What I would and wouldn't do again...

[Shamrock]

Love this thread

[amygirl1169]

*bump*

Any new advice from recent brides for us?

[YaelM]

What I would do again:

 

* Have a wedding ceremony with close friends and family. We had to cancel last minute our MX wedding due to swine flu (4 days before departure). I was ready to say screw it and take our money and go on an awesome trip, since we were technically already legally married. But DH convinced me to have an actual wedding ceremony and reception. We ended up getting married in Santa Barbara, CA and I'm SO happy that in the end we did this. It was the best day of my life

 

* Hire a wedding planner

 

* Hire Nathaniel Thompson as our photographer…he is the BEST

 

* Get my make up professionally done – it was a last minute decision and made all the difference

 

* Use an ipod and pick our own songs for the reception. All our guests commented on how awesome the play list was

 

* Have a sundae bar (and wedding cake) it was a big hit

 

* Make OOT bags. They came in really handy all weekend and people loved the personalized touches, the wine and the snacks

 

* Have a small intimate wedding with only close family and friends

What I wouldn’t do:

 

* Stress about people’s (i.e DH’s family) reactions, especially in the beginning of wedding planning

 

* Stress about those who couldn’t make it. I know this is normal but I think I spent too much time being upset in the beginning of our planning. I'm glad though that towards the end I focused on everyone who was coming and all the fun we were going to have.

 

I cant really think of anything else!

 

What I wish I had done

 

* Hire a videographer for the ceremony. The judge we had made our ceremony so personal and amazing and I wish I had that on video. Also I wish I had our speeches on video

[autjo]

Thanks Yael! You always have such great advice )

[dawnkyeknod]

Wow ! I started at the beginning and read 33 pages of advice.Thanks ladies!

My notebook is full of terrific ideas (and things not to do) ...

[luciel2820]

this is seriously my favorite thread.. after reading this ive decided to not splurge on this that might not be needed, like extra stuff for the oot bag, wedding attire, and things the resort is already offering as part of the package dont really need an upgrade

[Jacilynda]

AAAHHHH My turn!!!

 

What I Would Do Again!

- Of course marry Joe!

 

-Have my wedding in Akumal. It has so much character, its quiet, relaxing and not populated w/ hundreds of tourists, or really many at all.

 

-Real touch flowers. I got what i wanted at a great price and they looked fantastic!

 

-Did my own makeup. I didn't even go to MAC like I planned, i just put on a little extra of my own regular makeup and I felt like me and think I looked like me. I have freckles, and I LOVE them so i didn't over do it.

 

-Be a 2 dress bride. I bought a dress that was great and nice and perfect for the beach and my mom loved it, but it wasn't my dream dress. I'm so glad I decided to get a second dress and to have Landy Bridal do it overseas. I saved $1300 and it was exactly what I wanted!

 

-DIY projects. Fun cute and personable. I had seen the boarding passes, passport and luggage tags in a bridal magazine before joining the forum and wanted them so bad but wasn't about to fork over the $2600 for 60 of them then I found the template here and went crazy! We also did water bottles and sandalwood fans for our ceremony which were great it was 117 degrees and everyone needed a little water and a fan, especially since I was late.

 

-Divine Light Photography!!! They negotiated a great deal for us, did amazing work and fit into our group so well. I cried when they left. It wasn't like saying see ya later to our family, and they had fit in so well they felt like family.

 

-Having our family only. Of course we have loved to have many friends come, but we had alot of issues w/ friends getting time off or being able to afford it. We didn't want anyone to feel like they were left out. It was much easier to say we were having a private family wedding and a big AHR party when we came home so all of our friends felt included and are super excited for our AHR bbq.

 

-OOT bags. We spend so much time on the beach and we all brought drinks, towels, snacks, cards, books, snorkeling gear, etc. We LOVED having these bags. Everyone used their bags on the beach. Everyone like the spanish phrase books as most of Akumal doesn't speak much english, everyone used the playing cards, koozies, fans, and puzzle books. Everything was used. If I was to add anything I should have put in small notepads cause we played alot of card games that we needed to keep score and were always scrambling for paper.

 

-Welcome dinner. We had so much fun. It started to downpour 30 minutes before. It was so wet we couldn't walk 50 feet without being entirely soaked. Alot of us just stayed in our swimming suits and some of the cousins just undressed into their underwear. We originally were going to BBQ at the bungalows but it was raining so hard we couldn't. We moved the BBQ to the swimming pool there was a good size cabana and tables. We spent $25 on burger stuff in PDC but then just ran down to the loncheria and ordered 50 tacos, we had desserts from the Turtle Bay and Guac, salsa, chips from Turtle Bay and then Ceviche from the Lol-ha. We spent just barely over $200 for our welcome dinner for all 30 of us to eat and we were stuffed. But it was fun we jumped in the pool all night, threw people in and ate and drank.

 

-U-shaped reception table This was great. Everyone wanted to be together anyway and this worked perfectly for us.

 

-5 pm ceremony dinner. It wasn't so hot and the sun wasn't beating down on us, we had the whole day to enjoy and it was great timing for our dinner and gave us plenty of time to dance all night.

 

-TTD was SO much fun and a fun experience. We went down into Rio Secreto underground caverns, it was fun and really scary and really really quiet, but it was an adventure and definitely fun hiking through different cavern rooms in my wedding dress!

 

-Bringing our own decor. I got what I wanted this way. Plus the restaurant loved our lanterns and table cloths that they asked to keep them and then gave us free food for the next week we were there!

 

-Changed our ceremony from the beach to Cannon Point. We chose to move to the beach in the beginning as it would be easy to move our chairs from the beach into the restaurant while we had our cocktail hour and we would have had to pay for more chairs if we did the Cannon Point. The swine flu caused schools to close and such so the locals summer was extended into August. On Saturday and Sunday the locals filled up the beach and there was just too many people for us even though it would have been closed off. We just decided on having a circle on the Cannon Point w/ everyone standing and it was perfect!

 

-3 tiered cake. I LOVED it, I dont' think I can imagine having a wedding w/ a small little cake. We had tons of cake left over, but we ate it on another night w/ our family left over. It was nice to enjoy it another night as I only had the small piece joe and I cut.

 

-memorial table. I was unable to look at it and so was Joe but just having it made us feel like his cousin and my dad were so much closer to us. My sister had a huge break down when seeing his picture and Joes dad had a really hard time w/ his cousin. It was really hard for us but it was a great touch and really made it feel like they were there.

 

-Went barefoot. I had planned on being barefoot for our ceremony but the shoes i wanted for the reception they didn't have my size left so I went barefoot all night as did most of our group and it was fun! We're from Montana we're used to running around w/ no shoes.

 

-Arriving 1 week before, and leaving 1 week after the big day. It was such a great time and felt like a real vacation and not just a wedding honeymoon and run home. We were able to relax through everything!

 

-Using our iPod for our music! The restaurant/hotel had a sound system for our ceremony site, cocktail site, and restaurant. They charged us $200 but it was soo worth it. I debated for a while and wasn't sure if I had made the right choice but it definitely was. We used my iPod for our ceremony, but my computer for the cocktail hour and reception. By the end of the night we weren't in the mood for slow songs so it was fun to just jump to whatever we wanted.

 

 

What I Would Have Done Differently

- my veil, I loved it and I'm glad I only spent $13 on it last minute but even though it wasn't that windy it still blew out of my hair so I could have gone w/out and it bothers me in pics when I see it falling out, but at least I only spent $13 on it

 

-Guestbook. There were only 30 of us and we knew who was all there. We did a fun page but we were having so much fun everyone forgot to fill it out.

 

-Hiring a WC. Now I definitely think they are a good idea, but for us had I known the restaurant would have been setting up everything anyway I would have saved my money. So if you have your reception w/ the Lol-ha dont get a WC! The manager is awesome, listened to everything I said, was very good communicating w/ his workers and I should have just saved my money and the hassle and let Andres and his team do the small amount of work my WC did do.

 

-Cocktail hour, I should have just set up a tab for everyone since the bar was part of our reception anyway and not spent the money on a seperate cocktail area.

 

Overall the day was AMAZING!

[Boston Bride 2009]

I had been reading this the other day and loved it. I tried to find it again this morning and couldn't....so happy someone posted again!!! Thank you all

[smith3576]

Jacilynda,

Where did you get a veil for $13?!? I want a veil but not enough to spend a lot of money on it.

 

Thanks and congratulations!

Jamie

[Jacilynda]

Jamie I actually ordered mine on ebay!