rodent

I think sunset was around 8:30 on our wedding day, but it is the solstice so that is really late. I'd do this schedule if I planned it all again: Dinner in my room while getting ready pre-wedding pictures together at 6 for 30 minutes ceremony at 7 immediately followed by champagne toast (b/c it was part of the package). With more people we would have done margaritas. It's cheaper & most of our guests would prefer them. I'd would have liked to have a band play starting when we walked down the aisle to kick off the party. and play for about an hour - 1 1/2. During that time we'd do group pictures & sneak away for a bit to take some romantics. The last hour before sunset is such a beautiful time for photography. After about an hour, we'd call it a night. I really didn't want a full blown reception. It's just something I don't think I would have enjoyed. I prefered the other days with our guests, because I didn't like having the role of Bride. I think I would have enjoyed a band to take some of the attention off us.

We did the semi-private dinner in the mexican restaurant as our reception. We only had 23 guests & they let us squeak by over the 20 person limit. This was our schedule 4:00 ceremony champagne served on beach right after group picture then everyone dispersed & we went off & took pictures for about an hour. This is when people ate ice cream & did whatever. At 6:30 we met back up for dinner at the mexican restaurant. We went back to our room after & some of our guests went to the disco. They had a blast. We heard all about it the next morning. The big story was my brother doing a dance routine to Whams Wake me up before you go go. Another option to skip the formal reception, would be to have a 3-piece band play right after the ceremony & just have a little party right then. It would be wrapped up before dinner & people could do their own thing. If I planned it all again, I'd probably make the ceremony later in the day so it ended around sunset and have a mariachi band & a beach party. We got married on the longest day of the year, so there was plenty of sunlight for people to have dinner on their own, then the ceremony & then a beach party. Just something short like an hour would be long enough for us. Our guests went off & did all sorts of things the day of the wedding, so I don't think they would have cared if there wasn't a dinner & all of that. I think people were pretty worn out. I know we were. I probably wouldn't change a thing, because I loved our wedding day. But, that would also be a fun way to do it. I didn't want a really late wedding, because I didn't want to feel stuck in my room all day. You can always decide to just avoid seeing each other once you are ready. OK I'm going to think about my ideal timeline if not doing a full on private reception...

This is the article I read about locks of love that made me want to sell my hair myself & donate the money http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/fashion/06locks.html I hate to imagine it just getting tossed in the trash after I've spent so long detangling this mop to grow it out.

I called the aveda school where I get my hair cut to see how the handle donations. They said that if you do locks of love they will mail it for you & give you 50% off the haircut. If you want to send it to pantene, you have to mail it yourself. I'll probably just do locks of love. I had read some articles about them before that made me not so sure if they run the charity well, so I was looking at other options. But, it's better than just throwing it away. It mostly sounds like they get more hair than they can keep up with & would prefer cash donations. That is why I thought I'd sell the hair & donate the way I wanted. but, I'm finding I'm not patient enough to wait for a buyer. people want to buy freshly cut hair so you can't just chop it & wait. I'm leaving my ad on hairtrader just to see if I ever get a real offer. I'll let people know how it goes incase anyone wants to try that. So far I just had someone ask if I'd let them give me a military cut as a hair model. Nope! I like my hair, but I'm too lazy to ever fix it. I have it in a ponytail every day so I'd be happy to know someone out there is wearing it down & treating it the way it deserves. I have my new contacts in now. It took me about an hour to get them in the first time. I was so embarrassed with how much time I took up. I was able to get them in on one try after that, but I just couldn't get past the initial freakout.

OK I'm off for my contacts fitting. I'm scared!

Quote: Originally Posted by carly Morgan, we need before and after pics, you know, right? We need to see how long your hair is! Plus the before and after for contacts as well. Total teen movie makeover. good idea. I need a picture of glasses + pony tail and then a contacts + short hair pic. I'll make a "She's all that" movie poster for it, too Here are my pictures I posted on hairtrader. They are censored to protect my idenity on that site, not here.

here is a link if you want a larger version of the picture http://i572.photobucket.com/albums/s...apher/hair.jpg

My hair was really short June 07 when we got engaged. I immediately started to grow it out after that to get it long enough for an updo at the wedding. After a year of growing, I thought it would be a shame to cut it without growing it long enough to donate. So I let it grow another year. I was going to sell my hair on hairtrader & donate the money. So now my ad is up & I don't think I can wait another month to chop my hair off. It is really hard to brush now & gets so tangled. It bothers me when I work out since it's so heavy. So I think I'm just going to chop & send the pony tail to Pantene Beautiful Lengths: Donate Hair for Cancer Patient Wigs . I have a hair appointment for next saturday. I'm going from hair down to the middle of my back to a short bob. I thought I'd post my inspiration pics incase someone else is planning the post wedding chop, too. I'm also getting contacts this morning, so I've joked that I'm doing the teen movie makeover of going from glasses & a pony tail to contacts & a sassy haircut. I can't wait!

we just set our guests free. Some ate ice cream at the creperie. Others went to the bar. basically,e veryone just returned to their favorite spot at the hotel. Some watched us take pictures from afar. I didn't know they were watching until I saw their pictures of us taken from way back. overall i don't think you need to schedule anything because it's so easy to entertain yourself at an AI.

hope it all works out. This isn't a busy season, so even with the closing you should be fine with crowding.

It's against the rules to ask people to email templates to you. Otherwise, people who shared several templates get bombarded with PMs asking them to email templates. And you can see from this thread how any time someone shares something it will just turn into a thread of people asking for it to be emailed. Be sure to read the FAQ linked in every moderators signature. The rules really make a ton of sense & prevent problems that could really mess the forum up. If you've ever spent time on a forum lacking rules you can see how it quickly goes down hill.

I am so excited to see your wedding pictures!!! They are going to be amazing. Everything looks awesome!

When people think the system is dumb, I assume they don't know that there is a cost to each file attached & downloaded. So if you want to upload to the forum & then download from your work computer, you just used up a decent amount of bandwidth which has a cost. The former point system kept people from over-downloading. If you could download all you want, what would stop people from downloading the same file 10 times, instead of saving it on their computer to find later? Without the new system, there would be so many people joining BDW, downloading everything they can find, and never contributing. All of that makes the forum more expensive to run. I thought points made a lot of sense, but people kept complaining. Now people keep complaining about the post count. There has to be a system to limit downloads. It's not just in place to aggrivate people.

oh my! that is out of control. He is pretty though.

great job!

Quote: Originally Posted by Meyer2010 Wow... small world! To tell you the truth, that is mainly why we picked the CAT. Because of the wood walkway down by the beach. She will be able to use her walker down there and still be able to participate in other activities. Since she can't be in the sun for very long I will try and reserve her a cabana everyday! Plus, I will call the airlines a week before we leave to have a wheelchair waiting for her when she gets off the plane. I can't wait to hear how your wedding goes! When do you head down there? The airports took very good care of my dad. He also got to bypass the lines for customs since he was escorted by a airport staff member pushing the wheelchair. We requested a handicap room, too.

Quote: Originally Posted by Meyer2010 Awww... Morgan! That is so cute your mom was able to be included in the ceremony! My mom keeps telling me she wants to be a part of it too. I just may have to include her. I think having her walk me from our room to the site would be perfect! my mom walked me all the way, because my dad is in a wheelchair. I've seen people have both parents walk them in when their parents are not divorced. Mine are. My step dad stood in the back of the tent until my mom sat down, because he didn't want to sit infront of my dad. This wasn't something we planned. I wondered why he was standing & my mom explained it later. So something that could have worked, if my dad could have walked me down the aisle, would have been to have my mom walk me from my room & hand me off to my dad. Then my stap dad could have escorted my mom to her seat after we had passed by. You'd have to think about the transitions & how it will look.

Quote: Originally Posted by koolatta oh, one more question. One girl on trip advisor complained that the cake should not stay out as bugs are all over the cake by the time you eat it. Did you ladies keep your cake in the back until it was time for the cake cutting? Thanks again!! they used to do the cake on the beach if you wanted, but had to many issues with it. Probably bugs like the girl complained about. Now you can not get your cake served on the beach. Ours was served with dinner. It was inside so no worries about bugs. They brought it out right before we ate it. actually, it might have been sitting in the area outside the resturants where there is a bar. it's inside, but they may have left it there. I didn't see it, but our photographer took a picture of it. it's a picture I posted on this thread when we were talking about cakes. Does it sound like that is where she had the bug issue?

see the pier in the background? You can also see how long the aisle of sand is that you walk in on.

Quote: Originally Posted by koolatta For those of you who were married at the cat already maybe you can help me. It is a niightmare deciding who will walk me down the aisle. i know i def want my mom to take part in it but my stepdad and uncle who have been apart of my life forever would also like to do it. Is the aisle long enough for the 2 guys to walk me part of the way to my mom and my mom could walk me the rest of the way? Please say yes...hehe yes. My mom walked me from the hotel room to the ceremony spot. Our path was from the room, past the pool & then down a pier that is along the beach to prevent erosion. Once you get to the peir, you can see the ceremony site. Someone could walk you down the pier & then another down the sand. Or you could trade off right under the tent. It's a long walk with some changing scenery so you could plan something that would work nicely. If you look at my wedding pictures, it makes mroe sense.

Maybe they just really like gift bags

Sorry, I have just one more thing to add. Buying a non-maternity dress & altering it can take a lot of time & money. A friend of mine had to get a dress altered for a wedding where she was 6 months along. It was another $200 to buy the extra material & get alterations. By the time of the wedding, the dress was too tight. So she had to uncomfortably squeeze into it & then it ripped at one point. You have to time your fittings just right, because your size is changing. Life is just so much easier if you can avoid things like this. Especially at a DW when you can get away with more flowy, casual dresses.

one helpful thread http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...reviews-21375/ and another (it will be outdated, because they have added more styles tot he collection) http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...dresses-21315/ I think I needed about 14 weeks to get the dress in from Chrissy O's the discount site I ordered it from. The other girls went to a bridal salon & paid about twice as much. Plus they had to pay rush delivery because they waited to order. It fit right out of the box with no need for alterations, which was a plus. Your sister will probably know in enough time if she will be pregnant. if not, she could always order one of the maternity ones anyway. They were not obviously maternity & then she will have a cute little dress to wear while pregnant.

Sometimes and empire waste is tight around the belly at the top & wouldn't work. Also, you need the front to be longer. For the last wedding I was in, we had our choices of dresses from the after 6 collection. Search & you'll find a thread I posted with pictures of all the options. There were several very cute maternity dresses. One of the girls (who is not pregnant) got the maternity dress just because it was cute. We all got to pick our own style from any in a certain color & fabric. There were around 15 choices. These were shorter dresses. Overall, I would suggest just finding an option that is easy. Don't focus so much on finding the perfect bridesmaid dress. In the end it really doesn't make a huge difference in pictures if the bridesmaids have on a a great dress or one that is just OK. I've been in 9 weddings. It's really the color that impacts the pictures. The style of the dress is just kind of secondary. Most BM dresses are kind of generic anyway. trying to conceive is so stressful you don't want to add to that with fears about fitting into a dress. And wouldn't you hate for her to wait only to have trouble getting pregnant after the wedding? I know I've waited so long to start a family that once I'm ready I wouldn't let anything hold me back an extra day. I'll hunt down the threads with the dresses I wore in the last wedding. They looked awesome in pictures.

I coworker showed this to me a few weeks ago. It is so funny. I wonder what I would ahve done at that age. There are several other versions of it on youtube. The one you posted was our favorite, but there are more fun ones to watch.