hoyt75

We're having a super casual ahr at our favorite local brewery and have also invited everyone that couldn't make it to Mexico (apx 100+). It's not a fance place by any means, it's a brewery, but people will be wearing casual church attire, and we've asked a friend to smoke a couple briskets and fry a few turkeys for us. We have a family friend that's a song writer and we've asked him to play during our ahr. We're not doing an entrance b/c we'll already be there, but when he takes the stage, he'll announce our marriage/us and he wrote us a song that he'll play for our 1st (2nd 1st) dance. Do what your comfortable with. Make it special and unique. It doesn't have to be what everybody is expecting. Look at us, we're having it in a brewery and eating fried turkey and bbq! Have fun with it, that's what it's all about.

they're both beautiful, but I like #1.

Oh my goodness, I don't get on here for 1 day and y'all chat so much I've got 5 pages to read! Good Gravy! I've done a lot of nude modeling before and it's not as bad as you think. Once you get your clothes off and in front of the camera it doesn't feel so sleezy. My first shoot I took my time and that helped a lot b/c I didn't feel rushed or pressured. Now I have no problem gettin' nakid for the camera... probably not good. Have fun with the camera and it will love you! My wedding plans are virtually nonexistant. We're having a super small wedding (only his parents and sister, and my mom, step dad, dad and step mom) so their's not a lot to plan for. We're not going OOT bags so that saves a lot of time and money. We didn't do STD or send out wedding invites (we sent a mass email instead). We DID get our ahr invites out and they are fantastic! We bought them at Target and had them printed at Staples. We sent out 100 invites and RSVP's and it only cost us $80 (w/o postage of course) I'm totally extatic about this! Before we sent these out my plans were absolutely nonexistant, but they gave me a great idea. Our invites say "paradise found" and I want to carry this on to be the wedding "theme". I decided that I wanted our colors to be white and dark blue (think midnight blue), and I wanted to carry a boquet of white calla lillys wrapped in a dark blue ribbon. So, I thought I would make a sign out of white poster board and sponge paint "paradise found..." w/ a starfish in midnight blue, and maybe a "shoe's optional" sign. Oh, and maybe have dark blue sashes/ties on the chairs at the wedding... hmm... We would really like to do something special for everyone that won't be able to make it our wedding. We have a huge family and circle of friends, but hardly anyone can come due to various reasons. On a side note, we've gotten 6 inches of snow today! I live in Fort Worth so we don't ever get this much snow. Actually, we're only about 1 inch away from beating the record snow fall which we should meet by midnight! WOHOO! Not nearly as much as what everyone else gets, but this is the most snow I've seen in years (I grew up in Vermont)! YAY for snowy days filled with cuddling and hot coco!

ahollo - You're welcome. They're not easy to get a hold, in fact, communication can be down right difficult. When we booked our wedding at the VIM, I didn't hear anything back from them via e-mail for 3 days, so I called the resort and asked if I could speak with the wc and was interested in booking a wedding date. After I said that I wanted to book a date they were very quick to get back with me. If you call ther resort, make sure you do it around 10 a.m. they're time. The wc get really busy in the afternoon/evening dealing with other weddings. Be persistant and you'll get what you want out of them. Also, remember that they're idea of being prompt isn't what we would consider prompt. It's a totally different culture. Shamrock - I have soooooo many questions! What package did you choose? How many people are going? Who's your photographer? I haven't done a lot of planning and it's only 51 days away!!! Give us details!

Hi all. I'm just now finding this thread and am getting married April 3 at the Valentin Imperial Maya in Mexico. Haven't taken the time to look all the way through it yet, but thought I would introduce myself. Jenna

My brother is walking me down the isle, so long as he and his wife are able to go. If not, then I want to walk by myself. Do whatever you're most comfortable with. It's your day, do it your way!

I feel your pain! My parents are divorced and re-married, but my brother is more of a father figure to me; however, FI's parents are still together. I was trying to think of ways to incorporate everyone w/o it being weird, and here's what I've come up with: my brother is going to walk me down the isle (could never picture my dad walking me down the isle, ever), and the sand ceramony will be split so that all parents have a chance to participate. For example, FI's parents will have 2 viles of sand and which they will pour into 1 vile, then my mom and step-dad have 2 viles that they pour into 1, and my dad and step-mom will have 2 viles they pour into 1. THEN, my mom and dad will pour each of those 2 viles into 1, which I will then use for my sand and FI will use his parents vile for his. Probably sounds odd and confusing, but I think it's a good way to incorporate them w/o leaving anyone out, and not hurting any feelings. Also, I think it will be a good way for my parents to officially "bury the hatchet", or atlest it would mean a lot to me. To us, the idea of a sand ceramony is to represent 2 families coming together, and it just happens that I have 2 sets of parents which makes for a big family. Hope this helps and you figure it out! Let me know what you come up with!

ahollo - I think that you can book your date as soon as you would like, but the packages may change each year. I would confirm everything with the wc via e-mail and save everything!

Welcome! You'll find loads of information on this forum!

congrats & happy planning!

Congrats & happy planning!

Congrats & welcome to the forum!

I too am getting the time out message while browsing through threads, but it seems to be moving at a quicker rate (though still slow)...

Oh my goodness! Definitly make sure they can make ALL the alterations for free due to their mistake! Keep your chin up, it will be okay!

Quote: Originally Posted by cogswellgray omg am i the only one who doesnt want to wear my dress at the ahr??!! what is wrong with me?! hahah just kidding! I don't want a formal AHR and I too would like to wear a fun flirty dress as I want my AHR to be more like a party. We will have pictures and video so they'll see it then. :-) You're not the only one who doesn't want to wear their dress! I'm not wearing mine, but we're having our ahr at our favorite local brewery, so it just wouldn't go well at all. I'll probably wear nice jeans, and my boots (but I promise to take off my spurs!)... we're having one of our fav singers coming to our ahr to do an accustic session, so there will be a lot of dancing and partying! It just doesn't make sense to wear the dress.

This seems to be a common problem for a lot of dw brides. I've given up all hope on trying to converse w/ my wc prior to our arrival. I do agree w/ Kate, they're not always easy to deal with before you get there, but once you're there, they're great. Just be patient w/ them too, it's completely different from dealing with people from the US or Canada where we have a sense of urgency all the time.

Quote: Originally Posted by Melidell You're not a bad bride. It sounds like everyone else has way too much invested in your wedding and in what they think you "should" or "shouldn't" do. Please. It's your wedding- they had their own. Come, or don't come, but just shut up about it already. What really stuck with me was the complaints about your dress. Now, I don't know you and haven't seen your dress but unless it's comprised of a pasties/g-string combo they were way out of line. It's not 1865, it's a destination wedding and you never tell a bride that you don't like her dress period. Come on, people! Good luck, and I know it's easier said than done but try not to let them get to you! Hahaha! It's really not that bad I swear! Although I did consider wearing a nice neglegee for my wedding dress just to piss off my fmil! It's really not bad though, it's a little low cut in the front and totally open in the back (it does have a back though!) It just get so frustrating when you're trying to make people feel like they're apart of something, and no matter what you do, it's still not good enough. And I totally understand that people are upset about a dw b/c we're asking lot out of people. But, they don't want to go, or can't afford to go, it's really no big deal. I just wish people would step back and realize that it's not their wedding. They got they're chance to do what they wanted and now it's mine.

My fi didn't go with me shopping, but I kept a ton of pics that I had printed off in the back of my Jeep that he saw. Now that the dress is in and altered, I'm keeping it in our spare bedroom upstairs, but I'm pretty sure he sneaks a peak when I'm asleep b/c I can hear him sneak upstairs!! It's just so hard to keep somethings a total secret, and if it makes you both more comfortable to go dress shopping then do it!

Good luck, I hope it works out!

Cait - No we didn't do a site visit prior to our decision on the VIM. We knew that we wanted an adult only, all inclusive resort, and reasonably priced. Honestly, when I called to see what dates they had available, it just happen to work out that they had a day available in April, and due to our work, we that's about when we wanted to get married. Do you plan on getting married on the beach or the chapel? We're having a symbolic ceramony, but I still can't decide on where to have it.

Okay, so maybe this is more of a rant than anything, but our families are making me feel like a super crappy bride! We bought a house last summer, and immediately decided that we wanted to have a dw because 1) the cost and 2) we're are not fussy and detail oriented. His whole family has given us a hard time about a dw from the beginning, and we basically said to darn bad, and unless you're paying, this is what we're doing! So my fi officially put the ring on my hand around Halloween, and we started looking at resorts and places to go. Made a decision around Thanksgiving and announced it to everyone during Thanksgiving dinner (he has a very large family and it was the most convenient option). So here's where my problems really start... My mother lives a few thousand miles away and got really sick, to the point she was hospitalized, and wasn't able to help me find a dress. I asked a close friend if she would be able to help me, and it was only her and I to go dress shopping. Apparently his family got really upset that they weren't invited to go dress shopping, and my mom was obviously upset because she couldn't come either. It's not that I was trying to exclude them, I just knew the style of dress that I was looking for (sleek and sexy) and didn't want to hear their criticism about the type of dresses that I was considering. Once my dress came in and after the alterations, I decided to ask my fi mom, grandma, sister, and sister in law to come and see the dress. I thought that this would be a good way to try make them feel as though they were being incorporated into our wedding. Bad idea. Immediately they started saying how it wasn't the right dress, and that it was way too sexy and revealing. Next problem, his family wanted to throw me a bridal shower and I begrudgingly agreed (I do not like attention and I feel totally uncomfortable with these things). This also meant that we had to register. We didn’t want to register because the things that we need/want are expensive and we feel guilty about even suggesting people spending that kind of money on us. His grandmother insisted on throwing me a shower, so I went ahead and registered, and then they got upset with us because we registered for nice kitchen things like utensils, cutlery, and pots and pans. We were very explicate when we explained that if we had to register then we were registering for things that we wanted and were going to buy, regardless. Oh, and I failed to mention that our plates are the same ones that my fi ate off of when he was 5, and I only have 1 frying pan and 1 stock pot to my name. Everything in my kitchen has been given to us. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some ungrateful twit, I just think it's time to have our own plates and utensils, and I would be really nice to cook a meal and not have to clean my only frying pan 5 times in the process. Moving onward... We wanted our wedding to be really small, maybe 20 people max. Everyone already knew that we were doing a dw because his mom threw such a fit about it, and they all knew the date and where we were going. So, we decided to save a little bit of money and just send out a mass email to all those invited to the wedding. FYI - this didn't go over well at all. Even my mom who has been pretty laid back became very upset about this. The e-mail just explained our decision to have a dw and that we were looking forward to spending quality time with those that we love during the most important moment of our life, and there was an attachment for our wedding website w/ contact info to the travel agent. People were so upset that we didn't send out "nice paper invites" instead! Seriously, we didn’t think that it mattered that much! We're going to send out paper invites for our ahr instead. It seems to me that too many people get caught up in all the pretty details of a wedding and forget what it's all about. The most important thing to us is just to get married, to make that commitment to each other in front of the people we love most. Nothing else really matters to me, I just want to get stinkin' married! Am I the one being selfish? Maybe my wedding isn't really about me, maybe it's really about everyone else being happy. I understand that people can be upset about not being able to join us on our wedding day, but it's okay, we'll see everyone that can't make it (including 100's of other friends and family) when we get back. Maybe I am the worst bride on the planet.

We're going to the jp a week before we leave for our dw to get legally married, and then doing a symbolic ceramony in mx. We've talked about it a lot, and it just makes sense to us. We don't want to deal with the hassle of getting legally married in a different country, plus their is no way in heck I am going to let a mexican nurse near my arm with a needle! I'm petrified of them to begin with! We haven't told a single soul about what we're going, and that's because his family would insist on being at the jp with us, and my mom lives far away as well, and she may be a little upset. I think it's all about doing what you feel is right in your heart.

Oh cait, I'm so glad I'm not the only one. My family was starting to make me feel like a slacker! We're not having a large wedding though, only close family and a few friends, maybe 20 people max. We sent invites out last week, but we definitly made sure to have all the arrangements take care of for us and picked out a good travel agent. Our guests will coming from all over the country, so we wanted to make sure that everyone was well taken care of. I'm super excited about using Sascha! His photo's are excellent and he's reasonably prices. I will definitly post pics! I'm curious if you did a site visit before choosing the VIM? We decided on the VIM over Thanksgiving, so everything has been moving very quickly.

I wear mine pretty much all the time, except if I'm getting my hands wet I'll take them off. It seems to keep the stones a little shinier and cleaner. It's all persona preference, I'm sure one day I'll get over it and just wear them all the time!

Hi Ladies, We're getting married at the Valentin on April 4th and I was wondering how far along in your planning you were. So far I have a dress and a future husband, and that's it! Guadalupe Arrayo (not sure if that's Ariadna or the other wc) has sent me some pics of boquets and wedding set up's but that's it. I've also looked at photographers and I'm trying to book Sascha Gluck depending upon the resorts rules about outside photographers. How far along are you in your planning?