TinkerSofi

I know some ladies email a general planning email. I've always dealt with Brigitte and she's been great. She takes maybe two days to respond, 3 tops. It might take a few days to get your welcome email. $350 is really good! Especially when compared to the sky deck haha. I also loved the pier but we couldn't fit everyone Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Awesome! Congrats!! I'm working with Brigitte so no idea about Emma. How much was the surcharge for the pier? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

this is very helpful! I wish I had found this when trying to decide on a resort. Everything is so confusing, and then you never know if you're getting ripped off or if that's the average cost anywhere.

I have a US savings account right now. it doesn't have fees, only when I withdraw the money. Maybe I should look into a US credit card. I haven't put any money in it yet, I opened it only a few days ago

@@Meandhim that's what I did! I think it's the best. I'm going to wait a bit to see if it goes down and just keep putting money there on good days. Hopefully it doesn't keep going up. This is not as fun as gambling at the casino! haha This is where I'm monitoring it http://www.canadianforex.ca/currency-converter/usd/cad/72c67750/false

same here. We might have to cut down on some things. Let's hope for the best ladies!

is anyone else cringing at the price of the dollar right now (i need a crying emoticon here). I'm really hoping it goes up before the payment deadline! We didn't think of paying before because we were probably going to change things on the wedding. We should have been paying that instead of the trips!

@@Everly welcome to the club and happy planning!! Now the search begins for your perfect destination and most importantly, the resort. I suggest you go through some of these forums from the destination of your choosing and make with your fiance a short list of the "musts" for your hotel. Then find a travel agent to help you sort through resorts and choose the best one for you. You can also have weddings outside of a resort, so make sure to look into those too if that's an option you'd consider. I sort of wish we had looked into those a bit more before committing to a resort, but oh well. As for travel agents, different ones work closely with different hotels, so they will recommend some over others. This doesn't have so much to do with the fact that they want to make money, but also because they will be able to find a better deal for you from hotels that they work with a lot, so you benefit too! I suggest you speak with different ones and see what they have to offer you and then go from there oh my goodness!! I couldn't even imagine paying that much for a wedding. Over here in Calgary, the average price is probably about 15-20K and that's for a simple, nothing fancy, wedding. Although I know people who would probably spend much more. That's how much it cost for some of my friends.

That's very strange because I thought they shipped here. Maybe something happened and they can't right now. I haven't ordered from them but I was kind of window shopping for things haha Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've heard there's some nice chapels in playa del Carmen. It might be worth checking that route out. Get married offsite and then either have a reception in the hotel or offsite as well. If your reception will be offsite as well your guests can stay where they choose. For us it was important to be close to the city and the nightlife that's why the riviera maya (the corridor) was out right away. We have a lot of young people coming a we want to party! Haha. We started with cancun in mind but ended up booking jn playa. I really don't regret the decision even though we've never been there . We actually considered gran caribe too! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Aww she looks super cute. I like the sleeve version a bit more too but they're both cute [emoji4] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you for the reviews. I find the timeline really helpful. I'm trying to figure mine out. I loved your thank you cards. That's kind of what I had in mind for ours Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I ended up cutting a lot of things from our OOT bags. We had sunglasses and about 4 small items for each person. Now we have sunglasses for everyone and sarongs for the ladies and money clips/thin wallets for the men to bring things to the beach. I doubt the budget will allow us for anything else in each bag but I'm ok with that. We're also skipping the programs. The hotel actually provides simple ones included in the fee for our ceremony venue so we'll use that. They're nothing fancy but like you said, it's just a waste of money and paper. We are doing a seating chart however because I think it will be less chaotic. We have almost 50 guests though [emoji6] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I would say it is more expensive to buy flights and accommodations separately rather than getting a package but since there are no packages over there they didn't really have much of a choice. I would definitely ask both TAs if they can work together and put people under the same grouping so that you can still get the perks such as free people, etc. I'm actually using one of those free people to bring my friend from Argentina. She just has to pay for her flight but had I not gotten her to book with the group I couldn't use that perk to help her out. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@@deecol that's right. Neither Argentina or Colombia has package vacations so they couldn't have worked with a TA from there to get better packaged pricing anyway, but it's different in the UK so it might be worth looking into. We're going to Playa del Carmen

We have some guests from Colombia and Argentina and it was the same for us, our travel agent could only help us with their land arrangements but they have to take care of the air. Maybe talk with a TA from the UK and see whether she/he would be able to help you with both land and air and then compare prices. You might have to split your guest list into two, working with two different TAs or it might be cheaper to get your Canadian TA to book all the land for the UK people and just get each person to find the flights on their own. We used the later choice because no one in Argentina or Colombia had prices that far out so we couldn't compare prices and decided to play it safe.

I was doing some research as to what bustle would work better with my gown and I came across this lovely blog from a seamstress. She has some great tips, from "when is the right time to buy my gown" to what you should bring to your fittings. I thought it might be useful for a lot of us Happy planning! https://alterationsbychristy.wordpress.com/

lucky you! I try not to think about how much mine will cost hahah. I also don't believe that people don't care about the bustle, I've seen ugly bustles and it can ruin the dress completely. I guess if they don't care they should!

the pictures look great! I kind of wish I had done more research on outside wedding venues but too late now. Your wedding looked like a lot of fun!

I've stayed in cancun at the Riu hotels and grand Parnassus and haven't seen much seaweed, you'd think it almost doesn't pile up overnight because the beach was always spotless Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@@calgarybride2015 That's awful about your dad but hopefully he can still enjoy the week! I'm glad you're having a good time, best of luck on the wedding tomorrow! I'm excited, so I can't even imagine how you feel! haha

Try not to get too bummed out. Those who answer right away are pretty likely to say no because it's very clear that they just can't make it, for any number of reasons. You will get to the yeses , some might be waiting for prices, or being able to get those days off work, or crunching numbers to see if they can make it and they will respond, just not as quickly as the flat out "no's". I was getting pretty bummed out when some people said no too (those were the first responses we got) and I thought "no one will come!" but as it turns out, most said yes and booked with our TA and everything went quite smoothly. Then I started reframing people not coming, I thought about the money we'd save by having less people! (I feel awfully cheap saying that but hey, it was the only positive side I could find! haha) Like others have mentioned, at least you're getting definitive answers, many of us have people who are still stringing us along, not sure if they're coming or not, which push you to leave a big chunk of the planning until the last minute. When it comes to invitations it's such a touchy subject. I sent everyone invitations, to my fiance's disapproval, even if they said no. When I gave it to them I told them that I knew they said no but I know some people like to keep invitations so I was giving them one anyway. that way they didn't feel pressured but they also didn't felt let out. Some people get offended if they don't get an invite (even after declining) and others don't care so it's kind of a guessing game there. I played it on the safe side but I know many brides don't send invites to the no's and everyone was cool with that.

@@MissJen3 I do the same. I have it at home because my fiance and i don't live together yet so sometimes I'll try it on again and all my doubts are gone. Another thing that helped is that every time I see a dress online and I'm like, "oh i love that one", it looks like mine hahha. The only thing that bummed me out the other day, my fiance was trying to get me to tell him what the dress looked like (he's so impatient he doesn't like surprises haha) and I wouldn't budge but I asked him what he thought it looked like. He said, "well I don't think it will be puffy, think it's going to be tight and with little sleeves". HA! nothing like my dress. I know that he wanted something tight on me because I have a pretty big bum and he likes it hahah but I tried on mermaid dresses and I liked them, but I didn't love them. I liked them more for the fact that I knew he was going to love it, rather than me loving them (if that makes any sense at all). Now I know that I love the dress, but I hope he does too

@@rachelia160 I'm so excited to be the bride for a whole week too! haha

Congrats on the engagement! I also didn't have to convince my FI of a DW, but he had to convince me! hahah. I knew for years that he wanted a DW but I also wanted the big flair of a traditional wedding and up until that point the only DW weddings I had seen were really really small and with a dinner at a restaurant as a reception. I definitely did not want that! I also felt really guilty about making people pay that much to come to our wedding and was worried no one would come. As I started doing research I found that there are many options, you can stick to the small wedding without a private reception, but there are many hotels that let you experience that "traditional wedding" with the amazing backdrop of somewhere tropical. The costs seem a bit cheaper, although by the time you factor in the travel and transporting decorations there, etc. you could have a wedding locally for about the same price, although maybe not as fancy. What really makes DW cheaper is that you have less guests. I guess it also depends on which hotel you choose, some are more affordable than others. What you said is true, you are spending all that money, but you get to spend a week with your guests having a blast! As for the guest, most of our friends surprised me, most of the people we invited are actually coming! Which is great! When we got engaged I started to run the idea by our friends, and most of them said they would totally come, and they stuck to that! My fiance didn't want to get married in Canada because he thinks it's depressing that you plan for everything to be outside and that day is like 10 degrees and your plans get ruined. It's true, weather seems to be much more unpredictable here than over there. Technically it could rain there too, but let's hope for the best haha. In the end, I kind of caved in because I knew it was important to him and he wouldn't budge on the topic, whereas I was more flexible and I was happy with a DW as well as a local one. He always wanted to get married by the ocean and I love the ocean too, so it's not like I didn't like the idea, I just had my reservations. The planning is way easier in some regards. I think I would go insane if I had to plan a local wedding! The hardest part is being so far away and not being able to see things and speak with people personally but you kind of get used to that. I'd say if you're a control freak, it might not be a great idea, but if you're willing to put details of the wedding in the hands of people who do this for a living, then it's a lot less stressful. I don't know if that helps at all. Maybe ask him about what is keeping him from accepting the idea of a DW? My fears were sort of irrational and easily addressed. The biggest selling point for me was the fact that for the same money we're having a much nicer wedding over there. I did struggle a lot with the guilt for a while, but that has passed now. Most of our guests are booked and now I'm stoked to spend a week with everyone! Maybe his concerns can be easily addressed and he'll be more likely to accept the idea