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Past brides & fellow forum users, I have a few questions: - I heard the resort offers activities during the day (such as wine tasting, cocktail making, etc.). Does anyone have a picture of a past activities schedule that you can share with me (or any recollection of activities schedule would be great)? - Dinner reservations: I have decided not to pay for Royal Service. Does anyone know if it is difficult to make reservations for dinner on the day of or does it have to be booked way ahead of time? - Anyone have the resort room reservation's email address that you are willing to share with me? Thank you so much...

I was size 6 and dropped down to size 2 over the years. I have learned some things during this time: - Muscles eat fat - Muscles need protein to grow - therefore, eat protein and weight train (heavy weights) to feed your muscles - No, you will not look too muscular/bulky if you weight train and eat balanced, healthy foods - Intake of calories < Output of calories = calorie deficit = loss in either fat or muscles (depends on how much carb vs. protein you eat) - 70-80% of what you eat = how you look - Muscles weight more than fat! Don't look at the scale as the only measurement - Drink water - You need carbs to live - just watch out for overloading on good carbs and definitely watch out for bad carbs - It takes time to change habits. Stick with it and you will see results

@@calgarybride2015, you should go! It is soooo fun! @@acw271011 Thanks!!! Pre-Wedding Photos Part II We already had pre-wedding photos in Kelowna...and because of our hectic schedule during whole wedding week, we asked Gonzalo take our TTD photos prior to our wedding. And so, while our guests went to Chichen Itza, me in the least expensive gown and Art in his least expensive outfit, was picked up by my makeup artist to do the consultation. Had my hair and make up done up at their home and then around 3pm Gonzalo came by my makeup artist's place to pick us up and off we went to a beach for some pictures. Here are some of the beautiful shots that Gonzalo took for us: Gonzalo took many more pictures, and I am only posting a small portion of what he gave us during the pre-wedding photos. We were SO LUCKY since right when we are done with the pictures, it started pouring for 2 hours!

Activites Arthur and I planned some activities for everyone to do everyday. We set up a couple of tours to snorkel cenotes, hike up mayan pyramids, and swim with the turtles, etc. Unfortunately, Arthur and I had to skip Chitchen Itza (while all our guests went) because we have to do our pre-wedding photoshoot (will post later). We set up a bunch of silly games for everyone to play. At the end we awarded scratch and win tickets: Walked out to 5th Avenue to do some shopping: Scuba diving: We initially planned to go to Cocobongo on Thursday (the 2nd night there). However, they said the show is sold out So we had to go on the night after our wedding (and that morning we had a super early underwater photoshoot), which is the last night before we had to fly off. Having said all that, it was SUPER fun. Arthur does not enjoy clubs, but he LOVES Cocobongo. Arthur was on stage for Gangnam Style, while I was on stage with him and for a few other songs. To be continued...

HELLO FELLOW BDW BRIDES! I'M BACK!!! I apologize for abandoning my journal and this site for so long. It had been a very, very busy stressful time right after the wedding. I was not able to take a breather until now. I have a lot to catch up, but let's start where I left off... FLYING OFF Two days before flying off, I took the Greyhound from Kamloops to Vancouver to gather myself, groom and pack. I had hair and nail appointments which took a day to finish. I went through my list of things to pack and then went through the wedding things to pack. In the morning, the limo party bus that we booked to pick up our guests arrived on time. My mom and my brothers were late by 15 mins, and another group was also late, but we arrived at the airport with still time remaining. Sunwing's carry on weight limit is very, very low. Most of us had to stuff things in our luggages to meet the requirement. The plane got off a little late (after they defrost the whole plane) and we headed out to the sun! LANDING IN THE SUN We arrived at the airport and we were greeted with a private bus from Sunwing for our wedding party. RIU PALACE RIVIERA MAYA We requested the wedding consultants to help us arrange a welcome dinner party for us. Because of the flight delay, we were late to our dinner. The wedding consultant happened to be at the lobby and was able to arrange with the buffet to keep the welcome dinner party area sectioned off for us. I don't know about other wedding couples, but Arthur and I are always the first ones at any location and last to leave to ensure all our guests are taken care of. The room assignments took a little while and Arthur and I were the last ones to leave the lobby. Welcome Dinner party: Buffet area: During the dinner time Arthur and I talked about the events that we have arranged for the week and just did a Q&A session with everyone. We also handed out the Spanish 101 pocket guide at this time. After the dinner, some people retired back to room, while others (like me and Arthur) are out and about at the bars: More pictures of the resort: Botafogo: Yashima: Best server was in this restauarant...and the best thing is...THEY SERVE WARM SAKE! To be continued...

@@acw271011 Thanks! Finally counting down. Work is really busy these days so I don't have much time to think about the wedding. I'm travelling back to Vancouver on the 28th at night. Hope the Coquihalla is clear that night. Between 29th to 2nd, I have appointments left, right and centre. Oh, yeah, and I gotta pack as well. I don't think I will relax until I get to the resort's bar.

Toronto has much more choices than Western part of Canada. To give you some perspective, our package with Sunwing is $1,608 per person all in for 7 days in the resort flying from Vancouver, while my friends in Calgary paid $1,628 per person and my friend that is coming from Toronto paid $1,455. It depends on your group's comfort zone in terms of travelling. With over 3/4 of our guests having never travelled to all-inclusive and/or Mexico, it takes a bit of convincing talks before we get buy-ins. We talked to the people that we really wanted to be in our wedding to get a sense of what their budget is before we started seeking out a resort. Yes, it is our wedding and my fiance and I are willing to pay much more for the grandest of the grand resorts, but it is a time for us to celebrate with people we love and we had to keep in mindful of their budgets. Our range of pricing after talking to family and friends were $1,500 to $1,800. With this in mind and other criteria that we set in our minds, we were able to select a resort by process of elimination. Hope this helps.

Centrepieces Setup Walkthrough Before I went back to Kamloops on Sunday morning (Nov 2), I insisted on having a walkthrough with the centrepieces setup. Going along our theme of 1920s/Great Gatsby and with our wedding being so close to Christmas, we initially thought of having manzanita branches with a tall cylindrical vase filled with Christmas ornaments as centrepieces. The vase will also be filled with some small battery operated lights. We will also have candle holders as side pieces. The candle holders will be filled with pearls and diamonds. We will have mirrors on the bottom of each piece to throw lights around. Our idea sounded good, but we were very concerned with how we will be able to protect and carry these manzanita branches to Mexico. We thought perhaps we can purchase them from Mexico. We reached out to a few vendors in Mexico, but they either do not have the branches or they charge an arm or leg for rental (About $230 for just the branches and without the vases). We purchased the ornaments (Superstore - $25 for the whole container), tall vases (Homesense - $15 each), larger LED lights ($8 for 2 packs - Ikea), candle holders (Army & Navy - $2 each) after Christmas 2013. We bought the mini LED lights ($10 for 2 packs - eBay), the faux diamonds ($2 per pack - Dollarama), the Strings of faux pearl ($18 - AliExpress) and Strings of faux crystals ($18 - AliExpress) around Spring/Summer time 2014. By now it is August, 2014 and we are still not sure of what to do with the branches. I did my usual and went back to my drawing board. I need something that is easy to pack and light to carry, tall (because we like tall and big centrepieces), and works with our theme. And then I found it: ~OSTRICH FEATHERS (queue in epiphany sounds)~ Yes, they will work. Yes, yes, yes! I found an Ostrich feather seller from eBay and bought 100 feathers ($140) for 20 black and 80 white feathers. We will divide them amongst the three centrepieces. We used floral foam as the base (DollarTree $1.25, we cut 1 block into 3 pieces), and--I kid you not--clear straws to extend the length of the feathers. Anyways, back to our walkthrough. We didn’t turn on the lights, but here is generally how we want it to look like: Please ignore the pink tissue paper. We are trying to figure out how to cover the floral foam. We will buy gold or silver tissue paper to cover the base. Please also ignore all the stickers on the candle holders. They are in the process of removal. We are bringing a few picture frames and have some pictures of us around the table. The large frame will have “Share The Love” picture in gold (the picture is a draft copy):

The offset brooch design is pretty. If you like it, but is concerned about the movement, I would suggest using some sort of adhesive to make sure it stays in place. Some brides, I have heard, use eyelash glue to keep things besides eyelashes in place. 18 bags?!?! OMG...That would've cost another plane ticket! Kelowna is nice, but again, smaller hospital. The best hospitals are where all the best surgeons are...and they tend to stay in the larger cities. Yeah...aside from the cold winters, Alberta's pay is def to be envied by us BC'ers

@calgarybride2015 Wow. That's a lot of bags! What a coincidence! My fiance is a nurse in an orthopedic ward. His workplace offers the program for $11, so you never know! He is looking into getting a job in the local hospital, but since it is a smaller hospital there are not too many full-time position openings. Further, I'm not sure if it is a good idea for him to move to Kamloops career-wise since most of the surgeries and bigger cases go to Vancouver instead. I guess we will just see how this goes for now. @tygrrlily Hmmm....mine has everything from Access to Lync to Word. I'm not sure about Mac since I'm a Windows user. Sorry I'm not too much help with that

Beautiful planning! Congrats!

@@calgarybride2015 Great timeline! Is it simple, yet thoughtful and cute Yes, yes, yes! Publisher saved my (wedding) life. I have done every single printable project on Publisher. Sure, it is not as feature-packed as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw, but Publisher has most of the features us common-folk DIYers need. Check if your work has an employee program where you can buy the full Microsoft Office Suite for $10-$20. My fiance's workplace has an agreement with Microsoft and so we bought MS Office 2013 suite for $12. Check it here. I got something from VS as well! It's kind of hard to use it since my fiance and I don't even live under the same roof these days. The maracas are so cute! Are you planning to distribute them prior flying or are you have a separate luggage for all your wedding things?

Ice wine is lovely. And I agree, it is great when taken in small portions. It is easier on the wallet, too...

@@tygrrlily Thanks! Is it too late to copy the stamps? Have you printed them? You have no idea how much happier I am now that I can parts of my den that I haven't seen for almost a year. Trust me, you will be happier too once the OOT bags are given away. Your wedding is not too far away from mine! This is the final push time. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Go, go, go! We put so much effort in these bags. They better enjoy and use them! Yeah, last week was quite brutal. With a new job and all those things that happened during the weekend, I slept like a newborn soon after dinner every night. I even skipped my workout routine for a whole week! What other projects do you have left to do?

@@acw271011 My recovery was pretty good. I still have some problems breathing, but I hope it will get better in the future. OMG! I LOVE sweeter/off-dry wines. If you like inexpensive, sweeter wines, try the moscato from Barefoot (California). Have you tried German wines? They tend to have a lot of Rieslings. We love Balthasar Ress, Dr. Loosen When we visit the wineries in Niagara region, we fell in love with Palatine Hills' ice & dessert wines. The Okanagan region (Kelowna) has a lot more wine than Thompson region (Kamloops). We really love sweeter wines as well and so we love Hillside Winery, The View Winery, Dirty Laundry Winery, and St. Hubertus Winery that are around Okanagan.

I thought about videography. I asked all my friends who had it done how many times they rewatched it, and the general consensus was: 3 times in the past 5 years. I purchased videos from our scuba diving experience before and I have only watched it once after I bought it (2 years ago). So....yah....maybe I'll just ask one of my guests to hold my camera and video it. Lol. Good enough.

Most of my vendors requested half the payment now and then the other half by the day of the service being rendered. I have 2 vendors that requested full payment before the product and service are rendered, and they stipulate that the fees are non-refundable. It is definitely nerve racking experience. I mean with a hotel and airlines, we can buy insurance in the event of any mishap. Perhaps I don't know the wedding industry that well, I think it is fair to ask me for half the cost prior to the day of, but why do I have to blindly trust these vendors and pay for everything before I get the product/service? Just because it is customary and that's how it is in the industry? No matter how much research was done the risk is still high, especially when they are more than 1,000 miles away. It is not like they are certified and I can look for them via professional associations (like doctors, lawyers and accountants). All I can say is I'm glad I'm planning to only marry once in my life. Lol.

Bridesmaids and Groomsmen Attire Our bridesmaids each received one of these dresses from Dressbarn. About $80 CAD (on sale). Our groomsmen each received a suit from Topman. About $130 CAD. Tie from Kenneth Cole. About $15 CAD (on sale). We have informed them that what they plan to wear footwear-wise is totally up to them. I think my bridesmaids just went to Metrotown and bought themselves a pair of sandals. I have no idea what the heck the guys will wear in the sand. I just said good luck trying to figure that one out.

Wow...that's pricey.

@@calgarybride2015 Thanks! I'm just glad I'm done. That's all. Lol I couldn't find really nice shimmer paper from Michaels or Staples. So I ended up buying paper online. @@acw271011 Thanks! I'm not at all pro at this stuff, but I'm trying to save a few bucks. We went to a few printing shops to see how much it would cost to have the pages printed and cut, it would've cost us $250-$300. And that is just for the printing and cutting. I still have to make the book based on their printer & cutting machine's margins (the bleed area), etc. I just don't foresee any of our guests keeping this document after our wedding. So why waste money on things that are not a keepsake? Whenever I have a free weekend, I am on the computer typing up the passport and creating new stamps. The passport, to me, is like all the other parts of wedding planning. It is going to give you headaches, but it is so worth it at the end when it is done! At the end the passport costs me just the paper I had to buy from Papers & More and I learned so much about Publisher. @@AmorDeMiVida Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions and I will try to answer them for you. @@kmk2016 Yeah, they are pros at these passports things! Using Adobe is much more versatile but harder to learn and use at first.

I didn't make a program since most guests will lose them and they ended up asking us anyways.

I am planning to carry 3 tall glass vases. I was planning to just stuff them with socks and then wrap bubble wrap and clothes on the outside.

I'm glad to hear your recovery is going quite well! I had my surgery last year and I know how you are feeling. I hope you have the speediest of recoveries.

More DIYs: Passport to Riviera Maya, Bookmarks, Tumbler Inserts, Luggage Tags, Keycard Holder Inserts, and Something Special for You Inserts DIY Passport to Riviera Maya Almost 90% of our guests (including ourselves) have never been to Mexico before. We wanted give our guests as much information as possible. This is one of the bigger DIY projects. I first wrote out an outline of the things I wanted to include in the booklet. Second, I type out all the information I wish to include based on my outline on word. After that, I conceptualize how many pages I will need to get all the information in on Publisher. I then create a Publisher file to fit all the information. Since I wanted to print double-sided in a booklet format, I have to make sure the text placements make sense. In Publisher, I created Master pages for the background and the cutting outline. I then type in the headings and make sure the words fit into the small booklet pages. I designed it so that 1 letter size page can fit 4 booklet pages. I had to finish the final touches on the Publisher file when I’m already living in Kamloops because we didn’t finalize the dates on the special events page until after I moved. I uploaded the file on to Google drive so that my fiancé can print the pages in Vancouver. We purchased our paper and cardstock a while back from Papers & More. I know my fiancé is not the craftiest person so I tried to explain to him how to properly score and cut the papers so that the booklet pages align, etc., etc. I advised him to print one booklet and finish the whole process of cutting and stapling the pages together before printing all others out. He didn’t do as I advised, of course. So some pages had to be reprinted and paper got wasted. He had a hard time cutting and aligning the papers. A part of my perfectionist side cringed (and cried a little inside) when I saw some misalignment, but I really didn’t have time to fix it when I went home this past Halloween weekend. I had to keep telling myself that guests will love whatever we gave them and they won’t see the minor defects. Sample of some pages: DIY Bookmarks We found a tutorial that gave us ideas on how to make some inexpensive and easy-to-make bookmarks for our guests. We thought it will be funny to add some cheesy pick up lines that aligns with books or guests’ professions. For example, “You had me at Page 1”, “Baby, you are such a page turner”, “I hope you know CPR, because you take my breath away!” Instead of cloth for the heart portion, we used scrape book paper. We used our 1 of the 3 holes in the 3 hole puncher to punch the ribbon hole. We bought some ribbons from Dollarama to loop it and complete the look. My fiancé, again, tested my perfectionist side. The edges misaligned and the edges were glued only on certain areas. Obviously, my fiancé was overlooking these details. I had time to clean this project up (and frankly it was done worse than the passports) so I sat there and cleaned up the edges and re-glued them. DIY Survival kit Labels I used a similar label as other BDW brides, but I used Publisher instead of Powerpoint. I also changed the color to match our theme. One side of the label is white background with black letters, while the other side is black background with white letters. We printed on cardstock purchased from Target about a year ago. DIY Tumbler Inserts I used a similar insert as other BDW brides again. I used Publisher instead of Powerpoint. DIY Luggage Tags We had extra gold cardstock left from the passports and I decided to make tags in gold paper. DIY Keycard Holder Inserts I used a similar insert as other BDW brides again. I used Publisher instead of Powerpoint. Each Letter sized paper can make 8 tags. DIY Something Special for You Inserts My fiancé just decided to make this for our bridal party that has extra items in their OOT baskets. Props to him for conceptualizing and seeing the project through. That's it for now. I will post more items tomorrow.

Oct 31 to Nov 2: Halloween/Birthday Party, Convocation & Dinner Party, Dance Rehearsal As mentioned in the previous post, I had a very jam packed weekend (Oct 31 to Nov 2). My fiance’s birthday happens to land on Halloween so it is the perfect time to throw annual bday/costume party. Since I now live in Kamloops, I have to allow time to travel back to Vancouver to see my family and friends. October 31: My supervisor was nice enough to let me leave early on Friday, Oct 31 so that I can celebrate my fiance's birthday. I worked early in the morning (6:30am) because I still have a lot of things to finish at work. I got off work at 10:30am and took the taxi to Kamloops Greyhound station. I arrived at Coquitlam Greyhound at 4pm and the first thing after my fiancé picked me up was to go to have my eyebrows threaded for $5. We went home and I started dealing with the OOT baskets that we were planning to hand out tomorrow. We picked the Halloween theme this year to be slumber party because it is easy and fun. We asked everyone to bring some type of Asian food. We had Thai, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Taiwanese food. November 1: We wanted to provide a nice dinner for our bridal party. We entertained the idea of having dinner at a restaurant, but it is quite expensive. We decided to have the dinner in our party room downstairs and so everyone can walk around, mingle, talk, and play some pool. We searched and decided on a caterer named Emelle’s in Vancouver. My fiancé asked the caterers to come by at 6:45pm and the guests to come by at 6:30pm on November 1. I graduated from my accounting designation and, of course, the convocation had to happen the same day as our dinner party. With my fiancé, one of my bridesmaid, and my mom being shift workers, we have no other choice than have our dinner party the same day as the convocation. The convocation took longer than we expected. We arrived back home at 6:10pm. The caterers were already downstairs waiting for us. We had to bring our things down. I brought stuff down and then started decorating and putting things together. My fiancé brought things down and went back upstairs to change. Guests started showing up before we had time to set up. I’m a very hands-on-I-can-do-it-myself kind of girl, and I just wanted to set up the party room myself. But with my fiancé being MIA for the longest time, the guests now stepped in and said they will help me put up the decorations. I asked some guests to fluff up the flower pom poms that I made myself and tape them around the room. My fiancé finally came downstairs after 15-20 mins. He said he had problems tying his tie (Sigh…). He began setting up our slide show on the TV. We scanned pictures from our baby stage to university. We also included our pre-wedding photos in the slide show so that guests can look at it. Once we finish setting up everything, my fiancé and I made a quick speech and invited everyone to enjoy the night and be merry. The food was pretty good. However, we found the food portions seemed small. Some of our guests were still hungry after dinner and were eating chips. After the slide show repeated several times over, we changed the channel to Canucks. Some guests ended up watching the game, while others played pool. The party room unfortunately does not have an oven. My brothers and I went upstairs to warm up the blueberry tarts. When we came back down, some guests had to leave early. We handed them their OOT baskets and said our farewells, and see-you-on-Dec-3’s. As the night comes to an end, our remaining guests helped with cleaning up and putting away tools for us. At the end, we once again gave thanks and the OOT baskets were handed out to everyone. We gave a brief explanation and details on the OOT baskets. I also said to our guests that, “Should you be a forgetful person, just don’t open the OOT basket. Stuff the whole thing into your suitcase, and you will be fine.” November 2: In the morning we had another rehearsal for a couple of hours with our dance instructor (more about this in future posts). In the afternoon, we completed a walkthrough with our centrepieces (more about this in future posts). I packed as much and as quickly as I can and I am off to Greyhound travelling back to Kamloops at 7pm. I got back to Kamloops at midnight and went to work early the next morning.