taylorwd

I was married at AB in April! You will LOVE it! So small and intimate. Is there a specific reason you're not working with a TA? They're a bride's best friend when it comes to the travel portion of things. The TA can probably get you better rates and promos than you can get on your own, and they'll be the liaison between you and your guests when it comes to travel stuff. The last thing you'll have time to deal with are guests' room changes, date changes, flight changes, and nit-picky requests. Trust me, all those things will happen! Just trying to save you some stress down the road... AB is tiny, so reserve your rooms as far in advance as possible or it WILL sell out. Happy planning!

Am I sure about Del Sol? Yes. Of course photographers are allowed at the resort. Even outside ones. Just not Del Sol. We brought ours from the US.

Yup, I second the Karisma properties. Azul Beach is a boutique hotel with only 98 rooms. We were married there. It's part of the kid-friendly chain of Karisma properties. Like was mentioned above, El Dorado is their adults-only chain. However, not all Karisma properties are boutiques! Only El Dorado Maroma from that chain (70-ish rooms) is boutique. Seaside suites has 200+ rooms and El Dorado Royale is GIANT! The only large one on the Azul side is Azul Sensatori. Happy hunting!

Hi Samland, I was married at AB in April. Unfortunately, we did not hire live music (too expensive), nor did we go with the Donkey or the bonfire. PM a bride called amybermuda. She was married there in May and had the Donkey. I'll be happy to help if you have more questions. You picked a FAB resort!! Oh, and FYI, pay no attention to the previous post about Del Sol, and certainly don't fall in love with their style!!--they're not allowed on Karisma properties.

We brought our photographer and got a crazy good deal. In total we got about 16 hours of coverage, 12 the day of (11ish-11ish) and 4 for a TTD the next day. This was the perfect amount of time IMO. I started getting ready at 1:00 for a 4:30pm ceremony. Our reception started at 6:30pm. If we'd gone with less coverage we would have missed out on getting photos of some great moments. Usually this is the benefit of bring your photog with you, i.e. more coverage time. Del Sol cannot work at Karisma properties, sorry!

Lovely!! I love your headband and your bouquet--it's huge!

I loved getting stuff in the mail! For a few weeks before our wedding it felt like Christmas. We were getting boxes of stuff we'd ordered every day. It was fun to see it all come to fruition. Meredith is right, Xel-ha is really popular and gets rave reviews. I haven't personally been but it's on my list when I go to the RM in December. So is Hidden Worlds Cenotes Park. Tulum is neat--I use "neat" because they're small, compact ruins. I don't think they'll wow you like Chichen Itza but they're a nice, easy excursion. It should take no more than 1.5 hours to see everything, probably less. I LOVE these! They remind me of clutches another bride used from etsy that I've been drooling over for months.

Thanks Nicole, you're sweet: B2B: JaimeCF2BR MRS: Nicole! But you're already listed up above.

It is American Express Travel Services. Our guests' transport was booked through Travel Impressions, the tour operator our TA uses. If you have a TA they should be able to tell you which tour operator they use and, in turn, who they use for their transportation services. AmEx is a common one in Cancun, as is Lomas.

Run far, far away from using Lomas for airport transfers!!! Our story with them is long, so I won't bore you here. Just know they will NOT be waiting for you when you get there. You will be waiting in a very long line of people, and they will shuttle you into vans on a first come, first served basis. We actually paid for private transfer and ended up having Lomas pay for us to take a cab to the hotel. This was after we'd stood in pouring rain with my dress, etc, for 1/2 an hour. Go with AmEx. That's who all ours guests used and they had great experiences.

Thank you!!! Are you sure you're not confusing me with someone else? I did do a sand ceremony and but didn't use conch shells to hold the sand. I've seen brides that have used big shells and they're gorgeous! If you search for someone on here named Milejilo and find her planning thread, you can see an example of great but expensive shells to use for a sand ceremony. We used small glass vases that had decorated wood on the outside. We brought the vases and the picture frame from home. The picture frame is from here: http://www.umbra.com/ We did use clam shells to hold our rings as they were carried down the aisle, so perhaps those were the ones you saw? I'm an Azul Beach bride so my reception was held there on the Blue Terrace. Us AB brides lost our thread last year, and since all the planning and details are the same among all Karisma resorts, the few AB brides that are out there hang out on this thread. Though I must say, the other AB brides have been very quiet lately...

Andrew is really fast. I think we had teasers within a week of getting back and all the images were up online in something like 3 weeks. GO YOU on your BD shoot!!!!! I'm so proud of you

Meredith, you are soooooooo close!!!! I'm so excited for you! What are you going to do when you don't have wedding planning? Enjoy blissful post-wedding life as a MRS doing anything and everything BUT wedding planning!! I think you'll find yourself saying "Wow I didn't realize how much wedding planning had consumed my life!" Plus you'll be drooling over the fab wedding pics you're GUARANTEED to have I can't wait to see Andrew's work!

That is a gorgeous dress!!!! It looks like it could be very flattering.

Wonderful! Many Congratulations MRS!!

Wow you are a GORGEOUS bride and I love your dress!!!!

WELCOME BACK MRS!!! I hope everything was as perfect as Karisma is known for! Gorgeous!!!!

Chong, you're back!!!!! Hooray MRS! Everything looks great and I can't wait to see your wedding pictures. LOVE your dress!

Oh I love your pictures! They're so unique and precious!

If you've found someone you love then you should do it. Does the $1500 include his travel costs like airfare? Also, don't forget you'll have to pay the $500 outside vendor fee or 3 nights at the hotel for him. That's standard Karisma policy.

Oh Matt, the hurricane wedding you posted is amazing! The story gave me goosebumps while I was reading it

You can make a log of the weather all you want, but I'm with everyone else on here--you can't predict anything! Past and current performance is no guarantee of future weather. I'm a bride who got married in the week of solid rain last April that keeps getting mentioned. We picked April for many reasons, but one of which was that it's the month that's supposed to have the lowest rainfall out of the year. Ha! The rain blew sideways for days leading up to the wedding and some of our guests didn't see sun until the day they were leaving. Fortunately, the morning of our wedding was sunny and the rain held off just long enough for us to have our ceremony outside I know all about wanting to watch the weather every minute leading up to your wedding, but trust me it will do you no good. The weather reports are never right. Your time will be better spent enjoying your time with your FI, planning your wedding, anything else! Just remember that for all you stress about it now, it won't matter one bit come your wedding day. You'll be marrying the love of your life and that's all you'll be thinking about!

Are you sure there's a destinationweddings.com advertisement at the top of the page? There's a Best Destination Wedding one, which is for the TAs on this forum, but I've never seen one for DW.com.

Hm, it's not so easy find the blog anymore. Try these: http://mishkadesignspv.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-07-20T16%3A35%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=7 http://www.stylemepretty.com/2010/08/18/handcrafted-mexican-wedding/

Love! You should really check out this thread and link to the blog. This is one of my favorite weddings with a theme similar to yours: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/thread/59902/blog-ashley-dave-s-chic-colors-of-mexico-wedding#post_1317634