chiquita8302

Thanks Allie! Happy to home, ready to settle into married life! Relaxation at last, I hope!! :-)

Hey girls! I have SO many pictures I don't want to post them all on here, but if you want to find me on FB we can be friends!! :-) The new last name is Jameson! My profile pic is of our wedding, so I should be easy to find ;-) I only have gotten 3 sneak peek pictures from our photog back so far, so everything on there right now are just whatever I've taken and my friends have. But there are a ton of the resort and stuff that should give you some good ideas of things! Feel free to ask if you have questions! https://www.facebook.com/ChristineHarveyJameson#!/media/set/?set=a.10100585525319471.1073741825.11006545&type=3 Here's a link in case it lets you see them- but I'm not sure you can without being my friend! :-) When my photographer postes pictures, her Garone Photography site has a blog that she posts them all on, so I'll be able to share that link with you girls, too!! Hope all is well with you girls! I'm ready to start thinking honeymoon!!!!!!! :-)

Gail- beautiful dress- totally won't look frumpy!!! :-) I have much smaller boobs than yours I think, but I swear by those stick on bras (the cups are sticky- you put them on, then clip them together in the middle) they are completely invisible no matter what you wear from my experience- but those were able to help me out a lot in my dress! (enough that my friends made me take them off when I put my dress on haha they said my boobs were too out of control LOL and I'm only a B to C ;-) EDR seems to take a lot of liberties with waiting until the last minute to confim details- I wouldn't worry though- maybe just list it as "pasta dish" or "vegetarian dish" i'm sure it'll be yummy, and if not, if you pull the bride card with the waitstaff at the reception, i'm pretty sure they can go hunt you down something from a different restaurant that will please your guests!

I had a friend walk me down, and i just met him at the ceremony. He just grabbed me when I got off the cart and waited with us girls while the BM's walked down, then us.I wouldn't worry about the logistics at all- no biggie :-) Ugh I had 2 BM's who got pregnant too. one still came, but she was literally due in 3 weeks the poor thing. The other had her baby while we were gone. I was frustrated at first, but am over it and excited to have my new niece & nephew.... in the end, I guess we can't ask anyone to put their life on hold bc we're going to Mexico... Umm Amen. I totally would have eloped had I known how much planning there was for a DW!!! I am sad it's over, but happy at the same time... now we get to think about planning a honeymoon wiht NO stress- just us, wherever we want- no DJ's, no over the top expenses... just a nice relaxing vaca!!! Quote: Originally Posted by LKocelko Oh ladies. Is is possible for me to pick different future in-laws? Haha. You know, we went the DW route because we figured it would be easy and stress free. WRONG! Sometimes I think if I had known back in October what I know now, we wouldn't have gone this route. My FI and I would have eloped and had an amazing vacation/ceremony in Tahiti or something. It makes me wonder why I am bothering to spend the time, energy, and money on this for our family, when our family (aka HIS family) isn't seeming to make this a priority or be interested. I'm so tired of the lame excuses from everyone and wishy washy attitude. We decided to do it this way because our family made it seem so important they were included, but now it's like, what was the point?! I \ Sorry, it's been a rough couple of days. Hopefully my shower Saturday will run smoothly (yeah right) and get me excited again. I can only hope that when May 11th comes, none of this will matter and will all be a distant memory. Thank god my family lives closer than his! I know what you will all say, and that everyone's been there, but sometimes I just need a good vent session. And I don't like to lay it on my FI too much, since it's his family.

Keep in mind the beers come in cups unless you're in your room! The insulated mugs were a big hit, though :-)

OK girls--- just settling back into real life after a wonderful week in Mexicoooo. :-) I have SO much to share after my trip, and am so behind in this blog i'm going to try to go through and answer some questions that might help put you future EDR brides' minds at ease! :-) Don't worry about the size.... we had 25, and I couldn't believe how nicely they set up Tucanes for us, we completely took up the whole place. It is a perfect place for a reception, hell, it would be perfect even if it was just a family dinner! The bartenders there rocked my world and were fun and it was private enough that it made you feel like you're in your own world. Health Bar would be pretty, too, just more out in the open, but you'd have a view of the beach which is nice. I don't for a second think you should worry about the size- that was such a big worry of mine, not even worth a second of worrying!! Also, even though it's not supposed to rain there in Feb, it did, so the bride getting married on the beach was goingto have to spend over $2K to get a tent to cover everyone if it rained! Tucanes that isn't a concern. :-)

Just ordered a few parasols from luna... loved how they looked in your pics- a pretty cheap and easy way to add a pop of your color! :-) Quote:Originally Posted by AllieH    Oh no, you don't have to tell them ahead of time. When we did our meeting with the onsite WC team, she asked what other tables we would need, what we had, etc. So they provided the tables for the cake, the favors/place cards and the guest book - no problem at all. They drew up the layout while we were sitting there - I honestly didn't care about that and trusted them to put tables where they would work the best. And they did for the most part. Our table was right front and center, his mother's close by, but my family was towards the back. Oh well - that's what I get for not being specific. lol We didn't take the time to scope out Tucanes, but we could/should have!!  I walked to Vitamin String Quartet's cover of Bruno Mars' "Just the Way You Are". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpqJjasrD7I  Unconventional, but fun and totally "me". If you like it, let me know and I can email you the file.  We were there 5 days before our wedding. I'd take $200 in $1, but that's just me. We tipped room service, bellman, bartenders and some of the waiters daily. We tipped housekeeping at the end of our stay, and our concierge too.  I ordered the parasols from lunabazaar.com - my husband ripped 1 of them right after the ceremony when he tripped over it (BOYS!!). I loved that the WC staff moved them to Tucanes for us, and then set them up to hide the big rip. We didn't ask to have them moved, they just did it. Â

Ditto what she said, Allie! I love reading what all of you post :-) I wish I had more time to post and read myself!!

Those welcome bags came out super cute! Makes me reconsider trying to find canvas totes for my OOT bags :-) Quote:Originally Posted by Shannon Burgess Our "Welcome" bags for our guests.

Question... did you girls have your BM's stand up next to you at the wedding like most people do at more traditional weddings? I ask partly bc my FI will have far fewer Groomsmen than my girls, so I want him to feel comfortable and it to look somewhat balanced. :-)

Hi Girls!!! Long time no see... ;-) Hope you've all had a wonderful holiday and are enjoying 2013.... a year for many more fabulous EDR Weddings!!!! :-) Allie... I've read through EVERYTHING you've posted and it was so helpful- thank you so much. Your wedding was beautiful and I'm glad it was everything you imagined. I can't believe that my wedding is really coming up!!!!!!!!! Less than two months :-) I am just getting back into wedding mode after a CRAZY few months. Sometimes I feel like the only bride who hasn't had time to worry about her own wedding LOL.... I guess its a good thing I chose a DW! I just sent Valeria a long e-mail confirming a bunch of details... I asked if we could do the hanging corsages for the ceremony, putting one of those on the guest book table and one on a sweetheart table for us. Then a hurricane and a few votives on each reception table with a coral runner. I've requested she put us in contact with DJ All music, and have ordered the $300 webcast video which includes the raw footage of the wedding... my mom has recently been diagnosed wiht Alzheimers which has explained a lot of what has been going on with her stress around my wedding planning, so she won't be coming... this will give a bunch of our friends and family who couldn't afford the trip a way to "be there"!! I just went for another dress fitting and it is coming along nicely... I will post some pictures once I go next time and it's a bit more put together- I'm SO excited now that she's finally done a bunch of the changes I wanted her to do. PHEW. Some things are starting to come together. I have to work on OOT bags and picking the menu next. I just saved Allies OOT list on my phone so I can start shopping for those this weekend. I've bought personalizable mugs for my girls... From Target, they are Alladin brand coffee mugs in Coral, and you can insert a customized printed insert into them so I also need to create that! I will post some pictures when I get that done. I haven't decided completely on favors or bridesmaid gifts. I may pay for the girls hair wedding hairstyle as their gifts. All along though I've wanted to take the bridal party on one of those snorkeling/rum punch catamaran sailing excursions though as their present... anyone know of anything like that we coudl coordinate? I can't believe so many of you ladies I started out on here talking to are all done and married- congrats to you all. I can't WAIT for my turn!! xo Chris

Beautifullll!! Congratulations! :-) I'm also happy the little things didn't take away from your special day! Sounds like you had a wonderful trip!! OK I'm reay for February now!!! :-)

Love it!!!

Allie... regarding set-up... So you think just bring whatever and deal with it when you get down there???

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY Allie!! I teared up a little bit just thinking about how exciting it is that it's finally here for you!! I feel like I've been along for the ride with some of you girls for so long now that it makes it that much more exciting! Have sooo much fun, can't wait to hear alllllllllllll about it!!! I wish you the best as far as your guest go! No matter what it will be GREAT!! And Shannon... I think I'm going to play around a little and see what happens. I'm going to do these lights with candle bags but no tikis. I bought candle bags and tea lights i'm going to try once here first, but then bring down with me. They will set them up for me, without a rediculous cost from what Valeria said. And they sell the white bags at target in the section wtih all the other lunch bags and zip lock stuff... i read online about them, and they are the same thing pretty much as what you'd get down there, but for only a couple bucks! Valeria recommended approx 30 candle bags. I was just looking at centerpiece options as I was going through all of my e-mails... I think I might rent a hurricane glass with the candle in it, with some rose petals sprinkled on the tables. As much as I odn't like "renting" a vase, I think it's cheap enough ($15.00 for the vase and probably a $50 bag of petals) that it is worth it not to have to worry about trying to bring glass down there. Then I can cross that off of my lists of things to worry about!! And I am a pain in the ass- I am non-stop with asking for more details lol you shoudl see the e-mails, there are like 15 different colors in them from all of our back and forths. I can't help it, I'm a Type A. lol. But I am sure she is no different to either of us- she doesn't know us from one another haha!! I have just been trying to make sure not to assume anything negative is going to come from our communication based on the past stories from here (even though I worry that there will be!), and am just trying to make sure I ask questions and get answers regarding any possible issues that have come up in the past so I can prevent the problems ahead of time. She seems to be very pleasant and reasonable to work with thus far, I have to say! She hasn't made me feel like I'm getting ripped off on things, other than the fact that some of the prices of the rental/sale items are a little silly ($18.00 for one stargazer lilly if I want one in the centerpiece- are you joking?)... but the set-up she seems like she's trying to be reasonable. Pretty soon we'll be in Allie's shoes, heading down to MEXICOOOOOOOOO :-) -Chris