cookiemunchkin

I know this is an old thread but hoping someone knows... Are there any wedding planners in Mexico that can help with a Sikh ceremony? The resort the wedding will be at has never done one before, so some outside help would be fantastic.

Hi ladies!! I got married in Feb and then have been MIA from this site for a while. Just wanted to drop in and say hi . Congrats to those ladies who got married after me... I was looking through the pics posted here, and you all looked beautiful! I'm glad all your weddings turned out the way you wanted. This thread seems to have died over the last few months!

lol my husband was shocked too... he was like "you're going to do WHAT!!?!". But I figured the dress was already full of sand (and theoretically ruined) so I had nothing to lose! The dress was satin and tulle with lace appliques and lots of beading

I'm sure I will horrify people by saying this... but I came home, turned my dress inside out, and put it in my washing machine (front load... i wouldn't do this with top load) on the hand-wash cycle... and it looks brand new again. We did the same with hubby's linen suit, looks good as new. Give it a good rinse in water as soon as you get out of the ocean though. Dont want to leave all that salt sitting in your clothes.

Natalie -- beautiful pictures!! You looked stunning... and your photographer is just amazing. Wow. other Natalie (hehe) -- love that cake topper, it is SO cute! Sandy -- so excited it's almost your turn!! Ahhh its been so long since I was on this forum, lot to catch up on lol. Hope all of you are doing well. I will FINALLY post a planning thread this week in case it may help those of you who are still planning.

Yay, see you ladies then! And thanks for the PM to let me know... I haven't been checking in here very much anymore now that the wedding is over lol. I started working on that planning thread though, will post over the weekend

Congrats Sandy!! That's exciting news Linds, you look beautiful!!

I made my own Passport invitations because... well I dont really know why haha, we just didn't want to pay $8+ per invitation. Can send you my template if you felt like doing it yourself as well. I'll be posting it in the template section once I have a chance to remove all my personal info from it too . If you decide to go that route, just know that it is a lot of work. The 30th is pretty much the ONLY night that week that I am busy, going to the hockey game that night! Any chance we can meet on the 29th instead?

Oops hit submit too quickly there! What we had told our family members that didn't support our decision was that we understand that not everyone will be able to (or want to) travel for our wedding and that we completely understand if they dont come, as much as we want them there. We thought this would ease any bad feelings, but sadly it didn't. Some extended family members thought (and still think) we were inconsiderate for choosing someplace so far away. Thankfully though most of them understood that we wanted something different and special and were just sad that they were unable to make it. We realized though that whether you get married at home or someplace far away, you will never be able to please everyone. So work on pleasing yourself, because you and your fiance are the ones who need to look back on this day and be happy with what you decided.

Parents... we told them that we wanted a small, intimate wedding and it was too hard to narrow down a guest list if we did it at home. Destination wedding was our way of being able to invite everyone (and not offend anyone by not inviting them) and still know that we would have the small wedding we wanted. Plus, even though it ultimately cost way more per person, our overall cost was about half of what it would have been if we got married at home and that was a huge factor for us since we were paying for the wedding ourselves. The size part won over one set of parents, and the cost part won over the other set lol. Family members that didn't support our decision... unfortunately we are still dealing with that and our wedding has passed. I feel worse for our mothers who are incredibly offended and angry that their families didn't come to our wedding, and there has been a lot of fighting going on between them and their siblings. That part sucks

Ditto!

We bought a color laser printer for home because we figured we could spend the same amount at a print shop or we could buy the printer and still have it for future use. We bought a Brother (9000 series, cant remember the exact model number) for around $400 on sale at Staples and printed out 100 passport invitations (cardstock cover and 2 double-sided sheets on the inside), welcome letters for the OOT bags, tags for the favors and a whole stack of other documents to take on our trip and STILL have not used up the toner that came in the box.

My father-in-law broke it down the best for our guests. His opinion: flight to somewhere nice would usually cost around $800 anyways. So really for about $130 a day, you are staying in a beautiful room (which someone cleans for you every day) at a 5-star resort right on the beach, eating as much great food as you want, and drinking all you want and enjoying free entertainment each day. Not too bad when you look at it that way!

Things I would do again: join this forum get married at Dreams Tulum! We couldn't not have chosen a better resort book with TA Becky make my own guestbook... ours had photos of us and romantic quotes throughout the book, but most pages were blank and templated for people to tell us how they know us, where they came from, and leave us a message. We also took along an instant camera and had someone take a picture of each person to glue onto their page of the guestbook. Tons of compliments on this! extend the trip to stay a few days after all the guests leave... we really had no time to relax while everyone was there and badly needed some quiet time to ourselves afterwards spend our extra days at a different resort! Resort #1 felt empty once everyone else had left take a photographer from home... we were comfortable with her because we got the chance to know her and i think it comes through in our pictures trash the dress session! soooo much fun not stress about who did or didn't come... that majority of our families didn't come (mainly our friends that came) and neither of us were bothered. As long as our parents and some friends came, we were happy. custom order my wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses from a seller on dhgate custom order my husband's suit and groomsmens clothes from studio suits have our wedding rings custom made... they are very "us" passport invitations... people loved them, and we got a ton of compliments on our "keepsake" invitations OOT bags... people were so appreciative of the thought, used everything in it, and it really didn't cost us all that much after some smart shopping hire DJ Doremixx (Ivan). He was great and brought some really good energy to our reception. Such a pleasant person to work with! get legally married before leaving Canada. Much simpler than all the things we would have had to do in Mexico (blood tests, 4 day requirement, translations, etc) Things I wouldn't do again: fly with Sunwing allow my mother and MIL to be bothered by who didn't attend DIY invitations... we did passports and I now fully understand why it costs so much order them. A LOT of work! buy two wedding dresses before finally having the perfect one made (oops lol) procrastinate! I kept convincing myself I had a lot of time and one day realized I had very little time left order centerpieces from the resort... way overpriced and not what I had in mind Things I wish I had done: give the photographer a list of specific pictures to take... I completely forgot I wanted one big picture of everyone and dont remember taking some other pictures I know I wanted to get videography... it would have been nice to see the ceremony and hear everything over again, it was all such a blur the day-of spent more time on the beach! The days before the wedding were spent running around, and the days after were spent making sure we had some quality time with each person... there was very little "do nothing" time exercised more beforehand... I was totally not in the shape I wanted to be, and its because of pure laziness

Just wanted to add our review as well, we were SO impressed with Studio Suits! My husband ordered pants, vest, shirt and jacket and we ordered shirts and pants for the groomsmen. All were linen blend and custom sizes and everything fit perfectly! We mentioned to Studio Suits that we needed to have these by a certain date, and they made sure we had everything by that date. They did contact us once to say that one of the measurements seemed off and asked us to retake it, so there is definitely some quality control happening when they make each piece of clothing. I would highly recommend them! And order swatches before you decide what color you want. We didn't do that (just ordered based on website colors) and his suit was lighter than he had hoped. It still looked great, but if we had time to order swatches first we probably would have done that. He's so impressed with the quality and fit that he will order from them again. No one can ever tell by looking at it that it was a $99 suit!

Hi ladies! I am back from my wedding! The sad (and very embarassing) part is that even though I took the starfish all the way to Mexico with me, I totally forgot to put it in my bouquet! I feel like the world's biggest idiot lol. I did remember before the reception though and put it in our table centrepiece, so at least it did get used in some way. Still kicking myself though. Katelynn is after me on the list, but still a couple months away. I will just hold onto the starfish until April 1 (in case someone else gets in on the list in that time) so that she doesnt have to pay to send it out twice in case someone else wants it before she needs it. JanineA's blue starfish: JanineA Nov. 13th 2010 (Nov 10-Nov 15 -Turks&Caicos) MrsJ2011 Jan. 2nd 2011 (Dec 31-Jan 8 - Jamaica) Cookiemunchkin Feb 19th 2011 (Feb 16 - 23 Riviera Maya, Mexico) Katelynn May 3rd 2011 (Apr 30-May 7 - Jamaica) SouthernSweetie June11th 2011 (Moon Palace, Cancun) Peterpanpixiedust June 18th, 2011 (Jun 14-Jun 26 - Cancun) Sorod1 July 30th 2011 (Jun 28-Aug 11 - Jamaica) AishaB Aug. 21st 2011 (Aug19-Aug22 - Cape May) Diamondgirl Oct. 8th 2011 (TBD) Clgriffi7 Nov. 5th 2011 (Nov 2-Nov 12 - Riviera Maya)

We booked our date about 6 months before the wedding and got the date we wanted with no problem. I think the date itself would determine how hard it is to get though (eg. 11/11/11 would probably be impossible now). Which resort are you trying to finalize your date with? Maybe someone has some other contact info you can try for a better response.

We ordered my hubby's suit and the groomsmens pants and shirts (linen blend for everyone) from www.studiosuits.com. The quality was amazing and the clothes are made to fit specific measurements. We were really impressed and all the guys plan to wear their clothes again. There's a thread somewhere on this forum where a bunch of other people have posted pictures and reviews of the clothes they ordered from this company too. Prices are really good too.

Hola ladies! Just got back from our wedding at DT and it was just amazing. Honestly, the coordinators do such an amazing job that I am still blown away! I know previous brides keep saying your stress just disappears as soon as you meet with one of the WCs and it is soooo true. We worked with Natalia and she had everything completely under control. I'll write a more detailed resort review later in the reviews section, but just wanted to give you ladies the important wedding-specific points here We had booked the junior suite preferred club oceanfront and were upgraded to the honeymoon suite when we checked in. The room itself is not much different from the junior suite, but the view is amazing. We were right above the seaside grill with a view of the dolphin pool on one side and the wedding site on the other. Our room (8340) easily has the best view in my opinion. We wanted to have a welcome dinner the night everyone arrived, and the coordinators very nicely arranged for this at no cost at the World Cafe. We had one entire corner of the restaurant blocked off for just us, it was a great way to greet people. Paying for extra canopy setup honestly isn't worth the cost. We paid almost $200 extra for a "custom" setup that we wanted to see but it really didn't turn out anything like we were expecting. It still looked very nice, but not much different than the basic setup and not worth the extra cost in my opinion. Rosely at the spa did my hair and makeup and she is amazing. I was a little worried about having someone do my makeup so I did a trial with her the day before my wedding and was blown away. She is very good but speaks almost no English so bring pictures of things you like so that she knows what you are looking for. Be warned that she will use literally half a can of hairspray in your hair and you might freak out but its is so necessary in the humidity. All my curls loosened to soft waves once I had been outside for about an hour. Rosa (the spa manager) was also very kind and helpful, even came to greet me at the spa the day of my trial and did some translating for me and Rosely. If it is important for your guests to be able to hear you during the ceremony, rent the sound system. We didn't (didn't matter much to us if people could hear us as long as we could hear each other!) and a few people mentioned they had a hard time hearing us over the ocean. We hired the harpist for the ceremony and I think it was a beautiful touch. If using Kiko Flores for your ceremony, make sure he knows your names well. Partway through our ceremony he forgot my hubby's name and started using different variations of my name for both of us! It was funny to us, but some people may not find it as amusing lol. I got to hang out in my room with my bridesmaids until Natalia personally came to get us and escort us down. We had our cocktail hour on the lobby terrace, and I would definitely recommend this location! It's quiet, out of the sun (our poor guests were melting during the ceremony) and gives a great view of the grounds. A bar is available literally inside the lobby doors if people want something other than what you've chosen. Ivan from DJ Doremixx was great. We had given him a pretty big list of songs we wanted him to play and he did that. His assistant brought out some props at various times (masks, glow sticks, balloons, etc) and its surprising just how much everyone loved those! You would think we had never seen balloons before lol. One of our guests was the MC for the evening and Ivan lent him a microphone to use for the night. We had our reception at Seaside Grill and it was perfect. It was very windy in the evening, so they closed off one side of the restaurant with these drop curtains so that people could eat dinner comfortably and then opened those up again when the dancing started. Small issue here is that we started the reception at 6:30 and they took the food away at 8:00 (which I suppose makes sense, you cant keep food sitting out for too long in that climate). This was a problem for us though becuase our guests seemed to have a hard time arriving at 6:30 and we didn't actually get everything started until 7:20... didn't leave much time to eat, but this was our guests fault. SOmething to be aware of if your guests are like ours though . We went with the buffet and everyone raved about the food. We paid for the extra hour of reception time until 10:30 which I have mixed feelings about. On one hand, we really needed that additional hour because we were not done partying. But on the other hand, I dont understand why we are paying when the food is already gone and the bar we are using is not a private bar anyways! Its the bar that is situated right besided the dolphin pool. Maybe they close that bar when the seaside grill is closed though? I dont know. The bar was definitely used by more people than our wedding group though. And we had a party crasher lol. Almost everyone came to the disco afterwards to continue dancing. One of our guests had an ipod full of music and the DJ there was more than willing to play that for us. That is about all I can think of right now, but if you have any questions reel free to shoot me a message! I will post pictures if/when I ever get some back from our guests Oh and on an unrelated note, we flew Sunwing and had so many issues with them I dont even know where to start. Rather than accepting responsibility for things they messed up, they blamed as much as they could on our travel agent (who we knew did not deserve the blame). Just be extra careful of details and take copies of everything you were promised if you happen to book with sunwing too.

Hola chicas! I'm back and officially a married woman . I can now look back and say all my stressing was for nothing... we had the most perfect wedding and I could not have been happier. I didn't even care about all the extra charges they threw on us, I was too happy to care lol. Now if only I could get people to send me some pictures from the wedding, my life would be complete haha... I feel like I'm the only person that hasn't seen anything! Would love to meet up with everyone! Linds, I am dying to hear about your wedding! star - check Expedia like Proti mentioned. Also, sign up for the mailing list of every hotel in Vegas you would want to stay at. Thats what I usually do a few weeks before booking trips there and you can find some great deals that way. Last time I went to Vegas was April 2009 but I paid $500 in total at the time to stay at Planet Hollywood for 4 nights

Don't cry! I'm sure a good seamstress in your area can help you make the changes you need to this dress. I ordered the exact same one from babyonline and had the same issues with the bunching of fabric on my lower tummy (I swear it looked like it was for a baby belly lol) but a seamstress here was able to fix it for me and I loved my dress afterwards. Mine also turned out a bit more trumpet than I wanted as well, I'm wondering if thats just how this dress is made? I dont know if we are the same size, but I do plan to sell my dress after I have it cleaned (I took it into the ocean with me lol). I do hope you are able to have your dress altered the way you like though! Speaking of babyonline, I just read a lot of the more recent comments about their customer service and I'm a bit surprised! They were super accommodating to me when I had my wedding dress made (I did ask for a lot of very specific things and was charged almost double though... little annoying but not a huge deal). Also ordered 3 bridesmaid dresses through them and was very happy with the work. When I decided at the last minute (3 weeks before leaving) that I wanted a reception dress, they even went out of their way to rush my order so that I would get it in time! I dont know if the person that some of you have been speaking to recently is just not the same person I was lucky enough to deal with (I was chatting with Sunny) but my experience with them was fantastic. Fingers crossed that their service returns back to excellent once their holiday is over and that you ladies get your dream dresses too

I am out of here in 12 hours! Still not all that excited yet, but I am definitely getting there. I think I'm more sleep deprived than anything haha, will be catching up on that on the plane. Hope you ladies have a fantastic couple of weeks and I'll chat with you when I am back!

We're off to Mexico tomorrow for our wedding on the 19th! Just wanted to thank everyone for their advice (OceanWonderland and barbiegirl_27, you two were LIFESAVERS for me!) and I'll be sure to pass on some updates for the future brides when we are back. 12 hours to go!

Sandy - got your dress AND band now? Yay! I have to ask, did you try them both on together yet? I know I would have lol. Proti - hope your dress gets here soon! The waiting is torture, I know. Linds - hope the last couple days before you leave are stress free!! So glad you are excited for your wedding now, I'm still waiting for it to set in for me lol. I'm slowly getting there though

If anyone is still looking for cheap beach cover-ups or dresses, the Fairweather in Deerfoot Outlet Mall (off Deerfoot and 64 ave NE) is clearing out everything and they had a TON of stuff! Lot of things that are 3 for $10 and 3 for $20. My MIL and I practically cleaned out the place lol. We had our legal stuff done this weekend! I keep calling him husband and he keeps telling me not to wear that out before our "real" wedding in Mexico, but I cant help myself haha. It feels nice though