Mwise17

Amazing stuff...good job!!!!!!

Hello ladies, I posted my planning thread today, with pics of how the ceremony/reception looked set up. As well as a few pics from the smors bonfire on the beach. *remember, it rained, so we moved the dancing inside instead of staying outside at Zavaz Plaza. http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/76600/mwise17s-planning-thread-diy-heavy-pic-heavy/10

I do....once I am reminded by someone to post it on MOnday (all templates are at work)...I will def. post it up for you all to use. Thank you...

Absolutely...can you please PM me to remind me? I have all my templates at work, and I will definitely forget by Monday! Thanks Thank you very much!

A few extras…. When I tried on my dress for the girls.... cocktail party on the beach... myself and bridesmaid at reception... the dance party... They lived happily ever after...sealed with a kiss! THE END

Guest book table We had a guest book table set up, with a bamboo frame that we inserted instructions into. We decorated a white board and brought markers in our colors and white board wipes and had guests write us a message on the board and our photographer took a pic of them holding their message. We also had a number of these around on tables etc. with our engagement photos in them. My mom and I bedazzled these wooden letters from the dollar store. We placed them in front of the cake on the table, but really, you could have placed them anywhere you wanted! J I got the paper lanterns from asianideas.com…and chris put the LEDs in them to light them up. J at the head table....

Reception Decorations Escort Cards We used drink umbrellas in our colors and hot glued our guests name/table number as a flag to it. We then had them all placed in a small box filled with Sand, and our wedding party handed them out to guests as we got our pics finished up. Idea from BDW. Because of our pick and choose menu, we had to have a way of letting the wait staff know what each guest chose as their entrée. I designed a menu for the steak selection in green text and a menu with the chicken and salmon selection in orange. The two kids having chicken finger and fries had pink text. As a surprise for our guests, we had in our welcome booklet to keep an afternoon/evening open for a surprise, and then at the reception, had a catamaran boarding pass I designed inviting them to join us on an evening cruise with a stop for dinner on the beach. I held them together with a ribbon belly belt. Both pieces were printed on 110lb card stock. on top of each place setting were maracas with the thank you luggage tag attached with hemp string. We alternated pink and orange at each setting. We purchased the authentic Mexican maracas from Amols, and I purchased a felt pen from Michaels and wrote “C+M†and our date on each one, and on the pink maracas, I wrote Mexico. We added the saying to have guests shake their maraca for us to kiss on the back of the luggage tag. For the two kids, I did a scavenger hunt with the disposable cameras to keep them occupied, one at the reception and I did one for the catamaran too. I designed the tags with wording help from BDW, and used an eyelet and ribbon to attach it to the camera. J For the table numbers, I bought some card stock in a green design from Michaels, glittery brown numbers and then hit ikea for the white plastic frames which are perfect for traveling (the bottoms screw on and off). I purchased photo corners and scanned our pics of us at the age of each table (ie. At table one is a pic of us at the age of one). I am on one side, Chris is on the other

Ceremony Decorations All flowers were ordered fresh from the resort. We were married on the beach under a gazebo with white sheers. I had tall vases (6) with flowers in our colors adorning the aisle, that later served as center pieces at the guest tables for dinner. 2 large arrangements hung on either side of the wedding gazebo, and a small vase with flowers on the ceremony table. I made paddle fans for the ceremony, and I really liked how they turned out. I made these to hang on the first two rows to reserve for our immediate family J Sand ceremony was also purchased off etsy. It came with a funnel, the frame and the vases. I put my inspirational ribbon around the top. We inserted a pic of us and used one with green sand purchased from Michaels, and the other was filled with sand from the beach.

The Guys We ordered linen blend suits from Studio Suits, and loved the quality. The prices were amazing. The ties were ordered off of Etsy…custom made in our colors. My dad’s tie was also ordered from the same etsy seller. We had linen shoes from Spring for all the guys in a shade darker beige then their suits, shoes/belt from Le Chateau. Bridesmaids The girls wore silk wrap dresses in Magenta from Butter by Nadia. The maid of honour had different shoes, basically in our colors and a bit of gray, the 2 bridesmaids wore a gray satin. Jr. Bridesmaid/Flower Girl Chris’ sisters were our jr. bridesmaid and flower girl. We purchased the flower girl dress from winners, and the Jr. BM dress from David’s Bridal. I purchased hair flowers for them from Claires. I purchased flip flops from old navy and bedazzled them myself. I purchased the bucket and flower from Michaels and decorated it, armed with a hot glue gun. J I put an E on the back for Elizabeth. It was filled with rose petals from the resort in our colors that she dropped along the aisle before I came down Hair done at resort’s spa Itinerarys I did up itinerarys with appointments etc. for our day! We had one for the girls and the guys.

fun with pashminas AND glow sticks....lol The Dress I got my dress at Beckers Bridal in Toronto. It was the first store, 5th dress, and the ONLY one I ever loved. J It is the Tirso by Pronovias. I didn’t want a head vale, and loved that it had one over the shoulder. I received so many complements on my dress…not only from guests, but all the people on the resort! It was the perfect dress for the perfect setting. My dress was hung on this hanger made by an etsy artist…I loved it. It was so well done. It didn’t make the trip down however, I should have wrapped it better, but we made due, and it worked out SHOES I wanted green shoes, BAD. I couldn’t find any, so took a chance with dyable ones from David’s Bridal (who I would not recommend, for anything really….had terrible customer service from them, used for shoes/jr. bridesmaid dress). The plan was to only wear them down the aisle, and change into the flip flops, but I forgot, and well, the dye was off the heals (that were in the sand) in about 2 seconds. J I bedazzled the flops myself (also from David’s bridal)….was so much fun, anyone need anything bedazzled? Lol….send it over!!! Hair Flower I decided I didn’t want to worry about real flowers drooping throughout the night, so I chose this beautiful piece by silverpencils on etsy. Brandi was very helpful, and I received lots of complements on it as well. Garter I had a pink garter with a “C†for chris charm that dangled from it J Jewellery While I was getting my nails done at the salon on our wedding day, Chris had his brother deliver this diamond tennis bracelet with a lovely card. I cried for about ½ hour!! I ended up wearing it down the aisle, and had earrings from a boutique on the Danforth that were simple j earrings with diamonds all down them, and wore simple diamond studs in my second piercings on my ears My bouquet I LOVED my bouquet….with my bride/groom in green theme, it looked amazing!!! I paid a little extra to have it larger than pictured, and ended up with a very large bouquet that was beautiful!!! (and very heavy)!!! Wrapped in the ribbon on my bouquet was a charm of my nana who passed on a few years ago. This was the perfect way for me to include her in our special day…a lot of my family didn’t know I had this done, and were brought to tears when they saw it. I had it made by an etsy dealer

Handing out the welcome bags at our welcome dinner... Welcome Party Pashminas We had a welcome party – dinner at a restaurant and a smors bonfire on the beach. I gave out the pashminas down on the beach, and had glow bracelets for the guests to put on…the pashmina’s were a HUGE hit!!! All the woman had them on all week! I ordered them from pashminawholesale.com, and designed the labels myself, used a punch from Michaels to create the circle, set the eyelet, made the bellybelt out of ribbon and hot glued it all. Whew…was a lot of work. (my mom was helping with all these projects in what she called “the wedding sweat shopâ€) lol. A few guests with their pashminas...

Bookmarks I had fun with this project!! Printed the designs on cardstock, and then laminated them, whole punched the top, and tied with hemp string. J SPF Chapstick I bought smoothie flavoured Blistex SPF 15 chapstick. I designed the label (with inspirations from this site). Printed the label on plain paper, cut out, used a glue stick to adhere to the chapstick (removed blistex label first). I then used clear packing tape and wrapped each so they could get wet without running. Time consuming, but loved them, as did the guests…again, something they definitely used! J Wedding week survival kits These were fun to make, I made three different color lables for the tops to help me pack them once I got there. The pink were for people we didn’t want to receive the condom (grandparents/kids), orange for singles, green for couples. There are a few items inside the survival kits and that had slid down behind that you can’t see. Here is a list of its contents. Condom (that pretty much covered the “fun†part of the labelâ€) Kleenex Gum Bath & body works hand sanitizer Emergen-C x 2 Inside The “First Aid†box Safety Pins, hand wipes, bandaids, pepto bismol tablets (that I printed direction labels for) Advil, mints MAC Lipglass My MOH is a MAC makeup artist. We used their program “back to MAC†and took back 6 empty containers and received a free lipglass each time (anyone can do this, not just employees). I had quite a few empty containers of their products, but she helped with most, and we were able to get 21 lip glass’ absolutely free!!! J We picked out neutral shades for the most part, but told the girls to swap ‘em up with each other if they wanted. I had some darker skin colored ladies, so we just gave them a more suitable color for them, they loved it. Postcards Chris found this awesome site that creates “wordlesâ€â€¦.we wrote everyone’s name that came to Mexico, including nick-names and wedding words etc. and created the two below, and designed the back with a postcard in mind. We printed them on 110 lb. card stock paper and cut them all out…we then bundled them with Raffian and taped a stamp on it. We asked our guests to pick one to mail to us with their favourite memory of our week spent in the Mayan Riviera. We are then going to put it in our guest book. Welcome booklets We made these to make sure our guests had all the information needed to enjoy the week, including hotel amenities, map including our ceremony location and receptions, schedule of events, names of guests and their relation to us so they could write down each other’s hotel numbers. Also included was a map of the Mayan, how to get around if they wanted to go into town, photo share page and some simple Spanish basics. I printed the covers on 110lb. cardstock, and the inside paper was of regular weight. I then whole punched through the centre and tied with ribbon to hold.

Pre-Travel Mailing We decided to do a pre-travel mailing as so many of our guests had never traveled to an all-inclusive before. We included a pre-travel brochure that I designed with the help of my friend Miriem, it included info. about what to expect at the airport, attire for the events/dinners, golf course information etc. I included a DIY luggage tag with a pics I found on-line from around the Mayan, and inserted them into ziplock holders that guests could remove and put their information on. We then hot glued ribbon. We also included a CD with music chosen by the wedding party and the parents to get the guests excited for the trip. We also included the entrée selection card at this time, with instructions to email us with their choice Welcome bags… I shopped and shopped for bags, but decided that I was going to do a gift bag, and liked the “paper bag†look and feel of our invitation envelopes. I found the perfect brown bags at Michaels. I designed the welcome tag, bought a scalloped punch at Michaels and the eyelets/eyelet setter and went to work. I really liked how simple and cute they turned out. We had a welcome party on the second night which included dinner and a smors bonfire at the beach. We handed them out at the dinner. I had one bag for each single, and one for each couple. I had two kids out of our 51 guests, and they got special hair clips/coloring books/sunglasses/princess lanyards/hair ties etc. etc. Welcome bag included… Key/tip $ holders We followed a DIY project here and wording, I designed the “Mexico 2011â€. I purchased a quarter round punch for the corners. We purchased the lanyard covers from Amazon and they were great as they had a ziplock at the top, so $ wouldn’t fall out. I wanted to get the lanyards in our colors, but it is not so easy finding them in Canada apparently.

Melissa + Chris’ wedding Planning thread Well, the time flew, we just got home yesterday, and its surreal to be doing this part of the process already!! Thank you to all the wonderfully creative ladies on here for all of your craftiness that helped me (and sometimes drove me crazy…I mean really, how did you THINK of so many details!!??), but mostly inspired me to DIY 99% of my wedding. I love this site, and will do my best to give back…here goes… ENGAGEMENT Chris proposed on June 17th, 2010 at the bahia principe resort in the Dominican. He had ordered flowers the day of, and took me out for dinner and found a quiet secluded spot under a gazebo (we later found out that is where they do the weddings at this resort)…and dropped to one knee! J The rings The resort Friends of ours are photographers and had been to a number of destination weddings, so we asked them to send us some slideshows of photos they had taken, and their opinion on the resort…they had fallen in love with the Sensatori Azul, as we did after checking it out. It was a FABULOUS resort that I would recommend to anyone. We loved it, and our guests raved…truly the best food I have had at a resort anywhere!!! This resort was also highly recommended by previous brides, I see why! J TA I originally was with Weddings by Oceans, and was not happy with how long they were taking to get back to me when we were deciding on a location. I felt more like another number, didn’t want my guests feeling like that when it was their turn to deal with them….and wanted more personalized service. I stumbled across the best kept secret in the business – Karen Lantigua with my wedding away (www.myweddingaway.com) I just can’t say enough good things about Karen and her services. Talk about bending over backwards…I swear some of my guests want to marry her!! J Karen helped us get the place of our dreams, at the price of our dreams, with a lot of little surprises along the way (a bottle of prosecco here, private transfer there). Thank you Karen….we all just love you!! Colors We chose a hot pink, tangerine and lime color scheme. I was making a French memory board and had bought this ribbon that I loved, and it was the inspirational piece. The hot pink varied at times due to the bridesmaids dresses being a magenta that was more on the purple side than pink. I had so much fun with my DIY projects and my colors, they really brought a splash to everything we did. Here are a few inspirational pics I used to help guide… Monogram I googled wedding invitations, and this is how I stumbled across Meagan Clopton, Branchville Studio in Texas. Meagan has some amazingly designed pieces, and she did our monogram… AND our amazing passport invitations that people are STILL talking about and asking if they could have a new one, as theirs is torn etc. from being carted around in a purse to show everyone they came across all these months. J Meagan also threw in these really cute thank you luggage tags. I decided to make my own labels and return labels out of our monogram (put our address around it…was a tough project), and I also did the RSVP cards.

they are "butter by nadia" in magenta. I got them in Toronto, Canada, but they were ordered, so I am sure you could order them on line. They probably came from the states anyway They were just over $300 Canadian each.

Thank you! My maid of honor did the makeup for us all (she is a MAC makeup artist) and we all had our hair done at the resort!

JULI.....happy belated wedding day! I hope you had the day of your dreams and that the weather picked up after we left!

Hey ladies....here are a few amature pics that guests posted today!

Hey ladies...just got home on Saturday, thought I would post some pics of the suits...in action! suits.docx

Thats great!!!! hahahhahahahhahah

whoa!!!! awesome booty shot!!!!! He is going to lose it!!! Hard work pays off and shows in photos...good job!

I'm back! Thank you so much....I will have to post some pics really soon! I was really good evenon the resort, working out, and eating right, until the day after the wedding....I had 3 days on the resort with desserts, mashed potatoes and other such splurges...(man were those mashed potatoes heaven!!!) Keep at it, you are oh so close, december is just around the corner. I am going out for some sushi tonight on our last night before we head back to work tomorrow. Post pics soon! Mel

Hello ladies.... I am home, and I am a Mrs.!!! I have been working hard on getting my planning thread done, and my review. In the mean time, I can tell you this... The azul sensatori resort is like none-other I have been to. I thought the decor/food/staff were just awesome!!!! The wedding coordinators have it down to a science, but I wasn't impressed with the manager of the weddings...I could have seriously done without her (think her name was raquelle?). I had crappy weather (it rained at the end of the ceremony, right through the dinner outside in Zavaz plaza) and we had to move the dancing/cake etc. inside, so we had a break in the middle of the reception after the rushed dinner (literally, we went speech after speech after speech until they were done). We then were delayed on getting out because of Hurricane Rina (they borded up the entire resort, removed signs/large trees and all the coconuts onthem/glass barriars etc. etc.) We ended up leaving a day and a half later then originally scheduled (many guests not too happy about it) My surprise catamaran trip was cancelled due to weather as well The resort only had two restaurants open the last two days we were there, I hope for Juli they opened them up quick, I know she was on her way in (or was scheduled to land the day the hurricane hit). Through it all, (many ups and downs) I am now married, and it feels really good! I had a great week with family and friends, it just sucks that the wedding of my dreams I was planning was literally rained on....all the stuff I worked on was rained on and its been hard to get over that part. Everyone just LOVED the resort, and we truly had a great time, it was just the wedding day that didn't turn out as planned

THank you very much....just starting to pack personal stuff..all wedding stuff is ready at the door! This planning time is going to fly, trust me ! I really liked ours...they came out a bit big, but better than small right?

Its 2 days now....hahhahhaha...where did the time go??? Thank you, I feel great...and bought all bikinis....trust me, didn't think this day would come!!!! I am down 3 more pounds since the last post...I am happy with my final numbers! (am all sweaty writing this as I just came home from the gym).lol How has it been going for you? stay motivated, it will pay off in the end. Good luck and can't wait to see your big day !! Yes bring on Bathing suit.. hmmm maybe even a bikini??? Why not! You worked hard and deserve it!