krystalball

Love those designs, especially the door hanger. The FI should get an Etsy shop too! Your guests are going to be so impressed with everything you've planned for the wedding

Oooh, thank you for this! I actually have a few of her teal dresses saved on Pinterest and just assumed they were super expensive because they were so cute! The prices are really reasonable, so I'll definitely be sending the link to my bridesmaids as an option. Thanks again! Looking forward to hearing what you decide on for your dresses

Congratulations on a beautiful wedding day Your photographer did an amazing job - that last picture of you two at sunset is to die for!

@@yycbride2016 You don't sound picky at all! It's your wedding and your vision, so you get to decide whatever you want that fits that vision I think that black dresses with a teal sash would look amazing especially with the groomsman in black and teal too! It's too bad that the teal convertible dress isn't true to colour on the website (and thanks for letting me know - I was thinking of ordering that colour for myself as just a summer dress. I would have been so disappointed receiving the wrong colour). @@calgarybride2015 Thanks for your sage advice, as always I think the shade of teal I was looking for would be a little more contrasting with the water than others, but the more I think about it the more I want the dresses to "pop" in the pictures for lack of a better word. I'm thinking maybe purple with teal and navy accents (same colours, just different main colour).

@@yycbride2016 My official deadline for my group pricing is this week, but I told everyone it was last week to create some buffer. I still have one couple that hasn't booked yet that I am sure are coming and the majority (including 3 bridesmaids and 2 groomsman) booked within 3 days of the deadline I gave them. Friendly reminder emails seem to do the trick! My main wedding colour is/was also teal and I just told my girls to find a dress close to the right shade (I pinned a bunch of dresses on Pinterest as examples for them) so they could find one in the right style / price point that suited them. Not sure if that fits in with your style for your wedding, but could be an option. Another option is the infinity dress from thedaintyard, they have a beautiful shade of teal: https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/194342202/short-straight-hem-teal-green-bridesmaid?ref=shop_home_active_15and the price point is great. I'm actually struggling with possibly changing my colour as I've heard that teal/turquoise dresses don't photograph well against a water background since it's essentially the same colour.... It's my favourite colour though so I might just say screw it, lol.

Amazing! So happy that your day went perfectly as planned I've been debating tweaking my wedding colours for the last few weeks and you may have just sold me on purple with how awesome your wedding looked!

Either works for me too, though it seems like lately we only get good weather on the weekends

Awesome idea @@Ruzanna! I feel like I already know all the Toronto brides from reading everyone's posts over the last few months, lol. @@snswedding2016 A patio sounds like a great idea! We're likely all spread around the city a bit, but I imagine as long as the location we pick is near transit everyone should be able to get there relatively easy.

@@Ruzanna I would take Sandi's "estimated price" with a grain of salt since she hadn't contacted the airline to get an actual quote. If she guessed around $1,500 it's probably because my group pricing is about $1,485 for the same resort and she's been dealing with putting down deposits for my guests non-stop for the last few days, lol. tripcentral.ca is showing sept 2015 prices of about $1,000 to $1,100 for GS so I would expect group rates in a similar price range or slightly lower for sept 2016.

@@Ruzanna I did sign a contract with Sandi, which wasn't my favourite part of the process, but at that point I was kind of at my wit's end trying to find a decent resort under $1,500 and since she was recommended by a friend I just went for it. The reason they ask for a deposit to start working with you is essentially just to prevent you from using them to price match and wasting their time You really have two options with the two TA's you're looking at now: 1) Stick with Karen and as long as she comes back with pricing that meets your criteria you're golden (you can always price match by contacting a Flight Centre rep and asking for a quote). 2) Sign a contract with Sandi (the $50 you pay offsets against your wedding travel costs so you're not out of pocket) and price match using Karen / Flight Centre as noted above. If they come back with better prices, you just forward the written quote from the other TA and she will match it. Really depends on whether you got along better with one TA over another and/or if you are ok with the idea of locking in with one TA by putting down a deposit. I don't think you can really go wrong either way!

@@Ruzanna I would love to see another GS bride from Toronto! When are you thinking of having your wedding? We are just going to use the free (silver) package and upgrade from there. We're going to have the ceremony in the palapa by the beach and I can't wait! If you haven't already, check out calgarybride's planning thread, her review and pictures of the wedding were what sold it for me.

@@Ruzanna While I'm sure Karen will do an awesome job for you, I would make sure to get quotes from other TAs as well in order to test the market and make sure you're getting the best price for you and your guests. You can use other quotes to get the TA you want to work with to price match (so you get the service you want and the best pricing). Karen was the first TA I contacted when I started looking for pricing and she was lovely and gave me some good insights on locations I might like, but in the end the pricing for resorts seemed soooo much higher than I thought it should be. I got a referral for another TA from a friend at work and her quotes for the same resorts were almost $200 cheaper. Even though I love my TA and she has worked like a dog for me (emails returned within the hour, she even did deposits for guests over the long weekend), I still got my MIL to ask her TA she uses for regular travel to get a quote once we had settled on a location and date. That quote was $20 less, but I just got my TA to price match since she's great to work with. Sorry for the long essay here, lol. I just found this whole TA business and the lack of transparency in the markup of the rates from the airlines to be frustrating and stressful. I would be happy to share my TA's info if you want it, if even just to price match if you hit it off with Karen

@@vancouverpetunia My FI is 6'5 and I'm 5'5, so I have a similar footwear predicament. I'm interested in what you decide and to hear the opinions of the other ladies here. I think those wedges are cute so hopefully they would fare well in the sand. I'm doing beach ceremony and wood floor reception as well so I have been trying to decide if I have to do barefoot (or flat sandals) for the beach part so would love to hear that wedges are manageable for the whole day

Wow, you look amazing in both and I really think you can't go wrong with either. I'm partial to lace usually, but something about the way the second dress fits on you is making me pick that dress... I think it's the smoother visual line where the dress flares out at the bottom. I think dress #2 with a sparkly belt like you have on dress #1 would make it look less "plain" since you were worried about that.

Amazing pictures! I bet you're itching to see the rest of them if the sneak peek looks this good!

@@KelDee Your hair looked beautiful! My hair type is very similar to yours and I've been struggling with how I want to wear it on my big day. It frizzes really quickly in humidity (and wind doesn't help either), but I would love to have it down somewhat to show off my curls. Because of the texture, my hair holds really well when styled, so it would be easy to do an updo... but I would still love to incorporate the curls.... Thanks for your post - you've given me some food for thought and some ideas on how to keep my curls looking pretty in the mexican heat!

Are you me? My FI and I have been together for 9 years, we had the same honeymoon conversation and picked the exact same honeymoon trip that you did. Great minds think alike I guess! We are getting married April 2016 and hope to do the honeymoon in December 2016 since we both have slow times at work that will allow us to take most of that month off. When are you planning to go on your honeymoon?

That's so sweet!!! I would have started crying too.

@@beckys98 Thanks! I'll definitely look to do this for my wedding guests. @@Victoriabride I just did an email RSVP last month via celebrations.com with zero complaints and a few people mentioned that they thought it made a lot of sense to do an e-vite since I was linking to my wedding website. I had wanted to do passport invitations closer to the wedding date for those who were booked to join us in Mexico, but my ever pragmatic FI shot that down, lol. "Why would we spend money to send a paper invite to people who already know all the trip details and have put down deposits to come to the wedding?" He's right, but they're so pretty!!!

@@beckys98 I love this idea of the facebook group and shout outs to help the guests get to know each other beforehand. Can I ask how many guests you have coming to your wedding? I don't have final numbers yet, but am expecting close to 60 and I'm wondering if it will get to be too much with that many people...

The pictures are all amazing! You looked beautiful and it looks live everyone had tons of fun. The B&W photo of you two dancing by the water is soooo romantic . Love it!!!

@@rbehlke I got my dress from Ferre Sposa (at Bloor and Ossington) and I can't recommend them enough. My sister got her wedding dress there after a disaster at another location and they were amazing, so I knew I needed to get my dress there too. The dressing areas are much more private than others I've seen and the people that work there are so helpful and friendly. They don't shove you out the door at the 1 hr mark of your appointment and never make you feel pressured into buying anything. Their dresses are much more reasonably priced than a lot of other places too. My dress is lighter than most of the others that I tried on, but it's still not super beachy. I think a big part of the decision on type of dress is the location of your wedding reception - if indoors with A/C then you can get away with a heavier dress for sure. Some girls buy a second (usually shorter) dress to wear during the reception to stay cool, others just grin and bear it in the heat. I'm in the grin and bear it crowd, based on the cost of the dress and how much I love it. I want to wear it all night even if I sweat to death! This is my dress: This is the dress on the model since the lighting in my pic is terrible. Happy dress shopping - it was so much more fun than I thought it was going to be!

@@Jsnyder0132 The dress looks beautiful on you, and looks like it will be nice and light for a destination wedding!

@vancouverpetunia Yay, another planning thread! My wedding date is two days after yours, so if you're a big planner I'll be following along to make sure my planning is on track! The deposits for my group are due at the end of May and so far the only people that have booked are my parents, lol. I'm sending out a reminder email tonight to get people's butts in gear before I die of stress.

Amazing pictures! Everyone looks so happy in every shot