Pucca

I'm never comfortable traveling with a large wad of cash either. Makes me nervous. However, considering the lack of possible access to ATMs, you'll probably just have to settle for bringing cash. What I did was split the amounts between me and my husband. We then separated our amounts and put them in different places in our carry on. I didn't want to put everything in one place in the event it got lost; I didn't want to be stuck without any cash at all. We put the tips in envelopes beforehand, labeled them, and then sealed them so we wouldn't have to be scrambling around to put the tips together once we got there. If you think it's still too much, maybe you can ask one of your family members to carry some for you as well. Hope that helps! Good luck!

What a beautiful dress and what beautiful photos! The wind really enhanced everything I think! Congratulations!

Ouch. I hope your hubby is doing well after the trip to the ER! Indeed, thank goodness it didn't happen last month! That's a great Christmas card! Beautiful. We just celebrated our 3 year anniversary, which also was our one-month wedding anniversary. Things are going really well and we are looking forward to the holidays with our families and friends. We are also still waiting on all of our pro-pics and video from the wedding.....Hopefully we'll get it soon because the photographer said he was mailing them soon. Our parents are more anxiously awaiting them than we are I think. Ha ha. Can you believe how time flies?!? Happy one-month anniversary to all the November brides who got married on the 14th and prior! And happy almost one-month to those who got married after the 14th! Hope your holidays are joyful and blessed!

I think those look great! I really like the large starfish. One question though: is your reception going to be outdoors? If it is, I'd take into account the wind factor as the candle may not stay lit. Most of my candles that were not sheltered in glasses ended up going out, so they didn't even bother lighting the rest of them when setting up for dinner. But again, that's only if your reception will be outdoors. Otherwise, these look great!

I really like this!! And I think you did a fantastic job making similar ones!! How creative and beautiful! Oooohhhh.....difficult decision!! I don't know if you're interested in opinions but I have to express mine. As much as I love seashells, I think the birds of paradise bouquet is absolutely fantastic! It looks really vibrant and just gorgeous against the backdrop of a light dress. I don't know what your wedding colors are but my eye is immediately drawn to that birds of paradise bouquet over the seashells. Good luck!

Taryn - love the pictures! You look beautiful! Waiting for pro pics can be excruciating! lol! I'm waiting on ours, although the photographer did share some of them on FB aside from the select prints he gave us while we were still in Mexico. Sounds like the name change process is a pain.... I'm not changing my name so thank goodness for that!

We had a Friday wedding and had a bunch of guests come in on Thursday. So we did an informal meet-and-greet cocktail after rehearsal; there was no pressure on people to attend but almost everyone did. It worked out really well and was fun. As for your invite, I'd leave it as is. The informal cocktail hour counts as a welcome celebration to me.

Have you checked on the Vacation Rental By Owners website? The web address is vrbo.com. I'm not sure how many rentals they have listed for St. Thomas but I'd check because I know in some locations they have villas listed as well. I think there's also a website called Home Away (homeaway.com). Another thought - maybe you can have everyone stay at the villa and then you and your hubby can go away to a hotel after the wedding. Good luck and happy planning!

Thank you so much!! I appreciate it!

Congratulations on settling on the location and the resort! I recently had my wedding in San Jose del Cabo so I thought I'd chime in a few things. :-) Car rental: I recommend that you do it online and pick up the car when you arrive at the airport. Most of the big name companies are right in the terminal. If you happen to go with a smaller company, make sure you ONLY look for those people wearing the company's shirt (and most likely they'll have a counter once you exit the baggage claim area or enter the lobby-type areas. We booked ours through Yahoo but a friend booked hers through Hotwire. Florist: I recommend Claudia from Floreria Rayen. You can do a search for her here on this forum and PM her; or PM me and I'll get you her contact. She's great to work with and I loved the job she did for our wedding. I wish I would have gotten the contact for our hair stylist as he was great! But he was referred to us through our wedding coordinator. I can try to get his contact if you aren't getting other recommendations. Plus his prices were pretty good I thought! As for a mariachi band, sorry I can't help you there. Let me know if you have any questions or if I can be of any further help! Good luck and happy planning!

All your pictures turned out fabulous, beginning with the engagement photos to the TTD! You look beautiful! Congratulations and thanks for sharing your planning thread!

I just noticed your wedding is coming up real soon! Exciting!! Wishing you all the best!

Thanks! The tall vases prevented the candles from being blown out by the wind - something we didn't consider when we brought down some additional votive candles which were not sheltered like these and blew out instantly. The enter centerpiece was provided by the florist.

Here's a close-up (sorry if it's picture-overload ):

Our centerpieces were three tall vases filled with sand, sea shells, and a candle in each of them. The reception took place after sunset so the lighting was quite nice.

Aw. Thank you very much! It's very flattering to hear that...er read that! I really appreciate it!!

Here are some photos of the actual huppah we had at our wedding:

Beautiful!! Romantic set-up for both ceremony and reception! And those purple lilies are really pretty!

Thank you!!

Beautiful!! Both your dresses are lovely but the ceremony dress is gorgeous!

The photos everyone shared are beautiful! Congratulations and welcome back!! I can't wait to see more pictures! I'm still waiting on the rest of our professional pics as well; we got a sneak peek on Facebook in addition to the prints he gave us before we left, but we are anxiously awaiting the rest and the video! Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

Thank you!!!

I brought down as much as I could, but I really wanted to minimize what I had to bring down - does that make sense? I actually asked a friend of mine to bring down some things for me so we didn't have to have so much luggage. It was just a couple of boxes of string lights that I gave her so it wasn't something that would take up too much space in her luggage either. We thought we might have to ask my in-laws to bring some things but we ended up not having to (and it was a good thing as all they brought was carry-on luggage). My husband and I had one checked bag each and one carry on each (this is what we limited ourselves to). I have a garment bag (one of those suitcase versions if you know what I'm talking about) that's for suits. I put my husband's shirt, suit, and my wedding dress in that and had my husband carry that on the plane. I had a rolling suitcase that I stuffed with things that were breakable as well as my wedding jewelry, so this way if something were to happen to our luggage, at least we had our wedding outfits which I deemed to be the most irreplaceable! In actuality we didn't rely on anything that we thought the wedding coordinator had besides the table cloths, other linen, and silverware/dinnerware. The florist found the fabric for the huppah so we were thankful for that! We asked for colored table cloths and I brought down all the shells, little votive candles, place cards, table markers, sea shells and lanterns. I even brought down wrapping paper, tape, scissors, and ribbons to wrap the gifts for everyone, as well as a glue gun! So basically I made sure that whatever happened, we could take care of it without having to hunt down the wedding coordinator. Also, buying favors there was a HUGE help, not only with cost and with getting something unique and local for people, but also with baggage space. And we didn't do OOT bags, although I did bring down some gifts for people. I think you should also check and see if there are stores around where you can go to buy things in the event that you forget something or need something extra. For us it was extremely helpful to have a store somewhat like a Target/Wal-Mart called Mega where we could buy extra string lights. They also had Office Max there so if you forgot any stationery stuff, you could easily go and get some more. So it would be helpful to check if you can minimize your luggage by getting some things when you get to your location. BUT we thought our bags would be less packed on our way home and they were not. Not only did some people bring me things that I didn't expect but I also ended up bringing 5 sets of string lights back home because the wedding coordinator duly returned it to us without me having the chance to tell her to keep it. My husband told me we could use it to decorate our place for the holidays so guess what he's going to be doing this weekend? Ha ha. But this was all possible because we cut down on what we brought to wear. My husband is really efficient in packing and I've gotten pretty efficient myself (although I do tend to bring a couple of more things than necessary). Since the clothes were all summer clothes too, it helped with space issues. And we had to be realistic about shoes (these take up the most space in my opinion). I brought a pair of heels that I only wore once on a girls' night out so I could have done without it. And we omitted bringing tennis shoes because we were certain we'd be walking around more in flip flops or our lightweight Converse shoes. I also think it helped that we didn't have a bridal party and OOT bags. I know OOT bags are really nice and I did want to give people some things. But I ended up realizing that there wasn't an efficient way to do that for me without having to run around all over town to greet people as they flew in (since my guests weren't all staying at the same place). So practically it wouldn't have worked out too well either. What we did instead was meet people at various times (if they flew in earlier in the week) and had lunch or dinner with them. I think they appreciated that personal attention a lot as one of my guests told me that they felt very special and cared for, which was good to hear! I hope that helps! Feel free to ask me any more questions and ask me to clarify if necessary!

I realized I forgot to add the image for our cake cutter and server set, so here it is. It's not the best picture but the handles are just clear simulated crystal.

Thank you!!