Nichole's Planning Board For El Dorado Royale Wedding

[Nichole0878]

Hello Beautiful Brides (and maybe some helpful husbands too   ),

 

While I have been preparing everything to leave for our wedding in less than two weeks and getting all of the details together, it's struck me how much posts from women on this forum have helped me! You've provided creative ideas and invaluable advice and suggestions so although I've never been the girl planning my wedding since I was 12 (or honestly even since about 10 months ago!), I want to give back.

 

My finance, Matt, and I are getting married at the El Dorado Royale Resort in Playa del Carmen, Mexico on November 13, 2015 and are SOOO excited! Throughout the planning process we've definitely learned a few things of what to do and what not to do. The lists below summarize my current 2-weeks out suggestions, but I'm sure they will change after we return.

 

 

Our Do Nots:

 

1) Tell everyone your wedding plans as they're still forming. 

• We knew we wanted to have a destination wedding and luckily even knew which resort we wanted, but THAT's IT. From the moment we got engaged the questions were endless and we ended up just confusing everyone more than anything. 

2) If you're working with a travel agency or the resort's wedding planning services, DON'T hesitate to request a new representative to work with if you're not happy with the service you've been receiving. 

• We worked with DestinationWeddings.com and El Dorado Royale uses Lomas Travel/Weddings to coordinate the weddings at the resort. Brenda, our rep for DestinationWeddings was very sweet and caring, but very scatterbrained and really screwed up some of our reservations, but most importantly, messed up quite a few of our guests payments and flight information. 
• Marisol was our rep through Lomas Weddings and we had endless communication issues with her in addition to messing up quite a few things on the official arrangements spreadsheets. So I was CONSTANTLY double checking and correcting her work. 

3) Get so caught up in the details that you forget how awesome celebrating your wedding with your closest friends and family in tropical paradise will be!! 

 

Our Dos:

 

1) Have a meaningful conversation with your fiancé about what is important to each of you for the wedding ceremony, reception, and everything else leading up. 

• Matt and I were on the same page with many things, but we both assumed the other wanted a reception back in the US and were totally stressed about planning it. During a road trip we both admitted how much we were dreading planning and paying for it and were SO relieved to realized we actually both wanted the same thing! 

2) Pick your location and date as soon as possible! (but don't rush into a decision you're not sure or excited about)

• You'll have more choices of dates, times, and locations within the resort the sooner you book.
• Checking out the resort in person removes so much stress from planning. We went to EDR on vacation a year and a half ago and KNEW it was the place we wanted to get married eventually 

3) Send out some type of save the date as far in advance as possible along with estimated cost. We have quite a few quests that would not have been able to attend or afford it on short notice. 

• I sent out a save-the-date e-mail about 8 months in advance along with information about the resort and pricing and most importantly, deadlines for booking and payments. 

4) Have a small wedding party.

• Personally, we felt that asking our friends to be bridesmaids/groomsmen would almost force them to buy their way down to Mexico since we are unable to pay for everyone's trip ourselves. So it's just going to be my sister as my Maid of Honor and his brother as his Best Man. It worked out great that we each have 1 sibling! 
• Bonus - It's Wayyyy easier to coordinate two people than 6, 8, 10… etc!

 

I'll add more of the details to this feed as I get to it, and take some pictures of our OOT bags, the itineraries and welcome letter I made! 

Edited October 30, 2015 by Nichole0878

[vancouverpetunia]

@@Nichole0878 Great tips. I wish you a wonderful wedding day in paradise! 

[acw271011]

Congrats! Your date is so soon! Thanks for posting your details. We all love to read them, and the tips are always helpful! El Dorado Royale is a gorgeous resort!

[Nichole0878]

Thank you, @@vancouverpetunia and @@acw271011! 

 

Some details on all of our printed things:

 

Although we never started with a strict "theme" in mind, I'm happy with how everything came together!

 

We customized our invitations through Zazzle.com: http://www.zazzle.com/pd/spp/pt-zazzle_invitation2?dz=d70e902a-aafa-44de-af7b-4b9ba97ccd34&side_name=front&style=5x7&cornerstyle=normal&media=matte&color=white&printquality=4color&design.areas=%5B5x7_back_full_vert%2C5x7_front_full_vert%5D&context=114454943271300394&view=113333167731492616

 

 

And included this card I designed but printed through Zazzle.com to provide some important information.

 

 

With some inspiration from Pinterest and Etsy, I designed this welcome bag print that we iron-transfered to a soft canvas type bag, and it worked great! (I'll post pictures of the OOT bags after we put them together!)

 

 

Inside the welcome bags, we're including this welcome letter and itinerary, as well as recovery kits in cellophane bags, that we're topping with either the Hangover Kit (my favorite!) or the Recovery Kit for the older folks that might not appreciated the fun Hangover design   The bag toppers will be folded over and stapled to the top of the bags.

 

I designed all of these using LucidPress.com (a much cheaper and easy to use program similar to InDesign) and we printed them all at home on cardstock paper. 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2015 by Nichole0878

[acw271011]

Wow! Everything looks really great! I LOVE the hangover design! Too cute! You'll definitely have to post pics afterwards!

[RandL2015]

Hi fellow November Bride!! Everything looks GREAT!! I absolutely LOVE the Hangover Kits!! Congratulations, it's almost time!!

[Jem2016]

Just got proposed to and now looking into destination wedding to same place as you. Had a quick question. How long do you have to be there before you can get married?

[Christie77]

I love your welcome letters! They look awesome. just reading that you have less than 2 weeks gives me knots and excited butterflies! Hope you are feeling stress free & easy breazy :0)

[Nichole0878]

Thanks, everyone! We are SO excited!   I'm just nervous about making sure I have everything together before we leave. 

 

Thanks, @@RandL2015 Yours is coming up so soon as well!! Congratulations and have fun!

 

@@Jem2016, We have to be there 3 days before the Wedding. We weren't planning on going that early initially, but you don't have to twist my arm too hard to get me to spend an extra day at the beach! Congrats on the engagement!

 

My sister and I had a productive weekend finalizing everything for our Welcome bags and I'm so so happy with them! 

 

 

We had koozies made through Etsy and LOVE them!! Una was cervesa, por favor! 

 

I'm also really excited about the sun glasses - we got them in 9 different fun colors and I'm really looking forward to getting a  picture of our whole group wearing them on the beach!

 

The tag is blank in the picture but I printed out tags with each couple's or person's names on them so after we assemble the bags we can get them to the right people easy. And as a bonus I think it's a nice personal touch that was really easy to add. 

 

To save space for packing, we're going to assemble them at the resort, but I'm hoping it won't take too long. 

[kelbiiztd]

Congrats!!! I LOVE your hangover kit.. it's so creative and cute!!