heather1214

Quote: Originally Posted by uhura526 If you are having fresh flowers, what are you guys doing with your bouquets after? Are you doing a bouquet toss and if so are you using your actual bouquet? Does anyone know if you can fly with fresh flowers through customs? We aren't doing the bouquet toss or garter, for sake of time, we cut that out, and it just wasn't important for me to have it. I spent a little more than I originially wanted on my girls (4) bouquets and so we are using them for some of the centerpieces. I'm doing 30" tall centerpieces and then the florist is going to use the maids bouquest for "short" centerpieces to offset the tables a bit. I wasn't about to spend $600 on bouquets and then just toss them aside! I was already way over my flower budget choosing tall centerpieces. She is putting a palm leaf in the vase so it hides the stems. Similar to the idea below, but in a taller vase (and not those flowers, obviously!). We will have 8 tables total. No I don't believe you can take them with you. Unless of course you press a couple to save in your suitcase.

They will tell you to contact the florist directly. I wouldn't "wait" for the hotel to do anything or you may not have flowers at all. The florist information should be on your paperwork that was supplied by the WC. For TaiFlora I believe her name is Jodi. We are using another florist b/c TaiFlora was not very accomodating in the beginning stages, I actually never heard back from her on my original e-mail for pricing. (That was in August!) So we moved on to another vendor.

So pretty!! I love the sash!!!

11:00 Hair/Makeup starts (I have 4 girls also, so I'm hoping that is enough time) 4:30: Ceremony (champagne toast immediately following ceremony) 5:30 Cocktail Hour (pictures) 6:30 Reception 10:30 Disco- After Party I think it depends where you are and what time of year for the ceremony time. (Or if you want it at sunset etc). I'd ask past brides or the WC for their opinion.

Ladies, I have been on the look out for navy and magenta pillar candles of different heights, and affordable wooden candlestick holders... any suggestions?

Gorgeous!!!

Wow, everything turned out beautiful!! You thought of so many details!!! Thanks for sharing, I have some new inspirations from this thread!

I'll be joining you ladies! What a great idea!

I wish I would have known about something like this! My FI & I started our "life change" on Jan 2, and I'm officially down 10 pounds so far! I only have 5 more to go for my goal but a little accountability and competition is always a good motivator! My dress fit perfect except was a little snug around the stomach to sit, hopefully shedding a few lbs will make it fit perfectly! I'm doing a combination of Insanity, Elliptical training, and just eating clean. I also use MFP to track calories and work outs!

I've also asked a few times since September for the new pricing to no avail. This is great info, I was hoping open bar didn't increase since that is a must, thanks for letting us know sfox!

Love it! It looks so much like mine!! Is it a maggie? I'm wearing Adorae, so the beading on the top is not the same. Gorgeous pick!!!

Do any brides have a picture of what the large round table with a beige tablecloth and white over lay look like at the resort? I've found some pictures of the square tables but I'll be using the large round. I can't decide if I should order tablecloths or not... Thanks ladies!

Yes we reserved a year and a half ago... but I cant budget everything because we were told "prices are subject to change" In September I was told the new pricing would be out in November... in November I was told the "packages" would remain the same but the extra charges were changing (open bar, restaurant rental, bands, etc.) and the sales department hadn't finished yet. We are doing a lot of extras so I'm anxious to see what the price changes are. We have 2012 pricing but were told up front that they did not apply in 2013 even if we locked in our date in 2012.

Any ladies who have gotten the 2013 pricing, can you please send it to me!! [email protected] Thank god for this forum or none of us would have any idea what's going on!!

They rake the area where the ceremony will take place, (we watched a few weddings while there for our site visit) I think you could get away with wedge heels as its not to far away from Uncle Tonys (And the sidewalk). We were there the end of May, and around 5:00 it's still pretty warm. Depends what you think Hot is though. I think the cake happens so quickly you would be ok, but we didn't see any weddings have their cake right after the ceremony while we were there. One did cocktail hour at the ceremony site, the bar set-up was really nice. (Yes I was that crazy girl in the bushes, stalking other weddings, that's what my visit was for!)

You can change your arrival dates, the form you are filling out is to lock in your date? Definitely send your request right away. Our arrival/departure changed after we reserved our wedding date and that was fine.

Welcome!!! I have not sent out my invites yet (I'm slacking!!) But I did send STD over the summer with all of our TA info on it. We have over 40 people booked so far, so I didn't feel the urgency to send them out right away. I also didn't want to "remind" people of the trip right around Christmas. We are having an RSVP date for March 25. I am DIYing the invites because I have a great friend who does graphic design, and hope to have these printed and ready to assemble by next weekend. Those who haven't booked have said they plan on using their tax return so I thought this was a good time to send them out! I am doing OOT bags, I didn't do canvas bags because of the room they take up, but found some great bags cheap on oriental trading. We are doing a beach towel per couple (or 1 for singles) so they are taking up way to much room! But I'm doing First Aid Kits (In sickness & in health) Chap Stick (you may now kiss the bride) Lottery Ticket (Lucky in Love) Room Key Holder (a whole saying is going to go on the insert), gum, tissues, snacks, anti bacterial (spread the love, not the germs), koozies, bottle opener, and whatever else I come up with. We are flying first class so I have 2 extra bags (totally stole my FI's extra bag) for "stuff". Time is going to fly by, I felt like just yesterday I had over a year to plan!

I have changed some things about the menu, which they are fine with. I don't know where you are having the reception, but as long as the kitchen is set up to accomodate your request, they will probably do it. (It seems the kitchens in each restaurant are set up differently and are not a "full" restaurant kitchen like you would imagine) I started working on my menu selection in September and it still not finalized. So be patient, as hard as that is. Like Kassi said, they are extremely busy!

We stayed at the Beach for our site visit (really, just to save money since we flew down there for only 3 days and it was mostly business) and took a full tour of the Suites with Nicole. The rooms at the Beach don't even compare to the Suites!! The Suites look exactly like the pictures online (Oyster.com is a good reference) If the Iberostar Beach was the only resort in Montego Bay, I honestly would have looked at different resorts. The food was good, the service was excellent but we had the worst 2 rooms in the whole hotel (Overlooking a ROOF with astro-turf!) and they knew we were there for a site visit. Completely turned me off. We also had an appointment with Kamoya (I know she is gone now) to talk about possibly having the wedding there and when we got there they told us she was off the entire time we were there. So we called Nicole and she accommodated a tour right away! We even did a wine tasting while we were at the Suites. Nicole has a lot of experience in coordinating weddings and we saw a few while we were down there. The Suites is definitely a more upscale version of the Beach. We did not visit the Grand because I knew I'd fall in love with it and it was definitely out of the budget for our guests. Besides being annoyed about all of the extras, I'm 100% confident our guests are going to have an amazing time!! We will definitely return to Iberostar for anniversaries but will most likey stay at the Grand in the future. Does anyone know how much tablecloths are to rent from TaiFlora for the large round tables (71.5 x 29)? I'm not using them for flowers but am curious what they would charge. 19 weeks exactly until the big day!!! Time goes so fast!

The back of your dress is stunning!!! I love the low V!

Get used to all the "extras" It really adds up quick, and they don't budge on price. We also went on a site visit and LOVED it! We are budgeting around 20K for about 60 guests, with everything (except my dress). We really wanted to do a destination wedding and although it's all inclusive and you don't expect to pay for open bar, it's all extra charges. If we had a wedding at home it would have been more like 50k, so once you can get past all the extras, and realize how absolutely amazing it will be, it doesn't seem so bad. Once piece of advice I have been trying to follow is, establish your MUST haves, what's very important to you, and every bride is different. How many weddings have you been to that you can even remember what the centerpieces look like, or what the food at cocktail hour was exactly? Personally, flowers are a big part of my day but I'm also remembering that most guests wont even remember them. So not to stress to much about it. You can save money on all the other "little" details that people won't even notice. After planning for over a year, I just want the DJ to be amazing, our photographer to catch some great memories, and the bar to be fully stocked! After all, who's going to remember what color linens I had anyway?

So pretty!!! Congrats, it looks amazing!!! I can't wait until my girls dresses come in so I have an excuse to go back and try mine on again! (hopefully a few pounds lighter as well) I agree about the shoes. I love shoes like any other woman and I normally would be all about the bling, but other than a few pictures, who is going to see them before I end up in flip flops!

I'm running into the same issue, everyone is totally going until they actually have to book the trip! I have my florist on standby for all my rentals, centerpieces etc because I don't know exactly what I will need. Thankfully the contract is able to be changed even with our deposit made. I think we'll end up with about 55 also. I held onto our invitations because I wanted to send them out as a reminder to book and didn't want to do it to soon or over the Christmas holiday. I'm hoping sending them out in the next couple of weeks will remind people to make their reservations. If you don't have at least 50+ people Calabash isn't an option, and the Mediterranean is way to small for a wedding over 30 people or so, I was in there. So I don't know what I'd do if we weren't able to do it there! I'm not really stressed about it yet, I'm thinking (hoping) people will book with their tax returns!

These look amazing! Great job!!!