deniden

So, I'm a 2012 bride - we had difficulty getting pregnant, and had to see a fertility specialist. I ended up conceiving boy/girl twins (without the use of fertility meds!) who are due in September. Here's my blog: http://ttcbabyp.blogspot.com for anyone having TTC issues....

Gorgeous! And I love the colors!

To be honest, I never even thought about what happened with the vases after the wedding. The staff delivered all of the wedding flowers to our room, and we gave away centerpieces to other couple staying near us, lol. Maybe ask Marvin his thoughts?

Use Marvin!

Here are my seating charts... denielle_seating_charts_031212.ppt

They didn't give us any issue... you just had to designate for the servers who was getting what. We had these for every guest, and the different beach themed stuff (sand dollar, sea horse, etc.) would indicate which meal they were getting. Also, I provided my WC with a seating chart (I made it in Powerpoint), so they knew who was getting what meal. I had a few people in our group get their hair and/or makeup done by the Spa and they all looked great. You can see pictures in my review.

We did Chicken Casablanca stuffed with Seafood and Beef Filet with Herbs & Dijon sauce. I also had 1 Vegetarian meal, which was Linguine with Tomato Sauce. Our side was Carmelized Sweet Potatoes, and our salad was Spinach Souffle. Also, because I didn't want a dessert to be served in addition to our wedding cake, I asked if we could have a soup instead, which was fine - we got Princess Cream Soup. All of the food was really good and the guests enjoyed it all. Our cake was Tres Leches. I lovvvved it!

I used Shutterfly. I did a black background book and would use their crop tool to create little peek-a-boo pictures... it was great. Fast processing and the finished product looked awesome!

I would say Asiana or MM.

Ugh, it's just a shame that she chose now to really show how bad of a friend she is. Boo to her!

I think it's 2 separate issues - a friendship that is fading and a new mom who may not want to leave her infant. I think she has shown that she isn't as committed to the friendship as you are by her actions over the past few years. I think prior to even finding out about her pregnancy, you probably could have concluded she wouldn't exactly be the best bridesmaid because she wasn't super involved in the friendship. As far as her pregnancy and the baby, I'm currently pregnant with twins, and up until this point - I could NEVER understand the issue people had with leaving their kids while they vacationed. But now, traveling while pregnant or even post-partum sounds like an awful idea to me. I could not, in the least, imagine leaving a 3 month old (or a 6 week old) behind while I was away... this would be especially problematic if breast-feeding exclusively. And traveling to a foreign country with a small infant isn't ideal because of their weakened immune systems, anyway. Hate to play devil's advocate, but I promise, I thought the same way you guys did until it happened to me, lol.

Nope, we didn't really go over anything. When we met with our WC, she had told us specific times for things... like, that should meet with the guys (the groom, best man, and officiate) at a certain time and take them over to the gazebo. Then she said she would meet me in my room at a certain time to take me over to the gazebo with my dad and maid of honor. Honestly, we didn't need much more direction than that. When we got to the gazebo, she would tell us when to start walking, and that was really it. LOL.

We didn't do a wedding rehearsal, but we told everyone to meet at the Tequila Bar at a certain time on their first night there (some of us had been there since Monday and most came in on Thursday). It ended up working out great for us because everyone did their own thing for dinner and then met there.

No problem, best wishes ladies!

We had a Tres Leches cake and I LOVED it. I'm not really a cake person, so the flavor didn't matter much to me, but everyone on the forums raved about it, so I insisted and it was delicious! I know that if you have an outdoor reception, they will try to talk you out of it, but I insisted on... and I'm glad I did since my reception had to be moved indoors. I had to look at my passport invite thread, but I asked for RSVPs by November 1st for my April 20th wedding (I think I sent out the invites in the beginning of September). I did have some last minute people book, but overall, but most people booked pretty fast.

Don't mind the silly face I'm making, but here's an example of what the cake table and cake stand looked like at my wedding. (The bow and the luminaries are mine.)

Oh, and something I should mention... My friend (who performed our legal wedding for us at home) who had gone to the Royal with us for the wedding loved it so much that she convinced her family to plan a trip there. She just returned yesterday and said it's still fabulous as ever! Her entire family was super impressed and now THEY are all planning a return trip for next year!

So, originally, I asked for cold fireworks in my quote through the WC. As we got closer, I was like "it's not worth the money" and told them to take it off our invoice. Imagine my surprise when at the end of our first dance, there were cold fireworks. So, I'm not sure HOW that happened, but it did. I can wholeheartedly recommend Doremixx, they were great. Although I've heard great things about Mannia, too (and I believe he is a 'resort DJ'). Doremixx did everything exactly how I wanted, and they had a ton of props for the guests (I believe they brought masks and beads). Also, the light up dance floor is worth every penny. People loved it and the pictures looked great. Something we did was our own "photo" guestbook. So, I had brought a ton of props for that, and by the time everyone was done doing their guestbook pictures, everyone had props on all over the reception. It was hysterical and made for some great pictures. I think this is a good idea whether you do the photo guestbook or not. I would go to Dollar Tree around each holiday, and they always had headbands, hats, masks and stuff for that particular holiday (think Christmas, Valentine's day, Mardi Gras, St. Pats, Easter, etc.) I also bought boas and funny signs from Party City. It was cheap and they were easy to pack to bring down. My crazy sisters also bought tons of those Kanye West sunglasses in bright colors, so lots of people loved those, too. Also, I know you can get cheap glow necklaces and bracelets from Dollar Tree, too. Some prop pictures:

Quote: Originally Posted by marooon13 Need some help! Our wedding is 2 months from today! My brother is ordained and we were planning on having him marry us, rather than some guy from Mexico we have never met before. Anyways, I sent our final documents to our wedding coordinator, Claudy, this weekend (mentioning that we had someone to marry us) and I got this response: I just saw you are bringing someone to marry you…. you that is consider a a symbolic ceremony here in Mexico…If you want to have a civil/legal one…you need to use our justice of the peace and to have a blood test. I know that I have read of numerous brides bringing someone to Mexico to marry them. I don't know if the legal aspect of it has changed but I don't understand why we aren't able to bring our own minister. Has anyone else had this problem or have any advice for me? I know our other option is to get married in a court house first then have a symbolic ceremony but the reason we are having a destination wedding in the first place is because we do not live near our families and court house or not, I want my parents to be there- which is not likely to come together just 2 months before the wedding. Marin - I responded to your PM, but figured I would post it here, too. Unbeknowst to our guests, we were legally married at home. We had a friend who is ordained that performed the ceremony for us at her house, with just her and our 2 witnesses there. We did it about 2 weeks before our Mexican wedding. It was just alot easier for us, plus we knew we wanted a friend to perform our real wedding ceremony in Mexico for us. It saved us alot of headache and was perfect. If you use Doremixx, they will send you an Excel spreadsheet that you can modify to make your wedding reception timeline. I still have mine, and if you PM me your email address, I'll forward it over. Also, I made a list on the spreadsheet of "must play" songs, and certain "no not play" songs. They followed this, and our crowd, perfectly. I had said to only do slow songs if the crowd seemed into it, and they obviously saw our crowd wanted all dancing songs - because they never played slow songs, and it was perfect for us. Here was our timeline, I mostly wanted to get all the formal stuff out of the way so we could just party it up once everything was done. We also didn't do a garter toss or bouquet toss, so you could add those in somewhere. 5:30 PM Guests arrival(Reception area) 5:40 PM Wedding party arrives 5:45 PM Bride & Groom Arrival 5:50 PM First dance (Bride & Groom) 5:55 PM Father & Daughter Dance 6:00 PM Mother & Son dance 6:05 PM Toast 6:10 PM Cake cutting 6:12 PM Dinner Blessing 6:15 PM Dinner Served (1st Course then Best Man & Maid of Honor speech. While Serving Cake, Bride & Groom Thank You Speech) 7:15 PM Party start 9:25 PM Next to last song 9:30 PM Last song