Tinkersofi's Planning Thread - Azul Fives August 13, 2015

[TinkerSofi]

We went to pick up Juan's suit today since it had to get hemmed and one of the sleeves had to be made shorter.

I put the ties against it and I'm really happy how it all looks

 

Edit: ok the ties look so peach on this picture but they're very much pink haha and so is the blue, it's much brighter than the picture. Sorry the light was pretty crappy when I took the picture

We also went to RW&co. And found some pants for the groomsmen. They're exactly the same blue as Juan's suit so yay! They'll just wear the pants, a white shirt and the solid pink tie




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Edited May 3, 2015 by TinkerSofi

[TinkerSofi]

Oh and here is a picture of my "something old" robe haha

 

 

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[acw271011]

Oh and here is a picture of my "something old" robe haha ImageUploadedByTapatalk1430614960.881159.jpg

 

 

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That's so pretty! I love the colour! And the suit is really smart! I love the tie on the left.

[diadiamond]

 

I hesitated so much about posting this planning thread, but reading other people's has helped me a lot, so here is mine. I hope I didn't make it too long. I love threads with tons of detail. I tried to organize it as best I could but I have so many ideas running through my head that sometimes they're hard to organize . 

 

How we met:

 

Juan and I met 7 years ago when a friend invited me to smoke some hookah and Juan happened to be friends with some of my friend’s friends. The second I walked in and I saw him, I remember thinking to myself “That’s one good looking guy!” We talked for a bit and when it got home at around 1:30am, I go on facebook and see that he has added me as a friend. 

 

Unfortunately timing was a bit of an issue for us. At the time we met he had a girlfriend, even though things weren’t going well between them and we definitely had a mutual attraction, I decided to walk away and not talk with him anymore. Fast forward 5 months, I went out with a girlfriend to celebrate that the school year was over and there he was! Up until that point I thought our attraction was something temporary, which was long gone, but the second we saw each other it was literally like a movie, and all those feeling came rushing back in one second. The best way I can describe it, it felt like pure chemistry, like we had known each other for ages. There was only one problem: I had a boyfriend then. Anyway, I decided to follow my heart so I broke it off with my boyfriend and decided to give this relationship with Juan a chance. Never in a million years would I have thought we would be here today.

 

one of our first pictures together: 

 

 

Our engagement:

 

Originally his plan was to propose on a trip we were going to take down to Mexico. He had reserved a private beach dinner for us. However he had some issues with a summer class he was taking and he needed to stay, right on the week of our trip! So that was wrecked proposal #1.

 

Juan really dislikes celebrating his birthday but I wanted to do something nice for his 30^th, so I planned a glow in the dark surprise party. My now MOH and I spend months planning this thing haha. As we were setting things up I get a call from Juan, and he asks “Sofia, are you planning a party for me?” he sounded so disappointed so I had to tell him the truth. He even sounded a bit mad, which I couldn’t understand why.

 

When he gets to the party he’s not mad at all, he’s actually super appreciative of it. As we were dancing he says to me “tell them to turn down the music, I want to say something” and my response (which, to this day I feel pretty dumb about about haha) “wait! I love this song!” *facepalm. So anyway, we turn down the music, and he starts off by thanking my friend and I for putting together the party and saying that he wanted to do this a while back, while in Mexico, but that he couldn’t… and that’s when my mind goes blank because it started freaking out haha. All I remember was that he went down on one knee and everyone was cheering while I was trying to keep it together and not cry. I couldn’t say yes, I could only nod and hug him. Out of all the people at my house he had not told anyone he was going to propose, so there are barely any pictures. I think everyone was as shocked as I was haha.

 

Then the truth comes out, he had actually planned a romantic dinner that night, he had reservations, flowers arranged, everything. He knows I like to celebrate birthdays, and since he doesn’t like celebrating his, then he thought that at least I could celebrate our engagement that day J. Then he found out I had planned the party so he had to go and cancel everything. That’s why he sounded so disappointed on the phone haha. So, that was wrecked proposal #2 but I guess the third time is the charm! haha

 

This is the only semi-decent picture we have of that night right after he proposed: 

 

The e-ring:

 

I chose my own ring. We were supposed to go see what I liked one day so he’d have an idea when he actually went shopping. As soon as we came out of the store he says, “I bought the ring”. I was like “what!?” (btw he sucks at keeping surprises a secret). Anyway, he upgraded the diamond from the one I had picked and I have to agree it looks nicer J. Here is a picture of it:

 

Our idea for a wedding:

 

Juan told me he wanted a DW ever since we started talking about marriage. He was super determined about this, no budging. I didn’t really care either way so we went with it. However, I did not want a super intimate wedding, with a simple white dress, my hair flowing freely in the wind with our toes on the sand. That’s what scared me a little bit about a DW at first because these were the only type that I had seen. Then luckily I found this forum and began to realize that DW are as varied as any other event. We soon came up with our wishlist. Our resort needed:

·      A venue for the ceremony that was not on the sand, a gazebo, or even better, some kind of terrace would be perfect

·      We needed to fit around 50 people

·      Affordable – we were thinking at around $1500

·      Probably somewhere family friendly. We’re at the age when everyone is having kids so we didn’t want to leave anyone out.

·      A place where we could have a private reception

·      Somewhere close to an active nightlife

 

We ended up choosing Mexico, mostly due to costs but also because we like it. It’s also a fairly short flight compared to other destinations.

 

Choosing the resort:

 

I think finding the resort was one of the hardest parts, and me second-guessing everything did not make it any easier. I went through these forums doing research and narrowed it down to 3 places. We were planning a trip to Cancun so we thought why not check them out? We pretty much picked one hotel when we came back but it was still too early to book so we waited another year (longest wait, ever!)

 

As we got closer to at least the year we’d be getting married in, we decided to look for a TA. A member here in the forums recommended us LaurieLee so we met up with her. We were sold after the meeting with her so we didn’t shop around or anything for other TAs. We told her about the hotel we had seen in Cancun. Unfortunately when she got prices for us it was not good news. The price was right, but this resort wanted Juan and I to put down $150 for each guest (non refundable) in order to reserve the spots, so it was back to the drawing board because we didn’t want to take that risk. I was pretty frustrated that we wasted that trip checking out hotels, which none ended up working out, but oh well. So my suggestion, get a TA first, even if your wedding is far away.

 

Our TA suggested a couple of resorts to us and we totally fell in love with Azul Fives, or at least I did. I just needed that terrace! If Juan wanted a DW, I wanted to have it on a terrace overlooking the ocean. The hotel itself was $100 more expensive than our original budget for the cheapest room but I just couldn’t resist, and Juan “agreed” haha.

 

 

How the weddings work at Azul Fives:

 

I was beyond confused about all of this. I think I spent a week trying to figure out if we could even afford having a wedding at this beautiful hotel. Their website is so not user friendly and there was such little info out there when we booked! This is why I'm including this.

 

This resort doesn’t have predesigned packages like a lot of other hotels. You pay the basic and then it’s pretty much all a la carte. Long story short, unless you’re in the States, you pay $950 for a basic ceremony (which is free for US residents). I thought this was free for Canadians as well but their small print wasn’t clear enough, and there’s no arguing now.

 

Then the fun begins because you can truly blow that pesky budget out of the water if you let yourself have everything you desire. There are so many upgrades, so many things you can rent out that you can truly go crazy. For starters, you can have one of their packaged ceremonies for $3000. They’re beautiful, you basically get a ceremony fit for a beach princess, but we couldn’t justify spending such a huge chunk of our budget on something that is over so quickly. We’re going for something simple in terms of décor, but I’ll get into that later.

 

The thing about Azul Fives is that you can have pretty much anything you want, but it all comes with a cost, so beware. I still wouldn’t change the hotel. As much as I sometimes complain about their high prices for everything, this is really my only complaint so far. It has pretty much everything that was on our wishlist and the communication with my WC is great, everything seems to be smooth sailing so far. 

 

Choosing the colors:

 

I think I changed our colors every week at the beginning haha. Juan was of no help here because I think all men are partially color blind. They only see primary and secondary colors. I kept asking him and his response always was, “as long as it’s not red I’m good”. You know how many freaking colors are on a color wheel that are NOT red?! When I saw the pictures for one of Karisma’s packages I immediately decided, I loved the vintage elegance theme. It just kind of goes with who I am and Juan was just kind of like “whatever you want, they all look nice”.  This is what it looks like:

 

 

 

Colors were set, theme was sort of set. In hindsight maybe I should have gone with more of a common color, because a lot of things would have been easier to find, but I still love it. 

 

Getting people booked:

 

We’re in Canada, which means that we usually get our hotel, flight and transportation bundled into one. The first thing we did was reserving the date for our wedding. Our TA took care of that. Once that was confirmed and we had an actual date, then she made the room block for 30 people with the tour company, Transat. Our guests had 90 days to put a $150 deposit and now they have until June to pay the full balance.

 

Our TA provided us with an electronic save the date. It wasn’t anything crazy really. I created a canned message on gmail and then added a little message for each person before sending it off.

 

LaurieLee has been amazing so far about getting people booked, etc. so if anyone needs a TA in the Calgary area I wouldn't hesitate to recommend her, especially if you're thinking of using a Karisma resort. 

 

Our website:

 

We made our website before we sent our STD so we could include the link on there. It was hard to choose a website. We decided to go with Weddingwire. Again, sometimes my color choices came to bite me in the ass. It was hard to find a website that had similar colors.

 

The main purpose of the website was to get people to book. I had included pretty wording, etc. until I realized people don’t really read so I changed the information to be point form in some parts.

 

You can check it out here:

 

www.weddingwire.com/sofiaandjuan

 

The process of making the invites:

 

We handed out invites about a month before our booking deadline. Most of our guests live in the same city, so we personally delivered them and mailed out a few.

 

We didn’t really shop around for invites. I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on these because most people just throw them to the garbage, so I’d rather spend that money on the wedding itself. We decided to go the boarding pass route and DIY. My mom is pretty creative and she designed them on photoshop. In terms of printing, I tried printing them in the two printers we have but since the background was colored they looked pretty amateur. We sent them to be printed at Staples, I can’t remember exactly how much we paid but it was less than $1 per page, and we had two invites in each page. I chose a glossy cardstock. They cut them for us, we just had to go through and cut the rounded corners with a puncher.

 

 

We made the invites only one page each. In hindsight, I really wish I had included more information and made them more than one page long.

 

For the envelopes, I bought some pearly ivory paper at Michael’s (with a coupon of course), and printed each envelope with the guests names at the back. Our envelopes were pretty simple, they didn’t have a slit or anything like that but, meh. There are definitely some nicer ones out there in these forums.

 

My mom has an embossing machine and I thought, “why not use it?” It took quite a few tries because I kept getting crease of the edge of the folder on the envelopes. Thanks google for the solution for this. I loved how that turned out and so did our guests. It was time consuming, as I had to roll each envelope through the little machine twice. But it was worth it. We made a joke with my mom that I looked like I belonged to the Ingalls family haha, so low tech.

 

I used a bone folder to create the creases and fold the envelopes for them to look cleaner. I had bought a Martha Stewart glue pen to put them together. What a piece of crap, don’t waste your money. The envelopes started to come off within a few hours, even though we left them pressed for a whole night under some books for the glue to stick. The pen also dried out after two uses. We had to glue the envelopes all over again, this time with old school glue. I used the useless pen by dipping it into the glue and then brush it over the envelopes. That did the trick and they looked fine.

 

Here's us in our little invite making party: 

 

 

I bought some stamps from Michael’s as well that were travel related, so we stamped the invites and the envelopes. 

 

 

Then I made little ribbon bows and I glued them with a hot glue gun to close the invites. This was the finished product:

 

 

 

Everyone really liked them. They’re not the nicest ones on this site but at the end of the day they’re just invites and I can bet you ¾ ended up in the garbage.

 

Then the waiting began….

 

About a week before our deadline the only people booked were us, my family and 4 friends (my family because I basically sat them down one day and forced them to book, I told them that they needed to make me feel better hahah). We sent out text messages to everyone reminding them that the deadline was that week and that otherwise they would lose the special pricing. We only sent these to the people who expressed some interest in coming. Most people booked in the last couple of days. I was freaking out, thinking no one would be there but most came through in the end J. Right now we officially have 42 people and 3 kids and still waiting for quite a few more, so this could explode any minute. Otherwise I’m more than happy with 45 people.

 

Next, the fun really begins with all the planning! 

 

 

I love your story!  It's just like a movie.  You engagement story is beautiful, third time really was the charm.  I chose my own engagement ring too.  I also think finding a resort is the hardest part of planning I was pulling my hair out over it!  I'm glad that, that part of planning is long gone for me.  I love your colour, it's so unique and gorgeous!  I initially wanted the vintage elegance theme for my  wedding too.  I creeped your website lol and you did a fantastic job!  Gave me some ideas that I should incorporate into mine.

 

Oh wow, you made your own invitations!  Kudos to you girl!  They look amazing!

noo, so I had made a suuper long entry and it got deleted . I'll do my best to replicate it. 

 

Ok so now the fun begins! 

 

The wedding band

 

this was literally the first thing I bought. I spent more than I had hoped on it, but then I thought that if I was going to spend my money on something, this should be it. I'll be wearing it for the rest of my life! The band is a matching set with my e-ring, which actually took a lot of work to match. Long story short, it didn't fit well wit my e-ring so I had to send it back a couple of times until it finally got fixed. It was frustrating to say the least but now I can't wait to wear it

 

 

The Flowers

 

If there is one topic that gets me roiled up, is the price of the natural flowers at the Karisma properties. HOLY COW! that's all I have to say haha. To give you an idea, they cost more than what I would pay here in Canada, and they don't allow outside florists. So, I'm boycotting the whole thing and using fake flowers, except for my bouquet. This is what it looks like: 

 

 

and these will be the bridesmaid ones: 

 

 

The Ceremony

 

So as I said before, I needed that terrace for our wedding! which we managed to get, for a surcharge of $1700  . We decided to pay it because it just went with what we had envisioned. We don't get much for the $1700, it's still basic decor, so just white garden chairs and you get some perks, but nothing like their $3000 packages, which is fine. I found this picture of the terrace at Azul Beach. I like the one at Azul Fives better but just so you can get an idea 

 

 

We are not doing much in terms of decor, just renting two white sheers for the gazebo and placing some pomanders along the asile in alternating chairs that I got from Michael's. This is what they look like, please forgive the fact that they're hanging off my cabinets haha, I wanted to see how they looked against white: 

 

 

That's pretty much it for decor for the ceremony, we might add a small (fake) flower arrangement on the table but I'm letting nature take care of the rest . 

 

The Reception

 

Because I love that terrace so much, we're also having our reception here. We also upgraded this and we're paying a surcharge per person added on to the price of the menu. 

 

We decided on a buffet style menu a long time ago, even before we knew when or where we would get married. We just wanted our guests to eat as much as they pleased . We chose a BBQ style menu which has so many options that I think anyone would be able to find something they like. 

 

In terms of decor, I bit the bullet here, we're paying for one of the packages for the tables. These are not cheap, but I basically only have to bring my centerpieces. I posted a picture before and here is another one of how the place setting looks: 

 

 

Then these are the centerpieces I put together: 

 

 

The bridesmaid bouquets will double as centerpieces so there is less stuff to bring. The little blue round thing is actually a filled cookie called an alfajor. They're traditional in Argentina, where I'm from, and my mom has a business here where she makes them. Those will be our favors and they'll go in the little box. They can be stored quite well for a few weeks so they'll taste great even when bringing them from home

 

Most of this stuff I got at Michael's, except for the lanterns (Ikea) and the favor boxes, which I got a long time ago from Ebay. They were one of the first things I bought and I paid somewhere around $36 for 100 of them. 

 

Then this is what our sweetheart table will look like. You really have to use your imagination for this one! haha it makes me laugh every time. The middle bouquet will actually be my bouquet. 

 

 

Now I realize I should have started this thread a long time ago. I just noticed I have a lot of things planned so I have to write these novel-sized entries to catch up and show you guys everything so far haha. Most of this stuff I've posted randomly in different threads but it's nice to have it all in one place. 

 

That's it for tonight. I think I managed to put everything I had written in my previous entry that got deleted. 

 

Next up, my personal favorite, the attire   

I love your wedding band and e-ring conbination. I agree with you on the flowers they can get really expensive!  Especially here in Canada.  What kind of flowers are you hoping to get for your bouquet?  I have shell bouquets that I got for free when I bought my dress, but I'm thinking about doing real flowers for everyone.  I think the flower prices are lower for Cuba, but selection is limited.  I want calla lillies, but if they don't have that my back up is roses.  I love the terrace idea!  I wanted to get married on a terrace initially, but I just loved the idea of being on the beach.  Those cookies look delicous your guests will love them.

[TinkerSofi]

That's so pretty! I love the colour! And the suit is really smart! I love the tie on the left.

Thanks! It was funny when we first saw them we liked the solid ties more and Juan was thinking of ordering a new one, then we saw them again and we liked the stripes one more, so he's keeping the one with the stripes for the wedding . I think it will look awesome when it's all together

 

When my mom gave me the robe I really liked it and I love the color as well so I decided not to buy a new one

 

@@diadiamond My bouquet has roses and I believe lilies. Juan's boutonniere will probably be made out of stephanotis, unless they quote us something ridiculous. The lapel on his suit is not very big, so he didn't want a rose because they're too big. He's also not a very big guy so a big flower would look kind of disproportionate on him. I wanted to put some real flowers on the centerpieces but when they quoted me $10USD per rose we decided not to. I basically made all of the centerpieces with the price of just the flowers had I gone with natural ones. I wasn't crazy about the idea of having fake flowers but honestly at this point I'm over it. No one will remember a wedding by whether they had real or fake flowers and the money I saved allowed us to put more money towards other things that were more important, at least for us. There are some really nice silk flowers out there! There's also some nice real touch flowers, which maybe I would have considered for the bridesmaid bouquets if I hadn't found those bouquets of roses . 

[vancouverpetunia]

 

 

@@diadiamond My bouquet has roses and I believe lilies. Juan's boutonniere will probably be made out of stephanotis, unless they quote us something ridiculous. The lapel on his suit is not very big, so he didn't want a rose because they're too big. He's also not a very big guy so a big flower would look kind of disproportionate on him. I wanted to put some real flowers on the centerpieces but when they quoted me $10USD per rose we decided not to. I basically made all of the centerpieces with the price of just the flowers had I gone with natural ones. I wasn't crazy about the idea of having fake flowers but honestly at this point I'm over it. No one will remember a wedding by whether they had real or fake flowers and the money I saved allowed us to put more money towards other things that were more important, at least for us. There are some really nice silk flowers out there! There's also some nice real touch flowers, which maybe I would have considered for the bridesmaid bouquets if I hadn't found those bouquets of roses . 

 

@@TinkerSofi - I had to google stephanotis to find out what it is. Very pretty. Did you know that Wikipedia says that it is also known as "bridal veil"? 

 

P.S. Congrats on "being over it" LOL I hope to get there eventually!

[TinkerSofi]

@@TinkerSofi - I had to google stephanotis to find out what it is. Very pretty. Did you know that Wikipedia says that it is also known as "bridal veil"? 

 

P.S. Congrats on "being over it" LOL I hope to get there eventually!

yeah, I saw them on a picture and then realized they were in a bouquet that the resort offered, that's how I found the name haha. I didn't know they were called bridal veil. I just went to read about them and considering that they're difficult plants they might be really expensive so we might have to think of a replacement .

[diadiamond]

@@TinkerSofi I LOVE your dress!  I love the lace detail!  I also love the colour and style of your bridesmaids dresses.  I think a corset back will look amazing (I'm biased as I love the corset back).  

 

My hands and fingers swell in the heat as well!  I don't know how the ring will go on my finger either lol.  I think I'll do what you are going to do, drink lemon water and stick my hand in a bucket of ice lol

OOT Bags

 

It took me a while to convince Juan that we should give people something for spending so much money to come. It started with a very long list of about 15 items, until he came over and slashed it to about 7 haha. I was going to do OOT cups but a bride here mentioned no one used them and they did seem kind of a hassle to bring, so we decided to order some sunglasses. Now, not everyone might use them, just like the OOT cups, but they seem to be easier to transport. 

 

Here's a picture with all the colors we ordered. I'm a fan of a couple so I'm not sure which color I'm going to pick

 

 

We made them personalized: 

 

 

Then, instead of giving a bunch of smaller items I thought we could give each person less items but bigger. I ordered some sarongs for the girls, which i found on ebay for about $3 each haha. I really hope they're somewhat decent for that price . I'll update as soon as I get them as to the quality and whether it was a good idea or I wasted my money haha. That should be fairly soon since I ordered them about a month ago. I ordered them in a bunch of different patterns but this one is my fave: 

 

 

For the guys I'm thinking of something around the lines of a money clip or somewhere to put the cash while at the beach, etc. I haven't found any yet that I liked and are in the price range i'm looking. Guys are the hardest to pick for! I initially thought hats would be a good idea, but I also couldn't find any nice ones for the price I was looking for. Maybe it's a sign i need to increase the budget? hahah

 

As for the bags, I'd love to have fabric totes, but I'm not sure we'll be able to do that unless wedding chicks has another one of their huge sale they had this past year (so mad at myself for missing that). I kinda like these ones: 

 

 

if that's not possible, the plan is to do paper gift bags and create a label along the same lines as that design and just put them on the bags . 

 

Then inside, I'll put a brochure welcoming people, with info about the resort and the location as well as a place for them to write down their friends' room numbers. 

 

I'm not sure whether adding this on to the brochure or having a separate thing, but I wanted to do a postcard with all of the week's planned events and the times, so that people don't forget or miss out on anything. 

 

I'm still considering other items, but we'll see how we're doing in terms of money. 

 

On totally unrelated notes, we got an update from the resort with our timeline. Sunset will be at 7:20 during our wedding, so our ceremony is now at 6 (used to be at 5), and reception from 8-12. I'm so happy they're not charging us more to have it until midnight . Unfortunately, because apparently worrying is my favorite hobby, now I worry whether people will be extremely hungry by the time the reception rolls around and maybe I should have kept the original timeline, ceremony at 5 and reception at 7. Juan told me I'm going to drive myself insane hahah

 

Love your idea for favours!  I also think that since people are spending so much to come and celebrate your big day they should get something in return.  I love the sarongs!  I think the girls will love them and use them and I love the print.  Where did you get them from if you don't mind me asking?  I'm thinking of giving them to my bridesmaids.  

 

You're not alone with worrying, I changed my wedding timeline so much since I booked because I was worried about not having enough time for photos, the time of dinner, ect. 

[calgarybride2015]

@@TinkerSofi I LOVE your dress! I love the lace detail! I also love the colour and style of your bridesmaids dresses. I think a corset back will look amazing (I'm biased as I love the corset back).

 

My hands and fingers swell in the heat as well! I don't know how the ring will go on my finger either lol. I think I'll do what you are going to do, drink lemon water and stick my hand in a bucket of ice lol

 

 

Love your idea for favours! I also think that since people are spending so much to come and celebrate your big day they should get something in return. I love the sarongs! I think the girls will love them and use them and I love the print. Where did you get them from if you don't mind me asking? I'm thinking of giving them to my bridesmaids.

 

You're not alone with worrying, I changed my wedding timeline so much since I booked because I was worried about not having enough time for photos, the time of dinner, ect.

I had planned to wear my engagement ring on my right finger but it didn't fit in the heat. Thankfully it fit on my left still so just wore it on that finger. Personal preference I say!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[diadiamond]

thanks! I have to figure out what's next

 

I haven't been doing much the last few days in terms of planning because of tons of work but here's an update: 

 

I've been thinking about what I want in terms of the itinerary for the week or wedding day. Initially I wanted to do two sides, one for the week and one for the wedding day, on a postcard size. When i finally sat down to write the list of events, the itinerary for the week was so sad that I decided I'll probably scratch that haha. So far it's just a welcome dinner and then the wedding day haha. We might do an outing as a group but chances are that we won't get it together until we're there. 

 

This is kind of what I like, and I know other brides have done the same: 

 

I sent it to MOH #1 because she's in school for graphic design and said she would help me out with these. She's writing some exams so she won't be able to work on these until March but I guess it gives me more of a chance to think about exactly what I want. 

 

Then I thought that since I wanted to do a welcome pamphlet, maybe I can include the itinerary in the pamphlet rather than having two separate things. I have to actually sit down and think and kind of design them in my head I guess before I make my MOH work in vain. 

 

I ordered the BM dresses yesterday! yay. So they will be here in 3-4 months. 

I love that design I think it will look great! 

I tried on my dress again today and I every time I'm just like "wow, I look great in this" hahah. I guess that's when you know you got the right one . I'm starting to think about hair and accessories. 

 

Hair

 

I definitely know I want an updo. I'm a huge fan of half up half down hairstyles and originally that's what I was going to go for, but then I started thinking about how hot it is over there in August, even at night. To that I need to add the wind at the terrace and the sweat of me partying too hard haha (ew?). Basically I will end up looking like a hot mess if my hair is down. I know the hair on my back will bug me and I will end up putting it up in a lame ponytail. So updo it is! I will probably end up looking like a hot mess anyway, but my hair with humidity turns into a lion's mane and that's definitely not the look I'm going for hahah. 

 

I thought I wanted a hair comb for my updo and had found a couple of faves on etsy. Then I went into David's bridal and tried on a few hair accessories. I decided that a headband is the way to go. Even my friends call me the headband lady haha because according to them they look really good on me . I had bought this headband at Forever XXI a couple of months back. I only wore it for New Years and today when I tried on my dress I made like a "mock updo" (mock is another word for crappy haha) with it. I decided it looked good so that's what I'm going to wear instead of spending $120 on the one I liked at David's Bridal. 

 

 

Jewellery 

 

I had seen this etsy store a while back and saved a few things but today I think I'm ready to pull the trigger haha. I'm only wearing earrings and a bracelet because I feel like my dress is busy enough with all the embroidery. I knew I needed something like pearls if i were to have a bracelet because I was afraid that if I got one with crystals that it would snag my dress (a tulle skirt).

 

 

 

This is the link to the store on etsy: 

https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/poetryjewelry?ref=l2-shopheader-name

 

Tackling the to do list: 

 

by the way @ thanks for the whiteboard idea. We've been using it and I love that the fiance has access to it from home. It makes it a lot easier to communicate. For those that don't know what's going on, veryvalero has her own planning thread and she uses a board to put stickies of things on the to do list, that way both her fiance and her can tackle things and take things off the list. My fiance and I don't live in the same house, which sometimes makes it a bit hard when it comes to planning and keeping each other in the loop.  She suggested this website www.realtimeboard.com so we make sticky notes of things to get done and my fiance can log in and see/edit it as well . Very useful indeed. 

 

Your headband is gorgeous!  I also wanted a half-up half-down do, but it's going to be hot in September so I want to put it all up.  Did you buy your jewelry already?  I love the jewlery that you posted.  

Good idea on the dress code . I had omitted it from my website bc I was like um who doesn't know how to dress for a nice beach wedding... Turns out a lot of people by the questions I got ( I know it's hot but I didn't realize guys were thinking shorts, although in the end I won't care )

 

I thought that dressing for a beach wedding would be self explanatory too, but it wasn't lol.  Guys also wanted to wear shorts.  I don't really care about what people wear I just don't want them to be in bathing suits LOL.

@@Smellsey they had some really good sales this week! I just realized they sent a coupon for 20% off everything only valid yesterday. I went there and saw these little travel sewing kits and other things for the OOT bags but I hadn't seen the coupon so I didn't use it, boo (at least I didn't buy anything). Next time! 

 

Update on the bags:

 

I did some research, Mrsktob didn't specify how the personalized the bags, but it looks like an iron on. It looked awesome! Unfortunately I did some research and an iron on will not work with the bags I got because they're that non-woven plastic material, and they will turn into a gooey mess when the iron is applied. I'm not going to risk it. However, I worked on the cricut and designed a little stencil. I still have to work out the logistics and try it out but I've attached a picture of what I designed so far. The letters will be cut out and I'll paint them white on the bags. I 100% ripped off the idea from wedding chicks and I admit it hahah. 

 

I designed it on cricut-craft room. I don't have the cartridges I used to make it, so in order to cut the design out I need to buy them. I'm trying to get a good deal on ebay for it before caving in and just buying it full price. For that design I technically need two cartridges, luckily the one with the maracas is only $5, vs. the $30ish that a regular one costs. The only way I can justify buying the font cartridge full price is that my mom might use use when making cakes and other things in her bakery. 

 

Update on the freebies from the hotel: 

 

I got an e-mail today from my WC, and from what she said we are approved for the free private dinner, yay! and they're making our ceremony free since we are upgrading quite a few things for both the ceremony and reception. They just need confirmation that we have enough rooms with our group to qualify but that shouldn't be a problem. My TA already sent her a list of guests so far. 

 

I started thinking about making the private dinner our welcome dinner the day after we arrive, for everyone to get to know each other and mingle. Then use the semi-private dinner for a rehearsal or the day before we leave. I asked Juan but he basically said "I don't care. We have free food anywhere anyways" haha. 

 

I'm so happy that you were able to get some perks from your resort! I can't wait to see what you end up doing with your bags.

Jewelry is here! Yay!! I am in love with the earrings . I didn't take a picture of them on me because I had just come back from the gym and I would have ruined the look haha. ImageUploadedByTapatalk1426034676.592424.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1426034690.525330.jpg

 

 

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 So beautiful!  I can't wait to see it together with your dress!