Kristyn's Playa del Carmen Planning Thread 1~6~12!!!!!!!!!!!

perry1217 · December 14, 2011

Omg, I cannot even believe that it's my turn!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll be updating as it gets closer and of course after the big day!!

Wow! Where to begin!!!?? John and I met at a wedding, so it's so fitting that this is where we are now

The Engagement

The pic below was taken outside the restaurant where John and I had our first date, and where he proposed! I'm notorious for not finishing my dinner but ALWAYS ordering dessert. When the waitress brought out the dessert menu, I looked down and realized it was actually a photo album/scrapbook he had made! I cried my eyes out while we looked at it together, then he popped the big question!!!!!!! Later I found out that they don't even have a dessert menu, and the owner's whole family was sitting at the table next to us waiting for the proposal, lol! It was perfect. He had put so much time and effort into the album and had saved so many things along the way to include in it. Plus, getting to sit with him and go through the album, before he said the words almost slowed the whole thing down so I could take it all in. Amazing!!!

So on July 31st, 2010 I became the future Mrs. John. Best day of my life, hands down.

The Search

Okay, so all we knew in the beginning was that we wanted somewhere warm with a beach! After some digging we decided on Mexico since we could leave the resort - that was a biggie. My FI and I are not big lay around people, so we wanted somewhere where we had options on things to do. Mexico hit the number on that one. At the time it was also cheaper than many of our other choices (although not now!). We decided on the east coast of Mexico since we live on the east coast of the U.S. and it would be much cheaper for guests to fly there than say Cabo, plus it is only a one hour time change which will be great for our AHR the day after we come back!!! My FI could not get the party image of Cancun out of his head, so we decided on Riviera Maya.

So with knowing at least what area we wanted to get married in, we sent out our Save the Dates!!! Our photographer created them with one of our gorgeous engagement shots

After spending hours on here, the web, and TripAdvisor we decided on Playacar Palace. It was beautiful, had a beautiful beach, was intimate (only 200 rooms), and gave $$ toward excursions, spa treatments, and room upgrades as part of a promotion they were running. I was in love!!!! Also, they had the best complimentary package out of any resort we looked at.

Travel Agent

I seriously cannot possibly sing the praises of Teresa Stauring (from this forum) enough. She has been amazing to work with. Our guests loved her, we loved her, and she was incredibly easy to work with. It never ceased to amaze me how she would be responding to e-mails at 7:00 on a Sunday night. She is wonderful, and a complete godsend when it came to the wedding planning. She came very highly recommended from other brides on the forum and I am glad that I listened to them instead of going with someone local. She understands DW brides, plain and simple!!! She also beat any other price I could find from other agents, was consistently responsive, and offered to match any internet deals we could find.

http://www.vacations4less.com/

The AHR Venue

My mom actually found this one!!! It is an old church that was converted into a reception venue. I am a huge architecture lover, as is my FI, so once we took a look at those 40 foot vaulted cathedral ceilings, we were in love!!!!

Colors

So whatever colors I used were going to have to be able to work in Mexico in a beach setting, as well as a wintertime reception back here in Philadelphia. I wanted the feel of the AHR to be beachy, but elegant so we went with a tiffany blue, lemon yellow, and cream. Here is an inspiration board...

perry1217 · December 14, 2011

Wedding Website

After looking at a few different sites, I decided to go with Wedding Wire. I loved the layout of the site as well as it's functionality. Plus it was super easy to create and it interfaced with their regular site which I used to track guests for the bridal shower, ceremony, AHR and to do the AHR's seating charts. I adored creating the site, it was so fun!!! Like many other BDWers, I borrowed A LOT of it from other brides, so feel free to "borrow" yourself!

The Photographer

I am soooooooooooo blessed to have an amazing photographer as my best friend. She will be coming down with us and photographing the wedding! The AHR is being done by another photog, since I wanted that night to be about me celebrating with my BFF, not her running around snapping pics of 200 people!

The DW Invites

Okay, so originally I was against formal invites because we had already send out the STDs in January 2011 and were also sending out "We updated" postcards to people in April or May to let them know we had picked a resort. My mom, however, was not having it! Once they were done, though, I was so happy! The woman who did them is from my city and also did my AHR invites, AHR favors, and AHR placecards and tablecards.

The Dress

This was, of course, one of the first things I wanted to look for!!!!!!! I ended up getting my dress during my first time out looking. And it's perfect!

The Model ...

Me at my final fitting....

The Accessories

So I will be wearing my mom's veil (which alone brings tears to my eyes!!!!) and a hair flower.

I plan on being married barefoot, but I did get flip flops for afterwards.

And since I was getting the dress hemmed to be able to walk on the sand with no shoes, I also got flats for the reception - which was sooooooooo hard to find!!! But Badgley Mischka saved the day!!! And I way overspent, lol. But they are absolutely gorgeous!

And of the course the jewelry! I decided to forgo a necklace because of all the beading in the top of my dress, coupled with the chandelier earrings and the hair flower. Plus, I am wearing the wrap below to our AHR so I didn't want to overdo the bling!

perry1217 · December 14, 2011

The "Other" Dresses

So I knew the minute I started reading through this thread that I absolutely had to do the TTD. I didn't want to spend a ton of cash on that so I scoped out the buy/sell section and found a great one on this site!

And after talking to the seamstress at the bridal shop, I got a bit nervous wearing my dress around the resort and to dinner after the wedding when my AHR was just days after my mom (who would be bringing it home to have steamed) would be arriving back in the city. So I decided to change for dinner after our pictures. I found this dress at a BCBG outlet for only $80!

His Look

I can't find an online image of John's beach outfit, but the short story is white shirt, tan pants, lol! Oh! And sandals. For the AHR, I am not a huge fan of tuxedos (they remind me of prom) and neither is he so we decided on a suit. The look is like this, and he also went with the pinstripe. It looks amaaaaazing!

The Boudoir Pics

These were soooo fun! Like I said, my best friend is a photog so she and I were uber comfortable, of course. I can't wait to show him!!!

My Wedding Band

I had a really tough time finding a wedding band since my ring was custom made. I spoke to a few jewelers and the price they wanted to custom make a wedding band was absolutely ridiculous because of the price of gold, so I kept looking. The one thing I had going for me was the fact that, honestly, I wanted my band to look a little different. I know that the look these days is for it to look like one ring, but I really wanted it to look like two different rings. I want to look married!! So after a lot of searching, I found this beautiful ring and once it gets soldered (don't know if that's right!) it will look even better

perry1217 · December 14, 2011

AHR Invites, Favors, Table "Names"

So I definitely wanted to stay beachy, but with an elegant feel. I was obsessed with the job she did - I love her!!! And our guests adored them. Please excuse my chipped nails

Don't mind the misspelling on this one, this was just the sample and we corrected it!

The favors for the AHR are water bottles cutely packaged!

So instead of doing table numbers, we are doing table names - places in Mexico My invitation lady did a different place with its own picture for each table.

Guest Book

So we used PhotoBook America and had great results!!

Hair & Makeup Trial

I made sure to take lots of pics of my AHR trial so I could bring down to Mexico to give to the stylist. I have been told that the women at Playacar Palace are good, but there is a bit of a language barrier so it's best to have pics of exactly what you want. I'm still deciding if I want to go with the AHR look for down there, my main concern is whether I should go for something smoother because of the humidity.

Makeup before the finished hair...

Hair....

boscobel · December 14, 2011

Great job pulling everything together! I love that you are wearing your mom's veil, that's so special.

venus909 · December 14, 2011

Everything looks GORGEOUS so far! great job! I will definitely be following this thread to see how all your planning comes to life

perry1217 · December 14, 2011

Thanks you ladies!!!! It's so unreal that just 20 days from today, I will be becoming a married woman!!!!

I just finished this semester last night (I work full time and take 3 classes a semester at nights) so I haven't really been able to slow down and enjoy the planning. Writing this thread feels sooooo good! I am just going to focus on soaking in the next three weeks!!

perry1217 · December 14, 2011

And oops! Not 20, 23 - apparently my excitement has led to an inability to count!

perry1217 · December 14, 2011

DW Flowers

I decided to go with faux flowers versus real ones because of the cost factor. Our resort comp package did come with a bridal bouquet and groom bout, but for the MOH bouquet and BM bout they wanted almost $200!!! I couldn't believe it, nor could I picture spending that kind of money on flowers that weren't that impressive. We decided to go with the faux flowers and get a centerpiece for the altar instead of the comp flowers they were going to be providing to us.

I searched the threads and was really caught off guard by how much even faux flowers were going for on some of these sites! Also, it was as though a lot of them required a TON of work. I am not very creative, nor (with working full time and taking 3 classes a semester) did I have the time to research and be picky. I wanted to be able to talk to someone, tell them an idea of what I was thinking color wise and have them do what they were good at!

I was soooooo glad to have found Elza Harris and Simply Classic Creations http://www.weddingwire.com/biz/simply-classic-creations-noblesville/website/1ee97e2791be8445.html

For a bridal bouquet, MOH bouquet, groom and BM bouts, she only charged me $112 and that included shipping! And these flowers are gorgeous!!! I wanted white with yellow accents, tropical but elegant. She delivered and then some!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the Groom bout