JessiTaylor

I am going to try to do simple OOT bags (with around 100 people budget is limited a little bit unfortunately). Id love to give them to the hotel to hand out, but there will be two kinds - one with information/welcome letter all in spanish, one with information in english. And if the wrong people get the wrong bags...it could potentially be very complicated hahaha So i guess after working out budget OOT bags...ill have to give them out individually when people arrive. but then that would involve co-ordinating the arrivals of 100 guests....maybe i will handle the english language ones (very small number of guests) and ask the hotel to handle the spanish language ones

im glad i found a thread on this!! my fiance (mexican, so maybe is a culture thing!?) had never heard of the tradition. i think he evisaged us sleeping together, waking up together, getting ready together and then travelling to the ceremony together. so when i mentioned that we'd have to work out sleeping arrangements the night before, he looked at me like i had two heads and then with a sad face "but where will i be sleeping?!" =( as if i was going to put him to sleep on the street or something hahahaha i just wanted to have that moment where i arrive at the church or the beach (depending how well converting to being catholic goes) and he sees me for the first time and is hopefully overwhelmed with emotion and all that stuff. rather than us both getting ready at the same time and like "oh thats your dress, nice". i also had to explain to him that he wasnt coming dress shopping with me -not sure why he thought he had to, but he was quite happy when he heard he didnt i just need to explain to him that whilst he will be staying with the guys...its not an excuse for another stag party or drinking session hahaha. though hes pretty sensible so im sure he'll realise that =)

This is a great thread! i hadnt thought about 2 dresses until my fiance announced he planned to change from a dark suit (for catholic ceremony, legal ceremony on beach and photos) into a light suit for the reception to be more comfortable Previously id been thinking there was no way i could manage a big heavy dress in the cancun heat...but now im thinking (if budget allows), if he can change maybe so can i! So i can have this big heavy dress that i love...and then something lighter for dancing etc! So many great ideas and beautiful dresses, thanks ladies!

oh thanks for the info too! Ill definitely make an appointment if i go (flying in from monterrey). Think its a lot easier than trying to drive to laredo/mcallen and with more choice

wait i wrote the name wrong - its called exotic rides! If you send an email the man is so so helpful and patient, even when you write things like "i dont understand the difference between the cars, which one do i choose" hahaha. for the track experience here are the cars and prices: Class "AAA" Cars Lamborghini Murcielago Class "AA" cars Ferrari Ferrari F430 F1, Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, Class "A" cars Ferrari 612 Sacaglietti,Audi R8, Lamborghini Gallardo. Special Car Ferrari 360 Modena F1 Class "AAA" Cars $US 699.00 Class "AA" Cars $ US 379.00 Class "A" Cars $US 349.00 Special Car $ US 299.00 extra laps are 60 dollars. theres also "strip racing" for 149 dollars...where you drive a 1/4 mile strip and try to beat the best times. Also i researched it - and the most expensive one, the murcielago is apparently really not worth it for the price difference. they will pick you up from the hotel and they have a deal where if you pay in advance they will give you 2 extra laps for free. Tripadvisor reviews are awesome, and i emailed about 4-5 people through that website and they said it was incredible thats all the info i know!

i seem to be following marilili posting everywhere hahaha Welcome to the site!! It will really help you choose where to have your wedding. few hints to start you off, you have these general options (so can look up their names): All inclusive hotels - stay there and have the wedding. most threads are on these! dreams seems a super popular option. issues to look for - are outside vendors allowed? if you have non-hotel guests attending wedding there...how easy is that (guest passes, extra costs etc) do you want adults only or family friendly resort (will children be attending) for non hotel wedding and/or reception: beach clubs - wickys, kool club, blue venado, fusion, zenzi, canibal royal completely private location - Isla de la pasion (have to get there by boat), Xcaret - eco park General issues - if there are backup options if it rains (if you want a beach wedding), how private it is etc

I think mine is going to work out around 20k approx depending on where we stay (ceremony and reception venue are not in a resort so we will stay somewhere different) our flights are only a few hundred dollars as we live in mexico. to be fair i have around 100 guests which seems a lot bigger than most weddings on here! hard to calculate as there seem to be so many extras that need to be included!!

Everybody seems to be going for the BD photos...but im not convinced. Frankly if i wanted to give him sexy photos of me...i think he'd find it way more fun taking them himself! and yes i know...they wouldnt be professional hahaha. and i 100% agree that if i ever did it, it would have to be a female photographer. he'd hate a male one too!! so i thought - if i can swing it in the budget...theres a company called exotic cars in cancun that let you drive cars like a lamborghini or ferrari around a race track. my fiance is more of an adrenaline experience than a gift person...and hes obsessed with cars - loves car shows like top gear, and if he sees a snazzy car on the street will take pictures of it with his camera. i have no idea why...for me a car is a car and gets you from A to B and who cares what it looks like or how fast it goes hahaha. Given that WPGbride said boudoir photos were like 600 dollars...this is (slightly) less expensive and i think he'll like it more i thought he could do it a day or two before the wedding! I also thought of skydiving, but given i cant check safety records/standards of the companies...i want him to survive until our wedding day haha (and after obviously)

Im thinking of looking at it quickly in the day...and then seeing if we can pass quickly after 10pm just to see how loud it gets! I doubt we'll have time to meet anyone officially though. The plan is to rent a car, then buy a local map to establish where all these places are and then see as many as possible haha Giorgia says there is no problem using outside vendors which is great. The wedding planner she's steering me towards has her own preferred vendors i think, but if i find a great company for something there seems no be no problem using it.The only thing you have to use is food and drink, and then i think you can add own decorations/flowers

69%!!! thats not very high hahaha our results show that you generally feel secure in your relationship, but may have occasional moments of doubt. You may not be completely confident in the strength of your relationship. This may be either a reflection of the actual relationship or a personal issue. If you truly feel the problem is this relationship, you should consider having a serious talk with your partner. Voice your concerns, without making angry accusations, and try to find ways that you could build the strength of your relationship. If you have a tendency to question all your relationships, however, you might benefit from examining your own insecurities. The root of doubt in love is sometimes a lack of self-confidence. Try doing some soul-searching, and you may discover that if you work on your self-esteem your relationship has more chance of blossoming. sometimes some of my answers were dependent on different factors. tried to be honest though!!

I will aslo love a second opinion! especially given the blue venado tastings you can only try 2 dishes and i found it really hard to choose i dont think my fiance realises that given we are cramming site visits into a weekend that theres not going to be a whole lot (if any) of time to chill on the beach.he keeps posting stuff on facebook like "we're going to playa del carmen next weekend" all excited so im trying to gently point out that we're going to be having meetings and seeing places rather than relaxing hahahaha

ok thanks anyway =)

ooh are you from houston?? im waiting for a discounted flight from vivaaerobus from monterrey to houston to possibly look for wedding dresses. if you have any shop suggestions that would be great! bizarrely my future mother in law is convinced that no good dresses can be bought in Mexico (and shes Mexican!) and of course i must go to the states to look. Im checking out local shops too obviously, but sometimes they have fantastic deals to the US. And just seems less hassle then driving across border for hours.

oh its great to know there aren't outside vendor fees. im not paying $1,500 for floral centrepieces!! As for blue parrot, it seems that even if you go for the private terrace, it can get a bit loud as a club starts up at 10pm or something. so i assume you couldnt have your own music even if you wanted to?

I might try something like that! just have a horror of seeming greedy, "soooooo, what do you want to give us then!?" i do like the idea of just asking them what they want to be involved with rather than just telling them to pay for hahah. ill get fiance to ask though, there are still some issues with the language barrier and i havent got a handle on the more formal/polite spanish

For WPG bride- Thank both of them and don't mention money specifically, otherwise your mum will end up feeling guilty that she didnt manage to contribute. Even if she doesnt have money im sure shes offering support, organisational help and a sounding board for ideas...and this is invaluable too! My fiances parents offered unspecified money towards the wedding costs and my parents are offering to cover most of it. And my fiance and i have money too. actually...since his parents offered to contribute, after i find out what they are willing to contribute how do i handle it? I refer certain bills to them? or they give me the cash since im handling all the payments. i know they offered but i feel a little odd about asking about the logistics!

hahaha i hear you on the overwhelmed part. congrats on your engagement! In puerto vallarta ive stayed in the palladium resort and spa before and i loved it, we had a blast . Im looking into cancun or playa del carmen as my wedding destination as my fiance (hes mexican so i guess knows more about vacation spots than i do) is convinced that the beaches are much nicer there than in puerto vallarta (especially in playa del carmen). The resort reviews really help when youre choosing a venue as do the threads with brides talking about the hotel theyve chosen. First i would say work out what your budget is, and is it an adults only wedding or will children be attending. Some resorts don't allow children on the property at all, and im assuming you probably want your guests to stay with you. If your guests want to stay somewhere else...they will have to buy a day pass for the hotel for the day of the wedding (nearly all the resorts say this) and some resorts charge much more money if there will be non-hotel guests attending. For example i looked into grand velas...and they said they would charge me 500 dollars for each non-hotel guest! so that option got struck off the list. Another aspect you might want to think about - is whether the hotel allows outside vendors or not (and if so, do they charge a fee). If they arent allowed then you have no choice but to use the choices the hotel gives you for things like entertainment, flowers etc. Some people dont care, some do. Its not like the hotels selections are bad, but they can be more ex What i did, is made a template of an email with all my information. Picked about 6 hotels that i loved and sent it out to get quotes, most replied very quickly. And did the same for non-hotel venues as i havent decided which kind i want yet haha good luck!

Ive just heard back from wickys! i was being very british and not wanting to send another email but after hearing nothing for 8-9days i bit the bullet and asked again if she could send the information to me. Turns out her email address wasnt workign for last 2 weeks and there were internet problems or something so she never got my original request. She sent me a detailed list of questions about what i want in terms of decoration, furniture, cake, music, cocktail hours, dinner etc...and said she reply with a personalised package according to my response. The cake details she sent and flowers look great though. Also, a massive bonus is that there is a backup option if it rains. Also we stared exchanging emails around 9.30..and she called me just now (10pm mexican time) as she said she would be very busy with a wedding tomorrow. So i quite like the fact she was willing to call so late!

Quote: Originally Posted by Janet1480 I always thought the same about "bigger" dresses for a beach wedding until i fell in love with my dress and went with it anyway....it ended up looking amazing in pics and i loved it So dont discount the bigger dress yet ladies Happy Dress shopping! <3 I love your pictures! I was just thinking about what you said about not discounting the bigger dresses -so you weren't too hot?! I love some of the bigger dresses but im worried about overheating and generally being a sweaty mess =S Fiance has suggested i wear a bigger dress for the church ceremony and legal ceremony (and photos) and then something simple for the reception so im thinking about that - seems a bit extravangant though!

ive been using the search function - "mexico legal and catholic ceremony/weddings" "mexico civil and catholic weddings" etc etc so far have found - places to have a catholic ceremony, bilingual priests to perform the ceremony, requirements for catholic ceremony. but so far everythin i read is by people who were already married and did catholic ceremony as a symbolic thing and didnt need it to be legal. but thanks for the advice, i guess i will try new search terms, church instead of catholic etc

As i understand it, most people are getting married in their home countries and then havign a religious/symbolic ceremony in their destination country. My initial plan was a legal ceremony on the beach...but now i have agreed to convert to being catholic for my fiance and we will have a church wedding (providing i can complete all the classes within the next year!!) so - do i have the church service and then the civil ceremony on the beach with a judge? or does a judge come to a church and i simply sign papers? If i have both...i assume we exchange rings in the church. do i then keep them on or i take them off and exchange them again? and the catholic wedding can be bilingual (seems there are two english speaking priests in riviera maya) btu the civil ceremony cant? Im getting so confused by this!!! if anyone can help i would really appreciate it!

So SparksFly - has anything changed?! have you talked about it? Im pretty curious as to how it turns out!

I'm looking into wickys as a possible option, i emailed about a week ago but no response as of yet! It's on the list of planned site visits in 2 weeks time!

I emailed the venue and said my fiance wanted to read the wedding information in his native language. so now we "officially" have the price list in pesos =P and they didnt change the price from the documents the other bride had(thats my cynical mind at work, worrying im being scammed!) My fiance said it might be because for dollars they typically go on a 10 pesos to a dollar exchange rate rather than the official one (around 13 pesos) I checked my banking fees and to make a transfer in a foreign currency (so i would pay pesos) simply requires a one off small fee. so it makes far more sense financially to do that. I can't imagine that any (or at least many brides) would have the prices in both currencies so if it is common then nobody would ever know! im thinking of making a little experiment and having my fiance contact all the places that already sent me quotes so see if its standard practice or not. If it is, then total markup could total to 1000 dollars or more (as 20 min wedding set up alone has 350 dollars or more) and i dont know anyone so rich they can afford to do that if they dont need to and theres an easy solution/ Ill post what we find out....if it is standard practice, it might be worth other brides specifically requesting prices in pesos, or even having a friend write an email in spanish for the initial contact. I suppose if you are having a travel agent organise things it might not work out so well

Ive been talking to a beach club about having my wedding and reception there, and i found another bride to be looking at the same place. As she was chatting about an attachment they sent her regarding tables and other furniture i asked her to send it to me. She wrote all of her emails in spanish and got spanish versions of the documents Out of interest...i looked at the spanish version of the other info and ive noticed that the prices given in pesos seem to be much lower. The basic wedding package works out to be about 1150 dollars when you convert it...and the price quoted in the english version is just under 1500 dollars. And i mean thats one aspect of the wedding, so with reception, decor etc if everything is marked up it will work out to be a lot Is this standard practice? Have i been shooting myself in the foot by communicating in english rather than letting mexican fiance handle everything (i understand and can read spanish, but my grammar is pretty shaky so for clarity i took the easy way out and wrote in english) If so im passing all planning and research onto my mexican fiance! We're living in north mexico on mexican salaries so saving money would be helpful Can i just simply ask to pay pesos - and they will give me the price on the price list. or do you tihnk there is a chance they would try to convert my inflated price into pesos? Thanks for your thoughts!