Nonnie

How do you get informations about the wedding packages? I can't find any info on their webpage?

OMG, she sounds just like my mother, I would tear by hair out in frustration if I was not working on growing it out.

It seems like every decision I make is being undermined by my mother. In regards to locations specifically. When I find a place I like she spends hours "creative googling" until she finds a bunch of things that might go wrong with that locations or problems with it. I looked at Saint Maarten, but she is all up in arms about having to transfer through Toronto, and the cost and the fact the hotel is giving me a little bit of the run around about the reception. She gives me these great lists of her concerns and it's ridiculouse, she is being completly paranoid. I have always been easily manipulated by her, and after she dumps all this on me I am a crying wreck on the bed and my poor Fiance is left trying to pick up the pieces. So I looked at Huatulco Mexico, and she did the same thing, this time there is not much around the resort to do, the Blood tests will infect us with something, My Fiance's family with have to transfer twice etc etc etc. OMG! I am going to go crazy. If I refuse to listen she goes on saying that if the location is more important then the family we should just elope, but I don't want to, or at least I would rather not, but if that is the only thing that will get her completely off my back the I'll have no choice but that, or a mental institution. She controls the purse strings since she and my father have offered us a certain amount of money to help pay. If my father was "writing the check" I know I would not be going through this, but she has always dominated him. He has said before he just wants me to get the wedding I want. I'm worried that the reason my mom is doing this is because she does not want me to get married either to Mark or at all. Ughhhh Thanks for reading

I'm also wondering about this resort, since I am now looking for cheaper alternatives to St Martin. I like the fact the beach is more secluded, but I read on some reviews that the food is not very good. What was your experience with that?

I am having trouble convincing my Fiance we should register. He is from Europe, were apparently this is not common and since we live together he thinks it just seems greedy. I know that a lot of my relatives will want to give us gifts, especially those that cannot make it to our wedding and I don't want to end up with a fuzzy toilet seat cover or something like that. Any ideas on convincing him? I swear I have tried everything, so has my mom and my brother and his Fiancee.

I love the idea of the and ceremony, but I am wanting to personalize it a little bit. My Fiance is from Holland and I am from Canada. I want his folks to bring Sand with them from a Dutch Beach and I will bring Sand from a Canada beach (specifically Long Beach BC which I love) and then we will combine it in a vase with sand from the beach were we get married I love this idea, but I'm worried that there may be legal issues with removing sand from the beaches, and bringing it over the border. I am marrying in St Martins. Am I just being paranoid?

I picked a planner!! St Martin Ultimate Weddings is giving me a 10% discount on their fee and has been super helpful so far without me paying them a cent yet

Finally a St Maarten thread! I am planning my wedding to take place there in December. Things are at a bit of a stand still right now because of travel agent booking stuff (I need 10 ppl from Canada to confirm to book now, I have 7, it's frusterating. Not a lot of hotels there have wedding planners, I am planning on going to the Sonesta Great Bay. Their Maho location is nicer, but so close to the airport that it would be REALLy noisy during the ceremony. They have put me in contact with 2 wedding planners. St Maarten ultimate wedding and St Maarten Marry-Me. Right now I am trying to pressure them into matching each other etc so i can get the best deal. My big annoyance right now (apart from the booking thing) is that the hotel does not give you much of a discount for the reception even if all your guests are staying there all inclusive. It looks like my Fiance and I won't get a lot of guests though, so we may find a nice restaurant nearby and do the reception there. The nice thing about St Maarten is that if your papers are in english you don't need to translate them. My Fiance's papers are in dutch and they also don't need to be translated. Let me know if you stumble on anything fantastic and I'll do the same for you. Have you got an idea about date yet? Nonnie

So the recession has already managed to influence my DW, mainly in the fact no one wants to spent the money and come, By my dad mentioned something which made we feel some form of optimism He read an article that cruises are now drastically lowering their prices to get people to still sign up, and thinks resorts might do the same in the next few months. I am going to have to wait until July to book my trip for December anyway since the contracts etc for non group travel have not been arranged yet (I need 10+ ppl for a group and that is harder to achieve then I thought). I've got my fingers crossed that come July the prices will have dropped of course, it's also possible that AirTransat won't be doing the St Maarten all inclusive vacation anymore because of cut backs... I wish I had a crystal ball.... or a winning lottery ticket

To add insult to injury: I got the quotes from a wedding planner the hotel deals with and it is not pretty, or rather it is pretty... pretty expensive. I am not spending $4,000 if only 12 people are going to show up, the coordinator's fee alone is almost $1,500 How possible is it to organize everything myself, I have event planning experience and my Fiance knows people who live on St Maarten Oh, The Fiance and I are going to have our engagement party a few days before my brother's wedding. Muahaha, that will be our revenge.

Urg! a vent: So I decided to do a destination wedding thinking it would solve family dynamic problems and be cheaper, but now that I am in love with the idea that is not the case 1. I thought I would have 25 people there, then I thought 50 because people were so excited and now that i need people to put down a deposit I am desperately hoping I'll get 10. I need to have 10 people put a deposite down by Thursday or we won't get a group deal 2. This may be because my twin brother got engaged a month after me and is marrying in our home town in August (I am marrying in St Maarten in December) so all our relatives are going to that instead. Though I expect it has to do with the F***ing Economy crashing. I said he could get engaged, and it does not really bother me, but still... 3. My mother is over obsessing over everything, and making me nervous about everything from weather interrupting airfare to my dress falling apart to being ripped off by every vendor. It's at the point where I shudder every time I see her name on the call display. Thankfully I have given her the contact info of my wonderful travel agent who I now pity greatly (we did warn her). I hope everything goes well or I will never hear the end of it 4. My dear father whom I love dearly is being terribly inconvenienced by our departure date, he is a university instructor, a date I picked because I thought it worked for him because it would. I hate to do this to him, thankfully I'm his only daughter and he has racked up lots of karma with the university. He is also worrying I won't get the wedding I want, which is all he cares about. I hate to see him worry 5. My brother's local wedding now looks like it will cost less then mine (despite the fact they are going full on traditional) because he has so much luck he must have a horse shoe up his *ss. This vetoes my argument that a destination wedding is cheaper. To anyone who read this, my apologies for wasting your time since this reallt had no point but for me to vent

this is more of a vent then anything else a few years back I had lots of success lossing weight with weight watchers and decided to try it again to loss about 15 pounds again. I did not think this would be too hard even though my fiance loves to cook and I dont want to hinder him too much. He uses healthy ingredients so no problem I decided to limit my points early in the day so I had more to spend in the evening, thus feeling pretty f-ing hungry in the afternoons. Now the annoying thing, I have not lost a thing and it has been a couple weeks. I think I look a little thinner, but the scale still reads the same, and not just my scale, my folk's too. Why the hell can I not loss weight?? I've done it before? Is it because I am on the pill or what?

total per person, includes transfer flights from home town to Toronto, taxes and does not take into account any group deals The hotel has an all inclusive option (gratuities and activities included) which this quote is for

2nd week of December, probably the Sonesta Great Bay resort. We thought about the Maho, but the planes landing at the airport make it kind of noisy

My Fiance and I met on a Star Trek Role playing game.... yep that's right Needless to say neither of us was actually looking for someone, we just had characters that got along well and we sort of followed. Our characters fell in love before we did, which I guess was out way of "testing the waters" we were online friends for about a year, probably longer, before we realised we'd fallen for each other. He was in Holland and I am in Canada, we flew back and forth to visit for about a year and a half and then he moved to Canada. He's applied for permenant residency and we've moved in together.

Thanks guys, I've tried the same model on in a size 10, and it fits better then the 12 with the stain, so I am going to order it in a 10 I wish everything about planning this wedding was as easy as finding that dress

My Travel agent found us a great deal in St Martin which we are probably going to take her up on, it's a 4 star all inclusive for about the same cost as the Breezes (2200) My Fiance is dutch and really likes the idea of marrying in one of the dutch colonies. Thanks so much for you help though!

I am wanting to book something by the end of the month and I have heard a lot of mixed things about my chosen resort. I am not looking for anything super romantic of expensive, just fun and well set up, clean rooms and a nice beach Does anyone know anything about the Breezes location on the Bahamas??

Well the lady who owns the shop is exchanging it for a replacement floor model so she won't sell it. I'm still going to buy that dress style though, $280 is a steal

I think I may have found my dress, It's actually a BM dress, but the store had the floor model in white, it fits perfectly looks fantastic and they are getting a replacement floor model in soon so I can probably buy it right off them for less then $280 This is it: Venus Bridals The problem is their reason for getting a new floor model, the one I tried on has a blue stain from a seamstresses pen. My mom and I have a few ideas for getting rid of, our disguising the stain and I have asked some theater wardrobe ladies for their advice (I work in theater) and they had some good ideas. I have also contacted Venus Bridal to try and find out what kind of pen their dress makers use so I can target my efforts. Any advice from you guys? I love this dress, but my fiance is worried I am going to go down the aisle with "something blue" on my hip

1. Nonnie 2. December 10thish 3. Probably the Bahamas