Maura

How long did you book your photographer for and what was your picture schedule for the whole day? I didn't factor in 30-45 mins total of travel time (between the resort to the church, and the church back to the resort) when I made my initial deposit so now I'm thinking I should add a few more hours. I originally thought 4 hours would be enough. Did your photographer charge you for travel time, or only the time they were shooting? Tell me if this sounds ok: 1 hour getting ready photos 15-20 mins travel to church 1 hour ceremony 30 mins photos outside the church w/family 15-20 mins travel back to resort for reception 45 mins to 1 hour of photos of us alone 2-3 hours for reception total of probably about 7 hours... that seems like a lot

Feliz Cumpleaños Anny!

Kate, everything looks really great! I love your dress too! From one Miamian to another, I am so excited for you. And I love that you have Miami colors You Mergers, you! Those Louboutin pumps are super hot too. Don't forget when you get back from the honeymoon to send the alumni office a wedding announcement so that they send you a Miami Merger Valentine in February!!! My best friend and her husband got one this year and they loved it. I can't wait for you to get back so we can hear all the details and see photos! Hugs and best wishes for a wonderful pre-wedding week and a spectacular wedding day!

I am soo excited right now. I just paid my deposit to book the fabulous Bradley Fraser for our wedding! My FI was just saying over dinner tonight how he's anxious to really start making decisions and get into the full swing of wedding planning and booking things. I couldn't be more excited that he's so into planning with me, and I am ecstatic to have chosen Bradley after all of the wonderful things you ladies here on the forum have said about him. A special thanks also to those of you who shared your Bradley photos with me, it definitely solidified our decision to book him!

Sorry, but yes, it's true that you cannot transport plants of any kind over the border. Here's a link to the U.S. Customs site that explains it: Bringing Agricultural Products Into the United States - CBP.gov I was totally bummed out about this, and just toss my real flower bouquet since I can't bring it back to the states anyway.

I totally agree with you guys! I've experienced this a lot lately. I did a coworker a big favor this morning and did some of her work because she wasn't in yet, and there was a big development announced yesterday afternoon at a company she's supposed to follow but she missed the announcement somehow. (I'm a journalist) So I made some notes about it and put it into the database we use to track companies, and didn't put my name on it or my initials or anything. Then the editor of the magazine where I work was writing a column about marketing executive changes and asked if anyone knew of any recent changes. So I mentioned the one I just had entered for my coworker. Later when she arrived, I let her know that I put notes in for her. And she frickin flipped out at me and yelled "I'll do my own companies!" Jesus. Not so much as even a thank you for doing my work even though you didnt have to. I was just trying to be nice! A quick wedding related one: I made an appointment yesterday to try on gowns at Ultimate Bride on Oak Street in Chicago on Dec. 8th. The woman was so rude on the phone. She didn't ask me any of the standard questions I've gotten from every other boutique: what's your normal dress size, how tall are you, do you have any preferences on designers or necklines, no speech about their camera policy... so when she confirmed my appointment and was about to hang up and I said wait, I have a few questions, she was totally witchy about answering questions I had about whether or not I could bring a camera and whatever else! What is wrong with people? Service with a smile makes a HUGE difference!

its very easy to prevent anything like this from happening by just going to the privacy link on the top right side of the page. anything you dont want others seeing can be changed. and you can also turn off the news feed and the mini feed if you dont want other to see what you're doing, OR if you dont want to see what others are doing either!

BRACELET Now the bracelet looks nice in the photos, but I question its authenticity. It has the markings in all the right places compared to the real Tiffany bracelet. However, the bracelet does not feel heavy enough to be sterling silver. I've held the real bracelet in the Tiffany store, and I'm telling you this is too light to be sterling silver. Some of the links are also knicked or scratched in a way that sterling silver does not knick. I don't know if you can see this in the photo, but the two round circles that connect the charm to the bracelet are poorly soldered (pronounced: soddered) together so that you can see where they were soldered. For those of you who own Tiffany jewelry, you know that Tiffany jewelry is seamless. Also, these two circular links are the only 2 not polished which was another indication that this is not authentic. The clasp is the same style as the Tiffany clasp, however, on the small part of the clasp where the Elsa Peretti logo is imprinted, where the silver joins the top and bottom of the clasp link, it looks cheap and not like the real Tiffany bracelet. Also the space in the opening of the clasp between the piece that has the logo imprinted and the round half circle hook shape is not large enough for the link to fit easily through to close the clasp. The half circle hook extends too far into the clasp compared to the photos of the real deal. Here are photos of the authentic product from the Tiffany website (sorry they only had the gold one, so just imagine it in silver): Additionally here are photos of the care card that came with them, that are clearly not the authentic Tiffany care card. You can often go to the Tiffany store and ask for a new care card, that they should provide free of charge. I've done this 3 times in the last 5 years when selling some of my Tiffany sterling silver jewelry and never had a problem with them providing a new care card for free because I lost the original. Overall, I would recommend the necklace, but NOT the bracelet. I'll be returning the bracelet for a refund. Honestly, I wouldn't even offer it for resale to anyone here because I know this is definitely a fake, and not even a good looking fake at that. But the necklace does look really fantastic and I am going to keep that and probably order one more as a gift for my FSIL. Oh I almost forgot! They sent me a 15% off coupon for my next order, which will basically just cover the shipping.

Quote: Originally Posted by BeachBride82 Definitely keep me posted - I think that this would be the perfect gift! Hopefully you are happy with the quality! Good luck. Ok, I finally received my order in the mail from TCO925.com. This thread is VERY pic heavy (13) because I wanted to be really exact with the details. I know we all love starfish jewelry so I hope this helps some of you! This was $129.99 for the set plus $10 for EMS shipping from China. If you want to buy the necklace by itself, it's $75.99. The bracelet alone is $89.99. The box arrived well packed and the jewelry was well protected. However, the Tiffany blue boxes the jewelry came in are more akin to the old boxes they used to have about 8 years or so ago that had a slightly textured look to it. I compared the boxes I received to other various authentic Tiffany boxes that contain my own jewelry to verify this. Also, the color of the box is slightly darker than the boxes I have. The pouches that contained the jewelry are somewhat faded when compared side by side with my real Tiffany suede pouches, and also the lettering is slightly larger on the ones I just received versus the ones I already owned. I compared several different boxes and pouches of my own that were bought over various years. NECKLACE here are a few photos of the necklace, the pouch and the box And this is the authentic Tiffany image from their website: The necklace looks authentic and is the appropriate weight compared to the way other tiffany sterling silver necklaces feel. If it's a knock off (which I'm thinking it is), it's an excellent one.

trish you should definitely not feel like you need to get them a gift as well! i'm only having my sister as MOH and his sister as a bridesmaid. so i spent about $300 on my sister (an ipod nano with video, with an imovie i made her of photos of us through the years set to music and then a video at the end of me asking her to be my MOH because she lives out of state... oh and a tiffany's mini mini starfish pendant and bracelet) and about $150 on my FSIL for the mini mini starfish pendant and bracelet.

haha galit thats cute. one of my friends told me "it's not appropriate to register right after getting engaged" and that you arent supposed to register until 3-4 months before the wedding because of the chance of items being discontinued or being seasonal. boo hiss to that. we probably aren't having an engagement party, so the first time people will probably give us presents is the shower, which wont be until probably june. anyway, if you arent "supposed to" register until 3-4 months out, why have a hundred people already asked me where we're registered for cryin out loud?

i'd call it a vertical ruching or a loose pleat... it's a lovely dress!

happy birthday galit! hope you get to eat some cake and open lots of presents!

Erica, how did you get the weather on there? I love that! I decided to go with wedding window after I saw your site

Hi Dino, Personally, I prefer photographers who offer hourly rates. I am in the process of looking for a photographer right now and I don't want all the fancy big packages that offer a coffee table book or special photo retouching. I am in the publishing business and I can do these things myself. What is most important to me is someone who offers me the option to sort of design my own package by choosing how many hours I want. The second most important thing to me is that I can have all the photos. I don't like that some photographers won't give you all of your photos and you can only choose some of them. It is important to be able to have my photos on a CD so that I may print them however I like. I feel like the hourly rate is a much better value from the quotes I've gotten so far because I don't have to pay for any "extras" that I don't feel I need or want. That being said, I think some people would like to also have the option for unlimited coverage. Sometimes I wish I could mix and match the things I like about different photographers because nobody seems to have exactly the type of package that I want. I am sure others feel this way too.

no matter what location you are, regardless of country or city, you cannot have a catholic ceremony outside of a catholic church or chapel. we're in the process of trying to book the catholic church in san jose del cabo, but have sort of a backup plan with a renegade priest who also happens to be an extended family member of my FI's, who we would have to fly in. it's a pain in the butt, but we're both catholic and we want to do it right...

i've been engaged for 4.5 days and i've already had several people ask me where we're registered... obviously, we really haven't thought about it yet. how soon should we do this?

jules, i just wanted to thank you for posting about the benefit kit. i bought one last last week, and i can notice a big difference. now if only i could do it perfectly by myself... ;-)

hey corey, i think as long as you're prepared to do medium to a lot of legwork in january, you should be ok. since you already talked to most people and know who's coming and who isn't, i don't think it will be too bad. i just hope that your wording either let them know that the room block has to be released by jan 15 (can you get a little extension on that at all with the holidays being so close we asked for an extension to sign our contract and they were really cool about it) or that you've spoken to people to let them know you have to let the rooms go by then.

Happy Birthday Heidi!!! I have a very good feeling that THIS is going to be YOUR year Have a wonderful day!!

edna, you look beautiful in that dress!

what an adorable puppy!!! dogs are so fun!

Quote: Originally Posted by CourtneyV Aww lol that's cute!!! So did he bring the ring with him to dinner, or did he store it somewhere in the kitchen?!! haha thanks, i dont actually know if he brought it to dinner... if he did, i didnt see it!

Quote: Originally Posted by PaulaV Congratulations Maura! Hurry back with the story! i updated my first post with the story! thanks for all the nice words girls!

eeeeeeeeeee! after a month of deciding on what we'd want to do for a destination wedding, he finally popped the question last night! updated post-- ok here's the story: jose sends me an email at work yesterday morning saying "come home right at 5, and we have dinner reservations at 6:45" so i was like ok... i told him i'd try to leave as close to 5 as possible but that i couldnt guarantee anything (i'm a journalist and was on deadline yesterday and couldnt leave until my stuff was shipped to the publisher because it comes out monday). so at 5 he sends a message to my blackberry telling me "dont come home before 5:30" and i was thinking, ok what are you up to? i didnt end up leaving work until 6, and got home at 6:15 in THE slowest cab ride of my entire life when i'm in such a hurry! so i get home and hes doing something in the kitchen, and i went directly into the bedroom to change for dinner. he wouldnt tell me where we were going. and the whole time i was getting dressed he was doing stuff in the kitchen being real quiet. finally i finished getting dressed in record time, and he tells me we have to go right away because we can't be late for the reservation. we ended up at mon ami gabi, which is an excellent french restaurant here in chicago. then i started to get way suspicious because it's a really expensive restaurant compared to our usual friday night dates. dinner went fine and nothing happened. we had nice wine and steak and stuff and a piece of delicious flourless chocolate cake for dessert. so i though ok, he just wanted to get a steak for dinner... we get home and he goes directly to the kitchen again. im thinking this is weird, since when does he spend so much time in the kitchen? i went into the bedroom to change into some more comfortable clothes and he yells from the kitchen "are you putting sweatpants on?" well, of course i was! i said yeah, and he said "why cant you just wait a bit?" and he appeared in the bedroom doorway as i'm about to yank off my dress clothes, gets down on one knee and opens the ring box. i swear to god i did not hear a word he said up until "will you marry me?" because i was so mesmerized and surprised! of course i said yes and he put the ring on my finger and then he brings me into the kitchen and pulls a fantastic bottle of champagne out of the fridge, which we proceeded to drink in its entirety while calling our friends and family. but i was still curious and asked "what were you doing in the kitchen?" he said "i couldnt stop looking at your ring in the light because it sparkles so much!" haha. details on the ring: cushion cut stone, custom cathedral setting with pave diamonds on the band