tygrrlily

Adorable!! You are a talented mom I like the cap sleeves too

Yay - glad your FI agreed! I have no regrets on having a DW at all! I remember leading up to it I'd sometimes question - should I have done the big Toronto wedding? But now that it's all over and done, I have zero regrets and just so many good memories. It was honestly a week spent in paradise with family and friends. We feel so close to everyone that came, and I think our wedding was a blast because everyone actually knew each other and just let loose. So amazing. I'm biased, but it was definitely the most fun and memorable wedding I've ever been to DWs can also go a couple different ways. Some people like them because there are preset options, but for those of us that DO like to plan and enjoy the little details, there is still a lot of capability to make it as personal/original as you want - it's really what you make of it . Hence my frustration sometimes when non-DW people assume DW planning is easier haha - it's just a different type of wedding planning Money is a huge factor as well. We didn't go crazy on our budget but we didn't skimp either... so we had the wedding exactly how we wanted with some cool extras for at least 2-3x less than we would have paid in Toronto - and that would have been for just one day. I think a big thing to think about is also the amount of people you'll have. While a few ladies here have massive 100+ people DWs, most of us here have pretty intimate affairs of 50 people or less. This personally was a huge plus for me as I don't like being centre of attention and we were able to spend a lot of time with everyone. I was still definitely "the bride" for the week, but without that spotlight attention (which I hate). I know some people though relish in attention and they want the huge 300 person affair - so a low DW turnout might be really disappointing for them. Just some thoughts on the whole DW process. Glad you found this forum

Happy wedding day, Kim!! Hope it is all you dreamed of and more

@@snswedding2016 - I do! Let me PM you so we can coordinate

@@Meandhim - a Toronto buyer! Yes I do still have them and would be happy to meet you. Im very wary to ship the heavy items. I'll PM you when I get home today to coordinate. I live and work downtown

Thanks for the update, Kim! Sorry to hear about your dad - hopefully he will still enjoy the rest of the week Have an amazing time!! You have a lot of supporters on this site and we can't wait to hear all about it

@@kcole123 - Kristy, that's hilarious. We had the same book for our guestbook! I found it on Etsy - prob the same seller . I have to pick it up at my parents later but I"ll send you some pics of our finished product. I did a scrapbook as my gift to him for the first half, then the second half we had people take instant pics using a fujifilm instax mini and wrote messages. We are huge Disney dorks so my DH loved it. It turned out amazing and might be one of my fave things Everything look wonderful!! The dress looks great and I love the blingy belt haha

We got bouts and corsages (pinned) for our parents but not siblings. My mom wanted us to but the costs would have been too high. Our siblings didn't care We got bouts for the groomsmen (who ended up not wearing them - bleh), ring bearers and our parents. We gave the free one from BP to our officiant - it is pretty ugly btw haha. We used our free bouquet on table at our ceremony. It was not bad, but the one I used was a lot nicer (even Marco, the wedding coordinator) commented

Hi ladies I've had a couple of inquiries about the Wally bag. I'm going to just go in order of contact. I do have someone that messaged me first. I'm going to find shipping costs first then just work my way down the list I will PM everyone separately for the other things and just a note - as I mentioned above, I DO prefer to sell to local ladies as it's a bit easier than shipping. So if I get multiple offers on an item and somebody is local, I will likely go the local route to make it easier. But otherwise I am happy to ship items if people are willing to pay shipping costs

Hello ladies I'm finally unpacking some of our wedding things. I don't have a lot to sell - we left a lot at our hotel instead of lugging things back. But in case anybody wants them, here is what I have. I prefer to sell the cups, candles and frames to local GTA ladies as I'm not sure how to ship these and don't want them to break. The other things I will let you know the actual shipping costs and that is what you will pay. Payment will be cash in person or paypal I might be adding more as I continue to unpack Items for Sale 1. Anthropologie LOVE mugs - Selling as a set for $15 We used these on our cake table, filled w/ flowers. 2. 17 gold mercury votives w/ led tealights - selling as a lot for $25 Votives bought from Michaels and led tealights from Costco. We used these for all 3 of our events (welcome party, rehearsal dinner, wedding) and I'd actually keep them for future parties if we had the space. 3. 2 bridesmaid real touch bouquets from Bloom Bridal. Selling both for $50 or $30 each. 1 or 2 of the flowers are a bit squished (I think you can just fluff them out) and it looks like each is missing 1 pearl pick. I'd say they're at about an 8/10 condition. Paid quite a bit for them. Has peonies, plumeria, orchids, calla lillies and roses, ivory satin ribbon and pearl picks. >> bouquet on the right 4. 3 real touch boutonnieres - Selling all three for $20 Also from Bloom Bridal. 2 pink calla lily with ivory ribbon and 2 pearl accents. 1 white calla lily with black and white striped ribbon and 2 pearl accents. Never used and in 10/10 condition - groom and groomsmen decided not to wear them the day of the wedding. 5. Lot of 4 picture frames in gold and white. Selling the lot for $15 1 is baroque white style, 1 is white w/ a subtle print. 1 is gold rimmed and mirrored chrome and 1 is plain gold. We used these to decorate our guestbook/welcome table. Bought from Homesense. 6. 8 self-inking stamps from Michaels. WIll sell the lot for $7 and throw in an acid free scrapbook pen (not the pen shown) Used once to decorate our guestbook. 7. 2 ring bearer suspender and bowtie sets worn once - $10 each or both sets for $15 These are SO cute. They fit size: 9 MONTHS - 4 YEARS and are adjustable. They are navy suspenders, grey and white gingham check bowtie 8. 4 132" round blush pink crinkle taffeta tablecloths. Prefer to sell as a group for $60 total These fit tables up to 72" but would look best on standard 66" or 72" round tables. Pictured here with 72" round tables. Used once and have been washed. Great because the crinkle look means they don't have to be ironed or steamed. 9. 2 90"x156" matching blush pink crinkle taffeta table drapes. $20 each or both for $30 We used 1 for our head table and 1 for our welcome/guestbook table. They will fit standard 8' rectangular tables 10. Black and white striped runner - Selling for $15 This will fit an 8 foot table perfectly. Dimensions are 16" wide and 156" long (will hit the floor). Had this custom made to use at our head table. 11. Gold sequin 120" round table cloth. Selling for $55 I LOVE this tablecloth and I want to keep it but my husband said we have no use for it haha. We used this on our cake table (square table) and it was great. Sequins are square shaped and gold 12. 5 plastic table number frames from Michaels. All for $5 I spray painted them gold and tore out the plastic sheet so it looked less cheap. They measure about 3-4 inches long each. I can leave in my table number cards - printed on a gold shimmer cardstock. >> I suck at spray painting 13. Black Wally 60" garment bag. Selling for $30 Used this to transport my wedding dress, TTD and veils. Has a mechanism at the top that secures the hangers and can hang up to 6 garments. Not this is NOT the 66" DW bag that retails for $150 That's it for now - I'll probably add more as I continue to unpack. I'm also going to post my dress on preownedweddingdresses if anyone is interested. Let me know if you have any questions or want more pics!

@@kcole123 - Thank you!! Ah that's so sweet of you to say . I personally hate when people take forever w/ thank you cards so I wanted to get them out as quickly as we could. Especially b/c this was a DW and people spent their time and money - I really want people to feel appreciated and know how thankful we are that they came to Mexico for our wedding. I've said it before and I'll say it again - this forum is honestly THE best site for planning. You ladies are so supportive and there is such a wonderful community here. That's why I'm still here one month after my wedding - I want to help anyone else out as much as people have helped me. I'm on dif. DW facebook sites too and I still prefer this forum by far - the fb sites are way too overwhelming personally and I can't stand getting all the updates on my fb haha. I like having a dedicated site I can log into and browse around at my own convenience.

@@kcole123 - That's so weird. I'd maybe just suggest clearing out your cache/cookies for the site, then relogging in and hoping it's there? Do you have the button that says "More Reply Options" at home? That brings up all of the icons and things too

Here is our thank you card. We went pretty simple: I liked Shutterfly because they had nice big 5x7 cards and I wanted to write a nice message for each group that came to the wedding. They also have the option of putting a picture in the inside and back which we did for both - thought it was nice to put a group pic in the inside. Envelopes were nice quality as well. Would recommend them. We printed out pics of us + each group and I'm going to mail that as well We finished all of our thank you cards yesterday so I just need to go to the post office and mail them out. Then woohoo - all wedding related obligations are done .

@@kcole123 - I couldn't figure out this gallery thing on this site to be honest, so I uploaded my pics on a different site, then just inserted the link using the little picture icon above I uploaded my pics all here - http://postimage.org/ They resize it for you too . Just make sure you use the "direct link" url (2nd choice) and paste that into the little picture icon above, then you can have paragraph picture paragraph picture

Yay Kristy! I love reading planning threads and yours is off to a great start. I love the story of how you and Nathan met - haha. And the proposal is super cute as well! Love the stacked rings - I've already told Tony I want another band for our anniversary I was reading your TA part and felt like I was reading my own hah. Bleh - she gets better but so much unnecessary stress. Looking forward to reading the rest of your thread. Happy wedding planning

Agreed w/ the comments above! In circumstances like these it's best to just be gracious. We actually had my husband's groomsman's mom and aunt book last minute (but not w/ our group). At first I was a bit put out that they didn't just book w/ our group because than we wouldn't have had to pay extra to invite them to events, but our friends told us that they just wanted a vacation and to help out w/ their baby (2.5 months old!) - they didn't care about coming to our events. Well they were FABULOUS and we are so happy they came along because they helped our friends so much that they were able to still have fun at times because their baby was being looked after by someone they implicitly trusted. They didn't even bring him to the wedding (which I would have been absolutely fine with) b/c they wanted to have fun too I actually invited his mom and aunt to come to our events because we liked them so much but they declined and said they'd maybe stop by, but they just loved being at the resort, walking around, etc.

@@zoeknight20 - That is a crazy amount! I'd dbl check w/ your wedding coordinator, and even ask your onsite when it comes time. Palace is super inconsistent with prices and it doesn't hurt to keep asking/digging. We had a Mariachi band for our cocktail hour and we paid around $535 US for a 4 piece band (2014 prices) @@LMichelleB - The Palenque can get dark but it's also quite lovely. This is from our welcome party there: We had 2 strings of Chinese lanterns over our dining area. This pic was taken in mid-December around 6:30pm to give you an idea of lighting. It does get pretty dark and you'd need to focus your area/lighting because the terrace is HUGE. I think lighting over the dance floor area would be great too

We kept ours simple but upgraded a few things. I'm actually really glad we did because the bulk of our pics are at our ceremony and I think it would have looked plain otherwise. But I don't like too much colour because than I think it can get a bit busy We had the white draping (complimentary) then added a crystal curtain in the back, chandelier, gold tiffany chairs, rose petals and faux bouquets attached to the aisle chairs. My mom now wishes we had an aisle runner too but I'm fine w/ the way the floor looks

Have an amazing week, Kim! You deserve it Cannot wait to hear how everything goes xo

Hello ladies! We just got our thank you cards in from Shutterfly and they look great! I'll post a pic tomorrow. I'm going to try to get them all finished and mailed out this weekend. We also printed some pics to include in the envelope. I had thought about doing photobook thank you cards but I think I'm a bit burned out haha... decided to go the easier route. Finally added our professional pics to FB. If you want to see more pics, this link should work: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152961365387510&type=1&l=9ea1968b1b

Congrats on being legally married!! So excited for you

@@ChocolateBride - Thank you for all of the compliments! We had a fantastic wedding week and I have to admit I'm in a bit of vacation and wedding withdrawal haha. It's weird not to be planning for the wedding! I don't have all of our numbers exactly but we did stay on budget for the week - I can PM you what that was. Also we're going through gifts and such right now because we're ordering our thank you cards and we have really generous people in our lives. Almost everyone that came to Mexico still gave us a gift, and we had a lot of family and friends that didn't attend give us gifts as well. So it looks like all of those gifts actually covered most of our wedding costs for the week (!). Didn't expect that at all w/ a destination wedding.

It's actually not in Toronto but nearby - it's based out of a big bridal shop north of the city in Woodbridge! I was expecting Kleinfields too when I first heard about it. The budgets for the Canadian ladies were much more realistic, but I have to admit I like watching the crazy 10k gowns come out sometimes I'm also fairly certain I tried on about 3 of the dresses the brides tried on haha

@@helenk - Did you save it as a PDF? If the computer at Kinkos or Staples doesn't have your font choices, it'll print as something else. I usually print from PDF to make sure the fonts and spaces are the way I want them

@@calgarybride2015 - Ah I feel you! I broke out like crazy the week before my wedding too . Had perfectly clear skin for months before and the week before, big zits all around my mouth!! Had to go w/ a big combo of makeup and photoshop (haha) Try to get some sleep and not stress if you can help it . Sending happy thoughts your way - you'll be in Mexico soon!