GoCubs!

Quote: Originally Posted by tammikins Krissy, WOW!! your photos are gorgeous!! you looked stunning. I was getting all emotional watching that . how did the photographers know where to findyou? did you have to tell them your room number or anything in advance? Thanks Tammi! When we met w/Erika on our first day she called the photographer for us so we arranged the time/location then. Claudia also called my room at like midnight the night before the wedding (I think she had been trying to reach me all night but we were at our cocktail party) to ask me a couple of questions so we got everything squared away.

I used Erick from Claudia Rodriguez photography and my pictures are AMAZING! I also did the 5 hour package and provided Erick and his assistant with dinner, as well as Jerry the videographer from Cancun Wedding Video (Claudia's husband's company). They were able to capture the first dance, cake cutting, and speeches, as well as some of the partying at the reception. They both ended up staying longer than their allotted time, so we were sure to tip them. Here is the link to my pictures (be patient the page takes a minute to load): Krissy & Joe | October 16th 2009 | Palladium, Riviera Maya Mexico

The white fabric was draped at my reception and it wasn't extra - I didn't even know I was getting it

Quote: Originally Posted by ChristinaP Does anyone have info. on a cocktail reception? Prices/location etc. or any other info would be helpful. We are considering one as there is so much time in between, but the costs are very quickly adding up! Christina - Erika actually advised against having a cocktail party in between my wedding and reception. My wedding was at 4 and the reception started at 7. After standing around mingling for a while (they provide champagne after the ceremony) my guests just made their way up to the White Sands lobby bar around 5 b/c our reception was at La Laguna. It actually worked out really well b/c some people stopped back at their rooms - heck a couple of our friends went swimming b/c it was so freaking hot! We had a cocktail party the night before the wedding at the Bar Las Rocas at the saltwater pool and it was a great location. I know when we were picking locations there were 3 to choose frome - I just can't remember the other 2. I know that Las Rocas is open to the public until 6 so I'm not even sure that you could have a private cocktail party there or at any of the other locations earlier than that.

Quote: Originally Posted by ChristinaP Did you hear from Rocio yet? I just heard back from Ariadna (it says she is WC assistant- don't know if she replaced Erica, or if they have another team member). When I was there for my wedding the week of Oct. 11-18 Rocio was on vacation. I worked with Erika and Ari - Ari is just new b/c they added another person. Business must be booming if they are expanding the team...

Christina - I did my own make-up so I can't comment on the spa's ability to do it. My reception was at La Laguna. La Laguna and El Azul are pretty much identical, I just felt like La Laguna was more on the pool and prettier. It ended up being a good choice b/c there is an air-conditioned bar in the White Sands lobby that my guests all cooled off in between the ceremony & reception (it was the hottest/muggiest day of the week - BRUTAL). I'm pretty sure that all private receptions are 7-11pm - that's basically the time I was told and I thought that was a good time so I never tried to change it. DJ Bob is his own company Wedding DJ We paid $450 for 4 hours and he was worth every penny.

Hi girls - I just returned from my wedding at the Grand Palladium and everything far exceeded my already high expectations. We arrived on Sunday for our Friday wedding. We did the civil ceremony so we met with Erika on Monday morning to fill out paperwork and get our blood tests. I showed up for our meeting completely unprepared (which really irritated me b/c I'm usually super organized). I only had 2 witnesses with me but that wasn't an issue b/c Erika and Ari both just served as witnesses. It was also at that point that we discussed all of the random details like ordering extra flowers (which we did), pick up times for the ceremony, reception details, etc. On Thursday (the night before the wedding) we did a family dinner, rather than a traditional rehearsal dinner, at the Mexican restaurant - La Adelita. The food was very good, the only downside is that they treat it like a dinner reception and I had to pick a set menu for everyone. Joe's dad is a super picky eater so we just paid off our waiter to bring him a menu from the steak restaurant that the Mexican place is connected to. Erika took care of making a reservation for our group of 15 and she also arranged for rides to pick us up after dinner to cart us to our cocktail/welcome party at Bar las Rocas at the Saltwater Pool. It was beautiful! We were kind of torn over whether to do just cocktails or cocktails and appetizers and we decided to go with the food as well, so it was $14/pp. There was a TON of food so if any of you choose to do that option I would suggest encouraging your friends/family to not eat dinner beforehand. Many in our group had dinner prior to the 8pm party and a lot of food was wasted. We had made a cocktail party playlist on our ipod and they docked it directly into the speaker system. I was concerned that it was just going to be a ipod dock put up to a microphone, but it they had 2 huge speakers that we cranked up later in the night when one of Joe's drunk friends hijacked the playlist and put on rap music. We were having so much fun that we arranged with Erika to play an extra 1/2 hour (for a fee) that turned into an extra hour and 15 minutes. The waiter service was on the ball and the shots were flowing. I was actually concerned that everyone was having TOO much fun that they would all be bums at the wedding... We had a 4pm ceremony at the White Sands wedding gazebo. My bridesmaids and I got our hair/nails done at the spa starting at 10:45. It was slow season so they could only do 3 of us at a time. Me and 2 of my BM's were done by 1:00 and then we had rides back to my room. I was staying in a White Sands Mayan suite/cabana right on the lake so everyone came there to get ready. The other girls showed up around 2:30 and my photographer - Erik from Claudia Rodriguez photography - came at 3:00 to take some shots of us getting ready. Erika had arranged for rides for us to the wedding site for 3:55pm - 5 minutes before the ceremony. They had picked the boys up at 3:40. The ceremony was absolutely beautiful although I was seriously sweating my ass off. Of course it was the hottest/muggiest day of the week, but I was just thankful that the rain held off b/c there were some very ominous looking clouds. We had arranged for the guitar trio through the resort, and while it was a steep charge - $300 for 45 minutes - it was well worth it. After the cermony and champagne toasts guests went to the White Sands lobby for cocktails and sat in the air-conditioned bar up there so that was helpful. We had a 7pm private reception at La Laguna so they had a couple of hours to spare while we took pictures. The reception was set up beautifully and Erika had taken all the stuff I had given her (including the bottles of Cuervo 1800 for each table) and set everything out just how I had told her. We had DJ Bob and he was AWESOME too. I had given him a list of songs that I wanted and he played the most important ones and also took several requests from my guests - even some polka for Joe's dad! He did a great job of gauging the crowd - and our fancy for hip hop/rap - and everyone ended up having just as much fun as the night before! We all had so much fun that a lot of the younger crew ended up jumping in the pool! Yes, I was in my dress! My 5 BM's, Joe and I all held hands and jumped at the same time. Hopefully some of my friends got some pics b/c Erik the photog was long gone by then. Everything was amazing. Erika was awesome and so helpful/accommodating with everything. Erik the photog took some AMAZING pictures - I can hardly wait to see them. He showed us a few on his screen as he took them so I got a small taste. Our videographer - Jerry from Cancun Wedding video (Claudia Rodriguez's husband's company) - was awesome. He even stayed later than scheduled just b/c he wanted to get some more video. DJ Bob played awesome wedding music and had the whole crew dancing all night. We had such a good time that he says he wants some of our pics for his website! I had so many guests tell me that it was the absolute best wedding celebration they had ever been to. I know I'm biased but I've never had so much fun. The whole week was like one long celebration. I was sooooooooooo sad to leave on Sunday. That's a whole other issue - we had like no post-wedding honeymoon. That's the only thing I would change if I had to do it all over again. We had no time to decompress - married on Friday, working on Monday. EEK! Okay well I hope my notes were helpful - I am so excited for all of you to get married there. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sheree10 Very nice bags. You took ideas from others but you also shared with us, thanks! Did you design the bag or did the company? My cousin who is an artsy type designed my logo, although it was originally 2 colors. They changed it to just one color. Quote: Originally Posted by Tam where did you order your immodium from?? Northern Safety Welcome to Northern Safety - For All Your Safety & Industrial Supplies / Northern Safety Co.

Quote: Originally Posted by slapsappyhappy wow your bags are awesome! Your guests will love them! I did not know you could pay a "less than minimum" charge! That is great to know I wonder if that is a common thing with other bags, thanks so much! How big is this bag, it says 19.5 x 12 x 4.5 inches but is that all the way around or just measuring it flat? is it a big beach bag or more like the reuseable grocery bag size? It's definitely more of a beach bag, although it's not huge. It's actually the perfect size b/c if it was a huge beach bag it would dwarf the little gifts that I'm putting inside. If you are unsure you could always order a sample from them - I did to put my mind at ease. I think with shipping it was like $10.

Quote: Originally Posted by t&kJanuary2010 I love all the items you selected! It all looks great!!! What is "Jewel" where you purchased the Super Energy Booster? Jewel is our grocery store here in Chicago but I'm sure that other supermarkets/pharmacys do a generic version as well. I always like to drink those before I go drinking or in the AM after a rough night Quote: Originally Posted by islandbride317 LOVE the bags -- beautiful! And you're guest will adore both the fun AND functional contents, too! (Might I ask how many mugs you ended up ordering?) The minimum I could order for this particular mug was 72. 4imprint was definitely cheaper than one other place I checked with where I had to pay extra for the printing on both sides - with them it was included. With shipping and everything it came to $3.44 per mug, which I thought was very reasonable.

Quote: Originally Posted by PynkLemonade I really love the bags, they are so cute. I just checked the website you brought them from and you can't order less than 100 bags and I really don't need this many! If you have any other places we all can check that sells bags wholesale, pls share. Thanks! And again, everything looks great I actually didn't have to order 100, I only ordered 40. I had to pay a flat "less than minimum" charge of $40, but it was better than having to buy 100 bags!

Although I haven't contributed much to the BDWF I have made a habit of regularly trolling it over the last year or so to get ideas for not only my OOT bags, but all aspects of my wedding. I can't even count how many times I've told people "there's this great forum/blog where I've gotten all these ideas..." So if you notice that something I did looks familiar, it's certainly no coincidence. Between these bags and other stuff I've done my guests are going to think I'm so creative but they have no idea! Anyways, I have 49 people coming to the wedding and all couples get 1 bag (2 mugs per bag) and singles get their own bag. Bag contents: Mug for each person Chapstick (ebay) Travel candle (amazon) Matches (foryourparty.com) Spanish for Dummies (target) Bug wipes (ebay) Antibacterial gel (bath & body works) Sunblock (target) Photoshare card (vistaprint) Welcome letter (vistaprint) Oh Shit! Kit - Advil (sam's), Immodium (northern safety), Aloe (target), Band-aids, and generic Emergen-C (Jewel - tastes better and much cheaper than the real stuff). I got the sticker labels from vistaprint as well. My bags ordered from Executive Advertising Promotional Wedding Designer 12 oz Canvas Boat Tote Bag | Promotional Tote Bags | Customized Wedding Designer 12 oz Canvas Boat Tote Bag My mugs ordered from 4imprint.com 4imprint Promotional Products, Promotional Items, Advertising Specialties and Imprinted Promotional Products Side 1 Side 2 Here are the contents for the Oh Shit! Kit and the final product: The rest of the bag contents Thanks for all the great ideas. I hope my guests love them as much as I am expecting them to

Although I haven't contributed much to the BDWF I have made a habit of regularly trolling it over the last year or so to get ideas for not only my OOT bags, but all aspects of my wedding. I can't even count how many times I've told people "there's this great forum/blog where I've gotten all these ideas..." So if you notice that something I did looks familiar, it's certainly no coincidence. Between these bags and other stuff I've done my guests are going to think I'm so creative but they have no idea! Anyways, I have 49 people coming to the wedding and all couples get 1 bag (2 mugs per person) and singles get their own bag. Bag contents: Mug for each person Chapstick (ebay) Travel candle (amazon) Matches (foryourparty.com) Spanish for Dummies (target) Bug wipes (ebay) Antibacterial gel (bath & body works) Sunblock (target) Photoshare card (vistaprint) Welcome letter (vistaprint) Oh Shit! Kit - Advil (sam's), Immodium (northern safety), Aloe (target), Band-aids, and generic Emergen-C (Jewel - tastes better and much cheaper than the real stuff). I got the sticker labels from vistaprint as well. My bags ordered from Executive Advertising Promotional Wedding Designer 12 oz Canvas Boat Tote Bag | Promotional Tote Bags | Customized Wedding Designer 12 oz Canvas Boat Tote Bag My mugs ordered from 4imprint.com 4imprint Promotional Products, Promotional Items, Advertising Specialties and Imprinted Promotional Products Side 1 Side 2 Here are the contents for the Oh Shit! Kit and the final product: The rest of the bag contents Thanks for all the great ideas. I hope my guests love them as much as I am expecting them to

Wow what a great idea! I was originally going to do a polaroid guest book but that's going to be way too much work and $$$. This was the first alternative that I came across and I'm sold!

I'm putting travel candles in my OOT bags so of course I need matchbooks. I just ordered these last week and they already came in! They are so cute - better than I expected. They have a ton of colors to choose from and the metallic colors that I picked don't even cost extra. I ordered them from ForYourParty.com Wedding favors, custom wedding napkins, party favors, and more. Make your special occasion unique with personalized favors! and they have all kinds of cool stuff...