tris

Just a few to share... first the only professional one I have right now (it's from our TTD). I'll have the rest of my pro ones this evening or tomorrow!! EEEPP!! And then some un-pro ones Me, my sister (MOH), mom & bridesmaid me trying to force his damn ring on! kiss reception, sweetheart table Kareokee after the wedding

I don't remember the ministers name off the top of head, DH may though. He spoke with him before the ceremony, I was getting ready We all went to the Grill for one dinner. It was nice, but the Italian was a lot more private. The food was good at both restaurants.

Thanks! We love it too! I can't wait to see the rest. As far as Dunn's River goes, I don't know if you'll be happy with it for a TTD. We went to a waterfall about 5 min away called "Mahoe Falls". We visited Dunn's River on an excursion and it's the most touristy place on the island. It's gorgeous but there's no way you'll get pictures without tons of people in the background. The place we went is not touristy at all! There were literally only 2 other people there with us and it was all ours (and it's only $5 a person to get in)! I'd really recommend checking it out. It's not as big, but still great for pics, and really private. We did horses first. It was on our way, I forget the name of the place we went but they charged us $76 for 2 horses for 1/2 an hour. They were really great about it and gave us "2 of their prettiest horses". We hired a driver for the day and he was supposed to take us to Negril after but we ended up going back (so his cost was about $100, it would have been $275 for the whole day). He was amazing, he even stopped at a gas station to get me gingerale for my tummy and paid for it himself. If anyone is interested in getting his contact I'd be happy to share. He looked after our stuff and knew the island really well. Great guy. And thank-you, I was trying to "be pretty"... it's really hard when all you want to do is puke. Ughh... Such bad timing! We cannot stress how much we loved the minister. He made us tear up . We met with Chandlyn 2 days after we got there for about 15 min. Really, you can have as much time as you'd like with them. There was another bride there that literally was with her everyday... it was irritating because we waiting almost an hour to meet with her because the bride & her mom wouldn't stop stressing. DH and I are pretty laid back so we just took 15 min to answer the simple questions (and confirm everything we had emailed about) and she told us to drop off all our decor the day before the wedding. At that time we brought it to her and gave her a brief explanation. Then we saw her again at the rehearsal when she took us through everything. They're both available to talk to at anytime you want though (as long as they're not at another wedding). I was concerned with with centerpieces not being put together correctly too... that's why I sent my BM (with instructions). Chandlyn picked her up after the ceremony (after we did group pics) and took her with to the restaurant. Everything was perfect.

Hey Ladies!!! I am back home Our wedding was beautiful. Everything we could have ever hoped for. I know all of us at one point questioned booking with the GBP because of communication issues but honestly I don't regret it one bit. Once you get there and meet with Chandlyn & Donnalee you see how ridiculously busy they are and you completely understand. They are both the sweetest, most patient ladies. I'll share some of my thoughts from the day and I'll be sure to give you all pics as soon as I've got them! I was dreadfully sick for 4 days (the 2nd of them was my wedding day, and the 3rd, and worst, was when we did our TTD *sad*) Firstly, DON'T STRESS the small stuff. My husband (weeirrrd) and I spent the last few weeks before the wedding stressing over getting menus, wedding favours, centerpieces, etc done and in the end it really meant nothing... the best bit of advice I can give is trust that everything will be alright, because it will be Okay, so onto my thoughts. - I never thought this would be one of my favourite things about my wedding but honestly the minister was amazing. We had written our own vows and our own script and last minute decided to scrap it and go with what he had. He asked us how religious we wanted it and we told him somewhere in the middle... our grandparents appreciated it. This man was amazing. He was so sweet and pulled us in the end and gave us the most beautiful advice. Don't be scared of the script. It's beautiful and simple. He didn't do any scripture, and he spoke about the ocean and how relatives who passed on were still with us (super special for FI who lost his grandma this past year). And after we said our vows he said to my DH "and now she's yours forever". It was really sweet. - We were dummies and misunderstood to meet in the lobby so we were late for the wedding! Haha. I joked with DH that I wasn't showing up - We didn't use the resort photog. We brought our own and she was a dream. (I'll leave you with one teaser pic she sent us). As I said before I was super sick but still decided to go with our full day TTD we had planned. I had to cut it short because I was literally puking in the trees every 10 minutes, but props to DH for still kissing me in pics! Haha. We didn't get all the pics we wanted, but what can you do. - Tai Flora was great. Flowers were all awesome and came on time. - We brought our own centerpieces, programs, menus, etc (pretty much everything) and the planners were awesome about it. I sent my bridesmaid and our best man to help set things up (with diagrams), but otherwise they did everything. Donnalee even told me that she wanted to hire me to decorate her house. She said that they do a LOT of weddings (there were THREE on my day alone) and she had never seen someone put so much into it and come with such beautiful decorations. Aww <3 - We hired the steel drum band to play our ceremony. Worth all $400. All our guests loved it and you can't really describe walking down the aisle to steel drums. We never got a list of songs but we decided when we got there.. they played "one love" by bob marley for the wedding party & pachabels cannon for me. After the ceremony they played for another half hour or so and everyone loved it. - We switched to the free package. Everything was great. Minister fees were $200, Steel Drum $400, flowers were $300(ish), and we had 2 extra guests ($50). We didn't do chair ties, Jamaica is beautiful enough - I wasn't going to get my hair done but after talking to some brides and feeling the WIND I booked an appointment. Without a trial it was $66... I didn't want to waste vaca time with a hair trail so I trusted her. I'm pretty fussy about my hair but she honestly did a fantastic job. Pretty much exactly what I wanted, and they use a spray there that they joked was "cement spray". Hair didn't move, haha. My bridesmaids actually did their own hair then went down and tipped her $10 to spray the crap out of their hair too. She loved it. My hair was still good for our TTD the next day, no lies. - Our dinner was the Italian. The food was great. They set up 2 tables of 8 plus a sweetheart table for us. We did speeches. I'm glad we did. Everyone cried... it was wonderful. They didn't seat anyone around us until we were almost done eating so we never noticed. For our size group it wasn't worth it to book the restaurant out. Our cake was vanilla raspberry, so good, but I'm not really a cake person, and I couldn't really enjoy any of the food because I was sick, but everyone told me it was great. - We didn't book the gazebo. After the dinner we went to the disco but were dissapointed that they wouldn't play our ipod of music. Honestly the DJ was awful. His mixes were dreadful, the song choices were really bad and the music was WAY too loud. I know it's a club setting but it could have been a LITTLE quieter. DH is a DJ so it was the worst for him, haha. Either way, our parents & grandparents were not having a good time so we all went to the kareokee. Our group took over the place and it was so much fun. Who would have thought kareokee reception? haha. Oh well, it worked. I went to bed at 1:00ish, still sick, and DH and the wedding party partied into the night and only got back at about 5:00. - I met Erin She was beautiful and really sweet. In the end, the wedding was so beautiful. EVERYONE cried at the ceremony. My grandpa, who's in a wheelchair walked me down the aisle (actually getting up for 3 steps at the end, with my help). My mom said it was the most romantic wedding she'd ever been too. I'll leave you guys with one picture from our TTD. We did pics on horses, then went to a waterfall, and then were supposed to go to Nigrel (stupid being sick), instead I slept for 4 hours then we did beach pics on the resort beach. Anyways, here is one of our photogs fav (and the only pic I've seen so far!!). Any questions ladies, please let me know

Hey ladies Guess who's back???? We just got home and it's after midnight so I'm off to bed, but I'll be back hopefully tomorrow to update you on our awesome (and honestly at a few times insane... oh god) wedding experience <3

Alright ladies, I'm off! Our flight leaves ridiculously early tomorrow morning so this will be my last post. Erin! I'll see you there !

My bag are packed... I'm ready to go.... Alright ladies, I'm off. Our flight leaves tomorrow morning nice and early so I'll be up at 4:00am. I don't know if either of us are going to sleep tonight but I thought I'd take a short break from my scrambling to say adios to all of you. Thanks for being there for me during this insane process! I'm really sad that my planning thread won't be up before I leave. I'm going to have to do an "after the fact" one... it's been just too much with the move and living out of boxes. I can't believe how much we've done throughout these past few weeks. I'm so proud of us for not killing each other! I'll be back on May.7th!

Hey, I made 20 of them. So they averaged about 1 per hour when all was said and done. I didn't use a template. They were made in Adobe Illustrator

Okay, Tuesday at 4:30! I'll be looking for you. What's your name again? Sorry We leave Saturday morning! LAST DAY OF WORK TODAY!

Congrats!! That's great to hear that you had a good time. We leave on Saturday for our April.28th wedding. So excited . We switched over to the free package so it's good to hear that you were still treated just as well. We're at the Dolce Vita and having the chicken as well. Did you guys do speeches at all at dinner? We were planning to and hoping to hear that it's not too "intrusive" to the other guests in the restaurant (as I know it's semi-private)

Hey ladies! So I'm *mostly* moved in! Yay!! Just wanted to let you all know that I'm still alive (and your pics are all gorgeous!) 6 more sleeps until we leave for Jamaica

That's so exciting Brandy!!! Girls, we should get a list going of everyone's planning threads, reviews & pictures... something sort of like our list of wedding dates & places? Copy and paste it as we add more so we can all share? I'd love to see everyone's planning threads, pics, etc Well 4 more work days. We get our house tomorrow morning at 9am! So you ladies won't be hearing from me all weekend. I haven't gotten everything wedding done so it's going to be a rush. Hopefully I'll post my planning thread before I leave (next Saturday), but it's insane how much we have left to do. Wish me luck moving, painting and ripping out carpets !!!

I bought the 2nd one I tried on... (I tried on 3 or 4 more just for fun, but I already knew that was the one)

Ughh... I'm dealing with the stupidest client I've ever had. I just don't have the patience for this right now. Boo work! 5 more work days left... let's see if I can make it!

Awww... I'm sure you'll be fine! Although I've never been to Jamaica, I've been to Mexico & the Dominican a few times and when it rained it rained for like 15 minutes and then quit. It was quite refreshing actually

First one It's so unique.

We're not getting anything notarized. We have our long form birth certificates and she was fine with them when we sent them in. We'll see what happens ! We leave in 10 days!!!!

Monica - You were so CLASSY & GORGEOUS on your wedding day (and I agree, your little boy is such a handsome little guy!) I swear I'm going insane. We're surrounded by boxes and FI hasn't started packing a thing yet. I asked him when he was planning on getting started and his answer was "before we move". Hah. Seriously, not funny right now. Thank goodness we're almost finished putting together all of our "stationary" stuff... but it's tough to finish it off when you're surrounded by boxes and chaos. I don't know how we're going to get this all done. I haven't even started writing my vows... Breath... breath... breath...

Brandy!! I LOVE the first pic of you. It's stunning!!

Hey Ladies! I had my Stagette on Saturday. I had an awesome time! The girlies did a great job. Here's a few pics from the night: All dressed up and ready to go The only boy allowed Haha! It's a pinata. Seriously. Half of the limo (there were 11 of us) me and my Bridesmaids Me on stage... I didn't want to be there so I pulled another bride to be up with me! Haha

Turquoise & Brown Thank-you for offering though! I know we talked about it before! It would've been awesome if we would have coordinated! I have some pretty snazzy centerpieces that I made and am bringing with. I do have table runners, they're dark brown woven material that I got at JYSK for $1 each (clearance, yay!)

I don't know if we're even getting chair bows. I'm fine with the white chairs... but I guess we'll see how we feel when we get down there. I considered buying them here and packing them (It's so much cheaper, I agree), but since we're staying 2 weeks I can't justify all that room in my suitcase for sashes! haha. I emailed Chandlynn about this a week ago and she told me it was "220".

Awesome! Thanks so much ladies. I just don't see what we're really getting out of the paid package. We have us plus 15 guests and our photographer, so in the end we are 18. So to pay for 2 additional people ($50) isn't a big deal. Add that to the $220 minister fees, it seems so much more reasonable. I dealt with Tai Floral on my own and our bill with them after tax was just under $400, and the steel drum band is $400, so in the end it's going to be $1070 + taxes... I'm wondering if there's anything else we will want to add on when we get there? Hmmm...

Congrats on your wedding!! I'm glad you had a great time! We're actually thinking of switching over to the free wedding package. Would you by chance have a list of what's included with it? The $1350 for the wedding package we currently have just seems to have a lot of stuff we're not going to use...

Another Winnipeg girl I leave in exactly 2 weeks! We're flying through West Jet though... we're just in the start of the off season so we ended paying around $1500 each... now the price has dropped to like $1100. Ugh. Oh well, what can you do though