istephiez

Hey you girls getting ready to get married. I wish you the best and hope that the swine flu doesn't stop you from having your dream wedding. Mine was meant to be May 15th and we had to reroute the whole thing in a matter of days because it was so in the news at the time and the whole family was freaking out. We did it in the florida keys and it was constant drama throughout but ended up absolutely beautiful. I hope that all of you who had to rearrange plans or headed out had a fabulous wedding like I did and that everyone else continues to have the same!! Congrats and thanks to you all for the support during the chaos!

Hey Stephanie If you want to send me an e-mail address I can get in the website and add your e-mail to my guestbook. It will give you an invitation to view the pictures. My e-mail is [email protected] if you want to just e-mail me directly. Also I forgot to comment on your comment about my hubby's tears. They were purely tears of joy right after we walked out of the ceremony and hugged each other. We walked away from everyone and only allowed ion near us for the first 5 minutes so we could take it all in... thats where and when that shot was taken!!

By the way Stephanie I see that your wedding is one year from tomorrow!!! You will be there right now soaking it all in next year!! Congrats the year is going to fly by!

Thank you both for the sweet compliments. The great thing that worked out was that all the little details for the wedding were planned so we just had to slide them in place in key Largo. We didn't have to lose any of the special touches that we did. By the way we did a packet called meet the guests which some others on the blog have done. We put color pics of everyone and a smaill paragraph about each. It was a HUGE success because with 62 people attending it was nice for people to have. We got tons of compliments As for my photographer his name is Ion Hartunian and he did a friend of mines wedding 3 years ago. He lives here in LA so I contacted him and he had not shot in Mexico but was completely game to do so. His rates were fairly compatible with the ones we had contacted at the hotel but we were going to get the originals of all his shots as well as have him for the entire weekend and we of course loved his style of shooting, he tells a story in his work. We got him to shoot the rehearsal, the dinner, the wedding day and the trash the dress since he was in town for the duration. We had to pay his flight and hotel and car which ended up even more costly due to the changes of venue and cancellation fees but he sent us the link last night to our 1700 photos and it was well worth it. I will get a CD of all the pictures in the next week to do with how I choose. His website is ionhartunian.com and he is also a super nice guy who blended in well with all of our guests. He had never done a ttd shoot and he loved every minute. We wanted crashing waves so had a different vision but where we were staying they simply did not exist!! All in all I did get the beautiful wedding I dreamed of with all the close friends and family spending 4 days together and of course my now husband, it just simply put was not a smooth sailing wedding nor wedding day but once it got started we were in for the ride and loved every minute!

Hey ladies I am just checking in here after the last month of hecticness in my life between planning the wedding in Mexico, canceling the wedding in Mexico, re-routing the wedding to Key Largo Florida and adding in a honeymoon in Hawaii and planning it all from top to bottom. I haven't actually had the heart to check in here on a regular basis because besides being slammed with the events I also have sort of a saddness for how it all went down when reading this site. In the end our wedding happened and was beautfiful and special and the bonding that happened exceded our wildest dreams plus the fact that we got a honeymoon so I can hardly be sad about it but it surely wasn't a perfectly planned wedding or wedding day for that matter. The night before the wedding during our rehearsal and the dinner set up for us and our 60 guest the first rain came in and hit us hard. It was literally hailing and the whole thing was drug indoors into a fairly unattractive room. I was holding it together until the driver who took us from the hut we were hiding under to avoid the lightening told us that the next day was meant to be rain all day long. I walked into the room, saw the 60 faces, the lights of the cameras and just started to cry....it was a beautiful yet sad moment that I will never live down. The following morning I woke up and with a whole day of pampering scheduled to get me ready was hectic due to the hour to hour updates on the weather and how it was going to be throughout the day. At 3pm when I was at the salon getting my hair done by fiance called to say that he heard that our scheduled 7:30pm ceremony would likely have rain and that he just told the hotel to change the time to 5pm. He was getting my approval and spreading the news to all the guests to make the change. I agreed because the one thing I was holding onto was getting married on that beach. I had already had to move my wedding from Mexico, the rehearsal indoors with puddles of water from the leaking roof and the reception was now to be held in the ballroom...I WAS GETTING MARRIED ON THE BEACH NO MATTER WHAT DAY OR TIME So.....we ran home switch the timing on everything, did a mad rush to finish getting ready, changed the timing of doing the photos and walked down the aisle 2 hours later. I got the beach, I got the sun, I got the beauty of my now husband seeing me for the first time as I walked down the aisle and as Shay likes to say.....I GOT THE GUY It was far from perfect but it happened the way it was meant to be. I want to thank all of you guys because during the decision making process of moving the wedding all the support I had from my fiance, family and friends didn't help me as much as all of you girls listening and chatting back and forth. I feel so awful for those who didn't get to work it out as planned because it was too late or whatever other reason things got in the way but I thank all of you for the support. I feel like I hit gold with this site even though I didn't get married at The Royal and even though I don't know any of you personally your virtual friendship got me through an exciting, memorable, challenging, frustrating and beautiful time in my life and I will be forever grateful!! My photographer put a bunch of shots on his blog so I have pasted the link so you can all check it out. When you get to the page scroll through the baby pictures and our photos will be posted. Stephanie and Gabriel's wedding

Hey Shay I got teared up and read this with my fiance as I am still very sad for you and understand the feeling of losing this "thing" I am going to be able to recreate it to a fairly good degree but now instead in Florida. We will actually be gainging 10-15 people due to the change of location. You and I are now officially "twin" dates as the royal girls said. I had to move my date from the 15th to the 16th to get the hotel and now you have moved yours from the 7th to the 16th at your AHR. I will be thinking of you on my day at some point along with all the other girls out there who have had to make these sudden, drastic and very challenging decisions this past week. You will also be getting married on the same day and all those other friends and family will now get to experience it with you in person, I am sure that will make it soo incredibly special. I am trying to find the positive and for me I think I have. Gabe's dad is now able to legally marry us since he is a notary in Florida and we will have some additions at the wedding along with a trip to Hawaii afterwards. Its not easy to let the other wedding go but doing my best to move forward, I really really hope you all can do the same. The timing was worst for those who were to be getting married the first week of May because there was no time to make many changes so and alleviate peoples fears so you had to just go with it and hope for the best or cancel and reschedule or maybe forget it all together. I hope that all of our outcomes become positive as they will now be part of our future....

Hey girls Still checking in with you..I think we are changing our first dance song from "What a wonderful world" to Bob Marley "Don't worry about a thing, cuz every little thing is going to be alright!" thought you'd all get a kick out of that Shannon when this all started going down on Sunday I said that I was pretty level headed thinking that if we were leaving early this week it would likely go on as planned because it would have been too late for anyone to do anything or freak out too much and if we weren't getting married till the end of May it would likely die down by then. Leaving 2 weeks out from when this happened was a fortunate/unfortunate timing to be in because it is right in the mayhem of it yet still have enough time to come up with a back up plan. I knew based on the calls we were getting that even though I was fighting canceling Mexico that it was likely going to be made for me based on the family stuff. I am going to get through the logistics today and then hope to welcome the new location. Somehow I need to wrap my head around the fact that this is the way that it was meant to be but as I go through it I just feel like its the most screwed up thing that has happened to a bride and yet all I can think about is all of you guys and all the the personal situations that you are all dealing with as well. I have never felt so in sync with a group of girls than I have this week with all of you.....I just really hope we can all get through the lows of the circumstances, deal with them emotionally and then put our focus on the positive which is marrying our fiance's Does anyone know what is going on with Shay? She is normally on here posting so many updates and I just feel so bad that she can't go and last I heard she wasn't getting a refund so everything was up in the air...Shay are you out there? Little Leam so sorry with your situation as well but you only live once so take it in stride and have a beautiful wedding Shannon you are going to have a beautiful intimate wedding and marry your wonderful Chris, enjoy and I am still going to look forward to your review and photos!

Bianca I hope that your wedding can go on as planned. My parents and sister (who was traveling with a 3 and 5 year old) weren't too concerned at all yet the other side was doing more freaking out than I can handle. The not knowing if it was going to be ok got the best of us and since we needed this weekend to work out we found a plan b and when my best friend called to say her doctor won't allow her to travel since pregnant we decided this was our best option....good luck I think it will clear and you will all be safe to go as long as your other members don't freak out!!

Hello ladies....I only started on this thread the day of the outbreak but have been following all of you this week and though have only posted a few times feel connected to those of you going through this horrible swine flu so wanted to post on here as well as my regular thread for my hotel My heart is breaking as I write this e-mail and I guarantee that it won't be my last. I am officially canceling my mexican wedding. I can not deal with the phone calls, e-mails, texts, fights, tears and not knowing what do do feeling anymore. Since the level was raised to 5 it has given us no reason to believe that we can still count on going anymore. There are too many people concerned and we don't want to do it without the 46 people that have committed to going with us. Pushing is also not an option because of the time lost by being a freelancer due to the wedding and the money would be greater if we wait and do it at another time. I just can't afford to go through the lack of work again and also can't guarantee that we could find a date that would work for everyone again. Our plan B is to goto Key Largo in the Florida Keys because it would give us a beautiful beach, weather, sunset and ability to put everyone at the same hotel thus creating the weekend environment that we had planned in Mexico, as I have said from the beginning it isn't about the wedding day it is about the whole trip and time spent with everyone which we would lose if we do it here in LA. I am still going to bring my Mexican Fiesta Koozies and gift bags that say May 15th even though I am now getting married on May 16th and I am still doing my starfish and chair bows and fans and having our friend do our ceremony so I know that I can end up with a very special weekend but just not what I wanted. If I wanted to do it this way I would have from the start..... That being said I need to find a way to get over the loss and move on with the new plan. I told my Fiance that since we aren't doing Mexico we ARE doing a honeymoon even if its got to be paid on a credit card. We are planning to hit Hawaii for a week which I am hoping will make up for some of the things I lose out on in Mexico. As I said I will still keep coming on here and checking in because I have gotten used to all of your support as well as the feeling of just getting to vent to

I don't normally post on this thread but feel the need today since you all understand my current situation..... My heart is breaking as I write this e-mail and I guarantee that it won't be my last. I am officially canceling my mexican wedding. I can not deal with the phone calls, e-mails, texts, fights, tears and not knowing what do do feeling anymore. Since the level was raised to 5 it has given us no reason to believe that we can still count on going anymore. There are too many people concerned and we don't want to do it without the 46 people that have committed to going with us. Pushing is also not an option because of the time lost by being a freelancer due to the wedding and the money would be greater if we wait and do it at another time. I just can't afford to go through the lack of work again and also can't guarantee that we could find a date that would work for everyone again. Our plan B is to goto Key Largo in the Florida Keys because it would give us a beautiful beach, weather, sunset and ability to put everyone at the same hotel thus creating the weekend environment that we had planned in Mexico, as I have said from the beginning it isn't about the wedding day it is about the whole trip and time spent with everyone which we would lose if we do it here in LA. I am still going to bring my Mexican Fiesta Koozies and gift bags that say May 15th even though I am now getting married on May 16th and I am still doing my starfish and chair bows and fans and having our friend do our ceremony so I know that I can end up with a very special weekend but just not what I wanted. If I wanted to do it this way I would have from the start..... That being said I need to find a way to get over the loss and move on with the new plan. I told my Fiance that since we aren't doing Mexico we ARE doing a honeymoon even if its got to be paid on a credit card. We are planning to hit Hawaii for a week which I am hoping will make up for some of the things I lose out on in Mexico. As I said I will still keep coming on here and checking in because I have gotten used to all of your support as well as the feeling of just getting to vent to people who actually can relate to me so I thank you all for listening and for your continued support. For those of you who are in a similar situation I hope that you can also find a way to make the best of the situation because though it SUCKS it is still your wedding and its now part of your journey in life, its up to you to make it special and move on from it... thats what I keep telling myself anyway....

Hello my fellow Royal brides My heart is breaking as I write this e-mail and I guarantee that it won't be my last. I am officially canceling my mexican wedding. I can not deal with the phone calls, e-mails, texts, fights, tears and not knowing what do do feeling anymore. Since the level was raised to 5 it has given us no reason to believe that we can still count on going anymore. There are too many people concerned and we don't want to do it without the 46 people that have committed to going with us. Pushing is also not an option because of the time lost by being a freelancer due to the wedding and the money would be greater if we wait and do it at another time. I just can't afford to go through the lack of work again and also can't guarantee that we could find a date that would work for everyone again. Our plan B is to goto Key Largo in the Florida Keys because it would give us a beautiful beach, weather, sunset and ability to put everyone at the same hotel thus creating the weekend environment that we had planned in Mexico, as I have said from the beginning it isn't about the wedding day it is about the whole trip and time spent with everyone which we would lose if we do it here in LA. I am still going to bring my Mexican Fiesta Koozies and gift bags that say May 15th even though I am now getting married on May 16th and I am still doing my starfish and chair bows and fans and having our friend do our ceremony so I know that I can end up with a very special weekend but just not what I wanted. If I wanted to do it this way I would have from the start..... That being said I need to find a way to get over the loss and move on with the new plan. I told my Fiance that since we aren't doing Mexico we ARE doing a honeymoon even if its got to be paid on a credit card. We are planning to hit Hawaii for a week which I am hoping will make up for some of the things I lose out on in Mexico. As I said I will still keep coming on here and checking in because I have gotten used to all of your support as well as the feeling of just getting to vent to people who actually can relate to me so I thank you all for listening and for your continued support. For those of you who are in a similar situation I hope that you can also find a way to make the best of the situation because though it SUCKS it is still your wedding and its now part of your journey in life, its up to you to make it special and move on from it... thats what I keep telling myself anyway....

Oh my gosh Shay and Michelle I don't know what to say to you. I am also likely in the same boat as far as the hotel goes but my TA is still trying to sort out what it is that they are willing to do for people. It seems that they haven't actually stated anything at this time, did you guys get some sort of confirmation that they will only give a 6 month voucher/credit for the trip? The only consoling thing that I can say to you is that you have your beautiful AHR that you can focus on and if you can rearrange the 10 peoples trips then you could try and look at it like a honeymoon. I know that you probably want to shoot or punch me for saying that because I want to hit me for even typing it. I can't even get into all the little things that are happening on my end and just how annoyed, pissed off and virtually devastated I am right now. We are looking into a back up and I am sick about it, are you kidding me do I want to get get married in Florida hell no!! besides that we still don't know what will happen to everyones money at this time and since we are still 2 weeks we may not HAVE to change it but we have so much pressure to change it that its out of my control. My fiance is being super supportive but he is definitely not attached to this the same way that I am since I am the one planning it all and speaking with all of you. I feel the best oddly enough (or maybe not so much) when I am on here reading what is going on with everyone else because at least I know that you all understand what I am going through. I feel like women worldwide are bonding over this situation. I have no plans or answers and I think that I have officially hit the angry stage where I am super negative and hating every supportive suggestion thrown my way. Stephanie, to think just this past week you were jealous of all of us May and June brides because our day was already nearing our departure and look what happened. Enjoy the planning and feel lucky that yours is so far off. I told my friend today that I ever hear her say "its just my luck" that i will knock her out because thats MY line.... I just don't even know what to hope for anymore because the truth is that if the hotel isn't forced to cancel our weddings they may hold our money hostage and if thats the case we may have no option other than re-booking! Keep us all informed on how this plays out and know we are all here for each other.

OMG shay are you serious, what the hell, is it for sure? Is it until a certain date? What are you doing? How many people were coming with you guys? I am crying for you because it sounds like the decision may have been taken out of your own hands. I just got home and am running out but I got this press release just now and wanted to post for you guys to read, if someone wants to post on the other threads feel free or maybe someone else already has. CANCUN, RIVIERA MAYA & COZUMEL FREE FROM SWINE FLU QUINTANA ROO STATE SECRETARY OF TOURISM PUBLIC RELEASE QUINTANA ROO KEEPS FREE FROM SWINE FLU 4/27/2009 Quintana Roo State Secretary of Tourism informs that the state is free from Swine Flu disease up to now, and that not a single case of the disease, or related cases have been reported at the main tourism destinations. The detection and prevention plan implemented by Mexico´s Ministry of Health continues, by means of check points placed at airports, cruise and bus terminals, as well as permanent monitoring in the more than 77,000 hotel rooms operating in Quintana Roo. The government agency also informs that tourism related activities develop normally in Cancun, Isla Mujeres, Riviera Maya, Cozumel and Grand Costa Maya. All destinations remain attentive to the Health Authority´s directions. Quintana Roo State Government is supportive of other Mexican states where the Swine Flu outbreak has taken place, and will be respectful of precaution measures and recommendations implemented in foreign countries in regard to international travel. For the State Government the highest priority now is the preservation of health among all the population, including citizens and visitors.

Wow thats so great you spoke to them and it seems that you got some good information. My issue is that I have a 1, 3 and 5 year old, a pregnant bridesmaid, and 9 guests over the age of 54. We are researching Florida right now even though we have no idea what the hotel is going to do for us. I am really angry and upset because I can't take everyones comments about me making the best of this and that its going to be beautiful. Its so not something that I feel I am or should be expected to get over and readjust the plan and be excited about when this is just going down so quickly. I don't know that I will get over it to be honest and we can't even afford the hotels in the the states which is a HUGE reason we chose to do Mexico in the first place....I'm proud of you girls for planning on going as is I have a feeling that this isn't going to be up to me if I want to do the same based on how the family is responding...

Wow what did the CDC say? You actually spoke with them