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Quote: Originally Posted by Eureaka Nibsmom- Thanks for the input! I did a little investigating on the webpage and I think I found another link that gives some info. Try Palace Resorts - Tours and select the link for Cancun. It allows you to click on the links individually and shows which ones are still temporarily canceled. I have always wanted to swim with the dolphins, and although it's not 100% included, I might splurge and do it. I'm sure it's only like 15 minutes tops with them, but whenever we vacation I always consider it so the BOGO might be a good opportunity. Just so you guys know, I have confirmed twice with my membership reservations person on which tours are temporarily cancelled, and she said they are the Chichen Itza and the Tulum tours. (Of course, the ones I wanted to deffinitely try and do) : / I looked yesterday and that is deffinitely not listed on the website, so just wanted to throw that out there for y'all. She did say though that it was some kind of transportation issue they were trying to work out, and the tours MAY be restored by the time we get there in August, but no guarantees for the foreseeable future.

Hello everyone! I've only posted on here a couple times before, but since it's getting closer to our wedding date I have a feeling I'll be on here much more frequently now. Is anyone else on August 8th? My coordinator in Miami is Janina, she told me there were 7 weddings that day, including mine. She also just assigned me Maribel as my on-site coordinator yesterday! I'm SO excited! FINALLY an on-site person!!! I feel like I still have so much to do, so I sent her a pretty big introductory e-mail, but sadly... she's out until Monday. Well, just wanted to kind of say "Hi"- and thanks for all of your guy's suggestions, I'm deffinitely benefiting from some of the previous brides' reviews in this thread.

Well I think I've finally got through this entire thread... although I KNOW I won't remember everything! lol... Thanks so much ladies, you are all so wonderful and helpful!!! I just submitted our contract a couple weeks ago for a 2:00 ceremony on 8-8-09 (although I really would have liked a later time, but everything else was booked up). Anyhoo, I am officially a Moon Palace bride now! YaY! I must admit though that so far I have been a little disappointed with the people in Miami... my regular WC there, Janina, is great. But the Membership people have been IMPOSSIBLE! My future MIL has a Palace Resorts membership, so with this economy the way it is and everyone grumbling about cost already, I wanted to use her "deal" to make it as affordable as possible for everyone. Well,... I have been trying to contact someone there for weeks, to no avail. Then, when my FI finally got ahold of her last week, she promised to fax us some information. WHICH, of course, was never received. I have been calling/e-mailing her since, and still no response. I feel (scratch that, KNOW) I'm a little behind in the planning already and reeeeally need to get the ball rolling with our reservations and such... so needless to say I'm a bit frustrated. If it's this hard for ME to contact her, how are our guests supposed to be able to book their rooms <sigh> ... just had to vent a little... Anyone know a Membership person they dealt with who actually picked up the phone/answered an e-mail... ? Oh and Marie, if it makes you feel any better, my FI is a reeeeal penny-pincher, too. He absolutely balked at the receipt for my wedding dress (even though my parents wanted to pay for it as their contribution, so it didn't cost us anything!). Men,...

Oh Michelle, I almost forgot- my FI's name is Jose, too! Ha! Small world! Well, at least I thought it was interesting.

Ladies, thank you all sooo much! I will deffinitely take all of the things you said into consideration! We are staying at an AI, and so one of my ideas was to treat and/or organize an "excursion" one day for all of our guests. Of course, FI thinks that paying for everyone to go on an excursion (like a trip to see the ruins, snorkeling, etc.) would bee too expensive. <sigh> But there are some excursions I guess that are free to all guests of our hotel. I'm just worried about people who might choose to stay off the property, whether they can come, or whether it will be at an additional cost. So I DID think about giving them an "experience" as our "gift"... just not sure how it would work out. And FI still shot it down! What can I say. I'm the spender, he's the saver. I will take someone else's suggestion and research the costs of all my ideas, so i can tell him how much it will cost us per person to do each thing. Hopefully he WILL let me give our guests SOMEthing.

I am VERY glad that they are replacing yours, but I too had a bad encounter with them. I am in charge of a formal event once a year, and I had ordered some glasses through them as favors for the guests. The writing was supposed to be clear, like an etched glass look,... CLEAR, i tell you, not even with a color!!! They ended up coming to me, the night before my event, in baby blue. My colors were red and black, with an asian-inspired theme!!! I was pretty livid with them. And no matter how many calls or e-mails i sent, i never got replacements OR a refund. I will never use them again, that's for sure. So, glad they are correcting their mistake this time!!!

So, the FI and I were talking about our plans, budgeting and such, we're just in the initial phases... and so we were making our list of everything we're going to need to get and/or pay for. Whenever I bring up the OOT bags, he rolls his eyes at me and tells me that basically, we don't need them. He thinks they're excessive! He says we don't need to give our guests a "big gift". I'm not planning on making a big bag or anything, and I know we're on a budget. TRUST ME, I don't want to spend any more on our wedding than we need to. But we're already starting to hear the grumbles from family members about having to travel so far, and our whole reason for wanting to have it in Cancun was so that everyone could have a good time. I just really feel like it's the nice thing to do for all of our guests, so that they feel welcomed and special when they arrive. If I get to do them, I wouldn't be giving any other gifts at the reception, just the OOT would be our "gift". Am I asking too much How do I make my FI see that these are special for a DW

Thank you so much ladies! That link to the other thread was particularly helpful.

Hi everyone! So, I've been trying to narrow down a date for quite some time. Since my FI and I have decided on a location and a resort, we only need to pick a day to get the planning going. We decided on sometime in spring/summer, since we're having a beach ceremony and want it to be nice and warm outside. (Both of us just hate anything under 72 degrees) I was originally narrowing down to summer, because by then both the FI and I will be done with school. (Him in his master's, me in undergrad) But everyone keeps telling me that summer is bad timing, complaining about the heat and hurricane season. (Which I am a little worried about...) So, NOW, I was thinking more about springtime... and I realized that 2-14 falls on a Saturday next year! I've been hearing that now (Febuary) is the perfect time to be in Cancun. But I'm worried that on a holiday weekend, not as many people will want to go, and/or things at the resort might be priced higher. Do the AI's tend to do that? Has anyone else here had their DW on a holiday weekend? Been to a wedding on a holiday/holiday weekend? Help!

Quote: Originally Posted by LC_Rachel I don't know if this is available where you are, but maybe you could contact a local rancher to see if they sell their beef. Typically it's a lot healthier than the meat you get in the stores. Plus I'm sure they make sure their cows are treated properly because their lively hood depends on it. I almost forgot to add, if there's a university near you with an agriculture program like ours, maybe you could get your beef there? On our campus we have a beef unit with it's own slaughter and packing unit. Anyone can come and purchase the meat produced here from our farm store. You can even pick the cow you would like from the pasture and come to see the facility yourself! We have several regulars from the surrounding community who do this all the time, and it's monitored regularly by our own USDA rep. and industry professionals, as well as our instructors, who are usually doing research in the meat production industry.

Hey! We do the same stuff here at my school! I'm in undergrad right now for Pre-Veterinary Studies, and we have animal units on campus where we're required to have a certain number of hours on the farm with each species. It's pretty fun, driving to school and getting to see cows, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs as I'm making my way to the parking lot. Anyhoo, I hate to play the devil's advocate here, but sometimes the meat from "healthier, better treated" animals is not always so. I've learned from my teachers (who are all DVM's) that the free-range-certified animals are simply given a larger pasture to graze in, as opposed to a smaller dirt lot. This doesn't mean that they aren't still shipped off to a slaugherhouse and killed there in the same manner as the rest of the meat, just that they had more space to move around in and were able to graze freely instead of being fed only out of a trough. From what I've been told, most smaller farms (which, an "organic" operation would most likely be small, there are hardly any large-scale commercial operations of that kind) rarely slaughter and package their own meat on site, simply because they do not normally have the equipment, and/or it's not cost-effective for their operation. Also, animals who haven't been treated with antibiotics or hormones haven't been vaccinated or treated for any signs of illness. So, if an animal in the "healthy certified" herd is showing signs of illness, it can only either be treated and moved to a "non-certified" herd, or culled, and from what I've been told, they're more likely to just cull the animal, since usually the whole farm is supposed to be "organic". I personally just feel more comfortable knowing that the meat I'm eating/milk I'm drinking came from a vaccinated cow where the whole herd was vaccinated, instead of from an "organic" farm where my cow just wasn't showing any signs of illness (even though the hefer next to her might have been sick). I hate to go on such a rant here, but we take a lot of time in my school to learn about proper meat and food production and all of the related USDA and FDA guidelines, and it makes me really mad that people get such a bad impression of the entire industry because these videos are taken showing badly run operations which are usually violating USDA regulations, when places like that only represent the smallest possible percentage of the industry. They just let one bad apple ruin it for the rest of the bunch. Okay, I'm off my soapbox now.

Wow, that's very cool. I've heard of the Cricuts, but I didn't know they print, too...? What are you planning to use it for exactly, if I may ask?

Personally, I am planning on wearing my own Mom's veil, even if it may be a little dated. (It's VERY poufy and on a crown-like thing, hard to explain...) But I like it. I love that it's so fluffy. And it makes me really excited to be planning my dress around my "something old" ANYHOO, if you really don't like it, don't feel like you have to wear it. BUT, if you only don't like the star-thing (which is what it sounds like), it looks like you could remove it without any damage to the rest of the veil. (Or find a seamstress friend who knows her stuff). I really like the image of having the star pinned to the wrap on your bouquet, like in place of a bow, on the side? Just a thought... And I think no matter what, you HAVE to go with the pins in your hair. That sounds like a must.

Quote: Originally Posted by naga0066 What type of design are you doing for your shirts? My mom really wanted to do a group shirt... but I'm a bit skeptical on whether people would wear them. (we will have a wide variety of guest types/ages) I think the key to having a group shirt for everyone to wear is to keep it simple. As long as it has your names, a cute picture or icon, and your date, I think that's something that would be easily worn by grandparents and little brothers and sisters alike.

Hi all! I'm new so just thought I'd introduce myself as suggested. My name's Sabrina and I'm currently a student, quickly becoming a part-time wedding planner. We don't have a date as of yet, but we've decided to tie the knot in Mexico at the Moon Palace Golf and Spa Resort, as my fiance and I vacationed there a while ago and we just loved it. I look forward to getting to know all of you, especially any Moon Palace brides out there! Sabrina