woop woop Sun Surf Sand's Planning Journal with Lots of Pics :) :)

[sun surf sand]

 

Hi All,

 

Here’s my planning thread, hope it helps some people, I know how much I have enjoyed reading about all  the past brides planning. Thank you so much for all the ideas and inspiration that I have been able to gather from everyone. I wish I had been more diligent with taking down who I took ideas from so I could give credit.  As I am a pre-plan-aholic a destination wedding  may not be the best for my sanity. There are so many unknowns that you aren't able to fill in till arriving.  So thank goodness for this site which has definitely helped to save my sanity by answering a ton of my million and one questions. So to all THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!

 

 

Our Story:

We met 13 years ago (grade 7) we were always friends, but it wasn’t until we graduated from high school that we actually starting dating.  Long story short It just wasn’t time for us to start our happily ever after yet so we ended breaking up but staying on good terms.  Cut to three years later Mr. Sun Sand and Surf was looking to buy a new house and conveniently I am a Realtor, so of course he calls me. From that point on it was like we had never been apart, sparks flew and we have never looked back. On our Three year anniversary he completely surprised me, proposing with the most beautiful ring

        

 

 

Location:

There was no humming and hawing we knew we wanted a destination wedding and that was that   Picking a location was one of the hardest parts.  We wanted something beautiful but affordable so that our guest wouldn't have to break that bank to get there.  We decided on the Gran Bahia Principe Akumal in the  Riviera Maya.  We will be married on the beach and have a private poolside dinner and reception afterwards.

If I have one piece of advice I can offer from my experience so far it is pick a GOOD Travel Agent.  Our Travel Agent has been an absolute nightmare  at times to work with, I won’t mention any names but please, please, please, make sure you pick a good one!!!!

 

 

Invitations

We decided to forgo the norm and skip save the dates.  We actually sent out our invitations out over a year in advance. Hahah I am sure some of you are asking yourself is she crazy and the answer is yes I might just be.  Once we had the resort booked for the week and a confirmed wedding date during that week there was no stopping us. We though oh what the heck lets just send all the info out and give everyone as much notice as possible. It paid off we have over 55 people booked.

As I previously mentioned I’m all about keeping in the budget so we decided to make all the invitations ourselves.  It was definitely a lot of work we had over 200 invites to send out, but I loved every min of it.  Mr. sun sand and surf was a pretty good help and pitched in with cutting ,gluing and bow tying.  The idea of making the boarding pass invite came 100% from this site, taking bits and pieces from a lot of people so thank you to all the the inspiration.   

The invites consisted of:

boarding pass envelope which was just a piece of Michaels thicker paper folded with a slice cut.  The Sand dollar was made with a Martha Stewart hole punch. 

A three page boarding pass with Basic Wedding Info a bit of info on the resort and who and how to contact to book to come.

A RSVP Luggage Tag

And post card that our Travel Agent made for us with even more information regarding the resort and booking information.

 

 

 

   

 

 

Bridesmaids Outfits

Everyone was already paying to travel so far for our wedding so I wanted to make sure the bridal party outfits were as affordable as they could be. The dresses are from Forever 21, They were $25.00. BAM yes that is what I like to see AFFORDABLE!.  Yes, you will probably see a trend here I’m a really sucker for a deal.  The shoes are from Aldo for $40.00. BAM yes another steal of a deal!  You have to walk down the beach quite away to get to where the ceremony is so I wanted the girls to be comfy yet still pretty. 

 

 

 

 

[sun surf sand]

 CONT.....

 

 

Groomsmen Outfits

After breezing through the bridesmaids outfits I thought finding clothes for the groomsmen would be easy.  Geez was I wrong.  We knew we wanted grey and we wanted suspenders. This is what we ended up with and I am actually quite happy with how it turned out.  Unfortunately the guys outfits were not as cheap as the girls but still  affordable

As for shoes were not sure if they will wear flip flops or a boat shoe of some sort but I’m leaving that for Mr. Sun Surf Sand to decided on.

 

 

 

Mother Of The Bride:

Oh I just love my mom’s dress, she looks amazing in it and I think I will have to steal it to wear sometime after the wedding. Her dress is from Anthropology she has cute nude colour shoes kind of like the bridesmaids

 

 

 

 

The Dress

I changed my mind on the type of dress I wanted so many times. I never had an “ahh haa this is the one†moment   Finally I decided on this Alfred Angelo. It’s classic and simple but with the just right about of detailing for me. I have had some dress anxiety since the purchased the dress but as I sit here typing this and looking at a picture I feel as though I made the right decision….I hope haha .  I am very excited to go to my fitting as there are definitely some alterations that need to be made.  

I plan on wearing a long veil that I am actually making out of a lace curtain so stay tuned we will see how that turns out, fingers crossed.

 

 

 

The Grooms Wear:

Mr. Sun Surf and Sand will be wearing the same as the groomsmen but with a vest and a tie

 

 

 

Mugs:

We went back and forth on if we were going to do OOT Bags, with over 50 people coming it can add up very quickly.  We decided on doing custom travel mugs and a small wedding week survival kit.

 I posted more details in the Canadian Travel Mug thread but for fast reference I ordered them from standoutcanada.com. We ordered 50 mugs which broke down to $5.48 CAD and included the custom imprint which standout helps you design. You are assigned an account rep, my rep was great to work with, she always responded to my emails within hours from me sending them.  Since the company is located in Ontario the shipping to Alberta was only $26.77 Wooohoooo Affordable!! So altogether 50 Mugs cost us $314 and that includes everything tax, shipping , the   custom printing and graphic designers time spent on our on the imprint.  We ordered the white mug and it will have a custom blue imprint on it, They are definitely not perfect but I am quite happy with them for the price I paid. I still stand by the fact that the customer service was great, and the mugs showed up exactly when they were predicted to so that’s a bonus. The only advice that I would give is to be very particular with your art work. There are a few spacing issues that bug me on mine but hey what can you do, I think there still pretty cool. Sorry the pic is not the greatest quality.

 

 

 

 

Lip Balms:

Well at first if you don’t succeed try, try again.  These puppies took me a few tries to get a design that I liked that fit around the tube. This is what I ended up with and I’m quite happy with how they turned out. 

I purchased the lip balms from Zellers they have some great deals right now as they are going out of business. My template came from trial and error of printing and testing, took a few times to get the size right.  The design I created in publisher.  I printed the designs out onto an Avery labels product I picked up from Staples. The type of label I chose gives you a full sheet of label paper and you can cut it out to make and shape you want.  I removed the original label from the tubes before attaching mine and have had no problem with the labels sticking to the lip balm.  If I find some extra time I’ll use clear packing tape and wrap it around each one so they could get wet without it running. (Little tip I picked up from another bride on here)

 

 

  

[sun surf sand]

Luggage Tags:

 

 

I had a lot of fun with this project.  For the clear luggage tags I purchased ID badge holders from Staples. I think it was like $14.00 for 25 don’t quote me on that though.  The templates I again designed in publisher. I used their blank business card template and then made it slightly bigger.  Print double sided insert into luggage tags and away you go

 

        

 

 

Key Card and Tip Money Holder:

These were my first eBay purchase EVER, I know get with the times right. I ordered 2 lots of 25 Business ID Card Badge Holders with zippers.  The eBay shop I ordered from was gcishoponline.  Each lot was £4.99 with free shipping so my total came to $16.45 Canadian. I

 

 

  

 

 

Programs

A lot of the program template aside from a few adjustments came again from wonderful inspiration of past brides who had nicely posted there programs. 

 

 

 

Programs Cont.

“So You’re going to sit through a wedding†inspiration came from the wonderful blog offbeatbride.com again I tweaked it to make it fit for my purpose

 

[sun surf sand]

Flowers:

Not 100% on my bouquets yet but I am hoping to create something with a mixture of the bouquets below

 

 

The bridesmaids will carry something very similar to tis I hope.

 

 

 

 

And that's it for now   I am working on OOT bags right now so I will post those once I am done and a few more of my DIY projects.  I hope this is helpful to others and thanks again to everyone that inspired and helped me

[Speckles121]

LOVEEE all your planning..but especially your programs!!! I just saw this on pinterest and was going to try to do it, do you mind sending me your template after your done with your planning thread??

[Dazeydawl]

Awesome planning thread!!! I love your programs and your inspiration pics for your bouquet, beautiful.

[sun surf sand]

 

 Ceremony Décor:

As I mentioned before we are trying to stick to our budget.  I would love to decorate our ceremony location in a million fresh flowers but it’s just not going to happen.  So instead I have made this flower garland which was a wonderful tutorial from  twoshadesofpink.blogspot.ca

 

http://twoshadesofpink.blogspot.ca/2011/05/fabric-vine-part-2-petal-flowers.html

  

From mastermind two shades of pink and what I was trying to create:

 

 

 

And here is how mine turned out, what do you think???

 

[sun surf sand]

Originally Posted by Speckles121 

 

LOVEEE all your planning..but especially your programs!!! I just saw this on pinterest and was going to try to do it, do you mind sending me your template after your done with your planning thread??

 Thank you!! I have PM'd you the template for the programs, let me know if you have any questions.

[sun surf sand]

Originally Posted by Dazeydawl 

 

Awesome planning thread!!! I love your programs and your inspiration pics for your bouquet, beautiful.

 

 

Thanks! The programs have probably been my favorite thing to work on so far.  Flowers are such a difficult decision there all so pretty how do you decided lol

[Blujaye]

Great planning thread. I'm definitely going to check ebay for the business card holder with zipper! These pics of your bouquet inspiration are beautiful. I really like your program...would you mind sharing your template?