tygrrlily

Yes, I think the grey will be fine. We have similar colours Are ivory shirts hard to find in normal stores? We haven't shopped at all for this yet, but will prob. go look this weekend.

Haha sounds like we have similar shapes! I bought a sample too, and it fits almost perfectly but needs to be hemmed. I also need to lose about 5-10 lbs because it's a bit too tight now, but I figured that'd be realistic. I wouldn't call myself large at all, but SOO many of the samples I tried on I couldn't even get over my butt/thighs/hips because I'm disproportionately huge down there for my size haha Ah, I need to get on to figuring out what the groomsen will wear, esp. before summer is out. We're not going for a beachy theme, and my FI prefers to have it more formal. He bought a nice light grey suit from Harry's (good excuse for him - it cost more than my dress!). I think I want the groomsmen in darker grey pants and just a white shirt with suspenders and bow ties, and my Fi in a full suit and tie. Our wedding is in December so it shouldn't be too hot Do any of you think the ivory vs. white thing is an issue? My dress is kind of a soft white/ivory, and I've read it can look dingy if next to bright white. Wondering if i should get my FI and groomsmen ivory shirts instead of white

Thanks! We do have a group booking through our TA with Air Canada Vacations. They wouldn't give us the 90 day hold without immediate deposits though because the hotel was already half booked, and it was only 6 months from the wedding. So we put down deposits for 20 people/10 rooms around the end of April/early May, and we've added them as we've needed. Our TA has been able to get all the people that booked later the same as our initial rate We got engaged end of March, and I wanted to get married asap, which has kind of worked against us. I think if we had waited til Maybe April of 2015, we would have had some more people come, but we wanted to get married quickly for a bunch of different reasons. I'm okay though with the amount we have coming with us. We'd be happy if we had maybe a few more, but we were estimating around 50 so we're not too far off. How many guests do you have booked?

My wedding is December 19th and sunset is around 5:15pm! So you are right, the view might not be there after it goes down. Maybe ask yourself what overall vibe you want. you can still put candles and lanterns at the Caribbean terrace, but they will be placed differently. Try googling images of each reception place to see which you like best. I'm getting married at Beach Palace in an area with a private pool, and I know they let brides put candles into the pool and string lanterns over. I think I've looked at every wedding reception in the space to get ideas haha (hours googling!)

Check out dafont!! They have this awesome tool where you can actually type in sample text, and see all the script fonts spelling that word out! Really helpful to visualize. And they're free too I downloaded a bunch of nice script ones like scriptina pro, pacifico, chopin, mademoiselle k, etc, from them

Yes, hopefully they can still come! I think it really depends on how much they want to be at your wedding. My FI's groomsman and his wife (who is one of my best friends as well) are planning on bringing their 3 month old baby to ours!! We were so incredibly touched. They put down their deposits immediately too and said they were going to do their best to make it out there. My best friend/moh will be about 31/32 weeks pregnant at our wedding . It's a bit of a murky zone because she can still technically fly up to about 36 weeks according to the airline, but it's up to her and her doctor. I'm also not sure if she's going to want to be in Mexico at that time. I keep wishing that she got pregnant like even 2 weeks later because then she would have gone for sure. Right now, her deposit is down and I already paid for things like her dress and flowers. I'm not sure what I'm going to do if she doesn't come - have decided to just not think about it now until final payments are due in October and I'm assuming she'll make her decision then

Bahha your fiance is hilarious! Love the fanny pack comment!! Those surprise weddings are romantic, but I'm too much of a planner to actually enjoy it haha. I'd want to know and plan every single detail My FI is laid back in that he doesn't care about specific details, but he wants a nice wedding too. He's actually pushing the budget for some things more than I am, and he was surprised I budgeted on certain things. But he has no idea how much all of the little things cost, and how quickly it all adds up!

Wooo! 47 guests already = that's amazing!! Good for you ! You are going to have an amazing wedding We never had a deposit deadline - not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, as we keep getting people trickle in. I think it's been about 3 months now and we're at 40 people - 35 adults and 5 babies/toddlers. I think we would have had more people if we had put our wedding later, but I wanted to get married as quickly as possible haha - 9 months from being engaged I SO wish I had gone with your TA now. Ours is so so bad. I have guests right now wanting to book, and I"m chasing down my TA and her replacement TA and HER replacement TA to take the deposit information because everyone is on vacation . Our 7 night flight is just about booked up as well

Congratulations on the engagement! Like @@shelikespink mentioned above, the costs of destination weddings are about as high as they are back home - the big difference is that you will have fewer people. Things like makeup, photographer, flowers and videographer, I think we\re actually paying MORE than we would be at home. What we're "saving" on is that we will have 40 people vs. 200 at home. You said you are hoping to spend 5k on the wedding. Is that including all vendor costs including photography, flowers, dress, etc.? You might be able to do it if you get a "complimentary" wedding and have very few upgrades or vendors, but as mentioned above you have to usually pay more per person over 10 or whatever number is included, and if you want a private reception. I had no idea of the costs associated with a DW until actually planning one. Going into this, I thought spending 10k would be a ton and definitely include everything - we're realistically looking at closer to 15-20k now and that's with us budgeting heavily in certain areas. But again, it depends on your preferences and pickiness about things. Also, it's very easy to get sucked into things you never even thought about before like ttd shoots and oot bags The other thing to make sure about for a DW is that you are okay and prepared with a lot of people not going. I didn't really think about this before we made the decision - I assumed that of course our loved ones would come. But like every other bride here, we've been faced with a lot of disappointments as we've realized that a lot of the people we thought would come (and said they would originally) are not. As long as you are prepared for that, you can definitely still have a beautiful wedding, but yes, just something to think about. Also, I think a lot of us will attest that planning a DW is definitely not stress-free - your stresses just come in different places! Haha I lost sleep when it came to choosing a resort and trying to find something affordable for people. I don't mean to sound pessimistic or deter you. I just wanted to be upfront so you have a good idea of what it all entails. I went into it very blindly, and I'm not honestly sure if we would have still gone this route if we knew all of the factors. That being said, I am now VERY excited for our beautiful wedding, and I can't wait to get married in Mexico! My advice is to poke around the site and read different reviews and threads and you will get a really good idea Cost wise, if you're not picky about the resort, there are resorts for under $1500, but they will often be in low season. You can't really compare the expedia price for a single trip to booking a block for 40 guests... your rates will probably not be as low (and you will have to deal with guests telling you this!). When we were looking, we wanted to keep it under 1500 too but found it almost impossible because of our time of year. We could have, but it would have meant settling for a hotel we weren't as happy with and actually paying more for the wedding. But off the top of my head, I remember Now Jade being really affordable, and Iberostar Cancun (for guests - the actual wedding costs were fairly high). We decided to choose the hotel we wanted (Beach Palace), but we are going to spread out some of our discounts to make the costs more affordable for guests.

Thank you for uploading the picture!! Helps to visualize for sure. Was that the complimentary cake? That's so sweet of your mom and sister to surprise you with a beautiful bouquet . I didn't even think of going directly to Maya Floral. It looks like they are pretty close! I sent them an email last week about our centrepieces, but haven't heard back yet

Wow $200 is great. Ours is something crazy like $900. So we've been pairing people up and even have some people in triples now

Your back story w your fiancé is sooo cute and the prom picture is hilarious!! I can't wait to see how your wedding turns out! Love the bm dresses and I'm going to check out those earrings - my bm would really like the style. Looking fwd to the rest of your planning journal

I have no idea where she is. I've sent her 4 emails this week and still no reply. Still getting the in South America until August 4 reply, but at least before she'd reply as well. Our best man and his wife booked this week w two other couples, and Vanessa said it was fine then Michelle emailed the best man saying the deposit wasn't being accepted for some reason (not a cc issue but an availability one) and I've been in contact w Michelle about it. I sent Vanessa the info of a single to book, and nada. I'm going to send his info to Michelle I suppose. I can't rmbr - Is that what you ended up doing? Our hotel/flight is booking up FAST and I want them booked and secured! Argh She is lucky we're not starting a "do not book with ***" thread. But once our weddings are over!

Haha after seeing our Pinterest pages that's not a surprise! That sounds gorgeous. Our reception spot is kind of difficult to work with - no palapa ceiling to hang things from so we have to string lanterns across. I would LOVE a chandelier otherwise . The spacing is also kind of limited so I don't think I can fit a lot of rectangular tables so I'm using round one for guests and a rectangular one for the head table this is my latest mood board. I'm obsessed with black and white striped table runners now so I'm doing it at the head table with lots of gold and pink accents. I'm going to get chiavari chairs just for the head table to save on costs, and the rest will have those white complimentary ones. And I want to decorate the bride and groom chairs w big peonies and ribbons like this:

What hotel are you at? I did a site visit to beach palace and they had little toiletry kits in the bathrooms that had q tips and cotton pads! Otherwise though u would love these in the oot bags - I always forget I'm putting safety pins, bobby pins and some hair elastics in my oh shit kits. And condoms for the singles haha

@@kmk2016 - I LOVE that first bouquet w the big peony. Not sure if it's the left or right one but soo pretty. I actually sent really similar pics to the girl doing my real touch ones (bloom bridal). I'm getting my bouquet and 2 bm bouquets, corsages for the moms and boutinieres for the groom, groomsmen and dad. I get a free bouquet from the resort but it's all roses and I really wanted peonies in there (real or not haha) so I'm just going to use it for decoration somewhere else. We're pricing out centerpieces now. I don't want the beach theme personally for our wedding, so I really want flowers. Going more for the Parisian chic look now. I'm also bringing some fake ones for decoration here and there.

Yeah I'm on the same page talking about the wedding. I have one friend I feel comfortable with talking about the wedding. She's amazing - finished w her wedding, pregnant now and planning on bringing her baby to Mexico, but she still gets genuinely excited for me and wants to hear details. A lot of other ppl I feel like they're just being polite by asking and they change the subject to babies or houses very soon after. So besides her, my sister and mom and you guys, I feel fine with the wedding talk! I feel weird talking about it too to people that aren't coming. My moh/best friend dropped out of our wedding and our friendship hasn't been the same since unfortunately. Kristy, we're planing for 40 ppl too and btw, Vanessa is MIA again :S

@@kcole123 haha yeah, tony is like that too. He's pretty oblivious about wedding stuff, but he's easy going so he just let's me do and get whatever i want. His main focus is making sure it's a good party. He also wants things like a cigar roller and he likes the passport booklets, so we're going to do that. He laughs when he sees me posting on this forum too, but I told him it saves him from having to hear about constant wedding stuff from me

@@kcole123 - Your fiance always sounds so nice and supportive!!

You look gorgeous in both!! I really like both but I agree with number 2 - fits you beautifully and photographs a bit nicer I think I tried on 1 too haha... I remember the combo of the ruching and lace, and the saleslady telling me it was a very unique combo in a wedding dress

Yes, my mom is a shopper but a bargain shopper like me haha. We love deals . She's been hitting up stores like Winners a lot haha

I ended up deciding to make them myself to save some money here. So I spent the last week working on them from the Aylee template... had it pretty much exactly how i wanted. Then yesterday I SPILLED coffee on my laptop! It's drying out now and I am hoping and hoping that it isn't dead and I can access all of my wedding stuff . Hours down the drain otherwise

This is such a cute thread. My mom loves to shop (I get the gene from her haha) and I swear, she's bought (and returned half!) 10 dresses already. She's buying dresses for our ceremony, reception, welcome parties, etc. haha. It's very cute to see how excited she is about it, and she keeps taking pictures of herself in change rooms and sending them to me! She wants to look nice as the mother of the bride

Kristy, I definitely feel you on the costs adding up! My FI keeps pointing out that ironically if we had had the wedding at home, we possibly would have MADE money haha (cultural/social circle thing - everyone gives money!). We keep adding things too, and we haven't revisited the budget in a while, but we should probably do that soon eek. Our parents are both helping out with certain things though which is awesome - my parents paid for my dress and are paying for our videographer. His parents are paying for his suit and our photographer! So this has given us some money to spend on our guests. I haven't thought about a gift at all for them... we'll probably give them albums and a copy of our video after, but I don't think we're going to give them a gift at the wedding unless I can think of something or see something appropriate. My plan is to keep the OOT bags pretty simple, and get A LOT from the dollar store. I'm also really good at finding sales. so I've been keeping track of prices of things to grab them when I see them on sale. i'm also going to try and get stuff that people will actually use. so I've thought about things I'd want to receive. And while some things are nice, stuff like sunscreen I'm sure everyone is going to bring. We're going to do the dollarama tumbler w/ davet sticker (and sippy cups w/ the same sticker for the kids), the wedding chicks bag, a simple hangover/emergency kit (advil, vitamin c packs, immodium, bandaids and some things like bobby pins, hair tiers and safety pins), a bath pouf and some type of snack. And a "getting lucky" kit for the singles haha. My maybes are fun things like chapstick, deck of cards, water guns. My mom can also order things like pashminas, hats or sunglasses at wholesale prices, so we might do something like that too. We also are bringing some stuff down that we are just going to share with the group instead of getting individuals. I got 2 boogey boards from Michaels for under $10 total which I think will be fun, and some floating things for the pool. We're also going to do fun stuff for the kids like colouring books, stickers,beach toys, etc. but these will all be from the dollar store. We are going to do programs (probably program fans) and welcome booklets. A tip for a lot of you ladies that are good at the DIY is that you can find a lot of free templates for things online. I've found templates for program fans, menus,table numbers, signage, etc. So if you're not too picky on design, you can use the template and just pay for the printing costs which is pretty cheap. I'm the least DIY person, but I'm going to attempt it for these these things For me, the big cost eater is decor. I am very picky and particular, and I want our wedding to be beautiful. Argh haha... pinterest effect. But I know this is something I need for myself to be nice. So I've been sourcing things online, and I'm going to bring a lot of stuff down myself. I'm shipping a ton to Buffalo, and will drive down one day to get everything at once and save on shipping

Lisa I posted this on the review section too. I am SO SO sorry you had so many problems. I really hope you can look back and think about all the good things instead, and that you're now married! Your wedding planner sounds AWFUL. My god I would have flipped. We didn't get one cuz I'm good at planning and enjoy it - but to have spent the money and received that service. Wow. I'm definitely going to ask my mom or sister to dbl check everything w the coordinator the day of. I don't want to deal with the stress of timelines on the wedding day Thanks for the tips about all of the signage. I'm definitely going to bring signs down ourselves. Do you have any pics you can share about your wedding? Thanks again for posting all of the details about beach palace!