ALANA'S DREAMS LOS CABOS PLANNING THREAD WITH PICS! (PART 1)

[anichols8]

Woo Hoo!  We are leaving in the morning and I am so excited that we are finally here.  As of right now, I am done packing and the FI is running around packing so I decided to do my planning thread.  I do want to thank all of you ladies for your stories, ideas and wedding planning threads.   Please excuse any typos.  I promise I have proofread but last night/this morning was my stateside Bachelorette Party and I'm a little delirious.  Anywho, I think I have read every thread on here and know that it is only right that I do one in return, so here goes:

 

We are getting married Friday, May 25, 2012 at Dreams Los Cabos!

 

How we met:

 

FI and I went to different law schools, in different states but we are on a student run executive board that covered the entire southern region.  I served on the board the year before in 2007 him and met him when he was expressing interest in joining the board.  We definitely did not mesh at first but a year later we were dating.

 

After we both finished law school, FI joined the military and we were apart for six months.  During that time we wrote almost every other day and it was during that time that he popped the question.

 

The ring:

 

He did a great job with the ring!  I love it.

 

 

Shortly thereafter we starting planning a state side wedding.  But, with me growing up in Mississippi, going to undergrad in Louisiana and law school in Georgia and with him growing up in Alabama, going to undergrad in Georgia and law school in Florida, it was hard to get a guest list under 300 and to pick a location.  I am an avid traveler and slowly converting him to being one as well and we LOVE Cabo so we ditched the big ceremony and opted for a destination wedding in Cabo!  I did a random search one day on destination weddings and came across this site and boy did I hit the jackpot.  It was from here that I realized I needed a travel agent and so I found TA Teresa!

 

TA Teresa

I found Teresa on here and she has been great to work with.  Some of my guests did say that Deana was non-responsive sometimes but Teresa really worked with me with a lot of last minute changes I had to make.  So then I needed a venue…

 

Dreams vs. Riu

We knew we wanted Cabo.  Now normally I would NOT suggest an all-inclusive in Cabo because there are just too many awesome places to eat off site but none of my guests have been to Cabo before and some have never even left the states so I wanted them to have the ability to stay in one place if they wanted to and not have to worry about spending in additional money once they got there if they didn’t want to.  I narrowed my choices down to these two and I have to say that from reading this website and tripadvisor I ultimately went with Dreams because it had the atmosphere I wanted; smaller, more laid back and no wristbands.  I was given a rate of 160.00pp/pn based on double occupancy.  We will get married at the gazebo.

 

 

Off Site

 

I own a timeshare in Cabo so as a gift to the wedding party we booked rooms for them offsite.  The groomsmen ended up wanted to stay at the wedding resort but my bridesmaids are staying at Cabo Azul, another awesome resort. 

 

I feel like this is turning into a review.  I need to slow down so I have stuff to save for the wedding review thread…

 

Colors

 

I chose grey and yellow as the wedding colors.  I do not know why I just love the colors together. 

 

 

Cake

 

Another find from this site I narrowed my options down to Sweet Dreams and Cabo Dessert Diva, Jennifer Hatton.  I emailed Sweet Dreams for months and never got a single reply.  I got a reply from Jennifer the same day I believe so I went with her.  We went down for a site visit with Dreams in December and Jennifer had her husband put together a chef’s choice platter of nine combinations to try and delivered them to the hotel!  She also did it for free because she could not meet me personally.  I had to choose her, also because the cakes were amazing.  This is our inspiration picture.

 

 

Flowers

 

I am a simple girl when it comes to flowers, especially in this scenery.  I will be carrying calla lilies and the bridesmaids will carry single calla lilies.  The centerpieces will be short square vases with sliced yellow lemons and white and yellow flowers. Calla lilies everywhere!

 

                                   

 

Pictures

 

Again from this site, we are using Enrique Morals with www.emweddings.com.  There are not many reviews of him on here so hopefully I will be able to give him a great one when I get back.  So far he is really nice and reasonable and responsive.  I also love his pictures.  He is doing videography and photography for the big day.

 

All Things Paper

 

In addition to her full time job, my mother is a little Martha Stewart and she hand made 95% of the paper products I have.

• Save the Dates: I really feel awful that I can’t remember who I get this template from on here because it was amazing.  My mom put so much info in the STD that there was no need for an invitation.  It was so cute!  Yes, I just took the pic.

        

        

• Invitations: Another little task of her own that took sooo much work!

        

 

She is also doing the menus…and wedding programs…and place cards…Yeah, she’s basically awesomesauce.

 

Attire

 

The groomsmen are wearing ensembles that resemble these:

 

 

And the bridesmaids are wearing these in buttercup:

 

FI is wearing this suit from Express; it’s light grey pinstripe:

     

I can’t find a pic of his shoes online and they are already packed so I can’t take a pic but they are gray and white high top Polos.

 

I don’t want to include my dress because I think FI might peak at the site every now and then.  Sorry!  This just means you will be forced to read my wedding review if you want to see it!

 

OOT Bags

 

Totally think they were worth it, totally think they have been the biggest headache of this process.  I keep buying and adding stuff. Sighs….  All of these things are in there and I will also post the spreadsheet of where I got the stuff and costs.

 

Welcome book.  Another borrowed template that I can’t give credit for.

 

 

It has hand sanitizer, Pepto, Advil, Tylenol, tissue, band-aids and alcohol pads.  The template is borrowed and the baggies are from Micheal’s.

 

 

Ordered the bags from cheaptotes.com and mommy screen-printed them.  Please excuse the blurriness.

 

 

 

Groomsmen’s Gifts

 

“Upgraded†OOT Bags with their shirts, shoes and ties added.

 

Bridesmaid’s Gifts

 

 

 

 

“Upgraded†OOT Bags with grey pearl earring and necklaces, massagers, manicure kits, flip flops, wet bikini 3 piece bags and purse hangers added

 

Other Stuff:

 

I ordered my own chair sashes and napkins and will take them with me to Dreams. 

 

 

Love my cocktail napkins!  They are buttercup.

 

The guestbook is great in theory but who the heck wants to transport a glass bottle?  So I won’t be.  I will take a pic and we have chalkboards that we are going to write on that will say sign these pages for the bride and groom and they will be sealed in the bottle to be read one year later…or something like that.

 

Ordered these for a great deal…like 20 bucks including engraving; the first one got lost so not only did they rush me a new one but they credited the full cost back to me. Awesome!

 

We ordered cake boxes so we also ordered these stickers from Vistaprint using one of the 10 for 50 Groupon deals.  We also printed the schedule of events and wedding day timeline which I don’t have pics of but will have some for you on the wedding thread.

 

Can you guys tell I am getting tired?

 

 

Love our cups!  Funny Story, we ordered 40 cups.  So when I got them I was like this box is so heavy.  It wasn’t until like 4 months later that I actually paid attention to the fact that they sent is 103 cups!  Yeah, don’t know what we will be doing with those.  Maybe thank you gifts from all the showers and gifts and what not.

 

Well guys, I think that’s it; or the majority of it anyway. Here I am, the afternoon before we leave and 40 pounds lighter since January and I really do appreciate all of the invaluable information on here.  I know I don’t post much but I try to help when I can.  I will see you guys on the other side with the wedding review!

 

 

P.S.

 

We sent out a newsletter that I completely took from someone here.  I obviously suck with names and I can't find it on here so I will try to find and add to wedding review thread.

 

 

Here is the OOT Bag Budget

 

 

 

 

Happy Planning!

bestdestinationootbagspreadsheet.xls

[JQLong]

This is amazing....love your colors!  Have a wonderful wedding and be sure to tell us all about it!

[sunshine2413]

Everything looks great!! Too funny about the cups, same thing happened to us and we only paid for 50. I was like OMG 50 cups looks like a lot. So I counted them and it ended up being 100. We have been giving them out at work and our guest will be getting atleast two a piece. Hey atleast they look good!!

[AllieH]

looks amazing!! have a wonderful time! can't wait to hear about your wedding trip and your big day. 

 

[McLecker]

Good luck. Looking forward to hearing all about it!! Happy wedding

[anichols8]

I know! I completely spazzed out because I thought for a moment that they may have charged us for 103 cups but they didn't.

 

Thanks everyone!
 

[mrlddst]

Congrats! Can't wait to read your review.

[Dazeydawl]

hey do you remebr what seller(s) you got the meds from on ebay.. all the ones i find seem to be double the price you paid

[2ndtimesacharm]

YES we want to see your wedding dress!!!  Hope you have a fabulous day and wonderful trip to Mexico!  Congrats on losing 40lbs too!!!!!!
 

[JayKay]

I hope you have an amazing wedding!! Congrats!