hoyt75

Hi there! I had my heart set on getting married at the Royal Hideaway, but like you, it was just to expensive for our guests to go to. We ended up compromising and got married at at the Valentin Imperial Maya. It's all-inclusive and adults only like the Hideaway, but much more affordable for us. I've done some searching on this forum and have yet to find a bride that was married the the Royal Hideaway. Good luck with your searching and let us know what you determine!

I've done a BD shoot with a man and it never bothered me. I think it's all about what you feel comfortable with. They're all professionals, and I never felt weird about it for a minute.

Thanks Nat, every once in a while he says/does something sweet that blows me away! Tracy, I'm really hoping that your surgery goes well for you. I know how stressful house shopping can be, try to enjoy it! We've definitely been through our hard times, and moving in with someone, regardless of how long you've known them, can be challenging. I wish you the best of luck Nat, and I'm sure it will be just fine. Honestly, DH and I moved in together after knowing each other just a little less then 2 months. At the time, I was living on a ranch, breaking colts and living in a train (yes, I said train), and DH was living with his parents working as a delivery driver for Coors. We both desperately wanted to go back to school and finish our degrees, and it's sad to say, but we both saw each other as a tool to get to where we wanted to be. I assure you that the only reason we stayed together that 1st year was because we signed a lease. After that we moved into his parents house and it's because of his parents strong relationship that we learned how to communicate and be a little more sensitive to the other person's feelings. That 1st year was unbelievably rough, but if we can survive that, we can survive anything. Their is nothing left for us to argue over, I'm pretty sure we've walked down almost every path possible. Communication is essential to a successful relationship. I really like the idea of saying something positive about each other every night. We have friends and they have a sign over their bed that reads "always kiss me goodnight" and I think that's really important too. If you make a point to always be positive and channel frustration and negativity differently, I think we can all be amazed in how different the results are that we get. Since we're on the subject, we were given a really good book called "The Love Dare". We just started the book and it's 365 days of devotional readings to work towards true love. HOWEVER it is a Christian book, and I understand that not all of us have the same beliefs, but if you're a Christian, it's an excellent book to work through together. Enough of that, has anyone heard from Erin lately? Has she disappeared?

Okay ladies, I know we’re all busy and what-not, but I’m looking for a little feedback and some suggestions. On our honeymoon, my wonderful hubby came up with idea that we’ve dubbed as “the love box”. We would have a box and jot down little notes with what we love about each other. Nothing in particular; big things, little things, or just things that make us smile about the other person. The idea is that if we ever got into a rough spot we would then open the box and read the little notes containing the reasons for our love. It would serve as a reminder as to why we got married in the first place, and how our love has blossomed and flourished over the years. Now it would have to be a really rough spot, not just that we bickered one night, I mean rough/hard/we need help kind of thing. There could be no early peaking into the box, only positive comments allowed, and I’m thinking it would more of a small wooden box with a slot on the top and a fake heart lock on it w/ a key taped to the bottom… something along that line. DH has set a goal that he wants us to make it to our 50th anniversary. We’ve had problems in the past, as do we all at one point or another, but we’ve worked through them and he’s thinking that this would serve as a good reminder when needed. What do you think? Have you ever heard of or seen such a thing?

Very cute STD indeed! Even if your ceremony is set to start at 5 it will probably be a few minutes late. Most of the packages include a champaign toast on the beach, as did ours, which took a good 30 minutes. People will want to hug and congratulate you and your new hubby, and you'll probably want a few photos taken with vim people (like parents and such). Our ceremony was set to start at 4 (this was before their time change) and I was bit late, so by the time I got down there it was about 4:30. The ceremony took a little less then 30 minutes as I wrote my own ceremony and it was a tad long. Then we had the champaign toast and took tequilla shots on the beach, took group photos, and then everyone else went on their way to the gazebo for cocktails and appetizers. I would agree with Adriana, 1 hour is ample time to get everything accomplished and not feel rushed. No I did not want to change into a another dress! I loved my dress and once the sun started to go down a bit I was more then comfortable. Their is always a good breeze going through the resort too.

So pretty I love your colors and what you used for chair sashes, instead of normal sashes, they were very pretty!

GOOD-NESS!!!! That is a ton of money for an AHR! I can only imagine what you're wedding looked like. YIKES! Michele - I really like your wedding photos. The sunset ones are my favorite So pretty

It's soooo hot outside, and a party barge sounds like so much fun right now..... (daydreaming) Tracy - I hope your surgery goes well and that all your pain and frustration will go away. At least you have some good news about getting pre-approved for a mortgage and now you can go house shopping! Home shopping was so fun and exciting for us And I totally agree, I think it's a little odd that she got pregnant while trying during your wedding. We spent maybe $600 on our AHR. It's not that I feel lost after our wedding, but I do kind of miss being on that high. Now that I look back I wish I would have done a lot things differently and had not let DH talk me into not doing the things that would have made it really special for me. Stupid boys. We have seriously been non stop ever since we got home. We were really looking forward to the Memorial weekend thinking that we didn't have much going on and we could relax.... but a very good friend of ours passed away that week so we had to drive almost 4 hrs to her funeral on Saturday. Now we have a birthday party this Saturday for a long time family friend. It feels like it's never going to stop! We just need a breather for a bit and then the world can continue to turn. We never really got the chance to soak up the whole "oh we're married, lets enjoy being newly weds" thing. As of yesterday, we have been married 2 months! We're going to celebrate tonight by going to dinner and having a date night I'm really excited as we never have date nights, nor do we ever go out to eat for anything other then Taco Tuesday (yuck-o).

After reading through this thread I decided to buy the dvd and give it a whirl. I usually don't like the at home workouts becuase I get unmotivated and lazy, but I figured since it was only 20 minutes I would be more likely to stick to it. Just went through level 1 for the first time today! Jillian def doesn't give you a second to breathe, but I like her intensity. I've never been a big girl, but I have definitly let myself go in the past 6 months. Does anyone know if this dvd will really get you the results you're looking for? I was thinking maybe it would a good way to me motivated, back on track, and like a quick boot camp type thing. What else are you ladies doing to stay fit? I've never really dieted or followed a certain workout plan before and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed.

Definitely sounds like something that I would want to try! Unfortunately the Moksha isn't offered anywhere in Texas, and the Bikram's is horribly expensive... $20 per session is a little to much for me. I did read that the rooms are only about 105F, so it's about that hot outside now. Maybe I'll just get a yoga video and sit outside around 3pm, lol Oh well, good luck ladies!

http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...s-heavy-57717/ The above is a link to my review of Blue Lense Caribe.

ahollo - Sascha charges $295.00 per hour. Not only is that an absolute steal, but it's amazing that it's all he charges for such wonderful work. heidilynn28 - VIM will try to charge you extra for stupidest little things at first, but I think you'll find that almost any resort that you go to. For example, I picked my bouquet from a pic that they had provided, but I wanted the stem part wrapped in blue ribbon to match my colors. Well, Lupita wanted to charge me for the ribbon if I didn't bring my own, and it wasn't like $2.00 either, it was more like $15-$20, which is insane. Needless to say I brought my own ribbon that I bought from a fabric store for pennies. Then she wanted to charge me an INSANE amount of money for the chuppah! Like $800.00!!!! I just looked at her and told her she was nuts and that I could build my own stupid chuppah for that kind of money. I even brought all of my own fabric! We got the cost of the chuppah down to $200.00. Adriana wanted to charge me for the sound system for the ceremony and the reception. When we got down there we meet w/ Lupita and she never charged us anything, nor did she say anything about it. And really, if you get married on the beach a sound system is a must otherwise you're guests won't be able to hear a thing. We had had a private dinner at the French restaurant the day we all got down there and the restaurant manager tried to charge us for 3 bottles of wine at $70.00 a piece each. We were not happy for several reasons: 1) they didn't tell us that we needed to buy 3 bottles of wine to reserve the private room 2) she came in and interrupted the whole dinner and was very rude about it and 3) I guess you're only suppose to have 11 people in the private room and we ended up with 12 and she threatened to kick one person out of the room to bring us back down to the 11. My hubby went to our server after she left and told him that we were not aware that we had to purchase wine for the private room, he was very gracious about it, and he ended up giving him a $50 tip. A friend of ours got a bottle of wine while we were out talking o the waiter and nobody got charged for any bottles of wine, nobody got kicked out, and we never saw the mean manager again. The server was totally worth the $50 tho - he was prompt, gave great service, and never charged us for anything Definitely worth the $50.00. Don't let the above deter you... Like I said, I think all resorts are going to try to get you to pay more for little things to see if you're paying attention and see how easy you are. No wedding go without a few little bumps, and ours was excellent beyond belief. The VIM was the most wonderful place to go, and I cannot imagine a better resort. The mean manager at the French restaurant was the only grouchy person that we met the whole time, and she must have been having a bad night too, lol. We didn't let her get us down, but we definitely didn't put up with her crap either. heidilynn28 - If you bring your photographer then they are considered a guest and you won't get charged the fee for bringing in an outside photographer. If they ask, make sure to tell them that they're a friend with a camera and that they will be taking all of your photo's. This seems to be what most brides do when they bring a photographer from home. ahollo - You're right, Blue Lense did get banned from BDW, and they will try to get you to write a review on here if you use them. And yes, I thought that part was a little sketchy too. I wrote a review of them on here. I will look for it and post the link on this thread when I find it. cait713 - I have not written my review of Sascha or VIM yet. Ever since we got back we've been non-stop, and it's just getting ridiculous. I promised myself I was going to do it last week and then a good friend of ours passed away... I'm shooting for this weekend if all goes well this week! If any of you would like to see our wedding photos you can find me on facebook. Search for Jenna McGann Hoyt and send me a message. I'd be glad to show them, but my photobucket account doesn't like to work all the time

Today, not much... just thankful to be breathing and having a wonderful husband next to me. We had a very good friend pass away to brain cancer yesterday and we're kinda depressed about it, to say the least.

YAY! I love to hear about happy endings Congratulations and I'm glad that it all worked out in the end :) Never been to Bora Bora but it sounds like paradise! Let us know how it goes... I've always wanted to to go Tahiti! I just love happy endings

We used Sascha for our wedding, and we were not disappointed at all! One of the best decisions that we made about our wedding. Highly, highly, highly recommend using him. We didn't pay the fee for using the outside photographer. Negotiate everything with them. We flat out told Lupita that we thought it was ridiculous to have to pay that kind of money to use the photographer that we wanted and we weren't going to pay it. They ended up dropping the fee for us. Blue Lense Caribe is the in-house photographer for VIM. They are also very good, but again, not as good as Sascha. We did our TTD w/ them b/c our wedding package came w/ photos. Love our TTD pics, and we had so much fun doing them, but I kinda wish that we would have spent the money to have the TTD pics done with Sascha. The whole idea of pics being included in your wedding package is a bit of joke really. It only includes like 20 some odd 4x6 photos, and you have to pay extra for the copyrights, more pics, and everything else. In the end, we would have only spent a little bit more money to have TTD done w/ Sascha vs paying for the photos we wanted from Blue Lense. Also, Blue Lense is trying to get a contract with VIM to be the only photographers allowed on the resort. They're trying to get this into play asap. So, if you're looking into having an outside photographer do your wedding and TTD you need to communicate that with your wc and have it in writing.

Sorry, I just couldn't let this thread go onto page 2! Sooooo quite lately, it's almost erie... Hope everyone had a good AHR. We had an absolute blast at ours! Everything turned out very well, and the brewery was fantastic Everyone complimented us on how laid back and enjoyable the whole night was. YAY! DH is kinda glad that the whole wedding thing is officially over. He's tired of all the planning, arranging, and dealing with people. I'm kinda glad it's over to. Now we can get back to normal and focus on other and more important things. Hope everyone is still alive and having fun!

That's such a pretty cake Mel. Glad to hear that you had a good time

Quote: Originally Posted by caribbeanLover Thanks!!!! I have endometriosis, so they will go in and burn them away!!! which means I could live a normal life for a year or 2 before the come back again. Also will give me more of a chance to have a baby. But it also can go the other way where the surgery will make everything worse and even more less of a chance to have a baby... so I have to wait and see. Your so right, it's just to celebrate your love and becoming one. It really shouldn't be about the frills and all that other stuff. Now your making me re consider again lol!!!! I can't make a decision if my life depended on it after all the decisions i had to make for the DW Tracy I'm so sorry to here that. I know a girl that endometriosis too, but she was surprisingly able to have a child later on. I hope it all work out And you make me laugh with all of your indecisiveness! This was all suppose to be one big post, but for some reason it won't let me do it. sorry ladies.

[quote=ebredhawk;1299605) jenna, pickled jalapenos sound sooooo delicious! i'm amazed by your ability to make all that food... 50 lbs of potato salad? no sweat! if i were in TX, i'd make your wedding cake for you! Thanks! From just what I gather on this fab forum, it seems to me that a lot of people are having casual AHR. Maybe it's b/c by the time we get done with all that wedding stuff we just want something fun and simple!

Burgers and chicken! You just can't go wrong with something grilled and smothered in Head Country! Ours started out the same way but I got a little to into the sides and took them to the next level. I wouldn't recommend doing that. I've seen those little cupcake towers with a bitty cake on top and I think they're cute! I'm just so lazy about this whole AHR that I don't even want to do a cupcake tower. There's 100 stinking cupcakes and I really don't feel like messing around with trying to arrange them. I think I'm just going to split them up between on the table and have chocolate on one side and vanilla on the other.

Tracy - I'm sorry to hear that you have to go into surgery, I hope that everything is okay. Wendy, did you have a change of heart from the party barge? Cupcakes! We're getting ours from Sam's (cheaper and still taste good). With cupcakes we don't have to deal with cutting it, and DH likes boring vanilla and I'm a chocoholic, so this way we each get what we want. Not wearing the dress. Partially b/c his family made such a big deal out of having a dw that I don't really care if they see me in or not, and partially b/c I just don't want to. I'm thinking about wearing my veil tho... I love that darn veil! Unfortunately catering is not in our budget. We were going to do a few small things, but I just got so darn "inspired" that I just had to make my own side dishes (a friend is smoking a case of briskets for us). It's going to be a lot of work, but it will be worth it b/c we'll save a lot of money. I just went a little above and beyond what I probably should have. Instead of doing normal simple side dishes, I decided I had to make the good stuff and spruce dishes up a bit. It probably wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to feed 100 people. Oh well... lesson learned. No decorations, no cake cutting, no dress, no frills... just us being surrounded by the people we love most and being thankful just for that.

I agree, I thought we'd keep up the chatter for a little while, but I guess we all got busy and back to life Our AHR is this Saturday. We went to a friend's baby shower this weekend and they made all of their own food, so I got really inspired to make all of our own for for our AHR. What was I thinking!!!! I've been pickling jalapeno's for days, I need to start soaking my beans tonight and somehow make 50 lbs of potato salad. Remind me never to be inspired again!

I loved Sascha! In fact, my photos and DVD are waiting for me when I get home! I've been waiting to write my review until I had everything and it was a done deal. I'll post a link to the review when I write it within the next couple of day.

YAY my wedding photo's are in! But I can't have them!!!!! The FedEx lady just called me to say that she's at my house to deliver a package, of which I had no clue was coming and had to ask what it was, and was wondering if someone was there to sign for it. I told her no, me and hubby are working as most people are between 8 am and 5 pm. She says that my dog is sitting out front on the sidewalk and he had barked at her... okay, so he probably is. Our fence is in dire need of replacement and it's on the to-do list, but it's not numero uno. I say well he's not a mean dog and you have my permission to leave the box on the porch. She says no way, she says that my dog may be a nice dog but she's not going to get out of the truck to find out, and that he's apparently deranged. I'm sorry? Then she says that she's not even going to get out of the truck to leave one of those notes that says that they were there for delivery and that you can sign for them to leave the package by the door the following day. My dog is apparently deranged. I'm sorry? You're telling me that you're a FedEx delivery driver and you've never seen a barking dog before? She's on the phone with me and I don't even hear a dog barking. Then she says that I can hand write a note giving permission to have the box left at the door tomorrow. What? According to her my dog is DERANGED and a threat to society. If she couldn't get out of the truck today how the heck is she going to do it tomorrow? I'm sorry, my dog is a 7 year old lab/golden retriever mix. He's old. He's fat. He's not going to far to fast. The school kids like to pat him as they walk by to and from school. He may have barked at her, and I certainly understand her concern for her personal well being. He is a strange, random dog sitting out front of the house. But deranged? Was he chewing on your truck tires? Was his hair standing on edge? Was he frothing at the mouth with a crazy look in his eye? No. He just barked a her. I'll make sure to put a notice out to all the neighborhood children to not ride him like a pony b/c he's to dangerous. What the F?!

Hi ladies! I don't know how I missed this thread before. We got married on April 3rd at the Valentin Maya in Playa del Secreto, Mexico. We had such a wonderful time and it was absolutely beautiful. I live on the south side of Fort Worth, and would love to help any other bride out there or meet up with my fellow bdw'ers! We actually have a friend that's having a dw in St. Lucia and I've been trying to help her out with some of her planning too. My friends took me to the Glass Cactus for my bachelorette party, La Freak played and we had a lot of fun! Thankfully I didn't have to pay anything, but my sil told me that my bill alone was a over $400.00... opps...