jandl2013

Sure...here is my save the date. I tried the DIY thing but I really didn't have time to dedicate as I needed so I ended up ordering magnets from Magnet Street. I tried to add a bit o color to the inner envelope because I realized it was a bit too plain AFTER the fact. lol

Quote: Originally Posted by Jennkn87 Thanks so much for your positive thoughts! You are SOOOO right about reading and loving too many ideas you see on here! I'm already worried about budget and I don't even have my date set in stone yet!! I'm glad to hear you used Wright Travel...which agent did you book through? The one I have been talking to seems to be very good, answers my emails in a timely manner...even late at night!...and is seemingly very knowledgeable about the area I chose. Hopefully this continues! I have registered with The Knot, and Weddingwire...but I always find myself coming back to this site the most!! Thanks again for the gracious words of encouragement! Your most welcome Jennkn87! I'm happy to help as this site and other brides have helped me too! I've spent a lot of time on here just lurking and occasionally writing, but i'm trying to actually participate more. I booked through Virgilia, and she's great! I think my coworker went through Patty? I agree with you about this site most definitely. It has helped me the most, but I have used all of them to gain better insight into exactly what I wanted because I had no idea about my vision, my colors, my location...nothing! If you don't really have an idea of what you want then you will definitely get overwhelmed on here with the many many fabulous ideas!! LOL It was difficult, and also we changed our date/location because of home renovations that were done earlier this year. My wedding was pretty much completely planned for St. Lucia 9/27/13 and when we changed the date to May we realized that St. Lucia wasn't going to work for us. The airfare and travel arrangements were quite difficult for my family and friends considering everyone was coming from different countries. It was EXPENSIVE, and my family is way larger than my fh family. For those reasons, we had to start from scratch and we decided on Punta Cana because it was a bit more affordable for the crowd, and had more flights for the various people. It has finally all worked out, but it surely has been one serious roller coaster! So any advice I can give to any newer members...i'm happy to do so! The other advice I can give is try not to stress because planning a DW can be a bit more stressful than a stateside wedding at times. Relax, and be comfortable with your TA and know that everything will be OK. They are just not on US time so most places tend to move at a slower pace which can be frustrating...

Hi ladies! Congrats on the planning. This site can be overwhelming with SO MUCH wonderful information, but I would suggest using several sites to get a rounded set of ideas to help get your focus on exactly what you want. I used The Knot (Weddingwire.com and Weddingbee.com just to name a few) to get a few ideas and also they (The Knot) have an online timeline directly on the site that you can use that might be helpful in creating a binder manually. My other suggestion would definitely be to get a TA. I also used Wright Travel Agency, and we even used them for our site visit last month. Everything was great so I'm confident that once everyone is booked for our wedding, everything will turn out well. One of my coworkers also used them a year and a half ago and she and her family had great reviews. One other thing i'm going to suggest is that this site has a bunch of us brides that feed off of each other (in case you haven't noticed yet). What this means is the flow of ideas make it very easy to end up WAY over budget. Stick to your budget and your plans. Nothing wrong with getting great ideas, but you can't use them all...LOL! Just my two cents I thought I'd throw in there because that's been my experience so far. I LOVE this site so it's easy to get caught up with the DIY projects, dresses, weight loss, long long lists of ideas, trinkets, and favors and then you are way over your budget and your fiancé has a heart attack. Also, use this site to help keep you grounded with other brides since you might find that some of your family and friends might A) not like your plans initially so they give you hell or don't seem interested in your plans. Other brides are in your shoes so it's much easier to vent, chat, etc. on this site to keep the people around you sane regarding your wedding and early planning pains which may include many changes....including the fiancé! Good luck ladies, and happy planning!

We're getting married in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic at The Jellyfish Restaurant (Awesome place, we had a site visit and tasting in September). Yes, I went through a travel agent (Wright travel agency). We booked 15 rooms altogether because we already know we have a decent number of guests coming. I did 2 room blocks with one of 5 rooms at the adult side of the resort then 10 rooms in the non-adult side. We already need to add rooms to the adult block. We have the option to add more rooms if needed in a few months.

I think we'll celebrate our anniversary on one date then maybe plan our yearly vacations (if we're able to) on the other date.

But in my opinion, you're doing great because I've been on here forever and i'm just now getting to 100

No, we're all lurking creepers...lol

LOL....we need to get it done so we can all breath easy!

Quote: Originally Posted by Raquelita0715 I am a couponer so I will be including items that I get from my bargain shopping. Will be stocking up on listerine toothpaste and etc. I'd like to stock them with stuff ppl will actually use rather than just looks nice and will be thrown out I have more time on my hands now to coupon, but I notice very few wedding coupons right now. I guess they are only for a season

This thread is AWESME! Thanks for posting so much helpful information!

Yes, I noticed your name on all the posts i'm writing on so I think i'm helping out...hopefully.

I also need to stop writing paragraphs...LOL

I thought about doing the save the dates on my own, and by the time I could find some decent templates it just felt like time was working against me so I ended up getting save the date magnets from Magnet street. The I bought legal size envelopes and put the save the date with small envelope in the larger envelope with an insert that including a message, information about our travel agent, the hotel and hotel rates, and our registry (which we were not initially going to do). I just sent them out last week. I decorated the outer envelope with a "love" stamp in red and the address label in dark purple. I decorated the inner envelope with another stamp "Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss" in purple ink and got a red glitter pen and colored in the O in Love (labor intensive). I also put a sticker with our monogram on the inner envelope under the stamp and used a purple glitter pen to highlight the circle of the sticker. Took me a little while but they were bad at all! i'm going to post them separately at some point soon.

I feel like i'm playing this bouncing game...bouncing back and forth on different threads. Just trying to get to 150 posts.

Well...i'm home so it's not an issue...I just need to stop reading and start writing...lol.

I've been doing the lurking thing too...and as a result after all this time, all I have is 80+ postings. Time to get in the game!!

I guess i'll be waiting to hit 150 before I can see this also. I couldn't work out for a while so I need to diet for a while until I can get back to working out. Have some weight to lose by May definitely.

Wow, my fh and I have been going back and forth with this issue too. We were going to do the legal ceremony December 31, which is our anniversary, but we had trouble coordinating our parents since they don't live in the same area as us. We have ultimately decided to just go ahead and get married a few weeks before we leave. If the parents make it, then great but if not, they will be at the Punta Cana ceremony. I view the Punta Cana ceremony as the "real" wedding in my opinion so I was wondering about that ring exchange thing too! I kind of figured that we would not exchange rings until Punta Cana and that's that. In regards to the legal ceremony, I know me, and I know him, so I know we will have to wear something nice to at least make everything look decent. I'm sure we'll take a few pictures that day and also just go to dinner and that's that. I think it's going to depend on our parents to be honest. We aren't trying to make too much of a big deal out of the legal ceremony and I wanted to keep it secret, but with our family that just isn't going to happen so I gave up on that idea.

Hello fellow past and future brides. I'm a bit late posting this but better late than never! My fh and I had or tasting at Jellyfish on September 14th during our site visit at Iberostar that weekend. Mayte, as you all may know, was not there but her assistant Raluca was there to go over everything with my fh and I. Raluca was great...she was very nice and very professional. She took us on the tour and went over everything with us. This was the BEST tasting ever! We were able to pick out the potential drinks and menu for our cocktail hour and reception dinner. They made everything, and let me just say the food was wonderful! There was one pasta dish my fh and I weren't too excited about considering our families tastebuds and we were able to change it and then that new dish was made for us. The level of service and the quality of the food was definitely great. The service, view of the beach, and the atmosphere of the restaurant was definitely way better than what we would have had at the resort so we are VERY happy and looking forward to the wedding day. I'm happy my fh was finally able to actually see the vision we talked about because he is now VERY excited and actually told me "Babe, you did real good" once we were there! SUCCESS!! We have sent out the save the dates, (i'm going to post them in another thread soon) and the invitations will go out very soon. We have quite a few family members and friends that are saying they are coming, but we'll see once the dust clears! We could have anywhere between 35 to just short of 100 people. I'm still working on the photographer, but our videographer is all set! We can't wait to have our Jellyfish wedding next May!

So far I have: the wedding date, wedding location, room blocks. I have sent out my save the dates as of last week (i'm probably going to post elsewhere about them). I received my invitations, so now i'm waiting for my stamps. I ordered custom stamps for the invitations, and regular wedding postage for the rsvp envelopes. Still haven't gone to try on dresses so that's my major plan for October and November

oh, and Hello all you future and past brides. Hope everyone's plans are going well!

I joined a while back, but i'm no where near 150 yet. I need to stop reading and lurking and joining more discussions. I have no clue why I tend to do that instead of making comments. LOL

This sounds like a great idea, but I see it's been quite some time since anything has addressed. I hope this does actually happen some time soon.

Hi ladies, Jackie and Laury May 23rd, 2014 wedding at Jellyfish Restaurant in Punta Cana. We have our room blocks at Iberostar. We just had a site visit last week, and it was great! I'm happy my fiancé got to see all of the plans up close and personal so now he's just as excited about our location as I've been.