tygrrlily

Have you found a TA yet? Maybe contact the TAs that are around the GTA area to see if they will meet up with you (if you do a search, you'll come across a bunch of names). I preferred that originally as well, but I've actually found communicating by email and phone really easy. I like getting answers right away!

Congrats! Both of those places sound amazing. i've heard such good things about Turks and Caicos

@@acw271011 - Thanks for the tip!

Congrats on your wedding! Glad everything went well and the sun came out! It's nice of you to come back and post an update

This sounds like a good idea! Everyone does say they are interested, but we'll see who actually books. I've actually also really appreciated the ppl that have already emailing saying they can't go for whatever reason. I'd much prefer to know up front then wait around and see

These are very cute! I might copy the "Too much sun... too much fun"

I think it's hard to have firm, hard rules about tipping because it's so personal and everyone has different experiences. My FI and I generally tip very well, but we also don't hesitate to tip 0% if the service sucks and we'll often speak to a manager as well (I never got the point of the 10% "bad" tip). I think we're going to come in prepared to tip, then base the actual tip on performance

I debated this too. We decided to just send out invitations early and skip the save the dates. We're going to send out some type of more detailed invite w/ event itinerary to the ppl that actually book

Congrats! Looking forward to reading more.

@@TinkerSofi - I had that fear too. I went on a dress shopping spree and went to 7 stores or so in 2 weeks. I tried on my ML dress (the Sahara) in my second store, and I didn't pull the trigger then because I wanted to see what else was out there "just in case" even though when I saw myself in it for the first time, I was in love. But as I continued to shop, I found I was never able to get the dress out of my mind and I compared every other dress to that one, and they all came up short. I ended up going back a week later to retry it on, and I knew that it was the one for me for sure. Also take people you trust and know your taste, but don't take too many people either! It's like when you watch Say Yes to the Dress and they bring in entourages of 10 dif. people and it's a huge mess. You will find yourself second guessing what you love, because everyone has a different opinion. I just took my mom and best friend/moh and that was perfect because they stayed focussed on my taste (mermaids/trumpets) even though they might have liked other shapes for themselves Enjoy the process! I found dress shopping really fun

I LOVE the idea of the churro and Mexican food carts, but I don't want ppl to leave the dance floor/venue during the wdding (I want my reception to be a huge party). Going to look into these and the cigar roller for our welcome beach party though! Great ideas here

Congrats! I was at that stage about a month ago and it's definitely overwhelming. This site will really be a fantastic resource for you - I've spent way too long on here reading old threads, reviews, etc. to help narrow down what I want Figure out what location you want first. Take a look at resorts, what they offer, the costs, the wedding packages and see if you can find reviews of other weddings there. I quickly saw that I had a "type" of wedding I was drawn to, and that narrowed down the hotel choice for me a lot. After that, it was a matter of balancing things like cost, activities, hotel amenities, etc. Definitely speak to a good TA and don't be afraid to contact a few - you'll see the quality and service definitely changes from TA to TA Happy planning!

@@pddcmc - Thanks for the tip. They have a bunch of great articles!

@@pddcmc - Agreed but it seems like the resorts will charge for whatever they can. Very irritating, esp. when we're bringing so many guests

I think what they say about only trying on dresses in your budget is true. There is such a difference in quality between the designer ones and lower priced ones. Definitely don't start at a higher end store with designer dresses because the quality of the cheaper ones will not make you happy, and you will see and feel the difference! I tried to stick to this, but ended up trying on a beautiful Monique Lhuillier at a sample sale and fell in love with it. Luckily, the sample was in my budget. I'm 100% okay with wearing a sample because I know I'd never be able to afford a new one. Others would prefer to have a dress brand new and ordered Have fun shopping! Try to start in a store that will give you their full attention and help select a number of different silhouettes for you to narrow down what style you like

My mom really wants me to wear a veil but I've always liked birdcage veils more. I think I'm going to take both and see how I feel that day and how windy it is. And definitely for photo props

@@kmk2016 - our colour are similar. I'm doing shades of pink - blush and fuchsia - with coral/orange and gold. Sunset colours

I think the dress is lovely! I don't think it'd be too much at all

This thread is really interesting. When I first thought destination wedding, I thought it'd be under 10k for sure. Now I'm thinking closer to 15-20k looks realistic for us. I didn't realize at first about all the extra add ons either

Congrats! I LOVE the Paradisus hotels - absolutely beautiful. The costs were a bit too high for us unfortunately. Happy wedding planning!

Definitely do what makes you happiest! I think simple is timeless, and the setting is honestly so beautiful that it doesn't need much. I'm going for lighting and some pops of colour, but I don't want to go overboard or it can come off as tacky. I've been googling as many pics as I can to get ideas!

@@pddcmc - Haha yes, just post on everything!

Great job! Flashlights is a great idea

Ours is $1770 pp for 7 nights at the Beach Palace in Cancun from Toronto in mid December 2014 including all taxes and transfers. That's still a bit higher than we'd like for people, so we are going to redistribute our room credits (1 credit for every 11 adults booked) for bookings back to the whole group instead of keeping it for ourselves making it $1651-1700 pp depending on how many book. 5 nights will be $1581-1635

@@kmk2016 - Definitely fight them on that if they do that! $15 should totally get you usage at both! I'm lucky - I think the Palace rate is quite a bit lower. Can't remember exactly but I think it was around $7 or $8 each and we want to do our ceremony and reception at the same place with cocktails somewhere else, so they could easily move them Hmm - I think I've just convinced myself it's totally worth it haha