LIW's Massive Planning Thread!!! (Pic Heavy)

[LIW]

HOW WE MET

 

We met April 29, 2005 at the birthday part for my best friend, who is also my Maid of Honour. Kevin was the roommate of my MOH’s husbands cousins.

 

THE ENGAGEMENT

 

We were engaged May 30, 2008. We had a houswarming party/Birthday BBQ for my FH. All out friends and my parents were in attendance. We had talked about marriage, and things we wanted for our wedding. FH and my dad (who were both three sheets to the wind at that point, lol) were talking about Kevin and I getting married. I was sitting in the house chatting my girlfriends and my mum, when Kevin came in to tell my mum what my father and him had been talking about, I jokingly said to him “now that you asked for my parents blessing, when are you going to ask me?”. At that moment he turned to me and asked me to marry him. In front of all my family and friends. I burst into tears and it was such a perfect proposal, even if he had been drinking, lol!

 

Here are some of our engagement pics. We actually had them taken in November of 2008. As we were getting married in Cuba, I wanted our engagement photos to be a contrast to our wedding photos.

 

 

 

Our photos were taking by Sandra Regier. She was a pleasure to work with during the engagement session and we can’t wait to work with her in Cuba.

 

THE ENGAGEMENT RING

 

I didn’t really want one…at first, but people kept asking about it and saying we had to have one. I didn’t want us to break our budget on it, so one Saturday we went out looking for a ring that fit our budget and we both loved and here’s what we ended up with. When it finally arrived, Kevin took me to dinner at the pub where we first met and had out first “official date” and re-proposed.

 

 

More To Follow...

[LIW]

SAVE THE DATES

 

After lots of discussions we finally decided on a destination wedding. The only request that Kevin had was that we had to be married in Cuba, which was fine by me! We had our first vacation together in Cuba and we just fell in love with the country!

 

In all honesty, we didn’t do much research into the resort. We inistally were looking at the Paradisus Rio de Oro, but our TA suggest the Melia Las Dunas, and we have heard nothing but great things about the resort (it also helped that we go a much better rate.

 

We started off by just wanting to research the cost of the trip, but after discovering that we could only hold the rate we ere quoted for a short period of time, we booked right away , which meant I had to send out the STD cards quickly.

 

Here is my STD. I printed them myself at home on the response cards from a package of DIY wedding invitations I bought at Walmart. (Sorry the picture is not quite clear)

 

 

THE DRESS

 

As a plus size bride, dress shopping was a little tough. I must have tried on hundreds of dress until I found “The One”. It was important that my dress looked like a wedding gown and that it had a train. I figured, I’m only going to this once, I have to look like I’m the bride and I always wanted a train on my gown! The gown was purchased from Becker's Bridal on The Danforth in Toronto and it's an Allure Gown (I think W174)

 

 

THE JEWELLERY

 

I was initially going to borrow something from my mother (my something borrowed), but her jewels did not match my dress. I borrowed my MOH earrings that she wore at her wedding and I purchased this pendent to go on a chain I already owned, and this bracelet giving to me by my in-laws for my birthday (no Pics...they are already packed but here is what the earrings look like).

 

The earrings are the tear drops in the large picture and the pendant is very similar to the pendandt in the bottom right hand corner.

 

 

Hair pin:

 

It's the pearl/floral comb in the large picture. All purchased from Bittersweet Jewellery.

 

I purchased my MOH’s jewellery from Etsy. It is very similar to this, but instead of a starfish, there is a shell (Sorry, I don't have a pic).

 

 

The earrings: The looke like this but with the same colour blue as the necklace

 

 

More still...

[LIW]

THE SHOES

 

The shoes are just simple ivory flip flops from David’s Bridal.

 

 

MOH’S DRESS

 

A now discontinued design from Alfred Angelo, here’s my MOH in it prior to alterations.

 

 

GROOM’S ATTIRE

 

Sorry, I don’t have a pick of the suit. He wouldn't me take a pic of him, but he’ll be wearing a black suit with black flip flops and a cream shirt and cream tie with blue flowers. I'll have a picture when I get back.

 

BEST MAN’S ATTIRE

 

The best man is in black pants, the same shirt and tie and the groom. No jacket. The tie is slight different in that it’s dark blue with cream flowers (just the opposite of the groom’s tie).

 

FLOWERS

 

They were a bit of a disaster at first. I ordered silks from a local florist (real touch was way more money than I wanted to spend). They were beautifully designed and looked lovely. I originally wanted cobalt blue, white and lime green flowers. However, the florist told me that she couldn’t find blue in my colour, so I told her to nix the blue and just do white and lime cream. I ordered the flowers in April and they only arrived the weekend before departure . When I went to pick them up, I noticed there were dark flowers, I didn’t say anything because they looked beautiful and I thought they were navy blue. When I got home, I discovered they were actually purple! I had a minor freak out and there’s a post here about it.. I felt they completely clashed with my MOH’s dress so my MOH and I went to 2 Michael’s stores to buy white roses so we could take out the purple ones and replace them with the white ones.

 

I only have before pics.

 

 

 

 

INVITATIONS

 

The invitations were “print your own†from Target.

 

 

 

THE GARTER

 

The garter is a from GartersByKristi on Etsy. It’s the Montreal Canadiens as they are Kevin’s favourite team.

 

 

Still More...

[LIW]

I can't seem to edit my first post, but we're leaving this saturday and it's finally my turn for this. I still have more, but I'm taking a break, beacuse this has already taken me 2 hours, lol!

[lolosmama]

Everything looks gorgeous!! I love your dress, and I think your flowers look great as well!

[courtney_b00]

Very nice! I especially love the jewelery and hair pins. Your dress is very beautiful.

[Geralyn]

Congrats!! Everything looks great!!!

[Helen_S81]

Everything looks great so far! Good luck and let us know how it all went!

[Prettyhazardous]

Everything looks great thus far can't wait for the rest. Congrats.

[vlynnw]

Everything looks great! I love the earrings, hope you have a wonderful day!