taraappl

I know this has been forever since I've been on but I hope you all enjoyed my pictures and yes we really did get 300 pictures in 2 hours!

Hey everyone. I just decided to log back on to this site and look at my subscriptions. I saw that you wanted to see wedding photos after the wedding. Sorry we've been back for a little over 2 months now and I'm just getting around to this. http://taraben.shutterfly.com/ is the site we posted all our pro photos. The trip was amazing. I posted a few reviews on my photographer and the hotel we stayed at (cabanas maria del mar). I also posted a review on the sushi restaurant that is connected to Aluxes. DO NOT EAT THERE. It was the worst experience I have ever had. Stick with the local restaurants that will treat you well. Good luck ladies. If anyone wants to keep up with me via email with questions etc etc let me know. tara.devries@mckesson.com or I'm on gmail chat taraedevries@gmail.com

Hey ladies! My professional photos arrived yesterday! I love everything about them!!!!!!! http://taraben.shutterfly.com/

We had a couple of photographers picked out. We narrowed it down to Cecilia and and cancun wedding photographers based soley on the photos we had seen. I then started doing some searching for reviews and found some really negative stuff on Cancun wedding photographers. The choice was then easy. Cecilia took a $100 down payment from us. We ended up sending it via paypal to our wedding coordinator and she just then paid Cecilia. Everything about working with her beforehand was super easy and smooth. She was very flexible with times around sunsets etc. We got married on Isla Mujeres and met with our Wedding coordinator. She told me that there had been a tragic event and Cecilia wouldnt be able to make it and that she was sending her associate Claudio. I had no choice really at that point. We were already there. How can I describe Claudio? High energy but in a very pleasant way. His assistant and him were very very professional and had ideas for some really great shots. Overall, he was great. Cecilia said that she would be doing the editing herself and that she was sorry she wasnt able to make it. I have no idea how the photos would have turned out if it was her that actually came, awesome I'm sure, but Claudio was awesome. I only had him for 2 hours and my photos turned out great. Cecilia did the editing and send the photos via FedEx as soon as she was done. If she wasnt out of town we would have gotten them quicker but really, we had them in about a week and a half. The price for her service was $800 + $200 for the disk with all the photos on it (includes the rights to the pictures... thats why its so expensive). Because Claudio had to come instead of Cecilia, it was $700 instead. Really, you cant loose by going with this company. Everyone was fantastic and so easy to deal with. check out my photos! http://taraben.shutterfly.com/

Hey all... I know I've jumped on and posted a couple things since I've been back... just know that I have been popping in to try and keep up with everything that is going on too. I wanted to post how everything went on our trip.... remember I'm the girl with the crappy MOH? lol..... Well heres how it went. We arrived on Saturday 4/17. We got there in the afternoon and it rained for the rest of the day which was fine because we were all pooped from traveling anyways. Sunday was beautiful and so was the rest of the week. My MOH was staying in a room by herself and she quickly took to my step daughter Kelsey (14). However as the week would go on I caught her many times saying things that were totally inappropriate in front of Kelsey. MOH and Kelsey got stuck driving a golf cart in the downpouring rain one day and we saw them drive by and we made fun of them a little bit about it as they were going past us and she shouted, "Stop making fun of me or I'll SH*T on your face". Yup... that was the last straw. I pulled her aside after she got into the lobby and told her that she was a 27 year old woman who is supposed to set a good example for others. She is a nanny for Christ sake. I asked her if she would ever talk like that in front of her nanny kids? She obviously said no and I said well its no different here. She is a child. She apologized and that was that. Then we quickly realized our beach was a topless beack which I didnt realize. Nothing I read about it mentioned that at all. Oh well. No big deal. As soon as my MOH found out about that, she BEGGED me to let her run around topless. I said absolutely not. I have a ton of guests here and the last thing I want is for them to see you exposed. Those were just a couple of the things that happened with her. Tuesday we realized that in Mexico you cannot sign over a check to someone. We had written a couple cashier's checks to ourselves because we couldnt wrap things up quick enough before we left. We were waiting on a couple vendors to find out who we were supposed to write that check out to. So.... we had a bunch of useless checks. We also had written a cashier's check out to our coordinator. We wrote it out to the business name thinking that would be just fine. Well it wasnt. It turns out we were supposed to make the check out to her personally because that is the name on the checking account. Nightmare. We solved it in a couple of hours though which was great. My dad ended up wiring us the $$ and we got it taken care of. I then cancelled the checks and paid him back when we got home. The day of the wedding was perfect. I couldnt have asked for a better day. My hair was awesome and I had been in the sun for a few days and was sun kissed. The entire day was truly magical. If you have time, check out my pictures. I'm still waiting for my photo's pictures to arrive. They should arrive today so I'm super excited for that. Click see older posts to see most of the pictures I posted myself. My mom posted a bunch of videos that takes up an entire page. http://ourislatrip.shutterfly.com Overall, everything went well. We totally didnt budget for enough money and some stuff got thrown on our credit card. Our hotel was lovely and we couldnt have asked with better weather. I've been keeping up and it sounds like everyone for the most part had a great time too.

DO...NOT...EAT...THERE. That is if you are bringing a lot of people. This was by far our worst experience of our entire trip. We got married on 4/22 and we ate there on 4/20. It was a Tuesday and there werent that many people in the restaurant at all. We had 12 people in our group and because we were more than 4, they sat us upstairs which was perfect. There was no one up there and it was totally private. The waiters came and greeted us (there were 2 servers for our group) and were very pleasant. They came with bottles of water and opened them and poured them for us. They went around the table and took drink orders............... 1 hour later, we actually saw those drinks. Sometime inbetween, we actually ordered our food and at about 1 hour 45 mins of waiting, we saw our food. We asked multiple times what the delay was. We were told it was coming and to please be patient. We asked multiple times about our drinks as well and when those were coming. Some of us just ordered a can of pop and that didnt come. They explained that they would bring everything out together when the drinks were ready. Same with the food. If 1 item was delayed, everything would get delayed. We ordered salmon sushi rolls and we were presented with Tuna. The entire experience was awful. And then it got worse. When the bills came, they charged us for the bottles of water that we were served. At no point were we asked if we would like some water and just so you know, we will charge you for it. Nope. We were given the water and then charged. It was almost a slap in the face because we had waited so long for all of it. We then asked to talk to a manager. The manager came and said this word for word, "Did you order the food? Did you like the food? Well then you will pay for the food." Talk about the worst service ever. The poor waiters were so kind and accommodating but the manager was more than awful. He ended up removing the 1 roll from our bill because it was wrong but did not do anything for anyone else. He should have just said tough SH*T. If I were you, I wouldnt step foot in this place. It is a shame too because it is connected to a 5 star hotel which is so beautiful.

Hi all! I'm back from our destination wedding and wanted to share a few things about our stay at Cabanas Maria del Mar. The first thing I want to share is that overall, we thought this was the best bang for our buck on North Beach. We were on the best beach on the entire island and it was decently priced. The maintenance people do not speak English so if you have a problem, instead of calling the front desk, go to the front desk, ask for Clara (Manager who speaks the most English) and let her know what is going on. We had an air conditioning problem that didnt get taken care of for 3 days due to the language barrier. I finally went and talked with Clara and it was resolved in a matter of 20 mins. DOH! The other thing you need to watch out for is that they will charge your credit card when you get there a deposit amount for you safe lock and remote control. They will refund that amout when you have checked out and returned both items. There are cockroaches. We never had any in our room nor did any of our other guests but they are all over the island so it wasnt uncommon to see one in the hallway. Overall, this hotel is really the best value in our opinion for being right on North Beach. It doesnt have bells and whistles like a gym or anything like that but it shows in their price. The only thing that disappointed me is that a year before the wedding I tried to negotiate a break in price because we had a group staying there and she gave me "2009" prices for the group because they said they were raising the rates in 2010. When we got there, there was a sign posted with their current rates and they hadn't changed so I was a little bummed we didnt save any money by staying there. Happy travel!

I just got back from our week long wedding/honeymoon and I wanted to go out of my way to give our review of this fantastic company. We selected Weddings Isla Mujeres as our freelance wedding coordinator company. The owner is Maria del Mar Lima. She is fantastic. I cant say enough wonderful things about her. Her husband owns Secreto, her sister owns Villa Kiin and I'm not sure what her affiliation is with Cabanas Maria del Mar but her info is on all 3 of those hotel's sites. We selected Maria after pricing out Sunhorse and some various hotels. Maria was the cheapest (in my opinion) and the most flexible with locations. I knew I wanted to get married on North Beach and since we decided to stay at Cabanas Maria del mar, we decided to get married right in front of that hotel. It was perfect and amazing. If you want to check out our pictures, feel free. http://ourislatrip.shutterfly.com. I emailed Maria probably about a million times and she still was so patient with me. I emailed her pictures of what I wanted my hair to look like and what I wanted for my bouquet and it was all perfect. She has a lot of great photos to share of previous events and is so flexible with set up and how you want things arranged. Overall, my price for 16 total people, 14 having chicken and 2 having fish (soup and a salad) was just around 3,500 for EVERYTHING. That is including her fee, a tip for the servers, our favors (maracas) the entire wedding and all the people involved except for the lady that came and did my hair and the photographer. If you have any questions, please let me know!

Hi there! I was just getting ready to give my review of our wedding planner. We just got married on Isla 2 weeks ago. We hired Maria del Mar Lima owner of Weddings Isla Mujeres. You can see her site on WeddingsIslaMujeres.com. She is a freelance coordinator. I did a LOT of research with different hotel options using their coordinator etc and she was equally priced and we got to pick where we wanted to get married. I chose north beach outside of Buho's and it was fantastic. If you are looking at Northbeach as your venue, the other option that I totally would have picked too would be right outside of sunset's. I dont have much info for the south end of the island and their venues all I know is that if you want sunset photos, you have to get married on North beach. Perfect sunsets! We gave our guests a choice of chicken or fish and both were fantastic! The wedding cake was great and the service was great too. Overall, Maria was more than outstanding and accomodating and she handled every last detail for us. If you want more info on her and her company, let me know!

The only advise I can give at this point is if you are flying AA, they will only allow you to carry on your wedding dress as your carry on item. Many other threads on this site have said you can get away with bringing a carry on and also your dress but AA did not. They will let you store it in their first class closet but it counts as your carry on. That was the only surprise I encountered. Other than that, I suggest bringing $50 in 1's and maybe $100 cash and the rest in Traveler's checks. That worked out SO well for us. Hmm.. cant think of anything else at this point! Enjoy your planning. I have my AHR coming up next weekend at the Lookout in Maple Grove.

Hey Ladies! I am in Minneapolis and just got back last week from my wedding in Isla Mujeres, MX. It was fantastic!

Thanks everyone. I got ahold of someone this morning that said I didnt need to do anything at all. I just need to go to the DMV with my documents and to the Social Security office. Nothing more than that. Awesome! I do have some pics up and ready. http://ourislatrip.shutterfly.com Enjoy!

Does anyone know what steps need to take place to make our marriage legal in the US after being married in Mexico? They gave us our Marriage documents so I have those. I was doing some searching and it sounds like I'm supposed to get my Mexican documents Apostilled and that makes it legal in the US as well? I'm all sorts of confused. I just want it to be legal here and just want to know what steps I need to do to make that happen. Any help?

Hey ladies.... boy planning a wedding sure does bring out the best in people doesnt it? So.... If any of you remember the drama that I was having with my MOH, its gotten worse. She acted like a total brad during my bach party. She shows up an hour and a half late to the party (which she didnt throw me btw) and 45 mins late to my shower which was the same day. She made rude comments about the music I wanted to listen to during the bach party and she ended up leaving early due to "a stomach ache". So.... this whole process has really made me realize the reasons that attracted me to being her friend in the first place are now reasons I dont like the person she is now. She is super immiture and will never think before she speaks which was acceptable when we were 18 but not when we're 28. She has never moved out of her parents house and refuses to get a real job. She has 3 part time jobs however. Nothing with benefits or anything like that. Life time fitness front desk, a green house and a nanny a couple days a week. I'm sure its all hard work but it all avoids her from growing up. She just got fired from Life Time and they banned her from ever having a membership there. So because of that, she is posting stupid stuff on facebook about how she got her membership back. I asked her why the heck she would even want a membership there after getting fired and she told me she didnt really get it back, that was a lie to get her old co workers that she is friends with on facebook to squirm. Stupid. Why? Why be so immiture. Going back to my shower, my soon to be step daughter (shes 14) wanted to write for me while I was opening gifts. My MOH sat down and snatched the pad and pencil from her and said I'm the MOH, its my job to write. C'mon, really? Its not like you wanted to be there anyways.. you came 45 mins late. Grrrrrrrr! Sorry this is getting so long... We are staying on Isla Mujeres which is a small island off of Cancun. She emailed another single guest if she wanted to go partying in Cancun with her which wasnt part of our plan at all so that got to me a little too. I'm just hoping I dont have to deal with her much while we're there. I want to scream at her really but wont because its just not worth it at this point. I'll do the things I wanted to do and enjoy the time with my family and new hubby.

Hi ladies! I have been absent for about a month I think. I've been so super busy with wedding stuff and just life in general! I've got a lot of catching up to do but I just wanted to say good luck to everyone. We leave on Saturday!!!! We have 16 total people coming down and 11 of those people are flying down the same day. 7 of us are on the same flight even I'm so excited I can hardly wait to get through this week. Everything is pretty much done. I just need to finish packing which can wait until the end of the week. Its finally getting nice here in MN so a lot of stuff that I would wear down in Mexico (short sleeve stuff, cropped pants) I'm finally able to wear here due to the nice weather. I'll be doing laundry late this week because of it for sure. Have a wonderful trip ladies and I'll try to keep updated this week. My mind wont be doing a good job while its at work so I'll be on a lot I'm sure.

Thanks Shannon. I'm on my way to check it out now!

Just found you can do this on vistaprint.com too. I looked at the pricing and it ends up being a little cheaper than even costco. I'll have to play with it some more after I get my pictures back!

Hey do any of you ladies know where online I could make a photo book by uploading pictures? I am not having my photog create our wedding album for us. I'd rather make it myself online.

Quote: Originally Posted by caribbeanLover That's is soooo freaking adorable of him to do that, My FI would never think of something like that. Well I am sure all the pics look just as good as this one. Just love it!! How long have you guys been together? We are getting married on the 22nd of April and our 2 year anniversary will be on the 29th of April. So... just about 2 years. Its a crazy long weird story. But, since I have time, I'll tell it Here are the characters in my story: Ben - Fiance Eric - Ex husband (Yes I've been married before. Not for very long. Married super young but have 2 beautiful little girls out of the deal) Paul - Ex brother in law who I love and adore like my own brother (Eric's brother) I'm an only child so he is the only sibling I've ever known.. until now of course because I have Ben's sister... anywho.... back to the story lol.. Eric and I split but Paul was still very welcoming. He feels the same way about me that I do him. He often times invited me over for BBQ's at his house. One day I was over there and his next door neighbor walked up the driveway to see what was going on. I had seen him before but it had been a really long time (right after I had baby #2). He almost didnt recognize me becuase obviously after just having a baby you have a lot more weight etc. We started chatting and then he went home. Nothing more than that. A week later, I was at Paul's again. He happened to mention that the next door neighbor thought I was hot. HA! So.... back when MySpace was in, I went to Paul's page to make a comment. I happened to see that Ben was his top friend and was "online". I decided to send him a message just to start conversation with him. (I thought he was super hot too!) We messaged back and forth for about a week. Then we exchanged phone numbers and email and would chat that way. Then we finally decided enough was enough and we went on a date. We've been together ever since. He loves my kids like they were his own which is wonderful. Ex husband wasnt too thrilled about the fact he knew Ben. They werent friends or anything, they just had a mutual friend. Still, he wasnt crazy about the idea. Now everything is just fine. Eric has moved on, remarried and has a baby on the way. He is finally getting his boy.... he begged me to have another one and I said no way. At that point we were having problems and that is not fair to anyone to bring another child into our relationship. Anyways, thats my story. We bought a house together last April and have blended our family quite nicely if I do say so myself. (he also has 2 kids of his own) So between the 2 of us we have Kelsey 14, Caelyn 5, William 4, and Isabelle 3. The 3 little ones all have birthdays in the next couple of months. Caelyn and Isabelle are mine and Kelsey and William are his. Phew! Thats the story. I know you didnt ask for it, but you got it anyways!

Quote: Originally Posted by caribbeanLover taraappl, I know it's off your topic, but I just love your sizzy pic, your beautiful, you guys make an adorable/good looking couple!! Thanks! I have been trying to find a good picture of us to put up. I know this sounds funny but we have a 4 picture 3x5 frame with this photo in it. There are 4 total photos of us at this wedding last year. There is one where he is kissing me on the cheek, then the next one I am kissing him on the cheek, the next is me dancing with him with my head on his shoulder and then the 4th one is the one you see attached. It was his idea to frame them like that. He came home one day with the frame and said here is what I'm going to do with these pictures. Lol... I was happy about it. He is a real sweetheart like that. I cant wait to be his wife! Cheesy but true!

Quote: Originally Posted by hoyt75 You're welcome. A HUD is also known as a closing statement. Not only did you need to complete the regular pages for the tax return, but you also needed to complete a special form to claim the home buyer credit, and you needed to send in a copy of your HUD behind that form. When you closed on the house, this was the form that broke down all the costs. It's usually 1 or 2 pages long. We were suppose to have ours by April 6th, and when I checked today, it said April 20th, so I can certainly understand your frustration. We too originally planned to use this money for our wedding, but decided we didn't want to risk it with the IRS. Some people revised their 2008 taxes so they didn't have to wait until the end of 2009 to recieve the credit, and it took an average of 12 weeks for most of them to recieve their money. I know it's not good news, but hopefully your parents will understand that it's just a short term loan. Well I'm sure thats exactly what the problem is then. I completed my taxes on taxact.com and when I completed everything, the system said nothing about including that form with it as well. Wonderful. The waiting game begins now. Thanks for the info though! I really appreciate it.

Quote: Originally Posted by hoyt75 We bought our 1st house together in June 2009, we were NOT married by 12/31/09 and I alone claimed the house credit on my tax return. Yes - they made revisions to the 1st Time Homebuyer Tax Credit, and if you purchased your home after a certain date (which you did) you must file your taxes by paper. We did this too. You can always check the status of your tax return by going to: Where's My Refund - It's Quick, Easy, and Secure. and then follow the instructions. You will need to know the EXACT amount that you are getting back. When you file your taxes by paper and have any returns directly deposited into your bank account, it usually take 6 weeks to recieve the funds. However, when you claimed the 1st time home buyer credit, you should expect it to take about 8 weeks to recieve, giving you opted to recieve your funds via direct deposit. Were you unmarried on 12/31/09? If you were still single, then their only limited problems that could be going on. 1) You forgot to send in youd HUD 2) You didn't correctly complete the forms 3) You didn't sign something (which is what usually happens) Yes - you will recieve a letter in the mail confirming any problems with your tax returns. They will give you instructions on how to fix it, and then you'll send all your stuff back to them. Try checking the status of it online, it should tell you if their are problems and what they are. Thanks so much!! WE were not married and the website displays nothing which is why they called in. Thats when they told us there was a probelm and we would be notified what it was. What is a HUD? We didnt send anything in additional regarding the house for the credit? Maybe thats what we missed? I'm not sure! They cant even tell us when the letter will come explaining what we need to do next. They said in their system if everything went smooth and there was no error, we are slotted to get our returns back next week. Being that there is an issue, who knows when we will get them back now.

Did anyone else buy a new home this past year and qualify for the first time home buyer's credit? UGH!!! We bought a new home last April and because we werent married Ben qualified for the credit. (If we were married when we bought it, we wouldnt have qualified because I've owned a house in the past 3 years) I dont know what is going on but we sent our taxes in the end of January and they still havent processed. The IRS is making people file on paper if you have that credit vs electronic. I think maybe too many people tried to scam the government in past years. Ben called them and they said there is an issue with our return. We are using that money to pay for the wedding and now they are telling us we may not get it by then?! Are you kidding me? We are super stressed. They couldnt tell us over the phone what was wrong, only that we'll get a letter that we'll need to address as soon as it arrives. She couldnt even tell me when the letter would get there. I emailed my dad this morning asking him if he could temorarily lend us the $$ until whatever is wrong got straightened out and he is hesitant to lend us that much money. If you knew my dad you would understand why. He has been burned lending money to people etc. I've however never asked him for money in my adult life ever so I'm hoping he agrees. Best case scenario, the money comes just in time I dont need to borrow it anyways. UGH... Does anyone else know anyone who claimed this credit on their '09 taxes? If so, did everything process smoothly for them? I'm hoping they dont try to reject it because I'm a co-owner on the home. The law specifically says that if we are unmarried my half of the credit can transfer to the qualifying party that co owns the home so that person would get the full credit. UGH...

tracy - yes the dress is strapless so hopefully I wont have too much of a tan line going on!

Wow! Everyone and their multiple bathing suits. I have such a hard time finding bathing suits that I like at all. I was proud that I was bringing 2 down!!!! Maybe I should go look for some more? I wish I could buy a strapless suit but there is NO way I could prevent my chest from hitting the ground without the support I've been blessed with 2 children and after nursing both of them, lets just say they arent what they used to be! So now my fear is having tan lines but you know what, who cares.... Thats just all the more proof that we had great sun in a tropical location. Its ok with me I guess. I hope all the wedding planning is going well! I have to still get a couple items for my OOT bags. I'm also waiting *patiently* on my MIL to respond back to me with a Friday this summer that she will be in town. We are getting them a Mississippi dinner comedy cruise for their gift from us on a big paddle boat. I just couldnt think of anything else so hopefully they love it.