KRama

Quote: Originally Posted by shae nice work! don't underestimate yourself....it still takes a creative eye to pick out what designs work well with your theme that still shows your personal style. Thanks Shae! I guess I had an idea in my head of how I wanted them to look. Amelia at WoW Creative made up about a dozen different designs and I picked the elements I liked and we went from there. I definitely wanted non-formal looking invites and I remember telling her "no loopy fonts please". haha I dropped them all off in the mail today! WOOOT! Feels real now!

Ok, off-topic, but I promised I'd post my invites when they were done! http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...tations-56075/

They're finally done and (almost) ready to go! You DIY'ers sure make it hard on a girl who desires to be crafty but has no talent or patience what-so-ever to come up with wonderful budget friendly invitations! After several miserable attempts on MS Word and PowerPoint to come up with something I liked, I finally turned to the pros. WoWcreative.net A friend of my mom's owns her own design company that specializes in small business branding. She used to be in the wedding business and still LOVES to create invitations. I enlisted her help and together we came up with a design that I'm totally in love with! I decided I wanted two different invitations. One for those 40 people invited to Mexico and another version to send to those invited to our AHR when we return. Here's what we came up with: (I was frantically looking for invitation wording during the planning phase so if you can't read this and want to, let me know!) They were printed on matte 5x7 photo paper at Costco ($0.57/print...yay!) and I glued tiny green crystals to the center of the palm trees using mini glue dots (all from Michael's). WoW also designed envelopes for me: I scored big time with my envelopes. Who knew that size would be so hard to find for cheap! I ended up finding them in a cabinet at work and the boss said "have at 'er" so I also printed them there as well (that's our secret...) I included a post card insert (Vistaprint - gotta love it) with our Mexico invites about the AHR: So all in all, I'm thrilled with how they turned out! Not as cheap as I had originally wanted (they work out to about $5 a pop) but totally worth saving my sanity.

Quote: Originally Posted by echo2_62 Damn Nadine look at your smokin' arms in that new pic you've got up!! Great pic girl!!! haha echo...that's the first thing I noticed too! How do I get my arms to look like that?! Chin up girls. I truly believe in karma and all the crap we go through only means something wonderful is coming our way.

Now I'm really curious what this "horrible" dress looks like! Post a pic?

Quote: Originally Posted by heidilynn28 Yes.. the 1800$ is 7 nights all included, flight as well. It's cheaper here in canada if you buy your package that way. After a good night's sleep, I'm more inclined to stick with my first choice. Still waiting to hear back from one place.. but I'll give guests a price range and they will know what to expect. Thx for your thoughts!! KRama: Wish we could get Azul sensatori at 1600$ LOL ... it's something like 2000-2100$ here!! Yep, the packages from Canada are typically for 7 days. I haven't really seen the option for less than that! I think I was quoted like $2200 for Azul. Crazy! Another idea is to give your guests the option to stay at a different resort and purchase a day pass to attend your wedding. Some resorts have "sister" properties that allow you to visit all of them free of charge.

$1800 was a bit of a shock to me too when I first started planning! I've been to the Mayan Riviera twice and both times paid no more than $1500 for a week at a 5 star resort. But when you're booking a group you have to book in advance and therefore don't get those last-minute deals. We chatted with our group of VIPs to see what they were comfortable paying. Everyone seemed to agree that $1600 was reasonable but they'd prefer not to spend much more than that. For us, it was more important that everyone be there than staying at our "dream" resort (Azul Sensatori...ah-hem). We chose our resort because it had everything we were looking for, great wedding packages, great price and I honestly don't think we'll be disappointed. We're also considering switching to another resort for our honeymoon so we can get the best of both worlds!

Quote: Originally Posted by Boo Girls I am looking for the shells as well I saw a picture of a cigar table earlier and it had fedora hats on it, I thought that was super fun! Hubby to be said it would make sense to get the cigar in Playa once we are there, but I am thinking of getting the hats here? most places on line are 25ish+ per hat, I was hoping to def. find some cheaper, just in case you see some in town for 10-15 per, please let me know - thanks! I was in Dollar World (I think that's the name of it...totally blanking right now) up in the Coventry area on Saturday and they had some fedora-type hats there. I didn't get a good look, and they're probably just plastic but still might be fun if you're just looking for goofy reception pics!

So I've been trying to find plain white 5.25 x 7.25 envelopes that I can have printed to use with my invites. I haven't been able to find that size at any of the stores I've looked at or online where I don't need to buy a minimum 500. I was just getting something out of our stationary cabinet at work and found two whole boxes of the exact envelopes I need un-printed! (Everything else has our company logo and address on it) I asked my manager if we were saving those for anything and if not, could I have 100? He said "yeah sure". SCORE!!!!

I know these questions have already been answered but thought I'd throw in my two cents! Quote: Originally Posted by DaniellaP Hi everyone!!! I'm getting married on May 5... Soooo, about 3 months away!! Yippee!! I'm super excited, but a little nervous as of what to expect.. I've been told not to worry about anything till we get there.. so that's what I've been doing so far, but I just feel like im going to get there and be upset that nothing is planned.. I feel like a crazy person right now..lol So, I have a few questions.. Cinco de Mayo! That's the date we originally picked but we ended up having to bump it back a week so our best man, who's a pro hockey player, could make it. First time ever I'm routing against his team so they don't make play offs! haha I'm trying my best not to worry about things too but you're right, it's nerve racking thinking that we'll work it out 2 days before the wedding! What do most people do for the dinner/reception?? I would like a poolside reception, so should I do a dinner at one of the resturants, then just the reception by the pool?? Or do it all by the pool?? And which one is more cost efficiant?? I would have loved to have the dinner and dance poolside but to pay $25-35 per head was out of our budget. The al a carte is included and my FI can't get past the "paying for food at an AI" concept. We're definitely having the dance there though! If I do choose to have the dinner at a reasurant, should I book that now?? Do you have to pay per person for that?? Included! Definitely book now! I had to choose my menu back in August which I thought was a little odd... From what i've read, you are not allowed to have outside photogragher, but is that the same if the outside photogragher is also your guest?? Guests allowed. Snap away. last question for now.. Do you think a dj is needed, or would an ipod be alright for the reception I'm going with a DJ. We definitely want a good dance party and we don't want to worry about messing with our ipod all night. Sorry for all the questions... lol It's exacty 3 months today for me! Raykel, I don't know how you're even functioning. I'm already bursting, I can't imagine how I'll feel with less than 2 weeks to go!

Beach Ball Brad sounds like Malibu Barbi's new boyfriend! hahaha I'm going to check out Scrapbooker's Paradise tomorrow. Thanks echo!

Oooh, yes, PB and banana on an english muffin. I do that a lot. Or cinnamon raisin toast. Or Special K Vanilla Almond cereal. Not only is breakfast the most important meal of the day, it's my favorite!

Quote: Originally Posted by lalanyc KRama - to be clear, you did allow all kids to your DW but you just didn't explicitly list the children's names on the invitations? hmm, that could be a strategy as well.... Exactly. We send out save-the-date emails addressed to "Ted & Sue" for example with all the resort and booking information. Within that info we said "child rates available" so we figured that was enough indication that people could bring their children if they chose to. Like I said, only ONE couple chose to bring their daughter who's 6, everyone else opted to leave the kids at home. However the kids in our group are mostly 5 and up so it's easier to get away...

MayanLily, you are my savior. haha I'm not too far from Crowfoot so I'll check it out for sure! Thanks! I'm bringing my own photographer but she's a very good friend of mine that has offered to do our photos as our wedding gift (awesome eh?!) so I'm lucking out HUGE with that! I can however, recommend a photographer that SEVERAL (I'm talking like 6 friends) have used who is just amazing. She does destination weddings as well but I'm not entirely sure of her pricing. Here's her website: (a bunch of the photos in her gallery are all friends of mine!) Shi Photography (My FI and a bridesmaid are in a bunch of the pics too!)

Boo, go try on dresses! It's so much fun! Definitely try to go to when it's not too busy and take your "I may not find my dress today" attitude. Try on lots of different styles because you never know if there's one that suits you that you never thought of. I would love to go again but I'm too paranoid that I'd find a dress that I love more than the one I bought! Totally off topic...I do not consider myself to be any kind of crafty DIYer but I went the semi-DIY route for my invites and I'm looking for an inexpensive cardstock paper to mount my invites on. So far I've ruled out Michael's. Where else can I look? (See, SO not crafty. Don't even know where to buy paper!)

I have to agree with NaM, it's either invite all of them or none of them (we're currently having this debate regarding our AHR, we don't want them, the folks do...but that's another thread...) We addressed the invites to the parents only, provided all the resort information and let them make the decision whether or not they wanted to bring their kids. Only ONE couple decided to bring their daughter, the rest practically leaped at the idea of having a week to themselves! Keep in mind that if some people can't bring their kids, especially if they're so young, they may not come at all. If we do end up inviting kids to the AHR, I plan on adding "and family" to indicate that children are invited.

Ok, it's now 3 months to the day we leave! I've emailed the wedding coordinator to see what details we can start working on. Invites are printed, now it's just a matter of getting them assembled and sent out! I just started a new job last week and now I'm too busy to do wedding stuff at work. Bummer.

I just emailed Karla as it's officially 3 months until our big day!! (Well, a few days off but I'm too impatient!) I'm excited to start working on some of the details! I like the whiteboard idea. I was thinking of including post-it notes in everyone's OOT bags so we can all leave each other notes if needed.

We're having 40 people join us in Mexico and also having a fairly large AHR so I'm inviting everyone to the shower as well since this will also include the people we invited to Mexico but declined. I sincerely hope that people wouldn't think I invited them to the shower to simply get a gift. It's about spending time with friends and family, not filling my registry! What gets me is, do I invite the +1 to the shower?? For example, our good friend's girlfriend who is joining us in Mexico??

I LOVE that dress Mel! Did you get a great deal on it?

JoAnn! You looked absolutely stunning and your pics are AMAZING! I love your coffee table guest book idea...I think I might have to steal that! CONGRATS!

I just left mine as "together with our parents". Both my parents are divorced and remarried and I wasn't about to put 6 names on my invites! Can you maybe compromise with your FI's mom and tell her you'll acknowledge her in another way? Perhaps a toast at the wedding or something along those lines?

Wow, missed 3 days and 5 pages! I know how you feel Christina! I just started a new job on monday (same company, different department) and haven't had any time to do personal stuff at work! hahaha

Quote: Originally Posted by MayanLily Thanks guys! I wanted to go with a TA because I didn't want the headache of answering questions and booking stuff on my own. Turns out this is more of a headache than anything! So because of all this craziness, I've had to cancel the order on my beautiful dress. I need to try to make up all this money I've lost out on I've opted to just find a white sundress instead. Thought even about looking for bridesmaid dresses in white! Any suggestions of where to go in Calgary. "Project: cheap dress" is starting today! I agree with the ladies, you shouldn't have to forfeit you deposits just because they changed their story! Did you book any guests through them or are you forfeiting your entire $3000? I'd certainly fight to get your money back. As for cheap dresses, I was at CrossIron Mills the other day and BCBG had quite a few long, white dresses that might work...

My stepmom is our TA. She's with a small agency called V the Vacation Store. I didn't find that we got any exceptional deals using a travel agency but it is great to have one person that looks after your guests deposits and payments and to work with the airline and hotel on your behalf. That's the benefit of a travel agent.