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

[82turtles]

Sorry to hear that one person tried to ruin your wedding week! How selfish and rude!!! 

 

Aside from that, it sounds like you had a wonderful time. Thanks for all the tips and ideas!

[horegan]

These are great tips!  Thanks!

[hat0112]

Ok so I loved these when I was planning our wedding and I can’t believe it’s my turn to write one….

 

What I would do again:

• Destination wedding in Aruba at the Westin. We had a wonderful time and the pictures are amazing. It was such a great experience for us and our guests. And the weather was perfect down there! There was a tropical storm going up the Caribbean that week so if we planned it anywhere else we would have gotten a lot of rain. But it was beautiful!
• Work with our WC Patrick and with Inge. Patrick and Inge made planning so much easier. I don’t think I could have done it without them.
• OOT Bags – Everyone loved them and I think they were so worth the effort.
• Have a private sit down dinner reception on the terrace with a Dj and open bar. It was amazing. We only had 12 of us but I am happy we did it. The space fit us perfectly and we had a DJ, dance area, bar area, and a lounge area. I love to dance so I really wanted a dj but was scared no one would dance, but EVERYONE danced! Even some of the guests not with us!
• Pay for all of the girls to get their hair and makeup done and have all the salon appointments in our room. The girls looked great and we had so much fun hanging out in our room. I also had wine, champagne and food for us.
• Do a black, white, and silver wedding in Aruba. Everyone does all these color combos, but I really wanted something classic. The colors made everything look so classic and elegant.
• Get married before we got to Aruba. Since you have to be married before the beach ceremony I am happy we did it here and not there. It was one thing I didn’t have to worry about doing while we were there.
• Stay for 10 days. We arrived on a Tuesday, the wedding was that Friday and everyone was gone by the following Monday morning. We were able to get settled in, hangout with everyone, then have some days to ourselves before we left the following Friday.
• Have a welcome dinner in the resort at the Pago Pago.
• Stay at the Westin and have the all inclusive package. I went back and forth with the all inclusive package since everyone talked about all the great restaurants in Aruba and said to not get the AI. But I am so happy I did. It was wonderful not having to worry about paying for food or drinks and we saved a ton just on the food by booking AI.
• Have a tiara and 2 veils with my dress. The tiara was small and one veil was a cathedral length and the other veil was finger tip length and went with my dress. I thought it would be too much but everything look great together.
• VIDEO! I love watching our wedding video. We only did it of the ceremony and I am so happy we did.
• Move the wedding from 5:30pm to 5:00pm. That way we got we pictures in the different sun light, and we could enjoy part of our cocktail hour.
• Got my dress steamed and his suit steamed by a woman recommended by our WC that came right to the room.
• Not drink a lot the entire day of the wedding. I was sober all day and I am happy I was. I wanted to make sure I remembered everything. I only had a few sips of champagne and a little bit of wine.
• Have a cocktail hour on the beach with a steel pan player. It was nice for everyone to enjoy the sunset and relax in between pictures.
• Controlled my packing. I always over pack so instead of packing how I normally do for 10 days, I packed for 5 days and I still had things I didn’t wear.

 

What I would have done differently:

• Did my own makeup. I had a makeup trial the day before and my makeup with crazy gothic hooker dark and I told them neutral. SO I stressed not that dark and tan. Well do to the language barrier my wedding makeup with pink and sparkled. Everyone said and has been saying I looked great, but I wasn’t happy with it/
• Booked a professional photographer or spend more money on more hours or something. Our photographer was almost an hour late and didn’t arrive until 15 minutes before the ceremony started. He did stay a lot later than planned and gave us more prints but he didn’t get any of the getting ready photos I wanted. BUT because of my wonderful brother and his great camera he got them for me. The boys sent him over when the photographer was 15 minutes late and no one knew where he was. My brother got everything I wanted and the pictures came out great. The pictures the photographer took were very good, but I thought he would have more ideas when my hubs and I were taking pictures after the ceremony. He only positioned a couple ways and say that’s it. I had to come up with different photos. And I gave the photographer a list of important photos I wanted and he said ok. Well I missed a few very important pictures of me with my family.
• Not order our custom cake topper from an unknown artist off of Etsy. I had pictures and a description of what I wanted and I didn’t get it. And the quality of the work was bad. I ended up using it since I didn’t have a back up, but I will never do that again.
• Gave the DJ our wedding song. We wanted Nat King Cole “When I fall in love†and he played it, but it was with Natalie Cole his daughter and a weird version of it. Not a great first dance song.
• Not stress over who did and didn’t come. The people we had in Aruba were perfect and wouldn’t have changed it for anything.
• Have someone put our invitations together for us instead of doing them myself. It turned out to be a big mess and ended up costing twice as much as it should have.
• Wore high wedges during the ceremony and the heals later. I had a hard aisle runner on the beach for the ceremony so I could wear heals and not shrink in the said. Well I never really thought about walking around for pictures and for the cocktail hour. It was so hard and I ended up taking the shoes off. My DH is over a foot taller than me so I needed something, but I should have done wedges.
• Not bring down so many shoes! Only 2 pairs of flip flops and one pair of wedges.

 

 

I know I am forgetting something, but I think this is enough.

[skadow]

Thanks so much for sharing heather =) Much appreicated!

[jrod07]

loved reading this thread.  thanks for all the great advice!

[jennyfromvancouver]

I am shamelessly going to admit that I pulled an all-nighter last night and read every message on this thread...omg i think the coffee i drank yesterday had crack in it!!!  anyway, thank you all for sharing your wisdom =)

[Avens]

Amazing thread!

[june11bride]

This is soo helpful!! Great information!! Thanks!!

I can't wait for my turn...

[FutureMrsDawson]

Thank you all and keep these coming. My FI's parents have said they probably won't come...it was stressing me out because I feel for him and I'm a big family person but reading your comments, I'm not going to let it change our plans to have a DW!  I do hope they change their minds before the big day ....it's still a year away.  Either way I'll be following this thread for more updates

[june11bride]

I have a question... speaking of things you would do again and wouldn't do again, how many of you did a legal ceremony and would/wouldn't do it again, and how many did a symbolic ceremony and would/wouldn't do it again??

Thanks