MWise17's Planning Thread - DIY heavy/**PIC HEAVY**

[Mwise17]

Melissa + Chris’ wedding
Planning thread

Well, the time flew, we just got home yesterday, and its surreal to be doing this part of the process already!!
Thank you to all the wonderfully creative ladies on here for all of your craftiness that helped me (and sometimes drove me crazy…I mean really, how did you THINK of so many details!!??), but mostly inspired me to DIY 99% of my wedding. 
I love this site, and will do my best to give back…here goes…

ENGAGEMENT
Chris proposed on June 17^th, 2010 at the bahia principe resort in the Dominican.  He had ordered flowers the day of, and took me out for dinner and found a quiet secluded spot under a gazebo (we later found out that is where they do the weddings at this resort)…and dropped to one knee!  J
 

The rings

 

 

 

The resort
Friends of ours are photographers and had been to a number of destination weddings, so we asked them to send us some slideshows of photos they had taken, and their opinion on the resort…they had fallen in love with the Sensatori Azul, as we did after checking it out.  It was a FABULOUS resort that I would recommend to anyone.  We loved it, and our guests raved…truly the best food I have had at a resort anywhere!!!  This resort was also highly recommended by previous brides, I see why! J

 

TA
I originally was with Weddings by Oceans, and was not happy with how long they were taking to get back to me when we were deciding on a location.  I felt more like another number, didn’t want my guests feeling like that when it was their turn to deal with them….and wanted more personalized service.  I stumbled across the best kept secret in the business – Karen Lantigua with my wedding away (www.myweddingaway.com) I just can’t say enough good things about Karen and her services.  Talk about bending over backwards…I swear some of my guests want to marry her!! J
Karen helped us get the place of our dreams, at the price of our dreams, with a lot of little surprises along the way (a bottle of prosecco here, private transfer there).
Thank you Karen….we all just love you!!

 

Colors
We chose a hot pink, tangerine and lime color scheme.  I was making a French memory board and had bought this ribbon that I loved, and it was the inspirational piece.  The hot pink varied at times due to the bridesmaids dresses being a magenta that was more on the purple side than pink.  I had so much fun with my DIY projects and my colors, they really brought a splash to everything we did.   Here are a few inspirational pics I used to help guide…

 

 

 

Monogram
I googled wedding invitations, and this is how I stumbled across Meagan Clopton, Branchville Studio in Texas.  Meagan has some amazingly designed pieces, and she did our monogram…

 

 

AND our amazing passport invitations that people are STILL talking about and asking if they could have a new one, as theirs is torn etc. from being carted around in a purse to show everyone they came across all these months.  J
Meagan also threw in these really cute thank you luggage tags.  I decided to make my own labels and return labels out of our monogram (put our address around it…was a tough project), and I also did the RSVP cards.

 

 

[Mwise17]

Pre-Travel Mailing
We decided to do a pre-travel mailing as so many of our guests had never traveled to an all-inclusive before.   We included a pre-travel brochure that I designed with the help of my friend Miriem, it included info. about what to expect at the airport, attire for the events/dinners, golf course information etc.  I included a DIY luggage tag with a pics I found on-line from around the Mayan, and inserted them into ziplock holders that guests could remove and put their information on.  We then hot glued ribbon.
We also included a CD with music chosen by the wedding party and the parents to get the guests excited for the trip.  We also included the entrée selection card at this time, with instructions to email us with their choice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome bags…

I shopped and shopped for bags, but decided that I was going to do a gift bag, and liked the “paper bag†look and feel of our invitation envelopes.  I found the perfect brown bags at Michaels. I designed the welcome tag, bought a scalloped punch at Michaels and the eyelets/eyelet setter and went to work.  I really liked how simple and cute they turned out.  We had a welcome party on the second night which included dinner and a smors bonfire at the beach.  We handed them out at the dinner.
I had one bag for each single, and one for each couple.  I had two kids out of our 51 guests, and they got special hair clips/coloring books/sunglasses/princess lanyards/hair ties etc. etc.
 

 

Welcome bag included…

Key/tip $ holders
We followed a DIY project here and wording, I designed the “Mexico 2011â€. I purchased a quarter round punch for the corners.  We purchased the lanyard covers from Amazon and they were great as they had a ziplock at the top, so $ wouldn’t fall out.  I wanted to get the lanyards in our colors, but it is not so easy finding them in Canada apparently. 

 

 

 

[AwayWeGo]

Awesome planning thread! We're also traveling to the same area for our wedding in Mexico, I'm wondering if you would mind sharing your template you used for your pre-travel brochures? I'm having troubles deciding what info to include in mine and on the wording. If so, many thanks in advance!

[kks2012]

Your colors are beautiful!

[Mwise17]

Bookmarks
I had fun with this project!!  Printed the designs on cardstock, and then laminated them, whole punched the top, and tied with hemp string.  J

 

 

 

 

 

SPF Chapstick
I bought smoothie flavoured Blistex SPF 15 chapstick.  I designed the label (with inspirations from this site).  Printed the label on plain paper, cut out, used a glue stick to adhere to the chapstick (removed blistex label first).  I then used clear packing tape and wrapped each so they could get wet without running.  Time consuming, but loved them, as did the guests…again, something they definitely used! J

 

 

 

 

Wedding week survival kits
These were fun to make, I made three different color lables for the tops to help me pack them once I got there.  The pink were for people we didn’t want to receive the condom (grandparents/kids), orange for singles, green for couples.  There are a few items inside the survival kits and that had slid down behind that you can’t see.  Here is a list of its contents.

• Condom (that pretty much covered the “fun†part of the labelâ€)       
• Kleenex
• Gum
• Bath & body works hand sanitizer
• Emergen-C x 2
• Inside The “First Aid†box
  • Safety Pins, hand wipes, bandaids, pepto bismol tablets (that I printed direction labels for)
  • Advil, mints

 

 

 

 

MAC Lipglass
My MOH is a MAC makeup artist.  We used their program “back to MAC†and took back 6 empty containers and received a free lipglass each time (anyone can do this, not just employees).  I had quite a few empty containers of their products, but she helped with most, and we were able to get 21 lip glass’ absolutely free!!!  J 
We picked out neutral shades for the most part, but told the girls to swap ‘em up with each other if they wanted.  I had some darker skin colored ladies, so we just gave them a more suitable color for them, they loved it.

 

 

Postcards
Chris found this awesome site that creates “wordlesâ€â€¦.we wrote everyone’s name that came to Mexico, including nick-names and wedding words etc. and created the two below, and designed the back with a postcard in mind.  We printed them on 110 lb. card stock paper and cut them all out…we then bundled them with Raffian and taped a stamp on it.  We asked our guests to pick one to mail to us with their favourite memory of our week spent in the Mayan Riviera.  We are then going to put it in our guest book.

 

 

 

 

Welcome booklets
We made these to make sure our guests had all the information needed to enjoy the week, including hotel amenities, map including our ceremony location and receptions, schedule of events, names of guests and their relation to us so they could write down each other’s hotel numbers. Also included was a  map of the Mayan, how to get around if they wanted to go into town, photo share page and some simple Spanish basics.  I printed the covers on 110lb. cardstock, and the inside paper was of regular weight.  I then whole punched through the centre and tied with ribbon to hold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mwise17]

Handing out the welcome bags at our welcome dinner...

 

Welcome Party
Pashminas
We had a welcome party – dinner at a restaurant and a smors bonfire on the beach.
I gave out the pashminas down on the beach, and had glow bracelets for the guests to put on…the pashmina’s were a HUGE hit!!!  All the woman had them on all week!
I ordered them from pashminawholesale.com, and designed the labels myself, used a punch from Michaels to create the circle, set the eyelet, made the bellybelt out of ribbon and hot glued it all.  Whew…was a lot of work.  (my mom was helping with all these projects in what she called “the wedding sweat shopâ€) lol.

 

 

 

A few guests with their pashminas...

 

 

 

 

 

[780chick]

What a great planning thread! Do you have a template for the brochure or a close up of the wording? That's next up on my to do list. Great idea with the MAC lipglass. I have a whole bunch of empties that are waiting to be returned.

[kat2012]

Everything looks great! You did wonderful job

[Mwise17]

 

fun with pashminas AND glow sticks....lol

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

The Dress
I got my dress at Beckers Bridal in Toronto. It was the first store, 5^th dress, and the ONLY one I ever loved.   J  
It is the Tirso by Pronovias.  I didn’t want a head vale, and loved that it had one over the shoulder.
I received so many complements on my dress…not only from guests, but all the people on the resort!
It was the perfect dress for the perfect setting.

 

 

 

My dress was hung on this hanger made by an etsy artist…I loved it.  It was so well done.  It didn’t make the trip down however, I should have wrapped it better, but we made due, and it worked out

 

 

 

SHOES
I wanted green shoes, BAD.  I couldn’t find any, so took a chance with dyable ones from David’s Bridal (who I would not recommend, for anything really….had terrible customer service from them, used for shoes/jr. bridesmaid dress).
The plan was to only wear them down the aisle, and change into the flip flops, but I forgot, and well, the dye was off the heals (that were in the sand) in about 2 seconds.  J

 

 

I bedazzled the flops myself (also from David’s bridal)….was so much fun, anyone need anything bedazzled? Lol….send it over!!!

 

 

Hair Flower
I decided I didn’t want to worry about real flowers drooping throughout the night, so I chose this beautiful piece by silverpencils on etsy.  Brandi was very helpful, and I received lots of complements on it as well.

 

 

Garter
I had a pink garter with a “C†for chris charm that dangled from it  J

 

Jewellery
While I was getting my nails done at the salon on our wedding day, Chris had his brother deliver this diamond tennis bracelet with a lovely card.  I cried for about ½ hour!!   I ended up wearing it down the aisle, and had earrings from a boutique on the Danforth that were simple j earrings with diamonds all down them, and wore simple diamond studs in my second piercings on my ears

 

 

My bouquet
I LOVED my bouquet….with my bride/groom in green theme, it looked amazing!!!  I paid a little extra to have it larger than pictured, and ended up with a very large bouquet that was beautiful!!!  (and very heavy)!!! 

 

                                              

 

Wrapped in the ribbon on my bouquet was a charm of my nana who passed on a few years ago.  This was the perfect way for me to include her in our special day…a lot of my family didn’t know I had this done, and were brought to tears when they saw it.   I had it made by an etsy dealer

 

 

[Mwise17]

The Guys
We ordered linen blend suits from Studio Suits, and loved the quality.  The prices were amazing.
The ties were ordered off of Etsy…custom made in our colors.  My dad’s tie was also ordered from the same etsy seller. 
We had linen shoes from Spring for all the guys in a shade darker beige then their suits, shoes/belt from Le Chateau. 

 

 

 

 

 

Bridesmaids
The girls wore silk wrap dresses in Magenta from Butter by Nadia.  The maid of honour had different shoes, basically in our colors and a bit of gray, the 2 bridesmaids wore a gray satin. 

 

 

 

Jr. Bridesmaid/Flower Girl
Chris’ sisters were our jr. bridesmaid and flower girl.   We purchased the flower girl dress from winners, and the Jr. BM dress from David’s Bridal.  I purchased hair flowers for them from Claires.  I purchased flip flops from old navy and bedazzled them myself.  I purchased the bucket and flower from Michaels and decorated it, armed with a hot glue gun.  J    I put an E on the back for Elizabeth.  It was filled with rose petals from the resort in our colors that she dropped along the aisle before I came down

 

 

 

   

 

   

 

Hair done at resort’s spa

 

 

 

Itinerarys
I did up itinerarys with appointments etc. for our day!  We had one for the girls and the guys.