*Nadine*

Ang- Jake was sent home last season b/c whatsherface thought he was fake and not acting himself.. and he kept saying 'this is the real me' - aka a girl in a mans body.

Love your pics! I actually saw them earlier on Elizabeths blog and loved them! Congrats you looked stunning!! That had to be one of the most beautiful ceremony settings EVER

Hey Jen, I went last year and found it kinda brutal. But thats just me..its all local vendors so its not really much help. Its fun to eat the cupcake samples and to see some of the fashion shows but thats about it.

I went and bought my MacBook pro this weekend, its a beauty!

Kris- I emailed you our ceremony scripts ChristinaP - I posted a review in the review section that has a few pics in it. I should be getting my professional ones any day now, eek! Makes me feel so weird to think my face will be on someones blog! Welcome Cowtown & Pamphilia! I have to say, Pamphilia, I wish I had been my own travel agent so kudus to you for doing it. And you WILL NOT regret having a DW

done and done

In mexico you have to get blood tests done in order to have a legal ceremony and it costs money and takes time so we didnt want to have to deal with that. Also, if you have a legal ceremony in mexico it has to be in spanish with a translator, and we wanted to write our own ceremony and have it in english. personal preferance i guess!

haha you're cute, I love seeing J with his wedding band on now too. No, we didnt exchange rings here. Again, we thought that would make it feel too 'real' so we didn't. Plus at the time my wedding band wasnt in yet anyways. We did kiss tho (she told us we had to!).

I personally don't think it ruined it at all. It just felt like signing paper at work or something, it didnt feel like a wedding. Ok, thats not entirely true, I did cry at our legal ceremony so it felt weird at the time. But as soon as it was done it was like it never happened. And then the day of the wedding it seriously felt like our wedding, just with all our friends and family there and being all dressed up and the atmosphere. I totally dont think it took it away but its a personal choice for sure. I'll pm you right now!

What I would do: -Get married at Dreams Resort in Huatulco Mexico -Get married over the holidays so we got to celebrate Christmas and New Years with all our friends and family -Put together OOT bags and welcome letters for everyone-they really appreciated them, plus it made it easy to find people! -Give everyone travel mugs -again, huge rave from the guests -Have a low key rehearsal and rehearsal dinner -Have my sister spend the night with me, was nice to just hang out with her the night before -Write our own ceremony script and vows. It made it really personal and our guests really enjoyed it -Bring an IPOD for the reception instead of having a DJ -Have a big wedding party. We got to include all the people we wanted even though it was large but it was perfect -Do a day after session with our photographer -Switched resorts for our honeymoon What I wouldn't do -Give guests a year and a half notice. It really didnt make a different -Get bouquets from the resort. we should have just went into town and bought and made them ourselves for a fraction of the price. Plus then they wouldn't have been late! -Book a travel agent who didn't live in our city. NEVER again will I book a travel agent outside of Calgary I think thats it!

The whole thing probably took 20-30min. I thought we could just go to the courthouse and do it but I guess alberta changed that a couple yaers back so now you have to find a commisioner.

Yah we didnt tell anyone who came to the wedding. We grabbed two of our close friends in town here who couldn't make the wedding and made a night of it. I found a lady who does it out of her home and we just went there one thursday at 530pm. She was super sweet and nice. I can PM you her details if you want? Then after its done she sends in the stuff to the registry to have the marriage registered so by the time you get back (i think it takes three weeks) it will be all ready and you can go order a marriage certificate etc. ALso, we asked for no vows or anything, just simple and to the point b/c we didnt want it to overshadow what we would call our 'real wedding' in mexico

Make sure you count your pashminas when you get them! I didnt count mine until I was in mexico and I was seperating them out.. They were short on my order by 4 pashminas

omg. I had my first waxing (brazillian) experience too before i left for my wedding.I have to tell you it was the worst pain of my life. And I swore I wouldnt go back.. but now three weeks later, I must say they are on to something!! I will definitely be taking some drugs next time tho! holy moly.

Ah Kris!!! So exciting! You are going to have the BEST time I promise. And seriously, do not stress AT ALL. The WC will take care of everything. Anytime I started to worry about something she would just say 'I take care of it, you dont worry'. And so I didnt. Even things like the bouquet and rings (my moh had my fi's ring and the best man had mine).. and i passed my bouquet to my MOH the second i got to the front cuase i wanted to hold j's hands. But those are such little things, its so much more relaxed than in a church. Someone will direct you the entire way-seriously I did a tequila shot with my dad right before we walked down. We did our rehearsal in our bathing suits/cover ups cause we jsut went over to the site from the pool in the middle of the dya, then went back to the pool, so easy. Are you having a legal ceremoney? We had a symbolic one and wrote our own ceremonY (well we found one online that we liked, another bdw'er used it too) so it was fast, simple, personal and we just inserted our own vows. The whole ceremony was maybe 5-7 min. We didnt do readings, sand ceremony, or anything, we just wanted it simple. I have the script if you want me to email it to you, unless of cours eyour doing a legal ceremony

Im in the same boat and need to buy one.. I think im going to get the MacBook Pro?

I alwasy watch the bachelor/bachelorette but dont think I can do it this season b/c Jake irks me to all hell. I didnt like him on the bachelorette and I like him even less on his own show

It fits you like a glove!!

Congrats and great review! Your cake is the BEST cake I have ever seen, I absolutely love it! Love your colors and your flowers.. can't wait to see your pics from Juan, they are going to be fantastic!

chevy14 - My husbands (ahahahhahah why is that so funny? it just is) suit is Perry Ellis and we got it at Dillards, and we bought the guys clothes from Banana. The pants were like a linen cotton and then their shirts were just the stretch fit button down shirts.

Autumn, great review and very detailed! I loved your ceremony site and the fact you had a christmas sweater party down there SO fun! Can't wait to see your pics!!!

Hair & Makeup – A + I was lucky enough to have my sister do my hair and a friend do my make up. My sister used to be a hair stylist and my friend is a freelance make up artist so they did a fantastic job. My hair did fall a lot b/c of the humidity but not as bad as I thought it would Photographer – A+ We hired Nate Cordova to shoot our wedding after some recommendations from some other brides on here and we were not disappointed. Nate was a complete rockstar and literally spent four days travelling (2 each way) to save us money. He even had a layover in Mexico City one night where they kicked him out onto the street for four hours b/c they closed and he didn’t complain at all. He calls everything an ‘adventure’. All our guests loved him and I cannot wait to see the pics b/c he was honestly everywhere-without us every even noticing him! Videographer – B+ We got a video b/c it was included in our package with Dreams. I actually forgot about it until this man wanted to meet with me to give us our ‘video’. Its actually really quite good and I cried watching it. I am so happy we have it even though I never thought I would care. Honeymoon – A+ We went to the Excellence Playa Mujeres for our honeymoon and we were blown away by the resort. It is so elegant and beautiful it takes your breath away. The food was also so good, we couldn’t get enough of the 8 restaurants. The pools were too cold to swim in, and the weather wasn’t that great. But its what you expect for January in Cancun. We stayed in a two story roof top terrace room and it was amazing. Definitely get one if you stay there! I hope this wasn’t too rushed and that I got everything! Any questions let me know!

Reception – A+ Again, I could not picture how it was going to look b/c the space looked to small. It was actually right around the adults pool where we all spent every day hanging out. Again, I was blown away. Gabriela had lit up tiki torches, put candles going up the rock wall behind the gazebo, draped lines down the gazebo, put rose petals on the dance floor, put lights under the table so they would glow and lights around the pool. It was absolutely gorgeous. The food at the reception was also hands down the best food we ate all week, and all our guests agreed. This was the reception site in the day: And at night All the lights around the pool right beside where the tables were set up J’s brother and his gf put together a slideshow for us Oh and we ended up with a cake. Everyone said it was really good and it was really nice. Looks a weird color in this picture though. I didn’t ask for a cake though, so another surprise. The cigars for the guys and pashminas for the girls were a HUGE hit. Even though it was way too hot for a pashmina, they just took them back to their rooms.

Ceremony site – A+ I couldn’t really visualize how the ceremony site was going to look b/c during the day it’s the preferred section of the beach with chairs and huts, and it didn’t look like it was a big enough area. So when I came walking down the aisle (aka, along the beach) with my dad I was stunned, it was gorgeous and just perfect set up against the rocks. It would have been a nice secluded area except we had about 100+ onlookers who decided to attend the wedding as well. It was really quite crazy. My one bridesmaid even got yelled at to ‘SMILE MORE!’ as she was walking up the aisle. Priceless. They roped off right behind the bmaids and the guest chairs but the people stood right up to the rope (like they were trying to get in a nightclub or something). People are strange. I guess the one downside was there was no shade. We did have two big umbrellas set up for our grandparents but everyone else was in the hot sun for about 30min b/c we were late. All the groomsman’s shirts were soaked through by the time I got there. They also had champagne with a strawberry waiting for every guest after the ceremony. Also a nice surprise! And some of the onlookers..

Location – A+ Huatulco is beautiful. . It’s still authentic Mexico and not touristy at all, which I think is what we loved about it. We were their in the ‘dry season’ so most of the trees were brown, except on the resorts, and it wasn’t as humid as you would expect. The weather is also unbeatable. It was 97 degrees every day we were there with blue skies and just a slight breeze. No clouds. Much better than the wind and 75 deg we experienced in Cancun for our honeymoon! Beach – B+ I am not a beach person (im scared of sharks so I don’t go near the ocean) so you could probably ignore this portion b/c I don’t know what I’m talking about really. Dreams is set in a bay which is really pretty. There is snorkeling off to the left by the rocks, and you could also feed fish there in the mornings which was pretty cool (my neice loved this). The waves were quite big at times, and there was good surfing (12 foot waves) just two bays down from Dreams. The sand is not the white sand like in the mayan but it was fine, and the water was a great temperature for going in. Food – B+ I think overall the food was very good. The buffet had an awesome breakfast and there was usually enough selection for lunch. There were 5 a la cartes and 1 buffet. We really enjoyed the Italian and Mexican restaurant. Never tried the seafood, and thought the Japanese was ok. Overall not too many complaints, I mean it still is mexico so you can’t compare it to nice restaurants around here. We also never had to wait to get a table which was awesome considering the hotel was full. Entertainment/Night life – C+ The entertainment was pretty poor at the hotel. I never experienced it but my family went every night and said it was kind of a joke. However they did have a lot of activities and things to do throughout the days that they enjoyed. There is a disco at the resort but it was empty every night except us. Basically you make your own fun, which we had no problem doing every night at the lobby bar. Its an open air hotel (no doors) so was really nice to just be inside but feel like your outside all the time instead of stuffed in a closed off room. Some of my friends did go into town to a bar one night and had a riot though. Wedding Corrdinator – A+ Gabriela is amazing. She took a bit of time to respond to emails before we got there but when we got there we knew it didn’t matter. She had absolutely everything under control and any questions I had she would say ‘I’ll take care of it, you don’t worry’. Her English was very good and she is so sweet. She went above and beyond with the ceremony and reception and it was gorgeous. I couldn’t have asked for much more Flowers –A The only reasons the flowers are not getting an A+ is b/c they arrived late (20 min AFTER the ceremony was supposed to start). They get flown in from Mexico city, b/c the florist in Huatulco has a contract in Mexico City, and they missed the first flight, therefore making them late to arriving in Huatulco. I had no idea what we were getting, I just told Gabriela the colors, and they were beautiful. They were still in PERFECT shape after three days. We just put all the bouquets in vases on the tables at the reception to use as centerpieces and it worked out nice