Any brides from the UK

[samcalv1]

Herbie - Sorry if I sound a bit thick hun but what do you mean about the birth certificates if you already have children??? Can I change my surname on their birth certificates after we are married??

 

Nina - Welcome hun xxx This is a fab site with loads of info...... Where are you renewing your vows?  I'm getting married in Grand Riviera Princess, Playa Del Carmen in October, my photographer is Claudia Rodgriguez.... The hotel have been quite good at getting back to me via e-mail to be honest I have booked through Thomson and so far I have found dealing direct with the hotel much better than speaking to Thomson's wedding department or my local branch!!!!

[nina874]

Hi Sam, I had 2 kids when I got married and I didn't bother changing the birth certificate, I didn't know that you could to be honest. I know that with consent of the father you can change the children's surnames if they are different but I didn't think that you could change your details as they are a record of who you were at the time IYKWIM?

 

I am getting them renewed at the Gran Caribe Real, it took me ages to find a resort that fitted all of the criteria for all of us and was affordable! We have got loads of kids going with us so they had to be child friendly, I booked it all through the caribbean warehouse but it is a Thompsons holiday, it was  just that they beat the price. I am going to sort out any room upgrades with the hotel direct and I am using the hotels own wedding package as it seemed much better than the ones that the tour operators over here were offering.

 

I will look at Claudias pictures, I am driving myself mad because I know that type of photography that I want I just have to find someone who shoots in that style - I am thinking mainly black and white and a bit arty but not posed - to be honest I am dreading it cos I hate having my picture taken, but I know that I want the memories for ever.

 

Do your hotels charge vendor fees for outside people to come in?

[michelle2011]

Welcome along Nina. We booked with caribbean warehouse they are great! We booked a company called Adventure for our pics. Our hotel is charging us $300 to have an outside photographer

 

Our tickets came today... OMG so so real now )

 

When we registerd Scarlett we were told the same thing to go back and re register her when we got married. I suppose it will be nice to have my married name on her birth cert..)

[bride5656]

Hello ladies ))

 

@Herbie OMG what a day!!!!....so sad about the house, it must be a horrible experience for them to have to go through that..hope everything is going to work out though!!! Do post your new hair do hon, would love to see and I am sure it looks lovely! ))x

 

@Nina, Welcome hon, you will love this site and you will get loads of great advise from all of the girls )) When is your big day???!!! )) We are getting married in Dominican Republic 6th March 2012 and we have more or less everything sorted out. We have booked it all with Caribbean Warehouse as well and they have been lovely, but been planning the actual wedding directly with hotel - it takes my WC sometimes few days to reply, but in general its not bad About MIL, i am sorry that you are another bride with MIL issues lol ...mine it seems so far not going to be coming to our wedding either...however FI told her if she doesn't he won't speak to her again...

 

@Micheller OMG I cant believe that you are leaving Tuesday already!!!! and your tickets are in as well, its amazing, I am thrilled for you :Dx

 

@ Nicy sweetie you are back!!!!! Yay!!!! Cant wait for your review and loads of pictures too!!! :)xoxo

[bride5656]

We had the most stressful couple of days in the beginning of the week ever....we received a call from our TA Caribbean Warehouse (who were extra helpful and nice so far and we loved dealing with them) saying that Thomas Cook has decided that from next year they won't be flying to Dominican Republic anymore during winter and as our tickets were with Thomas Cook we are obviously affected by it....

And that's when the stress begun...as there is group of 6 people from both of our families coming in addition to both of us, the lady on the phone told me that they will need to get flights from Thomson, and as Thomson prices are higher and they are asking to cover the flights up front, our whole wedding party will need to pay almost £3000 today or they will give us a refund and we wont be going anywhere.....

So obviously everyone was very stressed and it was midday Monday by the time we got more explanations from them, I have decided to go to Bluewater and go to every possible travel agent there and see what deal they can offer directly...I have spend 5hours in there lol and then i got "light bulb moment" lol - the reason why they had to ask for money up front is because they are keeping hotel with Thomas Cook and getting flight from Thomson...so I ring Caribbean warehouse asking can they do the whole package (flight and hotel) with Thomson??? On which the same lady on the phone calmly replies "yes of course" and will that mean that our wedding party will only need to pay £300pp more in total and won't need to pay £3000 up front??? and she tell me "yes".....WTF!!!! (pardon my language) Why on earth didnt she tell me that before????

So i have spend over 5hours researching and talking through 10 deals with different airlines just to come up with this idea that in all fairness I think CaribbeanWarehouse was suppose to offer this deal to us first and not paying £3000 up front on the spot!!!!

Not to mention that in those 5hours I have stressed myself sooo much that everything I have planned for this 5months gone to waist and we will need to look for somewhere else to get married....

Well my FI came to pick me up, all drained, from Bluewater only for me to get a phone call from Sara Taylor from TaylorMadeRings that she is coming to see us in 20min....and i completely forgot about the meeting at all with all the stress....so we got home and had meeting with Sara (she was very nice and very informative and we have seen some very nice rings) and then after tried to relax...

Yesterday, after sleeping on everything we have decided to speak to Caribbean Warehouse again and set few things that were bothering us straight....our wedding party and us (as we have separate booking from them) decided to take TA's deal to pay extra money to travel because we didn't have much choice....however at the very end, when me and FI were confirming everything we remembered that we already paid extra in our original booking to choose our seats on the plane....and when asked TA will this be still included, we have been told no that's an extra 50£...my FI just flipped to be honest at this point...

Not because we mind paying extra 50£ but because if we haven't asked about choosing seats the TA wouldn't even notice and we would have only found out before our trip, not to mention that we ourselves had to come up with solution on having the whole package with Thomson the day before too.....

Anyway, it has caused us loads of stress and my advice for anyone who is traveling with Caribbean Warehouse, they are lovely and they are trying very hard, but if you have serious matters like we did, the best person to speak to is Gemma! She is operations manager there and we have been speaking to her at the very end when we were trying to sort everything out with seats and she was genuinely concerned and found us the best options and tried to keep us calm....

 

Sorry ladies for the rant....needed to share it with someone, because for the last two day I was on and off in tears thinking that we wont be able to get married in our dream location and will have to plan it all over again...:/

 

xoxo

 

 

[nina874]

Dear Lord Amurka what a ferkling nightmare!! I bet you have a few grey hairs now......Flippin stroke of genius though hon to come up with the solution that you did, did your refund from thomas Cook include the money for booking the seats together as well? Surely if they aren't doing it from next winter that means starting WINTER 2012 ( as in flying out from October 2012 onwards) whereas your wedding is actually the winter 2011 season that runs into 2012 (flying out from October 2011 to March 2012)  Sorry if I am being thick but it doesnt make sense to me?

 

Anyway you got it all sorted and I will take on board what you said about dealing with CW! Its the last thing that you need though having to tell everyone that it is going to cost more - big (((hugs))) to you hon

[nina874]

Michelle - you leave on Tuesday??!! You must be bouncing off the walls! All of the luck in the world, I hope that your day goes like a dream.

I will have to scroll backwards now to get all of the details! 

 

xx

[bride5656]

Hi Nina and thanks for the hugs :Dx I really needed it!!!xo

I apologias myself lol, this what happens when I type very quickly, you are right Nina I meant winter starting 2011 doh lol but thankfully we had all money refunded, however it didn't help that Thomson put their prices up for flights the second they realised they are one of few airlines that actually flight to Dominican now that Thomas Cook are out of the picture during winter!

But luckily it is all over now and fingers crossed we won't have any more changes either I guess it is just one of those things that might happen when you book so far in advance..

 

On a positive note, your renewal of vows sounds fantastic and it is very sweet thing to do after you have been married some time )) We are looking forward on doing it too in years to come after our DR wedding I am sure you will have loads of fun with your family and friends!!! Do keep us all posted with any more planning you will do )

 

xoxo

[michelle2011]

amurka you poor thing going through all that stress. How awful for you. It is bad and they definitely should have told you other options. Our travel adviser was Louise but i have spoke to Gemma and they all seem so helpful. You must have been so upset. We had our flights changed but luckily as it was the travel company that pulled out of the deal with monarch we were changed to Thompson (which was a dearer flight) but didn't have to pay any more. So it was a result for us really. I would of been so upset if i were you. So so so glad its all sorted. Not only that but because others are paying out for your wedding/holiday you feel a sense of responsibility dont you.

 

Finger's x'd you wont have any more problems with them hun x

 

 

[bride5656]

Thank you so much Michelle for kind words and for listening really....i don't know what would i do without you girls!!! xoxo

I am just glad it all over and will be hoping for cheeky seat upgrade maybe when we get to the airport ;D

 

xoxo