Ayita

Hi everyone... first a silly question : who is DMB ? Well this week-end was super productive for me : first of all, the venue issues have been sorted out ! They did not change much to the modifications I made to the contract and it was not major. We end up not paying for the empty rooms, and having pretty much what we had first discussed. that's a major one - moving everything at the last minute would have been very stressful. I had my final fitting (yeah !) and my hair done (yeah ! Although I don't like the color too much... again...). I picked up a riser for the cake topper (in case it does not fit comfortable on the cupcakes), and bought a new suitcase and new TSA approved locks yes cause I LEAVE IN ONE WEEK FROM NOW !!! This is my LAST WEEK OF WORK isn't this freaking ? I did a ton of DIY stuff too !!! I procrastinated a lot last week due to the venue stress so I had to do a lot this week-end... I finished : the table numbers the scavenger hunt cards the welcome booklets - with the last page perforated so they can take it with you ! The back is a map of the area, and the front the driving directions to the hotel with the hotel phone nb and mine... I'll post a template later today ! I also did my place cards (finally I had to, the hotel asked us to pick the menus in advance), printed them and all... and they DH told me there was an English mitake in it... he was so cracked up I decided to re-do them... waiting for paper to print them again. I also did the programs (pics to come). Pfew !! With all that remain : - the music (a big one) - picking up cards for the non-wedding guests - sign for cameras basket - re-do the best woman corsage - the one I have has 2 white mini callas and one orange, I want to make it all white and I have two spare bout from the GM - re-do my hair color maybe - decision to be taken tomorrow - and door hangers for the welcome bags if I find the time ! Small list hey ? I'm almost ready !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In average I spent 10$ per guest, bags included. Per bag it's more, but you do only one bag per couple and I do not have too many single guests. The onyl things that I doubled are the hangover kit (one per person) and the favors. The most expensive item was the favors (I did plantable favors - overall 3$ pp), the rest of it I got mostly from Target, OTC, minimus.biz or Northern Safety (for the hangover kits).

Quote: Originally Posted by jax_the_beach_bride OMG!!! exactly 3 weeks until im a MRS!! i am FREAKING out... i made my DIY necklace yesterday for the wedding... its pretty awesome.. but other than that... im going INSANE.. i still have one exam to complete and two more essays until the semester is out!!... AND... some good news.. my FI brother was booked with conquest (who went bankrupt) and his money is tangeled up with them for god knows how long.. but his gf's parents are going to lend them the money so that they can still come!! phew.. i just got my hair colour done so that it will be well set by the wedding... but i still have to do nails, eyebrows, and toes... prob 2 days or so before we leave... Im not finished the OOT bags.. and we dont even have favours yet!!.. what are you ladies doing for favours?? I feel so overwhelmed.. but it serves my procrastinating but! .. OO.. and our photogs still dont have flights yet!!.,.. SHHEEEESH! My OOT bags ARE my favours... well I also did plantable favors that are in the OOT bags : Plantable Seed Wedding Favors from Botanical PaperWorks I went for the flip-flops !! they look great Tomorrow hair color and cut ! And final fitting ! Yeah !

Teasers ! We want some teasers !

I wanted a date that would be outside of Hurricane season, outside of closing period (April / July / Octo / Jan), inside some school vacations or bank holidays for French/Singapore people, and less than a year after our engagement. That did not leave a lot of days

Well, I'm now two weeks before my wedding and although I did not reach the 40lb that I had in mind, I still lost a total of 27 lb !!!!!!! (I fell a bit of the wagon in Jan-Feb) I'm so happy, today I'm wearing an outfit that was sitting sadly in my closet since August 2003 !!! I'm gonna get rid of the last 13lb after my wedding... and then to celebrate, BD session ! I'll be ready for our first anniversary

DH wanted to go diving. I said for the day before - if he's not there for HIS friends it's HIS problem not mine - but the day of the wedding, it's a NO-NO. I booked him for a mani-pedi in the morning with me at 10am haha ! He's stuck ! try that !

Quote: Originally Posted by BlissfulMsMiranda ^^^ Aww why are we all so stressed??!!! Us May brides should be excited and happy our wedding days are so close!!! Can your guests tickets be transfered to another airline? They shouldn't leave you stranded and usually offer options. Try calling the airline up yourself if you don't trust your TA ... that's what I would do. As for the dress - I'm leaving mine with the seamstress until the weekend of May 1st. It seems extreme, but if I suddenly lose like 5 lbs in the last week, I want her to be able to fix it JUST before I leave on the 8th! So, I'd say, leave yours there till a week before you depart. Then you can do a final fitting with her and if there are still changes to be made, they should only be minor, and she'll have a few days to fix them and you can pick it up JUST before you leave. Does that make sense? I'm extreme too ! I have my final fitting on Saturday, and I leave in less than 2 weeks ! But I'm like you : losing weight... I actually lost 4 lb since my last fitting !! With all this crap going on !! I was wondering exactly the same thing. We should be excited now, not stressed. And I'm there, not printing my programs or the first 3 pages of the welcome booklet because they all refer to Le Reve ! Sending emails to get people menu choices ! Reviewing contracts and spending hours on the phone ! Trying to find a cool place to go if we have to go party somewhere else (Mummergirl : without being so extreme as going until dawn... my dinner is from 8:30 to 10:30 so if party ends at 11, it means no party at all...) ! Let's stay positive. Everything is going to work out well ! Jax, Miranda, I so hope everything is going to sort out for you too, girls ! I wanted to share a good news - that sure did cheer me up - today I'm wearing a suit I did not wear since 2003 !! Not ALL of my 2003 suits fit, but two of them do now ! Yeah me ! (-27 lbs since beginning of Sept).

Quote: Originally Posted by mummergirl ayita, that's ridiculous! i'm so sorry! so i'm assuming you ended up not relocating? i hope everything works out. many of the things you pointed out should have been under contract! what is your timeline of wedding events? i saw that you were upset about it all ending at 11pm and was confused ... we have a cocktail hour from 6-7 and then reception from 7-10 (that includes dinner time!), so really probably only an hour or two of dancing/partying before we have to move elsewhere. i think it's pretty common at most resorts. i would love to extend mine to 11 but they want ridiculous $$$ for that. screw them, it's an AI! we'll just move to the bar that is all of 15 feet away. we'll all definitely be thinking of you and crossing our fingers that everything not only meets but exceeds your expectations on your wedding day. try to remember, the only really important part is that you marry your love. everyone will be on vacation, and none of them know will know any better if things aren't the way you envisioned. Thanks for your words ! Well, I have not relocated yet but it's still in the options... as long as I don't have a signed contract and you should see the TONS of modifications I did !!! For me a wedding is dinner and party all night. This place is not a resort, it's a very small hotel and this was the whole point - to be between us... they have only one other guest... that I'm going to invite anyway... I was really planning to party until dawn, even with music less loud - but being over at 11pm, no. No no no. We'll see how things go ! For Mfry : here is my dress, this pic is from my last fitting... the final one is on Saturday, although I have lost 4 pounds since I went there last time due to all this !! As you can see the style is pretty close to yours !!!!!! That's funny.

Quote: Originally Posted by Memi ok so I downloaded the cute little guys and I figured out what they all mean, but I can't cut them out of the adobe file to put them on the power point file. Help! how do I do that. The bandaid guy and the hand wipe guy are not on the power point file. You cannot take something from pdf and put in back in powerpoint... I had to re-design all the guys... and I did not need the ones with the band aids sorry !! You can try to do one starting from mine...

Two good news : My planner thinks she can find a plan B AND we received the contract... just because we told them that if we did not receive it we go somewhere else ! The bad news : the contract is as I expected full of S***. Their last find : change the post-dinner open bar of 10$ per person per hour to 10$ per drink after dinner... We are still going to try and make this work, make them sign a contract with all our changes... and if not it will be plan B ! I'm done crying now I'm determined ! I'm a soldier in war ! Yeah !

mfry... I just saw your dress... and now I realize that you're also The Bride With The Shoes... I think we have pretty similar tastes !

Quote: Originally Posted by mfry Ok, I have a question. Are any of you practicing your smile for your pics? I am starting to stress out some, I have Grave's eye disease which makes my eyes puffy and they were starting to look a little better, but today they look very puffy!!! I am so paranoid they will look like that on my wedding day. Here is a pic from sat, my eyes looked good and here is today Let me know what you think, maybe I am freaking out for nothing. You look fine ! Don't freak out ! I can't see a difference

Quote: Originally Posted by mummergirl i've noticed you've said this more than once ... what's up with the venue that you are suddenly unsure about?!?!?!?! My drama : http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t40781 We finally received the contract today after threatening to take the wedding to another place... and of course it's shady with tons of stuff changed. My WC is fantastic and is looking for a plan B. She says it could work... but will anyway try to arrange the things, that's three of us... (we have been spending the last 10 days over the phone with those a$$*oles).

Quote: Originally Posted by mfry Trayce2222, Here is the shoe I am wearing if it helps give you some ideas for your shoes!!! Wow lovely !! Mine are similar but I love yours. Check them out : I leave in just two weeks... actually, I'll be down there in two weeks... and my heart is pounding like crazy because I'm not sure of the venue any longer ! God this is so ... distressing ? Awful ? Agonizing ? Raaaa. At least I have hairdresser and final fitting on Saturday. A little pampering will help.

Quote: Originally Posted by becks Wow Ayita! That is awful, I can't believe they are doing this to you. Did you sign the contract? You say you haven't seen it, but presumably you've seen something? Worst case, find a friend who is a lawyer and have them place a call. You can't be held to a contract you haven't signed. I wish I had some advice for plan B, but it looks like MarieSam has that covered. Good luck! Keep us posted and don't cry any more! I have my fingers crossed that it will all work out. As I'm saying, no I did not sign a contract they did not send any. This is why I'm considering moving the whole thing. I only signed a commitment letter and gave them 1,500$... This is the only thing I will lose (and some tranquillitity and also maybe they will not change the sheets of my bed ! )

MarieSam and Purrfected : thank you SO much this is so helpful !!! And thanks everybody for your words of comfort. The good thing out of this, I'm losing those last recalcitrant pounds ! 4 in one week who says better... Yes we are not talking of a lot of guests here, we're only 33 including 2 kids... DH is going to call the hotel again this morning but frankly given how this has been going on for days now, I doubt this will go well. Well as you say MarieSam, it might ! Specially if we tell them they are compromising everything and we're looking for something else. But between what they say and what they do, I now know there is a gap... For sure they will charge me with insane prices on all the sides not in the contract and will serve us reduced portions (hell they are already talking of 7 appetizers for the whole cocktail which is... one every 20 minutes... !!!!!) So I will actively look into all this. Hopefully my WC can help. The hardest will be to find something still free on my date... which is the week-end just before 5 de Mayo !

All right, I've already written to my wedding planner who, THANKS GOD is external and not from the hotel, but at this point in time ANY HELP is welcome ! We're having major issues with the hotel. Basically, they are coming back on everything that has been agreed not only when we went down there in December, but also since then in our numerous e-mail communications. We had been clear from the beginning we could not fill up the hotel, and that we would commit to 15 rooms. It was also clear from the beginning that even if we had wanted to privatize, we could not have, as they already had one room booked for the night of our wedding. The manager and wedding planner were super cool, discussed how the non-wedding guests would be placed in the rooms farther away from the restaurant to avoid them being too disturbed, how they would put tables in the spa area for them to have a private dinner and for us to have a private reception, plus all the details of the wedding. The first problems we encountered came in February. The wedding planner would not answer my mails any more. After a month (from Jan 31 to March 6 !) of being extremely patient, sending email over email, I called, just to learn that she had quit. Nobody even cared to inform me. I was told I could wait for the next planner, or hire somebody from the exterior. With my wedding being only 7 weeks away, I did not want to wait, and hired somebody I had been in touch with before. She handled everything super rapidly, and in like 4 weeks everything was ready. Also 7 weeks before the wedding date, I sent a mail to the hotel saying we only needed 5 more rooms, that I understood if they would release them all but that it would be cool if they could still hold on to 5. I got no answer. Then last week, just past the deadline when you cannot cancel the rooms any more... it begun. First, they asked us to pay for the empty rooms. Well, they did not really ask us : they wrote to my TA, but not to me !! We told them we were not going to do, as it was not agreed at first, we even crossed it out from the commitment letter. We had told them to release the rooms 7 weeks before, and on top of this, the rooms were already sold over the internet (I have one guest that booked online !!). They presented this to us : for your wedding to be private... and we're only 30 days before... you're kidding me. They just wanted money for no good reason. Seeing they were not getting there, they started to get awful. On everything. They called my TA and told her she would not receive her commission fee. They sent us a mail saying fine, but everything has to be over at 11pm. 11pm ! On a Saturday night ! That's the end of the dinner !! It means there is no party ! Now they won't send the contract over, probably to avoid us discovering more stuff. I learnt today from my WC that they are asking her a 10% commission fee !! For the first time today, less than 3 weeks before the wedding ! She is outraged (and the worst, she had worked with them before and no such thing happened). They also told her (again, not me), that we would have only 7 appetizers per person at the cocktail (instead of 7 per person per hour, which I'm paying for), that we would have no complimentary drink upon arrival (the normal stuff) but that they would "offer it to us after the ceremony in order to follow up good services"... Of course we don't need a complimentary drink at the same time than the open bar ! Just say you cancel it ! The alleged reason for not sending the contract : we had a choice of entrees, we were supposed to pick them the day before... well now we have to chose NOW and it has to be IN THE CONTRACT ! Of course, they want to order the fish now so that we eat it rotten B***S*** That's just really picking on everything but I'm afraid it could get much worse once there... it also really, really makes me NOT WANT to get married there and give them my business ! I tried to stay positive over the last 10 days, but it's only getting worse and worse. Crying should not be part of the planning process - and I'm crying every day now. So we are already stuck with the rooms, but it's easy to get a bus and get everybody some place else... as my WC is external I have everything ready... and transportable ! The only thing I need is a venue, with a beach, food, and waiters. It can be a private villa and a caterer. I can be a restaurant or a bar on the beach. It can be a beach club. It can be even a more accomodating hotel venue. They probably think they've got me because I paid a retainer of 1,500$ and everybody is staying at the hotel, but believe me, I'm ready to let go of that retainer and even pay more for the place I'll go to - provided it's not with them ! Please help me ! Tell me if I'm crazy to want to move the whole thing 19 days before - that I should just go party somewhere else after dinner - or if I'm right and if so, give me ideas !!! The hotel is between Puerto Morelos ad Playa del Carmen. Now let me go get drizzy

I cannot reply to the poll !!! I'm going to wear my wedding band at my left finger, and my e-ring at my right finger !

Quote: Originally Posted by TinaM2b I already posted my first pair of shoes I bought that are all rhinestones but now I found a second pair that I love and just bought. The moon palace takes the brides to the gazebo in a white horse-drawn carriage and I thought these would look be a bit of a surprise for all while I am stepping out of my carriage. Wow ! Where did you find those precious ?

My shoes for the ceremony : My shoes for the reception : Both from DSW !

We did it in February. I think there is a thread about this already somewhere ?

This week-end I finished designing the welcome booklets, including the who's who ! Yeah ! But I ran out of cardstock before printing them all... The programs are also ready to print, but not printed yet because I'm having anxiety about the hotel... I won't print them until I get my contract... After that, remaining to be done : - final fitting (Saturday) for both my dresses - hairdresser (also Saturday) color and cut - finish the camera scavenger hunt translation into french and prep the little cards to put on the tables - table numbers - seating chart - highly depends on my WC as I just asked her to change from 4 tables of 10 to 3 tables of 12... - sign for the cameras basket - finish the playlists - ship the box with the flowers - finish the suitcases (already packed 1.5) and the hotel WC just added to the list : get food choices from guests for dinner... I think I won't have time for the door hangers... I leave in two weeks !!

Hello there ! First time I see this thread ! Well for me it's becoming super close to the date so not sure I have a lot of time before leaving (in 2 weeks from now). As for Boudoir, I am not doing it now... maybe for our 1st anniversary... I was thinking of using this person : Houston Boudoir Photography, through a woman's eye - classy, sensual, and fun portraits Her portfolio looks stunning.

Hello there ! First time I see this thread ! Well for me it's becoming super close to the date so not sure I have a lot of time before leaving (in 2 weeks from now). As for Boudoir, I am not doing it now... maybe for our 1st anniversary... I was thinking of using this person : Houston Boudoir Photography, through a woman's eye - classy, sensual, and fun portraits Her portfolio looks stunning.