SarahMc

I used palm fans for everyone - and the guys didn't seem to mind. I think most guys know there will be "flowery, girly stuff" at a wedding. The guys used the fans too!

So, I'm way behind. My husband actually got really sick and was in the hospital for two weeks. He's at home now and is getting much better. I logged on real quick to see if Natalie and Nicole's pics were done because I wanted to see them and found this thread among the 8000 unread posts... We were able to view our pics on September 19th online, and I got the package of prints this last Monday. We did have a small package, no slideshow and only 100 prints. Juan gave us an extra 100 prints because he took so long to do our pictures. I'll try to post some pics this weekend. Natalie I'm so sorry your pics took so long. Yours should have been done way before mine.

I got legally married in Mexico as well, and like Sarah have had no trouble having my Mexican wedding certificate recognized here. I also have to say, the needle in Mexico was the easiest and painless needle experience I ever had. My veins are really hard to find and I always end up totally bruised (they usually have to dig around, not pleasant) but in Mexico he got it right away and you could hardly see where the needle went in - no bruising at all!

Sorry, I forgot.. The corsages had two gerber daisies on them, with white ribbon. Sorry, i don't have a picture of them. I loved my flowers - but I'm not a huge flower person either. The daisies were beautiful though, and lasted for a long time - I snuck them on the plane with me )

something new: dress, veil, bracelet, shoes...I could go on something old: pin that my grandmother gave me that was her mother's something borrowed: bracelet from a friend something blue: my dress had a blue ribbon, also had a blue garter

Dreams Cabo was $65, and I went down to the spa to do it. I didn't do a trial, although they told me I could. I just brought pictures of what I wanted and she did a great job. She put my veil in to show my friend where it went, then took it out. In Seattle I've paid anywhere from $60-80.

I was going to upload some pics, but it's not working. I'll try again later )

I used Dreams for flowers - I only need my bouquet, two wrist corsages for the moms and some petals for the flower girl. I went with gerber daisies in yellow, orange and pink and loved my bouquet - it wasn't huge, but just what I wanted. I think it depends how important flowers are to you. My bouquet was free, the wrist corsages were $17 and the bag of petals (which was huge) was $30.

I used the same guitarist as Janet because she gave him such a great review. When I contacted him it was $250 per hour with a two hour minimum. Here's his contact info. DAVID FLORES AVL SYSTEMS AVL Systems [email protected] He played during the ceremony and the cocktail hour on the beach. I was kind of freaking out once by budget went sky high, and thought I'd regret paying that much when I could have used an ipod, but it ended up being one of my "best buys." Although I didn't get to hear much, all my guests were thrilled by him and talked about how great he was. Our photographer recognized him and said "he only plays the best hotels" and he wasn't the hotel photographer ) I was a little nervous because there is no contract with him. Just e-mails. He showed up though and was great. I had requested a song he didn't know for my walk down the aisle, sent him the music and he played it.

James and I planned on paying for everything ourselves, but my parents ended up giving us around 5,000 and paid for my dress, veil and flower girl's dress. His didn't contribute at all - which was fine. We weren't expecting anyone too since they were paying to go down there. It was really helpful to get the gift from my parents though, as we went way over my original 5k budget )

Great pics Jenetta! I didn't get through them all, but you and your hubby look really happy!

I used an i-pod for our reception and it was pretty easy. We only had 22 people total. We didn't really need announcements since it was such a small wedding. Someone just spoke up - me, my hubbie, my friend, whoever - to announce the cake, bridal toss, etc. We aren't too formal though. On the i-pod i set up different playlists. One for first dance (of course there was only one song on there), one for cake-cutting, one for dinner music, one for parent dance, one for garter toss, one for bouquet toss and then one that was dance music. I showed my brother which playlist to play when and we just kind of went with it. Whoever wanted to, would change the music (I even did some of it). A couple of tips though: 1. Make sure your ipod isn't on random. For playlists with more than one song, it will screw up the order you want it to go. I learned that at the reception and then had to remember how to get my ipod off random after several drinks. Learn from my mistake ) 2. Be careful with the docking systems. What sounds loud at your house/backyard can actually be really quiet by the ocean! We bought one - by logitech - and it was fine for background dinner music, but not loud enough down there for dancing. Luckily, our WC at Dreams found us a speaker that we could hook it up to at the last minute for $100 for the whole night. One speaker was sufficient for a small group and provided loud enough music to really dance and party. We didn't need a mic.

Congrats Sarah! It sounds like you had a great time! Can't wait to see pics!

Beautiful pictures Sarah!

In deciding between Oceana and Cascade I think that the size of your wedding will help you make your decision. If you're a really small wedding, we were a party of 22, you might want Oceana because it's more private and your group isn't "large" enough to fill up the Cascade Terrace area. Marianna also told me that it's harder to block off, or stop entertainment for smaller weddings, so just a consideration. Both are beautiful locations - you can't go wrong with either. We had ours at Oceana and I saw Nicole's and another bride's at Cascade - all were very nice and as private as they can get it. And the food for receptions is delicious! I agree with Tammy, better than the restaurants!

So here's the slideshow of non-pro pics we put together for our friends that couldn't come. They're just from people's snapshots, so the pictures aren't that great. And sorry, there's a lot of them! Ignore the cheesy comments on the bottom - we were trying to give people an idea of what each picture was ) http://share.shutterfly.com/action/w...AZM2jZw4btmLkQ

I've been to both the dept of licensing for my driver's license and the SS office in the Seattle area with no problem using my wedding certificate in Spanish. They're more interested in asking me about getting married in mexico, and when I was getting my license, they started talking to me in Spanish. I think it really depends on what type of city you live in - how diverse it is etc... I haven't been to the bank yet or done other credit cards so we'll see how the rest goes!

We had a small wedding and two kids attended - my neice and nephew. They were the flowergirl and ringbearer. They usually aren't too well behaved at stuff like that, so we were worried about Connor jumping in the pool at the reception or some similar situation. I'm so glad they came though and one of my favorite memories from the reception is dancing with them and Connor running around with the garter on his head. I would have missed them if they weren't there and sometimes those not so perfect moments with kids make your wedding that much more memorable...

I brought lots of starfish in with no problem...I put them on my checked luggage and didn't get inspected. I didn't point it out either. The custom form said live animals, and this sounds harsh, but they're dead so I didn't put them on there:o) They're not agricutural, so didn't worry about that. I brought flowers back from Mexico with no problem as well (but didn't take any in).

I got the starfish caketoppers from: Wedding Ideas and Details Store They shipped pretty quickly, even though it sounds like it will take them forever on the website. The small one is the four inch and the bigger one is six inch. We just ordered the small one at first, then thought it wasn't big enough, so decided to have two (like a bride and a groom starfish - cheesy I know). We thought the six inch would be the right size but actually it was a little big when you put the two together. The top of our cake was really small and wouldn't have held the six inch either (it would have looked to heavy). Nicole - thanks again! We couldn't have had our intimate reception without you! We saw parts of your wedding too and it looked like so much fun!

We had one person who waited until about a month or two before our wedding and couldn't get a room there - ended up staying at the Hilton. Definitely encourage them to book early!

We had crab cake appetizers, the salad with goat cheese, a double plate of sea bass with portobello mushrooms and beurre blanc sauce/stuffed beef filet tenderloin with julienned vegetables and skipped desert (just had wedding cake). Everything was really good - some of our guests commented that it was better than the restaurant food - especially the red meat eaters. We chose it all without doing a tasting and were very happy with our choices.

Forgot to say you don't need to exchange your money to pesos - everyone takes US dollars. You can get change (smaller bills) at the gift shop too.

There isn't an ATM at Dreams, but if I remember right, they let you get up to $50 per day with your credit card. We had friends that used the ATM in Cabo, but we just brought down enough cash for tips and to buy some stuff and came back with lots of cash.

Okay - trying to do some pics through photobucket, so hope this works...