Palmtree99's Planning Thread...7/29/15

[palmtree99]

Well, I am about 7 months away from my wedding and I think a planning thread will keep me organized. I cannot thank everyone on these boards enough. I have been cruising these boards for a long time, so if you see anything that is yours or your idea…thank you!! I work full time and I am a full time grad student so I don’t always have time to wedding plan. Since I still have 7 months to go..I’m not done getting ideas from you all! I love these boards! I have a while until my wedding so this thread will be a work in progress.. that means it will hopefully be very pic heavy. Hopefully something on here can help someone out, I’ve been wanting to pay if back for all of the help I’ve gotten so far.

 

How we met

Believe it or not, my fiancé and I have actually been together since highschool. We recently celebrated our 11 year anniversary! Yes, you read that right…we have been together 11 years. We obviously were in no rush to get married, as we put it off this long. I have been focused on finishing grad school, and we both have been trying to save money. Here’s an old school picture of us back in 2005, and the second is an updated pic. We decided not to do engagement photos to save money, so old ones will have to suffice!

 

The Proposal

He proposed while we were on vacation in Connecticut. His brother lives in Greenwich, so we were there for week to visit him. His brother insisted that we go check out a local beach. I was doing homework, and didn’t really want to go so I kept saying no. The beach closed at 8 and it was 7pm so finally he said..get up, lets just go for an hour. We took his brothers beach pass and left. When we got to the beach, I started taking pics and uploading them on Instagram. Then he said, lets go walk that path so we have a higher view of the ocean. We walked up a steep path, and when we got to the top I stopped to enjoy the nice view of the ocean. I looked at him and noticed he was looking down. I looked down, and realized I was standing on a large rock that said “Will you?” in chalk. When I looked up, he was down with the ring. After we got back to his brother’s house, I learned that he had been in the bushes taking pictures the entire time! Apparently him and his brother went to the beach early in the day to pick the spot out. I had NO idea…and definitely didn’t see it coming!

 

The Ring

I had mentioned to him before that I wanted a round ring with a thin band, and that’s exactly what he picked up. I loooove it!

 

Our Wedding Website

I spent a LOT of time on this…way more time than I should have lol. Check it out if you’d like: www.theknot.com/wedding/steven-and-cathy

 

The Wedding Venue
Steven and I took our first cruise in 2010, and we were hooked. We instantly became “cruise junkies”, and have since been on six cruises. Since this is something we do every year now, we decided that a cruise would be the way to go for the wedding. Yes, I am the 1% of people on these boards that is doing a cruise wedding. It seems that the majority of members on these boards are doing resort weddings…which we considered, but we just love cruises so much.

Our only complaint on cruises is that you do not get much time on the island. We didn’t want to take up an entire day on the island for guests since they only get so much time, so we decided on a cruise to Bermuda for the wedding. Bermuda cruises are different, the ship will dock at the island for 3 days, so you can get on/off the ship as much as you want. This way guests will have more time to explore the island.

 

The Ship

We will be sailing on the Norwegian “Breakaway”. This ship was built in 2013 so its basically brand new. It is the 8^th largest cruise ship in the world. We have never sailed Norwegian so this will be new to us. The ship comes with all the bells and whistles.. ziplining, ropes course, bowling, putt-putt, ect. It leaves from the Port of New York so we will probably spend the day before the cruise in NYC.

 

The Ceremony

We decided to get married on the actual island instead of the ship, so we found a wedding planner on the island that has been working with us. We cruised to Bermuda in August to look for a location for the wedding & reception. We ended up falling in love with the second location we checked out…which was The Reefs Resort. This resort is STUNNING! It is nestled up on a cliff of limestone rocks, and has a 2 tiered deck overlooking the water. The wedding ceremony will be on the bottom tier of the deck, then guests can go up to the top tier for cocktail hour.

The reception will be at Coconuts, which is the outdoor restaurant at the Reefs Resort. This is also high up overlooking the ocean.

 

 

 

Music:

I’m thinking I will walk down the aisle to the song “Somewhere over the rainbow” by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole. If you haven’t heard this island version of the song, look it up! I fell in love with it as soon as I heard it, and felt like it would be perfect for walking down the aisle.              During cocktail hour we plan on hiring a Steel Pan player for one hour. Found some steel pan players on youtube and love it! Would be perfect to have while guests enjoy their cocktail hour and Steven and I go take pictures.

 

Bridal Party:

At this point, we have decided against a bridal party. We don’t want to add extra costs to our friends/family and we cannot afford to pay for their attire. We will keep it simple and have no bridal party.

 

Sand Ceremony:

We ordered from Forever Frame (foreverframe.com). It was pricey, but they had a sale on black Friday so I bit the bullet and got it. Since we were engaged at a beach, and will get married on a beach…I collected sand from the beach we got engaged at in Connecticut, and when we were in Bermuda I collected sand in a bottle. This way, our sand is a little more special since I has more meaning to us. Since Bermuda sand is pink you can definitely tell the difference between the two sands.

 

Wedding Colors:

This has honestly been the hardest part for me! I have changed colors multiple times. Now I am thinking orange and aqua. Hopefully I don’t change them again! Here is my inspiration:

 

Save the Dates:

We ordered our save-the-dates from The Stylish Scribe. It was around $50 for them. We ended up going with postcards and ordered custom stamps from Zazzle.

 

 

Invitations:

We ordered our invitations from Wedding Paper Divas. They had a 30% off sale for Cyber Monday that we jumped at. I did want to do passports, but wasn’t ready to tackle that DIY yet. I was thinking of maybe doing something like “Passport to Paradise” and do that for the pre-travel mailers but I haven’t quite decided yet.

 

 

Lots more to come!! Next update: dress, centerpieces, décor, OOT bags…

 

 

 

[calgarybride2015]

Yay!!! We have a new lady on the planning thread board. I love reading these

 

All the work you've done so far is amazing. Everything looks fantastic

 

Great story as well!!

 

Happy planning.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[palmtree99]

Thanks @@calgarybride2015! Just looking this over now, apparently I don't know how to add full size pics in a post! Just realized the ones in the post are tiny and then there's attachments at the end. Oh well...I have 7 months to get it right

[calgarybride2015]

Thanks @@calgarybride2015! Just looking this over now, apparently I don't know how to add full size pics in a post! Just realized the ones in the post are tiny and then there's attachments at the end. Oh well...I have 7 months to get it right

 

I use photobucket and just attach the IMG link (but delete the html link to photobucket itself).  Not sure if you did it that way?  I don't know any other way using the web, other than thru tapatalk, but I don't think everyone can see those pictures then. hahah I have no idea to be honest

[acw271011]

Great thread! It sounds like you're getting really well organized and on your way to a beautiful wedding!

 

My husband and I love cruising as well but when it comes to actually planning a vacation, he always takes an all inclusive because our bar bill onboard is three times what the cruise costs us!!

 

Good luck and looking forward to reading more!

[palmtree99]

You are so right @@acw271011! The bar bill is rough. We are going to buy the unlimited drink package...I think it's around $500 for both of us....but sooo worth it!

[beckys98]

Congratulations! Your ring looks just like mine!! My fiancé picked it out all by himself and it is so pretty. Have you selected your wedding band yet? I want to get that taken care of soon. I'm all about trying to chip away at things we can control now, since there are so many things we can't do until we know our guest count. My fiancé keeps looking at me like "WHY are we talking about this NOW?" Haha. I have to do what I can to minimize my anxiety

 

We're about 5.5 months out...I wonder if I should start a thread. Honestly, most ideas I have are stolen from others so I don't know if anyone would gain anything out of mine 

[calgarybride2015]

Congratulations! Your ring looks just like mine!! My fiancé picked it out all by himself and it is so pretty. Have you selected your wedding band yet? I want to get that taken care of soon. I'm all about trying to chip away at things we can control now, since there are so many things we can't do until we know our guest count. My fiancé keeps looking at me like "WHY are we talking about this NOW?" Haha. I have to do what I can to minimize my anxiety

 

We're about 5.5 months out...I wonder if I should start a thread. Honestly, most ideas I have are stolen from others so I don't know if anyone would gain anything out of mine

I laughed when you said he looks at you funny -- thinking maybe you were like 2 years out... But 5.5 months!! That's not crazy to be handling all of it now some rings can take awhile to come in too depending where you order them. When will you have your final guest count?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[beckys98]

Ha! Well, he is Jamaican and, true to their reputation, he just tends to move on "island time." I'm the anxiety riddled planner of the pair! But I don't think he understand just how many small details there are - even though it is far less than if we did a traditional wedding. I feel like there is almost more to figure out and we pick and choose which traditional things to do and where to add our personal touch!

 

We asked for deposits by February 6, but full payment isn't due until April 6 so I bet we'll have plenty of people waiting until then. They don't *have* to do the deposit, but I'm paranoid the resort will sell out so I'm pretending like they do have to Flight schedules for June only recently came out so I think we'll get more people booking soon. A lot of people know they are coming, they just don't know for how many days so they haven't booked yet. Or, in some cases, they don't know if they are bringing a date yet.

[calgarybride2015]

Ha! Well, he is Jamaican and, true to their reputation, he just tends to move on "island time." I'm the anxiety riddled planner of the pair! But I don't think he understand just how many small details there are - even though it is far less than if we did a traditional wedding. I feel like there is almost more to figure out and we pick and choose which traditional things to do and where to add our personal touch!

 

We asked for deposits by February 6, but full payment isn't due until April 6 so I bet we'll have plenty of people waiting until then. They don't *have* to do the deposit, but I'm paranoid the resort will sell out so I'm pretending like they do have to Flight schedules for June only recently came out so I think we'll get more people booking soon. A lot of people know they are coming, they just don't know for how many days so they haven't booked yet. Or, in some cases, they don't know if they are bringing a date yet.

 

Hopefully you will have a very good idea of your guest count by mid February!!   Sounds like things will start coming together soon.  For favors and such, I just ordered a few more for the stragglers once I had a fairly good idea who was/wasn't coming!