MsFoxxy

I purchased 4 boxes of Neo to Go packets.. there are 40 packets total. I bought these for the first aid kits in our OOT bags, however, the expiration date is 06/2012 and our wedding isn't until October--- bummer, right? But if anyone is having a spring wedding & needs this for their OOT bags, please send me a message or post a reply!! Price is $27, including shipping.

Oops.. just noticed that this is for a Save the date... the wording I gave was for our invites. For our save the dates, I think we're using something similar to the following: Bride & Groom are holding a celebratory reception on November 3 2012 Save the Date!

Our wording will be like this: During a beautiful sunset ceremony overlooking the Caribbean Sea BRIDE and GROOM will exchange marriage vows on October 6th 2012 in St. Thomas USVI To celebrate this joyous occasion, you are invited to attend a reception to honor the newlyweds. Saturday, November 3rd 2012 Six thirty in the evening VENUE ADDRESS Hosted by PARENTS OF THE BRIDE Please RSVP by October 13th 2012

We originally wanted it to be two weeks after the wedding, but it just didn't really work out with my mom's schedule and our honeymoon options. Now, we're planning on having the AHR 4 wks after the wedding. Wedding is October 6th, AHR is Nov 3rd. We're still toying with the idea of having it on October 27th though. The date will be final sometime next month. )

I'm covering the flights for my girls, as well as paying for jewelry, hair & makeup for the big day. So if I do get them some other gift, it will be something small... $20-30 at the most. )

That welcome book is just amazing!! )

These look amazing!!! And I absolutely LOVE the Facebook idea! )

I plan on releasing sky lanterns on the beach after our reception!! Does anyone know if there are any restrictions in St. Thomas?? Our wedding is at the Marriott.. I guess I'll e-mail our coordinator & ask.

My planner told me that they will store anything I ship for the wedding, but anything over 1 box, there's a $10 charge for. I've talked to a few other St. Thomas brides who didn't have any issues shipping things before their wedding. Maybe it helps that it's a U.S. Territory, I don't know.. but everyone I've talked to hasn't had any missing packages. The only thing negative I've heard was that it took a long time for the package to arrive when not using Priority mail. I figure it will be cheaper to ship than to check an extra bag... plus, airlines lose bags all the time too. So either way there's always a risk.

I definitely plan on shipping ours to our planner at the resort before the wedding so that they can give them out either at the front desk or place them in the rooms. I plan on using priority mail with tracking so I can be sure that the package gets there. I have too much other stuff that I'm bringing down in my luggage to be worried about OOT bags too. )

It's .82 per tube on Minimus.biz & free shipping for all orders over $20. http://www.minimus.biz/Fruit-of-the-Earth-Aloe-Vera-Gel-tube-C02-0340201-8100.aspx

Just found a less expensive store on eBay, if anyone is interested... they have TONS of sizes. I'm thinking maybe 8x10... the price is about $6 for 100 of the 1mil thickness bags. ) The store name is Mallqui Store.

Thanks so much for sharing the details!! I found some heavier grade plastic bags on eBay. They're a little pricey though.. I'm going to keep searching for a little while to see if I can find something cheaper. If not, I'll just go with the eBay store (Home Town Sports Heroes).

Where did you buy the clear plastic bags for the survival kit??

Oh, Thanks SO much for the info!! Purple is one of our colors!!! I just went to Michael's today, but they didn't have any. ( I'll have to visit another Michael's (or three ) tomorrow!

@Readybetty-- I love those!!! Where did you purchase them????

These are amazing!! I'm sure that your guests will LOVE them! )

These bags are so awesome!! I wonder if Michael's still has those sewing kits.........

@Nicole- The event coordinator sent me the same menus for group events that are on their site (www.havanabluerestaurant.com/) under "Party". We customized our menu because we wanted to change a few of the choices. Our price ended up at about $90 per person for a four course meal, including dessert. Oh, and I think the service charge is 20%. We didn't do an alcohol package because our party is only 17 people, half of which don't really drink. So we opted to just be billed on consumption for drinks. We also added a cocktail hour with hors d'oeuvres at about $5 per person, I think. Also, the event manager is no longer Kate Atwell... it's now Natalie Ippolito. She's been just as friendly and nice as Kate was, though! Her email is [email protected]

1. Budget. What amount are you looking to spend since you will have just spent quite a bit of money on your DW? Did you include this in your overall wedding budget? It has a separate budged from our DW. My FI & I are paying for our DW. My parents are paying for the AHR... right now it looks like the AHR budget will be around 15k. 2. Type. What kind of AHR are you planning? Is it formal or informal? How long will it last? Will you also have a dance after the reception? Our AHR will be formal... probably about 4 hours. We will have a DJ/ dancing. 3. When. How long after your DW are you planning the AHR? Hoping for exactly 2 weeks after the DW... no later than 3 weeks after. 4. Food. Are you having a buffet or a formal sit down dinner? Formal sit down dinner. ) 5. Clothes. What are you wearing to your AHR? Your wedding day attire or something else entirely? Not completely sure yet... I know I will be wearing a white gown, but I don't know if I'm going to wear my wedding gown or get a different dress. 6. Invitations. Formal or informal invitations? We are thinking about having it in the small town where I grew up and many people just put an announcement in the local paper for people to attend but then it is difficult to determine the amount of food you need. Formal invites... this might be a DIY project for me.. not sure yet, depends on how much it will cost and how many we will end up needing. 7. Photographer. Are you hiring a professional photographer for the day? Yes! 8. Cake. Are you having a traditional wedding cake for the AHR? Definitely having a big wedding cake.. we're not getting to be creative enough for our DW cake and we both have a big sweet tooth.. esp for cake! 9. Decorations. What kinds of decorations are you having for your AHR? The venue we're most likely going with is gorgeous, so we won't need a whole lot of decor. We will be having nice centerpieces.. not sure what else! 10. DW Photos. Are you going to have these on display and if so, how? Yep!! Will definitely be playing the DVD of our ceremony and showing pics.

@JQ... My wedding is October 6, 2012!! I'm starting super early, but I don't care.. we're both too excited! LoL. My fiance actually proposed to me in the gazebo when we were there on Valentine's Day. It was absolutely perfect! We'd been talking about getting married for a while & we both knew we wanted to do a destination wedding. His vote was for the Virgin Islands... I'd never been, but I took his word for it, LoL. When I saw Frenchman's Reef online, I instantly fell in love.. so when we planned our vacation in February, he told me that we should go by to see the venue I'd been drooling over for so long. LoL. The proposal was a total surprise.. I didn't think it was coming for another month or two. But yes... the whole resort is absolutely GORGEOUS.. I was surprised that they're doing so many rennovations, everything looks perfect the way it is!

OH.. and has anyone else heard that they may be moving the gazebo? When my fiance and I were there in February, the coordinator that gave us a tour was telling us about the renovations that the Marriott is doing this summer to Frenchman's reef & she said that they will be getting a completely new gazebo. The one that's there is beautiful, but you can sort of tell it's been there for a while.. LoL. She said that it would still be on the cliff (which has an AMAZING view, btw), but they were thinking of repositioning it.

Thanks for the info JQ!! ) My contact at Havana Blue is Kate Atwell. She's been amazing so far! Even though they have those three menus for receptions (A,B,C) she said that they're just a starting point and you can pretty much do whatever you want. We changed ours around to do a custom menu and it was no prob. Her email is [email protected]. She put our estimate and contract together within 24 hrs of us sending her our menu choices and number of guests. And if you haven't been to the restaurant, it's BEAUTIFUL in person. We, unfortunately, didn't get to eat there because they didn't open until 6p the day our cruise was there... but they did take us inside, let us look around & gave us an info packet on their menus/ reception dinners. There's a shuttle that runs every 10min from Frenchman's Reef hotel down to Morning Star where the restaurant is... but we walked down there & it took about 5min.

Oh.. and I forgot to mention... the HB price includes a per person fee for the meal (ours was 90pp) + a cocktail hour before dinner (15pp) + 22% (or 21%, can't remember) service charge. We're being billed on consumption for alcohol/drinks, because about half of our party doesn't drink.. so it really didn't make sense to buy an alcohol pkg/ pay a per person fee for an open bar.

hmpinma: Our deposit for HB was 50% of the balance, which was like 1089.00 for us since we're having 17ppl max. JQLong: Thanks for the info about blocking rooms. Do they still give the discounted rates available to the general public to your guests? I know right now there's a Spring Discount for 40% off if you go to the normal Marriott Frenchman's Reef & Morning Star Resort website to book. Do they offer that discount to your guests or is it a different discount? That is the only thing I'm worried about... I'm worried that there will be bigger/better discounts through the regular site than what they'll offer on the 'blocked' rooms.