TinkerSofi

So, I feel so bad for Juan. He spoke to one of his sisters last night and she might not be coming . She lives in Colombia and failed a class, which starts again the week of our wedding. I told Juan that usually it's not a big deal if she misses the first week, but his sister said that she has no clue what's going on in the class so she's afraid of missing even the first week. I really hope we can figure something out, maybe have her come from wednesday-sunday. Then she would only miss 3 days rather than 5 :S. So their decision for now is that she won't be part of the bridal party, and if she does come she'll just sit with the rest of the guests. I just feel kind of guilty, I mean we chose this date and pretty much 90% of his friends aren't coming or we don't know if they are. It almost makes me feel like this wedding is for me and not for us .

I've been having nightmares for months! Some of them are pretty scary already so I don't know what they'll look like as we get closer! Haha If you're lazy to do the books I would do a brochure. I've seen someone with an amazing book on one of these threads but I'm too lazy for that haha. I can barely fill out a brochure! I will make sure to put a section to people can write their friends' room numbers to call each other. I'm sure your guests won't think it's a big deal, getting a brochure vs. a book [emoji4][emoji5]️ Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@@calgarybride2015 yeah, we always seem to travel in August hahah. The only thing that I think will save us is the strong breeze up in the terrace. I'm still planning on bringing a backup outfit for Juan to change into for the reception, something like the groomsmen because then they can roll their pants up hahha. I have to agree with him that he would look super nice in a suit, but I also don't want to torture him the whole night hahah

The Attire I always thought I'd be the one who would take forever to choose what I'd wear but it turns out that's Juan haha. Since the beginning he wanted to wear a suit. One day we go check out some suits just to see what they have and he ends up buying one! It's a charcoal color and I was super concerned that he would cook in it in the middle of summer. It took me 6 months to convince him to get a lighter suit, despite my months continuous efforts, most of the convincing was done in 30 seconds by the salesman at a store, who told him he'd be crazy to wear dark colors in the summer in the caribbean. So now we should be going shopping again when the summer suits come out and I'll keep you posted as to what he chooses. My dress was a much simpler story. I found it at the third store we went to. It is nothing like the ones I had pinned and researched haha. I was in between two really pretty traditional DW dresses, made out of chiffon and flowy, etc. I really liked them both and couldn't decide which one, until the lady at the store brings this one out and the second I tried it on it was perfect. At the beginning I didn't want a DW dress but everything else seemed so heavy so I had given up on the idea of having anything different. This dress was basically exactly what I wanted, not too heavy but still as more of a traditional look to it. It doesn't fully close at the back but the lady said I could put a corset back to it. I do love the closing it has now but a corset does give you more leeway when you're on vacation. I also have to get it taken out like 1/2 an inch at the hips to accommodate my big booty haha, and the obvious hem . I have my appointment for alterations in May. For bridesmaids we just went shopping this past weekend. Originally I had planned that they could all choose whatever dress they wanted. I just had to be short and the wedding color (this is another time when those stupid colors bit me in the ass). They all ended up choosing the same dress: This is the dress in another color, even though I think it looked better on my MOH and my FSIL: and this will be the color they'll be in: Juan doesn't like them haha, but honestly I had no say on this and they chose it so that's too bad for him. For the groomsmen, I don't have pictures, except in my head . They'll be wearing grey summer pants. They kind of like a summer dress pant from Express, Juan has a bunch and he really likes them, white shirts with rolled up sleeves and I'm not sure about whether a bow tie or a regular tie. I haven't figured out the colors of the ties yet. Maybe blush pink or periwinkle. They'll probably also wear suspenders. I'm kind of concerned about white shirts and my ivory dress because it don't want it to look dirty. I guess I just have to grab one and put it against my dress and see what happens. It's hard to find ivory shirts. Juan said they could wear blush pink shirts with grey bow ties so I guess i'd have to see how that looks. I was shopping for a white party in December (totally unrelated to the wedding) and came across this dress at H&M. This will be my legal ceremony dress. Originally I really wanted to keep this thing on the DL, but my mom got super upset that I was just going to sign the papers and then go on about my day hahah. She said that I couldn't do that, because that's what counts, etc. So I ended up agreeing to having a super super small event with both our immediate families present in my back yard. We're still going to celebrate our Mexico date as our anniversary, but I just wanted to please my mom basically. I don't even want to know how Juan will put that ring on my finger on the wedding day haha. It's on the snugger side already, plus the alcohol, plus the heat, plus salty food. I'll have to put my had in a bucket of ice before the ceremony hahah, and drink some lemon water all day @@calgarybride2015 I think Vegas will be fantastic. Make sure you hide in an AC'd place during the day! haha (i read your other post ) Last July I went with a couple of girlfriends to New York. All I have to say is OMG!! it was soo hot haha. We still had a really good time but we honestly couldn't drink water fast enough. It got to the point that we didn't care anymore and would just pour water on ourselves to keep cool. Our feet were swollen to twice their size by the time we got back to the hotel every night , well and then I might have stepped on a metal stick thing and stabbed my foot, which got infected while there hahah, but they were swollen regardless

ohh, yeah that would make sense. I think it would drive me nuts too! I'm always fixing my e-ring to make sure the diamond is perfectly at the top hahah. It drives me nuts when it's super cold and the diamond drops to the inside of the hand

good to know!

but yours was in winter so it made sense . I remember when we went to Disney World in August. At around 2pm we needed to go back to the hotel and rest for a couple of hours before going back because it was just sooo hot. That or find somewhere with AC to shelter in for an hour or two hahah.

that would be nice. I find they never look "picture perfect" unless you're trying to keep them perfectly together. One of my friends, her wedding band is double and the e-ring goes in the middle. The wedding band has these little stoppers at the bottom so when you put the e-ring in the middle it doesn't move so much, it looks like it's all one ring. Basically it can only move from side to side. It's very hard to explain haha but i wish mine had something like that PS: i can't believe it's been 3 weeks already!

exactly, but definitely not at 2pm or 3pm We're having ours about two hours before sunset

agh! so frustrating, murphy's law I guess, but yeah, money comes and goes

I would definitely have it as the sun is going down

definitely go into their website and check their small print as they change it sometimes without notice. My advise is to also take a screen shot of all the small print when you book so that even if they change it you have proof of things the day you booked. I'm so paranoid, but sometimes you have to be. Apparently their complimentary package is not free either for US brides at Azul Fives anymore, so it's $950. but it is free at some of their other hotels.

As far as I understood I think you get the perks when you book with one of their TAs, regardless of how many rooms you have, but I could be wrong. I just checked the website and they changed these perks so I have to see if the hair and makeup still applies to me because that's when we booked. Otherwise I need to start looking somewhere else! Oh, i forgot to add this haha. Originally we had our ceremony at 5, dinner at 7. Since they changed the time, I'm trying to change it to ceremony at 6, dinner at 8. I asked them if I'd have to pay extra for my reception to be until midnight. If they say no we'll go ahead with the change but if we need to pay then we'll stick to the 5pm timeline

If you're from the US that's perfect! you do get so many perks!! so their basic package, which is free for you, includes the basic set up for their ceremony and then a free semi-private dinner at one of their restaurants, among other smaller things. They do have private locations, really pretty ones too. For most of them you just pay the price of the food per person and that includes 4hrs of open bar, there's different menus at different prices. Then there's a few reception locations which are upgrades, so you have to pay a surcharge on top of the menu price per person. The private dinners have basic white linens so not much in terms of decor. If you want one of their signature packages for the reception it's $250 per table, or you can bring decor from home. Then for music you can rent our their amplifier, that's $250 for 4 hours, or you can hire their DJ and they have different prices for them. We're using the private dinner as a welcome dinner and paying for a private reception.

We got the same from my fiance's dad. He's very much against taking vacations. He grew up in a farm, so everything is work work work, which I understand. He sees vacations as a huge waste of money, to the point that Juan stopped telling him when we went on one because his dad would give him trouble for it. He was very resistant of the idea of a DW, saying the same kinds of things, "it's too expensive, no one will come" he even said he wouldn't come at one point which hurt Juan terribly, even though he tried to brush it off by saying that he didn't care. Juan and his dad don't have the closest relationship either but it hurts anyway when your parent doesn't want to go to your wedding. In the end we basically just booked his trip hahah, well Juan and his sisters did (so authoritarian of us). He loves to eat, seriously his stomach is like a bottomless pit haha, so when we told him he could eat all he wanted and it was free he couldn't believe it haha. Now he's on board, but I honestly don't think he's taken a vacation since Juan and his sisters were little so it will be interesting to see what he thinks when he comes back . He's just the type of guy to say no before he says yes, and then he enjoys himself. I really hope that it all works out. Maybe i'd play the guilt card a little and tell her that you're the only daughter and it would mean a lot if she came , maybe offer to help with the cost if you can afford it? But i do agree with other posts, at the end of the day it is your day and you have to choose whether a DW is something you won't budge on or whether having your mom there trumps those plans.

I know what you mean! We're only missing $200 to have our trips paid off and even though we had the money before, seeing the huge chunk come out of the acount was painful haha

I do love Azul Fives. I'm not sure where you're from, I'm from Canada so our trips and perks are a bit different than in the US. We get cheaper packages to travel because land and air are bundled together with one tour company. Right now, that company has the trips $300 more than what we paid. Originally our TA managed to get us $200 off, but now the trips have gone up. because we save so much money on these packages Karisma doesn't give us a lot of perks. I remember at least when we booked, depending on the amount of rooms your group booked you could have free private events (anywhere from a cocktail hour to unlimited events). However, us Canadian's didn't get anything. If you are with one of their certified TAs and you're from Canada you get a bit more, such as a spa package for you and a bridesmaid, including your bridal hair and makeup plus the trial, among other things. Or you can choose to have a free cocktail hour, but that's about it. They did give us an extremely good deal though in terms of free nights every X amount of guests booked. This is saving us A LOT of money, because we're paying for most of Juan's family to come, so we'll be using those to make the blow a little lighter on us . The resort is beautiful, the service I heard is amazing and so is the food, but if you book with them they do try to nickle and dime you a lot, everything has a fee pretty much. Make sure you know what you want going in and you know your budget because anything you want to rent from them is ridiculously expensive and it starts adding up. You can always bring stuff from home though and there are ways around some of the stuff. I actually started a planning thread so I say a bit about the hotel . Long story short, if you're in the US you get amazing perks! if you're in Canada, you probably get the same amount of savings in the long run, but it feels like you get nothing hahah. I'm still in love with the hotel though and don't regret my choice, but sometimes I do get a bit frustrated with some things, just like I probably would with any other resort.

I did some research and unfortunately for me, they're predicting a strong hurricane season this year. It's selfish to think this way but I hope it misses our week haha and/or that they're wrong. Just something to keep in mind if you haven't booked . It's always a gamble with hurricane season, but keep in mind that you're there only for a week out of the 5 months that the season lasts and not all hurricanes that form will hit your destination. I'm trying to stay positive that nothing will happen, but I'm going to ask my TA what happens if there's one predicted for our week. I would hope they can just let us change our date. When we met with our TA, she actually said, summer months are cheaper, you take that risk, but then again half the year is hurricane season so we decided to take it, so you basically give one thing for the other

out of all the times I've been to Mexico and the Caribbean we've gotten the best weather in August, go figure haha. That's partially why we chose it, aside from the fact that it was cheaper, and since some of our guests are teachers, it also worked for them. We've been there in May and January as well and we got pretty crappy weather. I don't know if it was bad luck or what, but I'll take the heat any day compared to cold, rain and sand-blasting wind. Usually in August things are pretty dry from what I've seen (the plants don't look as green), so not a lot of rain, but lots of heat and humidity. if it does rain it's only for a short period of time. The most popular month to get married in is April. You probably get higher fares though, and yeah with school aged kids it's not so easy. When we booked i had applied to school and wasn't sure if I was in or not, so we wanted also a month where I wouldn't have to pull my hair out with trying to plan last details of wedding while also studying. Turns out I didn't get in, but I'm happy with the month we chose . just hoping for the best in terms of hurricanes

that makes total sense. Sorry I for some reason I thought your family lived in the same city. I'd probably do the same as you I think a week is perfect! Yeah we're not really doing anything fancy either. I'm basically just pleasing my mom, but we don't do any vows either or anything. We might "exchange rings" for a picture, but then taking them off ahah. We're doing it two days before we leave. Does it have to be 100% legalized by the time we leave? I guess I should have asked that before haha.

Congrats on your engagement and welcome to the forums! I think you can probably find what you're looking for in Mexico on the Caribbean side. Usually Cancun will be the most expensive area, then Playa del Carmen and the most affordable will be the Riviera Maya (the corridor between Cancun and Playa). The Now resorts are beautiful and they are quite affordable, same with their weddings. I also really like the resort that @@calgarybride2015 got married at, at least from what I've seen on pictures Maybe also, if you're not too picky about this, try playing around with your dates and talking with a travel agent. Depending on the time of the year you can save $200-300, which is a lot!

@ A good way of looking at it is that at least we get to spend a whole week with our loved ones enjoying ourselves, vs. only one day when we do it at home. I always get kind of depressed the day after a party, but this way we keep the party going for a bit longer haha. There's actually 4 birthdays and 3 anniversaries (4 with ours now actually) in the days we'll be in Mexico. We will all have reason to celebrate , and to keep celebrating ahaha. My friends are already saying it's going to be insane . I think the day of the wedding will give me that feeling that you got when you're a kid and you're about to open your christmas gift. All that excitement and anticipation that has been building up for days (in this case months for this wedding) reaches its maximum level when you're right in front of the gift, ready to open it. You know that the amazing feeling will be over the second you open it, and you're torn between feeling that and actually knowing what the gift has inside. That was always my favorite moment of getting a gift , the second before I opened it. I don't know if anyone else ever gets that but that's how I feel about this wedding. It is flying by rather quickly! And now that I put all the planning into high gear especially. I remember I was a year out when i started really planning and I felt like time would never pass but it has gone by super quickly

Oh that's perfect then! I wish we were handy but for us it would have meant putting a lot of money to get someone else to do all the stuff. when it comes to handy work, I'm beyond useless hahah and juan knows some a stuff but not a lot. I do love renovated homes though because you get nicer locations in established communities [emoji4]. I love the area where I'm in right now and we looked here but given out timeline of things it just made sense to but new Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It was hard to find something under 400K for sure. I think the easiest is finding a used house, we tried but we didn't want to do renovations and all the houses we saw needed some work . Maybe for the second house we'll do renovations but we wanted move in ready for the first one

I'm working like a dog lately, hoping to start paying a lot of these things . I agree, it will feel great once it's all paid for, I feel like I can actually enjoy then