Wafflesmom

@@ashhtayy we met with our jeweller over the weekend and he was really good. He's very easy to talk to and very knowledgeable about diamonds. He's going to make me an eternity wedding band that matches my e-ring. I have a halo setting and wanted to make sure that my wedding band fit under the halo. It was also easier to get a custom piece done since my ring finger is a size 3.5. It's hard to find that size, let alone get it resized. If you want his contact info, let me know

Thanks so much @Kavanaugh. I've been eyeing some of their white dresses too for my bachelorette party. They're super cute

@@nkavanaugh, how was the sizing on the bridesmaid's dress? I've never ordered from lulus.com and was wondering if their dresses fit true to size or run small or big. Thanks in advance

I can't speak for the other choices but we're getting married at Moon Palace next year. We have 4 kids coming to our wedding (ages 1-10) and our travel agent recommended it to us because of the many activities geared towards kids. They have a great kids club that caters to young ones and a separate one for teens. There's also a flow rider! My nephew and I have looked at videos of the kids club on you tube and he is excited!

@@krystalball thank you so much. I agree that it was nice that we were able to find a happy compromise with our colour scheme. Der always says that the wedding planning and decorating is entirely up to me but I'd rather incorporate things that he and I come up with. It is afterall our wedding @@yycbride2016 I thought that I should finally jot all my planning thoughts down! Plus, it's always so helpful to get all of your opinions. It's funny that you guys looked at Moon Palace because we also initially considered Grand Sirenis based on my co-workers suggestion. We ended up choosing Moon Palace for its size, plus their group and wedding perks were pretty good too.

@ great minds think alike and completely agree with you on the importance of a good photographer @@yycbride2016 you're very welcome I never even explored how much it would be to bring a photographer down with us but I heard some can be quite reasonable. Definitely look into both options because the downward spiralling of our loonie is driving me nuts! I have a budget spreadsheet and it irks me so much to see how much our costs have increased because of the exchange rate! Here's hoping it goes up real soon....like today lol

Hi and welcome to the forum! Your wedding dress is gorgeous! I love the jacket that comes with dress, and I love that it gives you the option to change your look for the ceremony and reception. I'm gonna look at lulus.com right now. That's a great price for bridesmaids dresses, and it looks beautiful.

@@yycbride2016 that's a huge price increase! How can they even justify that much of an increase? I know prices change year to year but usually it's only an increase of 10%! I agree with everyone that there are a number of talented photographers in the Riviera Maya. I instantly fell in love with Samuel Luna's work and he was actually the first vendor I booked! He is really responsive and was fairly reasonably priced as well. One tip that I kinda now wish I looked into further is Canadian photographers working in Mexico. I've read some brides say that they booked a Canadian photographer (who lives and works in Mexico) and was given the option of paying in Canadian dollars. Given the awful exchange rate right now, looking into this could potentially save you a lot of money. I don't know if all of the Canadian photographers offer this option but worth exploring! Some of the Canadian photographers I've seen are Moments That Matter and Bicoastal

@@TinkerSofi thank you so much. How her fiancé and now husband wasn't offended is still surprising. I was embarrassed just listening to her story lol @@acw271011 thank you so much. I'm so happy to hear another successful online dating story. 14 years? Wow, so happy for you guys. You truly did find a good one @@vancouverpetunia thanks fellow Vancouverite! I'm really hoping for no rain, we get enough of that lol Except this summer, I'm actually hoping for a good downpour. It just doesn't feel like Vancouver with all the brown lawns and the closed trails. Plus, the smell of smoke from the forest fires was really eerie

3 week countdown, woohoo! Good on you for being relaxed, it shows just how organized you are I love how you mentioned timing the waxing and threading, I never thought about that. I'm sure you still look beautiful! And so many exciting changes in your life. That's great you got your possession date. September is a good month, then you can nest in your new home during the cold winter months. I love that quote you cited. It's beautiful and heartfelt. As for your MOH, good on her for fixing it. Between the heat and buffets, letting out the dress is a good call on her part!

@@SUREKHA unless they've changed this recently, there are three palace approved vendors for decor: Gama, zuniga and LatinAsia

Thanks @@Danielle1! I'm sure you know most of my decor inspirations since you've helped me come up with some of them Legal or Symbolic: Since our travel was the week of January 19-26, we had to pick our wedding date. I know that we’re out of the norm but Derrick and I both agreed that we wanted a legal ceremony. We knew the drawbacks from having a legal ceremony (blood test, translation, cost) but we didn’t care. For us, we only wanted to do it once and have it be witnessed by our family. . Plus, one of my best friends had a legal ceremony in Mexico and she reassured us that it wasn’t too bad. Since we’re having a legal ceremony, we have to be there 3 full days before the wedding. So that’s how we ended up with a wedding date of January 23, 2016. Since our travel agent is a destination wedding specialist, she not only did the travel arrangement in terms of liaising with Air Transat for our group package, she also liaised with Moon Palace to solidify the wedding contract. Being a Pro Palace Agent, she knew the Canadian Rep and easily had him draft the wedding contract to secure our date. We had her arrange the deposit and without any headaches, we were booked! Wedding Vision: Right away, our travel agent forwarded me all of the Moon Palace brochures she had in her files, including the wedding locations within the resort. For us it was a no brainer, we wanted to get married on the beach. Knowing the risks (i.e. having a guy in a speedo in all of the wedding photos), we just couldn’t imagine going to Mexico and not having the idyllic beach ceremony. AND I knew I wanted the reception outdoors, perhaps in a terrace. Coming from Vancouver, we spend enough time in the Fall and Winter months inside watching the rain. We wanted to be outside in the fresh air! So now the next decision was our wedding colours. Derrick’s sister had graciously offered to make our invitations for us. She loves crafts and she is wonderfully gifted in making cards and invitations so I didn’t hesitate in taking her up on her offer. Derrick and I had been discussing colours and while he wanted orange, I’ve always wanted pink (my favourite colour). I discussed this with his sister and she suggested coral since it was a blend of both colours. What a genius idea! I researched colour palettes for a nice colour to pair with grey. I had narrowed it down to navy or grey. I showed Derrick and he instantly chose gray. So our colours are grey and coral. These were the Pinterest boards we used for inspiration (disregard the gold on the last pic):

Hi @@SUREKHA I'm so sorry to hear that they've had to change your reception venue on you. I know it can be quite disappointing, especially if you've already had a vision of what your day will look like. I've seen some photos of the Venado terrace on this forum and it was beautiful! Based on your post, did you say there's no structure to hang lights? If that's the case, there are lots of other options. @ ran into this same problem and is now using the lanterns on bamboo fixtures. There's also hanging chandeliers if you prefer. Or you can always get the lighting options from a DJ if you choose to have one. Another idea may be to do the under table lights, and have a light up dance floor. You have plenty of options

I know but he didn't seem to care! Weird huh? I'd be embarrassed to even have that thought pop up in my head!

@@calgarybride2015 I agree to not like your post Kim! Lol @@ashhtayy based on how the Canucks are playing, I don't blame you for wanting to hide the Canucks garter lol

Kim, I know someone who replaced her e-ring diamond with one from her ex since it was bigger! I don't know why her now husband didn't object and I don't know why she'd even say something like that out loud!

@@ashhtayy if Mike really wants something with the Canucks, maybe a special "groom's cocktail" that's blue and green? Or I've seen brides put a small pin or character on the wedding cake just to surprise their groom lol aside from that, blue and green definitely does not match your colour palette. Sorry Mike lol

@@ashhtayy thank you so much you guys are so helpful and I think it will help a lot to get advice and opinions from friends who are going through the same thing. Derrick is definitely a character! Lol He always makes me laugh and smile ☺ I took that photo of the list after we got back from our trip. I thought it was a joke but I guess not! @@calgarybride2015 thanks to you as well! You are always so thoughtful and helpful, and your insight is invaluable! We met through plenty of fish. I didn't have high expectations going into it but I'm so glad I did. It brought me the love of my life and I love that my e-ring is extra special. He was really close to his grandmother so I'm touched he wanted to give it to me. He asked me if he could use it bc he thought that I may not want a "hand-me-down" diamond. I told him that was a ridiculous thought and it made it more special that it was his grandmother's! Men! Lol And you should have mentioned that story about Shawn! Alcohol makes people drop their guard and their true feelings come out. As ridiculous as it sounds, it was a sweet drunken gesture lol

I love the Rose, blush and hold colour palette. I think it looks romantic and really elegant! But I'm a bit partial to pink since it's my favourite colour. Lol And yes, bellinis can be of the non-frozen variety. It looks more like a small glass if champagne and is a really nice drink. It would go well with the second colour palette

@@colleentf09 yes, it's on the Grand side. There's actually extra charges for having private events here since it's a rooftop terrace and servers have to go up a flight if stairs. I've heated great things about it though. I'm also at Tucan Terrace. A previous bride moved her reception to the Tucan gazebo when it rained but she didn't have a large number of guests. She said it was a beautiful setting

Destination Wedding: Choosing a location Der and I have always known that when we get married, we would definitely be having a destination wedding. We’ve both previously attended destination weddings and had a blast. Plus, our families were always excited and supportive about the idea of going away for our wedding. Initially we wanted to get married in the Dominican Republic. We’ve both never been there so we thought it would be a great location with the beautiful Caribbean water. Right away I started contacting destination wedding travel agents. One of them contacted me right away and asked to meet me in person so we could chat about what we were looking for in a resort and to think about our must haves and must not haves so she can help in narrowing down resorts. I met with her and she impressed me right away. She knew all the resorts from first-hand experience (they tour the resorts frequently) and she had actually just returned from the Dominican. We started talking about flights and I was disappointed to hear that there were no direct flights from Vancouver. When I got home from our meeting, I briefed Derrick and we both agreed that the flight to the Dominican was already long and adding stop-overs would basically mean that we would basically lose two days of our trip just on travel alone. I called our travel agent and she suggested we look into Mexico, specifically the Riviera Maya. We didn’t even have to think about it, we decided that we were going to have our destination wedding there. Right away she gave us suggestions based on what we were looking for: kid-friendly, good food, and plenty of amenities. She suggested three places, Moon Palace, Dreams Riviera and Beach Palace. I loved all three but based on the photos and the wedding perks, we went with Moon Palace. We knew that Moon Palace was a big resort and that’s what actually sold us. Unlike most brides, we wanted a big resort so our guests wouldn’t feel like they had to stay with the wedding group throughout the whole week. It was after all their vacation as well so we wanted them to have the luxury of going anywhere they wanted to. Plus, it was family friendly which was a big thing for us since we have two nephews who mean the world to us. We wanted them to have fun too. Now that we had decided on the resort, we had to figure out the date. My brother had gotten engaged a month before we did and their wedding date was June 2015. There’s a superstition in the Filipino culture that it’s bad luck for siblings to get married in the same year, so we would be married in 2016. Given that our wedding would be somewhere warm and sunny, we thought that early in the year would be a great time to go. Yes, it’s high season but we liked the idea of getting married around the same time we had our first date. So we asked our travel agent to find rates for us in January and we would go with the cheapest week. The rates came to $2022 (incl taxes) for travel January 19-26. We consulted with our family about the rates and they all said the price didn’t matter, just tell us when and where and we’ll be there (I love them so much). So from there, we put down our deposit to lock in the group rate.

I actually love the look of stamped concrete and I love that you're now able to take advantage of the change and have your dance floor in the middle. That's why we wanted to do a terrace, it saves on cost in terms of not having to rent a dance floor! And Oh my, you're making me want to go to chapters right after work. Those vow books are beautiful and go well with your theme. Hmm, must resist temptation lol

I'm like everyone else, I love invite #2. I like the balance of white and blue on that one. And if that's not your actual colour, I do agree that no one will notice. Your invitation looks beautiful and fitting given that it's a destination wedding and that's all that really counts.

Haha he did that too. He would tie his shoelaces then look up at me to make it appear as if he was proposing. Then another night, we were watching TV and he said, "Jer, will you (long pause) pass the remote control?" and then start giggling! So when he wrote that on the list of things to bring, I thought it was just him playing a joke again lol

Aww thanks @! Now that I'm in the 6 month mark, I thought a planning thread will keep me organized. And I'm like you, I was never a fan of online dating but I'm obviously sold on it now. Der and I always say that we don't think we would have ever met had it not been through online. Although our personalities are quite similar, our interests are pretty opposite. P.S. Don't you love that the list has stars around the ring too lol. He's such a dork and I love it