TA Lindsay

Beautiful pictures Laura!!!! Congratulations! Lindsay

haha - I hope so Ann!!! I'm so jealous - those pics Nicole gave us the link to look so amazing... Now I am wanting to go back and do it all over again!!!!! 'sigh. I miss wedding planning. Now it's just house renovations! Lindsay

Yes, Ann is right, if you do the intimate, you share the boat, and possibly the buffet line - but your ceremony area is private. Nicole recommended for us right from the start, with 30 people, to have the deluxe package, she said it allows for much more time, and things won't be as rushed. We only had 33 total - and it was perfect, I don't think I would have wanted to do the intimate - it was so awesome having a boat/boat crew etc. all to ourselves! Lindsay

I walked down the aisle to the Somewhere Over the Rainbow from 50 first dates, then after we were pronounced Husband and Wife, we walked back down the aisle to I'm a Believer from Shrek - it was a nice upbeat song and lots of fun! Lindsay

Yay! I'm getting so excited to hear about all of your upcoming weddings - I can't wait to see everyone's pics!!!! Lindsay

Hi! Welcome to the forum! Congrats on choose Las Caletas. Just thought I'd let you know that we had our wedding and reception at Caletas and it cost around $8000 US - not sure what it was Canadian (just under $10K maybe) So it is very much possible. We didn't have very many add-ons, mostly just flowers for the BM's and the Fire Dancers. If you want to email me your questions, feel free, I was married at Caletas on February 14th (hence, the username! LOL) My email is [email protected]. It would probably be easier for you to email me your questions, instead of me emailing you a bunch of stuff that you may or may not need/want. I can tell you one thing, Nicole, the WC at Las Caletas is amazing, she was SO AWESOME to work with, and she made our dream wedding a reality. Hope to hear from you soon! Lindsay

Yes, they do have a covered area (which is used as a restaurant for the evening shows, and was just being built when we were there. It is a very beautiful area, but you can't really see the beach from there or anything, it is more of a jungle setting, but it is sheltered from the rain and it is very beautiful. I unfortunately didn't get any pics of that area, but we sat up there and had dinner when we were on Rhythms of the Night (two weeks after our wedding) and it was quite beautiful. Lindsay

Yay! Ann, that's so exciting!! I can't wait to see pics of your dress!!!! I was a little nervous about my dress too, then when it FINALLY arrived, and I tried it on, it was still perfect and I still loved it...I'm sure you will too!!! PS: Look at your ticker!!! It says 1 month now!!!!!! (ok, 1 month and 4 weeks, so that's kinda like 2 months, but it still says 1 month!!!!!) yay!!!!! I'm getting so excited for you!!!! How is the planning going? Lindsay

Is it possible to borrow a video camera from someone (or have you got one of your own?) You could just do a video yourselves...that's what we ended up doing, one of our guests did the taping...then again, only having 3 guests, that could be a little difficult...hmmm... I like Courtney's suggestion - maybe try calling the videographer and see where it goes! Your wedding is so close now! Lindsay

I was gone for 3 weeks too!!!! 15 working days!!!! Oh how I'm going to miss summer vacation this year - I used up all of my days in February - it's going to be a looooooooong rest of the year! Lindsay

I feel the same way as you do Melissa!!! I had 6 disposable cameras, 2 of which were never returned to us, and the rest we spent $40 on developing, and we have MAYBE 6 good photos...the rest are all blurry and dark!!! I wish I would have known about it before hand, I definitely wouldn't have wasted the money. Oh well, lesson learned, now we can warn other brides!!!! Lindsay

Melissa, your pics are fabulous!!! You both look so incredibly happy!!! Congratulations!!! Lindsay

I wouldn't recommend wearing heels really either, everyone was barefoot for our ceremony, I'd just be too worried about the heel sinking through the mat... Marla, the reception (by the time you are finished dinner) is approx. 2 hours..but you have the option to extend your time by paying (in advance) $10 per person per hour (I think that is the cost). I think you could have two different types of music (mariachi or trio for the ceremony/cocktail hour and a band or dj for the reception/dance), as Ann is doing, without any problems. There is a 2 hour minimum, but I bet you just have to pay them for 2 hours, even if you don't want them to play for 2 hours... Lindsay

Hey Ladies!!! We're famous!!!!!! Our photographer said he was going to put our pictures in the local PV news paper Ambito, but it wouldn't be for a few weeks, well, I stumbled across the website for it today, and lo and behold, we just happen to be in this weeks edition: Ambito Puerto Vallarta - Welcome -News, Culture, Tourism, Events, People and Style Just click the link, then on the left hand side, click on "weddings" and there we are!!! I think it'll only be there until Sunday, so if it's gone, then click on "back issues" and it's the March 25th Edition!!! I'm so excited, hopefully Nicole will be able to send us a copy of the paper!!!! Lindsay

I agree with all of you!!! You can't get much more beautiful or breathtaking than that!!!! (and that's the basic package - no extras!!!!) Lindsay

Hmmm, That, I'm not really sure about, I will ask my hubbie when I see him tonight, but we didn't really see how it was hooked up or anything. I'm guessing it is just something plugged into the bottom of the Ipod, but it is a professional sound system, so it might be hooked up some other way, I'm not sure!!!! If you emailed Nicole, she may know the answer and be able to tell you! [email protected] is her email... Lindsay

Our original plan was to just play our ipod in "shuffle mode" (we had made a specific playlist for the dance portion) and just leave it, then if we wanted to change the songs or whatever, we could or one of our guests could, but what actually ended up happening was the cruise director who came on the boat with everyone ended up playing music for us the entire evening! He played music from both our Ipod and from his collection of CD's...not sure if this is a regular thing or if he was just bored or what, but he did a great job and we ended up giving him a tip, because we didn't pay for a DJ and he ended up almost being our DJ for us! Just in case this doesn't always happen, I would just have your ipod with the playlist with all the songs you want on it, and then just let it play, or you could assign one of your guests to handle it.... Lindsay

Eddie and I had flowers for our wedding, but we are ordering a personalized cake topper made to look like us for our At Home Reception! Nicole Wong does amazing work, her website is: Welcome I will post pics of our topper when we get it! Lindsay

"1. For some reason, I can only see your ceremony pictures and the bed. I can't view your bouquet, jacuzzi, dual shower, centerpieces, sitting area. Maybe it's just me." - Hmm, I'm not sure why it isn't working for you, the pictures are showing up on my computer! Hopefully you'll be able to see them! "2. Did you write your own vows?" - Yes, we did write our own vows, when the minister for the ceremony gets in touch with you, I think you have the option to either use the vows they have, or write your own. "3. Did you have to pay extra to have 7 people go over early?" - They allow you to go over early with 3 other people at no charge. We had to pay $70 for each person over the 4 people (so $210.00) "4. Would you recommend the sand ceremony? Which is better? Sand or hand?" - Yes, I would recommend the sand ceremony, it is a very nice touch to the ceremony, and I like the symbolism of it. I don't know which is better, I like the sand ceremony because of what it symbolizes, but I also like wording of the hand blessing...we had both in our ceremony. "5. Did you get a copy of the officiant's speech? I noticed that your mom posted it and it looked word for word." - Yes, we had the copy of the officiant's ceremony...actually we compiled the ceremony ourselves from a couple of different ones that Nicole/the minister sent me. This didn't happen until about 2 weeks before we left for Mexico, it was the last thing we did. Tamara (the minister) sent me her ceremony and Nicole sent me a couple of others and we took parts from each that we liked the best to make our own personal ceremony. Then we emailed it to Tamara and that was it! "6. What hotel did you stay at (it sounded far away!)?" - We stayed at the Decameron Los Cocos in a small town called Rincon de Guayabitos, about 1 hour north of Puerto Vallarta. It wasn't my first choice of hotels, but the prices couldn't be beat! (And the trip to this hotel was already planned and booked before we decided to get married down there!) "7. Where did you purchase the rose petals?" - Nicole arranged for the rose petals and she got them with our flower package. I think she got two bags. I would have liked to have more petals down the aisle and on the tables, but it seemed to work out ok. Nicole will probably recommend to you that you get petals and she will take care of it all. I think they are $25/bag. "8. Did you use the petals for the aisle as well as the tables?" - Yes, she used part of the bag on the aisle and the rest on the tables to add some colour. "9. Did you need to buy a 120V adapter for curling iron, etc?" - No, everything is the same as at home (US & Canada), you don't need any adapters or anything! "10. How did you choose your bouquet colors? Does Nicole have pictures?" - I didn't choose my bouquet colours at all! I told Nicole that I wanted something tropical, and I told her what flowers I did NOT like and told her to do whatever, so it was a total surprise to me...my only request was that they be tropical! I do believe Nicole has pictures of what types of bouquets you can get, and I'm sure if you have special requests or pictures of bouquets you like, she can arrange to have them made according to what you want. "11. Did you steam your gown? Where?" - Surprisingly, no, I didn't have to steam my gown once we got to Las Caletas. We thought for sure we would have to, but we opened up the garment bag and it was perfectly fine! My seamstress steamed it before she packed it away for us in January, and that was it! We did bring a travel iron, just in case it needed some pressing or anything, but it was good! They do have an ironing board you can use at Las Caletas. Otherwise, you could probably arrange with your hotel to have your dress steamed before the day of the wedding, if it needs it. "12. Did you have special sandals made?" - My mom made me a pair of "barefoot sandals" which are just like beaded toe ring/anklet things, I will see if I have any pictures of them....that was all I wore, I was barefoot all night! We did do a few pictures with our "Just Married" flip flops, but that was it! I was barefoot the rest of the time! "13. What was in your OOT bags?" - Oh my goodness, we had SO much stuff in our bags! We had a notebook and pen, a shower poof thing, some seashell soaps that I made, a small tin with tropical skittles in it, tic tacs, lanyard things for the room keys, hand sanitizer, a thank you note from Eddie and I, a currency converter chart for everyone, plus we had personalized travel mugs made up (these were given out to everyone before the trip for them to pack themselves) and I made luggage tags for everyone as well! I was a busy girl before we left!!! Everything was put into plastic beach bags that I got from Dollarama. They went over very well and everyone used them all week! It was great! "14. Were you able to taste the different cake flavors on your site inspection visit? I was wondering what the Tres Leches cake would taste like." - No, we weren't able to taste the cake flavours on our site inspection....we never really thought about asking, so we just sort of took our chances with it (It was good!) You could maybe check with Nicole to see if you can taste the different flavours..? "15. Did you bring your own guest book?" - Yes, we brought our own guest book signature mat and acid-free pens for everyone to sign it with us....Nicole had it set up for us on a table, "16. What exactly did you need to bring to use your Ipod?" - All we had to bring was our Ipod! They have all the cables/speakers/everything there, and it worked great! "17. And lastly, did you sweat a lot?!!!!! I just know my makeup will run all over the place!!" - I didn't find it too bad at all! It was quite breezy the day of our wedding, so maybe that helped to keep it cool, but I wasn't sweating too much, my makeup stayed on pretty good (except when I got the cake smashed into my face!) but other than that, I was pretty cool the whole time. I think this would depend on what time of year your wedding is. I know in the summer months, it is extremely humid down there, so you'd probably be sweating a whole lot more!!!! Lindsay, "You are truly great to share your story and advice. Thank you so very much." You're welcome! I'm glad I can help you out! Let me know if you need anything else, or if I can answer any other questions! Hope this helps! Lindsay

Ok, this is the ONLY pic I have that shows the shell ring pillow, it's kind of hard to see, but it's in the middle of the table in the front...it is the same shell as Tammy's, and it has a small satin pillow on it, with ribbons to tie the rings on and then we glued a silk yellow hibiscus flower on it as well... I will see if I can get a better pic of it and post it soon!!! (sorry, I thought I had a better one!!!) Lindsay

We had a seashell ring pillow!! I will see if I can find any pics of it when I get home! Everyone thought it was a great idea! (Unfortunately, we didn't have a ring bearer to carry it down the aisle though, we just had it up on the table at the front! Lindsay

Hi Marla! Yes, those are our fan programs, and I did make them! They took me a really long time, but it was worth it, they turned out really well, I got lots of compliments on them! I got the template from someone on another message board that I belong to, and FH and I put our own pictures and wording into the template, printed them, then I spent many hours cutting them out and laminating them! I can try to find the template for you if you like! We didn't get the video, we had a family friend video the whole day for us with our camera, but we didn't get the video from Vallarta Adventures. My understanding (from Ali's previous posts) is that it is a DVD and there are parts that are just with music, and then the ceremony you can hear the words, etc. (I'm not positive though) I'm sure that Ali would be able to help you out better than I can!! Hope that helps! Lindsay

Welcome! I just got married at Las Caletas on February 14th, it is a beautiful location!!! If you have any questions, or need anything, feel free to ask! Lindsay

Quote: Originally Posted by akh One question - the table set up, I see you have something on the plates, but other than that - is that all "stardard" with the package? I am trying to decide if I need/want to add anything (venterpieces, table runners, etc.), and I'm really not sure you need to! It looks beautiful! Yes, that setup was standard with the package. The only thing we added was rose petals...Nicole suggested that we add a couple of bags of petals for the aisle and then for along the table, so that was what we added. The things on the plates were our favors, personalized chocolate bars, and Nicole had her staff place them at each setting. I also asked my bridesmaids to place their boquets randomly in vases down the table, so they did that (Nicole had the vases there for them) and that was it! Other than that, that is the basic setup, all the candles, place settings, etc, are all the basic package! Nicole did have a selection of table runners to choose from, but the only color that really went with our colors was the yellow, and it wasn't the right yellow, so we decided to just use the plain white tablecloths and then have the colored rose petals along the centre of the table. (the yellow table runner can be seen in the pic of the table with our guest book-signature mat). Lindsay

A few more pictures: Dinner set up: And at night: Guest Book Table: Dance floor/bonfire setup: Us with the fan programs I worked SO HARD on to finish before our trip: Thanks for your patience with all of my posts!!!!! (Our Thank you card picture!) Phew, I'm Done, I PROMISE!!!!!