Butterflies

I can imagine! My wedding was at Dreams La Romana (Dominican Republic), I'm not sure if you are looking into that country or more Mexico, but Dreams La Romana was incredible in terms of the wedding coordinators, wedding food, service and locations (like semi-private spots for the ceremonias. They have garden gazebo, where I married, and also beach spots). Also it is an all-inclusive, so once you pay the trip, no need to carry money around the hotel, they have like six different restaurants at night (also included in the hotel price) that my guests enjoyed quite a lot. I wrote the hotel review here if you would like to see it (the review is more wedding-oriented but I can tell you more about the hotel if you wish, or send you pictures). http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/products/dreams-la-romana-resort-spa-all-inclusive/reviews/7258 Good luck with finding a great hotel! Also, I had people coming from 8 different countries, so we hired the Travel Agency from this site, called Wright Travel. They are based in the US, and have good packages for people travelling from the US. They made a great job in managing all the reservations, and since we were a group (around 50 people) we even got some money remboursed after the trip! I also wrote a review -they manage any country, not only Dominican Republic- and they are specialized in destination weddings. Therefore they can also arrange tours inside the country if you wish to do a trip with your guests. This is the travel agency review (also great level of service!): http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/products/wright-travel-agency-destination-wedding-and-honeymoon-specialists/reviews/7257 You'll see that you'll find a great hotel, and I can assure you that this forum is a great source of information (it helped me a lot in taking so many decisions!), so you are starting at the right place

Thanks BrownSugarBride! I'm glad you like some the ideas. A good part of the wedding is making the preparations and it is definetely great when you enjoy this part almost as the wedding itself (of course the wedding day beats everything else! LOL). I wish you good luck and lot of happiness with your preparations!

Hi ladies! I just added my Dreams La Romana wedding planning journal with all the DIY projects of my wedding and further details on how everything went at the wedding: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/86362/marias-after-the-wedding-planning-journal-diy-wedding-lots-of-pics If you have any questions or need help, just let me know and I'll be glad to help

Finally I have the opportunity to post the planning list of our wedding that was at Dreams La Romana, Dominican Republic. When I started planning our wedding I found this awesome forum and it was a gold mine for me! It was a great source of inspiration and motivation that help me accept the challenge of a DIY wedding. I must thank everyone that has shared ideas here, and hopefully mi ideas could be of help to someone! Our Engagement We got engaged in June last year, my now husband (still getting used to the term, LOL) proposed on my birthday. He first thought proposing on our first anniversary in July, but in the end he couldn’t wait! In the morning he gave me a birthday gift with a card saying that this was the first of my gifts. Then for lunch he brought me a big bouquet of roses (I love roses, in fact they were our wedding flowers). Then in the evening he was taking me out for diner to a surprise place, and when I went to the living room I found a new card placed in the roses; when I took the card right behind it I found a small box with the shape of a red rose and the ring inside. Right there he proposed. I was at the restaurant looking at my ring like OMG I’m engaged! I couldn’t believe it, jajaja Save the Date I love chickens as pets but I wanted a more traditional wedding, still I wanted to include chickens somewhere, so we found these amazing bride and groom chickens, and took them with us to a cruise around South Europe (we live in Spain, that is why you’ll see the texts in Spanish). We shot the chickens everywhere we could and did a video to announce the save the date. This is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zscl8DMsLHo Wedding website Since we had guest from 8 different countries, we did a website to provide all the travel information, and also put the story of how we met, what we though when we first saw each other, etc. The website was free, I did it with weddingwire, they have nice designs and it is really easy to use. Also they have great software for planning the seating distribution of the guests –we were over 50 people so was very helpful for me. http://www.weddingwire.com/ Invitations All the elements for the wedding were DIY projects. The theme of the wedding was butterflies, so these are the invitations, very traditional style with butterflies and textures. Inside each invitation I added a small handwritten card, since I wanted a wedding full of personalized details like this, and people appreciated it. I put some texture on the white envelopes This is the small note that I inserted into each invitation with a handwritten message The OOT bags I ordered some Out Of Town beach bags. For all these I used a more informal theme than butterflies, so made a logo of flip flops that were used for everything before and after the wedding day. Also I used blue instead of purple since my husband favorite color is blue and he was so sweet letting me choose my favorite colors for the wedding. We put inside the welcome brochure Also we put a blue chicken pen, people loved it LOL a small post-it notebook, a practical waterproof pouch to carry around money/camera/mobile phone, everyone carried these around! a “please do not disturb†sign, an inflatable travel pillow, a beach ball, a small sewing-kit, and a "Besame Mucho" chap lipstick People loved the OOT bags and used them, it was great since hotel staff sometimes would tell us, "yes, a lady carrying a bag like yours is already inside eating" LOL For my father and my husband I ordered baseball caps, like my fiance said "the Groom". For my sister, aunt, father, mother in law, sister in law and brother in law I ordered some bags from Vistaprint, that say “father of the bride†“sister of the groom"... For my husband and me we did some Vistaprint t-shirts. One for the day before the wedding that reads “soon: married forever†for the bachelor party. Also had this one “Just Married†t—shirt made for the day after the wedding I also ordered some iron-on rhinestones at Etsy and did some tank shirts that said “Bride†and another that said “Yes†that I wore the morning of the wedding The wedding - Programs In the Spanish culture we are not used to having programs as part of the wedding, but I saw the idea in this forum and thought it was great for us, since both my mother and my husband’s father passed away, and dedicating a space in the programs was a right way to honor their memories. But then I got kind of excited and finished doing a 3 pages program, jajaja, including a ticket that you could tear from the programs, saying “valid for a dance with the bride or the groomâ€. This was fun since some of my guests did claim their coupons, jajaja I wanted to create a whole set for the programs, including a small fan, so it has different parts: first a cover that was like a thin box with a ribbon and the same texture as the invitations. When you opened the cover, inside you found a small envelope containing Kleenex with a wedding-theme print, and the envelope reads “For the tears of Joyâ€. My friends and I always cry at each other’s weddings… my wedding was the last one so I knew we would get emotional, and I was sooo right Also there was a second envelope full of confetti in form of butterflies (also I cut these ones… looong nights), the envelope read “For throwing good wishes to the newlywedsâ€, in the pictures these looked very nice! And some of the butterflies even attached to the wedding dress, it was a very nice part of the wedding watching all my butterflies flying around us! Finally you had the little white pai pai fan and the program. It was a lot of work doing all those pieces, but it was worth it, our guests took the programs home to keep them, they loved it. Ceremony decoration My colors were purple, white and rose. For the wedding gazebo, we had white and purple decoration and sashes (from the hotel). This is how it looked For the ceremony I did some signs to reserve the bridal party seats I also cut (and added texture…) to a lot of white butterflies for putting in the “hallwayâ€, instead of having the red carpet. It looked very nice At some point we had a bit of rain, so the parasol that I brought as decoration was very helpful LOL Dress and suit This is the dress I chose (I still don´t have the professional pictures, but gives you an idea). I ordered the veil at Light in the Box, they have many things for weddings and pretty cheap veils. My fiancé was wearing a black suit and the purple jacket and tie. The bridal party (3 small nephews) had white clothes with a purple sash in the waist. In the picture you can also see my bouquet, from the hotel, white and purple roses, and my husband had a boutonniere with the same colors. These are the baskets and lanterns that the bridal party had (I added all the butterflies) Reception Decoration for the reception (at Seaside Grill, Dreams La Romana) had butterflies all around. I ordered flower centers from the hotel, and asked them to attach my DIY butterflies, also they put butterflies in the table and butterflies seating cards. This is how it looked These are the seating cards, attached to each glass. I’m especially proud of this one since it took lot of effort, and everyone loved them! The butterflies menus The table names ( we chose counties since we had guests from so many different counties there) For the kids we put an activity book in their seats, they loved them and were bringing us their colored drawings, so cute! These can be found at Oriental Trading, the booklet with a box of 5 crayons For the signature book we made a pre-wedding photo shooting and them made an album with spaces for people to sign. It is great since now it is a cute album with our photos and our guests good wishes As favors, I did personalized key-rings with a heart that had engraved our names and date. For my sister and friends who love Hello Kitty I put a Hello Kitty charm, for a pilot friend I put a plane charm, for an aunt who loves her dog I added a dog charm, for a friend who loves taking pictures a camera charm, so everyone had a different key-ring based on their hobbies, also with their names initials on it. They loved it and some of them changed key-rings right away! I put the key-rings inside little boxes, and added a personalized handwritten card tied with ribbon. The card folded in 3 parts, and it reads “Love is the master key†Hora Loca After dinner, we had something called “Crazy Hour†so we gave masks and wigs (that we brought) to the guests and had very lively music and hotel dansers for about an hour, we did group choreographies like Gangnam Style, Macarena, a limbo, etc. It was like a carnival and everyone loved that! That made them dance a lot, even my 80 years old aunt! It was lot of FUN! Trash the Dress For the wedding I wore white shoes since I wanted a very traditional-religious wedding. But for the photo shooting I wore purple shoes. Also we did the trash the dress in the hotel beach Wedding Music We provided all the music to the DJ. So the day after the wedding we gave to our guests pen drives with all the wedding music as thank-you-and-goodbye gift. They love it, some of them sent me messages saying that they carry the pen drive on their car radios, or that they put it to their kids for dancing. Also it was great for the videographer, so he can use the music for our video My Experience! Doing all these things was a great experience and I enjoyed a lot doing the DIY projects. It was like magic watching them the day of the wedding, all the things I worked at! So if you have the courage and motivation, it is great and when people know you did them yourself, they see every piece of the wedding as a memorable keepsake (like some of my friends even took home the menus, that felt good!). I can assure you that the DIY projects pay off and make you feel proud Enjoy your craft projects, and again THANKS for all the great ideas that you shared and were of big help for me! If you have any doubts or have any questions, just let me know and I’ll be more than glad to help!