vanessav53

I hated the white chair covers and begged my FI to upgrade to the Tiffany chairs and he was pretty flexible with most everything else but we have 80 people coming and it would have been $10/chair and he just basically said NO I found a picture on pinterst. that I'm using as my inspiration instead of tying a bow around the chair. It makes me feel a little better about the white chair covers now.

@lisadra- there is an entire forum for NOW Sapphire brides. In the search box type in NOW SAPPHIRE and you will see a link that says NOW SAPPHIRE formerly paradius. It's about 200 pages of info from other brides. Happy Reading! Also I am getting married at Now sapphire on June 7th so here is some information from your questions above: DO NOT SHIP ANYTHING TO THE RESORT. There are also numerous posts on this forum about shipping to mexico. It is 99% chance it will never make it through customs. What I am doing is bringing down duffel bags ( checking them on the way down) then once they are empty stuff all the duffle bags into one larger bag and only check one bag on the way back. I am trying to be efficient in what I bring down but my entire family is traveling with me so they can each check an extra bag. Another thing to note. You can not have more than $300 of goods in each suitcase so make sure you bring your receipts when you go through customs. Ive' read that since there are so many weddings they usually are good about knowing it's for a wedding and not that you are trying to sell things in mexico but I would have the receipts broken out for each suitcase anyway. As for flowers I am using an outside vendor. They were MUCH cheaper and as long as someone meets her outside the door of the resort you don't have the pay the outside vendor fee. So my friends are going to meet he florist outside the hotel and bring the flowers into the wedding coordinator to be set up. I am going to use the flowers I am given from the divine package but the extra centerpieces I'm going with a n outside florist. Also if you are on a tight budget I've seen beautiful centerpieces that people made themselves. Very simple but quite beautiful. You can click on the forum tab then on the DIY section and type in "centerpieces" and you'll get all sorts of ideas I hope this helps. I'll let you know how it goes when I'm at the airport with all my bags. So many brides have posted abou ttheir experience and they were all positive so I'm not too worried. Let me know what else you need.

I like organza but again it's a personal preference. I felt the satin was too fancy/formal for an ourdoor daytime beach wedding BUT again it's preference!!!

@meganwitt- I"ll PM you the brochures. Not a problem. I just sent the luggage tags for fun. Just to get the guests excited and in the mood for traveling to Mexico! I am also using anel and Jacob from amorcito photography. We booked them for 6 hours as well. My ceremony starts at 4 ( I'm assuming they will arrive 3pm and stay until 9pm. Our reception ends at 10:30 so we will have been dancing,etc. for awhile once they leave at 9pm. I figure there are only so many pictures they can take of our guest drunk on the dance floor! HA We are leaving an hour in between the ceremony and cocktail hour to account for taking pictures,etc. I think that will be perfect that way we don't miss our entire cocktail hour.

@@zeman321 It did take about 2 hours but that was more getting the content/formatting right. It wasn't hard just tedious but my FI and I had fun doing it. I attached pics of our brochure so if you want to zoom in and print out you can use the verbiage/layout if you like it! @@zeman321 If you need me to take a close up picture of the brochure I can. Just PM me.

@@GingerJ228 Don't feel bad the steel pan band that I booked months ago CANCELED due to "personal reasons" for my welcome reception on June 6th so now we are just using a regular band. Such a bummer I was so upset and juan the wedding coordinate was searching high and low for me to find one and had no luck for june 6th I don't know any others as I reached out to 3-4 on my own and never heard back from anyone! Good luck.

Hi Ladies My wedding is 6 weeks away and I'm getting so excited. I completed my pre-travel mailer this weekend and am getting ready to send out this week! The content of the pre-travel mailer are as follows: 1. Letter from myself and my fiancé getting everyone excited for the trip2 2. 1 luggage tag per person for their luggage 3. 1 CD with Beachy/Vacation songs to get everyone pumped for the trip 4. 1 brochure made on vista print with information about traveling, dress code, resort information,etc. Lastly we made the packets that we are going to include in the OOT bags which include: - Tylenol - Pepto Bismo - Shout Wipes - Emergen-C - Colgate wisp mini toothbrush -8 pack of bandaids - Tums If you would like further details on any of the photos, contents please let me know!

@@acw271011 - I got the organza bags on www.papermart.com it's a great website they have tons of ribbon, bags, fabric,etc. I think I paid like $.26/each for the bags and they are GREAT quality and they have ALL different sizes and colors!

Hello Ladies My wedding is 6 weeks away and we are making ALOT of progress on a lot of the little things we have been pushing off. I completed are pre-travel brochures which we will be sending out next week to give our guests time to prepare/pack for the big day! The contents of the pre-travel mailer are as follows: 1. Letter from myself and my fiancé getting everyone excited for the trip 2. 1 luggage tag per person for their luggage 3. 1 CD with beachy/vacation type songs to get everyone pumped up for Mexico 4. 1 Brochure made on Vistaprint with travel and resort information for our guests Lastly I included the packets we made up to put into our OOT bags for the guests. These include: - Shout wipes - Tylenol -Tums - Colgate wisp - Emergen-C -Band aids -Pepto Bismo If you would like more information on any of the above please reply to this post or PM me and I'll respond with more detail. I"ve attached photos also in case you want to copy any of these ideas as I certainly got ALOT of these ideas from this forum so want to pay it forward.

Ladies need your advice. My mom and I keep arguing over the "shoe option" for the ceremony. Our ceremony will be on the beach. My first fitting for my dress is April 25th so I have to bring the shoe I'm going to wear. Right now I have two pairs. A flat sandal and my mom bought me a high wedge shoe ( which is adorable but uncomfortable bc I usually wear flats) I keep telling her that walking on the sand with a shoe with any type of heel and then standing there for 20 mins with them on will be uncomfortable. Any feedback from past brides on this?

@Jennypert- My fiancé just got back from his work trip and used the Wally66 as a carryon on southwest airlines both there and back. He said he had NO issues getting it on the plane and it fit both ways in the overhead compartment ( front to back and long ways) he said when he opened it upon arrival at the hotel NONE of his work shirts were wrinkled! hope this helps.

Ladies- I just wanted to let you know that I spoke to Juan Carlos( the new wedding coordinator) this morning for about 30 minutes. He is amazing. One of the things I wanted to note for some of the brides is he had EVERY LAST DETAIL of information that I had emailed Anel and Ramon over the past few months. He read through every email and outlined every detail I needed him to. So what I want to assure you is that if you are sending emails and NOT getting a response DON"T WORRY they have everything documented and yes, I know it would be nice to get a response but don't worry because they are capturing it. Another thing I wanted to mention is that Juan came from north Carolina as a wedding coordinator so I think that culturally he understands the U.S. brides and the need for a timely response and he's new so he's not burnt out yet for long hours so I think he will be a GREAT asset to all of us getting married in the coming months. Anyway I have been so annoyed and slightly paranoid previously on being totally in the dark and 30 mins with him today made everything SO MUCH better. Hope this helps make some of you feel a bit better too!

@JaxBchKay- I am going to be using a photobooth at my reception. I will let you know how it turns out ( my wedding is in two months) I have been to a few friends weddings where they had a photobooth and it was one of the best things I've seen at weddings. I told my fiance whatever the cost we had to have one. For me it was important. They give you a copy of every photo from the booth as well as give one to the guests to take home. So you don't really need a guest book because the worker will put the photo in a book and let the guests sign it. Also they have a video recording the entire time in the booth ( guests don't realize this) and you get a copy of hte DVD to see some funny moments. We are only doing it for 2 hours to keep costs down but I think that is plenty of time. As for the chairs. I am having mine moved from the ceremony to the reception since the chair sashes will still be on it,etc. I think there is a charge ( $2/chair) to move but it's better than renting two sets of chairs! That would get expensive. Again I can let you know after my wedding how that works as well.

@Jennypert- I just bought the Wally66 based on reviews as well. I'm making my fiancé take it with him on a trip next week just to make sure it fits as a carry on. The bags looks MUCh bigger than a carry on BUT every review I read said the women used it as a carry on. I'm just making him take through airport JUST to be sure. I'll let you know/confirm that it fits.

@GingerJ228- OH NO!! Well you can hang out with my wedding at the club on Saturday night. We will DEF be there we are actually flying out Wed AM from JFK with my parents/grandparents. We were going to come earlier BUT my fiancé only has 3 weeks vacation total and we are using two full weeks for our honeymoon so he didn't have a lot of days left. I wish we were going to NOW longer but it is what it is. I will just have to be very productive on Wed with welcome bags,etc. because most of our guests arrive Thursday( The ones that arrive Wed I'll have their bags delivered to them Thurs AM)

Ladies Has anyone ordered late night food for the end of the night? I feel like knowing my group I might have to have a little snack provided maybe as the night is wrapping up before we head to Eclipse as I'm assuming eclipse does not have food there?

@Bridetobe2014- I don't know much about Mexican law but in the US anything in email is also legally binding. I would look into it and they should be committing to anything which you have via email. Unless there is fine print that states this is not final and it can change then you should be honored for what they committed. Via phone is a different story. I am so sorry. I feel so bad as this is NOT what you should be dealing with.

@gannonham- I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of florists. Liz Rubi did not speak English well and took awhile to respond and in the time that I was waiting for her to respond Alina at floreria Riviera emailed me back, gave me some ideas for flowers and gave me a great price within my budget. She's worth talking to! @meganwitt- Our rationale for the hour between cocktail hour and reception was more because of our guests. my fiancé is one of 8 siblings!! So his immediate family (Siblings and nieces/nephews ) are 32 of the 75 people we are having at the wedding. So if those 32 plus my 7 family members ( we have no bridal party) are taking pics for 30-45 mins we all would miss the cocktail hour and we are paying per head SO I figure since it's an all inclusive people can grab a drink at the beach bar and then head up to the cocktail hour. It's not ideal for everyone to do it that way but it works for us since more than 1/2 the people will be taking pictures after the ceremony.

@@meganwitt You can extend it as much as you want ( they will charge you for extending-- $15US/per person/hour to keep the bar open) the timing for my day is as follows: Ceremony 4-4:30 Cocktail Hour 5:30-6:30 Reception 6:30-10:30 ( we might just extend until 11pm just because..) I left an hour in between ceremony and cocktail hour so that we can take pictures and not miss the entire cocktail hour. And I can totally understand the nervousness you are feeling. The other night I freaked out and decided I should fly down to the resort this week to see it because I was freaking out that I never saw the resort! I think it's just that time is getting closer and so we are just thinking of things to worry about!!! Try not to let your mind wander. I am thinking about all the exciting things at this point ( or at least trying to!) I just actually got the wally60 in the mail today! It looks really big but so many girls on this forum said they used it. My fiancé is traveling for work next week so I am going to have him use it/bring it on the plane to test it out and see if they let him bring it on as a carry on so I'll report back to everyone. Jet blue DOES NOT have closets on board so I have no choice but to figure out a carry on bag to bring my dress in. LIke you said I am short and my dress is not puffy/big since it' sa lacey dress for a beach wedding so I am thinking I should be able to get it down there.

@@GingerJ228 I did add an extra hour to the reception so it will be 4 hours 6:30-10:30 then we will head to eclipse. If we decide we are just having WAY too much fun then we will just pay for the 5th hour although I think they said the music has to stop outside by 11pm. @gannonham- I can't believe you submitted your form!! So exciting. I honestly can't wait for you to get back and share your experiences with us to help ease my mind a little bit!! So I am using an amazing florist who I believe is very, very reasonable. Her name is alina and she is from floreria Riviera maya Her contact info is : [email protected] she responds very quickly. I sent her some pictures of what I was looking for and general price range and she sent me back some options. He corsages and boutineres are also cheaper than the resort. I am paying $65 for a centerpiece AND a lantern rental. If I didn't get the lantern I could have gotten a centerpiece for around $45. I highly recommend reaching out if you haven't already. Their website is www.floreriariviera.com Let me know if you need anything else.

@Tammy Host my mom was on the webinar this weekend and told me about the free room promotion at NOW sapphire. We have a room block arleady through a travel agent. When I asked her about this awhile back she said we were not eligible bc we didn't book directly with resort? BUt we have a 50 room block through travel agent with resort. Am I still eligible? I want to make sure I get what we are entitled to. Thanks

Hi Ladies I have about 150 extra business cards for the ID/Key holder I made for the wedding. The cards are a bit smaller than the badge holder itself but I think it does the trick. I ordered these on vistaprint but only will need about 50 so if anyone wants me to mail them the extras I am happy to do so. Here are a few photos....

@aunderhill17 I just went on a spanish for dummies shopping spree. They have them at staples in the clearance bins ( they are $1) but you really have to search the bins and not every store has them. I found them across the country in California, Connecticut, New jersey and NY. I had friends from all over searching high and low.

@JaxBchKay- Thanks so much for the response. One thing do you happen to have the menu options you were referring to? All I see in the wedding guide are cocktail hour options and then for divine package I only see salad, soup,entree, dessert options. If you have an menu or something you can show me the appetizer options that would be so, so helpful. Thank you.

@gingerJ228- That's good to hear. We are starting to do our planning form now to submit by April 15th so I'm hoping once we complete that we will at leat be able to communicate with them 1 or 2 times before we get down there!