ndvidul

Actually, our guest count is 18!! Our friends booked but didn't tell us until today as a surprise! I'm so happy that they booked! Yaaaaaaaay!!! Such a happy girl today.

So, we have our official count for who's coming to Cancun with us! 16 are booked, including the Bride & Groom!!!! (<-- I'm diggin' this guy, btw... never seen him before tonight!! LOL) Originally, I was thinking around 35 people would be coming and that we'd qualify for the 75 nights perks... and as time wore on, I realized that I needed to change my expectations, haha. So, then I changed our goal to 30 bookings so we could get the free cocktail hour and 2 complimentary nights. And we hit that!! YAY! One of our groomsmen isn't coming, and two of my bridesmaids aren't coming. But you know what? I'm actually TOTALLY fine with how things worked out. I think the lower numbers will really add some intimacy and closeness that we might not have been able to experience with so many people. And since a lot of us know each other, I think we'll have an even better time. I'm SO pumped! Plus, we didn't think my FI's dad was going to be able to join us, but we worked it out tonight to where we'll help him pay, and he and his girlfriend are booked! WOO HOO!!! What an unexpected awesome surprise today. P.S. What a relief that I know our guest count now! Time to get down to OOT bags, etc. You know I'll post pics.

I totally dig your hanger! Do you mind sharing what etsy seller you used? I want to get a customized hanger for my dress, but that's a total extra that's not in the budget. I may buy it with Christmas money for me though!

Thanks! And - oooh la la!!! - I was doing a happy dance looking at the sneak preview of the collection your making for me! They're absolutely to LIVE for, Chelsea! You amaze me.

Beautiful!! Matches your cake topper perfectly. Don't you love recieving fun wedding packages? The FI opened the door to the UPS man tonight, and he unloaded 3 boxes. He's like, "Uhhhh.... hun, what are these?!?" I'm like, stuff I'm doing for the wedding (they were OOT bag items). I opened them up and he's like, "Okaaaaay..." Hahahahahaha. I said, "You'll see when they're finished!"

What a great quality printer --- the note cards look so vivid! Beautiful. If that's what your puppy baby daddy looks like, your little fella is going to be a knock-out when he's older, LOL!! So happy for you and your family.

Advice, ladies, please... I'm scheduling manis & pedis for me and the girls the morning of the wedding + my hair & make-up. Ceremony is 4pm. Photographer will be getting pics of us getting ready before the ceremony. When should I schedule these appointments? I want to allow plenty of time for hair and make-up, but I don't want to schedule them way early either. Someone on here said make sure I have 2 and a half hours for hair... although the resort I guess is scheduling me for only 80 minutes. Make-up appointments look like they're 50 min. I was thinking... girls & I get manis & pedis at 10:30am. 11:30 I start on my hair. 1pm is when I'm scheduled for make-up. Then that leaves enough time in case things run longer. But is that like way early?!?! What do you think?

Recieved today! Another checkmark off the list! Plus, I tried it on... and I gotta say it's lookin' good on my skinnier legs!

I created the design for our OOT bags! I ordered 99 cent canvas totes from cheaptotes.com and will iron-transfer these babies on the front!! What do you gals think??? (I got the idea from melding several different designs I saw on BDW!) Design: Canvas bags:

I hear Marvin is a great vendor for flowers and knows how to expertly bypass the outside vendors policy for Moon Palace (sneak by it)... you can look him up on the forum for Maya Diseno on her. It seems like lots of ladies are using him. I'm using an outside photographer and was fortunately able to get a MP rep to email me saying that it's ok as long as I pay the $88 day pass for them. If you PM me your email, I can send you a couple of docs that have pics of the different ceremony & cocktail/reception locations.

This is a pic I found of the complimentary bouquet. I hope it gives you an idea of how big it is: 

Thanks for all your compliments, ladies!! It's so fun to share my hard work on here with you all.

You know I have templates, girl! That's how I roll! Oooooooh, how exciting!! The countdown is on for your new addition. Can't wait for your update on Sunday! P.S. My heart is melting from this pic! My mom wanted to throw me a bridal shower and she just asked my bridesmaids to chip in by bringing drinks, snacks, and mailing invites. We're having it on Dec 28 --- so excited! Thanks for catching the error on Our Story page!!!! Just reprinted --- you've saved me a lot of time, chica. Muchas gracias! I believe that there are a couple of sit down restaurants available. If you search 'Moon Palace Restaurant' in here, you'll see a thread with a lot of info about them. That's how I decided where we're having our Reception Dinner. We're having a cocktail hour... but only an hour's worth. Welcome back! What sad news that his family will not be joining you. It seems like he says he's ok, but man, I'd feel pretty bummed if no one from my family came. I guess that's what you're there for --- for his support and his "new" family he will be making. And you'll be there for each other. You can vent on here anytime.

Wow, what an amazingly productive weekend on the Wedding front! I really and truly haven't felt this "put together" about the wedding yet at all... it is an amazing feeling! We booked our hotel & flights today --- finally!! Yippeeee!!!! Also, I finished the first Ceremony Program tonight. Couldn't wait to share it with you all! I'll finish them this week along with my other projects. Enjoy! P.S. I finally was able to use my new Crop-a-dile tool and Circle Cutter for this --- woot, woot! P.P.S. I got the idea for this booklet from the book The DIY Bride Crafty Countdown by Khris Cochran... which I got 40% off of course at Joann's! haha! P.P.P.S. I left out a few pages that have the excerpts from our readings & the hand ceremony blessing. I LOVE the quotes that I put in here, hehe! OK, this is enough post scripts. Bed time for me, friends! Happy planning this week!

I wrote this totally long thing in response to you, Summer12, and welcoming you, Mca, to the forum!! And then my computer erased it some how... and since it's late, and I want to post my project I finished, I'm going to not type it all out again... but just know I was going to respond! LOL!

So, I'm trying to imagine me in your shoes... and this all happening to me... and this is what I feel. In previous relationships, I would try to play it "cool"and be the 'cool" girlfriend who wasn't high maintainance or would be okay with certain things that other girls wouldn't be. Thus, I'd downplay my feelings. In the past, I think the old me would say, something like, "You know, I love my ring, and it doesn't matter what you spent on it, honey. The past is the past." But, I think the "now" me would honor my feelings and in this circumstance, my feelings are saying loudly --- "This doesn't seem right. Why would you spend double the money on your previous girlfriend, and half on me? I would explain all my feelings about how I'm not materialistic by any means but that it still does bother me. And that there's a chance whenever I look at my ring, I feel less important to you than she was to you, even though that seems really silly. And then I would totally take him up on upgrading the ring. Is this materialistic? Maybe to an outside viewer... but really matters is your feelings. And who cares what others think about it... it's your life. And your lives together. Do you feel this way? Maybe, and maybe not. But if this was what I was feeling, then I'd definitely be honest about my feelings (caringly, of course). After all, if you can't be honest with your feelings now, before marriage, when can you be?? I hope this helps... [[[hug]]]

PM'd you!

Wow --- I can't believe you made this yourself! My favorite part are the pearls between the flowers. Hmmm, as for color, maybe you could switch out the ribbon color at the bottom and use the same pearl color inbetween the flowers (just a few with the white pearls)? Just an idea! You must be so proud of your beautiful bouquet! It's even more meaningful that you made it. I'm using the spa for hair and make-up + mani & pedi (I'm also doing a hair and make-up trial before the big day). I'm using all our resort credit allotted for the spa for this, lol. For our TTD, I'm using Adrian Guerra for my hair and make-up. He'll also come with us on-site during the session for touch-ups. We didn't use a TA. We had our guests book through a link that MP provided us. We did this because it was cheaper for guests to book through our membership than a TA....... but I'm thinking that had we gone through a TA, more might have booked since everyone needed to pay in full two months before the wedding (which is this Thursday) instead of only putting a certain amount down and making payments/paying the rest upon arrival.

Emailing you info now.

I just looked at the palace resorts website to sneak a peak at the pearl shimmer package --- lovely!

These look great!! I love the gold shimmer stamp. Is it embossed?! Can't wait to see your bouquet!!

Thank you, ladies!! I'm totally pumped about them! It was totally out of my DIY comfort zone, but the budget demanded I make them myself! Your words mean a lot.

Another reason to be pumped tonight ----- I've given up on DIYing my jewelry & bridesmaid's jewelry and would like to hand this over to Red-I by Chelsea!!! Just emailed you, Chelsea! Can't WAIT to work with you!! Yaaaaay!!

Here's my DIY flowers I finally finished! Close-up on my bridal bouquet charms: Close-ups of the other bouquet charms:

I'm so incredibly pumped!!! For many reasons! Numbered below, haha. 1) My check-in with my trainer at the gym today was very surprising ---- I've lost 17 pounds! This means that I've actually lost about 22 pounds of fat and gained 5 pounds of muscle! I can hardly believe it. I know I've been working my ass off (literally) with eating right and exercise, but with Thanksgiving, I was sure that I had retarded my progress. YIPPEEEE!!! My first dress fitting is in January. We'll have to scale me down a couple sizes!! LOL! 2) I've FINALLY finished our flowers!!! This was the DIY project I was most dreading, so I knew I had to tackle it ASAP before procrastinating to death and them turning out like poop. So, here are the final results: I already posted close-ups of my bridal bouquet and the pics in the locket and the charm, so here are the close-ups of the other bouquet charms: Close-up of the boutonneires: 3) I'm almost done with our Time Capsule Guest Book. I just need to buy some heart seal stickers from Joann's, make the "key" for who is writing which message (1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, or 30 years), have my Mom & I will paste the rest of the liners in the envelopes over xmas, and then we'll bundle them up for the OOT bags. (Guests recieve their letter in the OOT bag so they have a bit of time to put a special message in it. Then, they'll bring it to the ceremony and drop it in the box!) Here are the results so far: The front of the envelopes (with camera flash, so you can see the shimmer): Without flash, so you can see the lettering on the metal: Envelope liners: The card (handstamped by moi, of course!): FI and I will write our cards for each year period (1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 30)... and there'll be 1-3 others each period for us to open, too. 4) Our first wedding gift arrived from our registry! It was so exciting, hahaa! Alright, back to sipping my wine and DIYing! Hope your weekends are going well!!