SunBride

Quote: Originally Posted by SunBride I just made photobooks for my MIL and SIL (also a bridesmaid) last week. I can't wait to get them. I'm going to make myself one too, but I don't know if I will use mypublisher. There were some things about the program that bugged me, like trying to fit the text into their little caption boxes (there is no way to make the caption boxes larger or move them around, and they only have like 10 fonts to choose from, and most of them are plain boring fonts). Although they have lots of different page layouts, sometimes they still didn't have anything to match my needs, i.e. I wanted 5 photos on a page, one of them vertical and the others horizontal, but they wouldn't have any layouts like that, so I'd have to change my photo choose to either more horizontals or more verticals (just a random example, but this happened to me several times). Also they have different styles of layouts, like some are more classic and plain, others are more fun / collage style. But you have to use the same style for the whole book, whereas I would have liked a mixture of classic and fun layouts (the classic ones always have the photos straight, there are none that are like diagnal or layered). I also didn't like the wedding background design and colors, they only have one choice (for the wedding background), and I didn't think the color went well with my photos. So I just stuck with plain white background. So those are some of my complaints about mypublisher, but overall I'm still happy, I just would be happier if I could find another company that is more versatile. Shipping to Canada is expensive unless you are ordering many of the same ones. Shipping is 17$ + 5$ for a duplicate (But so if you are ordering 3 different books it would be 51$ for shipping! ) There is no shipping discount for larger orders unless you are order multiples of the exact same book). In my case I want to put together different books for myself, my ILs and my own family, because I want the book to have more of a focus on those people who it's for. At least I will use duplicates for MIL & SIL, and also for my Mom and my sister, so that will reduce the costs. Okay, when I commented yesterday I didn't actually look at your book (because I stupidly assumed it wouldn't work for me, because links to photos never do when I am at work). So just wanted to add that your book is amazing! I wish I had seen it before I made mine because you have many great ideas, i.e. It looks like you left some of the photo slots empty on some of your pages right? That's a good idea, would have maybe helped for some of the pages where there was no layout that met my needs (like discribed above re: horizontal and vertical photos). I also love the pages that have tons of photos (I had one page with 8 photos and that was the most) and I so wish I had thought of the idea of putting the invitation wording on the first page! I did think of putting our vows next to a picture of my husband saying his, I love that page! Also your photos are amazing! Who was your photographer?

Quote: Originally Posted by chandrathebride Congratulations! You looked fabulous...thank you so much for sharing such valuable information. Your review was a labor of love! I appreciated not just reading about it but seeing pictures as well to help illustrate what you meant about the gazebo, for example. I am printing out your entire review and making notes! Wow, printing it out, what a compliment (and so something I would do). I spent a LOT of time on my review and it feels great to know that it's so helpful (my husband thought I was crazy!)

Don't worry, you'll make it through this, your FH is very well educated and is sure to get a high paying job soon. It's not like you are living on welfare with no job prospects. But I know it must be hard to go from thinking you were going to be comfortable to now having to be very careful. I have a similar story, but not in the field of law. My husband did a co-op program while in university and was pretty much guaranteed a job with that company when he graduated. He didn't even bother looking for a job elsewhere becuase he thought he for sure had a job there, and he loved the place and thought it would be the best job for him. Well 2 months before graduating the company was bought out by a U.S. company and did major layoffs, so they weren't able to hire him. He spent 3.5 months after graduating sitting at home depressed (in the crazy heat of an Ottawa summer without a/c!) and job hunting before finally having his first interview. It was with his 3rd choice of the probably 50 applications he had sent since job hunting, and he got the job. Well he still talks about how it's the best job he could have gotten, and laughs when he thinks that his co-op company was good, as this one is 10x better. So it all worked out for the best, even if he did have a rough 3.5 months of job searching. here's my advice: first, keep in mind that your FH will likely find work in a few months. Like I mention, he is well educated. If he has trouble finding work as a lawyer he could look elsewhere, such as working in business or the government. Second, you may have to make some life changes temporarily to adjust. Maybe you'll need to move (could you sublet your place and find someplace cheaper?) and you may even have to delay your wedding. I think it's probably too drastic to do these things now, but it might be good to start thinking of the fact that it might eventually come to this point Third, you may have to take out a loan / line of credit to help you get by until your FH finds a job. This is not the end of the world, again, he is well educated and will likely have a good paying job soon. Sadly, it seems like this just wasn't mean to be, and I think think the chances are very good that he will find something better, even if it does take a couple months.

Yeah, it really sucks, and you have the right to be annoyed, but this kind of stuff happens at weddings, so it's best to just try not to let it upset you too much. Lots of stuff goes wrong with weddings and if you are too busy being pissed off about the bad stuff then that leaves less time to be happy about the good stuff right? Not trying to be hard on you, like I said, it does suck a lot, but just trying to make you realize that there isn't much you can do at this point since it's too late to switch resorts (without your other guests who have booked loosing money).

I would definitely ask her. Weddings are important family events, and with a small family (you didn't mention any other siblings) I can understand why she feels left out. Who cares about numbers, what's more important - having "equal" numbers and hurting your sister's feelings, or having the proper number in the bridal party? To me the numbers are just a small factor, if you can make it work, you do, and if not too bad, it's more important that the right people are included. I'm also not very close with my sister, we are 5 years apart and we fought a lot our whole lives, now we leave 1000 kilometers apart and only see eachother twice a year and even though we have fun sometimes when I'm visiting, we still blow up at eachother sometimes in a really immature way. Regardless, I did not hesistate in asking her to be my bridesmaid. And she told me over and over again how happy she was that I did and how special it made her feel to have that role. Who cares if she doesn't do much of the other work often involved with being a bridesmaid and all she does is walk down the aisle and look good in pictures. Again, she is your sister, she should have the honour of being part of the bridal party. The only reason I would leave her out is if there were very serious issues, like you either don't get along at all / haven't talked in forever, or you are worried about her behaving completely inappropriately.

I just made photobooks for my MIL and SIL (also a bridesmaid) last week. I can't wait to get them. I'm going to make myself one too, but I don't know if I will use mypublisher. There were some things about the program that bugged me, like trying to fit the text into their little caption boxes (there is no way to make the caption boxes larger or move them around, and they only have like 10 fonts to choose from, and most of them are plain boring fonts). Although they have lots of different page layouts, sometimes they still didn't have anything to match my needs, i.e. I wanted 5 photos on a page, one of them vertical and the others horizontal, but they wouldn't have any layouts like that, so I'd have to change my photo choose to either more horizontals or more verticals (just a random example, but this happened to me several times). Also they have different styles of layouts, like some are more classic and plain, others are more fun / collage style. But you have to use the same style for the whole book, whereas I would have liked a mixture of classic and fun layouts (the classic ones always have the photos straight, there are none that are like diagnal or layered). I also didn't like the wedding background design and colors, they only have one choice (for the wedding background), and I didn't think the color went well with my photos. So I just stuck with plain white background. So those are some of my complaints about mypublisher, but overall I'm still happy, I just would be happier if I could find another company that is more versatile. Shipping to Canada is expensive unless you are ordering many of the same ones. Shipping is 17$ + 5$ for a duplicate (But so if you are ordering 3 different books it would be 51$ for shipping! ) There is no shipping discount for larger orders unless you are order multiples of the exact same book). In my case I want to put together different books for myself, my ILs and my own family, because I want the book to have more of a focus on those people who it's for. At least I will use duplicates for MIL & SIL, and also for my Mom and my sister, so that will reduce the costs.

Quote: Originally Posted by leamil Hi! We had our reception on El Patio 2 weeks ago (4/19/0 and it was beautiful. I was really happy with the location because it was private, they made it up beautifully, and I thought it was better for us not to be in the sand - also much better access to bathrooms! For our group (45 people) we were planning to pay the extra $750 to make it "private" if that was what it took to have a DJ (after reading the new music rule here). However, when we got there Sandra said "of course it is private for your group, and there is no problem with music." We had the ultimate package and a bigger group, so maybe that is why, but I was very pleased not to have to add that $750! PM me for a couple good pics of El Patio - I don't have the right version to edit/ compress/ post yet! Leah You're back! You should post a review and some pictures! This will be the first wedding since mine just over a month ago, and I would love to see some pics of another wedding, and I'm sure the other ladies on here would appreciate it too!

Quote: Originally Posted by sumrdream Wow! I'm hoping to get away with under 6000 for 40 people! But I'm not having my reception at a resort but a restaurant...so there's no extra fees for the rental......just the food and alcahol....I think i can pull this off! Wish me luck! I think you can do it as long as you keep your budget for the other big ticket items, i.e. photo & video, clothes, rings, very small.

Added Beach Bride, April 25 2009

Quote: Originally Posted by Beach Bride Hi ladies! I am new to the site but my fiance and I are planning our wedding for April 25th, 2009 at Dreams Tulum. I was wondering if anyone has done "message in a bottle" invitations and who you went through. Please let me know if anyone has had any luck with someone through internet orders. Thanks! Welcome to the DT brides thread! I'm going to add you to our bride list on the other thread. http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t14762 You might bet better luck with an answer to your question in the General Wedding Information forum since it's not a question specific to our resort. Specifically try the Invitations, STDs, photos & website subforum. Quote: Originally Posted by SBlake Has anyone used EL Patio for their reception? If so, please post pics. This is the one I reserved and I have no idea what it looks like. Seaside Grill is already reserved. Thanks for your help! I thought I had taken lots of photos of everything, but turns out I didn't! the only photo I took of El Patio was taken from across the pool so you only get an idea of the outside of the building. My photographer did take a picture of one of the tables. I think the location would be great for dinner, it's quite similar to the seaside grill, maybe a little less formal but I'm sure they will do up your tables really nice for a wedding dinner in which case you wouldn't even see a difference between the two restaurants. They will probably bring in bigger tables (they brought in a nice huge rectangular table for our dinner at seaside grill, the regular tables were round) And I love the idea of having mexican food on your wedding night, goes well with the theme of a DW!

I never really understand these statistics, for example for april/may it says the average HIGH is 28/29, yet from the times I've gone, the high hits 30-32 every day. I always find these statistics are a little lower than the actual common temperatures. I know that doesn't make sense since they are statistics and so should be accurate, but just thought I'd mention it.

I also really enjoyed La Isla as an evening activity since as Jason says it's outdoors and overall just pretty

I was quoted only 45$ for a bustle (and I think like 80$ to shorten the 5 layers, and 40$ to hand sew the beads back on the bottom front portion). But it makes sense that it would vary a lot depending on the dress. Here is mine ViewLarge

I would say most of the stuff I put in my OOT bags went unused. A few people used the aloe vera though. The mugs all went unused since there was very good drink service on the beach, and the drinks always cake in nice tall glasses with a fruit garnish (not disposable beach cups like I've seen at other resorts). I really wouldn't bother with sunscreen as everybody will already bring them own (that's why I did aloe vera instead). I gave travel size bottles of body wash (I knew they'd likely have brought their own but oh well) and mesh sponges (figure most people would forget to bring one, and they are really good for washing off sunscreen after a day at the beach). I also had the mini little air freshner spray things, and I know I found mine really handy, we used it several times for the washroom after somebody took a smelly poop Overall, I would probably recommend doing t-shirts for your guests instead, and get them all to wear it the first day. My guests really loved the shirts. I read on another thread here on BDW that somebody wrote on their shirts "I went to X and X's wedding in mexico and all I got was this lousy shirt". I think that's an awesome idea, and I could see some of the people wearing them again, even if it's just as weekend/stay at home clothes, workout gear or something like that. Also t-shirts take up less suitcase space than OOT bags. And you can hand them out at the airport and people can throw them over the clothes they are wearing.

there are many really good local photographers, so I would look into that first. You definitely have to pay the photographer's travel fees, I think 3 or 4 nights is sufficient, you definitely want them there a couple days before to make sure there are no problems and they don't miss the wedding. You should also have them there for a day or two after if you want to do a trash the dress session. At most you should pay travel fees (air + hotel and a stipend for food if not all inclusive) + their regular wedding photography fee. However some photographers will charge you less than their regular photography fee in recognition of the fact that they are getting a free trip. The price they charge you on top of the travel fee really depends on the photographer, how much they usually charge, and how many DWs the've done before. If they have never done a DW I would try to get them to do it for free (i.e. travel fees only) or a few hundred dollars, maximum a thousand in my opinion (they need to build up their portfolio!) If you are getting a photographer that is very popular and usually charges 4000$ or more for a wedding, you can probably expect them to ask the same plus their travel fees for a DW. Obviously the less expereinced DW photographers are the ones most likely to give you a deal. Make sure to find out what you are getting from them, I got a full day photography (starting at the salon at 9am and ending approx 10pm in the evening), a TTD session (approx 1.5 hours) and also some other random photos during the week (mainly taken on two seperate occasions, once on the beach, and once at the ruins, but also a few taken at random other times such as dinner). If they are doing all that for you, it' makes sense they are charging you their full photography fee + travel, seeing as they are doing more work than they would normally do for a 1 day wedding.

that is the same photographer, her name is severine her business name is photo souvenir

this may be a bit repetitive but here is my two cents about a few different websites I tried: Weddingannouncer.com PROS: very functional CONS: No beachy / destination wedding background Strayweddings.com PROS: I LOVED the background CONS: cannot make up your own page (need to use their templates) & 12 photo maximum *I emailed them with a few suggestions, because I was planning on going with this before finding momentville, and they made a few of my suggested changes within a week, I was impressed. Myweddings.com PROS: customizable pages CONS: Beachy themes not quite as pretty as others Islandbrides.com CONS: No RSVP option eweddings.com CONS: Lots of basic options missing with the free version And finally, the one I chose... (after setting up a website with each of the others!!!) momentville.com PROS: beautiful background, very functional, create your own pages CONS: momentville sounds so cheasy! (I put that comment in my guestbook though so people can laugh about it)

I made my own shirts, I was also concerned about doing t-shirts, so I did golf shirts for the guys and tank tops for the woman. I paid about 7$ for each shirt (searched forever to find some at a decent price in nice color) and then used iron-on transfers. I should warn you though that iron on transfers don't look good on dark colored fabric, the back of the transfer shows through, so it kinda looks like a big piece of packing tape. It's not as obvious at all on a white shirt, but it's very obvious on a colored shirt. I was very disappointed. This would not be a big deal if you can cut right around your design but I coudln't do that (design was too complicated). I ended up ironing the transfers after taking off the backing, which melted the transfer more into the shirt and kinda got rid of the "tape" look, although it still wasn't the best and also the ink started to smear because you are not suppose to iron with the paper backing still on the transfer. Not only was the transfer obvious, but also with darker material, the black writing didn't show as obvious so you need to have big bubble letters and a big obvious design, no intricate little things. So I had to play with my logo to do some changes and then re-print all my transfers all over again. For the letters (i.e. bridesmaid, father of the bride etc) I ended up using dollarama iron on transfers because it looked nicer than having the writing with the "tape" look from the transfers I printed myself. The only disappointment there was that I didn't like the font of the dollarama letters as much as I liked the font I had used to make my own writing transfers. all in all it turned out okay but was SUCH a hassle, in part because of the colored t-shirt thing, and in part because the 2nd time around I forgot to flip my image (i.e. make a miror image). So in all I printed all the images 3 times (and the transfers are like 15$ for 10 pages or something like that)

worst case scenario maybe you can go with the resort photographer or another one for the wedding day, and book photosouvenir for a trash the dress session somewhere off the resort?

Overall I went over budget on many items, especially photography and video, but also my dress as I had hoped to find a used one, and my husband's clothes, and rings. 1 week Vacation package & insurance (2x1500 + 2x60) = 3120 Spending money = 700 Wedding package = FREE (didn't even get charged for the little extras!) Blood test & Judge's transportation (150+50) = 200 Wedding Photography (brought our own = travel + 800) = 2400 Wedding videography (Playaweddings 2 hours) = 840 Dress and alterations (675 +175) = 850 Grooms suit and alterations (350 +65 ) = 415 My accessories: veil, shoes x2, purse (75, 45, 12, 23) = 155 Groom's accesories: shirt, sandals, belt (43, 90, 43) = 175 Hair up-dos me and 2 bridesmaids: 130 Make-up (did my own but bought a lot of stuff which I will obviously re-use): 150 2 Bridesmaid dresses: 170 Bridesmaid shoes and necklaces: 35 Flowers: 225 Decorations (parasols=50, fans=10, tulle=30, starfish=25) = 115 Favors 10 guests (beach bags=50, stuff for bags=70, DIYmugs=60, DIYshirts=85, DIYluggage tags=15) = 280 DIY Invitations (only 5!) = 5 Wedding bands: 1500 Total wedding: ~ 11 500 *that sounds a bit high for only 10 people and not a private reception, it's a very inclusive total (I didn't leave anything out besides the stuff below). Obviously if you have more people the costs would be higher, but the biggest items for me (vacation, photo, video, clothes) wouldn't change so I don't think it would have made a big difference (private reception at our resort would have cost about 3000$ for 50 people but I might have just gone for the buffet for free) E-ring: 4000 Engagement photos: 200 Total Wedding + Engagement 15 700 We are having 2 at home receptions, as our family are in totally different parts of the country. Each one will cost about 2000-2500$. One is a backyard bbq (75 people) but still costs a lot for rentals of tables, chairs, dishes and linens (600$), alcohol (500$), steak (500$) and other food (500$). The other is at a golf course in a small town (50 people) which charges only about 20$ per meal + alcohol. Each set of parents are paying for that (they did not contribute to the actual wedding besides my parents buying me my dress). I will pay about 500$ for invitations, decorations, etc for both receptions. AHR total = 5000 Grand total (engagement, wedding, AHRs) ~ 20 000$ Definetely more than I thought but overall pretty reasonable as I would have spent a few thousand more on a wedding here + honeymoon vacation (not much more though, just the receptions I think would have been a bit more expensive, but maybe not as I would not have gone super high class).

Even if not everyone can go to your shower, I'm sure you will have a wonderful time. I got neither a shower not a bachelorette because I live out of town from my family adn old friends (although I have new friends here, but none as close as my elementary/high school girlfriends). I totally would have flown home for those events if anybody had tried to organize anything. Pitty party for me Mom thought a shower was inappropriate since we are having a small destination wedding adn didn't invite extended relatives. Just try to focus on the positives and be greatful that those who are there were able to make it.

If you go to post # 371 of this thread (page 38 ) I have added a link so you can go download my newsletter. Here is the link to that part of the thread http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...-38#post340908

I also got stopped at the ruins, I had never heard you couldn't go. I changed into my bathing suit but then they wanted me to leave my dress in a locker at the front gate. But another Dreams Tulum bride managed to do it by walking in with normal clothes and changing on the beach. When I was there there were no employees anywhere near the beach. I'm not sure about being able to reach the ruins from a public beach.

you are not suppose to count the day you arrive, only the day of your wedding. The weekends don't count either. So if you arrive friday, saturday or sunday you can't get married until thursday. If you arrive Monday you can't get married until friday etc. But for me they made an exception and counted the day I arrived, because I arrived adn left on a thursday, and if they didn't count my arrival day then I would have had to wait until wednesday, the day before leaving! When I asked about other dates though they were being strict about the 4 day rule, so I was really surprised when in the end they said sure no problem!

You can still do it at any restaurant but can only reserve Seaside Grill and El Patio for a private reception (and the convention center of course), so at any other restaurant you would be with other restaurant guests. I would just let your guests do what they want during that time, they can head over to the sugar reef bar or something. I personally wouldn't bother paying for a cocktail hour, considering it's an all-inclusive resort.