cookiemunchkin

We've designed our own invitations and looked into the cost of having them professionally printed at a print shop and the price doesn't seem much different that what it would cost for us to just buy a better printer and print these at home (and have the printer for future use!). Â What did everyone else do? Would there be a noticeable difference in quality to print at home, even on a new "good" printer? We'd buy speciality paper, of course.

I love the idea of one bag per couple, and then a bag for each single person. I was torn between one bag for each room or one bag per person... but in some cases (where there are 2 guys sharing a room for example) it just didn't seem to make sense. Great idea! Â FutureMrsTO - one thing I'm doing that might work well for you is put slighly different items in each persons bag. For example, maybe a frisbee in one bag, but a deck of cards in the next bag, and a beach ball in another bag. Not every person needs a frisbee/deck of cards/etc since people will be playing with others. This way you're still including a whole bunch of different items, but it wont be as expensive with all the bags you need to do!

haha, I also want to scream that sometimes! Maybe someone should start a thread where we can all yell "if you dont want to come, then shut the **** up already because we dont need you there" Â I think I just commented on one of your other threads (was that you? price increase for DT?)... and I really think you need to call your TA asap this morning, or get in touch with Sunwing directly. Either way, do it asap because I know the early booking bonus ends today. Something doesn't seem right about whats happening with your prices. Â

I tried working out group rates without a TA, and then tried with a TA and if I had to do it all over again I would use a TA right from the start! If you find a good one, they know about all the promotional offers that we may not know about and can usually end up saving you some money on the actual travel costs as well as having the contacts to deal with directly at the airlines and resorts. Â The key is finding a GOOD travel agent though. A mediocre one can be more stress!

I'm not sure if your rate is similar to mine... but we are also booking at Dreams Tulum through Sunwing, and I know that our rate is based on an offer through Dreams where every 6th room is free. So in order to actually get that rate, you would need to book 12 people (6 rooms). You may have been quoted that "discounted" price, and they are basically saying that if you dont get 12 people to get the extra free room, each person will end up paying a non-discounted price. Â Does that help? Â Also, my TA has told us that we have until today to get people booked and paid in full, not Aug 28. Maybe check that with your TA? I'm not sure if ours just managed to negotiate a better deadline for us or if Aug 31 really is the deadline... but it wouldn't hurt to check in your case so you can get a few more ppl booked today if possible. Â

I would love the card holders if you still have them!

Oops, nm... I see that its already gone. That will teach me not to finish reading posts, haha! Hope the other bride found it useful!

I would love this if you still have it

I think one of the things about having a DW that we have to accept is that some people are going to be jerks about it... complaining about cost, location, weather, whatever... they'll find something to complain about. We just need to remember that its our wedding and we are doing this for US. Â I just want to say though... I know a lot of people say things like "the people that care will be there", and I dont think having that mentality is a good one. To some extent, I agree... but I know there are sometimes people that do care, and for whatever reason can't be there. You dont want to feel bitter towards these people if life got in the way. Having a DW is something all of us chose to do, and it isn't really fair of us to expect everyone else to be able commit the time and money it takes to come to our weddings. I would hate to destroy a friendship over someone not coming to my wedding -- unless of course they decided to make my life hell over the fact that I'm even doing a DW lol. Â Just my two cents

I'm wondering the same thing! I considered either handing them to everyone at the airport before we got on the plane... or maybe even while on the plane, but that would mean everything would need to be in carry-on luggage. Â So far I'm leaning towards visiting everyone in their rooms once they have checked in, to say a personal hello and thanks and spend a few minutes of quiet time with each person before the madness begins

meldal - any update on your dress? I hope they've tracked it down by now

Welcome, and congratulations!! Great choice of resort as well. We looked into it and thought it was amazing, but ended up choosing a slightly more lower priced resort. Your wedding is going to be fantastic!

Congratulations! You'll find tons of great info here

Lite - I know its easier said than done, but try not to be too bummed about people not booking early for your wedding. We had a lot of comments about the price of DT as well... to which we told people we would welcome them finding a better deal and we would follow up on it. Once they started looking around, they really did realize the value and we didnt hear many complaints after that. Â Your wedding is still 6 months away, and a lot of people probably think they can still find deals in that time. I'm sure they will find something, even if it wasn't as good as the early booking. The ones that really want to be there will find a way Â

really helpful, thanks for posting!

You'll be totally fine to plan in 4 months, and you are SO not the worst bride ever! lol  I was in the same boat as you (kinda), planning in 6 months though. Just be prepared that a lot of people you want to attend may not be able to afford it and/or take time off work since they dont have a whole lot of notice. If you can live with that, you'll be fine.  You'll be surprised at how easily everything will fall into place once you decide the resort you are going with. Thats the hardest part, and you've already done that! Congrats and good luck with the planning!!

My suggestion (which is working very well for me!) is to contact a good travel agent (the ones on this forum are terrific) to help you decide on a location first. Once you have the location, you can then decide if you really need to hire a separate wedding planner or not. Â Hope that helps! If you are in Canada, I'd recommend TA Becky (on this forum). I've been working with her and couldn't ask for anyone better

I think it depends a lot on where you choose to get married and what you plan to do. For a lot of the places people on this forum are going, the location WC can and will take care of most details. Other places, you may need the services of a separate planner. Â I looked into Luxe before we decided on our location... and if I were to be completely honest, I would say their services are overpriced for a person having their wedding at an all-inclusive resort. At an all inclusive, your food/drinks, venue, flowers, ceremony are already taken care of by someone so it seems like overkill to pay someone so much to take care of the few things that are left. Â

Seems high, but its understandable why that rule exists. Forums are only useful if people are active on them... so to keep the forum useful, it is kinda necessary to force people to be active -- otherwise people would just join, download whats already there, and this place would become dead! Â Once you start posting more though, you'll be so addicted to this site that you'll reach 150 in no time. After 50 posts or so, it just became a normal habit for me to log on daily and see all the things I'll get to check out once I hit 150 haha. Almost there Â

I'd love to know this too! I'm starting to think that people were just designing the stamps on their own, but it would be so great if they already existed somewhere. Â

 I actually sent them an email asking the exact same question, so I'll let you know whatever I hear back.  Clinicalgal - thanks for such a detailed review! So sorry that you got injured -- but if it helps any, you cant tell at all in your pictures. You looked beautiful!

canadiansandy -- oh we'll definitely chat about that next time . I was looking forward to meeting all of you too! Â I'm so giddy, we now have 23 guests booked. That early booking bonus deadline worked some magic once we sent out a couple more gentle reminders to book soon Â

Nan -- it depends a lot on the situation, but the earlier the better so people have time to plan for the trip. In some cases though (like mine), the early booking deadline may be too soon to send out proper invitations. What we did in that situation is send out STDs and booking information in an email and let people know that invitations would be coming later. So our guests will be getting their invitations about 5 months in advance. Seems a bit like a formality at that point, but we're using the opportunity to send them additional information about the wedding, resort and trip that might be useful to them

Canadiansandy - So so sorry but I have to bail on tonight . My car started making some scary noises yesterday so I got a little worried and left it with my mechanic and am carless today. Â b2b2011 - Do you mind sending me a pm with some of the prices you got? I contacted Ivan Luckie and Elizabeth Medina and Del Sol... the first two are already booked for our date and Del Sol needs more info from me, but from what I've been reading I think they are way out of my price range. I've actually spoken to a great photographer here who fits my budget so we're considering taking her to Mexico with us - would be cheaper than Del Sol anyways lol.

Our wedding is actually the same day as yours (178 days to go!) and people have just started to book for ours. I think we're at 8 people booked as of today. We got an early booking bonus which requires payment by the end of this month though, so thats really the only reason that some of our guests will book this early. People will always have a tendency to think the prices will get better closer to the actual wedding date. Even with the early booking rate we got, we STILL have people telling us that its overpriced and the price will go down. Our TA is pretty confident that the price we have now is the best we're going to get, and we trust her so... yeah lol. Â If you can get in touch with a good TA and secure a really good group rate you will probably have a better chance of people committing and booking right away. Â Good luck to you! We haven't sent out invitations yet either... just an email STD and more emails about booking with the early bonus. Hoping to have invitations out to everyone within the next month.