taraappl

I know this has been forever since I've been on but I hope you all enjoyed my pictures and yes we really did get 300 pictures in 2 hours!

Hey everyone. I just decided to log back on to this site and look at my subscriptions. I saw that you wanted to see wedding photos after the wedding. Sorry we've been back for a little over 2 months now and I'm just getting around to this. http://taraben.shutterfly.com/ is the site we posted all our pro photos. The trip was amazing. I posted a few reviews on my photographer and the hotel we stayed at (cabanas maria del mar). I also posted a review on the sushi restaurant that is connected to Aluxes. DO NOT EAT THERE. It was the worst experience I have ever had. Stick with the local restaurants that will treat you well. Good luck ladies. If anyone wants to keep up with me via email with questions etc etc let me know. [email protected] or I'm on gmail chat [email protected]

Hey ladies! My professional photos arrived yesterday! I love everything about them!!!!!!! http://taraben.shutterfly.com/

We had a couple of photographers picked out. We narrowed it down to Cecilia and and cancun wedding photographers based soley on the photos we had seen. I then started doing some searching for reviews and found some really negative stuff on Cancun wedding photographers. The choice was then easy. Cecilia took a $100 down payment from us. We ended up sending it via paypal to our wedding coordinator and she just then paid Cecilia. Everything about working with her beforehand was super easy and smooth. She was very flexible with times around sunsets etc. We got married on Isla Mujeres and met with our Wedding coordinator. She told me that there had been a tragic event and Cecilia wouldnt be able to make it and that she was sending her associate Claudio. I had no choice really at that point. We were already there. How can I describe Claudio? High energy but in a very pleasant way. His assistant and him were very very professional and had ideas for some really great shots. Overall, he was great. Cecilia said that she would be doing the editing herself and that she was sorry she wasnt able to make it. I have no idea how the photos would have turned out if it was her that actually came, awesome I'm sure, but Claudio was awesome. I only had him for 2 hours and my photos turned out great. Cecilia did the editing and send the photos via FedEx as soon as she was done. If she wasnt out of town we would have gotten them quicker but really, we had them in about a week and a half. The price for her service was $800 + $200 for the disk with all the photos on it (includes the rights to the pictures... thats why its so expensive). Because Claudio had to come instead of Cecilia, it was $700 instead. Really, you cant loose by going with this company. Everyone was fantastic and so easy to deal with. check out my photos! http://taraben.shutterfly.com/

Hey all... I know I've jumped on and posted a couple things since I've been back... just know that I have been popping in to try and keep up with everything that is going on too. I wanted to post how everything went on our trip.... remember I'm the girl with the crappy MOH? lol..... Well heres how it went. We arrived on Saturday 4/17. We got there in the afternoon and it rained for the rest of the day which was fine because we were all pooped from traveling anyways. Sunday was beautiful and so was the rest of the week. My MOH was staying in a room by herself and she quickly took to my step daughter Kelsey (14). However as the week would go on I caught her many times saying things that were totally inappropriate in front of Kelsey. MOH and Kelsey got stuck driving a golf cart in the downpouring rain one day and we saw them drive by and we made fun of them a little bit about it as they were going past us and she shouted, "Stop making fun of me or I'll SH*T on your face". Yup... that was the last straw. I pulled her aside after she got into the lobby and told her that she was a 27 year old woman who is supposed to set a good example for others. She is a nanny for Christ sake. I asked her if she would ever talk like that in front of her nanny kids? She obviously said no and I said well its no different here. She is a child. She apologized and that was that. Then we quickly realized our beach was a topless beack which I didnt realize. Nothing I read about it mentioned that at all. Oh well. No big deal. As soon as my MOH found out about that, she BEGGED me to let her run around topless. I said absolutely not. I have a ton of guests here and the last thing I want is for them to see you exposed. Those were just a couple of the things that happened with her. Tuesday we realized that in Mexico you cannot sign over a check to someone. We had written a couple cashier's checks to ourselves because we couldnt wrap things up quick enough before we left. We were waiting on a couple vendors to find out who we were supposed to write that check out to. So.... we had a bunch of useless checks. We also had written a cashier's check out to our coordinator. We wrote it out to the business name thinking that would be just fine. Well it wasnt. It turns out we were supposed to make the check out to her personally because that is the name on the checking account. Nightmare. We solved it in a couple of hours though which was great. My dad ended up wiring us the $$ and we got it taken care of. I then cancelled the checks and paid him back when we got home. The day of the wedding was perfect. I couldnt have asked for a better day. My hair was awesome and I had been in the sun for a few days and was sun kissed. The entire day was truly magical. If you have time, check out my pictures. I'm still waiting for my photo's pictures to arrive. They should arrive today so I'm super excited for that. Click see older posts to see most of the pictures I posted myself. My mom posted a bunch of videos that takes up an entire page. http://ourislatrip.shutterfly.com Overall, everything went well. We totally didnt budget for enough money and some stuff got thrown on our credit card. Our hotel was lovely and we couldnt have asked with better weather. I've been keeping up and it sounds like everyone for the most part had a great time too.

DO...NOT...EAT...THERE. That is if you are bringing a lot of people. This was by far our worst experience of our entire trip. We got married on 4/22 and we ate there on 4/20. It was a Tuesday and there werent that many people in the restaurant at all. We had 12 people in our group and because we were more than 4, they sat us upstairs which was perfect. There was no one up there and it was totally private. The waiters came and greeted us (there were 2 servers for our group) and were very pleasant. They came with bottles of water and opened them and poured them for us. They went around the table and took drink orders............... 1 hour later, we actually saw those drinks. Sometime inbetween, we actually ordered our food and at about 1 hour 45 mins of waiting, we saw our food. We asked multiple times what the delay was. We were told it was coming and to please be patient. We asked multiple times about our drinks as well and when those were coming. Some of us just ordered a can of pop and that didnt come. They explained that they would bring everything out together when the drinks were ready. Same with the food. If 1 item was delayed, everything would get delayed. We ordered salmon sushi rolls and we were presented with Tuna. The entire experience was awful. And then it got worse. When the bills came, they charged us for the bottles of water that we were served. At no point were we asked if we would like some water and just so you know, we will charge you for it. Nope. We were given the water and then charged. It was almost a slap in the face because we had waited so long for all of it. We then asked to talk to a manager. The manager came and said this word for word, "Did you order the food? Did you like the food? Well then you will pay for the food." Talk about the worst service ever. The poor waiters were so kind and accommodating but the manager was more than awful. He ended up removing the 1 roll from our bill because it was wrong but did not do anything for anyone else. He should have just said tough SH*T. If I were you, I wouldnt step foot in this place. It is a shame too because it is connected to a 5 star hotel which is so beautiful.

Hi all! I'm back from our destination wedding and wanted to share a few things about our stay at Cabanas Maria del Mar. The first thing I want to share is that overall, we thought this was the best bang for our buck on North Beach. We were on the best beach on the entire island and it was decently priced. The maintenance people do not speak English so if you have a problem, instead of calling the front desk, go to the front desk, ask for Clara (Manager who speaks the most English) and let her know what is going on. We had an air conditioning problem that didnt get taken care of for 3 days due to the language barrier. I finally went and talked with Clara and it was resolved in a matter of 20 mins. DOH! The other thing you need to watch out for is that they will charge your credit card when you get there a deposit amount for you safe lock and remote control. They will refund that amout when you have checked out and returned both items. There are cockroaches. We never had any in our room nor did any of our other guests but they are all over the island so it wasnt uncommon to see one in the hallway. Overall, this hotel is really the best value in our opinion for being right on North Beach. It doesnt have bells and whistles like a gym or anything like that but it shows in their price. The only thing that disappointed me is that a year before the wedding I tried to negotiate a break in price because we had a group staying there and she gave me "2009" prices for the group because they said they were raising the rates in 2010. When we got there, there was a sign posted with their current rates and they hadn't changed so I was a little bummed we didnt save any money by staying there. Happy travel!

I just got back from our week long wedding/honeymoon and I wanted to go out of my way to give our review of this fantastic company. We selected Weddings Isla Mujeres as our freelance wedding coordinator company. The owner is Maria del Mar Lima. She is fantastic. I cant say enough wonderful things about her. Her husband owns Secreto, her sister owns Villa Kiin and I'm not sure what her affiliation is with Cabanas Maria del Mar but her info is on all 3 of those hotel's sites. We selected Maria after pricing out Sunhorse and some various hotels. Maria was the cheapest (in my opinion) and the most flexible with locations. I knew I wanted to get married on North Beach and since we decided to stay at Cabanas Maria del mar, we decided to get married right in front of that hotel. It was perfect and amazing. If you want to check out our pictures, feel free. http://ourislatrip.shutterfly.com. I emailed Maria probably about a million times and she still was so patient with me. I emailed her pictures of what I wanted my hair to look like and what I wanted for my bouquet and it was all perfect. She has a lot of great photos to share of previous events and is so flexible with set up and how you want things arranged. Overall, my price for 16 total people, 14 having chicken and 2 having fish (soup and a salad) was just around 3,500 for EVERYTHING. That is including her fee, a tip for the servers, our favors (maracas) the entire wedding and all the people involved except for the lady that came and did my hair and the photographer. If you have any questions, please let me know!

Hi there! I was just getting ready to give my review of our wedding planner. We just got married on Isla 2 weeks ago. We hired Maria del Mar Lima owner of Weddings Isla Mujeres. You can see her site on WeddingsIslaMujeres.com. She is a freelance coordinator. I did a LOT of research with different hotel options using their coordinator etc and she was equally priced and we got to pick where we wanted to get married. I chose north beach outside of Buho's and it was fantastic. If you are looking at Northbeach as your venue, the other option that I totally would have picked too would be right outside of sunset's. I dont have much info for the south end of the island and their venues all I know is that if you want sunset photos, you have to get married on North beach. Perfect sunsets! We gave our guests a choice of chicken or fish and both were fantastic! The wedding cake was great and the service was great too. Overall, Maria was more than outstanding and accomodating and she handled every last detail for us. If you want more info on her and her company, let me know!

The only advise I can give at this point is if you are flying AA, they will only allow you to carry on your wedding dress as your carry on item. Many other threads on this site have said you can get away with bringing a carry on and also your dress but AA did not. They will let you store it in their first class closet but it counts as your carry on. That was the only surprise I encountered. Other than that, I suggest bringing $50 in 1's and maybe $100 cash and the rest in Traveler's checks. That worked out SO well for us. Hmm.. cant think of anything else at this point! Enjoy your planning. I have my AHR coming up next weekend at the Lookout in Maple Grove.

Hey Ladies! I am in Minneapolis and just got back last week from my wedding in Isla Mujeres, MX. It was fantastic!

Thanks everyone. I got ahold of someone this morning that said I didnt need to do anything at all. I just need to go to the DMV with my documents and to the Social Security office. Nothing more than that. Awesome! I do have some pics up and ready. http://ourislatrip.shutterfly.com Enjoy!

Does anyone know what steps need to take place to make our marriage legal in the US after being married in Mexico? They gave us our Marriage documents so I have those. I was doing some searching and it sounds like I'm supposed to get my Mexican documents Apostilled and that makes it legal in the US as well? I'm all sorts of confused. I just want it to be legal here and just want to know what steps I need to do to make that happen. Any help?

Hey ladies.... boy planning a wedding sure does bring out the best in people doesnt it? So.... If any of you remember the drama that I was having with my MOH, its gotten worse. She acted like a total brad during my bach party. She shows up an hour and a half late to the party (which she didnt throw me btw) and 45 mins late to my shower which was the same day. She made rude comments about the music I wanted to listen to during the bach party and she ended up leaving early due to "a stomach ache". So.... this whole process has really made me realize the reasons that attracted me to being her friend in the first place are now reasons I dont like the person she is now. She is super immiture and will never think before she speaks which was acceptable when we were 18 but not when we're 28. She has never moved out of her parents house and refuses to get a real job. She has 3 part time jobs however. Nothing with benefits or anything like that. Life time fitness front desk, a green house and a nanny a couple days a week. I'm sure its all hard work but it all avoids her from growing up. She just got fired from Life Time and they banned her from ever having a membership there. So because of that, she is posting stupid stuff on facebook about how she got her membership back. I asked her why the heck she would even want a membership there after getting fired and she told me she didnt really get it back, that was a lie to get her old co workers that she is friends with on facebook to squirm. Stupid. Why? Why be so immiture. Going back to my shower, my soon to be step daughter (shes 14) wanted to write for me while I was opening gifts. My MOH sat down and snatched the pad and pencil from her and said I'm the MOH, its my job to write. C'mon, really? Its not like you wanted to be there anyways.. you came 45 mins late. Grrrrrrrr! Sorry this is getting so long... We are staying on Isla Mujeres which is a small island off of Cancun. She emailed another single guest if she wanted to go partying in Cancun with her which wasnt part of our plan at all so that got to me a little too. I'm just hoping I dont have to deal with her much while we're there. I want to scream at her really but wont because its just not worth it at this point. I'll do the things I wanted to do and enjoy the time with my family and new hubby.

Hi ladies! I have been absent for about a month I think. I've been so super busy with wedding stuff and just life in general! I've got a lot of catching up to do but I just wanted to say good luck to everyone. We leave on Saturday!!!! We have 16 total people coming down and 11 of those people are flying down the same day. 7 of us are on the same flight even I'm so excited I can hardly wait to get through this week. Everything is pretty much done. I just need to finish packing which can wait until the end of the week. Its finally getting nice here in MN so a lot of stuff that I would wear down in Mexico (short sleeve stuff, cropped pants) I'm finally able to wear here due to the nice weather. I'll be doing laundry late this week because of it for sure. Have a wonderful trip ladies and I'll try to keep updated this week. My mind wont be doing a good job while its at work so I'll be on a lot I'm sure.