ashhtayy

@@TinkerSofi everything is beautiful and looks like it was definitely worth the wait (and grief!)

@@TinkerSofi thank you so much. we actually locked in the sky deck for the ceremony and reception the second we booked. it's on our wedding builder and all information is correct - thank goodness. we are also considering pushing our ceremony back by thirty minutes. undecided right now.

@@TinkerSofi you're the best! out of curiosity, where did you find this? did the WC send it to you or did you find it online? also, hoping you can give me some advice. i don't know where to go next. i have all documentation from the resort for food, cakes, booze, wedding packages (locations), spa packages, decor packages, and just general FAQS. should i be emailing my WC asking for other information? i don't know where to go from here. our guests are booked, we think we know what photographer we are going with but when is decision time in regards to all i mentioned above? this is a very vague question, i realize, but any direction you can push us in is appreciated. thanks!

@@yycbride2016 i also sent out reminder emails. i am going to include those in my next post. i had a hard time with the wording in the emails, not wanting to sound too pushy, and was able to find a few suggestions on here. i sort of combined the suggestions, added a bit and hit send. i kept thinking "why didn't i just add the booking deadline to the STD?" lol @@acw271011 checking out walmart this week for a little steamer. mike's in BC for work so maybe he won't even notice the new purchase

@@snswedding2016 great decor additions! i'm not in that stage yet but i can only imagine that when i lock down a theme and colour scheme i am going to run wild; especially at homesense. i love the idea of making your own chair sashes. much more economical! if you cut a piece and try, show us a picture! i don't think you could have picked a better necklace to wear. i love the sentimental value and it will look so unique and beautiful. we too are really banking on getting the free upgrade to a sky suite. off the bat we booked a one bedroom thinking we would definitely want the extra space & the king sized bed. i didn't read that they only upgrade you one level so that makes me feel better about our situation. i think you made the right call and for $230 it seems like a steal. fingers crossed you get upgraded! are you registering anywhere? my girlfriends that just got married had a blast doing their registries. they registered at the big bay downtown. if you do the bay, one piece of advice she gave me was to go to more than one bay (for example). she found that although downtown had tons of stuff, they didn't have as many dish patterns as some of the smaller locations. sounds like it pays to visit a few. LOVE your second engagement shoot spot. so beautiful and will make for amazing photographs. everything is looking great!

@@vancouverpetunia I'll email tomorrow. thanks!!

@@calgarybride2015 as i read your reply i remembered one of my bridesmaids has one. i'll definitely check to see what state it is in and if she thinks we will be able to bring it to the wedding. must save money wherever possible! @@TinkerSofi we had like 10 people book right away and then maybe 30 the week of and then the other 14 or so were after our fake deposit due date but before the real due date lol NO one read the website. absolutely should have put the booking deadline on the actual STD. i'm actually thinking of not sending formal invites. i feel like if you've put your deposit down, you're coming. we do want to send something to everyone, but it won't be a formal invite like my save the date suggested (by suggested i mean said). like @@calgarybride2015 said, one of your guests probably has a steamer you can borrow. fingers crossed anyways. have you looked into steaming costs at AF? i don't have a clue how much it is. @@calgarybride2015 yes! the steamer does have to touch the dress to work. it's scary the first time you do it because the dress gets water on it and you think you've ruined it (at least i thought so the first time). rookie mistake. SO grateful zazzle.com made up for my silly mistake. glad to hear vistaprint was good to you too!

The ‘Save the Date’ After finding a deal that we didn’t think we’d be able to beat, we began the search for the perfect STD. I knew I wanted to do a post card and include a photograph from our engagement shoot. The main reason for including the photograph of us was because I still didn’t have a colour scheme or theme. I searched many sites and finally found a template on zazzle.com that had a similar calligraphy to our wedding website. I SHOULD have done more research as we certainly paid too much for our STDs (more so too much for shipping rather than the actual STDs). We only required 85 postcards even though our guest list was close to 200. We sent one per household; some groups of four only received one STD. Our STDs were $1.00USD each with a discount of $21.25USD for a total of $63.75USD. The shipping came to $45.64USD. Total for STD and shipping was $94.39USD. The second I hit submit on zazzle.com I realized I had placed the order for the WRONG STD. I had many different templates saved and most looked identical. I ordered one with the incorrect date and old wedding website. I could not believe that this had happened. After I wiped the tears from my eyes I frantically emailed zazzle.com 4 times stating PLEASE CANCEL THE ORDER. It was a Sunday night, no one was on email and their phone was not being answered because of the day of the week and time. As soon as their offices opened Monday morning I called and was told it was too late – they hadn’t checked their email and the STDs had been sent to print. Someone was looking out for me that day though. Zazzle.com acknowledged that it was their error as they could see I emailed them less than 5 minutes after I had placed the order. They told me to push through the order for the correct STDs and they would reimburse me (STDs and shipping costs) once I received the incorrect STDs in the mail. They were true to their word and reimbursed the $94.39USD to my credit card. They didn’t even want me to send the incorrect STDs back. Side note: although promising to reimburse both the STD cost and shipping, the first credit only included the cost of the STD. When I called they apologized and put through a credit for the shipping as well. Outstanding customer service. This was 100% my mistake so had they not of credited me I would have understood but I am happy to say customer service is important to them and they did everything they could to make this right for me. It total our STDs were $122.96CAD and $85CAD for the stamps which we bought in a 100 pack from Costco. STDs with shipping and stamps = $207.96CAD The front included our picture and names. The back of the post card included the dates our guests would be traveling, the name of the resort, our wedding website and a brief note that said “Details on the resort, travel arrangements and booking deadlines can be found on our website”. If I were to do this again I would: Pay less for our STDs or make them myself if time had permitted that (it didn’t because when I ordered them our 90 days had already started) Order locally (Canadian supplier) Yes – zazzle.com has a zazzle.ca but they didn’t offer the STD I wanted Have asked people to RSVP Include our booking deadline date on the STD (few people read the website) Nowadays if people don’t do something right away, they forget. Our STDs likely made it on to a few fridges, maybe into a junk drawer or a friends keepsake card box, and people didn’t even realize they had to act fairly soon. I take fault for that because I didn’t articulate the right things on our STDs. Our STDs were sent late April and our booking deadline was June 18th. It was EXTREMELY important to us to give our guests a year’s notice. We wanted everyone to come but knew that wouldn’t be possible. We hoped that with enough notice, more people could make this happen.

@@TinkerSofi you just brought me back to my elementary school days at our favourite spot "Wheelies". we used to play snowball on the roller rink. we spent every friday night there...and everyone's birthday parties. SO MUCH FUN! i would love to do something silly like that at our wedding because it would bring all my friends back to our younger days. great idea!

@@Tonya8655 i don't think it's the easiest thing to decide at all! i feel so much pressure to make the right decision so that our day is as beautiful as possible. i still haven't chosen our wedding colours. all i know is it will be fairly neutral. no bright pinks, blue, orange, purple, etc. likely blush pink, soft greys, white and MAYBE a little bit of gold sparkle. sorry - i'm no help but wanted you know know you are not alone. try pinterest. so many different directions you could go. good luck!

@@calgarybride2015 travel steamer is a great idea. mike is going to freak when i say we need to buy one. about 6 months ago i said we NEEDED a steamer. we bought a pretty good one...and have only used it a few times when we got it and then for both my gfs weddings (for the bridesmaids dresses). should have bought a travel sized one to begin with! no way we can travel with ours lol

@@TinkerSofi i love the idea of engraving his ring with your wedding date. no excuses. my best friend just got married and they had each others names engraved on their wedding bands. just another idea! it looked very cute have a great time at your shower!

@@yycbride2016 okay, I spoke to my TA and we do get all the perks. here is the final list: Transat Holidays Group Offer: Bride and groom receive a $500 voucher to be used towards future travel Cloud Nine Bonus: Priority check-In at the airport, Priority luggage tag, Complimentary seat assignment for the bride and groom, An extra 10kg baggage allowance, Two 200ml glasses of champagne on departure, A reserved overhead compartment for the bride’s wedding gown, Onboard announcement (if desired). Bride and Groom receive a $100 credit to be used for a pre-booked excursion! Free Passenger Credit: Every 21st adult passenger is free, minus taxes and surcharges, based on the least expensive package booked. A maximum of 4 free passenger credits will be provided. Land Only packages do not count towards this amount. Total credit amount will be provided at final payment. @@TinkerSofi i briefly read about your situation in your thread. i cannot believe you had to pay for people (or one person i think?) that didn't cancel. insane. so angry for you. BUT, you're 30 days out...can't focus on that anymore. time to just get SO EXCITED!

@@TinkerSofi @@yycbride2016 i just checked the website and it says we should receive: Promotions* Enjoy our Group Price Promise!Should your Transat Holidays group package become available at a lower price than the one paid, we’ll honour the new lower price. No deposit weddingsWe’ll book and hold space for the wedding and 30 passengers or less for up to 90 days without a deposit. Wedding couple future travel voucherFor the bride and groom to celebrate their first anniversary in the same style they got married, they will receive a $500 voucher to be used towards future travel. Cloud Nine Airline Wedding Advantages Priority check-in at the airport and priority luggage tags Complimentary advanced seat assignment An extra 10 kg baggage allowance per couple free of charge Two 200 ml bottles of sparkling wine on the departure flight A reserved overhead compartment for your wedding gown† On-board announcement, if desired I booked in 2014, maybe 2013 was different? Either way what it says here is not what I got either. We still paid our deposits and we didn't get a $500 voucher. I'm emailing my TA re: the voucher now. To be honest I have no idea how I am transporting anything...probably because I haven't bought anything yet. Call your TA; I bet you do get that overhead compartment. happy to hear you still got SOME price drop. better than nothing. and 10 guests backed out? i mean, i figure a few might but 10 sounds like a lot. i'm sorry that happened.

@@yycbride2016 great perks! jealous of your travel voucher, $100 credit and 1 in 16 i know what you mean - i'm ready to go away (and get married) NOW!

@@calgarybride2015 ah! sorry, i mistook the gamble for actually putting the money down. getting the money back from friends and families does sound like a nightmare. i can picture it now - "oh, here i'll buy this drink for you...take it off my tab".

@@calgarybride2015 & @@vancouverpetunia i posted on here asking whether we should put down the extra money and if i remember correctly, no one else had! nice to hear you both did and that it worked out. perhaps ours was applicable to our trip whether we used the rooms or not but my understanding was we used it or lost it...BUT there have been many discrepancies with our TA so she likely didn't say and i likely didn't ask the right questions. i am trying to post what i would have done differently with each topic because how is a girl to know when she has never planned a wedding let alone a DW before? good point about the free drinks - maybe having the announcement IS worth it haha

@@Lilgabri03 amazing photos!! thanks for posting

@@calgarybride2015 glad to hear you thought our price drops were good. i was worried but couldn't imagine the BC rates going down more than $95CAD. 1 in 16 is great! beats 1 in 21 but hey, anything is better than nothing! we have 4 AB guests too but because there are only a few i forget what their rates are - actually, not sure if we've ever even seen them. somewhere in between the ON and BC guests for sure! @@vancouverpetunia thanks so much!

The Booking Process with GI TA This seemed to be more complicated than I think it should have been. Because our resort is smaller and our guest list was quite large, we were worried that blocking the minimum rooms would not be sufficient. Michael and I each paid our deposits ($150/pp – total $300CAD) and that secured 15 deluxe rooms. From the date we said “let’s do this” those rooms were secured for 90 days. That was March 18th, 2015. Our GI TA suggested that if financially we could do it, we should block additional rooms to ensure all our ‘100% guests’ would have a room. After a lot of deliberation we blocked an additional 10 rooms (on top of the 15 we had already secured). We paid $150/pp, so $300 per room, for a total of $3000. What our travel agent did was as people booked she put them in rooms 16, 17, 18, etc. When our booking deadline hit she released the rooms within the first 15 that we did not require. The only way we were going to lose money was if we did not fill the 10 rooms we paid extra for. This was a slight gamble but we studied our guest list intensely and marked those that we knew 100% would attend regardless of price and time of year (bridesmaids, parents, aunts and uncles) and we knew we would be okay. The extra money that we put forward was then put towards our trip. We were out no money and had pre-paid a portion of our wedding trip. I spent a lot of time on this site asking other brides-to-be if they put down extra money to secure more rooms. It appeared that this was not common practice. In the end it would have been fine if we didn’t put out the extra $3000 down as rooms are still available, but it worked out because now a large portion of our trip is paid. The promotion when we signed on with Transat was 1 free credit for every 21st person booked (excluding children and taxes). The passenger could board from any gate in Canada, regardless of room type but needed to stay a minimum of 7 nights. Through Transat we get the standard: priority check-in, advanced seat assignment, an extra 10kg of baggage per person, sparkling wine, overhead compartment for my wedding dress and an on-board announcement if we desire (lol).

@@yycbride2016 thank you! thank you! thank you! we were really happy with our rates too. we actually already took our price drop guarentee. crazy? maybe...but i was scared that if we didn't pull the trigger now there is no way the resort would have enough rooms (in our room catergories) available. initially we signed on at $1620 for ON (now $1560CAD) and $1830 for BC (now $1735CAD). i hope this doesn't come back to haunt us. we are getting some nice perks. because we went with a GI TA we have our pick of a free cocktail hour, photo credit or spa credit. the best value seems to be the cocktail hour so we will likely go with that. still haven't decided yet. we also get every 1 in 21 free so right now we are comfortably sitting at two freebees. SO upset we didn't get to take advantage of a 1 in 11 like i have seen some brides get. then we get some other things that I can't really recall - standard stuff though (i think) like upgraded seats, extra baggage, champagne on the flight, something in our room i think (?). what about you? any special perks? i'm following your thread but having a tough time keeping up with everything. will post soon