JoanneIreland

With 30 guests, the only reason you will want an extra layer is for photographs. It will not get eaten! The dessert with dinner was great, everyone loved it, and between the big meal, dancing and drinking, no one was interested in wedding cake. We did 2 layers, one strawberry and one choclate and for those who tasted it they said it was great. Our cake was not nought out and put on display until near the end of dinner. They had the cake table all set up in advance.

We took all our table decor with us. For name tags we used starfish we got at The Christmas Tree Shop and added name tags to them. We ordered maracas online but you can also buy them everywhere down there. We got yellow ones that had "Mexico" painted on to them, and attached a tag with a verse, and when everyone shaked the maracas we had to kiss. We also took all the yellow candle holders down there with us, along with our DIY menus and mint matchbooks.

This is our website - www.weddingwire.com/mikejoanne

Yayyy! How exciting! Enjoy the run up to the wedding and can't wait to hear all teh details on your return!

Carly, I swear I am not just saying this, I really mean it, Xavier is one of the cutest little baby boys I have ever ever seen in my whole life. He is simply divine!! You must be so happy. Delighted to know you are feeling so good. You did great going 8 hours without epidural and should be proud. So glad for you that the pushing part was relatively fast, you lucky girl!! How are you settling in at home? Too early to be in a routine yet? Regarding names, all of my husbands suggestions are very common names. Don't get me wrong here, I actually love the names he has suggested (Emma, Madison, Olivia, Emily) .... but I just think when we send her to school when the teacher says her name half the girls in the class will raise their arms! I don't want any weird names like Apple and all these things, but I also don't want half the other girls in school having the same name either. He still likes Margaret and I still hate it, LOL! I do love Olivia though, and though it might be quite common it's still in the running. One of my absolute favorites is Annalise. LOVE IT! Congratulations again on baby Xavier, so happy for you guys!!

Thanks everyone for the nice comments!

Yay, congratulations Carly, Matt and Xavier!! So happy for you guys!! Hope all is well and look forward to hearing more news. Thanks for the update Ann!

Here is our reception setup at Playa Azul, the first few are from our photographer and the rest are from guests : Let me know if anyone has any questions!! I plan to eventually write my full review soon and will post the link here.

We just recently got our pictures on a disk, we have been crazy busy but I know there are some of the reception setup. I will find them and post them soon. Our wedding was a lot smaller than a lot on here (just about 20 of us), so will give you brides that are having a small wedding some ideas. Quote: Originally Posted by chrisdior Hi Joanne Have you gotten any of your professional pictures back yet? I was wondering how the reception area looked. How many people did you have?

Fantastic review! You looked so beautiful. Congratulations on your marriage!

Carly - any news?? You are about a week past your due date right? Can't wait to hear from you. Hope you are home snuggling your son right now!! So tell us the big news too, what was the final decision on a name? Hope you can post a photo, would love to see your little angel! Since I last posted, I've gone from "thinking" I was feeling movements and flutters, to feeling full on little baby kicks, I think she's practicing for her blackbelt, lol! Love every little movement, it reassures me so much. I can almost set my watch to when I lay down in the evening to watch some TV, right around 8pm, she starts kicking up a storm! We thought it would be a while longer before my husband could feel anything but he's already been able to feel a couple of kicks too, it's so exciting! On names, we are still throwing some names around. It's funny because we could never agree on a boys name at all, so it was almost a relief when we found out it was a girl, but after all of that we both have a boys name we love, lol! We were watching TV and they said the name Luca and my husband was like "hey l like that if we were having a boy", and I love it too. So I guess if this little girl turns out to be a boy we have a name!! Speaking of which ..... we heard that if they told you that you were having a boy, then you could be sure it was a boy, but if they tell you girl there is still a chance it good be a boy. Anyone have this situation? Family have alrady started buying baby clothes (all pink of course), and we went shopping this weekend to start buying what we need and there are definitely things we got that are not gender neutral. How is everyone else doing?

We stayed at the Palace for 2 weeks in November and all of our guests rooms were located very close together (practically one room after another!) in the building closest to the beach. For the first week we were in a regular room, but with our premium wristbands we had free WIFI, room service, lounge access etc. For the second week they moved us to an ocean view room on the ground floor. It was exactly the same room, just facing out to the beach.

This is fantastic on you, love it!

Like Brenners, we did NOT do a cocktail hour either. It seemed like madness to pay for a cocktail hour at an All Inclusive resort!! Our ceremony was at 2pm at Playa Azul, and was done by 2:30pm. Then we had a champagne toast with our guests, it was very laid back and there was no rush, then we did group pictures. When everyone was ready a bus took all our guests back to the Palace lobby (I'm guessing this was about 3:30pm or 4pm when they got to the Palace). Everyone was to meet again in the lobby at 5:30pm for a bus to go back to Playa Azul for our beach reception. Most of the guests spent this time in the Carey Bar, but a few used the time to go back to their rooms for a quick nap and/or to freshen up. Myself and my hubby were with our photographer during this time doing our photo shoot and wrapped up around 5pm in front of the Palace, where most of our guests were drinking on the balcony outside the Carey bar and were able to see us finishing our shoot. They were haning over the balcont taking more pics than the photographer, LOL! A golf cart took myself and my husband back to Playa Azul (we actually got there before the guests so we could welcome then as they arrived), and the shuttle bus took everyone else from the Palace lobby at 5:30pm. We were welcomed with a drink, and then started our reception at 6pm.

Email : Adrian Guerra [email protected]

We paid everything in US dollars which seems to be the standard.

Carly I can't believe you have just 12 days to go! Keep us posted please! Whilst we were keeping the pregnancy a secret, the first 13 weeks seemed to last forever, but the last 7 have flown by. I think I felt movement yesterday, but can't wait for that 100% sure feeling of knowing it was the baby, any day now fingers crossed. Ann I love older traditional names too, but I just don't like Margaret. Hubby has no link to it, he's just always liked it. And I don't like the idea of shortening to Mags or Maggie. I think we have some chance of agreeing on girls names though (besides Margaret!), but had we found out we were having a boy it was possible that WW3 may have erupted as we had no names at all in common that we liked. My fave for a boy is still Milo. But for now need to get back focusing on girls names! Still a ways to go but happy that we can now say her/she. Oh as I'm typing I'm drinking hot tea and I'm pretty sure the baby is moving, but how to be sure??!!

Wow, Carly, less than 2 weeks!! How are you feeling? I have to say, I love Mateo, it's a great name! Xavier is a great name too, but I have a friend called Xavier and EVERYONE calls him "X" so will you be OK with that? With Mateo the nickname of Teo is absolutely adorable, just love that!! So we had our 20 week scan yesterday and found out we are having a baby girl!! We are over the moon. My husband was absolutely set on the name Margaret, but I'm sticking to my guns and saying abolsutely not!!

This is absolutely perfect on you, and as you said so great for a beach wedding. Congrats on your dress!

I ordered the following dress from Babyonline : I asked them to make it in a more pronounced sweetheart neckline. I also removed the sash they had and added my own that I purchased on Etsy. The dress is by no ways identical, but for $180 for a Trash The Dress I was very happy with it. Here is how the dress was shipped and arrived, it seriously arrived on my door step in a black trash bag, LOL : And here are pictures of the dress during our TTD :

Just emailed the template to those who asked for it.

Same as Brenners, we let the officiant do his own thing and he did great. We did tell our w/c in our meeting that we were NOT doing our own vows, but during the ceremony the JOP handed the microphone to my husband and asked him to say something to me. We were both caught off guard, and were laughing because nothing was prepared. The guests clearly picked up on this and were laughing too. It was a nice light moment in the ceremony, and turned into such a special moment for us as well, because my husband just looked me in the eye and spoke from his heart. It was very sweet.

Hi ladies! I just wanted to thank everyone for contributing to this thread. I learned so much stuff here that I previosuly had no clue about!! I wanted to share my good news - my husband and I were married this past November and are now expecting our first baby I honestly believe that if I hadn't read through this thread and learned all this stuff I never knew before, well I may not be pregnant now, so I want to share my experience and advice with other TTC'ers ...... I'm 36, so age was a pretty big concern for us, so we knew once we were married we wanted to start TTC immediately. I do not have "normal" cycles, they are longer than the norm, usually around 38 days, sometimes longer. From reading this thread I purchased the following : Book : Taking Charge Of Your Fertility (TCOYF) Basal Body Temperature I also made a charting speadsheet in Excel and printed it out to keep track. Firstly, TCOYF blew me away! I was amazed at how little I knew about my own body. It was shameful really!! I read the book about 4-5 months before we were married so had a few cycles of tracking before the wedding. Every morning I would take my temperature at roughly the SAME TIME, BEFORE GETTING OUT OF BED (yes not even to pee, it is supposed to be your waking temperature for accuarate reads). I could not find a basal temp without the "beeps", so that was the one real pain in the butt, especially if at weekends you were planning on going back to sleep, but a small price to pay none the less! Around the same time I also started a prenatal vitamin and an iron supplement. I quit smoking years ago, and planned to give up alcohol totally but with the wedding planning I needed my glass of wine too much! My diet has always been healthy but I did pay more attention to it. Also I made sure I was being really healthy, and working out more than normal (the upcoming wedding was a big incentive for that too!). As well as temperature charting I made a consious effort to make note of CM. After just 2 cycles I could clearly see my peak day was definitely not day 14 like most people think, should we have been always trying at day 14 we would probably never be pregnant!! For us it was Day 18-19. Two weeks after our wedding I reached CD 18, and we tried the day before, day of, and day after. I fully anticipated doing this for months, keeping our fingers crossed that because of our homework and research, that we may get lucky in the first 6 months, and if not at least I could go to my doctor with my charts/cycle history. HOWEVER, low and behold, on our one month wedding anniversay I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive!!!!! Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would be lucky enough to concieve on our first try, and I am truely forever greatful to finding this thread and reading TCOYF. Now we can't wait to meet our bundle of joy in August!! In a nutshell MY ADVICE : Read TCOYF as far in advance of when you plan to start TTC Start prenatal vitamins and perhaps iron at least 3-4 months before TTC Chart daily using waking basal temperature. Take note of any CM If you drink or smoke - quit now. Eat healthier and excercise . Within 2 cycles you should see a pattern of when your temperature drops and spikes, and should correspond with any CM, and thus be able to pinpoint your peak days of when to concieve. Thank you everyone for your great advice and good luck to all the TTC'ers! Joanne

Absolutely stunning on you!

Hi Newbie! Good idea to start planning in advance!