AllieH

Michele - love your journal!!!! what a gorgeous wedding. You look AMAZING. thanks for sharing with us, and wishing both of you all the best!!

I don't think so! I'm not into the movies much to begin with. Would you ever...eat at a restaurant alone?

Janet - what a bunch of cuties!!!! Aawwwww Ally - your boys are sweet.

hi elisa!!! I'm going with the El Dorado Royale, and November 5th - the day before you!! welcome to our little group - we're now 3 November 2012 brides lol I haven't read much about the Grand Riviera Princess Resort. Tell me what you liked about it - I'm curious!! Where are you with the rest of your planning? (see, I'm soooo nosey) Nikki - so the 25th is your surgery date. got it!!! You will be fine. Just fine. I love your idea about the bridesmaids - such a cute idea. and so glad they will be with you after your surgery. good luck with that! The Now Jade was on my list - I loved the patio with the pergola on it as a setting for the ceremony. Still in view of the beach, but not in the sand sounded perfect to me. I read a lot of those reviews too, and I don't think they were any worse than some of the other resorts. I really tend to take them with a grain of salt - if they are ALL bad, then that's concerning, but there are more than enough positive ones. What I use the reviews for is to set my expectations. As in "ok, this bride had a tough time with check in, so now I know that this will be a challenge for me. I'll be prepared with the email correspondence, documentation, etc to get through it". that sort of thing. So far we have 10 rooms booked - 19 people!!!!! We've heard from a number of others that they will be booking, so I think we may end up around 30 people total. I get daily updates from my travel agent (I love her, just love her!). I'm so freakin excited about it. As others have said, there are people I expected to go who aren't (my sister, and a couple of my closest friends), and others who are gung-ho about going that I never anticipated would join us. We've decided where we're going to register, and my fiancé is bailing out on going to register in person. He's going to take charge on the online registry we'll do. I can't wait to go shopping!!!

What a cool dress!!!! and hey, David's has great dresses at great prices. congrats on finding your dress!!!

This sounds good to me Chelsea!

oh hey JayKay - you're back!!!! How was the wedding?? anything you would do differently?

good to know!!! We have 6 rooms booked so far (including us). 12 people...so excited! Another week to go.

here's the virtual tours - in the upper left corner there's a drop down box for many of the wedding areas. http://www.eldoradosparesorts.com/hotels/el_dorado_royale/gallery.php

oh elissae - you are gorgeous!!!!! that dress is awesome on you. WOOHOO for finding the dress! not sure it's any consolation - we got engaged in July 2011, and are planning our November 2012 wedding. the time has FLOWN since July to now. I ordered my dress in late November, so I'm hoping I only have 6-8 weeks before mine comes in. I am sure time will fly for you too! happy planning.

I like #4 or #6 the best of those.

We are not planning an AHR. Totally defeats the point of doing a DW to begin with in my opinion. We've told both of our families that if they'd like to throw something for us, let us know when and where and we'll be there. So far no takers. If anything, we'll go to NY to visit his friends/family the spring after our wedding (we don't expect many of them to show up in Mexico). To each their own of course. Gotta do what works for you.

does anyone (everyone?!) else obsess over the dress before it comes in? I swear I look at pics every couple of days to remind myself why I liked that particular dress vs. any of the others. And I still sometimes second guess my choice.

stay strong Angela!!! most of our friends & family have warmed up to the idea. there are a few who are still "what the hell? planning our vacation FOR us?!" and to them I say - whatever!! This is our day, it's about us, and starting our marriage. While we hope all of our close friends and family will choose to join us, we know that just won't happen. My FI has told me several times that we can't plan around other people, or make their choices for them.

I guess I'm lucky that I have a ton of OCD friends who are super-planners. We should have a good idea of how many are going to our Nov 2012 wedding by Jan 25th. So far we have 2 people (other than us!) booked, and we really only sent the info out late last week (we had to do electronic STDs/phone calls). At least we'll know the approximate # early enough to plan the other events around the wedding. That's my silver lining right now. Good luck to all of you getting those procrastinators off the fence!

the best money we spend every month is our professional cleaning service. she was recommended to me by a coworker. I tell ya, I would eat ramen noodles for dinner every night before I'd give her up. she comes in every other week and my house has never been so clean. maybe that makes us spoiled, but house keeping is NOT my strength. I'm so thankful that we can make this work right now.

congrats Allie!!! I'm about 6 behind you.

I am definitely doing real touch for our flowers (my bouquet, his bout, and wrist corsages for our mothers). I think many of the brides here have used Bloom Bridal (http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloomBridalCreations). i've also found a couple of other etsy sellers I'm looking at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SongsFromTheGarden http://www.etsy.com/shop/GlamFloral I'll be honest and say I think Bloom Bridal has the prettiest of the bouquets. I haven't done a ton of research, but it's pretty easy to search "real touch flowers" on etsy and get a whole bunch of sellers to look at.

Congrats & welcome to BDW!! I love your avatar - is that your proposal?? DREAMY! We chose Mexico vs. DR or Jamaica. Cost was our main factor - DR and Jamaica were more expensive for most of our guests. It all depends on where you are traveling from though. I would go to both the DR and Jamaica sections of this forum and start reading the reviews of the resorts. Then go to those forums and read the threads from past brides. A good travel agent who specializes in DW's is helpful as well - so you may want to look into that. Good luck with all of your decisions!

congrats!!! I'm also a Nov 2012 bride - welcome to the forum. We are going with the resort route, so I don't have any advice for you. Good luck with the search!!

We were totally planning to send out STD's that were postcards. Then we found out we have a very short window to get people to put down their deposits and lock in the room rate (due to a promotion available from our resort). We had to switch to electronic STDs and phone calls. We emailed the STD, posted it to both our wedding website and our Facebook group, and then called folks to make sure they saw it, see if they had questions, etc. I am very disappointed that we didn't get to send these out paper - as I totally adore paper goods. Our logo would have been on the front, with the rest of the info on the back more like a postcard. Trying to switch expectations and focus on a "thank you for booking" mailing, then the invite & pre-travel brochure. Roll with the punches, right..?

This is exactly our sentiment. For those who can't join us in Mexico, they will have the registry available. We decided we'd register with Macy's (for those who prefer to buy off the traditional registry) and amazon.com (for those who go for convenience).

Hi Mallory - send you an email. thanks!!

Well our bookings are open, and we should know who's going (or at least the majority) by 1/25. I'm both nervous and excited!! We've put our own deposit down for the rooms. Need to get the wedding deposit down too. It's all starting to really move!! Your surgery is this week, right?? Hoping for a fast and easy surgery, and a quick recovery too.

you two are so cute!!!