NABUMBAH

here are mine:

 

Handmade Paper and Letterpress Wedding Invitations: a194-Chanson

My BIL and his girlfriend stayed at the Tropicana in San Jose for our wedding. It was super cute and very reasonable. And it's in the heart of San Jose so while you're not beachfront, you can walk to all of the local shops & restaurants

Christa, did I miss something? you're going back to Cabo so soon?

 

lucky girl!!

 

GL with dominic! he's a hoot!

We did turquoise, blues, and green. Feel free to check out the slideshow link in my sig to see how the colors turned out. I thought it looked great

things I would do again:

 

-location: it was exactly what we wanted

-attire: I had a meltdown the month before about the dress but I am glad that I didn't spend any more

-bootcamp & spanx: I didn't look like a fat cow thanks to these two gems

-flowers & decor: I have no idea who did the flowers, but they were gorgeous. I also loved the ribbon table runners that my mom and sister did

-boat RD: it was a blast

-the twins & mariachi: how could I forget? the twins ROCKED the house!

-photographer: I am really glad that we hired someone from here to do our photography.

-fireworks: such a fun touch for a relatively small amount of $.

-this forum: IT preserved my sanity. Especially since we booked everything and everyone sight unseen. Thanks, Tammy!

 

things that I could have done without:

-welcome dinner at tabasco's: it was difficult to find, and i think it was a little stressful for our guests to fly in and head straight to this event. it was also COLD on the beach. If I had a do-over I would have just hosted a cocktail hour somewhere.

-cake/dessert spread: like the rest of you, I think less than half of this stuff actually was touched.

-longer honeymoon! I seriously wish that we had either planned to do the full-blown HM after the wedding, or spent more time in Cabo. Not nearly enough time down there to fully unwind after the wedding

-better organization: I would have done a full rehearsal, and written out specific instructions so that I wasn't so stressed on our wedding day.

 

even so, it was a great time. It's funny, a month out I was much more stressed out about what went wrong. Now 3.5 months out, I have let go of a lot of it. I'm sure next year it will all be a distant memory.

We had a lot of guests at Las Olas. Some people rented villas, and we also had a large group that stayed down at Villa Del Arco.

awesome congrats K&D and great job Marci!

mine was around $230. It was a monique lhuillier that I found on ebay. It fit my requirement of non-strapless sheath, and it was better than anything I had found in the stores, so I just went with it. I think that the original retail was around $3k but it had been worn once before.

I think that the scuba trip is a great idea. I don't think that most guys would be crazy about Tiffany anything but if you want to do something like that, may I suggest a money clip?

I really rec the ipod shuffles. They are very reasonable - only around $70 each

I diy'd my STDs - they were around $2.25 each. I ordered my invites from papelvivo.com. With calligraphy and postage, they were around $10 each

I only had my two sisters in my BP and I wanted to get them something extra special that they would never buy for themselves, so I got them each a juicy terry track suit. I also paid for hair & makeup for them, the moms, my niece, and two of my friends.

 

For the groomsmen, usher, and friend that played the guitar for our ceremony we bought them ipod shuffles.

 

I think a really good rule of thumb for BP gifts is to give them something that you would give them for their birthday or another special occasion.

I don't know. I sort of disagree. We made our DIY arch and I really felt that it framed the ceremony

Not necessarily. my photogs paid their own travel. you can PM me if you want specific details.

I used Jim Kennedy Photography - he is located in Huntington Beach.

 

Index of /

awesome! I am sure that she will do a good job.

 

are you guys still going to get married on the 20th?

I would say that if you are willing to have some flexibility it will be worth it in the end. We ended up choosing our date solely based upon the availability of the cabo surf. In the end, it all worked out. We booked our wedding 9 months out and we had 135 guests - way more than the 70 that we had originally planned on! I guess that my point is that your friends and family will make it. Rather than driving yourself batty trying to coordinate schedules, just pick a date and give everyone ample time to make their travel arrangements. We had all sorts of barriers for our guests - teachers, accountants during tax season, guests from Hong Kong and Singapore - you name it. But they all made the trip in the end.


the most important thing is that you get what you want out of our location. I really do believe that the location makes the party and I can say with great confidence that our party was a huge success thanks to this hotel (and the Twins and fireworks, and a TON of booze!!!)

beautiful ring! congrats!

let me butt in to answer.

We did eat breakfast, and/or lunch at the hotel. We went to Costco and stocked up on food & snacks but did not end up eating much. We provided all of the dinners off-site.

For the most part, people were very busy since most of our guests arrived on Thursday afternoon and departed Sunday. Friday about 16 of the guys went off to play golf. And Saturday was the wedding and I didn't really leave my room/the suite where we got ready until we did pictures.


I think that some of our guests went elsewhere to eat, but to be honest the food at the hotel was really good, and it was so convenient!

I did bootcamp for a month prior to the wedding and have been doing it (again) for the past two months. It takes a lot of dedication, but it's great. My body has changed so much. I have a lot more muscle and endurance. I used to do cardio almost exclusively and I was always frusterated that I did not look great. Adding the weight training/toning from bootcamp has really given me the physique that I always wanted.

 

I suppose you could achieve the same results on your own with a combo of intense cardio & strength training but the great thing about bootcamp is that they mix it up for you, and they are there to motivate (yell at) you to keep you going. I would highly recommend bootcamp programs!

For dinner I would choose Nik San - soooo good.

 

and we did a sunset cruise for our RD. It was a blast!

welcome! happy planning!

We also went with the Cabo Surf. I liked the idea of a villa wedding, but it just seemed like too much work to actually rent the villa and coordinate catering, etc. we wanted a location with an intimate setting - I didn't want a whole hotel full of people staring me down on my wedding day, KWIM?

 

everyone LOVED the cabo surf! We booked 20/22 rooms. It was so much fun to wake up and see everyone at breakfast/at the pool, etc. It was great for the parents, too. It was nice that if you needed to run up to your room, it took 5 min - not 1/2 hour like it might at some larger hotels. It was just a fun, relaxed, friendly environment. I can't recommend it enough. The location is absolutely beautiful - and the food - OMG! so good! the margs are killer, too!

 

I am already lobbying DH to stay there again sometime.

I borrowed a projector from my stepdad, and some speakers from my BIL and we brought our own computer. The screen rental for our slideshow was $200. HTH!

beautiful

we brought down a ridiculous amount of stuff including 3 cases of wine. I think as long as you tell them that it's for a wedding they're not going to bug you.