ebredhawk

i survived my shower this weekend.. thank GOODNESS!! J's family made jokes the whole time i was opening presents so it broke the tension and awkwardness.. very helpful! we got lots of good stuff too.. things that can replace old stuff that we already have, and a few fun things we wouldn't have bought for ourselves. i also had fitting #2 and we decided to add a halter strap. this is a good thing though because the sweetheart neckline was a little low on me and i was self-concious about all the cleveage. it's the type of halter with both ends in the middle of the neckline, so it has a really cool look to it. makes my dress a little unique too! other than that, it fits like a dream! phew!! started passing out OOT bags this weekend and got to see my flowers all finished! not too many things left to do now.. let's get this show on the road! i don't have enough room in my brain to hold in all this stuff anymore!

elena.. do a quick google search for sunset times in punta cana for your date. i know a lot of people like the bordeaux because of the ocean view, but it's likely that most of your reception will be after sunset anyway. toya, i can't wait to see your centerpieces!! i got to see my finished bouquets this weekend! the lady who is doing my flowers was at my shower and she brought my MOH's bouquet so she could bring it home with her and pack it. she held onto mine so she can get some good pictures before she's finished with everything, so i'll post pictures once i have them all (minus MOH's). i also started handing out some of the OOT bags to the people who were at my shower and are from out of town so we won't see them again until we're there. everyone was really excited and surprised! plus, they liked the idea that they can use the bag as a carryon.. hopefully there will be a ton of people with those bags at the airport!

thanks for letting me know brooke! and tricia i'm so glad you got him! let me know when he gets sent my way!

we have a 4 year old and (hopefully) a 6 year old and our travel agent said there aren't any restrictions and they should be fine on the transfer bus. i don't often hear of people taking theirs with them, unless it will give you peace of mind!

oh wow tracy.. i'm so sorry you had to deal with all of that!! it doesn't seem like anyone can go through the process without there being some kind of drama! J's bachelor party is this weekend and there will be no strippers (as my dad, grandpa and brother will be there) so here's hoping there are no problems there. i also already told my MOH that i don't want to get drunk and make a fool of myself.. i hate being hungover and i want to enjoy the night! we'll see if that happens next weekend! i have my 2nd fitting on saturday and i'm VERY nervous. i spent the entire month of january out of town and busy season at work is just now ending... basically i have made no change from my normal routine to get "wedding dress ready"... hopefully everything will still fit fine! michele, let us know how your fitting goes today! pictures maybe?!

i like the idea of assigning someone to do it! knowing J's friends, if someone didn't watch over it, we'd have a camera full of inappropriate pictures! at least with a digital you can erase them though, right?! i actually have a friend who LOVES to take pictures, so i may ask her what she thinks about that! thanks girls!

meghan, i have my fingers and toes crossed that all of this can pass and you can enjoy your day without the crappy guys and semi-crappy BM messing it up. hopefully they will understand that you feel let down by what they did, but then again, they're guys and how often do they actually understand female feelings? make sure you don't let this get in the way of your VERY fun bach party this weekend! michele, you are not alone. not one bit. we got our marriage license yesterday and that freaked me out a little, and then last night i was talking to my FSIL and J's parents about the trip and it suddenly seemed real. a VERY strange feeling and it freaked me out for a bit!! okay april ladies, i need your help! we're planning our AHR right now (wedding stage 4 as i call it) and we're having a family friend take pictures (she's also a pro photog). i really want to do a guestbook with the whiteboard pictures... don't know if you've seen it but it's where people write messages on whtie boards and take a picture with it. WELL, the photog doesn't think it's a good idea for her to get chased down every time a picture is going to get taken. i want all of the pictures on one camera, and i worry about leaving one there for people to use. anyone have an idea on how to remedy this? if it takes too much thought i may just pass on the idea, but for now i'm still trying to figure it out!!

i am with toya on the price thing. it does stink, but i think the flexibility that dreams allows is still better than a lot of the other resorts. plus, the free wedding package is a great option! they do always throw that clause in there, and it stinks when it takes them forever to update the prices for the next year, but we never signed contracts agreeing to prices, so that's why they can do that. hopefully none of the prices changed significantly from last year and no one's budgets will be affected too much. ashley, i was just thinking... have you heard about Google Docs? they are documents you can put out on the internet through google.. they have a URL and everything. if you made something like that out of all of the WC responses, rather than an email, if would probably save you the headache of making sure you email the file to everyone each time they want it. we use them on my cake decorating forum all the time to share recipes, etc.

oh my.. it'll take me a while to sort though them, but i'll work on that. thanks ash!

fastest deyanira response on record! just got 2 emails within about 15 minutes... i sent her the email i had saying that the flower-less huppah was $150 and she said that rate was good. also goes to show that i think they really do prioritize email communication based on the proximity of your wedding date. trust me, i was there before. i booked this time last year and was desperate for any response! nat, i don't know if you have something from her saying that price, but make sure you print it and bring it with you. good thing to know they'll honor the prices!

eliana, i've heard a lot of people say that it gets pretty breezey/chilly on the beach once the sun goes down. we're doing our ceremony there and have heard that there really aren't privacy issues and the people nearby don't bother anyone, but for the reception i'm not sure. honestly, i don't think i've heard of anyone in the last year who's had their reception on the beach. you could be the first BDW girl to do it just got another response from deyanira and she upped the huppah price on me! i was quoted $150 before without any flowers or extra decorations besides the fabric and this time she said $175. i emailed her back to double check so i'll let everyone (nat!) know.

jennifer, it's just the one that's posted on the dreams site i believe. nothing new or different there. also, i wouldn't worry about the communication. since your date is all the way out in october, your WC may be prioritizing weddings that are before yours since their busiest time of the year is about to start up! jenise, we won't know about J's daughter until at least april 8th, but thanks for asking!! her mom claims that she sent in everything for her passport, but we'll see about that. nothing we can do now but wait! i'm also not even close to being done with my to do list, but i think everything i have written down is everything i need to do before we leave. a lot of it is last minute organizational stuff which i am fine with!!

ashley, that shoot looks amazing!!! do you have more pictures from it yet?

i got an email from deyanira today, and it wasn't just a normal email, it had EVERYTHING in it that i've talked to her about... she was confirming all of my details, guest count, times, etc. i think it's probably because i'm just under 2 months out, but she was also responding about my original question too. it felt so so so good to see all of that confirmed from her!! eliana, she also sent me the 2010 wedding guide and there's a "fire show" for $400. not sure if that's exactly the fire dancers, but that's what it sounds like.

that's exactly what we did with our registries.. just registered for stuff we'd love to have but wouldn't ever get for ourselves. fun kitchen tools, wall decor, cook books, things like that. if i wasn't having a bridal shower i don't know that we would have registered for as much, but i think everyone is right that people don't really give money at showers since the gift opening part is such a big deal.

hah!! meghan, now that's a picture i'd like to see i forgot to tell you too how awesome it is that you got all of those packages! i think that's one of the things i'll miss most about planning.. all of the fun things you get in the mail! i've been stalking our registries lately too since my shower is next weekend. there are 30 people coming and only like 2 or 3 have bought anything off the registry. this makes me very nervous! we did this thing for a reason, people!!

has anyone heard from deyanira in the last week or so? i sent her an email last week about my deposit (since i don't think they ever took ours out) and then i sent a follow up yesterday and i still haven't heard from her. i'm hoping it's just because carolina had her baby and she's extra busy, but it would be nice to hear from her!

there are other accountants on here?!?!?!? i had no idea!!! i'm stuck at my lovely Big 4 job wishing busy season would just be over already so i could have a life again!! kim, i had NO CLUE that bar existed! maybe we'll change our plans up so we can go there too! i wonder if you can reserve tables like you can at some of those places? also, let me know if you want to meet us for dinner too. we're going to brio (did i already say that?) probably around 8 or so and my MOH is going to be making reservations soon! way to go on all of your other stuff too.. get those OOT bags done! i love reading what everyone else has done.. it's nice to know we're all in good company and if we haven't done something yet, someone else has and can help us!! good luck with your dress fitting meghan! post pictures of course!! speaking of pictures, i've had my OOT bags done for forever and i've never posted pictures.. mainly because i'm lazy! they are on my phone which means i'd need to sync it to my laptop at home with bluetooth and then go through all that mess. i'll do it eventually.. no worries!

thanks meghan! tracy, we decided not to do a legal wedding in PC because of the cost and how long it takes to get a marriage certificate. at my job, if we want to add someone to our health insurance (ie: J and his daughter) in the middle of the year you have to show proof that you were married within 30 days of when it happened. since it takes something like 6 weeks to get your certificate, we figured this way was much easier. it also gives us something special for J's daughter to come to, just in case she can't make it to the wedding.

kim!! oh my goodness.. where in the world is there a dueling piano bar in cinci? i would SO meet up with you guys if i hadn't already promised J's daughter that we'd take her to go see alice in wonderland. very grown up plans, huh? but mine is march 20th and we're going to brio in newport and then probably hofbrauhaus if you want to come down for mine!! also kim, my mom found all of our medicine packets at either Costco or hospital gift shops (she works at the new hospital in West Chester). you might want to check those out! natasha, all of your stuff looks awesome! you guests are just going to LOVE everything! i love seeing the pictures! i'm also jealous that you guys could submit your stuff for your license by mail.. we have to show up in person together (which is nearly impossible during the week) to get ours. we did schedule our legal day though.. did i tell anyone this already? we're doing 4/20, both because J gets tuesdays off and because we figured we'd make it something funny too.

tracy, i am so glad you got that list back out and running!! this way the poor souls like me and mel with weddings at the end of the month can keep track of you lucky ladies at the beginning! and mel, here's hoping that the rest of your day goes a little smoother than your morning! at least you know that your fire dept. is prompt should you ever have a real emergency!!

welcome debbie!!! be sure to check out the Dreams PC thread in the DR part of the forum... we have tons of great info there!

kim, i have some extra packets that i can send you too.. i can't remember which things i have extras of.. advil maybe? i'll check tonight and let you know. tracy, your stuff looks great! everything little thing done is one step closer! meghan, i am so so so sorry about your bridesmaids and everyone making life harder. whoever said that planning a DW was less stressful is completely nuts! as long as other people are involved somehow, there will always be things that go wrong and drive us crazy! hopefully it will all get figured out and you'll be able to enjoy the rest of the process without too much stress! i just realized that it's officially march 1, which means starting today, there are april brides that are just a month out!! eeeek!! how crazy is that!

we just spent part of the weekend messing with our playlists so they faded into each other. it's a really neat effect and not too hard to do if you don't have a HUGE playlist. i was actually surprised at how few songs it took to get up to 3 hrs!

she's so tiny, it looks like she's going to bust any second! nat, i'll keep my fingers crossed for you that it all gets worked out! toya, you know you have to post pics now!