Jacilynda's Plannin Thread... of course w/ some pics!

[Jacilynda]

Sorry I have been MIA for the last week or so! Just trying to get the last minute stuff done and I've been sick for the last few days. I don't have pics of everything as I got anxious and got stuff packed up before Cattie could grab anything.

 

YAY!!!! We leave bright and early Saturday morning, can't believe it really.

 

First and absolute foremost, thank you, Tammy!!! You are an amazing, gracious woman and without you so so so many of us would be absolutely lost! I don’t know anyone else who could do as much as you, run your business, be a wife, pregnant, being a mom, and run BDW! You really are amazing!

Second, thank you to each and EVERY BDW member! My wedding was nothing without your help and inspiration, and I am forever grateful!

So many things have come from sooooo many different girls I hope I give credit to each of you, please please please forgive me if I miss you!

****WARNING SUPER DUPER LONG BUT OH SO MANY PICS!****

A lot of you know Joe and I are on a small budget, I’ll try include how much money we spent so you can see the amount and what we got for it.

The beginning- We got engaged!!! Valentines Day! I love my ring! Joe was too afraid to pick something I might not like so he gave me a budget and let me go look. I know some people aren’t fond of this, but I’m so glad we did it this way! I had a certain ring I was in love with and I wanted to get it as big as my budget would allow. Well when I put it on I hated it on my finger. Everything I had seen in magazines and I thought I wanted, I didn’t like it on. I also hated a big ring on my finger. It just didn’t look quite right. We didn’t include my rings in the budget as they were paid for before we even started planning. I have a matching band included. So here is the ring we officially decided on:

Picking Joe’s ring was hard, I don’t know why. I wanted him to like it, he wanted me to like it so we had to agree somewhere. We finally bought his ring. I bought it from Eternity Rings, Mens Wedding Rings, Platinum Diamond Eternity Rings, Mens Wedding Bands and had it engraved with “amour toujours†meaning love always in French (he speaks French to me at night and I really really like it!) It’s tungsten carbide. His ring cost $99, that included engraving and shipping.

I will give a warning about debebians and their tungsten carbide rings. So tungsten carbide rings bind w/ another metal, either nickel or cobalt. Debebians bind theirs w/ cobalt which I guess is cheaper, BUT when cobalt reacts w/ the oils of your skin it causes the ring to oxidize and turn a dull gross grey looking kinda tarnished but there is nothing you can do to fix it. I didn’t know this when we bought it or I wouldn’t have bought it. So we bought him a new ring from a fun local store, Rockin’ Rudy’s. He got a tungsten ring for $37. In total on his rings we spent $136. So here is a pic of his first ring that oxidized:

Here is a pic of his new ring:

Next, location!!!! Joe’s parents love Akumal. His dad stumbled along it in the middle of the night 40 years ago while hitch hiking through Mexico. He fell asleep on the beach and woke up in the morning and instantly fell in love. It is their favorite place in the whole world! And if you don’t know, we travel, A LOT! They been begging for one of their children to get married there, 2 said no, 2, who knows if they ever will get married, and we said YES! So we are getting married on the main beach of Akumal at 4pm on August 8th! Our guests are staying in bungalows just off the beach. They are cheap and have a BBQ pit and kitchens which we love cause we all plan to BBQ a lot. Here are the bungalows:

Joe and I are staying at Taj-Kumal villa, it’s the only villa directly on Akumal’s main beach. Its beautiful and I am sooo excited. Here are some photos of taj-kumal:

So from here on out I’m gonna have to break it down into categories or I’ll get lost and will be all over the place!

Invites

I didn’t do STD because by the time I got around to doing it all of our guests had already asked for the day so they could put their vacay time in.

I once was reading a bridal magazine and saw amazing amazing passport std, boarding pass invites and luggage tags, and I HAD to have them, until I saw the price! $2600 for 60 sets. I couldn’t afford that but I wanted them so bad so I started searching and that’s how I found BDW! I made passport invites (thanks to becks! She knows I’m in love with her! HA!) and boarding passes with all our info on them (thanks Carly!) these cost me $30 for 30! They were my first DIY project and I’m happy w/ how they turned out for my first project!

 

more coming....

[Jacilynda]

OOT bags

We bought our bags from Walmart last fall when they went on sale for $3 each. I bought the boys bags at Ross for $5 each.

We’ve included beach mats from Pier 1 which I also bought on sale for .99 cents each.

Koozies-DIY I bought the Koozies from Blank Collapsible Koozie/Can Holder - Qty 1 - 49 and they cost me .80 each and I used iron on transfers, printed, cut and ironed.

 

Fans- I bought these at Pier 1 on sale for .67 cents each and batteries for them at target for $1 4pk.

I made puzzle books, the welcome books (thanks Ayita!), and coloring books which didn’t cost me a thing!

For the kids I went to the Michaels $1 section and bought beach balls, Frisbees, and crayons. Costing $9

I also bought playing cards from Michaels and put personalized stickers on them (thanks MarieSam). Cost: $20

Spanish for dummies books from Target, total $18

We’re adding Mexican wedding cookies from our WC’s bakery, total $16.50

Rebecca made me luggage tags for everyone and I never got around to sending them so I’m just adding them into our welcome bags.

In total we spent $ on OOT bags. Here is a pic of them, not pictured are the welcome books (Ayitas design), and Frisbees:

And the tags done by Rebecca for the OOT bags:

Welcome/Rehearsal Dinner

We are having small dinner to bring everyone together before the big day. 2 of the larger families coming found out we were having a welcome dinner and didn’t want us paying for everything so they refused to come, they are 1/3 of our guests. So, we came up w/ a new plan. We are doing a bbq and Joe and I are buying the burgers & dogs, and drinks and our guests are all bringing another dish from one of the local restaurants. Everyone is planning on bbqing most of the time to save money so we figured this would be a nice way for people to try some foods from the local restaurants.

Wedding Attire

Of course, I’ll start with myself! We all know I ended up being a 2 dress bride. My 1st dress was not my dream dress so I bought another. Part of the reason I didn’t get my dream dress to begin with was budget. So I had wedding dress,prom gown and bridesmaid dress by landy bridal make my dress. They also have dresses on ebay under zero_love. They didn’t have my dream dress listed so I emailed her and asked if she could make it. I was really nervous but it turned out perfect! I can’t wait to slip into on the big day! I spent $190 on the dress, that included the shipping from overseas. And no alterations are needed

Here is the pic I sent of the dress I wanted:

Here is my dress on me:

My FSIL made my jewelry. She did this as a gift for me. I don’t have the jewelry yet, so you’ll have to stay tuned for post wedding pics!

Groom- I found his shirt at Macys on a clearance rack for $9.99 He loves it! We bought him linen pants at Banana Republic. They cost us $70 He’s wearing flip flops he already had. Total cost me $80. I don’t have a pic of his shirt (just a white linen shirt), but here is his pants:

 

more to come........

[Jacilynda]

BM-I really struggle w/ BM dresses. I originally wanted them all pink. My sis (MOH) loved it cause its her fav color. The other 3 weren’t as excited. One just didn’t like pink and the other is half thai and her skin doesn’t do well with pink. Blue is our other color but originally I was against blue dresses since the ocean is our backdrop. They wanted green I was ok with it as long as it was the right green. We had a really hard time finding 3 different dresses in the same color green w/out spending a fortune. So we ended up swapping ideas and finally agreed on white dresses from Victoria Secret and we made colored sashes to give a splash of color. These cost $25.99 each I used coupon codes and spent $24 (free shipping) on each. Originally 2 of my BM’s bought other green dresses that I later disliked (they are trying to sell them) so I bought them their new ones. So in total on BM dresses I spent $48.

Dresses

Sashes

FG- Our daughter is our flower girl. I bought a cute white dress w/ little flowers in our wedding colors from Gymboree on sale. Total $9.

GM- We have 3 GM, 1 Junior GM and a cousin who is our officiant. They also didn’t have a lot of money so I found great outfits for them at Old Navy. They guys bought their own outfits other than our Junior GM, we decided to have him last minute to walk Cattie down so we bought his attire instead of asking his parents to pay for it. So we spent $27 on him.

They all have the same pants:

Officiant shirt:

Gm shirt:

MOB bought her own dress, but asked what I really wanted before buying it.

Flowers

I love my flowers! Shavon from fresh real natural touch artificial silk wedding bouquet flowers did them for me. We have large pink lilies, cream roses, and green cymbidium orchids. They are all real touch. Shavon was great to work with. I bought my bouquet, 4 BM bouquets (used to have 4 BMs), 9 bouts (groom, BM, officiant, Junior BM and dads), pomander for FG, 9 cake flowers (orchids), and 7 centerpieces. I paid $698 for all of them, that included shipping.

My bouquet:

 

more to come........

[Jacilynda]

BM bouquets:

Groom bout:

GM & other bouts:

Pomander:

Centerpieces:

Cake flowers:

 

more coming....

[Jacilynda]

Gifts

BM gifts- I bought them mugs (bought from Becks) $4, starfish necklaces $10(ebay), passport covers (Etsy seller) $8. In total I spent $88 on BM gifts. Here are the covers and necklaces:

GM is buying all of the boys cigars in Mexico. Parents gifts they asked us not to spend any money on them, of course we have to! So we decided to buy them gifts in Mexico as we know we can find something they would really like and like to have something from Mexico.

Ceremony Details

So we are having our wedding on the main beach as said before. Our ceremony is very simple. We are having white covered chairs w/ pink sashes, tikis down the aisle, mats down the aisle w/ cream rose petals scattered, and I made orchid garland to tie along the tikis. I made sandalwood fans w/ orchids and ribbon and water bottle labels we are going to have water bottles on each seat cause its supposed to be around 98 degrees! The first chair on each side of the aisle will have memorial frames and roses, one side will have a photo of my dad, and the other will have a photo of Joe’s cousin whom he was very close with. She was very sweet she knew we were going to get married so she bought us a wedding gift before she died and we weren’t even engaged! The party will walk down to Over the Rainbow-Jason Castro, and I will walk down to I’m Yours-Jason Mraz and as per Joe’s demand!!!!!!!! We are walking down the aisle together as a married couple to Star Wars the Jedi Theme. Our ceremony cost us $320. Sorry I don’t have any pics, I packed up everything today and didn’t get pics of all of it, so you’ll once again have to wait for post wedding pics. Here’s kinda the idea:

Cocktail Hour

We are having a cocktail hour right after the ceremony for our guests while the bridal party does photos! We booked 2 amazing photographers I’m so excited. With our small budget we couldn’t find a photographer in the RM giving the quality of photography we were looking for w/ a price we could afford. We then decided to look into bringing a photographer with us from home. We don’t have many great photographers in our area and the good ones were booked for our date. So I started looking for photographers across the country with work we liked, hadn’t had DW experience, and lived somewhere fairly cheap to fly out of. We got very lucky and found Brian & Briana from Divine Light photography. They are a married couple so we did an exchange for travel costs and they are staying an extra 4 days and having a mini vacay for themselves. We bought their flights out of Tampa for $194 each, we paid $450 for their hotel room for the week (a deal made w/ the owner), and we rented them a car because they are bringing a lot of gear and wanting to explore a little which cost us $324. So in whole we spent $1162 on our photogs. They are photographing our welcome dinner, the entire wedding day and a ttd the next day. We are only serving drinks during our cocktail hour, our setup is costing us $150. Here is some info on our photogs and a pic of our cocktail set up.

Divine Light Wedding Photography, Tampa Wedding Photography, Photographers Brian & Briana Elledge

Reception Details

We are having our reception in a large palapa on the beach. The fee for the palapa is $200.

We are going to have a guestbook and memorial table set up where everyone can sign our guestbook and a small tribute to my father and Joe’s cousin. I bought the guestbook on sale at Michaels for $9 and the frames at Michaels for $8.40 each. Total cost $34.20. Here are some pics. (I borrowed the memorial poem from someone, and can’t remember, Sorry!)

We will have another table w/ our cake, our cake cost us $250. We didn’t need a 3 tier cake, but Joe really wanted one cause he didn’t feel like anything less was a wedding cake. I bought our cake serving set from Pier 1 for $12.50 and added ribbon for a personal touch.

 

more...

[Jacilynda]

We are having one large table for our wedding in a U-shape. We decided to do this as we didn’t want a sweetheart table and we have a small group w/ most of our bridal party having spouses and children so we wanted them to sit together. I bought the tablecloths for our table, and the other tables (cake, guestbook, favor) from Joann Fabric and hemmed it myself. I spent $94 on linens. We have amazing centerpieces (covered in our flower section), then I’ve rented gold chargers from our WC for $1 each. I made our menus, didn’t cost me a thing cause I used old card stock and printed them at home. Then we’ll put a swizzle stick in each napkin. I bought the swizzle sticks last summer on sale at Pier 1 for $20. We’ll put a place card at each seat so everyone knows where to sit and since everyone has ordered their meal already it will have their selections on the back which they will give to the waiter so they know what to bring them. The placecards I made and printed up real quick from old paper so they didn’t cost me anything. I bought our toasting flutes from Pier 1 for $2 each and used etching cream to personalize and added ribbon, they cost $11 total. Total on table set up: $148 (not including centerpieces cause they are counted in the flowers).

I don’t really have anything to compare to, but I think we’re getting a great deal on our food. We are having our appetizers on the table to enjoy while the waiters bring out food. Each guest chose what they wanted to eat on their RSVP. Our menu was:

Appetizers

Ceviche-made w/ a selection of fish, shrimp, scallops, octopus, and all the extras

Spinach & Artichoke dip-served w/ warm garlic pita bread

Soup/Salads

Yucatecan Lime Soup- the best chicken soup you’ll ever have, the taste of yucatecan lime is unique.

Lol-Ha House Salad- Lol-Ha famous dressing on top of avocado, tomatoes, greens and bacon.

Caesar Salad- Made w/ homemade dressing and anchovies

Entrees

Chicken in Mango Sauce-Chicken cooked in sweet mango sauce & served w/ garlic mashed potatoes and veggies

Grilled Pork Chops- marinated w/ Cuban spices and served w/ fried bananas, and black beans and rice

Carne tempiquena- beef cut thin, served with beans, guacamole, a quesadilla, chile poblano strips, & fresh tortillas

Pork Poc Chuk- pork tenderloin seasoned with achiote, grilled and served w/ longaniza sausage, grilled onions, beans and tortillas

Our food is costing us $814

We didn’t hire a DJ we didn’t feel it was a NEED, we could do just fine w/ an iPod. So we paid a fee for a sound system to use for our ceremony & reception costing us $200.

We are having lanterns hung throughout the palapa. I bought lanterns from , Michaels, and ebay. I used as many coupons as I could find for the best deals. I spent $50 on lanterns and we made LED throwies to light them costing us $30. The hotel staff is installing them for us for $70. Total on lanterns is $150. I also made luminarias, I bought white bags from Michaels ($14) and set up 2 images of the orchids and lilies and printed them and used double stick tape to attach on the inside. We are using the luminarias along the walkway into the palapa.

The total cost of our wedding is (drum roll please!)……. $5186.10!!

This total is also including our WC fee which isn’t listed. We haven’t bought our GM gifts or parents gifts so we’ll end up a little bit higher. So I will do my review ASAP after we get home so you can see what $5500 got us!

We are having our AHR a few weeks after we get home, we’ll have lots of people but we’re just doing an open house BBQ type of thing.

I think that is everything! Sorry it is sooo long, I wanted to make sure I was detailed. Akumal isn’t well known about so I wanted to make sure future brides know whats available to do.

 

Enjoy!

[MsShelley]

everything looks beautiful, I love your flowers. Can't wait to hear about it all and see your pictures when you get back, have an amazing time!

[heartbeat]

CONGRATS!! your OOT bags look great....

[katrina]

everything looks great! have a wonderful time and soak it all in

[EDRBride2009]

Everything looks beautiful!! I can't wait to see the pics when you get home! Congrats, and enjoy your big day!!!!