a wrinkle in this for you Janet - I went there for a trial on Thursday and they didn't bother to explain to me that Bambi wasn't going to be doing my hair, they just showed me to Dani. Yours is the first explanation that I had. Dani was nice. She's young, though. At my trial, we had to do it twice before we had something that would work. I wore it for the rest of the day and realized that there wasn't anyway that the style would hold so when I went in on Saturday, we had to reconfigure it for a third time. I was asking for a simple updo so this shouldn't have been a problem (and hasn't been any of the other times I've had updos). In the end, it was fine - it stuck out a bit in the back, but the pins didn't hurt and that was the most important thing given that I was going to be wearing them for so long. I didn't love how she did the pieces hanging down, but I was really more excited to get married than I was worried about my hair. I had also had an updo done at the Hilton on a site visit. It was just as good but a lot cheaper. In retrospect, I would have been happy with the Hilton (they did a great job on my bridesmaid's hair) who also did my makeup and it looked good. I wasn't impressed with Hive, but it was fine. I've seen other girls on this site who have had really beautiful hair (Meaghan - who did yours?) so I would say shop around.

Thanks - FYI, I just put a password on this. It's cabo

Hi Everyone. OK - we still don't have our photos back from the photographer (we had him for 6 hours), but here is something that I put together from photos sent by friends and family. I will load the rehearsal dinner photos in tomorrow night. I'm going to give this a shot and see if it works. I'm trying a new photo hosting site and it's invite only, but maybe if you click on this link it will work? [email protected] Pass: Cabo In the meantime, here's one of my favorites

I worked with Maye and the hotel had an onsite coordinator as well. I really liked working with Maye and highly recommend her. She did a great job pre-wedding and during the wedding she supervised the vendors that she contracted. If your hotel has an onsite coordinator - all the better. I clearly delineated jobs for our onsite vs. what Maye was doing. The hotel coordinator was the face on the ground (coordinating the photographer with us cutting the cake with the fireworks in the background starting as we cut the cake) and Maye was behind the scenes. It really went smoothly.

Totally agree with Rebecca - we had Dino for 6 hours (one hour before the ceremony until 9 that night). One of my favorite things that I did was have the photographer for a long time. I don't think 30 minutes before the ceremony is enough. I definitely wanted shots of the guys before the wedding started in addition to shots of me and the bridesmaids. Of course, we have SO MANY photos that we haven't received them yet. Dino didn't take a break and he was shooting the whole time!

Yeah - I'm staying out of it. I've decided not to shadow on this one (as it's too hard not to jump in). Besides - I have to find my FIs birth certificate and go get my eyebrows done (ha ha).

Quote: Originally Posted by gkashmira I was leafing through Conde Nast Traveler's 2006 "Top 100 Readers' Choice Awards - Best of the World and saw a few that pertain to us Destination Brides/Grooms! I italicized the ones that are in Cabo or I've heard others talk about here on the forum... Top Resorts in Mexico: (with User rating out of 100 - I think) 1. La Casa Que Canta, Zihuatanejo 97.5 2. Royal Hideaway Playacar, Riviera Maya 93.5 3. JW Marriott, Cancún 92.5 4. Las Ventanas al Paraíso, Los Cabos 91.8 5. Villa del Sol, Zihuatanejo 87.4 6. Four Seasons Punta Mita 86.9 7. One&Only Palmilla, Los Cabos 86.0 8. Dreams, Cancún 85.9 9. Ritz-Carlton, Cancún 85.0 10. Hilton Los Cabos 84.9 (I was happy to see this on the list!) 11. Maroma Resort, Riviera Maya 83.9 12. Le Meridien, Cancún 83.2 13. Fiesta Americana Grand, Los Cabos 82.5 14. Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach, Cancún 81.8 14. Sheraton Hacienda del Mar, Los Cabos 81.8 (Another favorite of mine!) Woo Hoo - We're going to La Casa que Canta for the first part of our honeymoon!!!!

Sorry for the double post - can't figure out how to delete this

No - I'm not getting nervous. It's just funny that I had a contingency plan for everything at work (I'm like MM at work). I've delegated, we've done practice runs for things - we were all set. I'm even shadowing the teams of people these two days to make sure that they are set and know what they're supposed to do but I didn't anticipate fires. Not sure how that one slipped past me. My dilemma is that, technically, while I'm shadowing people, I should let the team handle this but my gut is DYING to kick in and get everything sewn up with plans out to our clients and the interviews canned before I leave on Wednesday.

ACK! A ton of our school districts and a few cities that use our product (emergency notification service) are surrounded by fires! This is when I'm supposed to be helping them with PR! I have a great PR team backing me, but I'm the company spokesperson and our CEO, well, it's not his strength. Darn fire season!

WARNING!!!! Before you leave for your wedding, have your FI try on his ring! We were playing around this morning and my FI tried on his ring (we leave Wednesday) and it's so big it fell off when he barely shook his hand. He's lost 10 pounds since we bought it. One more thing to add to the to do before we leave...

OK - now my dad (at the last minute after all details with the DJ were finalized and the wedding CDs for each room finalized) has called to say he wants to dance to something sentimental, meaningful, and slow. I really have an aversion to all those things above. Plus, I gave him a two months to provide input. UGH - I really don't want to dance to butterfly kisses - it will kill me!

My FI makes Mole from scratch - it takes all day! There is a mole starter sauce at William Sonoma - try that. I believe that they have a full recipe on the bottle.

I love that dress! I was trying to get my BMs to go with something similar, but they picked a formal dress. They would have been a lot more comfortable in this! The color sounds beautiful. Yay!

beautiful!!!!!

Oh YAY - so beautiful!

I took mine back to the bridal store with a rollie bag and they packed it up for me. We have a lot of stuff to carry and I didn't want to lug it around. They said that the way they packed it, it will be fine and I won't have to iron it - just hang it.

I love the A-line. Kash and Sarah, I'm still going to advocate starting with Brides by Liza - she TOTALLY knows how to fit to your body the best look. if she doesn't have it in the shop, she can draw it for you. It's a good way to get started so you better understand what to look for. There's another (high end) bridal shop across the street, but I got a bad vibe there. Not sure why - maybe it's just because I had such a good experience with Liza. Would love to meet you guys there! I'll buy you a drink at La Pergola after (just down the street).