kdown224

In my Yahoo News today, I saw an article on the fees airlines are charging to check in bags when flying out from the U.S. Wanted to pass it along in case it could be of assistance to any of the BDW members. Baggage fees at US airlines - Yahoo! News

Here are the details of my dress...to my surprise it is NOTHING like what I had envisioned I would wear. Even when the bridal attendant brought it out and suggested I try it on, I gave her "the look", because it seemed to not me. However, when I put it on, it just felt right. For all the brides out there, you know you have found "the dress" when you don't want to take it off. That was my way of deciding. This is the dress on the model (I only wish I would look this good). The sweetheart neckline. And the cut out detail on the lace overlay, the tropical flowers looked a bit cheesy on the hanger, but once it was on, it just all worked.

Wanted to pass along this deal in case anyone is looking for a outfits for grooms or groomsman.l JosABank has a corporate discount program that you can sign up to get a member card free of charge. Every few months they have sales open only to members. They are having one next week where regular priced items are 50% off. To get a copy of the invite, you can go to the following webpage: http://ebm.cheetahmail.com/c/tag/hBKORjfAZYVq6B7uKxn$Nv5HTvT/

There is an online store located in Oregon, Island Importer, that has men's linen shirts available both in stock, or via special order. I believe in some of the styles they have stock sizes up to XXXL. Or, you can custom order a shirt made if you provide them with the measurements he needs. We had the opposite problem, finding a smaller shirt for my son that would match my fiance. I e-mailed them and talked to Ryan in Customer Service. I took my son to a Men's Wearhouse/Mr. Tuxx and they took all the measurements for me free of charge. Then I called Ryan and gave him all the measurements for the shirt in the fabric, cut and color that I wanted. In all it only took 2-3 weeks for his custom shirt to come in. I ordered the Linen Almalfi, like the picture below, but in a coral color. Check out their website, it might be a better idea to get something custom made to make sure it fits and he is comfortable. Their website for men's linen shirts Men's Casual Linen Shirts - Island Importer Good luck!

So many beautiful rings in this thread....I think any guy that is contemplating asking his girlfriend to marry him should be instructed to check out this thread, it would give him more than enough ideas. Below is my engagement ring. It is a white gold band with a morganite center stone in a chushion cut with diamonds surrounding it. My fiance and I have been together for 7 years and we have a 2 year old daughter named Morgan. When he was getting ready to propose last Thanksgiving, he was trying to come up with something to make it special and meaningful to us. He found this stone called Morganite, which is a stone named after JP Morgan that runs from a light pink to a peach color. He found this one, which is more of an old fashioned setting, and it is perfect. He then had another idea for the wedding band (which I don't have a picture of yet). I have a 9 year old son from a previous relationship who has always known my fiance as one of his "dads", so he wanted to incorporate that into the rings somehow as well. Well, lo and behold, there is actually a stone called an Alexandrite (my son's name is Alexander), which changes color from a jade green to a deep purple depending on the lighting. So we had my wedding band made in white gold with Alexandrite stones in the front. I was AMAZED that he actually spent that much time thinking about the rings, and he came up with a perfect way to incorporate "officially" becoming a family. My son is psyched because he loves the idea of a stone being named after him (LOL). And we have already decided that when we have more kids we will get eternity rings made with stones that represent them as well, just to keep the tradition going.

Here is mine, I got it from Etsy seller ButterflyEnchantress. I am not sure yet how I am going to make it work with my veil, but where there's a will, there's a way!

I second Sweetie_bri's recommendation of Factory21 from Ebay. I orded my set of personalized mugs there and Kaylan was great to work with. She was able to provide me with a proof quickly and the order was delivered exactly as promised and exactly when promised. I was uncertain at first about using an Ebay seller, but there have been other brides on the forum who had used them, so their recommendation was good enough for me.

We added a website to give out of town family members more details. The mywedding.com website has great templates for setting up a personalized site. I posted the link to it on my Facebook page so that others who weren't coming could see as well. Once we get back from Jamaica I plan on adding additional pages with pictures from the wedding. Our Wedding:Mike & Kris - wedding website by mywedding.com

We just stumbled into our color scheme. Since we aren't having a bridal party, just our two children (9 &2) stand up with us, we wanted to decide what to have them wear first. Luckily I found the Island Importer website so I could order a shirt and a dress that would coordinate (not so easy to do when the ages are so different). I ordered the color sample swatch from them to determine which ones we liked, I gravitated towards the blues/aquas the most, but my fiance was quick to point out that with the ocean and the sky right behind us on the beach, that would be A LOT of blue in the pics. So we asked our friend who is going to be our photographer and she suggested a contrasting color that would "pop", so we went with a beautiful coral color. My son will wear a shirt in the color and my daughter a dress. After that I knew that coral would be incorporated and since there was so much blue with the water and the sky, I decided on a blue as the other color (Carolina blue since I am a former Tarheel). I had my bouquet done by wedideas.com and they created a tropical bouquet that has bright pink, yellow, and orange/coral in it. The invites and the welcome notes, favor tags, etc. are all composed of a blue or coral shade.

Congratulations! I am getting married at the ROR July 8th of this year. Chandalyn has been really great to work with, but as others on the forum have said, it can take her several days to respond back to you, so don't panic if you don't hear from her right away.

Hello all, I was in Joanne Fabrics yesterday scouting out some ribbon for my fans and saw that Joanne's has a tote bag in a royal blue color of medium size with shells imprinted on it in a white outline for only $2.50 each. They also had some other beach/blue accessories that coordinated, like a pre-package blue terry cloth headband and white washcloth together. Blue wasn't my color, but I wanted to pass it along in case anyone could use the tip.

I had posted a very similar question about a month ago. People that responded said they brought their items in luggage, or gave it to family to bring down in their luggage. I did a quick comparison of my own for shipping versus flying. I am traveling U.S. Air, which charges $15 for the first checked luggage, and $25 for the 2nd through 5th. Checked luggage can be up to I think 45 pounds. I did an estimate of a 50 lb box going from Boston to Ocho Rios, and both UPS and FedEx had the cost coming in anywhere from $310 - $425 dollars. Though I think it is going to be a SUPREME hassle to bring everything down while traveling with my kids, it is definitely cheaper.

I just had to post here, because I am so happy with what I found today for my OOT bags for my female guests. I was walking through the Christmas Tree Shop today (FABULOUS store here on the East Coast), and saw that they had baseball hats with what looked like a palm tree on them. Since we are using palm trees as a central theme of our Jamaican wedding, I stopped to look. And to my shock they had the hats in the 2 colors that we are using for the wedding, coral and light blue. Whoo Hoo!! So I picked up 8 of the hats, 4 coral, 4 blue at a cost of $3.99 each, and then when I went around the corner I saw that they had luggage tags for $1in several different colors, 2 of which were coral and light blue. So I picked up 4 of each color and will print out labels to put on each one to identify the OOT bags. If there are any brides in the area looking for decorations or items for DIY, I would definitely suggest you check out the Christmas Tree Shop, lots of beach and/or shell items there, and you can't beat the prices. Attached is a pic of the items, just because I can't help but want to share my one random, perfect score for the bags!

I ordered mine from Favors & Flowers (Palm Fans, Bamboo Fans, Raffia Fans, Cheap Personalized Fans). They have several types of fans available, all different materials, sizes and colors. The shipping was quick and easy and I was also able to order custom cards that I am going to hole punch and tie to the fans for the ceremony.

Normally I would try, but FI's family is spread all over and they make up the majority of the wedding guests. About half are coming in from IL and the other half are coming from England, Wales or Scotland, and the cost to get all the items to them would be more than the cost of shipping to Jamaica. I will probably try and get in touch with Chandlyn and see if it would be possible to have the items delivered to her at the hotel via UPS with a scheduled arrival date of the day after we arrive. With a toddler still in diapers and and older child, I don't want to be so concerned about all the extra baggage while trying to keep an eye on them at the airports. Hopefully I'll know better once the mugs arrive....maybe this will be the most stress I have for the wedding!

Hello all! So my palm fans came in today from Favors & Flowers (great price and fast shipping, I would definitely recommend them), and now I have a quandry. I just looked at my bouquet (from Wedideas) my 3 floral table decorations, the 30 palm fans, and I realized I have A LOT of stuff to get down to Jamaica. And that doesn't even include the plastic drink steins I am waiting to have come in. Normally I might say to just get 2 extra suitcases and bring it all down with us, but we are traveling with my 2 kids, so ANY additional bags or hassel are definitely not part of the plan. So my question to other ROR brides is, did you bring all of your favors/decorations/etc with you in your checked baggage, or did you ship them down there in advance? If you did ship them to the hotel, did you send them directly to Chandlyn for her to hold onto until you got there? If so, approximately how much was it to send it? Since I am traveling from Boston, UPS Ground isn't really an option. Any and all opinions, advice or stories about how you handled this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Congrats on the upcoming wedding! My FI and I are getting married on July 6th in Jamaica at the Riu Ocho Rios. I ordered a "ready wear" shirt for my fiance, a custom shirt for my 10 year old son and a custom flower girl dress for my daughter from IslandImporter.com. They are based in Oregon and have several styles and colors that are ready to wear, but you can also request custom sizes and colors from them as well. Ryan in Customer Service has been great to work with throughout the process, and their prices are very decent.

Thanks for the thread link! One of the problems is that we are heading down there on July 1st, but the wedding itself isn't until July 6th, so we wouldn't be able to bring it down with us (which believe me I had contemplated). Does anyone know of any local bakers in the area? There was a link to a woman on one of the threads I found, but my e-mail got bounced back from yahoo saying there was no account by that address.

Hello all, I am hoping someone on the forum may have information for me on the legalities/complications/options available for shipping food (specifically cake) to the Riu Ocho Rios for my reception. My FH's family includes several people that suffer from celiac. Basically, they can't eat any products that contain gluten, a protein found in wheat. Naturally this makes their food selections rather slim in general, but when it comes to something like cake, they are even more limited. I have the cake included in my reception package, but I was hoping to have another cake at the reception that is gluten free for them to enjoy as well. I had hoped to find a local bakery in Ocho Rios that may be able to accomodate a gluten free cake, but have been unsuccessful so far. The other option was to have a bakery in the states that we have used before send a cake to the ROR to arrive on the day of the reception, but I am not sure if that is allowed, or what shipping food into Jamaica entails. Has anyone shipped their cake to ROR for their reception before? Any advice/thoughts/words of wisdom are appreciated. Thanks! Kristin

Wow, so many people for Jamaica. I loved the idea of having a kick A** vacation for ourselves and our family and friends at the same time we have a beautiful wedding. I mean, can you really beat the backdrop of the ocean on the beach? Here's my info: Name: Mike & Kris (together 7 1/2 years) Wedding Location:Riu Ocho Rios in Ocho Rios, Jamaica Wedding: July 6, 2009 @ 4 pm In Jamaica: July 1st through July 8th

Hello everyone! Kris from Boston, MA here.....After 7 years and one daughter, my fiance and I are FINALLY making it official and getting married. We thought the best of both worlds would be to time it with an incredible summer vacation. We are getting married at the Riu Ocho Rios resort in Jamiaca on July 6, 2009, which is coming up MUCH faster than I had thought! I've been a "lurker" on this site this past week, and I can already tell there is tons of helpful information here, so hopefully it will help me focus and pull everything together!