Kcole123 Planning Thread - April 17, 2015 - Melia Caribe Tropical

[kcole123]

Well ladies,

I decided it was time to create some sort of a planning thread. I have no idea what I am doing here and you will probably find out throughout this whole process that I am a bit of a scatter brain and am not the most organized bride. I figure, because I am now 3 months away from the wedding, I would put my thoughts on paper and try to organize what I can and figure out what I have done so far and what I have left to do. So here goes.

 

How we met:

Well you might get two different stories to this one cause Nathan (my fiancé) seems to think I sighted him at a party and decided to add him on Facebook and start a connection. Well this is true...lol But he goes a little far with it. I met him at a mutual friends going away party. As soon as I seen him I thought he was so cute. Then of course I added him on Facebook and started chating, and we went on a couple dates and next then you know I was bringing my Christmas tree over to his house setting it up (don't worry it was Christmas) and gradually started bringing other things over. He says I came over Christmas time and just never left...lol

 

The Proposal:

I had a feeling that something was going to happen but thought that might be 10 years down the road. We were seeing each other 2 years when he proposed. It was funny because the friend that had the going away party where we met, was actually home at the time visiting. So Nathan showed her the ring and everything. She was thinking "maybe I should leave because maybe he wants to do something tonight." Anyway just as she was saying "Kristy I think I will go home now and call it a night." I said "nah don't leave yet, lets order a pizza and watch a movie." So anyway Nathan had a face on him and I didn't know why...lol (they know each other well too by the way). Anyway after about an hour or two, she left for the night. Nathan then went out to the car and came back in the house and got right in my face down on his knees (I was sitting on the couch in my yoga pants, probably with pizza sauce running down my chin) and he hauled out a box out of his pockets and opened it up and said "Kristy will you marry me?" After this he told me he had plans to take me to the local park and propose to me there. But he said while my friend was there it started raining...he said that went out the window.

 

I am probably going to do this in chunks cause already my hands are getting tired from typing. See what I mean? Not a planner..lol

 

The Ring:

I will attach a picture of the engagement ring along with the wedding bands (I have two). Just as well to get them all the one shot right? Why wait for the first year?...lol oh and Nathan also bought me a ring for this Christmas past that I will wear with it. I like the stacked look. A girl can never have too many diamonds right especially on the one finger. I have also attached a picture of the wedding band Nathan wanted. Well his purchase took all of 3 minutes. Literally. He doesn't like shopping around and he doesn't see the point in shopping around. He knows he needs a ring, and he went with the first one the sales lady pulled out of the ring case.

We knew right away we wanted a destination wedding because basically the lower guest list the better (well better than 200-300). I am not one to be the centre of attention and I would just completely die having all those people look at me walking down the isle. So we kept it small and invited only close friends and family.

 

The Resort:

 

The resort we chose was Melia Caribe Tropical. We selected this because basically the pictures I have seen are gorgeous for a wedding and also it has an adults only section, which is where my fiancé and I are staying. We had a little trouble in the beginning deciding on a resort. At first we wanted an adult only resort and we were pretty dead set on that decision. Then people started voicing their opinions and weren't happy about the decision. Also, the adults only were more expensive for our guests to book as a package and we didn't want that either. So we got the best of both worlds with the Melia. For those that don't know Melia is located in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. We weren't particular if it was there or Mexico or anywhere else. But when researching, DR seemed to be the cheapest at the time on flights. I have to say the worst part in all of this this past year was deciding on a resort and dealing with our travel agent.

 

Travel Agent:

 

I spent a couple of months when I started planning, trying to find a travel agent. It was hard to do because it was based soley on emails and telephone calls (mostly emails). Trying to find one was difficult because they are all nice and want your business at first but then it's down hill from there. Well my experience anyway. I just hope everything goes smoothly the day everyone has to leave. My recommendation is if you can, go into a travel agency and sit with someone and talk over your ideas and listen to see if they have any. Some will seem helpful and others maybe not so much.

The Invitations:

 

Well right from the beginning I wanted either a passport type invitation or a boarding pass. I didn't know anyone right off hand that would do these, and I sure wasn't going to do them myself. I am not that crafty either. So I happened to look up kijiji and noticed an ad that someone was a graphic designer and that they can do invitations and things like that. Perfect. I contacted her and we met at McDonald's to run over some ideas and to get a quote. (It wasn't that sketchy I promise). She was really nice and very well organized and I liked the ideas she ran by me. She also tried to get me a better price at local print shops. I am soooo happy with how our invitations turned out. I did spend more than what I had thought at first but to me now they were worth it. We had so many compliments on them when they were sent out. Granted, Nathan would have been happy sending everyone a Facebook message as an invitation. Don't laugh because he actually mentioned this.

Engagement Pictures:

 

Here are a couple engagement pictures we had taken. The girl that did our invitations just so happened to be a photographer as well.

Edited January 19, 2015 by kcole123

[marinah84]

Yay! Great start, and lovely story. Excited for the updates!

[tygrrlily]

Yay Kristy! I love reading planning threads and yours is off to a great start.   I love the story of how you and Nathan met - haha.  And the proposal is super cute as well!  Love the stacked rings - I've already told Tony I want another band for our anniversary

 

I was reading your TA part and felt like I was reading my own hah. Bleh - she gets better but so much unnecessary stress. 

 

Looking forward to reading the rest of your thread.  Happy wedding planning

[kcole123]

Hey Lily,

I can't seem to get this darn thing organized though. I am wanting to do it like everyone else's with the pictures following the paragraphs that the pics belong to. How do you do that?

[marinah84]

@@kcole123

 

You first upload the pictures to your personal gallery - so go into your profile and get to gallery.  You can make a folder (or multiple) and then you upload the pictures there.

 

Then, when you make a post, to the right of the emoticon/happy face, there is a button that says "My Media" - click on Gallery Images. 

 

Basically, type out the words, and then after the paragraph click on the "My Media" button and select the picture.  it'll put the name of the picture in the box, but when you preview/post, it'll show the picture

[kcole123]

What's very weird is when I use my computer at home I don't see anything like emotions or how to underline and bold and things like that. It's like there is nothing there. But when I was at work I popped on and just went in as if I was going to write something and I seen it all there. How do I fix this for my home computer do you know?

[marinah84]

Weird, no I don't.  I could understand if you were using your mobile device, or Tapatalk, that doesn't have the options.  Maybe it's the type of device you are using?

[kcole123]

Very Weird. I actually use my laptop at home but i remember being able to see the options before.

[tygrrlily]

@@kcole123 - I couldn't figure out this gallery thing on this site to be honest, so I uploaded my pics on a different site, then just inserted the link using the little picture icon above

 

I uploaded my pics all here - http://postimage.org/

 

They resize it for you too .  Just make sure you use the "direct link" url (2nd choice) and paste that into the little picture icon above, then you can have paragraph picture paragraph picture

[kcole123]

@@tygrrlily thanks. You are a woman with knowledge of everything...lol

 

I have a problem though. Right now I am at work and don't have any pictures here and I really can't spend hours on here doing a planning thread. I can see the pic icon that you are talking about but as soon as I get home on my laptop I don't have any of those icons available.