cinnagirl

Ohhhhh...when you put it like that, I totally understand what you mean. That definitely helps, thank you! I just spoke with my fiance about it and I think we'll stick to the two hours open bar since that's when people are going to drink the most anyhow, and then go per drink for the rest of the night. Are you having welcome drinks as well? Is that included in the cocktail hour price or is that a separate item all together?

To those of you that are doing open bar for your reception, how many hours did Mayte quote you for that? On our quote we have open bar for 2 hours following dinner, however I wanted open bar the whole night until we leave. I went back to Mayte asking if we could do 5 hours instead, and this is the response I got, "After the 2 hours you can do more if you want, but wait auntil know what happend, a wedding day is long and so emotional!!!" I'm not really sure what she means. Advice?

Was it an eBay store? I'm curious to know where it was you got them from. $260 is totally within my price range!

We invited 75. We know that 20 of them definitely won't go due to financial reasons or not wanting to travel. I'm hoping for 30-40 people to attend. We invited immediate families, relatives that we speak with regularly and close friends. No one from work and no one that we haven't spoken with in the past 5 years.

Hey ladies!! I'm another May 2013 bride. The 28th in Punta Cana. We'll be heading out on the 25th, and I didn't realize until now that it's the Memorial Day Weekend for you American ladies. I'm assuming lots of people will be traveling for the long weekend. I'm Canadian so I'm just wondering to myself if we'll be affected. How far along is everyone with their planning? That's what I'm curious to know! So far we have our venue and photographer booked, we're waiting on pricing for our resort and we have our wedding parties picked. And I have my dress.

The card game idea is awesome!! I might steal that idea.

Jello, I might not do OOT bags as well. We're on a very tight budget and I can't justify the expenses of buying people things that they'll most likely have with them anyways, particularly in terms of over the counter drugs. Most of the people coming are regular travelers so I'm not too concerned with them forgetting anything. Or I might just do a welcome package with info on the resort, the area, excursions they can take, etc and then give everyone a bag. Based on all the OOT bag posts, it looks like the bags themselves were used the most. OR I might focus on giving my guests a really nice favour (which I wasn't going to do originally) like a nice leather luggage tag. Something they can use again and again. We'll see once the costs start rolling in.

Congrats Alex! Can't wait to see photos when you're back. Have an amazing time!! Thinking positive thoughts for sunny skies on your special day.

FI parents are well off (though they don't flaunt it), so they have offered to give us $10,000 towards the wedding. This is awesome because FI is in school right now so he's barely able to cover his own bills, and I'll trying to save up $5,000. The only problem is FFIL's company doesn't seem to be doing that well, so while they said they'd be able to give us $2000 every few weeks until we had it all, we've only received one payment and they're working on the rest. I really hope they can follow through because otherwise we're a bit screwed. :S My own parents are so broke so while they say they want to help out, I don't count on any money from them. Actually, I plan on having to pay for them to attend my wedding. Ah, families and money...

Hello fellow Canadians!! I'm new to this thread. I'm from southwestern Ontario and I'm getting married May 28, 2013 in Punta Cana. Just wanted to say hi and congrats to all the Canadian brides that are getting married this month!

Here is my bouquet inspiration picture. I can't remember if I nabbed it off this site or found it on pinterest.

My quote has me being charged different prices for drinks during different times. So cocktail hour drinks are $6 per person, dinner drinks are $10 per person and national open bar drinks are $12 per person. I really like the idea of having people pick off the menu too. I think my fiance wants a menu for the pure fact that we'll know how much we're spending up front. I think I've read a few times that it generally work out cheaper to just pick off the menu.

My quote was just over $7000. That's for ceremony and reception for 50 people. The only thing not included is dinner since we haven't decided if we want to do a set meal plan or just let people choose their own entres. The amount for open bar doesn't seem right either because the quote only has open bar for 2 hours when we'll need it for 5. So we have some stuff missing from the quote, but we also have some additional stuff on there like babysitting and the firedancers.

Thanks so much for sharing!! I feel a lot better knowing that your quote is that reasonable in the high season. We were hoping for ours to be around $1500 per person max for the basic room. Are you going through a local travel agent or a BDW travel agent?

Hey Lala! Mine took just over three weeks. Have you been waiting about the same time frame? If so, maybe just nudge her and say how excited you are to start working out the details with her?

Congrats samfords!! How exciting. Isn't it great to get the major stuff out of the way? It's easy sailing from here on out.

Hey ladies!! We'll be staying at Dreams PB for a week in May 2013, though we'll be having our wedding at the Jellyfish Restaurant. Reading through the past posts here it looks like we made a great choice with DPB! I was just wondering if anyone would be willing to share how much your guests will be paying to stay at the resort? Our TA got a quote for the resort and I guess it's too early for the early booking bonus (that seems ironic to me) and we were quoted $2000 per person for double occupancy in the deluxe tropical view room. Makes no sense because if we booked for this May through expedia, it'd only be $1400 pp. I was just wondering what kind of prices we can expect for a basic room for guests.

I have always wanted a destination wedding for as long as I can remember. However, once we actually got engaged we decided to do a small local wedding instead. We figure a DW would be too expensive (we would have to pay for my parents because they are broke) so I gave up my dream and tried to do the best I could with a local wedding. Well with our small budget we couldn't do ANYTHING we wanted locally. Even doing a small weekday wedding and dinner with immediate family only and a cocktail reception on a Friday came to $15,000. Which is our entire budget. I have never been more frustrated than trying to cut things to fit our budget and realizing that we wouldn't be having fun at all. My fiance's brother had a DW (which was amazing) and he really talked us up about how inexpensive it was. We started looking into DWs and decided to go for it. After that, everything has fallen into place. It's amazing how easy things are when you're on the right path. Essentially my reason are the same as everyone else's: a week spent with close friends and family, an intimate wedding in a gorgeous setting, getting more for our money, and giving my parents a vacation they never had.

Would any ladies that have been married through Jellyfish, or are about to me married at Jellyfish mind sharing how much their wedding did/will cost? As well as share how many people you had/have? We just got our quote from Mayte and I think it's a good price, but I'd love to see what other people are paying as well. And does anyone have wedding quotes from resorts in the area as well? I'd love to see the comparison between the cost for a wedding at Jellyfish and one at a resort.

Kirsten, congrats on getting married last year!! Thanks for the review on the Jellyfish, for me it just solidifies that I made the right choice of venue. Love the photo of your reception set up! The colours are gorgeous and so classy. Please feel free to share more photos of your wedding if you're comfortable. I'm sure all of us here would love to see them.

Do you mind if I ask why you don't want to go by two names? Mainly because that's what I was going to do, so I'd like to hear another woman's perspective on it. I was planning on keeping my last name legally and professionally because I'm already published under my last name, but then use his last name with family and friends.

Congrats!! The dress you chose looks amazing on you! I've never seen a dress like that, it's so unique.

My dress is lace with a charmeuse lining. It's amazingly light and airy so I'm hoping it breathes well in the heat!

Palm trees!! We're really just using them for the save-the-dates, invitations and website. And of course, our ceremony site is surrounding with palm tree. We might use some for reception decor as well.

Yikes, that's awful!! That's just the sort of thing I'm worried about. Ours was for the $500 too but it was in March. Did you send the money by email transfer? Because usually you'll get a confirmation for that saying that such and such email address accepted your money. I really hope you guys can figure out what's going on soon! I'm thinking good thoughts for you.