snswedding2016

@@yycbride2016 Thanks so much!! So many of us got engaged last October!! There must have been something in the air...

@@Wafflesmom You look gorgeous!!! Can't believe your final fitting is so soon!! It's all coming together and I can't wait to see how it all looks on your big day!

@@yycbride2016 the dress looks amazing!!! I agree with the ladies, I can't see anything going on with the cups. It will be good to get your sister's opinion though.

@@acw271011 you look gorgeous in your dress! I love it and love the straps!!

some progress tonight...

@@acw271011 I don't even know what to say. I'm so sorry to hear that your son has cancelled his trip...especially so close to you leaving. I know how excited you were to get some good family time and can't imagine the disappointment you must be feeling but all I can say is what Sean always tells me when we've hit snags in the road during this wedding planning process...that this is about the two of you. Of course we want all of our closest loved ones there to celebrate with but at the end of the day this day/wedding week will be about you and Doug and how special it will be to renew your love for each other in paradise! Sending you big hugs!!!

Thanks ladies for all your input! I'm going to stick with them - they are beautiful and purple is my favourite colour so it works out! haha Decor DIY Projects I started working on my letters last night. Can I just say that I wish Sean and I had a less curvy first initial - gah!! Why couldn't our names start with 'L' or "M"....the curves were killing me last night. Anyway I finished the first 'S' and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. There are a couple of wrinkles in the paper but I actually think it works with the book pages. I also didn't have to destroy any books. I found some great paper at Michaels - some with written text, some that look like old letters and some vintage paper as well.

@@acw271011 Thank you!!! That's perfect! I'm going to show this to Sean tonight. It looks great!

@@ayame14r Here are my pictures from our site visit to El Dorado Maroma. We found that there were a lot more options for indoor venues for private events compared to Azul Fives but they can only accommodate a smaller group (usually around 30). We also loved their beach ceremony options. The sky deck is really gorgeous as well and I think a really great size (max 50 people) but the only thing is that there isn't an elevator to the sky deck like at Azul Fives. Anyone with mobility issues would have a problem getting up there. I hope this helps - let me know if you have any questions about what I took photos of.

@@acw271011 I can't believe you leave this week!!!! So so excited for you! It all looks fantastic! You look stunning in your dress!! Do you have a pic of the dufflebag you got from Amazon? I'm on the hunt for good luggage options. We have this great big suitcase but the frame is way too heavy. We were almost over the weight limit when we went to the BDR in Sept....we were only packing for 4 days!!

@ Thanks! Yes, I ordered them online from Bloom Bridal. Do you think the bouquet will look out of place looking slightly purple with everything else blue? I really like the colour too and hope it will look ok. I ended up not ordering boutonnieres. I got the name from Lily's planning thread and in her review she was saying how she got all the groomsmen boutonnieres but they thought they looked weird so they didn't wear them. After reading that I thought our guys might do the same...haha so I just decided to save the money! I'm going to get Sean one to wear and that's it. @@calgarybride2015 I agree - I doubt people will notice. Ok that makes me feel better because I do genuinely love the look of the bouquet! I also can't be really bothered at this point to go back and forth over something so small.

@@ayame14r I'm not getting married at Maroma but I am getting married at another Karimsa resort (Azul Fives). I was just there for the BDR in Sept and we did a site visit to Maroma as well. It is a gorgeous property!!! Perfect for smaller weddings. I'll post some pics when I get home (its on my fiance's camera). Happy planning!

Flowers: I got my real touch flowers today!!! They look beautiful.....except that the flowers that I thought would look blue look purple.... Not quite sure what to do. Is it a big enough deal that it will look really out of place to have slightly purple flowers when everything else has blue in it. I knew it wouldn't look bright blue (which is good because that isn't what I wanted) but they definitely look purple. Here is what the real bouquet looks like: ...and this is what I thought they would look like: The colour is just slightly off but off enough to make it look purple. What do you ladies think? Is it horrible if I just leave them?? I kind of don't have the energy to send it back and wait for it to be remade (If she'll do it) and then wait for her to send it back out. Am I just being too lazy?? I need an outside perspective. Here are the corsages... Peony corsages for my maids of honour Rose corsages for our moms

@ Ah! That's awesome! Are you guys doing anything? We're just popping a bottle of champagne tonight! I know that once we're married we'll just celebrate our wedding anniversary so this year of engagement I've been making a point of celebrating every date possible - haha! I told Sean I can come up with 5 worthy anniversary dates - what we call our 'courtship' date (lol - it's when it all started on the dance floor but we didn't actually start dating yet), our first date, our proposal, our legal ceremony and our wedding in Mexico - he just laughed and said "of course you can come up with 5..."

Sean proposed one year ago today!!!!! Now we're at the 3 month countdown - kinda crazy! I kinda wish I was at that treehouse right now...

your flags look awesome!!

@@Meandhim That dress is really cute!! The black things definitely draw the attention to your upper half but that's not necessarily a bad thing! Love your "&" sign - the gold looks great!

@@Meandhim That's awesome!! I had this moment when I finished where I thought my drafting professor in University would have been so proud of me.

@@Meandhim Seeing the resort definitely helped calm my nerves but you are so close to being there. Everything you've done looks amazing and it will all fall into place!! You are going to have a great day and week!! That's so cool you use Sketch Up at work....Sean had to give me a crash course because he's usually the one working with it. He did the floorplan of the garden and I added in all the details. He had to deal with me constantly asking "umm...now how do you import trees?" or "ok but how do I make this line that's supposed to be our string lights floating in the trees?" haha he was pretty patient with me.

Thanks ladies! I wish we were still there right now...at least we only have 3 months left to go! It's super exciting and so terrifying at the same time. The time crunch is on! @ I'm going to PM you soon about the chalkboard stuff . I'm waiting on one of our menu changes to be confirmed but maybe I'll email you with what I have now. Also you should totally make a trip to the downtown Michaels - it is HUGE (3 floors!!). It's a little dangerous that it's a short streetcar ride away from my office. @@maybeoneday thanks!! The 3D drawing took a while but its giving me a lot of peace of mind to see how it is going to look. I realized today I forgot to add a table for the DJ area and our vendor table. (Your day is right around the corner!!! You must be so excited!!) This is what it looks like now... @@calgarybride2015 I know what you mean, I was on the fence about a banner. Until the weekend I hadn't found one that I liked, but this one was nice and simple made with nice fabric and in our colour! I also forgot in my update that at the BDR I tested out doing a video chat through the hotel's wifi and it worked really well!! I wasn't at the actual ceremony venue as there was a cocktail party happening that day but I was further out on the beach and the connection was really good. The Sky Deck includes a streaming video with the cost of using that venue but the Sky Terrace where we're getting married doesn't. We have a bunch of guests that can't make it that I would love for them to be able to at least see the wedding. I'm not sure if any of you ladies are familiar with Zoom. It is a great app that allows you to chat like Skype or FaceTime but you can have multiple people on one call. You can also share your computer screen so it's great for things like big business presentations etc. I think you can have something like up to 100 people on one call so this will work perfectly. It's also nice because our guests will be able to see the wedding but also they will be able to see everyone else's reactions. All they have to do is download the app (for free) and I will send out a link the week before we leave and they'll just have to click on the link the day of at the time of ceremony. I'm super excited about this! I was worried the wifi wouldn't be strong enough. Azul Fives offers basic and premium wifi (the premium costs extra) but we were on the basic one and it worked really well. I "zoomed" with my friend while I was laying on the beach...she was pretty jealous!

So I'm very behind on updating my thread. I went from not having much to update to have tons to say after going to the Brides Dress Rehearsal at Azul Fives. BDR Update To recap the rest of our visit...it was amazing!! It put my mind at ease knowing that our guests will be so happy at this beautiful resort. The food was amazing, I had a feeling it would be good from everyone's reviews but it really exceeding all of our expectations. We really love good food and Sean's brother is the head of the culinary institute and I'm confident he will be happy with the food, which is such a relief! The resort was very quiet, it wasn't full by any means but there were definitely still people there. That just meant it was easy to get into any restaurant you wanted on any night. Our favourite restaurant: Koh Thai - the food was so so good and we had the best dessert here too (Tapioca - we didn't have high expectations but it was outstanding) Our favourite bar: 1910 Mexican Cantina - ask for Danni, he's the best! We loved the vibe in here and the tequila and mescal cocktails were awesome! It's just too bad they close early (11pm). In my opinion they should switch the hours of the Gin Bar and the Cantina. The Gin Bar was always pretty empty and the Cantina was always full. Room service was great as well. It was very fast because there were so few people at the resort. It is definitely a nice option not to have to leave the room if you want some food and I've been to a couple of resorts where this is extra so it's a nice perk. We were upgraded to the 1 bedroom sky suite, which was gorgeous. We had more space than we knew what to do with. The rooftop deck is huge, with a bathroom, an eating area, a sitting area, a bed and a jacuzzi. We want to host something up there for the wedding but it's just a matter of getting drinks up there. We might consider running into playa to pick up some booze. The thing with room service is that you can order them by individual drinks but as soon as you start ordering bottles, they charge you extra. We were in Villa 8 and I really liked it because it felt pretty much in the middle between the front of the resort (with a lot of restaurants, bars and the lobby) and the beach/infinity pool area. The grounds were beautiful and filled with spider monkeys in the trees and iguanas roaming the grass! Sean almost stepped on one by accident! lol! Despite the resort being pretty empty, Sean and I still had a great time dancing at the bar/lounge. This is how we started our relationship so we love going dancing when we can! The brides dress rehearsal event was also really good. We did a site visit of Azul Fives the day before to see all the venues and all the rooms but the event the next day was what was really helpful. We were able to talk to people from Lomas (the only vendor for AF), do some food and cake tasting and see the table settings and all of the options. I brought some of my centrepiece decor with me (just enough for one table) and I was able to sneak it on the basic table set up there to see if it all works. We decided we're going to add a little height to it and get some small pedestals for the medium size candles. I also forgot to bring the scrabble tile holder from our hotel room so that's missing in the photo as well. We now have two floral arrangements for the ceremony and I think I might break them up and split them up amongst our 6 tables. We also requested a menu tasting and everything was delicious except for the dessert. The chocolate mousse wasn't bad but it just didn't blow us away like some of the other desserts we've had. We're probably going to substitute it for the creme brûlée only as we were supposed to have both options initially. We also decided on a signature cocktail - Tequila Party (I'm pretty sure the head of food and beverage just made that name up on the spot - lol! Whatever we like it!). It's basically an amaretto sour with tequila, very tasty. We wanted something that had a bit of local connection. Beef Carpaccio with Parmesan foam Pork Rib Eye with sweet potato puree and cactus Chocolate Mousse Overall I'm so happy we decided to do the BDR it was the best $400 we've spent! It was great to get questions answered and also to have a little getaway. I'm also happy we decided to do it late in the planning process. Initially I was disappointed we weren't able to go earlier but waiting this long helped me feel better prepared for all the info. I felt like we were just adjusting our choices instead of feeling like we had to make all of them on the spot. Planning Updates: I went to the new Michaels that just opened downtown on Saturday and spent 3 hours wandering up and down the aisles. They had some dark blue chalkboards 60% off!! I picked up a bunch including two little hanging ones that I will use for the Mr. & Mrs. signs (or whatever we decide on writing. We're still undecided right now.) I also found the same stamps that @@Meandhim has and also used them on my Welcome bag tags (I hope you don't mind - yours look way nicer than mine though! I'm more about the ideas than the actual execution of it - haha!) I was stuck downtown after shopping as we had an event to go to that night so I went to starbucks and set up shop. I wish I had a photo of me surrounded by all of my stamps and tags!! Like I said, I'm not so crafty but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and very happy to have one more thing off the list. I found some nice light blue tags but they didn't go with my bags so I just went with white and dark blue ink. I got some additional decor - light blue doilies for simple coasters and a light blue canvas banner to hang in front of our sweetheart table. I really liked these letters I found, especially because they are free standing. I wanted to make sure Sean liked them before I bought them. He does! I'm going to go get them sometime this week. I think I'm going to cover them with book pages to continue with our love story theme. By far my biggest accomplishment this weekend was working on a scale drawing of our reception location. Sean's been using Google Sketch Up for years for his renovations. It is a 3D sketch program that allows you to design in detail. His main task in Mexico was to get accurate measurements of the garden location so that I could put this together. He worked on the ground plan of the garden and I added in all the tables, trees and lights. I almost put in chairs for every table but Sean stopped me and told me I was crazy...lol! He was right...because the drawing as it is took me all night but I'm very happy with the results. It's so nice to be able to see how it will work spatially. All the measurements are pretty much exact including the height of the gazebo and trees (Sean brought his laser measurer to Mexico). I'm still playing around with it but this will be the basic set up.

Did I miss anything big?? Sorry I had to leave a bit early tonight! It was great to see you all tonight. Sean is going to talk to the bar that he's been working on to reserve a section for Dec 4! Keep you all posted!

oh I went far enough back and found the time and the address! See you all soon!

Can't wait to see you all! I have lots of stories and pictures!! Right now I'm sorting through all my pics from our site visit. I'm hoping to post another update on my thread tonight. What time are we meeting again?

@@deecol I was waiting to respond to this thread until after our site visit (we just got home tonight). It's funny I've been reminding our guests like crazy and made all these reminders for myself about renewing my passport for the wedding BUT I didn't even think about renewing it for our site visit. My passport expires in Jan 2016 and Sean's expires in Feb 2016 and it hit me the night before we left that ours were definitely under the 6 month mark!!! Needless to say I had a mini freak out! Sean talked me off the ledge and we found an article that said Canadians travelling to Mexico need a valid passport but it didn't mention the length of time until the expiry when travelling. I tried not to worry because really what was I going to do about it at that point. We got through with no issues and no one said anything going there or coming back. I kept thinking what if they let me get to the gate but not board the plane and then I thought what if they let me get to Mexico but send me back as soon as I tried to clear customs - haha! None of those things happened. I think as long as you're not travelling with a passport that expires the week you get back, you should be fine. That being said it will probably give you peace of mind to just renew it and know that it will be valid.