Avens' Mayan Rivieria Planning Thread! - 12.01.12

[Avens]

8.   Attire

 

I wanted green, so I told my lovely ladies to find green dresses.  They all went individually (I was lucky enough to go with them, even though all three live in different places) and ended up getting dressed that complimented themselves and each other nicely!

 

 

 

All of our jewellery was made by my bridesmaid Michelle (the blonde one). She's so talented! She made matching earrings and necklaces for the bridesmaids, my earrings and necklace and my gorgeous hair vine. We were looking on etsy together, and she was like "I could do this!" then she did!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My earrings and necklace

 

hair vine

 

In action!

 

 

I may have been crying a bit prior to the below photo, I'm streaky!

 

 

Groom wore a nice white hugo boss shirt, and linen pants from Le Chateau (him and his mom)

 

 

Groomsmen wore the same pants, and green shirts (also Le Chateau)

 

Mother of the bride/groom

His grandma (maternal), his mom, my mom, my nana (maternal)

 

 

 

[Avens]

9.  Day of the wedding, and things decided at the resort

 

The wedding day was perfect weather. They had been predicting rain all week, then it ended up being just gorgeous!  The only downer - FH got really sick the night before and morning of the wedding.  To the point I was panicking we would have to try and reschedule.  Luckily an arsenal of pills, good luck, and him being a trooper and we were good to go.  We had to call it an early night as well.

 

We went for the Huppah with flowers for our ceremony.  It was at Playa Azul at the Barcelo Maya.  It was nice, because it wasn't very busy, and it was way down at the end of the resort. It was a gorgeous set up.

 

 

At our meeting with the coordinator earlier, I had picked the colour and the flowers. I was really happy!

 

I also had a bouquet included with the package, which I used at my throwing bouquet.  It was really pretty - if I hadn't been so fixated on orchids, I definitely would have used that one! 

 

Real touch bridesmaid bouquet, resort bouquet, my realtouch bouquet.

 

 

We had the cocktail hour at the balcony at the palace.  Gorgeous! The food was awesome, and it was a really nice set up.

 

 

 

 

 

[Avens]

10.  Reception

Our reception site was at Playa Palmerus.  It was a great spot! Close to everything, yet hardly anyone walked by. I requested the "head table" simply be another round table in the middle, so we could still be a part of everything.  It worked out really good.  The served us Appletini's (green) which were amazing as we were coming in.  Service was great and it was so nice outside.

 

 

 

My inspiration centerpieces for the reception were something like the first picture, but matching the theme. They turned out great! (second picture)

 

 

For the meal we had Mango Scallop Ceviche, which had a really nice presentation in half a coconut

 

-

 

Lemon Chicken Soup from Merida (also delicious), surf and turf.  The steak was cooked to medium, so I was thrilled! I was so worried it would be over done, and the lobster tail was grilled nicely (no pictures yet)

 

For dessert we had Molten Chocolate Fondant Cake - the comment on this one from facebook was "Danielle thought the chocolate was so good she wanted to snort it"  It was pretty good.

 

Around dessert time, we had a mariachi band come and play. Like everyone says, it's totally worth it! Everyone loved it.  They sang a few songs to everyone, then came around to each table and asked what time of song you wanted. They played us a romantic song, and we had our first dance.

 

 

 

 

 

A highlight of the night - we didn't want the glass tinkling, but didn't have another plan.  FH and a few of our guests had a great idea for a game.  Two of our friends ran off in search of coconuts, then dug a heart shaped hole in the sand.  To get us to kiss, you had to throw the coconut into the hole.  If you missed....tequila! It was a lot of fun.  Here FH's brother just missed.

 

 

For dancing, we opted to do the ipod dock on the sound system.  It worked great, except we had a few over zealous and tequila loving guests who tried to play DJ.  So I would make your song list, and make sure you have your iPod password protected. A few times songs were skipped partway, or the playlist reset. We spent a lot of time picking certain songs, so that kind of sucked. There was a wireless microphone which we used for announcements, speeches and those sorts of things.

 

After the reception, we called it an early night due to FH tummy issues, everyone else went back to the Carey bar in the lobby, and continued on!

 

 

Garter toss

 

Cake

 

All in all, a fabulous night!

 

 

[Avens]

11.  Misc things of note

 

Shoes!

 

 

 

 

Rings

 

FI chose a plain brush Tungsten Carbide ring.  He had a shinier one at first, but he wore it around the house a bit, and didn't like the flashy. It suits him

Something like this

 

 

 

My e-ring is white and rose gold, and kind of uniquely shaped, so I had wedding band(s) made for it. It's exactly what I wanted, something really low profile (I didn't want a diamond to snag) and its unique.

 

 

 

By itself                                                       Jewelers computer mock up                                                  All three!

 

 

Wedding trip itself was really good! A few highlights.

 

FH and I (well at this time husband!) hanging out with turtles

 

 

All of my girl friends took me on a surprise bachelorette party day. Horseback riding on the beach, dinner then dancing.

 

My sister and I horseback riding (I'm hiding from the sun pre wedding).    At dinner, the waitstaff brought over sombros and a special dessert for me.  Then then sang me a few silly   

                                                                                                                              songs and there is a video of me dancing with them.  Here I'm just dancing with my spoon.

 

 

 

[TropicLover]

Beautiful wedding!  Out of curiosity what time did you do your ceremony and cocktail hour?  I loved that the sun was setting during cocktail hour, it's so pretty! 

 

I'm trying to figure out where the sun will be during our ceremony and cocktail hour.  I'm wondering if I'll need more candle lighting, similar to your beautiful tikki tree (?) sorry I can't fully make it out in the picture, but it's glowing and so so pretty ;-)  Congrats!

[Avens]

Thank you!

 

Our ceremony was at 3:30, we timed it so the sun would set while we were up on the balcony for our cocktail hour (even changed our ceremony time to accomodate).  We were up there from 5-6 and the sun was just setting beautifully around 5:30-5:45ish. 

 

Our reception started at 6:15ish, and it was completely dark by then.  The lights on the trees and there were a few flood lights set up.  I had lights in the centrepieces (in hindsight, I needed more per centrepiece or else brighter ones) but they weren't needed.  We could see fine, and there was a nice ambience.

 

Originally Posted by TropicLover 

Beautiful wedding!  Out of curiosity what time did you do your ceremony and cocktail hour?  I loved that the sun was setting during cocktail hour, it's so pretty! 

 

I'm trying to figure out where the sun will be during our ceremony and cocktail hour.  I'm wondering if I'll need more candle lighting, similar to your beautiful tikki tree (?) sorry I can't fully make it out in the picture, but it's glowing and so so pretty ;-)  Congrats!

 

[kat2012]

Your wedding was absolutely beautiful and you looked stunning. Congrats Mrs!

[JoanneIreland]

Fanastic review and planning thread!! Oh it makes me want to go back to the Barcelo and do my wedding all over again!!

[J and G 2012]

Beautiful Avens! Great details, awesome pictures!

I love the hair vine! Never would have though about anything like it, but it looks great!

 

[TropicLover]

Sweet thanks for the info.  You've given me a good idea and I think we'll do the same thing :-)  Thanks!
 

Originally Posted by Avens 

Thank you!

 

Our ceremony was at 3:30, we timed it so the sun would set while we were up on the balcony for our cocktail hour (even changed our ceremony time to accomodate).  We were up there from 5-6 and the sun was just setting beautifully around 5:30-5:45ish. 

 

Our reception started at 6:15ish, and it was completely dark by then.  The lights on the trees and there were a few flood lights set up.  I had lights in the centrepieces (in hindsight, I needed more per centrepiece or else brighter ones) but they weren't needed.  We could see fine, and there was a nice ambience.