snswedding2016

I'm sorry to hear about your MOH but happy to hear you have another good friend willing to step into the role. I agree with the other ladies - have them both as MOH. I'm having two as well. They can have different responsibilities and it may also help to have two as MOH - I'm finding that my Maids of Honour like that there is someone else to share in the MOH duties. I have a bridal party issue as well. I'm now dealing with one of my bridesmaids who is really excited to be a BM but hasn't committed to the wedding because she is trying to get pregnant later this year. She wants to make sure she is cleared by her doctor before she puts down her deposit. So she's going to book very last minute. I'm struggling with whether or not to keep her as a BM. I understand she can't commit at this point but I don't think she should accept being a BM if she doesn't even know if she's coming to the wedding.

Sold!! How many "boxes" do you think you need or do you want as many as I can get. I'll also PM you to coordinate the pick up!

Are there any Toronto brides looking to add some items to their OOT bags?? My mom received a ton of samples from work and I can't use them all and I thought another Toronto bride could make use out of them. Each box includes 1 of each sample: 1-Old Spice 2n1 Shampoo 1-Pantene Shampoo 1-Pantene Conditioner 1-Olay Body Wash Moisturizer 1-Old Spice Body Wash I still need to do a final count from my mom but I think I should have around 30-35 sets of the above samples. I'm happy to give these away for free if you can come pick them up downtown Toronto. Message me if you're interested!!

I agree with @@Wafflesmom and @. I think if you feel uncomfortable asking your parents that's probably your gut instincts telling you what to do...I usually find that anyway. If both of your parents are completely on board with the DW - that's a HUGE thing!! My fiance and I always knew we would be paying for our entire wedding when we decided to get married. Neither of our parents are in the position to pay for the wedding. We really just wanted them all there and so we built that into our budget too...we're paying for his parents and my mom's trips so that they don't have to worry about the money stress. I'm not saying everyone should do that, it just depends on each individual situation. Just like your fiance's parents are in a different financial situation than yours. Hope it all works out!

@ Thanks!! I'll keep you posted on how the clutches turn out. I'm planning to order them next month.

Music Continued We've decided not to hire and DJ and just rent the sound system with an iPod hook up with a microphone for speeches. I've started creating our playlists by separating them into categories (pre-ceremony, ceremony, dinner, dance). I will also be using a program called QLab which is a free program you can download. It is a playback and cue based system used for theatre and live entertainment. I used this quite a bit when I was working in production and a friend of mine (who is also a sound designer) has offered to help me program all my music into the system before we leave for Mexico. This program is really easy to use once it has all been programmed, it's the programming that takes a lot of work. You can build the fade in and out times of songs and the cross fading from one to another. It allows for seamless transitions. I first thought about using this when I was thinking about the ceremony. One of my wedding pet peeves is when there are big gaps between songs (ie. bridal party entrance to the processional) or when a song cuts out abruptly. QLab solves all of that with the simple touch of a key on the keyboard (usually the space bar but you can designate any key for this). Essentially all the cues get programmed and the 'operator' (the dude at the resort who will be in charge of the music) just has to press one key when he has a visual cue. I hope I'm explaining this enough to understand…haha I will give the guy a list of cues like "when you see bridesmaid & groomsman #1" or "when you see the flower girl at the end of the aisle" press the spacebar. I feel like it will make it easier and hopefully a smoother transition into each song. My Dress I went custom! I had a great time choosing the fabric and working with my designer to create my dress. I got a gift certificate for this boutique from my bridesmaids for my birthday, then she was having a fall promo so I received an additional 15% off and she included alterations. The total I spent on my dress all in - $735!! Since I have my dress at home with me and we made it so far in advance, it is REALLY big on me. I'm going in a month before I leave and she will do the alterations. The designer said that she's had brides in past insist on making it form fitting off the top, saying they are going to wear 4 layers of spanx, then they decide right before the wedding they don't want to wear the spanx and they have to start from scratch. Eek! I was kicking myself because I was doing my fittings right around the holidays and I was saying how I really should have been watching my Christmas cookie intake more and she was like "no, no - if it looks good with the Christmas cookies, it will look that much better without" - Love her! My entire custom made dress journey can be found here http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/topic/78731-custom-made-wedding-dress/ Here is the dress (keep in mind it is oversized so I'm trying to push back the extra fabric in the pics haha) Groom's Attire Sean did not want a full suit (I don't blame him) or shorts. He also didn't want anything tan coloured, it really washes him out and he loves grey which works perfectly for the wedding colour palette (partly why I chose it too). We decided on a grey vest and pants with a white dress shirt. Simple and classic! We were going to go the custom route for him as well and I found this great company that makes a custom suit by taking 35 measurements and for a great price. It sounds too good to be true right - well it kinda was. I had a great experience getting quotes and their customer service was great but then I found over 25 negative reviews and 0 positive reviews. We decided we just didn't want to take the risk. A week or two later I got a call from Moore's following up from the bridal show. They offered us 40% off purchasing. The great thing about Moores is that they have one on PEI so some of our groomsmen will have a much easier time coordinating ordering and fittings. For the groomsmen we're going with the white dress shirt and grey pants (no vest). This was the inspiration photo. Bridesmaids The girls will all be wearing a dress of their choice in one of the blues from our colour palette. I created a private pinterest board to help with ideas and inspiration. My two maids of honour will be in the same shade of blue. Here are some of the pins: Flower Girl & Ring Bearer Our flower girl is on of my maids of honour's daughter - she'll be 3 1/2 and I love her like my own child. I was there when she was born, taught her how to high five and fist bump (at 6 months LOL!) and love babysitting the little monkey. I'm so excited to have her part of our day! She was also born on our first anniversary! This is her dress, although I must admit that I'm wavering way more on her dress than my own. haha! There are just so many cute options, especially with all the spring lines out now! I keep wanting to buy a new dress every day. I wanted something simple, nothing too puffy. I'm thinking of adding a blue ribbon around the waist. The dress is from the Gap. Our ring bearer is my cousin's (who is like my brother) son. They live in Calgary unfortunately and I haven't seen them since he was born. He's 7 months old now and I can't wait to meet him in person! Gotta love the iPhone photo sharing - I feel like I sort of get to see him grow up this way. He'll be a year and a half for the wedding. I LOVE his outfit - the hat is my favourite! I purchased the bow tie and suspenders from another Toronto bride from this site. The rest of his outfit is from Children's Place that had some awesome sales! Decor Package I wanted to keep my decor pretty simple and bring most of it with me for the reception but we ended up deciding to book a decor package for the ceremony through the resort. After combing through the Lomas site (the vendor used by Karisma) comparing all the different options we chose the "Passion Ocean Decor Package". It includes: -Bridal bouquet -Groom's boutonniere -Sand Ceremony -Aisle runner -Rose petal line aisle -2 sheers (for the gazebo) -6 hanging metal baskets with flowers (along the aisle) -2 hanging corsages -Tiffany chairs or lounge furniture for 20 guests We got this mainly for all the floral decor and my bouquet. Flowers Speaking of flowers…here are my inspiration pics for my bridal bouquet: This one is my favourite but replace the purple flowers with blue My WC at AF has the photos and will be creating something similar. The hanging baskets along the aisle and the two hanging corsages will have ivory & pink roses with light blue delphinium flowers. My bridesmaids will not be carrying bouquets. I'm ordering custom made clutches in grey from etsy. I wanted something a little different and something they could use after. This will be one of my gifts to them. Like this but in grey. They will each have a different pattern and will be personalized on the inside with their names.

@@IzzyDeee it's sooooo soon!!!! Exciting!

Toronto - but a 2016 bride (Jan). I looked at my countdown and it was 299 - I was just excited to be out of the 300s LOL!

Sorry for all the back to back posts. Just trying to get caught up to date with all the planning decisions so far! Guest Count After 2 reminder messages through paperless post, most of our guests put down deposits one month prior to our deposit deadline. We were shocked…including our TA! As soon as our rooms started to go, our TA allowed us to hold rooms under certain names without a deposit if we knew they were coming for sure. She held them until a week before the deposit deadline but everyone paid prior to that. Initially we held 15 rooms/30 seats from Toronto only (to maximize our inventory) with a $300 deposit from the bride and groom + an extra 6 land only rooms (for our East coast guests) for an additional $300. Our TA suggested that since we only had a few coming from Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver -that if they could commit right away and put down a deposit than we didn't need to hold inventory. I messaged my guests coming from those cities to see if that was possible as well as offering to put down their deposit for them if they could commit. Currently we have 45 adults 4 children and 4 babies! Our deposit deadline is over and our final payment is due at the end of October. I suspect we'll have a couple more bookings. Venue choices at Azul Fives Ceremony Despite all of the comments we have still decided to go ahead with our vision for our beach ceremony. The beach location is quite close to the pool and does get quite busy but we're hoping with the time of day for our ceremony, that it might help (4:30pm). There is also going to be a new beach location option opening up at Azul Fives - so far there hasn't been a date set for its opening but rumour has it, it will be this summer! I'm really hoping for this option for our wedding! Reception After seeing all of the venue options, we really loved the Garden area for the reception. It looks gorgeous especially with extra lighting set up. Plus we thought it would be nice to have a change of venue from the ceremony to reception. Of course the Sky Deck is pretty spectacular for either ceremony or reception but does cost extra. We decided to use that money somewhere else in our wedding budget (sky deck cost $1700). Colour Palette I started with wanting an ocean blue palette and then started narrowing down my range of blues from there. I ended up decided on the palette below with grey accents. Food As I mentioned in my first post, the food is really important to us. We love good food and we have a bunch of foodies that will be coming to the wedding. From the beginning we were definitely leaning more towards a plated meal than a buffet. We actually found a menu option we really liked for a great price. Our reception menu is: Appetizer: Beef Carpaccio Entree: Pork Rib Eye Dessert: Chocolate Mousse & Passion Fruit Creme Brûlé with Mango Coulis Note about dessert: This was not the option listed for this menu choice but we loved the app & entree option but the dessert was supposed to be Mexican Flan and neither of us are really a big fan of flan. I asked my WC if we could substitute it without an additional cost and she suggested these two options and we were so happy with both! I'm probably one of the very few brides on here not doing a cake. Sean and I talked about it and we both agreed that wedding cake often goes to waste as people don't see it or they are too full from the meal that comes with dessert already. Also we prefer dessert (like the options we've picked) over traditional wedding cake. Again allocating the money we would have spent on a cake to a different area. I'm not worried about it being not enough food. We'll be stuffing our faces all week with good food plus there is always 24 hr room service and late night snacks at the lounge! Our basic wedding package also comes with a semi-private dinner at one of the restaurants. We're using it as our rehearsal dinner. The menu for that is: Appetizer: Smoked Salmon Entree: Nut Crusted Chicken Breast Dessert: Apple Crisp We're inviting our entire guest list but asking people to RSVP on our website. The semi-private dinner is complimentary up to 40 people (children eat for free if they order off of the children's menu). While we are more than happy to pay for any additional guests ($25 per person), we completely understand if some guests would prefer to have an evening alone..after all it is their vacation too! Hopefully with an RSVP list we won't be paying for guests who are not there (it has to be paid prior to arrival through the resort). Music Most of Sean's family are string musicians (mom, step dad, sister, nieces) and I originally wanted them to play live but once I started looking into it, it became a logistical nightmare. Flying with violins and violas are one thing but trying to get a cello down there is pricey (it needs its own seat)! Plus I didn't want them to be worried about their instruments on vacation and the humidity etc. We decided having them record it and playing their version would be the best compromise. So far we've decided on them playing the bridal party entrance (Wonderful Tonight - Vitamin String Quartet arrangement) and the processional (Hoppipolla - by Sigur Ros but the Erskine Quartet arrangement). My good friends will be singing and recording their versions of our recessional (Little Romance by Ingrid Michaelson) and our first dance (Forever by Ben Harper). We really wanted to include all of our artistic family and friends!

@@Wafflesmom Lol - I think a Target trip may be in your future. perianjay has a picture of it on her planning thread. I haven't taken one yet - sorry! It's a white robe with the "Bride" on the back and I also got the matching white tank top (it also has "Bride" on the front). I got both of them for $22.78!!

Invitations Once we were happy with our quotes and dates, my TA contacted Azul Fives to see what they had available for wedding dates. We're leaving on a Wednesday so my first choice was a Saturday (I didn't care about so much about the day of the week as I wanted a couple days to settle in first). The Saturday was available (Jan 9) so we put down a deposit and start contracts with both Transat and Azul Fives. During this week while we inquiring about dates I started getting my invitations ready so that I could just send them out as soon as we had to go ahead. We wanted to give our guests as much time as possible to save. We decided to go paperless for our invites. I love paper invitations but we just felt like it wasn't necessary for us and we thought we would use that money that we would have spent on invitations on something else for the wedding. My company has used paperless post before and I really liked working with it, the features it offers and the designs as well. If feels like a nice compromise between sending a paper invitation and an attachment to an email as a pdf. The nice thing about this was I didn't have to wait for them to arrive. I basically adding in all my info and sent it off the day after we booked. The website creates a tracking spreadsheet of RSVPs, you can send messages to the entire guest list or specifically to the 'attending' or 'declined' etc. It made following up really easy! You do have to pay to send out your invites. The cost depends on what design you choose. We sent out our invites to just over 150 people but addressed them by family or couple. We spent $40 total! So here's what it looks like…you get an email with your name on this envelope. Then you click on your name and it opens Then it moves you to the invite You can add additional pages if you like, so we included an info page for travel I also love that it will tell you if your guests have opened it or if it has bounced back. Website I started creating a website through the one my TA gave me as part of our package but it just wasn't as custom as I would have liked it to be. I ended up using nearlyweds.com and love their options and the fact that you add pages with custom headings etc. Here is our wedding website http://seannsteph2016.nearlyweds.com Getting Everyone On Board Everyone was really supportive right off the top. We knew we might get some backlash but since everyone knew that we were going to have a DW even before we were engaged we figured it would be fine. Well of course like most brides there are always some people that shock you with their reaction. I will preface this by saying that I really love PEI, the people, the food, the beaches but man is it hard to get people off of that island!! A lot of our PEI guests were just confused about why we wouldn't have our wedding on the island…they just couldn't understand. It didn't matter how much we talked about the cost of the wedding itself, cost of accommodations for all of our non island guests, only being able to get married during 'wedding season' which is crazy for me at work etc etc. It was always met with "you could always just get married on the island" or "an island wedding would be nice, I'm just saying". The most frustrating part was my future sister in law who has known about this for a couple of years (the idea of a DW for our wedding) and who has been wanting to travel to Mexico specifically, a week after the invitations came out basically said she wouldn't be able to afford to come. I wasn't upset that she felt like it was too expensive for her but I was upset that she didn't give it any time, she didn't wait to see if she could save up, she just decided it would be too difficult. Not to mention the fact that Sean and I were essentially her wedding coordinators for her wedding two year ago and spent an entire week on vacation putting everything together. I actually really loved doing it and felt honoured to be included but I just felt like I had put in so much effort that I just wanted her to at least consider coming to our wedding before deciding it was out of reach. Sean was really upset and had talk with her and things have since calmed down and we actually found out through our TA that she has been in contact with her in the last month to try and see if she can make it work. That really meant a lot to me. My family was all on board but I think that is largely to do with the fact that my cousin just had a DW recently and know how it all works. My family also really loves to travel - they were really hoping that we would have a DW. My Father I've given this its own sub-category because well it's a big one for me. Without going into my entire life story…I will just say that my father and I don't have a great relationship. He left when I was 3 and we had zero contact while I was growing up (not for lack of trying though on my end). I did stay in touch with his side of the family while growing up, obviously I wasn't as close with them as I was with my mom's side but we did stay in contact. I decided to reconnect with him after University just to put it all to rest. Since then it has been up and down and all along I was worried what I would do if I ever decided to get married. An example is after we got engaged he called Sean to go for drinks with him where he basically told him how we should reconsider the DW and that he was expecting to walk me down the aisle. I was not invited to this 'meeting' and whole thing really made me angry. Sean's great though - he always has my back and especially when it comes to my father. Although I was concerned about being trapped with with him on a resort for an entire week (going out for dinner can be difficult), I felt like it was the right thing to do especially for my grandmother (my dad's mom). Well after sending out the invites his family starting declining one by one and I started to panic about the idea of no one from his side of the family going except for him. Who would hang out with him, what table to seat him at etc. When the final member of his family declined I decided to have a conversation with him about it. I was nervous - I didn't know how he would react and I didn't want to get into a big fight. The exact opposite happened, I said I didn't want him to feel out of place being the only one of his family at the wedding and he offered to host a small reception in Toronto for his family and some friends. This was the best compromise, he can play host in Toronto for his family and we can have our special wedding in Mexico stress free with the people closest to us. That was my biggest worry about having a lot of stress with him there and now I can just enjoy the wedding and not feel guilty about it. Walking down the Aisle Speaking of my father wanting to walk me down the aisle…well I've had many thoughts about this topic. I always thought I wanted my mom to walk me down the aisle but the more I researched alternatives I found that the bride and groom walking down the aisle together is actually a much older tradition. This tradition actually sits a lot better with Sean and I. I love the notion of walking down the aisle together symbolizing the start of our journey together as equals - rather than being given away. Not that I have anything against someone being walked down the aisle by their parent(s) but this option just suited us better. We were all excited about it when Sean realized he wouldn't get that moment where he sees me walking down the aisle for the first time in my dress. We decided that I would walk my self down the aisle half way with him at the alter and he would meet me halfway (love that symbolism too!) and we would continue the rest of the way together. I also thought since my mom was not walking me anymore that I would have my two male cousins (who are like brothers to me) walk her down the aisle and that way I could include them in my big day as well!

Thanks ladies!! The treehouse was pretty awesome, it's too bad we only had one night before we had to get back to work. We're definitely going to make another trip out there soon. @ thanks for posting about the bridal robe at Target. I had forgotten about it - I saw it a couple of months ago and meant to go back to see if the discount was any better. I picked mine up over the weekend along with a bridal tank for $7.50 - with those prices, why not! @@Meandhim we have the same dating anniversary - yay April fools day!

With just under 300 days to go, I'm starting this thread VERY early. I'm a planner...I love planning almost as much as the event itself but this is also my slow season at work and I'm terrified that if I don't start now I will get swamped and fall very far behind schedule with wedding stuff. My peak season at work is summer-late fall (just before the holidays) hence why I'm thinking "It's pretty much spring - I should get started on this!". How We Met We met through work. I was working as an Agent's assistant at a talent agency and Sean was one of the actors. We met in 2010 and we were both in long term relationships, by the time the next holiday office party came around we were both single. That night Sean bee-lined towards me on the dance floor. We were both there with some friends who conveniently disappeared and left us alone to dance the night away (I should mention he had on hand in a cast and still managed to pick me up and spin me ). A week later I asked him out and he said yes! Unfortunately the timing was off, as I mentioned this was right around the holidays. Sean went back to visit him family in PEI, then he got a call from him biological father who lives in Shanghai that he would pay for his trip out to visit him. Both trips were extended from their original return dates and then he had to help out a sick family member out of town. At this point I wasn't sure if we would ever go out on our first date but I felt a really strong connection with him from that night at the holiday party. So I reached out to see how he was doing with all his family stuff going on and asked him if we wanted to go see a show. On April 1, 2011 (4 months after I originally asked him out - LOL) we finally found ourselves on our first date! I now refer to this as the "courtship period" haha! As I mentioned Sean is an actor but he is also a designer, contractor, builder or sorts. A couple months into dating Sean got this huge renovation to redesign a restaurant. He designed and built it while I helped him manage the books. This time was really special for us as it really solidified our relationship. We did a 46 day straight renovation where we often slept at the construction site in the dust and grime. Sean always says that's when he 'knew'. This our very first picture together at the holiday party in 2010. The Proposal It was the week of my 30th birthday (this past October) so I really wasn't suspecting anything. He had been planning a party with some friends of mine so I thought that was what he was busy doing all those nights he said "I'm busy planning"...which is a huge thing as I'm the planner in the relationship. Let's put it this way, he would pack for a road trip in a laundry basket if I let him. It was Tuesday afternoon and he was going to pick me up at the office for a pre-birthday lunch since he was around the corner at an audition earlier in the day. I thought we were going down the street so I thought it was a bit odd when he said we were driving. He said that he was taking a short cut and it would be easier to drive so I just went with it. It wasn't until we were on the highway and practically in Ajax coming from downtown (for those Toronto ladies who know where that is) that I started to question where we were really going. We had traveled 30 mins outside of the city and I hadn't even noticed - I think I was just excited about a special birthday lunch! Finally I asked where we were going and he wouldn't say and then I asked if I was going back to work and he said no. He had arranged for our office assistant (note: since 2010 I was promoted and I'm now a full agent running my own roster) and my colleague to cover for me. That's when I really started to ask questions. All he would say was that it was a surprise romantic getaway for my birthday! When I heard the words "romantic getaway" I just sat back and went with it. We drove...for a WHILE. He had me close my eyes as we got closer so I wouldn't try and guess where we were. Almost 4 hours later we reached our destination. Sean had rented a tree house for the night just outside of Perth, Ont. It was gorgeous and we've been talking about going to this place near Seattle called Treehouse Point for a vacation for a while and after some research he found this place. It was pretty amazing! We went out for a lovely meal and then came back to the treehouse. He said he had a couple more surprises for me and told me to sit by the fire and close my eyes. When I opened my eyes he had lit candles, poured champagne, had a dozen long stemmed red roses and a present waiting for me. I opened the box and there was a pendant that Sean had remade for me. Back story: Sean gave me this necklace and had it engraved two years ago and then about a year later it got caught in my scarf and I lost it somewhere. I was sooooo sad! It was such a sentimental thing to me. So he contacted the jeweler this year and had it remade. I was so surprised! He grabbed his phone and I thought why is he grabbing his phone right now, it's kinda ruining this really romantic moment! But before I could even say anything he started playing 'our song' - Forever by Ben Harper. He grabbed my hand and wanted to dance. As we were dancing he started to get really emotional, and looked up at me kinda misty (he'll hate that I'm telling you all this ) and said there might be something else in the box. It was then that might heart started pounding...I looked in the box which I thought was empty now and underneath the tissue was a scarf and inside the scarf was a ring box hiding in it. I turned around to look at Sean and he was down on one knee. Side note: Sean planned the entire proposal on his own and picked out the ring by himself too...I was very shocked and impressed. My girlfriends knew what I had wanted but he wanted to surprise them too. Amazingly he picked out the exact style I had wanted! Deciding on a DW This one was an easy decision. Sean and I went to my cousin's DW a couple of years ago in Mexico (Barcelo Maya Colonial) and we fell in love with the whole DW concept. We loved that you have an entire week to celebrate your wedding with your loved ones, that we could have a smaller intimate wedding and our rooms would only be a stumble away. All those things combined with the fact that most of my family is in Toronto, with some scattered throughout Alberta and Montreal, Sean's family is mostly from PEI with some in the US and Western Canada...it was going to be a destination wedding regardless. The cost was also something for us to consider. While it can add up for a DW it is still a lot more affordable to have a DW than a local wedding especially with our guest list. For a couple of years we have been talking about the idea of doing a DW when we decided to get married, so after Sean proposed we pretty much knew that that was the plan. When we called all of our family and friends to share our news we let everyone know what our plans were. Based on my work season, we decided to have a January wedding. It is very slow at the start of the year and that way some of my co-workers would be able to go too (if they wanted to). The actual date itself we weren't too picky about but we knew January was ideal and Jan-Mar was our range of dates we were looking at. Choosing our TA & Location My mom a couple of months before we got engaged won a travel voucher for $3000 but it had to be redeemed through a specific travel agency. It seemed like a no brainer at first, since we were paying for it ourselves, the $3000 would really help us out with our budget. I contacted the company and spoke with a TA who was very nice and knowledgeable and we were going to set up a meeting. We wanted to meet in person and go over all the fine print with the travel voucher. In the meantime my mom got sick and was in the hospital so we postponed our meeting twice. I then randomly saw a friend of mine 'like' a post on facebook for a destination wedding event happening that week. I looked into it and it was an event specifically with a travel agency who specializes in DWs and Barcelo & Transat Holidays. I thought that was pretty perfect since the Barcelo properties were high on our list. So I went to the event and took on of my maids of honour with me. The event itself was just ok, there was some good information but nothing I couldn't get from their websites. I ended up chatting with Karen from MyWeddingAway and it was the best thing that could have happened. I didn't intend to talk to any of the TAs (I was more there for Barcelo & Transat) as I had that $3000 with the other agency. I sat down with Karen and she asked me all sorts of questions about us as a couple, what our vision was, budget etc. I really felt like she took an interest in us and not just the potential business we would bring. She started throwing out ideas of how to work with our budget and how to think outside the box to make it all happen. I felt like she was on my side and wasn't there to 'up sell' me. It was a tough decision as my heart was really telling me to use Karen, I felt instantly comfortable with her, she really knew what she was talking about and was quick to follow up after the event - but then there was the $3000 hanging over me and the guilt of not using free money. Ultimately we felt confident with Karen that she would work hard for us and get us the best deal possible and maybe in the long run we would save $3000 depending on what quotes the other TA would be able to get us. My mom also has 3 years to use the voucher so it's not like it would go to waste. Once we decided to work with Karen, things started happening very quickly. We got quotes for Barcelo for Jan 2016 and we were happy with them but once we started looking at the wedding packages we started to get discouraged. We invited 150 people and were estimating about 60 would come. Our budget for the wedding itself (ceremony & reception not including travel-we're also paying for our parents trips) was $6000. We wanted a private reception, preferably on the beach but definitely not inside in a ballroom. We found that all the packages included around 20-25 people and the price per person was quite high (around $70, it was cheaper for the ballroom but that wasn't an option for us). Our TA started to rejig some things asked for substitutions for some of the packages like changing venues. Barcelo didn't go for it. We also looked into doing a semi-private reception at a restaurant but with our size of group it would have taken over the entire space and we would have to rent out the whole thing. I think they quoted us $10 000 for a private reception in a restaurant - we quickly nixed that idea. I was really trying to make it work with Barcelo because we've both been there before and had a great time. We weren't planning on doing any site visits so knowing what we were going to be getting was a huge plus. In the end we realized that the packages were just not suited our wedding needs and decided to start looking elsewhere. I really left this in the hands of our TA to suggest some properties she liked. She did so much work going back and forth with Barcelo and giving us other ideas to try that we completely trusted her. She suggested some of the Karisma hotels and the Grand Sirenis. She warned me that the Karisma website will try to woo you...she was totally right. The minute I looked up their properties, I was hooked! I specifically fell in love with Azul Fives. I loved the wedding options, the food, and the property itself. I loved that it was smaller property and that it really focused on their food quality (they are considered a gourmet inclusive experience). While we have a lot of drinkers we also have a bunch who don't really drink but are big foodies! My future brother in law is the head of the culinary institute in PEI and all inclusives aren't usually known for their food so this was important! I loved that I could build my wedding a la carte and I wasn't forced to pick a package that included things I wasn't going to use anyway. You have to be careful here because things can really add up quickly (especially with Lomas' prices) but if you're careful you can still have a wedding within your budget! Initially I thought we would qualify for the unlimited events promotions and the free 'Always and Forever' basic wedding package but then we soon found out that those were only offered to the US brides. I was upset about that at first but now after having done more research and talking to the Toronto Karisma rep, I understand why it is that way. I was all set to book when I found out from my TA that Transat doesn't offer flights from the east coast at that time of year and more specifically Transat doesn't fly to Charlottetown at all!! Eek! We found this out late in the game because they had just switched to using Transat as their sole operator right when we were getting quotes. It was so frustrating because everything was starting to fall into place. We had the quote we wanted (from Toronto), the resort, the dates and it was looking like it would all work within our budget. We tried to move the dates around because we thought we could get the PEI folk to fly out of either Nova Scotia or New Brunswick but that meant moving the wedding into Feb and the quotes we got back were really high for Toronto. We considered a bunch of different options but in the end we decided to keep Azul Fives because this was the place we really wanted to get married, keep the dates as it was more affordable in general and then to just book land only rooms for our east coast guests. Since we were booking 14 months before our wedding it would everyone lots of time to search for cheap flights. Ironically most of our east coast guest are opting to fly out of Toronto anyway. Our quotes are as follows: From Toronto $1630 From Calgary $1934 From Edmonton $1969 From Vancouver $1948 Land only $1252 With the months we were looking at the west coast and east coast were always more expensive and the first week in Jan was the cheapest for all. From the time of our engagement to the time we booked our wedding was almost exactly 1 month!

I couldn't find any of my own photos of the LEDs and I just realized that they are all packed away. Here are the photos they have on their website. oops - not sure how to flip the pics around. They are showing right side up on my computer before uploading them…hmm...

I have ordered mine. Let me see if I have a photo of them to upload. I was initially concerned about the look of them too. I'm wrapping them though with vellum with love quotes printed on them. Similar to this: My theme for my reception is "Love Story". The candles will be wrapped with quotes, the tables numbers will be scrabble tiles and I've ordered flowers made out of old Jane Austen novels. I will also be reusing some of the small arrangements of fresh flowers from my ceremony and transferring them over to the reception. So I'm not really using flowers in the sense of large centrepieces, but there will be small floral hints within our table decor. I know a lot of people travel with their glass vases for their centrepieces but like you I am trying to avoid bringing breakables.

Get the LED candles instead! That's what I'm using for my centrepieces. They have various sizes, votives, pillars etc. You can get them at the dollar store, Michaels, Paper Lantern Store…just depends on the amount you need - prices vary and I found it cheaper to order a larger batch online from the Paper Lantern Store.

I've never been to the Luxury Bahia Principe Akumal but I stayed at the Barcelo Maya Colonial for my cousin's wedding two years ago and had a great time. While I didn't stay at the Maya Beach resort specifically but they are all connected and fairly similar. The beauty of the Barcelo properties is that you can stay in one and use the facilities of the others. The stretch of beach is gorgeous and there are several little beach areas that are more private for ceremonies. My cousin was married at the beach area right by the Captain Morgan's bar. It was really lovely! If you have guests with varying budgets there is something for everyone. You could have some stay at the colonial or the tropical or for those who want to splurge at the Palace. I found the buffet decent and some of the a la carte restaurants to be good (make reservations on your first day - it books up quickly). The french restaurant at the Palace (complimentary for those staying at the palace but an extra charge for everyone else) was by far the best meal! The wedding meal itself was pretty good - we had the surf and turf (they steak was a little over done but I think that is to be expected when it is served at a wedding). Lots of stuff for the kids to do, you can rent ATVs and there is a cenote close by! My fiancé and I were really considering the Barcelo properties in the beginning as we had such a good time at a DW there before but ultimately it didn't fit our wedding needs. My cousin had a smaller wedding 30 people including kids and we are looking at 50-60. The packages that Barcelo offers just doesn't fit out budget. They would include up to 20 maybe 25 guests and then I found the price per person on top of that to be quite high. This isn't just Barcelo, many resorts have packages like this which is why we ended up choosing Azul Fives. While AF can get quite prices with all the add ons, if you watch your budget you can customize it to really fit your needs. Hope that helps! Happy planning!

I agree with rachelia160. If you want family standing up with you and only a few of them confirmed, I think it will be special regardless of the numbers matching on both sides. If they are important to you, that's all the matters! You could always have the two groomsmen walk your sister down the aisle (one groomsman on either side - I've seen that before and looks really nice). My fiance has been pretty laid back about the planning of the wedding and has totally let me take the reins and will go along with whatever I choose but the bridal party was one thing he really wanted. He really wanted his boys up there with him (and there are a lot of them). I talked him down from 8 to 6 - lol! Although I think if he had it his way, our whole guest list would be standing -haha! At one point we talked about having all the kids at our wedding parade down the aisle instead of having just one flower girl and one ring bearer. So far we have 8 kids in total. We quickly nixed that idea (talk about chaos) but it was pretty funny picturing it.

...the only silver lining for me is that our dollar being so low is good for my business (I working in the entertainment industry). I'm just hoping that business is so good this year that it off sets the costs of the wedding. Here's hoping!

@@Smellsey wasn't the dollar at $0.80 for most of last week - wouldn't it have been around $10,000 - worried that you lost $1000 somewhere - eek! I feel your pain too...I'm watching the dollar like a hawk and trying to figure out the best time to put money in my US account.

@@SteeleTheSpotlight I'm not sure if you're still looking for the ID badges. I bought mine from Amazon that are resealable for $15.84 (for 50) and free shipping! The vendor was discounttown. It was through Amazon.ca but I'm sure there must be a similar vendor through Amazon.com.

@@TinkerSofi I LOVE your dress, it's stunning! Can't wait to see it when it is all altered and ready for the big day!

@@TinkerSofi Thanks! It was a lot of fun! I've always been drawn to certain necklines and even more so backlines (lol is that even a thing?? - that is to say I LOVE low backs). I was pretty confident in the silhouette I wanted and every time I went into a bridal store I just felt overwhelmed, didn't wanted to even sift through any of the dresses ...is that weird? When my bridesmaids gave me that gift certificate for a custom made dress, I took that as I sign. I was nervous at times but just tried to trust the process. It has been sitting in my closet since the end of Jan ....a year before my wedding! I just want to put it on and prance around my house all the time. LOL! I have to admit that a couple of times I've made my fiance stay in the bedroom while I put my dress on in the living room. Sometimes you just want to wear it and remind yourself of how much you love it!

@@ashhtayy I just called my TA to clarify the details of the attrition clause. She did say to double check with your TA as everyone works a little differently and the contracts may have differently clauses but generally you will have an Attrition clause when dealing with Air Transat. So you can release up to 20% of the seats you a holding up to 60 days prior. With the 30 seats you can release 6. If you do release 6, those deposits your guests have paid can be applied to your balance or you can refund your guests. If you release more than that, the deposits and/or final payments (if it is after the final payment date) are non-refundable. If you have put down additional deposits for extra packages beyond the 15 rooms/30 seats and then have to release then release them....you are on the hook for the money! My TA said that depending how many additional packages you're holding outside of the 15 rooms/30 seats the additional deposit amount can get quite expensive if you want to hold a lot of extra rooms. She recommended really going over all the details with your TA - what you would be on the hook for if you are releasing inventory. I also think you TA is saying that the full availability may not be showing because there may be other brides holding inventory and will release rooms once their 90 days are up. I hoped that helps and it isn't too convoluted!

@@Smellsey - haha so true, we're creating the high demand and limited availability. oops! Between the two of us, most of the resort will be Canadian! @@ashhtayy just found the 'Attrition' clause in my contract (hopefully this helps): "60 days or more prior to departure dates, 20% of the passengers may be released. The deposit will be applied as payment to the file. Group minimum of 10 adult passengers must be maintained" This is something to consider if you are thinking about putting down deposits for some of your guests.