AllieH

I was teasing my fiancé today that I was going to drop all last names and just go by my first name after we get married to avoid the legal name-change game. Now he's calling me "Cher" and "Madonna".

they are BEAUTIFUL!! thank you for sharing them with us!

Hi Shanna! welcome to the roll call. Congrats on your upcoming wedding. I can't wait to see your dress! I coveted lace when I first started looking. good luck with the planning. Nikki - how are you feeling?? YAY for a location and date!! I'm a little envious, as I just loved the hammocks and infinity pool at Now Jade. your wedding will be AMAZING! Hi there! thank you for the compliment on my dress!! yeah, the resorts can sure nickel and dime you for stuff. we decided against the legal ceremony in Mexico for a number of reasons - cost, blood tests (ick!), translating documents, etc. it was just a whole lot of work. plus the requirement that we had to be in Mexico 3 business days before the ceremony didn't work for us. we are going to go to the courthouse here to do the legal paperwork - no vows, no rings, etc. just get our license, and go back 3 days later to sign the paperwork (we have a 72 hour waiting period in Texas to get married). from what I've read, the Dreams/Secrets resorts have some of the better "freebie" wedding packages. but my impression they've turned into wedding factories - and that wasn't what I wanted for my (our) Big Day. so I went with EDR, and yes, will probably pay a little more for my wedding. I'm ok with that decision. I've also been able to ask for little things and get exceptions along the way from EDR from what their rules "officially" say (menu planning, photographer is one of my guests - no outside vendor fee, we're planning to arrive on friday for a monday wedding). now, when it comes to paying $10 to rent a glass vase for the centerpiece...I will probably throw up a little bit. we'll see.

congrats!!!!!

you made it!!! enjoy your stay.

My dress shop called - my dress is in!!! It only took 3 months. I'm so surprised! I will go pick it up in a couple of weeks (schedule sucks right now). Here's the inspiration for our invitations: sorry it's sideways. it's a menu card, but I like the layered look. I am thinking I'll go with a 5x7, and not the scalloped ivory card (it just doesn't come in any other size, and I want a bigger invite). these are the papers I'm thinking of, with an ivory card stock on top. not sure if I'm going to go with the orange ribbon or more of a taupe/sand one like the original. anyway, plenty of time to think this over. just wanted to share!!

Hi Samantha! welcome to the roll call! and congrats on your upcoming wedding. your wedding sound really cool. love the idea of the private island. I'm Allie, from Fort Worth, TX and getting married at EDR in Riviera Maya on Nov 5th. WOOHOO!

Mylissa - that dress is GORGEOUS!!!! Nino - I love the style of your dress too. 5 months huh? That is a long time!!! I got "the call" today - my dress is in. A mere 3 months after I ordered. I'm so excited to pick it up!!!!

If had my eye on these. Love them!

very cool Chelsea! how cool for you!

oh Jamie, I am stressing out for you over the fiasco of the resort. I'm so sorry you're dealing with this!!!! I hope everything works out with the alternative. phew. your DIY engagement photos are gorgeous! and whoa - wow. wow! the NYC ones? leave me speechless. I'm feeling like that would be a great gift for my FI (who is from NYC..left it to join me here in TX). thank you so much for your review and for sharing the photos!!! can't wait to hear more of your planning. good luck!!!

welcome to the forum!!! We chose Riviera Maya for a variety of reasons, and El Dorado Royale. they are one of the resorts that's strict about outside vendors ($500 fee!!! OUCH). however, our photog will be one of our guests for 3 nights, so they waive that $500 fee. You may want to research other resorts who either don't charge the outside vendor fee, or who will waive it if your photog is a guest, depending on which way works best for you. Photography is one of the most important things for me, so I am not leaving it up to the resort's choice of photographers. No way, no how.

Nino is right - really makes you want to BE there! love it!

oh Nikki - sorry the surgery was tough for you. How is the recovery so far?? I've been thinking about you!! Glad the girls like your bridesmaids "proposal" - how FUN!!! I really liked the Now Jade when I was looking at it. I can't way to hear how your planning is coming!!! So we had to do the electronic STDs like I've been whining about. These essentially sent everyone to our wedding website, which gives all the info regarding pricing and booking. It worked - we have 42 people right now going with us - holy crap!!! I'm choosing a more traditional the invite since I was unable to send my post card STD. I've picked out a layered, handmade paper design. It'll have 2 layers of blue handmade paper, and 1 ivory card stock with the actual invite printed. It'll have a ribbon running through it. I need to scan the inspiration and I'll try to post that tomorrow. I found the design at a local paper store and just fell in love with it.

I put ours on our electronic STDs, our website, our FB group, and have reused elements from it for our envelope seals, return address stickers, and badge holder inserts (so far). We will use it on our pre-travel brochure, programs, thank you cards and place cards too (and pretty much every other printed item!) in some fashion. the colors and the starfish really tie everything together for us.

oh yeah - mine teases me often for looking at dresses (even though I have mine), and all the other wedding stuff here and on pinterest. "whatcha doing hon? looking at wedding stuff AGAIN?" My reply is always "well the other EDR brides said they did...and it was awesome." I'm slightly obsessed...just slightly. We've made it through our initial booking frenzy. We have about 4 people who told us they will book Monday. that brings our total up to 42! I'm shocked, and thrilled. I never expected that many to want to go!!

shooooot we are neighbors! We should have planned better so we could have gone together to Dallas. I've heard it's crazy. ah well... what do I need a bridal show for anyway? I have the BDW forums for all my planning needs!!!

I've added many of you too! You can find me as Allie H or TxAllieGrl over there

I'm off of I-30 near 820 east - just the edge of FW and Arlington. I kind of wanted to go to the bridal show, but then didn't want to go alone. Did you go today? Or tomorrow?

meant to add - thanks for the heads up on the Living Social deal!

I just used my halloween groupon for Vistaprint last night ($60 for $15). Ordered our inserts for the key holders, envelope seals and return address stickers. I snagged the living social deal, and got the FI to grab one too. we'll use those for our mad libs/guest book, probably our menu choice cards and heaven knows what else I can think of!

We are going to do mad libs. it fits with our sense of humor, should be fun with our wacky bunch of guests, and will be something to look back at. we will also do a group photo with all of our guests, and I think that will be the primary moment.

who..? me..?

A friend of mine did her STD's very simple - they knew the month, and the island, but not the date or the resort. so they sent that info out with their STDs. If I had it to do over again, I would have sent mine with a rough pricing estimate, the month and the location (Mexico), and not waited until I had more firm prices, the resort picked and a date. My waiting caused us to have to do electronic STDs instead of the paper that I wanted to do. it all worked out just fine (so far), but it was a point of stress that I didn't need at all. I definitely heard that everyone appreciated the advance notice so they could start saving (we starting talking to people right after we got engaged in July). it's January...and we've just about finished our initial flurry of booking/deposits. I'm really glad we at least were having the conversations back in July/August. just my 2 cents worth!

Stina - I think we all have days like this. If you ever want to get together to hash things over, let me know. I'm in east Fort Worth.