Dominican Ally

These were my first attempt I think I'm going to make some for each of the women attending the wedding (out of inexpensive beads) and then after I make all those - I should be a pro.....lol....so then I will make MY bridal ones and I'll go buy some more expensive beads/crystals (like Swarovski!) When I finally get around to making some more - I'll post them I hope others post theirs here too - I'd love some inspiration!

Agreed! I'm an April 2013 bride and I had the hotel, judge, photographer booked almost two months ago I feel so relieved to have those things out of the way, and feel like I can have fun with the rest of the process/planning over the next year!

I think I like "Beach formal" as well

Hi Ashlea, I'm an April 2013 Bride too. I booked our hotel (Ocean Blue), wedding ceremony time, judge, photographer, and reception location about a month or so ago.....so definately not too early. In fact - if you are doing a legal ceremony - the judges book up quite fast - so I would advise you to hold your wedding date with Ocean Blue (by emailing the wedding coordinators) and ask them to confirm the judges availability for the selected dates. We didn't put our deposit in until we could confirm that both the hotel and judge were available for our date/time. Happy planning!

Great deals on the tylenol/advil! I'm totally going to scope out Dollarama when I start OOT shopping!

Sorry - I missed the second part of your question. Transat did give kids prices as well......under 2 is free (since they don't occupy a plane seat) and 2-12 years old was something like 890ish? Basically this is the plane/taxes portion of the package as their resort portion is free.

My price was through my travel agent and she ended up going with Transat. They also let you hold 30 spaces for 90 days with no deposit other than the bride/grooms which was great for us to allow people to get their deposits in.

They are usually very quick with communication (especially compared to some other resorts I contacted). I usually hear back the same day, if not, within one or two days at most. I did see on the facebook group though that one of the wedding coordinators posted a message that their email server has been down since April 11th....so they are unable to send or receive emails. They are apparently working on getting this fixed ASAP.

Hey There, My pricing is for April, which is usually cheaper than January....but wow - 1884 does sound pretty high! We got quoted 1345 taxes included from Toronto/Ottawa departing April 6, 2013.

Vistaprint is SUPER cheap, and sometimes FREE If you sign up for an account with them, just play around on the site and save things to your portfolio or cart without ordering - they start sending you amazing promo offers. I have gotten some amazing deals on Vistaprint orders - many of them just paying shipping.

That was a fantastic deal! I can't wait to see how many people we're going to be having (thinking between 35-50) so that I can start on this OOT bag stuff I already ordered my key card inserts (ordered 250 business cards from Vistaprint! - wayyy too many but I'll just put two in each - back to back so you see the words on both side, and I'll have 150 left over....oh well) I'll order lanyards and holders once I have numbers Here are my key card inserts...

I also did my save the dates (well...save the "approximate" dates...lol since we didn't have an exact date yet....) on Vistaprint. I got 100 of them, 100 plain white envelopes, and 300ish return address labels for less than $20.00 including shipping by using some promo emails they are always sending out. I thought it turned out to be a great deal (20cents per STD including envelope and labels!) For our actual invites - I want to do boarding pass or passport invitations so I'll be looking hard at whether to DIY them or order them from someone. I think I am only sending them to those who are attending or considering attending the actual destination wedding - so this should cut down the cost quite a bit! Thanks for starting this thread. Here are my STD's, and return labels.

Gorgeous dress! I fell in LOVE with a JAI dress at a bridal show - can't wait to try some of them on when I finally go shopping

It's coming up so soon!!! So happy for you You're going to have an amazing time! Can't wait to hear all about it when you return!

I do too She has since come back and said it's 70.00 for 2013....but I feel we should be payinhg $50 since that is what it was when we booked :0

Looks much better! Something about the colour of the previous ones was totally messing up the look....this colour flows much better with the rest of the bouquet. Totally your preference as to leaving the orchids or taking them out

Yeah I confirmed with Ada after reading this, and she repeated to me that my outside photographer (Caribbean Emotions) is ok, and it was the outside vendor fee of $70. Is that what you were told too Jade?

I think I may do the same! If I order 50 of everything, I should be safe, and as long as I only order the more inexpensive things for now, having a few extras won't be a huge deal.

Hey So the Bubba Kegs vary in price. You're lucky that you're in the US actually as I think at Walmart you can get great deals on them! They are about 5 bucks each or so I believe......the trick is that if you are wanting one colour specifically it can involve shopping around at several stores.....for us Walmart doesn't really stock them the same as the US so we rely on Canadian Tire....and they are expensive....but I watch the sales... If I don't end up being able to find them on sale between now and closer to the wedding I think I will order them from the online wholesaler. You can always order whatever quantity you need in whatever colours they have, so that is nice. Shipping within the USA is cheap too - another bonus for you US ladies I'll be having them shipped to a friend and driving them across the border if I do go this route The site is www.shopbubba.com

Outside photographers are not allowed? When I booked a few months ago for April 2013 I was told outside photographers were allowed and that they just had to pay the day pass. I already have my photographer booked (Caribbean emotions) so I would be pretty upset if they are no longer allowed! What is the new Sand Ext. Price?

alittlerandr: Vistaprint ROCKS! LOL! I've used it so far for my keycard inserts (bus. cards), save the dates (postcards), Tshirts (free offers) for my grandmothers/parents, guestbook postcards, and some little 2013 fridge magnets to send out with our official invites around Christmas time. Thanks for the tip about using Vistaprint for the brochure as well - I will have to play around with their brochures, and importing from publisher too perhaps - I'm sure I can come up with something! Plus, you're right - their printing quality will be far better than my home printer, and much cheaper if I use one of the many free/deeply discounted promo emails I get. I will have to check out the drawstring bags from OT too...at this point I'm open to anything! I'm going to keep my eyes open in dollar stores over the next while too. I totally wish I had a better idea of our number of guests so I could start actually buying some of this stuff NOW haha.

Kristina : Don't stress over not using a TA I'm sure that you're making a good choice! I think especially being from the US - you can get better deals dealing with the hotel for rooms, and airlines for flights. Many of the brides you see on here using TA's are likely from Canada (like me) where for whatever reason, we seem to get better deals doing packages, and it's fairly uncommon to book hotel/flights seperately. We have a few from the US attending our wedding, and we aren't dealing with our TA for their travel. We have booked their rooms through the hotel, and they will look after their airfare with Jet Blue when flights are released/deals are out. Ntlsnow: I am totally doing OOT bags, and brocures at some point I've started playing with publisher for a brochure, but really haven't gotten too into them yet. I want to do OOT bags - but have to wait to see how many guests book (or at least an approx. number) before I know what/how many of the different items to order. I am thinking of doing just a cheap tote bag and using an iron on transfer for our logo, or attaching tags. In them I want to put "bubba" kegs (insulated travel mugs), keycard holders/lanyards (I already ordered the inserts), a welcome brochure, thank you letter, a hangover/first aid kit with tylenol/immodium/etc., and other than that - I'm not too sure yet. I will be sticking to a budget with them, so I won't be putting a ton in them since the Bubba Kegs themselves are pricey enough. Ladies: Thanks for the compliments on the barefoot sandals. These were a first try, but I think they at least turned out well enough that I've proven to myself that I can do them and don't have to order them online and pay WAY more I used some cheaper beads to start with, and I will experiment over the next year with some different styles to get better at it! I figure once I get really good, I'll buy some more expensive beads (swarovski crystal ones, etc) for my actual "bridal" ones.

We are going to do this too! We've booked a regular room, and at some point we may book the Honeymoon Suite for just a few days...I don't see the point (and I'm far too frugal) to justify spending that kind of money on a room that you spend so little time in. I would really LOVE to have that room for getting ready pics - but I can live without it If we get to the hotel and we can negotiate something - great....if not, we will live

Love them! They are awesome!

I added you in Nikki Lozzawatts (Lorraine) Wedding: August 9th, 2012 Travel: Aug 7-12 erinme (Erin) Wedding October 11, 2012 Travel: Oct 9-16 nikkiandrich (Nikki) Wedding: November 10, 2012 Travel: Nov 7-14 SylvieG (Sylvie) Wedding: November 26, 2012 Travel: Nov 22-29 gina24 (Marcia) Wedding: Jan 23, 2013 Travel: Jan 19-26 ntlsnow (Natalie) Wedding: January 25, 2013 Travel: Jan 23- Feb 3 Danimontague (Danielle) Wedding: Feb 20, 2013 Travel: Feb 16-Mar 2 DominicanAlly (Alicia) Wedding: April 11, 2013 Travel: April 6-20 jlb392 (Jessica) Wedding: April 17, 2013 Travel: April 14-24 KristinaM (Kristina) Wedding: April 18, 2013 Travel April 13-27 missjade (Jade) Wedding: July 11, 2013 Travel: July 6-13