JayKay

Welcome! I didn't have a wedding website, but try searching on this forum to find other gals who have put some together.

Welcome! That one suggestion I can make it to use a travel agent. I was so greatful to have a travel agent who was able to deal strictly with all the travel planning, where as I could really focus on planning the wedding part with the wedding coordinators at the resort.

Welcome! Happy wedding planning!

Welcome! We started planning our wedding about a year in advance. So if you are meaning this June, you definetly are not planning to early. We sent out our STDs pretty much as soon as we had our wedding date booked with the resort. That gave our guests lots of time to start planning.

Welcome! Congrats on your enagement! I have friends who have travelled to Dreams Los Cabos and loved it! They definetly recommended it. As to travel, I'm not sure if its different from the USA, but from Canada peak season is usually January-March with the prices dropping significantly for April on. Also, February and March tend to be a bit more expensive and busy because of spring break. Not sure if its the same in the US though. Happy wedding planning!

Welcome, happy wedding planning!

Sounds like the perfect spot for you would be the Mayan Riviera in Mexico. Its on the carribean side, not to humid, but still beautiful. Its also far from the crime areas and safe.

Welcome! And congrats on your engagement over a year ago! Ill try to answer what I can -Settling on a location was probably the hardest part for us. We were both University students at the time and wanted somewhere easy to get to that wasn't going to break the bank. We looked into Mexico, Dominican, Jamaica and a few other carribean destinations. We loved Mexico as its cheaper then most other places, however, to legally get married there it seemed like a lot of work and money to get documents translated ect. We chose Jamaica as no one in our group had ever been there and it was relatively cheap. Also, its really easy to legally get married there. After that we chose a resort based on our budget. -Yes, it is possible to have a nice wedding for less then 10K. We spent just under $5000 for everything, travel included. The big thing for us was to find a resort that offered a free wedding package. -We basically told everyone we were having a destination wedding because thats what we wanted to do. Most of our family was supportive with a few who were not and questioning our decision. In the end its your wedding and you need to do what you want to do, not what others want you to do. -As to particular resorts, I think most cater to destination weddings especially since their popularity is increasing. As to choosing a resort we went based on wedding packages available and we also worked closly with a travel agent who was able to find us resorts that fit our budget. From there we did lots of research and narrowed our search. Hope that helps!

I love this ring! Where did you purchase it from??

I think your bouquets are beautiful. If you plan on adding those flowers I would choose the first one if you really want them to stand out and the second one if you want it to blend in more.

That is a beautiful dress!! I think you need to go with your heart and at least go dress shopping again. You may realize your original dress is still the dress, but you may also find your dream dress. I say go with it, especially since your venue has changed and you will be getting married on a beach.

Beautiful dress!

I love these dresses!

I never even considered not taking my real ring. However, I know many people in our group chose to wear fake rings instead of bringing their real ones. I only ever take my rings off to sleep so for me I had it on all the time and wasn't worried when it was on my finger. We left our wedding rings in the safe and I was sure nothing would happen to them, with our safe you had to put in your own pin number to get into it. I guess its just personal preference and comfort level.

It was one thing my husband and I went back and forth on. He thought we should stay together the night before, but I really didn't want to. I'm really glad we chose to spend the night apart. I got to spend the night with my MOH, stayed up to late talking and having fun. I think it really made walking down the aisle to him that much more special. We spent the night seperate and I went for breakfast with the girls, him with the boys, then we went off to the spa and him and the guys did their own thing. If I had to do it again I wouldn't change that for anything!

We didn't pay for any travel expenses. We went on an all inclusive one week to Jamaica and our bridal party payed for their travel themselves. Rather, we payed for all their actual wedding day expenses, such as clothing/dress, makeup, hair ect. We asked them and they felt that was fair.

I also have a huge extended family and for that reason chose a destination wedding. What we did was send out an invitation to each aunt and uncle and addressed it to their names and family (I didn't want to send one to each of my cousins individually as that would have been too costly and we knew mostly all woudln't come anyhow). I don't know if it would be appropriate to put only 2 guests per family. If you expect 90% wont come then maybe you could compromise and have say 4 members from one family and none from another, that is if more then 2 want to come from the same family. I also think its a great idea to put on your invitation that you will be having an AHR so people don't feel so bad saying no. That being said, there are tons of examples on here of people who have included the wording on their RSVP cards. Maybe you could do something like that.

I love your STDs!

I would say definetly try to do 3pm. It just felt so rushed after the ceremony to take the pics and then before we knew it the sun had set and we were off to supper. It would have been nice to have a few minutes with my husband by ourselves and just catch our breath, as everything goes so incredibly fast that day!

Thanks! I couldn't be happier with them! Sad to see you leave this site! You were such a help with the planning of my wedding and I'm sure to many others on here! Thanks for the words of wisdom!

I am so glad to finally have them, especially after all my family and friends hounding me since we retuned from Jamaica! I would definetly recommend Merrick, he was absolutely amazing to work with and his photos are amazing. He truly did capture so much emotion and was so easy to work with. We had a few suggestions for photos and he had a few and it worked great. The only one thing I do regret is not getting sunset photos or more beach photos, after all thats why we go away to these fabulous destinations! If I were to do it again I would move my ceremony ahead an hour (we were married at 4pm) to allow for more time for photos as we were a bit rushed to get photos before the sun went down. Thank you!

We payed $200 USD plus tax for the minister fees. The only other things we payed for was for 3 extra people which was $60 and for bridesmaid bouquet and groomsman bout. I don't know why it would be $250.

We got our link to our photos this evening and I just wanted to share with you all! http://www.merrickcousley.com/clients/2011_0113_jaymaswedd/

We knew when in January we wanted to get married so we went ahead and booked our wedding date without having our travel booked. We booked our date about a year in advance, and didn't know our travel schedule until about 7 months before the wedding. Once the travel schedule came out we had to change our date from a tuesday to a friday but I just called the wedding planners and that was no problem to change the date. I would book a date first, then once you know your travel you can adjust by a few days if necessary.

Your photos are stunning!