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What a coincidence!! I am leaving for vegas on saturday night. I am there for work though! We are staying at Mandalay bay this time. But I have stayed at NYNY(fun), Paris (lovely but kinda old) , and Stratosphere (sketchville, its gross, stay away!!) I HIGHLY recommend that you check out the Cosmopolitan. their restaurants are AMAZING and the hotel itself is soooo gorgeous. It was too pricy to stay there this time but I am definitely considering it for a girls weekend if I can ever make that happen with my besties! Also for sightseeing and such: check out the fountains in front of belaggio at night, Fremont St (old vegas strip) at night. Some of the hotels have day passes for their pools, and often have day time parties going on which are fun! Mandalay bay, luxor, NYNY, Ventian, they ALL have things that are worth seeing if you just want to sight see. For shopping, there are 2 outlet malls each are about a 15 minute cab or a short bus ride down the strip. Totally worth the trip unless you want high end shopping, then there is LOTS of that on the strip (The shops connected to Bellagio and the ones in Venitian are to die for!) ummmmmm. what else. wear comfy shoes everywhere you go. hot heels seem like a great idea in vegas but it NEVER is. the hotels and strip are MASSIVE and everything is further away than it looks. You will do tonnes of walking. I brought cute little ballet flats or wedges to wear at night with cocktail dresses last time and it was soo much better on my legs and feet. Its also SUPER dry there and you need to drink twice as much water. I always forget this and I get dehydrated. especially if you are drinking. Sometimes I forget its a DESERT lol. Have such a great time! Cant wait to hear how their Vegas wedding was!

Thanks for the template, this is a great help for what should be in the welcome book. Your poem to your dad made me tear up! Girls, about the 150 posts. I found it frustrating at first as well, but you will find that the purpose is really to reward those that participate and get actively involved in the forum, and share their own ideas, projects, great finds etc. So find some threads you really like and jump in! Share your planning process and you will find in NO time you will be at 150 posts! It irks everyone ALOT to post randomly or just reply that you like someone elses post just to bump up your number, so although its tempting, dont do it! It fills up the forum with needless posts, and Tammy and the mods work really hard to keep this Forum going!

Hey Ladies! I am not planning my wedding at Ocean Blue and Sands but I attended one there about 2 years ago! It was lovely, and was really the motivation behind our choosing Punta cana for our wedding spot. We chose Paradisus as some of the same people will be attending our wedding, and I felt it was important to try something new! The wedding I attended was on the beach around 3pm and then followed by pictures and then a dinner reception at the beach restaurant (I forget the name at the moment). Dinner and service was good and it felt pretty private. The beach ceremony was not so private and there were some onlookers, so be aware of this if privacy is important to you! There wasn't any real plan after the dinner, we mostly all ended up going to party the night away at the front lobby bar, so it was no big deal that there wasnt a formal dance reception planned. There were about 30 of us, so we just brought the party atmosphere with us whereever we ended up!

COOL Chelsea! I am going to try to find that episode online. We have booked our 2nd week for our honeymoon there, but it would be nice to see it from the RHONJ point of view Its just a bonus if there is lots of fighting in the episode! LOL.

Hey there girl! I found that there are often groupons, teambuy and other group buying sites that often have specials on digital photobooks. I bought one from Picaboo not to long ago and was able to produce 2 photobooks with my $100 credit, that I bought for only $39!! I chose the ones with a photowrap cover so not sure how much more leather would be. I used these to make a photo guestbook for my sister in laws shower gift and I am going to make the other one for my fiance for xmas (with pictures of his son through the last few years, awww) I also just got a $115 groupon for $29 from photobook Canada!! this one doesnt expire until next year so I am going to use it to make books with our wedding photos, and maybe one for BD photos if I get up the guts to actually do it! Good luck! p.s the process of personalizing and doing the layout of the photobook is super user friendly on Picaboo, it took me a LONG time though, I would say almost 8 hours over several nights to get it just the way I wanted it.

I feel like I am stalking you! These are great! I just ordered my pre-travel brochures from vistaprint this weekend and you just reminded me to include a resort map! Thanks once again!!!

SO cute!!! nice work again! love the sand castle stamp. I bought a "happily Ever After" stamp at Micheals from a dollar bin, so I think I will incorporate that into the stationary somehow... Though I guess I am getting my themes mixed up since I am not having a fairy tale themed wedding! Oh well, I never was a rule follower

OMG. I love this... and I am not really a big poufy ball gown kind of girl. Has anyone here ordered from this site? www.dailyshop.com Looks like its a knock off site. I will check the knock off post to see if anyone has used this site as well!

ps what is this dailyshop.com site that is written over 2 of the pictures? Is this one of those daily deals sites for clothes?? going to check it out NOW!

OOH Kat2012 All 3 are super cute. I love the 2nd one, but I am partial to the lacy-vintagy feeling cocktail dress. They are ALL gorgeous, have you tried them on?

Thanks MissSunshyne!! That helps! Going to check out the pics of Fuego on the site.

funny you should mention it. Last night I was researching beach glass ceremonies for our wedding. I came across a site that had details of a rock ceremony. Each guest is given a stone and asked to write their name and a wish for the couple on the stone. Then at the end of the ceremony they are collected into a vessel of some kind there was a reading that went along with it I believe. I had never heard of it before. I like your idea to do this at the place settings of the reception. great guestbook idea!

those coasters are great!!

I cant wait to hear back on the testing of the edible powder!

I'm doing a DIY birdcage veil with a feather/flower/crystal hair clip for the ceremony, then I can just take off the birdcage veil after pics for the reception, and put my flower back in. easy peasy. I never even considered a longer veil, too much going on for me! I'm klutzy... I would probably get all tangled up in it knowing me!

super helpful thread. I was just shopping around on bestbuy for a new printer. I have one from my work that only prints in black and white. I am on the hunt for an Epson or HP... wireless and probably laser....though I am not sure if I will bother with mettallic cardstock or not... thanks ladies!

may I ask where you got the tiny starfish from?

Ok here is the monogram that I put together so far. in B&W. Going to try out one in color tonight!

I havent chosen shoes yet. there are TOO many options. Once I pick my dress I will be able to narrow it down. here are some for you ladies to drool over from brides.com today http://www.brides.com/wedding-dresses-style/wedding-accessories/2011/09/new-wedding-shoes-for-brides#slide=1 I especially LOVE the blingy ones on the first page. sigh! If only my shoe budget were $1000 haha

I love hosting dinner parties! Some of my favourites are a Fondue party, with a traditional cheese fondue with veggies and breads for dipping. this is VERY filling, so you could do just that and then a chocolate fonde with berries, bananas, cookies and marshmallows for dessert. it is really easy and you can prep everything ahead so you are not in the kitchen the whole time! Other favourite menus arugula/pear/blue cheese/walnut salad with fig balsmic vinegarette Chicken breasts stuffed with goat cheese (or brie) and asparagus, then wrapped in proscuitto served with side of scalloped potatoes and steamed green beans berries and whipped cream for dessert! OR BBQ- pulled pork (there are great slow cooker recipes that are so easy) homemade baked beans coleslaw corn on the cob Gosh I could go on. can you tell I love cooking and entertaining? If only I didnt have to work, that is all i would do! hahaha.

Hey ladies, havent been in here in awhile. We just confirmed our photographer and decided to go with HDC for both the wedding day and a Trash the Dress the next week (at the Hard Rock where we are staying for our honeymoon). Arnaud was a pleasure to work with, and very fast to respond to email and answer any and all questions! HDC comes highly recommended here on BDW, but also from some people that we know who used HDC this past August. Even though it POURED rain in the middle of their ceremony, Arnaud was still able to capture some great shots and the essence of thier happy day. (although everyone was soaked, I sure hope it doesnt rain on our day...) We also went with A la carte for the beach ceremony at 3pm. Then we are having our reception on La Barcaza from 5-8 and back to the nightclub at Paradisus afterwards. Speaking of the nightclub. Does anyone know what its called at PPC? I wonder how big it is and if we are just going to take it over! lol.

Hey ladies! So glad to have come across this thread. You are all so positive and supportive of each other. So after lurking around and reading this thread for awhile and cutting out all my excuses I have started my whole new healthy lifestyle. So far I have lost 12 lbs in the last few weeks. It seems to be coming off pretty easy so far, but I have quite a bit to lose to be at my ideal weight. My wedding is April 20, 2012 in Punta cana and I REALLY need to buy a dress soon. I have been putting it off (in addition to putting my weight loss off). I am afraid that when I lose more weight ( I would like to lose another 30-40 lbs by April) I just wont like the bigger dress any more. BUT, I cant wait much longer or I will have trouble ordering a dress in time. What did you girls do? Just order it and take it in/figure it out later? I fit into an 18 or 20 dress size now in most bridal shops, but hoping to be in a 12-14. Will taking that much in leave me with the same dress??

nice work! thanks for the list of supplies you got in Canada. I just bought my card stock and some other supplies to do this project at Michaels yesterday! Your post is a huge help! Did you use the aylee bits template?

Just wanted to say, this is beautiful! But sadly out of my budget :0) I am sure you will have no problem selling it!

we have some of these koozies at home, and they fit bottles and cans!