MikkiStreak

So far, the 2 we're trying to get info back from are Dreams PV and Club Marival in Neuvo Vallarta. But at this point, we're open to other resorts too. We haven't made our final decision on which resort to get married at.

For those of you who were married at a resort and only used the resort's coordinator: How did the deposits / pmts work? If you went through a travel agent, did you have to pay everything up front or did you make payments? Once the reservation was made at the hotel, did you have to do a deposit on the wedding expenses at the resort, or pay in full when you got there? I'm really trying to figure out if we need to wait until May / June to start booking our trip and wedding stuff when we have more money, or whether payment arrangements are made for all this....

How exactly does the All-Inclusive plan at resorts work? I know different resorts have different policies, but I'm curious about some of the "in's and out's" of AI plans. For example, I read a review on a website where the person was talking about checking in and some of her guests were "Gold" standard and got more "dinner vouchers", and another person commenting on having to make dinner reservations 2 days in advance for the a la carte restaurants, etc... So I'm starting to get the impression that going AI isn't as simple as just walking from your room to the restaurant you want to dine in and actually getting seated and served. What has everyone's experience been with the different resorts for these policies?

And this is another one of Raven that I changed with PrintShop to put on a postcard to my daughter when she was away at school...

Let's see if this works--- This should be a picture of Raven... My daughter took this with my camera phone when we went to Iowa for vacation last year...

Welcome! I'm new too, but am this is already becoming yet another wedding addiction (bridal magazine, bridal shows, bridal TV shows, food tastings, cake tastings, etc...).

ATJORGENSON: I notice your profile mentions the Quad Cities---- as in IA? (I was born there and have family in the IC/CR area that I see a couple times a year)... As for the budget thread, I am extremely simple and practical. We have about $12K to spend if we want to on travel/wedding/reception. My plan is to spend about $4K on a 10 day AI stay, and at most $5K for the rest (including attire, but not including rings). I was an art major in college, so a lot of stuff I can do myself like flowers, altho transporation is the issue there, as well as invites, monograms, table cards, place cards, etc... Since the photography is a large portion of the budget, I'm torn between loading my equipment and even doing that myself with a tripod for the formal photos and then just have family take the ceremony/reception photos for us. I think it can be done, it just depends on how many people you expect to have at the wedding and how fancy you want it. We're having about 30 people and since I'm not in too much of a rush, if we don't have all the money to do things the way we want, we'll just postpone for awhile...

Very nice! Understated elegence! I could easily see some wine bottles with custom labels sitting by the candles and using the label/bottle as the Table Number Card. (I have way too much time on my hands to think of stuff...)

We are going to start meeting with a couple travel agents to discuss the wedding/honeymoon. For those of you who booked a wedding group and your own travel through a TA, what questions did you ask? More importantly, what questions *didn't* you ask that you wish you would have?

I'm trying to think of options for the Unity part of the ceremony. It seem like the candle or sand ceremonies are widely done, but does anyone have suggestions for other options? I read on a forum or in a magazine a while back about one couple who got married on the beach but wanted to tie the religious background into the ceremony, so the couple had a basin of water and they washed each other's feet (groom's idea).

For those of you who have ordered monograms from a business: What is the file type they send it back to you in? Also, is there a reason for hiring a business to do it for you rather than DIY? (as in, is there something different about the file type that prints better or make the monogram 'work better' than DIY?) I was playing around on the computer the other night and started copying a lot of the monograms that I've seen on Creative Montage and other sites. It isn't difficult, but I hadn't printed any of them yet, so I didn't know if the professional ones print better or something...

Has anyone on here been married at Marival in Neuvo Vallarta? I read on another bride form that some of the wedding package prices include dinner for all the guests. The bride who posted it said she paid about $1300 and it included a cocktail and sit-down dinner for approximately 30 guests of hers. I was wondering if anyone else had experience with resorts that include private dinners for the reception as part of the package (but for beyond 10-20 people)?

We're thinking of doing some cheap t-shirts. Our colors are black, teal and sunset orange. My thought was to divide the guest list in 2, then put one color of t-shirts in half the bags and the other color in the rest. (I'm an art freak, so I plan on designing the shirts myself.) My thought was to ask them wear them to the welcome dinner and then after dinner, divide the two colors into "teams" and come up with some type of game or something to play so the bride and groom guests can mingle and get to know each other. We're also having a smaller wedding that is mostly comprised on immediate family and friends who know the family (and we're all a bunch of partying people. Hell, we even managed to turn Christmas gift exchanges into a drinking game this year!). There are a small handful of guests who won't know anyone except me or my fiancee.

If you really have a hard time picking out 1-2 colors, go online and look at color wheels. If you choose 2 colors that are opposite of each other on the color wheel, they will be visually appealing in their contract. You can also choose complimentary colors (hues that sit next to each other on the color wheel). (Think that's correct--- art school was quite awhile ago for me...) I feel like our wedding is going to be so stereo-typical of beach weddings, but we really like the teal/turquoise shade with black to emphasize it. But the bouquets are going to be sunset orange...

I grew up Catholic and am marrying into a Catholic, Mexican family. The rosary is a series of prayers in a specific order, beginning with the Apostle's Creed (if I remember correctly) and then it procees with 10 Hail Mary's, then The Lord's Prayer, then 10 Hail Marys, then The Lord's Prayer, etc... I can't remember how many times it repeats this pattern, tho. Typically the rosary has a person leading the prayer. They will say the initial Apostle's Creed and then they will recite the first line or two of each following prayer. After they lead, everyone else joins him/her with the remainder of the prayer. If you choose to add something like this to the wedding, be prepared to take 20 minutes to recite the whole rosary (or longer depending on how quickly everyone chants the prayers). Be careful how this is handled tho if you choose not to implement Catholic traditions in your ceremony. I know that my in-laws are die-hard Catholics (father was a deacon, sister works for the diocese at the historical Cathedral downtown, brothers are members of the Knights of Columbus) and the idea that we are getting married on a beach is *very* difficult for them to deal with. The Catholic church has mandated that all weddings be performed inside the church and only those weddings performed by the Catholic church are blessed by God. (At least, that's the Catholic view I've come across the most)...

We have been engaged for several months now and are trying to determine where in the Caribbean we want to get married (St. Thomas, Puerto Vallarta or Jamaica). Our date is 12-01-07.