KARLA

Yeay! Happy Birthday!

I was hoping for cooler weather during the ceremony, but it was really hot... It did not cool down until the sun went down. (At least this past week.) I didn't attach the program. I've seen some examples of that, and it did look cute. After tying the stupid ribbon for hours on the fans, I did not even want to look at them again, much less do more work with them. I'm pretty crafty, yet somehow the ribbon tying took me forever...

Quote: Originally Posted by Natalie M Thanks Karla, Ya i'm addicted to this forum now! I just feel if I'm not on I'm going to miss out on great info right away!! Thanks for anwsering all my questions. I was thinking about doing white calla lilies and i liked the amount you had, and I also liked the color. I'm so torn on what to do with flowers. If you don't mind can you give me an estimate on how much your flowers were. I was debating between either the parasols or the fans. I still can't decide. I loved the ribbon on yours though. Do you have any thought on which one to go with? Thanks There are 2 types of calla lilies available in Cabo. National or imported. The difference is in the size. The national are a bit skinnier and have thicker stems. That means that you can't have as many in a bunch as you could in an imported bouquet. The cost is a big difference also. The bouquet of the imported was quoted at $200. My bouquet was national callas for $115. After I got the explanation above, I thought my bouquet was going to be really thin, but it was actually really full and I thought just the right size for a bridal bouquet. So I would recommend saving money and going for the national calla lilies. Oh, my calla lilies were actually painted. The natural pink calla lilies were not strong enough of a color for me, so I got them painted to that deep color. Parasol or fans.... well, it depends. I got fans for every seat (men and women), not sure if you would provide parasols for the men also. Also, depending of the amount you want to carry with you to Cabo. The fans packed pretty flat and were super light. I would think Parasols would take a considerable amt of suitcase space.

Quote: Originally Posted by Natalie M Karla, sorry I have questions for you as well. 1- Where did you get your fans from and did you have to tie on the blue ribbon at the bottoms of them? Did alot of people use them? 2- Who did your centerpieces? 3- Do you remember how many calla Lillies you had in your bouquet? 4- What time was your ceremony at? Thanks. Again I loved all of your pictures and you looked beautiful! Hi Natalie M! I see you've gotten quite hooked on the forum (like me) in the past couple of weeks! I don't mind answering your questions at all!! 1 - Got the 10" rafia fans from oriental trading company online http://www.orientaltrading.com/ I got the ribbon and Michael's to match the BM dresses and wrapped and tied for a hours! Lots of people used them, it was VERY hot that day. 2 - The florist my wedding planner contracted was called Rossy. I wanted something really elegant and modern, I think they totally hit the nail on the head! Like I said... I loved all my flowers!! 3 - I think my bouquet has a dozen calla lilies. 4 - Ceremony was set to start at 4 PM.... but we did not get to the restaurant until 4:30 PM (my parents were late, older sister was freaking out looking for her hubby and baby, don't get me started!!)... ceremony started probably around 4:40 PM. We had to rush around to get pics at the beach though, since we were almost an hour behind schedule.

Quote: Originally Posted by AQHARIDER I can't believe the nerve of some people sometimes. Why would you steal starfish from a bride? That's just tacky! I've wondered if my guests would want them or not- I had heard that they smell funny, hmm...have to think about that one. Sarah, They are a bit stinky, but I kept them in a bag the whole time. Maybe you can air them out for a few days prior to giving them out. I'm not sure if she took them... I don't want to throw accusations out, but yeah.... ugh... aggravating situation! -Karla

Quote: Originally Posted by EDYTA Thank you Karla and Tammy for the prices on dinner, I really wanted to go outside the DREAMS resort on our honeymoon for a great dinner, and the One and Only sounds so perfect but also very expensive for me. Karla, when you have the time I would really appreciate if you posted the info for sunset and the other dinner jazz cruise. I am mainly looking for a group activity for about 16 of us the night before our wedding. Something just really nice and a time to mingle...or should I look into on of the snorkeling trips? Any advice would be great Edyta, I'm still not in the swing of work.... so I'd rather be chasing this stuff down anyway! Okay, we took the Princesa Sailing Cruises: http://www.loscabosguide.com/laprincesa/index.html It is a very casual cruise, catamaran with beer and some mixed drinks. We made reservations two days before we went and they seemed to have plenty of room. The Jazz cruise is this one: http://www.loscabosguide.com/tropicatcabo/index.html http://www.tropicatcabo.com/ It is a Sunset Jazz and Wine Cruise and it's supposed to be a little nicer. This one fills up fast. While we were there, some of our guests tried to get a reservation and they could not. Hope this helps. -Karla

You're welcome Natalie. If you have a Nordstroms nearby, go look at the Nardi earrings. They are absolutely beautiful in person. I was like a kid in a candy store when I saw them and could not decide which ones I liked best, esp since I was having a hard time finding earrings I liked. The crystals in them really shine and the designs are really intricate. Now that I think about it, I wished I had gotten a better close up of them in my pics. I absolutely loved them!

Quote: Originally Posted by TOESNTHESND Again the pics are perfect! If you dont mind me asking a few questions? Are those real flowers in your hair? Where did you get your earrings and shoes? I know ten questions but I just want to know where to look when it comes time to pick out those details. Thanks Not a problem! I don't mind sharing, most of the ideas I got evolved from other brides sharing. I did not want to mess with real flowers, but wanted something that looked real. I got the Classic gardenia set from Late Bloomer Boutique at http://store.latebloomerboutique.com/clgabrset.html The earrings are Nadri, I found them at Nordstrom. Here's the link to it online in silver, I got them in gold from the store in NC. http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2910914/...bo=2376882&P=1 The shoes were also from Nordstrom in Champagne satin, and they were a STEAL!! http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2904321/...bo=6008481&P=1

Ha ha.... big concern of mine also! Most of our friends, even though married and some even with VP titles at their companies, still act like 18 year olds when we all get together. We had a couple of incidents at the beach getting roudy. The wait staff was very discreet letting us know to quiet or settle down, but yes, I could tell we were annoying some people, others wanted to join in... Overall it was fine though. Most of our guests partied on until 2-3 am at the beach almost every night... they took buckets of beer out there, and they were enough out of ear shot that they didn't bother anybody. You know... sometimes sucked being the bride and groom... they didn't tell us they were going out there cause they didn't want to "bother us". We were like... "Hello?? we want to party too!" Oh well!

Who to invite... it's such a tough question with a non-traditional wedding! At first, we were going to invite EVERYBODY, co-workers, old friends we barely talk to anymore, parent's friends, etc... Then we thought about it, did we honestly want all these people we didn't care to entertain for SEVERAL DAYS in a foreign country with us? The answer was NO! So...we sat down and made a list, and tried to limit the number of Save the Dates to about 50. We ended up sending about 65 formal invitations out, once we added people out of obligation... extended family, etc... We originally budgeted for 60 people to attend. After the Save the Dates we had a huge response from people saying how excited they were to go. A few months later I asked for people to RSVP on the website and almost nobody RSVPd. A few months after that, we had about 50-60 verbal confirmations. We did end up having close to 50 confirmations, but for different reasons people had to actually cancel plane tix, etc... We even had a couple of cancellations days before the wedding!! We ended up having 40 guests. I think you just never know.... we were just going with the attitude of whoever shows up, shows up!

Sorry, I logged off last night shortly after my last message. Our first dance was to At Last by Etta James. That would be a good one... not sure if it was just too slow.... and I know, predictable, but that's the only song that teared me up! Esp, since I really thought about Tim, "geez, finally I found you!!"

Quote: Originally Posted by host and if you have a song you want to use, let me know...especially if you have it as an mp3 or something. I will try to find something.... that's a hard one, any suggestions?

Ha ha, it's addictive! Honestly, I would not have been as comfortable having the wedding in Cabo without all the reviews. That's why I made sure to post one ASAP and make it long and thorough. Tim agreed that it was important to give back since other people's reviews helped us out so much.

Great, thank you again! I'll probably send sometime later on this week.

Quote: Originally Posted by NHPT i like: yummy scented candles itunes gift cards cool scarves cute trendy jewlery lotions picture frames I like all of these!! Thanks Nichole, made my list so easy!

Quote: Originally Posted by host karla, is francisco going to make a slideshow to music? if not, i can make one...not as good as the pros but i can add music, etc... No, Francisco's website does not have the slideshows. SERIOUSLY?? That would be absolutely fantastic!! OMG, that is so nice, I can't even begin to tell you!

Ok, slightly longer slideshow we created: http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slidesho...Uy=cyxwyj&Ux=0 FYI - not all those pics are done by Francisco. We had to put some of our own at the end.

Quote: Originally Posted by JANET1111 (and Andrew is silently like "If you don't shut up about "your other brides" I'm gonna kill you....") OMG that cracked me up.... I think Tim was about to kill me too. Let's see... I looked for Maria Elena at Pueblo Bonito Rose, I talked about you at Cabo Surf, agonized over the starfish for Natasha and whined that I didn't get to meet her, and talked about Rebecca everytime we drove past Dreams.

Quote: Originally Posted by gkashmira I like it! I especially like that you were able to pick up stuff while down there for these bags... that was one of the things I was worrying about - how am I going to get 75 sets of all these things down there? Buying it there makes a lot of sense! Yeah, we kept it simple and bought most everything down there. The one thing that was a pain was the water bottles. Tim's parents were able to get them wholesale price because they bought other personalized things for our AHR in Austin. So they filled one large suitcase with them, and then they used the empty suitcase to take my dress back with them to Austin.

We tried to do cake boxes w/ the cake sort of like favors and everybody left without them! I would not waste my money unless something does strike any of you as a must have! Our OOT bags were also a huge hit. We had really colorful bags from Oriental Company screen printed with a design with our names, wedding date and Cabo San Lucas (I'll post a pic this weekend probably when I get around to posting all the pics.) Everybody used them as their beach bags. We included one of the following per person: -bottle of water (from City Club in Cabo) -mini Pringle cans (from City Club in Cabo) -personlized koozie -32oz water bottle w/ straw (for those mixed drinks.... or soda.... ha) We also added a Los Cabos guide per bag from our wedding planner, every guest found it really useful. And of course, the welcome letter with useful info and an itinerary.

Quote: Originally Posted by gkashmira Karla - that is terrible about the starfish. I know you must have felt awful (though I'm sure Natasha was fine). It's hard to imagine 40 people keeping the starfish but who knows... Dont' worry - Natasha is wonderful and very sweet and I think out of a lot of us one of the most level-headed brides we have. I'm sure she totally understood and was fine! Thanks Kash. Honestly Natasha was super cool about it. I think I just made it worse because I felt so badly about it... and then not being able to take them to her on time, etc.... in my mind it just kept snowballing, yet I'm sure it probably barely registered in the grand scheme of things with a bride-to-be. The responses I've gotten from some of my friends have cracked me up thought... - I did take mine... oh no, you want them back?!? - Eww, no, they were smelly. - No, but I should have! I was too enibreated to think about it. Ok, at least it is somewhat amusing....

Quote: Originally Posted by host awww...karla, i understand why you feel so bad...i hate to say it but my gut tells me that she kept your starfish...i feel this way because of the candle situation...and also, that is alot of missing starfish with only 2 people copping to keeping them. oy vey... i am sorry you feel this way. i hope things turned out ok with natasha...i am going to keep my fingers crossed that they did... I know... that's what my gut tells me too, but I have no proof, so I really don't want to throw out accusations. Still, it was just little things that kept making me be less and less satisfied. Oh well, her only saving grace was how beautiful everything looked! After the Friday rehearsal, my expectations plumeted, yet everything looked better than what I requested!

Quote: Originally Posted by NICTREINEN Tammy - so what did you think of Fransisco Estrada? That's who photographed your wedding, right? We are unsure about the contract he sent us for our April wedding, and I just wanted to get your feeling on the matter. I highly recommend him, he was really great at our wedding! Check out the pics I posted under Share your engagement/wedding photos. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thank you guys so much for all the compliments!! Quote: Originally Posted by EDYTA k this might be a weird question, but where did u get your nails done? lol sry they just look so perfect I got them done here in Raleigh before I left.... I didn't want to take the chance that I'd be too busy to get them done when I got to Cabo.

Tim did get sick after the wedding, and we have narrowed it down to the breakfast at Pueblo Bonito Rose, or one of the drinks he had from the pool bar. The thing is that nobody else was sick that night, so it was just him and I had his drink also.... I think it's just very individual, and you never can really tell where it comes from. I ate salads and plenty of mixed drinks and I was fine.