StThomas2011

Update...(if anyone is still reading this) I finally sold the wine glasses on Craigslist (7 months later!) for $50! Woot.

Thanks to everyone for their comments. I feel much better about the situation and have kind of just let it go. Our weddings have passed and we barely see each other these days. It is what it is and we still do have the wine glasses in our place trying to figure out what to do with them. Thanks again!

That everyone here at BDW (moderators and members) are great! I've posted on TheKnot.com and those girls are vicious and just plain mean! I feel like everyone here is so friendly and genuinely willing to help or give constructive advice. The girls at TheKnot.com just want to make you feel bad about your choices! BRAVO BDW!

Thanks! It was so much! We had a great time. I'd like to think that as well, but just from how she's been acting, it wouldn't surprise me if she got them at her shower and decided she didn't want them. But maybe you are right....I'll try to look on the bright side.

Angel, Actually my husband looked it up and figured it out. It was a set of wine glasses and though they were nice we live in a small condo in the city and just don't have the room (we have a ton of wine glasses). So we were trying to find out how we could exchange them for something we could use. And that's how it happened.

Little back story to help you understand....and it's long, so I'm sorry... My husband and his friend had made a pact about tell each other when they were going to propose so no one suffered the wrath of angry GF. My husband made sure to tell his friends that he was planning on proposing to me while on vacation in St. Thomas and was picking up the ring in a few weeks. His one friend said NOTHING to him. Then a week later, they are driving home from work and his friend says "I'm proposing tonight, I just got the ring this week and decided to do it." Husband is quite thrown off by this, but doesn't make a big deal about it. That couple had been dating for about 2.5 years less than me and my husband had, but I knew we were gonna get engaged eventually. But when I found out and had to go and celebrate their engagement, I was having an emotional day and got super pissed!!!! I got over it a few days later and then in a week or so we were going off on our vacation to St. Thomas and I couldn't wait To make a long story short, he proposed to me in St. Thomas and we decided to get married almost exactly a year later down there. I thought it was very romantic and symbolic. Well his friend's fiance got REALLY cold towards me once she found out that we were getting married before her. Mind you, it took them forever to pick a date...probably 2 months longer than us. I didn't do it out of spite or anything....it was just a date/time of year that was important to us. Throughout the entire year we were both planning a wedding, she would barely discuss anything about hers. It was like she was keeping it secret as if I would steal her ideas. Ummm...I'm getting married in paradise, and you are getting married in a city...not the same at all! As you can probably guess, they were invited, but didn't attend our DW because they ended up planning theirs exactly a month after ours. I'm not mad about that at all, because I can totally understand the stresses of being a bride. The thing that I'm most irritated with and so is my husband is the fact that the weekend before their wedding at our AHR they brought us a REGIFT. And you know how we know it's a regift? It's not available anywhere and we even called the company and it was discontinued about a year ago. Now you all might be saying "it's the thought that counts," which is totally true, but honestly? As a bride who is getting married a week later, you should know better. Needless to say, we didn't give them our typical cash gift and it wasn't something they registered for. I know it's petty of us, but I just can't believe they would do that. My husband and I were talking and we had said that we wouldn't have even thought anything of it if they had just showed up empty handed... Yeah, the gift is on Craigslist and I'm trying to sell it! Ha!

Both very good points mandys. I couldn't agree more. Having just had a DW in February, 2011 (starting planning about 11 months before), I can tell you this: 1. For the most part your guests aren't as excited as you are about the DW/Vacation. Not saying that they aren't excited, but your wedding isn't the main priority in their life as it is in your life. 2. The majority of our guest started booking flights/hotels about 6 months out. Most people don't plan regular vacations a year + out. What I did to kind of push people along is I actually helped find cheap flights and condos for them to stay at. I did a lot of the leg work for the guests and it really helped them get excited and start booking. 3. When you chose to have a DW, you chose to alienate certain friends/family members. Not everyone can drop their lives and that much money for a wedding/vacation. We invited around 80 ppl and 45 were able to make it. Were some of the ones who couldn't make it really close friends? Yes. But I knew that was the situation when we decided to do a wedding in St. Thomas. My husband had a really hard time with this during the planning. He would get really mad and upset when friends would decline. I had to explain the above scenario to him many times and by the end he understood. It really sucks that you have bridesmaids who can't make it though, because they should have thought long and hard before saying yes. We decided that instead of having a big bridal party, we'd just have my sister and his brother and then our other friends will be there, but not feel forced into being there as attendants.

Starrysim...here you go! I did one close up so you could see more detail, but the other one is clearer! I hope this helps. I love my rings

I found this right hand ring before my wedding and I had the center diamond set into it. Not necessarily for my wedding, but I ended up wearing it on my big day! I just think it's beautiful and I get so many compliments on it! My photographer loved it as well and insisted on taking a picture of it! I got married on St. Thomas and they have a traditional "Hook Bracelet" that is sold all over the Virgin Islands and I also wore that on my wedding day.

I got mine on Etsy just in case I didn't love the flowers that the hairstylists had. And wouldn't you know, I liked the fake ones better! The ones the stylist brought were just too small and I wanted a little more dramatic. http://www.etsy.com/shop/olinidesigns

Morgan, I personally think the ring is cool and he is the one wearing it! And the picture makes it look way more green because if you think about it, the green on the inside won't be showing anyways. If you think it suits his personality, then I think you should let him get it!

Schmizer, I am definitely more of a very simple ring kinda girl (my ering is a solitare round cut with a very thin platinum band), but your ring is so unique and beautiful! It is so ornate and I just really like it!

Starrysim, the dress actually wasn't really that trashed. I was able to wash it in my washer at home and hang dry it and then donate it to a really great charity! The pictures are totally worth it!

You can do whatever makes you happy! I was the co-MOH in a very traditional wedding state side wedding. It's not longer the norm to have one MOH and one Best Man....it's whatever works best for your scenario. I've been to weddings where there are 2 MOHs and only 1 best man or vice versa. My husband and I got lucky because he had a brother and I had a sister, so we just went with the two of them instead of making it complicated and asking half of our guests to be in the wedding party!

Tara, I'm pretty sure it's REALLY HOT in July, but you should be able to ask Janelle and she'll be able to help you with that information. She lives there year round and know what HOT is

Here are the shoes that I wore! There were so many cute heels, but when I saw these, I knew they were perfect for a St. Thomas wedding!

I'm so on the fence about the whole cash/gift giving DW/AHR. My husband and I moved in together almost 2 years ago, so while we had most everything we needed, I wasn't opposed to getting some new stuff to replace it! So we registered for a ton of stuff. I had a small shower beforehand with women who were invited to the DW and a few of my mom's friends who wanted to come (it was only about 12 ppl). I registered for that and got a ton of stuff from the registry, which was really nice. We got married on St. Thomas in February and we are having/had 3 AHRs (one more left!!). If people who went to the DW gave us gifts or didn't give us gifts, I wouldn't have cared either way. However, everyone who went was our really close friends and we've gone to their weddings and stuff and they all reciprocated and gave us gifts! But for the AHRs, we started to feel like we were being greedy and having these parties for gifts. So in order to feel better, we actually wrote on the invitation "Your friendship is special to us, we ask that you bring no gifts." We ended up getting a TON of gifts, but we really wanted to put it out there that we weren't expecting anything from anyone. IMHO if you want money, don't say anything at all and mostly not on the Invitation. I think it's severely tacky to write anything about gifts on your invitation. You aren't inviting people to a wedding to get gifts, you are inviting them to celebrate your love. If you don't write anything, then people will probably give you cash, but if you specifically ask for cash, you will most likely offend people and they will buy you something you don't want and you'll be stuck with it!

My stepmother passed away 4 months before our wedding and I was racking my brain trying to come up with a good way to honor her at the wedding, but to not overdue it and hurt my mother's feelings. She had already purchased her dress for the wedding (which happened to match our color scheme perfectly) and when my dad was cleaning out her closets and donated items, I asked him if I could have it. I took the dress to a drycleaner and had him cut strips of fabric and make them into ribbons (you can do this yourself if you can sew...I cannot). Then I used that as the ribbon wrapped around my bouquet and my sister's (MOH) bouquet. It turned out lovely and it really made my dad happy when I told him what I did. It was a subtle, but nice way of honoring someone important who can't be there on your special day. Here is a picture of how it turned out:

And here is a picture of me in it the next day! So much fun!

My wedding date was 2.25.11 on St. Thomas and here is my dress. It was David's Bridal ES9808 and I trashed it the next day! I loved the simplicty of it and the straight lines. It also had pockets!

We got married on St. Thomas, USVI on 2.25.11 with 43 of our closest friends and only our immediate families. We didn't even invite any other family. So obviously, we felt we had to do something at home to celebrate with everyone. However, I'm from Cleveland, Ohio, he's from Upstate New York and we both live in Chicago, IL....so we decided that we would just have 3 AHRs to cover all of our bases! The third and final one is coming up and I can't wait to be done! Here were somethings that we struggled with as we planned the AHRs: 1. Almost everyone asked if I was going to wear my dress again. The answer to that question is no, for 2 reasons. If I was having 1 at home reception, I would think about it...but 3 is just too many to wear a wedding dress over and over. and 2, I did a TTD session in St. Thomas and though it wasn't trashed, I didn't really want to wear it again (I donated it instead). 2. As with everything that comes with weddings, people will be offended by something and we decided with that having 3 AHRs looked like we were just trying to get $$$ and gifts from the people we didn't want at the St. Thomas wedding. So we decided that on the invite we would call it a celebration and ask for no gifts. We ended up getting a TON of gifts (and mind you we have one more to go), but it made us feel better that people knew they could just come and celebrate and have some fun with us and it wasn't about gifts. 3. Favors? We didnt' do favors because we weren't asking for gifts from anyone, so it really wasn't even a thought in our minds. But we did pay for dinner and drinks (wine and beer for 3 hours) for everyone. 4. Who to invite? We just went all out and basically invited everyone. I think we ended up inviting at least 400 ppl to the AHRs. Totally ridiculous, but it was just easier to invite everyone than exclude people. Keep in mind that this is your wedding and you should do what you want, can afford and makes you happy. I wouldnt have done these AHRs, but my husband insisted on them. And honestly they havent been so bad, but I'm just ready to be done!

We had a total of 45 people at the wedding in St. Thomas and that equated to 25 bags total. We spent around $30 per bag and here is what was in them: ~The bag was actually a reusable grocery bag that folded up quite small for traveling purposes and most of our guests ended up using them as beach bags while they were down there (which is what I was hoping for)!!! We had 2 colors, blue and orange (our wedding colors); ~Towels in orange and blue with a ribbon wrapped around it in the opposite color; ~A Mix CD with our favorite songs; ~Sunscreen with a personalized sticker with "Enjoy Your Stay, Amy & Greg, St. Thomas, 2-25-2011"; ~SPF Chapstick; ~Water bottles; ~Snacks; ~A "St. Thomas Survival Kit" that included Advil, Pepto, Propel powder, mints, and antibacterial hand wipes; ~An itinerary of events; ~A welcome letter personalized to each guest; ~And since we were getting married on St. Thomas, we bought mini bottles of rum (Cruzan which is made on St. Croix) and Spices from the St. John Spice Company. This would have been what we gave as a favor, but we put it in the bag instead and didn't do favors at the actual reception.

We just got married 2 months ago! Here is a picture of my e-ring, wedding band and his ring....our photographer (www.elishaorin.com) was having fun taking pictures of them! I wanted a very simple e-ring and then a blingy eternity wedding band! I love them both!

Wow Tara! You are gonna have 100-150! That's awesome! We had 45 total (including us) and I thought that was a lot! Are you planning other activities for your guests? I set up a Charter to the BVIs through Limnos. It was at the guest's expense, but I was able to work out great deals with the company because we booked and paid in advance and it was awesome! Also, we used Elisha's husband for videography and we haven't received the DVD yet, but I'll let you know how it turns out! As I think I've said before, we used Elisha for Engagement, Wedding and Trash the Dress (7 hours over 3 days)...I'm in LOVE with all of my photos! She is totally worth the cost! And it's funny that you mention that about Bolongo Bay and the bad reviews. I had 2 guests stay there (most of our guests stayed at Sapphire Beach) and they loved it. They said it was so cute and nice! Maybe they took the bad reviews to heart and cleaned up.

@Kim, I didnt fly Delta, I flew US Airways, but I think it's pretty standard throughout. And it's not something you call ahead for....it's just a courtesy.