kcole123

Hair and Accessories I don't know how many times I am after doing this and deleting it because the picture thing isn't working out for me so much...lol Hope it works again this time. Anyway continue on..lol. My hair I know I want to have it up basically because if it's not then I will have nothing but a complete knot of sweaty hair up against my neck. And I don't want that. So I was thinking of having it up loosely. Here are some hair inspiration photos. My favorite is the second from the left on the bottom. As for the hair piece: I didn't want to have a veil and this I knew as soon as I chose the destination wedding. Instead, I am having simple orchids for my hair, which I love. I ordered them from Etsy (which has become my new favorite addiction) and the seller is Herecomesthebride. The picture does not do the orchids justice. They are beautiful in person. For my jewellery: I wanted to have pearls because they are simple but just so pretty especially with a lace wedding dress. Well that's my thoughts anyway. So when I was home visiting my family in Newfoundland, mom decided she wanted to buy me pearls. She knew that I wanted pearls so she offered to buy them for me. I did want drop down pearl earrings but mom didn't know this and bought me pearls that went with my necklace. I couldn't say that's not what I wanted and I think they will look just as great and simple. Shoes So of you maybe surprised but I am not actually a big shoe person. I would rather wear flats on a regular day but for my wedding I wanted to have something to add a bit of height but yet I wanted something comfortable. After searching around malls and wedding shops I couldn't find anything that looked entirely bridal for a wedge. So of course where did I look, Etsy...lol I found a seller that does amazing work to customize shoes how you want them. Again, I spent more on shoes than I had thought I would ever pay for shoes. But we only do this once so why not make it good and get what you want. The shoes are from the seller DesignYourPedestal. The Grooms Attire Well Nathan brags now about how long it took him to find a suit and how long it took me to find a dress. Hello?? But I think it's a little different for women looking for a dress..lol When we were out visiting friends in Grande Prairie over Christmas, Nathan and his best man went to Moore's to look at suits. Nathan went in and told the lady "I would like to look like Daniel Craig in James Bond." Surprisingly the sales lady knew exactly the look he was going for. I basically let him decide on what he wanted. So he wanted a light grey suit. That's all he new. The sales lady did awesome helping him pick one out and Nathan was very happy with the service him and his best man received that day. He told me his suit cost him close to $1000. But he ended up getting 2 shirts, jacket, pants, belt, shoes, and he even bought socks there...lol I knew I wanted coral as one of the colors and ivory, but when Nathan said he wanted a grey suit well I put that as one of colours as well. Here is Daniel Craig...lol The groomsmen will be wearing light grey pants as well and the long sleeved ivory shirt similar to Nathan's. Bridesmaids Dresses So for the girls, I was wanting of course coral floor length dresses. I wasn't particular in where they bought them or what style they had or even if they were off in color a little bit. I know bridesmaid dresses can get very expensive especially when they are already paying for a destination wedding to attend. SO I just told them coral floor length and left it in their hands. My sister and one of my bridesmaids (Nathan's sister) went shopping together. My MOH lives in a different province so she is thinking of ordering hers online. Here are the girls in their dresses. The dresses are blue because they didn't have the coral in the store and it had to be ordered. But I do have a picture of the colour that they have. It's the stripe of colour that's straight out.

My Dress and Accessories Well when it came time for dress shopping I knew what I had envisioned for a while now. I wanted something with sweetheart neckline and also lace. This I found very challenging because not every lace dress I had tired on looked flattering on me or wasn't the lace I wanted or something just didn't look right. I went wedding dress shopping by myself which actually wasn't too bad. I sent my sister and MOH pictures and my mom as I was out trying them on. After a couple of attempts in a couple of different bridal shops, I finally found one that thought, yep this is it. So I put the down payment on the dress and away I went. While I was waiting for my dress to arrive though I was having a lot of second thoughts. I kept looking at the pictures I took and something just didn't look right. I didn't like how I looked a little bigger in the hip area in pictures. But you know we are our own worst enemies at times. I was thinking about this until basically my dress came in. So when my dress did finally arrive I couldn't wait to go try it on again. This time I searched for a belt to wear also with the dress. At first I wanted a flower belt but after trying on many it just wasn't looking right with the dress. So I tried on blingy and oh my it looked and matched the dress perfectly. I was very happy with that choice. I still didn't feel 100% on how I looked in the dress so I attempted to lose weight. So when it came time to try my dress at the first dress fitting, I had 8 pounds gone and that made a difference. I still have 5 more to go but by then I will be completely happy with how it looks on me. The Dress is a Alfred Angelo and the cost was $1300. I purchased the dress at The Bridal House in Edmonton. The belt was more than I wanted to pay but when I put it on with the dress nothing else compared so I had to have it. I can't remember the designer of the belt but the cost was $400. Yes I must be nuts.

Lily you are an inspiration. You have done so well with all your planning and was really on the ball with the thankyou cards. Your pictures showed just how much work you put into this. I looked through each of your pictures, twice. I just love looking at wedding pictures and your's are absoloutly amazing. Loved everything about what you did for your wedding.

I have the option of more reply options but just the text box comes up and no icons. I will try that though when I get home with what you suggested.

@@tygrrlily thanks. You are a woman with knowledge of everything...lol I have a problem though. Right now I am at work and don't have any pictures here and I really can't spend hours on here doing a planning thread. I can see the pic icon that you are talking about but as soon as I get home on my laptop I don't have any of those icons available.

Very Weird. I actually use my laptop at home but i remember being able to see the options before.

What's very weird is when I use my computer at home I don't see anything like emotions or how to underline and bold and things like that. It's like there is nothing there. But when I was at work I popped on and just went in as if I was going to write something and I seen it all there. How do I fix this for my home computer do you know?

Hey Lily, I can't seem to get this darn thing organized though. I am wanting to do it like everyone else's with the pictures following the paragraphs that the pics belong to. How do you do that?

You can always come here to vent to us.

Well ladies, I decided it was time to create some sort of a planning thread. I have no idea what I am doing here and you will probably find out throughout this whole process that I am a bit of a scatter brain and am not the most organized bride. I figure, because I am now 3 months away from the wedding, I would put my thoughts on paper and try to organize what I can and figure out what I have done so far and what I have left to do. So here goes. How we met: Well you might get two different stories to this one cause Nathan (my fiancé) seems to think I sighted him at a party and decided to add him on Facebook and start a connection. Well this is true...lol But he goes a little far with it. I met him at a mutual friends going away party. As soon as I seen him I thought he was so cute. Then of course I added him on Facebook and started chating, and we went on a couple dates and next then you know I was bringing my Christmas tree over to his house setting it up (don't worry it was Christmas) and gradually started bringing other things over. He says I came over Christmas time and just never left...lol The Proposal: I had a feeling that something was going to happen but thought that might be 10 years down the road. We were seeing each other 2 years when he proposed. It was funny because the friend that had the going away party where we met, was actually home at the time visiting. So Nathan showed her the ring and everything. She was thinking "maybe I should leave because maybe he wants to do something tonight." Anyway just as she was saying "Kristy I think I will go home now and call it a night." I said "nah don't leave yet, lets order a pizza and watch a movie." So anyway Nathan had a face on him and I didn't know why...lol (they know each other well too by the way). Anyway after about an hour or two, she left for the night. Nathan then went out to the car and came back in the house and got right in my face down on his knees (I was sitting on the couch in my yoga pants, probably with pizza sauce running down my chin) and he hauled out a box out of his pockets and opened it up and said "Kristy will you marry me?" After this he told me he had plans to take me to the local park and propose to me there. But he said while my friend was there it started raining...he said that went out the window. I am probably going to do this in chunks cause already my hands are getting tired from typing. See what I mean? Not a planner..lol The Ring: I will attach a picture of the engagement ring along with the wedding bands (I have two). Just as well to get them all the one shot right? Why wait for the first year?...lol oh and Nathan also bought me a ring for this Christmas past that I will wear with it. I like the stacked look. A girl can never have too many diamonds right especially on the one finger. I have also attached a picture of the wedding band Nathan wanted. Well his purchase took all of 3 minutes. Literally. He doesn't like shopping around and he doesn't see the point in shopping around. He knows he needs a ring, and he went with the first one the sales lady pulled out of the ring case. We knew right away we wanted a destination wedding because basically the lower guest list the better (well better than 200-300). I am not one to be the centre of attention and I would just completely die having all those people look at me walking down the isle. So we kept it small and invited only close friends and family. The Resort: The resort we chose was Melia Caribe Tropical. We selected this because basically the pictures I have seen are gorgeous for a wedding and also it has an adults only section, which is where my fiancé and I are staying. We had a little trouble in the beginning deciding on a resort. At first we wanted an adult only resort and we were pretty dead set on that decision. Then people started voicing their opinions and weren't happy about the decision. Also, the adults only were more expensive for our guests to book as a package and we didn't want that either. So we got the best of both worlds with the Melia. For those that don't know Melia is located in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. We weren't particular if it was there or Mexico or anywhere else. But when researching, DR seemed to be the cheapest at the time on flights. I have to say the worst part in all of this this past year was deciding on a resort and dealing with our travel agent. Travel Agent: I spent a couple of months when I started planning, trying to find a travel agent. It was hard to do because it was based soley on emails and telephone calls (mostly emails). Trying to find one was difficult because they are all nice and want your business at first but then it's down hill from there. Well my experience anyway. I just hope everything goes smoothly the day everyone has to leave. My recommendation is if you can, go into a travel agency and sit with someone and talk over your ideas and listen to see if they have any. Some will seem helpful and others maybe not so much. The Invitations: Well right from the beginning I wanted either a passport type invitation or a boarding pass. I didn't know anyone right off hand that would do these, and I sure wasn't going to do them myself. I am not that crafty either. So I happened to look up kijiji and noticed an ad that someone was a graphic designer and that they can do invitations and things like that. Perfect. I contacted her and we met at McDonald's to run over some ideas and to get a quote. (It wasn't that sketchy I promise). She was really nice and very well organized and I liked the ideas she ran by me. She also tried to get me a better price at local print shops. I am soooo happy with how our invitations turned out. I did spend more than what I had thought at first but to me now they were worth it. We had so many compliments on them when they were sent out. Granted, Nathan would have been happy sending everyone a Facebook message as an invitation. Don't laugh because he actually mentioned this. Engagement Pictures: Here are a couple engagement pictures we had taken. The girl that did our invitations just so happened to be a photographer as well.

Beautiful dress.

Thank you @@Wafflesmom