Sehausle

Quote: Originally Posted by kay2015 Yes sometimes ppl closest to you will surprise you but it's your day and don't let anything or anyone ruin it for you. Enjoy your day Thanks ladies! It won't ruin it, it was shocking at first though but I have a great group of people who CAN make it : )

Were having our Wedding at Dreams Tulum in Mexico and will be there 8 days...6 mos later we leave for our honeymoon in Europe for two wees Spain, Italy, & France!

I had almost no one RSVP- I just had people RSVP through our website though because I felt it was a waste of money (thankyou BDW!) but you could always wait for people to RSVP through the website and then send out food choices just to those that RSVP. You could even state that on your website- "please RSVP by________ we will use this list to send out the menu selection" I think the best advice was to take it in stride when people you expected to be there cannot. I was very upset that my best friend of 24 years was unable to make the wedding. I was her MOH (spent $200 on a dress I couldn't afford at 21yrs of age) and traveled to her wedding (though I stayed with relatives for free) ...I have also made it home for two of her kids births and a christening. I felt alot of resentment but I get it- she's a mom and things are different. It was tough to come to the realization that she wouldn't make it but I intend to focus on the guests that actually will be there !

Quote: Originally Posted by GingerJ228 I know!!! It's so strange.... you would think that all of our friends would be happy that they didn't have the added expense. Which is one of the reasons we decided not to have a bridal party. The reasoning "that you just couldn't choose because everyone is equally important" went overall really well with my crow. It is the truth which helps, but it also makes people feel important and acknowleges that if you did have to chose a bridal party they would be included

Yea I think these can go either way...some are a little too creepy/sexual for me but some of the ones in the cenote are awesome! If it were me i'd buy a second dress because I would never do that after spending thousands of dollars on a dress. Also a note of caution, people have drowned from their dress -so if yours is big and poofy and you're in water be extra careful. I decided to forgo this but it's just a personal preference.

Quote: Originally Posted by lulumelona Hi Sehausle, Just a person I need! I hope you can help in excursion. I have a wedding in June 2014, and want to know what kind of excursions are there for all of us. We are thinking as a thank you gift, we can have an excursion for all our group (we have a a little group, around 25-30 people). Another ideas we have is to have a separate excursion for adult groups (parents & relatives) and for younger crowds. From you experience, do you have ideas? Thanks!!! We LOVED Xcaret! Funny story- we went there completely by accident. We tried to go to Xplor which is very close and the bus just dropped us off and drove off too fast- but it was closed (it was a Sunday- work of caution, check hours). We ended up walking the 2 miles down the road to the attraction I just happened to notice was close by (Xcaret). It turned out to be an awesome day! This is a place for everyone (all ages, all activity levels) - they have tons of amazing animals, swimming with dolphins (costs extra), snorkling through cenotes, a mayan village, shows, music, museum, rotating scenic tower, aquarium etc. etc. there is literally too much to do in one day. I won't say it's super cheap- but besides the ruins they are all about the same price range (80-100 USD) I have also been scuba diving in Cozumel which was great as well. The ruins are very cool but I could see kids getting bored after awhile (we went to Coba which is neat because it's the only pyramid that you can walk up...but it is VERY steep.) I will say this would be the most cost-effective outing. (8-10 USD to get in + ~30 if you want to add a private tour). My least favorite excursion we did was shopping at playa del carmen. It was dirty, hot, and basically every vendor sold the same things over and over again. This is very much the "city" area but I prefer the jungle and serenity of Riviera Maya.... we did visit a Mega which is their Walmart (on steroids) which was kind of cool...but I would have skipped it in a heart beat for any of the other places. This year were doing Rio Secreto which looks really awesome & the ruins at Tulum/Tulum Beach. Good luck - you are going to love Palladium - I thought it was very scenic especially at night- don't miss the spa, even if you don't get a service the pool is awesome. I also LOVED feeding some of the cute little animals around the resort. I will say it was worth the upgrade to stay in the Royal Suites- if you haven't done so already.

We leave October 17th.. but I have kept pretty much everything in our office so packing shouldn't be too difficult. I've also started a spread sheet to-do list to try and remember the little things. My Three biggest fears: 1) Illness - I did get a prescription of Cipro and I've made goodie bags for our guests with tums and other stomach meds. 2) Weather- As you ladies mentioned - nothing we can do about that! Let's just pray it's all ok. 3) Music- We hired an outside guitarist and he has been terrible with emailing back (to be fair he had hip replacement surgery and said that he was ok to still play our ceremony...but his surgery could be the reason for the slow response) but I have emailed him three times in the last month just to confirm he knows how to play our song choices so I could send him sheet music and haven't heard a peep...

Quote: Originally Posted by RachelHolmes21 Go gorgeous! Thank you so much ! It's Allure 8800

Quote: Originally Posted by Murr1026 Hezmshaw, The photos are from the resort photographer. We had Simone, he was a nice French man, very easy going! I was so stressed about the photos as well but my now husband made a good point. You can spend so much money on photos for an outside photographer, pay the outside vendor fee but at the end of the day, everyone in our group is going to be taking photos, even ones that the resort guy might not catch. For the photos that matter, the resort photographer did an amazing job! They even have packages to upgrade what you get in your package. We had the Ultimate package and the video was cute, they ended up printing us 54 photos and they are 6x8... not 4x6 or 5x7. We were VERY happy with the resort photographer, glad we didnt drop an EXTRA $2000 on an outsider. If you are doing trash the dress, hire an outside photographer! In the ultimate package, we got the choice of the gold menu. We had some gluten free and vegetarian guests and they got to pick of seperate menus than the main one. For the majority of the guests, they got bruschetta, salad with vinegarette, steak and shrimp with tiramisu for dessert. The gluten free and vegetarian guests got to pick from a menu individually. It was a great selection and it was delicious all around! Well presented, delicious food! We started doing the speeches between the food courses and it flowed really well, then it didn't cut into our DJ time. We got up to do pictures with the miriachi band and do some mingling of our tables and the guys removed all the food before the DJ started. So didn't get to finish my steak but thats ok! My husbands family is very quiet. We still did the dinner and dancing. Although we were supposed ot be out on the beach, it was raining so we moved into the convention centre prior to the rain. We had a sit down dinner, dancing and everything! The nice thing was we could all eat together, have some speeches and tequila shots and enjoy being there together. Then peple either left on their own accord or got wasted and had to be driven back to their rooms! When all was said and done, we finished our party at 10 pm with an impromptu cake fight and it was a forced shut down by the staff. Then we all went and partied by the bar across from coco cafe! The live music is more like the resort DJ and its not every night. Sometimes he is playing outside or in the lounge, sometimes is karaoke or nothing, depending on the weather. There is a show in the square at coco cafe every night and that sometimes runs until 10 then the DJ doesn't start until 11 when he is playing in the lounge. Yeah we went in the low season/hurricane season and we had decent weather. Things pick up again at the end of October. We had 2 days of rain with all our guests and then our last 3 days after everyone left was rainy and windy. It was nice to relax without all the running around though. We found it hard to manage seeing everyone but after a couple days i let it go. I never got to have dinner with just our parents or just the wedding party. The nice thing about doing this resort wedding stuff is that it's your vacation as much as it is theirs. So do your thing, and people may join. We started off by usually all having breakfast around the same time, not planned. Then if you were just chillin by the beach that day word got around. We usually had all 30 of us in the pool or on the beach playing volleyball and swimming by 11 AM. Then if people were going to the ruins or Playa, they went. Sometimes there was a small group and they all went together. Most people asked about what plans for dinner were and showed up at dinner in small groups. I hear about people planning an ENTIRE week of activities for their group, we didnt want to do this and it worked out great. You and everyone else understood they were welcome to join in for daily stuff/small trips but it wasn't a pressured to do it type of thing. One thing to keep in mind is that even though your flight is sold out, not everyone will be going to your resort unless its chartered flight for just your group! There were only 25 of our group on the full plane and we were the only 25 going to our resort! Regarding my post on Dukoral, if any of your guests are getting gastro issues, do not let them take pepto or immodium. They need to get the virus out of their system, not hold it in! Or get a prescription of Cipro, it will help at first signs of gastro issues! Hope you have a great wedding, good luck! Mary How was the hair/makeup? Did you bring your own makeup? Did it stay well?

Quote: Originally Posted by hezmshaw Wow thanks for the review!! I'm really feeling good with all these recent reviews.. no serious issues, everything went as planned... so I'm going to try real hard not to stress until November Are these photos the ones the resort photographer took?? I like them, everyone's all "you gotta get your own photographer" and I'm like.. nah... I'll just roll the dice, I am spending ENOUGH on this wedding as it is, I'm sure the resort photographer is good. And judging by your photos, I'm right What menu did you pick for your reception? Was the food good?? Your group looks about the same size as mine will be, did you find you had enough time to see everyone but have some alone time too? Did you have a dance after your reception? We aren't going to, we feel it's too small and his family is too shy/chill/reserved to really have fun with that anyway so we're going to play our own music on the beach and then I hear there is a lounge with live music we could check out later - true? I think the hotel will be more full when we go, apparently a lot of the rooms were already sold out a while ago. I know our flight is for sure, so things must pick up in November.. hopefully the restaurants will be open more then. We are also taking the plunge and not hiring a photographer for our wedding . We ended up buying a really nice camera (an investment but it will be ours forever) - for one of our guests to use (she studied photography in class). We have a couple novice photographers in our group too so I expect we will get some good ones!

Quote: Originally Posted by Murr1026 Hezmshaw, The photos are from the resort photographer. We had Simone, he was a nice French man, very easy going! I was so stressed about the photos as well but my now husband made a good point. You can spend so much money on photos for an outside photographer, pay the outside vendor fee but at the end of the day, everyone in our group is going to be taking photos, even ones that the resort guy might not catch. For the photos that matter, the resort photographer did an amazing job! They even have packages to upgrade what you get in your package. We had the Ultimate package and the video was cute, they ended up printing us 54 photos and they are 6x8... not 4x6 or 5x7. We were VERY happy with the resort photographer, glad we didnt drop an EXTRA $2000 on an outsider. If you are doing trash the dress, hire an outside photographer! In the ultimate package, we got the choice of the gold menu. We had some gluten free and vegetarian guests and they got to pick of seperate menus than the main one. For the majority of the guests, they got bruschetta, salad with vinegarette, steak and shrimp with tiramisu for dessert. The gluten free and vegetarian guests got to pick from a menu individually. It was a great selection and it was delicious all around! Well presented, delicious food! We started doing the speeches between the food courses and it flowed really well, then it didn't cut into our DJ time. We got up to do pictures with the miriachi band and do some mingling of our tables and the guys removed all the food before the DJ started. So didn't get to finish my steak but thats ok! My husbands family is very quiet. We still did the dinner and dancing. Although we were supposed ot be out on the beach, it was raining so we moved into the convention centre prior to the rain. We had a sit down dinner, dancing and everything! The nice thing was we could all eat together, have some speeches and tequila shots and enjoy being there together. Then peple either left on their own accord or got wasted and had to be driven back to their rooms! When all was said and done, we finished our party at 10 pm with an impromptu cake fight and it was a forced shut down by the staff. Then we all went and partied by the bar across from coco cafe! The live music is more like the resort DJ and its not every night. Sometimes he is playing outside or in the lounge, sometimes is karaoke or nothing, depending on the weather. There is a show in the square at coco cafe every night and that sometimes runs until 10 then the DJ doesn't start until 11 when he is playing in the lounge. Yeah we went in the low season/hurricane season and we had decent weather. Things pick up again at the end of October. We had 2 days of rain with all our guests and then our last 3 days after everyone left was rainy and windy. It was nice to relax without all the running around though. We found it hard to manage seeing everyone but after a couple days i let it go. I never got to have dinner with just our parents or just the wedding party. The nice thing about doing this resort wedding stuff is that it's your vacation as much as it is theirs. So do your thing, and people may join. We started off by usually all having breakfast around the same time, not planned. Then if you were just chillin by the beach that day word got around. We usually had all 30 of us in the pool or on the beach playing volleyball and swimming by 11 AM. Then if people were going to the ruins or Playa, they went. Sometimes there was a small group and they all went together. Most people asked about what plans for dinner were and showed up at dinner in small groups. I hear about people planning an ENTIRE week of activities for their group, we didnt want to do this and it worked out great. You and everyone else understood they were welcome to join in for daily stuff/small trips but it wasn't a pressured to do it type of thing. One thing to keep in mind is that even though your flight is sold out, not everyone will be going to your resort unless its chartered flight for just your group! There were only 25 of our group on the full plane and we were the only 25 going to our resort! Regarding my post on Dukoral, if any of your guests are getting gastro issues, do not let them take pepto or immodium. They need to get the virus out of their system, not hold it in! Or get a prescription of Cipro, it will help at first signs of gastro issues! Hope you have a great wedding, good luck! Mary Thanks for all of your details -we have our prescription Cipro ready! I am a little nervous as were not having a DJ but we will have some dancers in the crowd so I hope they have something going on Saturday night with music! I am starting to get really excited though! We are not doing events- just a "welcome" happy hour were having everyone meet us at the sugar reef bar friday night and we have a little gift (survival kit) for them and a fun guest book (with mad libs etc.) that has all of our engagement photos , so it will be fun for them to sign.Relaxed, low-key, and free because it's not an official paid-for event. Were not doing one large group dinner but we figure we can all kind of go together and sit near eachother afterward.

Quote: Originally Posted by Looly Hi, I think it would look great on the table, and not too busy at all. Also, where did you order your place cards from? Ok - so you don't think I need placecard holders? I bought my paper products (invites, placecards, menus etc. from Vistaprint).

Hi ladies, we have 21 of us in total and are holding the wedding reception in a wine cellar on-site at our all-inclusive ceremony. I am having trouble with how to arrange our table (one long one). We are keeping all linens white, having several centerpieces together forming one long floral centerpiece down the middle with white candles in small glass holders. My question is I do not have placecard holders - should I just place them directly on the table? I also have menues and starfish wine stopper favors (with customized tags) I was going to place on the table...is that too busy? How would you set it up? (photos welcome). I am looking for an elegant look. Included below is our menu, favor, flowers etc. Actual Menu Place cards (will have caligraphy names written inside) flower color inspiraton Our personalized tags for our favors (we bought the ivory)

I decided to forgo having a wedding party too for several reasons. We are a group of 21 total and I just told my friends and family honestly that I couldn't choose - I'd have half the wedding party up there with me! I have been in weddings before and the cost of a dress on top of my flight and everything else left a very sour taste. I never was able to wear the dress again and sold the originally $200 dress for a mere $20 afterward. I also think the photos tend to get a little cheesy -I would rather have a nice group photo or individual photos than silly poses...but I know I may be alone in that. In the end it saved us hassle, avoided any hurt feelings ( I know it wouldn't have caused any "drama" but people might have felt hurt or less important), it also saved us money - as no additonal bouquets were required or gifts other than favors. We are planning on having my mother stand with me (to hold my bouqet) and help with my dress and my fiances dad stand by him to hold on to the rings. His mother will be giving a reading and my dad will walk me down the aisle. My sisters will also be giving readings (his siblings cannot make the trip unfortunately)... they will act as witnesses for our magistrates ceremony before the wedding. This way all of the immediate family is included somehow at somepoint. I had more than one amazing friend(s) family members approach me regarding the bachelorette party & shower so I wouldn't worry about those things ...they happen with or without a bridal party. Most importantly do what you like - it's your day!

so this was my inspiration (lots of flowers= pricey)on one long table but I found a great way to strech my flowers. I want all light pink, peach, and ivory roses. I am purchasing 4 centerpieces to the tune of $60 a piece plus tax/setup ...yea, not so happy about that...BUT included in my package is flowers on all of the pews so I am going to choose the same flowers and have them transfered to the table for our reception dinner after the wedding to form one long line down the center a la inspiration. I bought clear heavy glass tea light holders and ivory tea lights for like $8 total. I bought some menues and name cards to make it look elegant and personalized and will also include starfish wine favors directly on the table ( our reception is in a wine cellar at the resort). Hopefully it will look really beautiful and $300 for all decor + not having to lug much with me = awesome!

Quote: Originally Posted by Looly Hi everyone, I am a DT bride, getting married in April 2014. I was wondering if anyone has used the DT DJ, and what your thoughts are? Also, did anyone pay for live music for walking down the isle? If so, were you pleased? Thanks! I am hiring an outside guitarist for the ceremony...he is a little slow responding to emails so I am VERY nervous but he is less money even with the +120 resort vendor fee and he has a good reference from the manager where he works. I will let you know how it goes (my wedding is October) and will give you his contact info if you like.

Quote: Originally Posted by traylynn Holy Batman these budgets make me not wanna have a destination wedding. I keep saying lets go to the court house and he wants a big wedding. don't worry - if you want extras it can really add up. If you're looking for a basic ceremony a lot of resorts give it to you free.

Hi ladies - I traveled to Grand Palladium (not for a wedding) but am also planning a wedding at Dreams Tulum currently. If you have questions about GP resort or excursions i'd be happy to help : )

Packing and customs have some limitations & were at an all inclusive which makes getting snacks, food etc. kind of silly since they can get snacks or bottled water for free. Instead, I put together a little (quart sized) survival kit that has some goodies like tissues, mini-lint roller hand santizer, chapstick, sunscreen etc. in it. The idea is they have these toilitiries if they forgot them at home but they could also use them for another trip. I bought a lot on sale and made my own toppers so I spent less than $90 for 24 of them. They are too casual for favors so were handing them out ourselves at our Welcome Happy Hour the day before the wedding when most people arrive. Were also doing little favors too at the wedding so between the two of these things I think that's plenty. We are also asking for no gifts - which should help the financial situation for those spending money to arrive.