Melissa727

I was asked to post a bigger picture of my DIY shell bouquet so here it is. Hope this helps! It is still a work in progress.

We are getting married in Punta Cana on November 4, 2011 and our AHR will be on November 19, 2011. I did not want an AHR but FI, my parents, and his parents did so I was out voted. It is going to be a full blown wedding reception. The only thing missing will be the ceremony! LOL. I don't think it matters if you wait though, I originally wanted to wait till spring or summer & do a BBQ type of thing but again I was out voted! LOL.

I just went to Michael's and AC Moore and bought them on sale n with coupons. I also went out to end of season sales. Oh and u can usually find them at the dollar store as well

We are not having any children at the DW and only my FI 2 nieces (our flower girls) at the AHR. The DW wasn't so hard cause that is only immediate family and his sister couldn't afford the kids to come too. The AHR was a little more difficult. My FI's mom is the youngest of 9 and his dad is the oldest of 6. If we invited kids we would have 300 people invites mor than half of which would be kids. We addresses the invites to Mr and Mrs only but still had people respond that they were bringing there children. I ended up having to send polite emails explaining due to fianancial constraints yada yada yada we will be unable to have the kids as well. If the emails didn't get a response I had to have FI's mom make a phone call. Our AHR isn't until Nov. 19 so we will see if people show up with kids!

Honestly I'm not sure what the total cost was. I had bought shells in bulk here and there for decor for our AHR and I used the shells from that lot to make my bouquet. If I had to guess it would probably be around $30 - $35. It was $20 for the amount of shells used. Then the rest was less than $10.

I posted this from the app on my phone so I'm not sure how small it cane out. I will try to repost it tomorrow from my computer.

I'm so happy my bridal shower was today! It was a complete surprise! It was small but fun and exactly what I would have wanted if I planned it myself. I just had to make a post about it cause I feel so happy and loved that so many people would come out just for me :-)

My DIY seashell bouquet still a work in progress

This is my wedding jewelry bought from "Live in Style" on Etsy.

This is the inspiration for our cake. Lucky for us my FI's sister makes specialty cakes n is doing this for us for free!!!

This is my dress, not me in it though! Lol. It is being altered as we speak so I should have a pic of me at the final fitting soon. :-)

I am getting married on November 4 and have never been to Punta Cana. However friends of ours went there in November and said the weather was perfect. It was around 85 degrees during the day and dripped to the low 70s or high 60s at night. They said that there was always a nice breeze and sleeping was very comfortable. Hope this helps!

Hi Stef, I had the same problem as you when I started planning my wedding. All the first places I looked at that I really liked were adults only all inclusive resorts. My FI really wanted his nieces to be our flower girls (they are 3 and 5) so I gave up on the adults only resorts & started looking into resorts that allowed kids. We settled on Dreams Punta Cana. Now that being said, we had spoken to FI's sister prior to booking the resort & let her know that we wanted the girls to be our flower girls. She was all for it. After we booked the resort (one of the main reasons was so the girls could be there) she told us that they wouldn't be able to come. Then just recently (with the help of FI's parents) she and her husband decided they will be coming but leaving the girls at home. I was a little upset at first since I tried to plan things to accomodate the girls then being told afterward that they wouldn't be coming. I guess what I'm trying to say is do what you want. If you find a resort that you love and that you can vision yourself being at then book that resort regardless of the kid issue. Is it really worth picking a resort that isn't your dream to accomodate someone else? It's your wedding day.

Nevermind! I found it! Yay!!!

I just downloaded the app and can not find best destination wedding when I put it into the search. Has anyone else had this problem or know how I can get to the forum through the app? Thanks!

I was in the same spot as you. I have been to many weddings where the centerpieces were given away via a fun little game or something. And I have also been to weddings where there was no mention of guests keeping the centerpieces and there were still those people (usually great aunts or friends of parents) who just helped themselves to the centerpieces. You could see them heading for the door all shifty eyed with a palm tree sticking out of their purse! I have even been to weddings where the old ladies would almost have a fist fight over who got the centerpiece when they weren't even told that anyone could have it. Crazy I tell ya! Anyway, I originally thought about DIY'g my centerpieces to make it more sentimental but then, like you, I worried that all the hard work & thought that I had put into them would either be broken or walked off with. With that in mind I decided to bite the bullet and go to a florist to make centerpieces. I will be adding my own touches to the table w/the escort cards (I am attaching small sugar starfish to each escort card), cake table, & memory table (pictures of our grandparents & video/slideshow of our wedding). I figure this way I can give away the centerpieces that I purchased from the florist in some type of game & still not lose anything that I am sentimentally attached to. Hope this helps!

Yes the fees are the credit card international fees. Someone on one of the Dreams Facebook pages said that they were able to use their debit card and didn't have any fees. I think that is what we will do. We will just transfer the cash into our account right before we leave then just use the debit card. I would think if there were any problems w/the charges we could contact our bank for security measures as well. We are trying to watch our credit right now as we are thinking about purchasing a new house in the next year or two so we don't want to have a lot of credit cards outstanding. Ska, I'm right there with you! I was 2 months to go on 9/4. We still have to pick up my wedding ring, buy my FI clothes for Punta Cana and his suit for the AHR, finish buying stuff for the OOT bags, get our best man's gift, and a bunch of other little things which if I continue talking about I'm gonna have a panic attack! LOL.

We inquired with our travel agent, wedding coordinator at Dreams, and Dreams resort themselves and we could not get a straight, consistent answer from anybody regarding payment options. We asked if we could pay by travelers checks...our travel agent said yes but our WC & the resort said no. We can pay by credit card but the card companies charge ridiculous fees. So the only option we know is acceptable is cash but as you said we are nervous traveling w/that much cash. Not sure what else to do though.

Alyssa, I will be using Michael Weiler as well and have heard nothing but wonderful things about him. If you go to the Dreams Punta Cana Brides group on Facebook you can see pictures & video that he did from a recent wedding. The pics & video are gorgeous! I have also heard from several people that he is super nice to work with.

I'm so sorry to hear about the issues you had. I'm glad you still had a beautiful wedding regardless. If you don't mind me asking, who was your coordinator? Mine was Jennifer Castro but the last time I sent her an email with a question I got an email back from Yessica saying that Jennifer was now in the group sales department & not a wedding coordinator anymore. Yessica said that she would now be my coordinator. I haven't heard from her since. Based on what I have read from other brides & on other sites, I will be taking print outs of all email communications I have to make sure they don't try to back out on things they have already promised. My FI and I looked into getting legally married there and once we found out the amount of paperwork and the costs were just too much. We have decided to save about $1000 and get married here in the states before we go & just do the symbolic ceremony there. We won't be telling anyone we are already married though. Congratulations on becoming a Mrs.!

I'm getting married at Dreams Punta Cana Resort and they say that you can ship stuff down ahead of time but that they are not responsible if things get "lost". I would hate to ship stuff down then get there for my wedding and find out that things are missing. That would be awful. On top of that the cost to ship the stuff is more than what the airlines would charge for us to bring on an extra bag. So I guess if worse comes to worse we will just have to pay the additional fee to the airlines. As far as my shell bouquets I only have to make 2 of those (one for me & one for my MOH) since I'm not having a full bridal party. My mom is going to bring mine & my MOH will take hers. I will probably take the bouts & corsages w/me though...if I have room! LOL.

I am also interested in the bonfire. Is/Has anybody having/had it? It is just a fire that they set up for you on the beach or can you have a cocktail hour or reception around the bonfire also? Sounds like it could be a cool idea unless you are paying $175 for a couple of twigs lit on fire. LOL.

I hope it all works out for you. Definitely give us a report when you get back. We are taking aloe, suntan lotion, and other lotion type stuff so we will have to put that in our checked luggage. Good luck and Congrats!

OK I'm sure somebody has asked this before but what are you all planning on doing about getting the stuff down to your destination for your wedding. FI and I are going to Punta Cana for 2 weeks (4 days prior to the wedding and 7 days after) so we will be packing a lot of clothes besides the supplies for the bags. On top of that I am making my own seashell bouquets, boutonnieres and corsages for the wedding so those need to come along with us as well. We are planning on using space saver bags (the kind you vacuum the air out of) for our clothes & hoping we can fit all of our clothes into 1 suitcase then use the other suitcase for supplies. In my quest to figure out the best way to go about this I figured I would check in with all the wonderful ladies on the board who have already helped me out so much. So how about ladies, how are getting all your stuff to your destination? Thanks! Melissa

Hi there, unfortunately I can not view the templates throught website. Woul you be able to email them to me? My email is [email protected]. Thanks!