katrina

Beach: From my understanding, the whole area of Playacar in Mexico gets hit pretty bad with erosion. So there are these huge sandbags there which everyone calls whales. There are a lot of bad reviews for this hotel on trip advisor because of the whales, but honestly, we didn’t even notice them after the first day. They just kind of looked like rocks. The beach did get crowded though, but with a little maneuvering we were always able to get a bunch of chairs together. Entertainment/Nightlife/Staff: The entertainment was fun.. definitely a little corny, but still fun. There were always games going on- our favorite was water polo The nightlife on the resort was so-so. There were shows every night and they were always crowded, but I think mostly because that’s all there was. There was a disco in the neighboring resort but we didn’t bother to go. Instead, we made our own fun The staff was amazing! Most of the people who worked at the front desk remembered our name. They were so welcoming and accommodating to us and did a ton of extra work for our large party. The bartenders are awesome too.

Room: With the wedding package we booked, we received a free upgrade. Our suite was sweet! The foyer Yes, the bed is two beds pushed together… I don’t really get it. But one was plenty big enough for us to sleep one. Living room/dining room. Came in very handy for assembling OOT bags!

I admit, I’m a bad BDW member! Writing this review I realized that there really are a lot of things I didn’t take pictures of, or if I did, my guests are in the way! We didn’t really want to worry about carrying our camera everywhere, so sorry if I don’t have good pictures of everything! Where: Riu Yucatan, Playa del Carmen, Mexico When: 7/8-7/15 Arrival: We flew out of Philly on American Airlines. We had 4 checked bags, 2 carryons, and a suit bag. For anyone in Jersey, we used Rapid Rover to get us to the airport and it was seriously a breeze. I recommend them. Our awesome plane Transfer: We had a transfer with Olympus tours. It was pretty painless and we were on the van within 15 minutes, although a few of our guests waited almost 45 minutes for the van. The ride to the hotel takes 1 hour. Hotel: The hotel was really nice.. the décor was an old world Mexico kind of feel.. lots of terra cotta and tile. It was big enough to get lost in, but still small enough where we ran into our guests everywhere. That was nice most of the time. There was only one time we tried to get breakfast alone, but a bunch of our guests found us, and ruined that. Of course the only picture I have of the lobby, is the ceiling What I really like about the hotel was how lush it was

not sure, but i know kate (LALA) had those in her centerpieces.. you could pm her

the vows we had at our legal day and the vows we had in mexico were very different. and although the legal day vows were pretty, they didn't really mean much to us. on the other hand, the mexico vows were ones that we had picked out because we felt an attachment to them- so when the time came to say them, it really was incomparable to legal day. if you do a legal day, you have to decide that you are going to love that day, not feel weird about it. it will be an entirely different kind of feeling than on your wedding day, but legal day is still something to have fun with- whether your parents are there, or if you do it alone in vegas. if you have fun with it, then it won't take away from your wedding day, it'll just be different.

Quote: Originally Posted by Bianca woops.. I pmed katrina about the fans. I just saw that she asked us not to do that. they are all yours FLgator hey bianca, flgator is only taking the ones with ribbon. the others are still available.

Quote: Originally Posted by kevsgirl Katrina: I'd love the postcards and the magnetic frames Andrea you got it. pm me your address. Quote: Originally Posted by godaloveme I would love to have the key chains if there not gone !!! all yours- pm me your address

Quote: Originally Posted by FLgator I will take the fans please! Probably all of them...what are the 2 different sizes? and can the ribbon be easily removed? the fans are between 7 and 10 inches. the ones without the ribbons are the ones on the smaller side because i wanted to make sure i used up the large ones first. as for the ribbon, i used a hot glue gun. i'm sure it would come off without a problem, but you'd probably want to add your own ribbon because there will probably be some glue marks. if you definitely want them, pm me your address

hey everyone, now that the weddings over i'm trying to purge anything i don't need- and before i throw anything away, i figured i would ask you guys. all of the items below are free, i just ask that you pay the shipping. and pleeeeeeeeeeease, if you would like something, please post on the thread, don't pm me. i want to make sure that i go in the correct order of "bidders". 15 maraca keychains from oriental trading- assorted colors TAKEN 13 fans from oriental trading you can see from the picture that these fans are slightly on the smaller side 13 fans with ribbon from oriental trading TAKEN these have an orange satin ribbon around the handle 11 playa del carmen postcards TAKEN bought these in playa and used them instead of a guestbook. these are specific to playa del carmen, but there are also some which say riviera maya and tulum. i’d prefer not to split them up. 12 magnet picture frames TAKEN these are 5x7s i believe. they are clear plastic with a magnet on the back. they already have a printout in there for you. 3 flower samples they are real touch orange daisies. tt would be very easy to attach a hair clip on it and use as a hair flower. 16 favor bags in ivory TAKEN 10 of them are still in the pack but 6 are loose. they are ivory striped with white ribbon. small bag of eco-fetti TAKEN this is the biodegradable confetti which I purchased from ecoparti - earth friendly favors and party accessories!. There is not much left, probably only enough for 5 people to throw. So you should either have a small wedding or you could use this to add a little extra color to any other confetti you have.

wow, i want to go to montreal now..

Quote: Originally Posted by Erica053009 I am planning on having my FI wear a suit, I see your DH wore one...was he uncomfortable? If we are hot in bare dresses I can imagine how they feel. he was okay.. i mean, don't get me wrong, he was really hot. but it was more important to him to wear a suit (even though he refused to wear anything but flip flops) and suffer through the heat. i would have been fine if he wore linen pants and a shirt but he even wanted to wear the tie! we did make sure to get a good quality suit and shirt so that they would breathe a little more. i think if your fi wants to wear a suit, then he'll make due... or you can just put him in line!

oh man, i really need to get this review up now! so much pressure! haha the border was no sweat really. just showed our passports, paid $20, answered a few questions, and we were through.

i read the time traveler's wife during my honeymoon- i reeeeally enjoyed it! i hope the movie doesn't kill it..

i was definitely sweating a ton but the photog photoshopped the pics for me. also, right before the ceremony my mil gave me a hankie- i guess it's a tradition. at first i thought it was really corny, but i tucked it into my bouquet anyway. well, let me tell you that thing was priceless!! in between photos we were blotting away!

hmm... that's a bummer.. i love etsy.. can you express your concerns to the sellers? your concerns sound pretty valid. maybe they would give you your money back?

hmm nothing major but here goes: - i was supposed to get from our room to the lobby before the ceremony. the problem is that the ceremony site was in the middle of those two places and there is really only way to the lobby and that would have been right past the ceremony. so to make sure no one saw me, me, my sisters, my parents, and the photographers had to sneak through around the edge of the resort through the unlandscaped grass and trees and then through the tennis courts and finally into the lobby. i was in heels and just holding my dress up- it was ridiculous. - my youngest sister was the first to walk. we didn't have a rehearsal and so my sister started crying right before the ceremony was about to start because she didn't know what to do. so she starts walking and is going in the wrong way so the coordinator had to run out and steer her back. - my mil surprised us with an engraved cake topper set and in the middle of cutting the cake the handle snapped off so they had to bring out a butter knife for us to finish cutting.

ooooh i love mine... i wore black pearl dangly earrings with green swarovski crystals and a matching bracelet for the wedding. the earrings were from www.nahoku.com but the bracelet was just from Overstock.com: Online Shopping Bedding, Furniture, Electronics, Jewelry, Clothing & more.. let me see if i can find a pic... ok this pic has both the earrings and bracelet... as kerry mentioned, they aren't exactly black. i think they have the elegance of white pearls but are a little younger in style and i think they'd be a great gift, imo.

i heard today that the husband is now brain dead and isn't expected to recover

YAY!!!! erica, i've been waiting for this post forever!!!!!!!! you looked gorgeous!! so happy for you!!

it's not cheap- it's very smart imo. i would be thinking central/south america.

thanks so much everyone!! Quote: Originally Posted by FutureMrs.Neri Your pics are amazing! I can't thank you enough for sharing those. I am getting married at the same resort in January and seeing your pics has made me feel so much better about the decision to use the resort photog. I can't wait to read your review. Congrats on your marriage. ooh fun! don't be surprised if you end up being the only yucatan bride on here- i was for my entire engagement. it doesn't seem all that popular for weddings but it's really a great resort and the wedding went off without a single hitch. i'm starting my review tonight!

Quote: Originally Posted by lucy106 Besides the obvious trip, our wedding, in January we are going on the Rock Boat tour Home it is a 5 night floating music festival that includes out fav band, Sister Hazel and many more bands. Then in February 2009 we are going to Oahu for the Pro Bowl, cant beat it Football and the Ocean!! Cant wait for both trips!! ooh pro bowl- that's awesome! my grandmom lives near aloha stadium (plus they hold the huge swap meet during the week) so i've been there a million times but never for a game.. jealous!

Quote: Originally Posted by Shay2679 Really beautiful... What suit is your husband wearing (and where did you find it?) it's a nautica suit.. we actually got it at marshall's so it was very reasonable.

dh and i are a couple of travel junkies and even before our wedding/honeymoon were over we were contemplating what our next big trip will be.. for us, our next big trip will be peru! my (step)dad and (step)sister are both from peru so i grew up around the music, textiles, food, etc, and i'm really excited to be planning this. we are shooting for very early 2010.. kind of far away so we will definately do some smaller stateside trips in between. so, what's your next big trip?

we didn't have too large of a budget for our wedding (8k), but i certainly didn't want our guests to know that!! so this post is all about what got us the biggest wow with the least amount of money.. what i would do again: - buy an evening gown instead of a bridal gown. my dress was light and comfortable and really suited our wedding. i think a big gown just wouldn't have been appropriate for what we were going for. and the best part was my dress only cost $260 but imo looked very glamorous. - use the resort photog. we gambled with this decision and got lucky. he certainly wasn't comparable to the photogs on here, but we really like the photos and are happy with the price we paid for them. - get a video. i walked away from the wedding not remembering a thing that just happened. a few of our guests brought video cameras but this video was much better quality. it was insanely overpriced however ($575 for 45 minutes) so this was a splurge, but all in all i'm glad i have a nice video to remember it by. - get the mariachi band. this was our guests' favorite part, by far. and it also tricked our guests into thinking that we had a much more expensive wedding than we actually did. it was a 5 piece group and they just played their own repertoire, so i never had to think about ceremony music. - go on a private honeymoon. we spent about $2200 of our already small budget on a honeymoon. sure, we could have had a private reception, or more flowers or a million other things for the wedding, but it was very important to us to have a real honeymoon just like we would have had we got married in nj. in mexico, it was impossible to have any privacy with 30 family and friends wandering around so we really relished that alone time. - raffia fans! okay, this seems minor but i felt it was very important. we got married in july in mexico and ALL of our guests used the fans.. it was brutal and many of our guests said that the fans made it bearable! i think this was the best diy of them all and recommend it to everyone. what i wouldn't do again: - stess about the weather! it poured the first day we were there and so i spent every other day of the trip looking for signs of rain... but the reality of a dw is the weather is the one thing you canNOT control- so get over it!