aeroo

We didn't send STDs, but sent out invitations four months before the wedding. We sent it to everyone we would have invited if we were having a wedding at home. We knew that most of them wouldn't be able to make it, but we didn't want anyone that we cared about to be left out either. I think we invited about 150 guests and it looks like around 35 will show up. There were a few people that we thought for sure wouldn't go, but ended up saying yes, which was a good surprise, but there are also a few we thought would for sure go and are not. But I am glad that we sent invites to everyone. It also served as a wedding announcement, since our families are from different parts of the country and not everyone knew we were engaged (we were on a year long trip while we got engaged).

Yea same here, FI doesn't mind either way if I change my name or not. It's a non issue to him.

In May, the sun sets around 7:15pm, so we're having ours at 5pm. But we are doing pictures before and after the ceremony. Our before ceremony pictures will just be the two of us and will be done around town, to get some architectural shots, which I love. Then after the ceremony, we'll do pics with family and friends on the beach and then just the two of us on the beach. Our reception is at 8pm.

I never imagined myself wearing a veil, but I'm definately leaning towards it after trying some on with my dress. My dress is pretty simple and not poufy at all, so I'm going to get a simple veil, to not overpower the dress. I'm going to have my hair in a bun of some sort with a flower, but I'm not sure whether to position the veil over top the bun or underneath it. I'll just have to play around and see I guess.

This is such a cute idea! I wasn't going to do a sand ceremony, but if I can get one of these frames, I may reconsider. I definately would not want that huge one though! A small one would be perfect (and easy to get home!).

My sister's friend got married in Jamaica and they brought over tons of fresh flowers (her mom is a florist) and kept them in the fridge until the wedding day and everything turned out fine. That being said, I don't know if they got lucky and customs didn't check, or if it was just okay to bring them. You'll have to check their customs regulations just to be sure.

What is great about it is that we now have so many choices! There's no right or wrong or just the one option anymore. The right thing to do is what's right for you as a couple. As for me, I'm still not 100% sure what we'll do yet, but this is the idea so far. Since I don't have a middle name, I will change my current last name to my middle name. So my full name will be something like this: Myfirstname Mymaidenname Hislastname And he might change his middle name to my maiden name. Then we would do the same for the kids. Their middle name would be my maiden name and their last name will be his. So then our family would all have the same middle and last names. I really like the idea of our kids having both our family names incorporated. This is a great thread - I love to hear what other people are doing! As for one of the previous posters who has the same last name as her FI, she is so lucky! Problem solved!

For the sets of parents, we will make photobooks (either from shutterfly or one of the other photo sites) with pictures of the wedding and of the trip. Plus this way, they can also show all the relatives who couldn't make it to the wedding.

Yea, my guy isn't big into lingerie either (he also just loves me in the pjs), but then again I never do this kind of thing for him, so I think he'll be surprised - in a good way, lol! Guys are such visual creatures and he sees me in my pjs all the time, so I thought I'd change it up for that week. Spice things up a bit. It's like for me, I don't care much for receiving flowers or gifts from him (I know he loves me so much and I don't need gifts to show it), but on the rare occasions he comes home with flowers, I am on cloud 9! So I think this will be the same for him. I wanna do something a little 'extra' for him. Start our marriage off with a bang, so to speak, no pun intended, lol! So I'm going to hide all the goods from him, maybe get a friend to pack it up for me in her suitcase, so he has no idea. I think our suite comes with a CD player, so I'll pack some good music too. Even if we're too tired on wedding night to do anything, we'll have the whole week! Can't wait!

One of the parts of the planning process that I'm super excited about! I'm waiting for the post-Valentine's day sales to go looking for some wedding night lingerie. Can't wait to surprise my man on wedding night. Or, well, the whole wedding week! I'm gonna go all out - spiked heels and all! I never do this kind of stuff so I think he'll be pleasantly surprised, heehee. Anyone else planning on 'dressing up' for your husband on wedding night?

I paid $199 for mine - and that was full price. I got a bridesmaid's dress in ivory. I definately think this is the way to go! It even has a train! I accidentally walked in the bridesmaid section and immediately saw a dress that I loved, tried it on, and just ordered it in ivory. You save so much money this route, especially for destination style gowns that are less poufy. But even if you do want a big princess dress, you can find those too! Order it in white/ivory, and voila - you've saved tons of $$$!

I am probably getting the smaller sized parasols, but am just a bit concerned that they would block people's view of the ceremony, for the people sitting in the mid to back rows. What do you think?

This goes out to former brides and/or photographers! I'm really not sure how much time I should leave for photography. Our reception is booked for 8pm. I'm just finalizing the ceremony time and can't decide between the following 2 options: 5pm: ceremony 5:30-6pm: group pictures with guests 6-7:30pm: bride and groom pics during sunset OR 4-5:45pm: bride and groom pics 6pm: ceremony 6:30-7pm: group pictures with guests 7-7:30pm: bride and groom sunset pictures If I do option 1 with the 5pm ceremony, is 1.5hrs enough time for bride and groom pics? Pictures are pretty important to me, and I would like to have enough time to do both beach pictures and pictures in town (our resort is in Playa del Carmen town, so no driving time required). We can't do the ceremony earlier than 5pm due to another wedding at 4pm. I'm sort of leaning towards the 6pm ceremony and take pictures before hand, just to ensure we have enough picture time. The only downside is that we'd see eachother before the ceremony, but I guess that's not a huge deal. For all you married ladies, can you share your experience? How much time did you leave for photos and how did that go? Was it enough, too long, etc? And for all you photogs, what do you think? How long does it usually take for group pictures? We'll have around 40 people. I can't decide which route to go. Thanks!!

I thought I'd write this in response to the thread in the Mexico forum regarding DREAM brides : http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t14855 I think it's a good heads up to what you may get from your resort WC. The post below by sumbride is totally what I'm going through with my resort WC. Default Re: Note to Future Dream Brides I was having similar problems with the coordinators at Dreams Cancan, I asked if they had 3-5pm available and they answered 5pm (which was later than I really wanted as my idea time was 4pm) and after calling I found out they had anytime available between 3-5pm but they were proposing 5pm because they thought it was best (less hot). You'd think they would have written back and said "anytime between 3-5 is fine, we suggest 5 because it's less hot" rather than answering "5pm is available". So you definitely have to ask lots of questions about different times and maybe even phone them. And never assume anything (i.e. when she says 5pm is available, it did not mean that 3pm or 4pm was not). I was getting so frustrated because my WC was exactly the same. I found I had to ask very specific questions! For example, I am having a non legal ceremony so only the minister could be our officiant (instead of the judge). I told her I didn't mind having the minister officiate, but didn't want any religious wording in there, but she told me the minister she booked is religious so the ceremony must be religious as well. I asked her if the minister could read a ceremony that we prepared, but she said no he couldn't do that. I was really worried at this point and was stressing about this being our only choice. Then after a week, I emailed her back asking if there are any other ministers that would do a non-religious ceremony, and she responded that, yes there are three. WTF! Why didn't she mention this, as she knew I didn't want a religious ceremony?! Aaargh!!! I was stressing for a week, thinking about various solutions, maybe changing the venue, etc. The second example: I wanted to have a later wedding, but WC said only 2pm was available. After several emails prodding her about this, and about a month later, she replies that, well yea, I could have it after 2pm, but the ministers are not available then, but if I bring my own officiant, I could do it. She could have said this in one simple email, but instead it played out over a month like this: Email 1 me: Can I have another time, other than 2pm? WC: No, only 2pm is available. Email 2 me: 2pm would be really hot, I would really like to have it later in the day. Can you help me out? WC: Sorry, the ministers are not available later than that. Email 3 me: What about in the morning? Can the ceremony be in the morning? WC: Yes Email 4 me: What time in the morning can we have it? WC: 9 or 10am Now I'm thinking, 'okay great, I can have it in the morning', and spent a week inquiring photographers if they would be able to shoot our ceremony in the morning, then the reception in the evening. I got responses saying that I would have to pay the full day rate, etc, etc. Then I stressed about this for awhile since I couldn't afford to do that. I could only afford about 5 hours of a photog's time, so now the morning was out of the question. I was like, 'WTF am I supposed to do?! I guess I have no choice but to stick with the 2pm time that I really didn't want". Then I emailed back the WC, just a shot in the dark question. Email 5 me: Can we move the ceremony up to 4pm? WC: No, there's another ceremony booked for 4pm. Email 6 me: I thought you said there couldn't be ceremonies after 2pm cuz the ministers are not available. WC: The other bride is bringing her own officiant, so they can do it at 4pm. Email 7 me: So if I bring my own officiant, I can do it at a later time? WC: Yes Email 8 me: Okay then I will bring my own officiant. I would like to change it to 5pm, can you confirm? No response for over a week and I am still waiting... Aargh! It's just really frustrating to me cuz these 8 emails could have been summed up in one response from her, and would have saved me from a lot of time and stress trying to think of backup solutions. Ugh, if it wasn't for the fact that I wanted to stay at this particular hotel, I would have gone elsewhere! So now I'm just eagerly waiting for her confirmation so that I can go ahead to book the photog. I wonder what else will come up next... So, note to all the ladies: It IS possible to get what you want, even though it may not seem like that at first. You need to ask VERY specific questions. I'm sure they are busy trying to respond to all the requests, but still, this is just unacceptable. I tried calling too, but never got an answer, plus I like to get things in writing anyways. But yea, just a heads up for you gals! Hope you're having a better experience with your resort WC!

Yea same here, the reason for our DW wedding is to have a nice vacation with family and friends, and also to avoid having what would have been a huge wedding at home. I actually didn't even really want to have the ceremony on the beach, but with our resort, didn't really have much choice, but I'm happy with that now. We've booked our reception for indoors, but I'm still toying with the idea of having it outdoors. Another thing is that there is another wedding that day, and I will have to find out from the WC if they are having their reception on the beach that night.

I'm not sure about having the reception on the beach. The things I'm concerned about are if it will be really windy, lots of mosquitos, crazy seagulls, lol. We'll probably go with an indoors reception, but just want to get some feedback first. How was your beach reception? Give me the good and the bad. Thanks!

There are tons of bars/clubs in PDC, including Senor Frogs. We were there last year and there is no shortage of nightlife/partying, trust me! Blue Parrot is also a popular club there. You can check out this link for a list of some of the bars/lounges/pubs/clubs: playa del carmen nightlife | bars, dancing, music :: iloveplaya.com If you google 'nightlife in Playa del Carmen', you'll get tons of info! If you're staying at the Royal, they're all within minutes.

Since you're having your wedding in Cancun, you should definately move to Playa del Carmen. It's just a whole different vibe. I personally did not like Cancun that much (other than the awesome beaches) because it was all just big resorts, whereas Playa has that small beach town feel to it, with lots of little shops and restaurants - great for walking around. Really depends on what you want though, but yea, if you will be in Cancun for the wedding, I recommend moving to Playa for the honeymoon.

Oops, sorry....PDC is Playa del Carmen.

We're currently planning to have our reception in the ballroom of our resort, but just wondering if any of you are having it at one of the many restaurants in PDC town. If so, what restaurant did you choose and how much did they charge you per person? Just asking because we might change our mind...

Yea, we're also getting legally married at home first, and then doing the ceremony in Mexico. The main reason for this is that we don't want to get there so many days in advance since we're only going for a week. So we are getting married the second day we're there, and then have the rest of the week to just chill and enjoy the vacation.

Yea, I'm thinking of changing our ceremony time to 5pm, so we have enough time for pictures afterwards. The only thing I'm concerned about it that there is another wedding at 4pm, so if we have ours right after, it's going to feel like a wedding factory if you know what I mean. I'm just worried that if we have our ceremony at 5:30 or 6pm, we won't have enough time for pictures (which are really important to me). I checked, and sunset is around 7pm in May. Or I could do it before the other wedding at 3pm. I don't know what to do!

We are getting married at the Gran Porto Real. It's one of the few resorts that are right in the town, and that's where we wanted to be. It also allows children, and I have some younger cousins that are coming, so it's perfect. heidi&alex - where are you having your reception?

Thanks!! Yea we opted to do the symbolic ceremony and just get legally married here at home. That way, we don't have to be in Mexico way in advance and to be honest, I really don't like needles! To opt out of doing the blood test was reason enough, lol. Plus doing the symbolic ceremony just seemed a lot simpler to do.

Hi everyone! First of all, just want to say how glad I am to have found this forum. You ladies have tons of great ideas! I only started planning our May wedding at the beginning of January since we just got back from a year of travelling around the world (during which he proposed!). We chose Playa since we were there last year in May, as part of our travels, and thought it would be such a fun place to bring family and friends. Since we spent all of last year travelling together, we thought that having a week of vacation with our loved ones would be very nice. The wedding week will also be our honeymoon. We're getting married the second day we're there, so we can relax for the rest of the week. I'm so excited as the date gets closer and things are starting to fall into place. Still got lots to do though! I look forward to sharing ideas with the rest of you! Love, aeroo