LeighC

Thank you all for the kind words! I can't even tell you how many hours I've spent on this website follow other people as they plan their weddings, so I'm really excited to share as well. @@vancouverpetunia @@acw271011 The zip pouches are from Lilly Pulitzer. I believe there was one more color option....I may end up exchanging one of them that I have now for the third color so each girl has a different design. They also had makeup bags (smaller, but open wider) that come in a ton of patterns. @@krystalball Ok, this is starting to get weird! haha. My sister's baby will be about 8 months by the time of my wedding, but it's an adults-only resort. I asked her if I should pick somewhere her kids could come, and she essentially said "hell no! I'm going to have 3 kids, and mama's gonna need a vacation!"

Bridal Party and Attire: I feel like I go very back and forth on this. The Mr. and I decided on 3 attendants each. I only wanted one or two, but he was having a hard time deciding, and wanted 4. I thought, based on the pier location and the number of guests, that 4 just seemed like too many. We compromised on 3. I chose my sister, future SIL, and a good friend from grad school. He chose his BIL, and two good friends. We're having my brother officiate, which I'm super excited about. I have always really enjoyed weddings where the officiant really knew the person, and my brother is just about perfect for it--he clearly knows us both, he's a very good public speaker, he's very funny, and (importantly) he's sober! honestly, I did worry when Mr. suggested that his good friend do it for that reason. 4:00 gives people a lot of time to get drunk when it's all-inclusive. I really hope that my brother make it a good mix of serious, because it is my wedding, but not TOO serious, if that makes sense. We're not religious, so I've been looking online and in our favorite books to find some good quotes/readings that we can use. My good friend and bridesmaid just got married and used The Irrational Season by Madeline L'Engel (spelling that from memory!) It was one of the options on my list, but I don't want to repeat hers, so I'm still on the hunt. As far as what they're wearing, I told my girls that they can choose their own dress, but to try to keep it in the color family of either the light blue or navy from my color palette. (I also offered to help them look, since I didn't want the ENTIRE burden to fall on them). I think, because I have 3 of them, there's really no way this can go wrong. Say, e.g., only one picks navy...I can just have that one stand in the middle! With an odd number, it will always look like it's on purpose. Even if they each pick a different shade of light blue, I think it could still look good. I was actually very inspired by this photo: So, i'm hoping that all works out. The girls seem enthusiastic about picking something that will look good on them as individuals. My sister is VERY pregnant right now with baby #3, so she says she's using the wedding as her "get back in shape" motivation. As far as groomsmen, I can't decide on their outfits! I figured we'd tell them just a white button down, and either navy or khaki pants (I lean toward khaki, but Mr. likes the idea of navy). Unlike the bridesmaids, I would prefer they all have the same color, whichever we land on. We'll likely gift them a tie and/or shoes to go with. Oh! and on the topic of bridesmaids, I've been starting to think about what gifts I want to get them. I had planned on buying their jewelry and maybe shoes......and then while looking at one of my favorite stores, I found these gorgeous beach-themed pouches! They're big enough to be a clutch, or makeup bag, or whatever. I figured I could get these, and then put whatever jewelry or other gifts inside them. I got two of each color shown (they're a bit more vibrant in person)......

@@JamaicaNicole It's the Persiphone by Wtoo, in ivory. The skirt underneath the tulle is a very pretty champagne color. (and if you're interested, I think BHLDN just moved it to the sale section!)

Photographer: I had initially planned on asking one of my good friends to take pictures for us. She's not a professional, but has a good camera and an artistic eye. Because of that, I really wanted to get some good engagement photos. Neither the Mr. or I really like having our photo taken, so my main criteria were: 1) reasonably priced; and 2) going to take beautiful pictures of the city that we live in--that we just happen to be in the middle of. Almost everyone in my office is married, so I asked around for some names. We found Christian and his wife Melissa. http://www.christianplevaimages.com/boston-photographer-blog/ I was instantly comfortable with them--their style, demeanor, everything. When we went in to discuss our engagement photos, they had just gotten back from shooting a wedding in mexico! as those photos were showing in a slideshow while we talked, i kept getting distracted with how perfect they were. I decided that my wedding photographer is not somewhere I want to save money. The photos are the one part of the day that will last forever (except hopefully my marriage!). After some negotiation, they gave us an amazing deal. So we'll be flying them down to Mexico with us. Rather than pay the $800 vendor fee, we're having them stay 3 nights. Hopefully, we'll have enough people book in our room block to earn a "free room" that we can use for them. Now i just have to figure out where I can cut enough costs to pay for their flights

That is too funny! I am happy to say that we'll be squeaking in our wedding just shy of the 10 year anniversary. When I told my dad the good news, he just sort of said "huh. i thought you two were just going to permanently date. i didn't think marriage was your thing." haha! Glad to know we're not the only ones who took our sweet time.

Now that I've gotten going on this, I don't want to stop getting this all down! Dress Shopping: I actually went dress shopping on Valentine's Day! I took my mom, sister, and one of my bridesmaids. I fell in love with a dress at the very first store....well, kind of. I fell in love with the top of one dress and the skirt of another, which I was told the designer could easily combine for me. I had a really hard time committing to something I couldn't actually see, so I kept shopping. We went to 3 different stores that day, and i tried on everything my group suggested. I went into it with certain criteria (lightweight for beach, straps, deep v neck, flowy bottom, interesting back), but I tried on strapless, mermaid, sheath you name it. The weird thing about wedding dresses is that they all look fantastic! It makes it very hard to stay true to what you want. There were definitely some contenders, but I kept going back to that first frankenstein dress. So i didn't commit that day, and flew back home. I ended up going to three more stores over the month, and probably tried on around 100 dresses, though a lot of them were immediate an immediate "no." At BHLDN, while flipping through the racks, my future SIL pulled out a dress that seemed to match my criteria. I said "eww. no. the beading looks so cheap!" and didn't even try it on. Several weeks and two stores later, I happened to try on a dress that my consultant recommended...."it will look better on you than on the hanger." I really liked it, but just couldn't make the final decision between that and the frankenstein dress. Back home, I searched for pictures of this new option online, and low and behold, it was the same dress that I had passed over at BHLDN! And it was several hundred dollars cheaper there! So i bit the bullet and ordered the dress. Every time I put it on, i love it. but when i look at it on the hanger....blech! haha. I didn't think I was going to be one of those women who had a "moment," but I'm very happy with my choice. It still needs some tailoring (i'm pretty small chested, so it's got some extra fabric up top). I plan to lower the "v" at the base of the front neckline so there isn't so much netting without any beading on it. I also plan to switch out the sash, but I haven't quite decided on the color yet. The back is my favorite part (i couldn't do up the buttons on my own for the photos, but you get the idea--there's only a few of them)....and please ignore the mess in the background!:

Last post of the night (so I say now ) Color Scheme: I really love all the bright, tropical colors that people are using in their weddings! for some reason, though, i just prefer lighter colors. So I came across this beauty on pinterest, and it just seemed to fit me and the look i'm going for with my wedding. I'm probably going to have to tweak the lighter pink/purple color slightly because it will be easier to find light pink flowers, but the blues are fantastic: Save the Dates: I'm not particularly crafty, so I decided just to order them online (obviously names are redacted). I loved how fun these were, which will hopefully set the tone for a relaxed week/end. We sent them out at the beginning of April, approximately 1 year out.

@@vancouverpetunia Congrats! We can officially commiserate with each other, then! I feel like we've gotten most of the easy things out of the way, now comes the little details. I'll keep a close eye on your planning thread!

Wedding Events: After much debate, we decided to keep it very simple and didn't plan any welcome events. Our ceremony will be at 4:00 pm on a long pier over the water..... We love that it will be private (i.e., no random people in bathing suits in our photos) and somewhat shaded for our guests. For budget purposes, we decided to skip the cocktail hour and just have people hang out in a specified bar while we do photos. Reception will be under a large open palapa near the beach. Many, many decor posts to come later on!

Very General Location Planning: We always knew that we wanted a destination wedding, both for the fact that we didn't want to spend a ton of money, and just the amazing experience of having several days to hang out with all of our close friends and family. After speaking to our immediate family to confirm they would be willing to travel and to figure out any major plans we needed to work around, we set a tentative date of April 2, 2016. We wanted to pick somewhere that was fairly easy to travel to for our guests, so no crazy remote locations. We looked pretty seriously at jamaica, dominican republic, and mexico, but we were so overwhelmed with all the options that we decided to use a travel agent to help us narrow it down. We sat down together and made a very tentative guest list, and decided what we thought was a realistic price to ask people to pay. I reached out to a travel agent that came recommended by another woman in my office, and we sent her the following list: Ceremony: April 2, 2016 $10-12K budget including ALL fees and taxes for 50-60 people (approx. 66 currently on the invite list) Includes ceremony and reception, preferably also included cocktail hour (I can give you more detail on what I'm looking for in this category if that would be helpful to you) Resort: No specific country in mind, but somewhere that will have reasonable flights Approx. $400 per night (double occupancy) All-inclusive resorts only 24 hour room service Multiple restaurants On the beach No kids OR multiple pools/adults-only areas Newer/updated rooms and facilities Swim-up bar(s) Reasonable distance from the airport On site salon for wedding hair and makeup Other considerations: Optional or included excursions Room upgrades or free nights for bride/groom Free/discounted transport to and from airport Our travel agent did a great job of providing us a list of resorts that met most of our critera. From there, huge shout out to my amazing Mr. who spent a lot of time scouring the internet, photos, and reviews and created a list ranking the various resorts based on his preferences. (My job is fairly demanding, and I just didn't have the time). Based on his top rankings, I then looked into the wedding packages that the top 5 or so offered, and fell in love with El Dorado Seaside Suites. It had everything on our list, plus it was a smaller resort and Karisma resorts seem to have lovely weddings. From there, we found out that, if we moved our wedding back by only a week, we would be just past the busy season and our guests would save significant money. April 9th, it is! (as a lovely aside, my dad told me that April 9 is the anniversary of a failed marriage in my family. thanks, dad!)

Hi everyone! After months of lurking on here (and a few random posts) I'm officially ready to start my planning thread! We're at T MINUS 10 MONTHS! It looks like these things usually start with some background of us, so here it goes! The Build Up: Mr. and I met in college at a house party. We're both very sarcastic people and we essentially gave each other shit the entire night...making fun of each others' majors, etc. There was just something about the cute boy with the surfer hair, though, so I used what little info I had to facebook stalk him a couple days later. It was easier back then when it was limited to college students! We exchanged phone numbers and met up the next weekend. Unfortunately, the next weekend happened to be my 21st birthday, which means I made a complete drunken fool of myself! We count the dinner AFTER that as our official first date anniversary, haha! That was 9 wonderful years ago. We've been through so much--living across the country from each other, moving across the country together, graduate school, jobs, apartments, pets, SKYDIVING, etc.. I wouldn't change a thing. He is by far my favorite person, and we make each other better. The Proposal: There's no big story here, but it just wouldn't have been "him" if he had done something big and elaborate. I had actually found the ring box many months earlier and had been driving myself crazy about it! (and no, I didn't open it!) Every time we would go out to dinner, or go on a hike, or do anything remotely romantic, I expected that damn ring. Once, he even surprised me with a gift in a small box before I left on a work trip.....it was earrings! Such a sweet gesture, but I'm sure my jaw was just hanging. Anyway, we had family visiting us for Xmas/Mr.'s birthday, so I figured it would happen then. Nope. Then I thought maybe on New Year's Eve. Nope. On January 2nd, we had a group skype call with a bunch of friends, then settled in to eat dinner. As I'm carrying dirty dishes to the kitchen, he goes into the bedroom and grabs the box. He proposed kneeling on our kitchen floor. I SOBBED. I don't really remember what he said, but I just remember him being so sweet. He had to ask me a couple times because I forgot to say yes! The Ring: I mean, come on, it's gorgeous! (actual planning things in next post....)

@@AllieH Thanks for the reply.....if there's no other current brides there, maybe that just means they'll be EXTRA accommodating for me I'll keep an eye on the EDR threads for the basic info.