Emily’s Planning Thread I can’t believe I’m here finally writing my planning thread! I discovered this site shortly before I got engaged and was so intrigued by the idea of a destination wedding. It just seemed to be “our type of thingâ€. Joe and I love to travel and try to go on at least one vacation a year. I was so inspired by all the beautiful weddings I saw on here that I immediately knew this was what I wanted for our wedding when the time came. Our Engagement: Joe and I started talking a lot about marriage and had started looking at rings so he could get an idea of what I liked, so our engagement wasn't a total surprise, but I didn’t see it coming the day he proposed. We have known people who got engaged while on vacation, and Joe had always said he would always be too nervous to do this because the ring wouldn’t be insured yet and something could happen to it while away, so when he proposed on our first night of a cruise I wasn't expecting it! We were doing a 7 night Caribbean cruise leaving out of Miami in December 2010, and flew down to Miami the day before the cruise started. We relaxed and explored Miami the day before, then boarded the ship on December 5th. This was our third cruise, but the first cruise that we had taken just the two of us. We boarded the ship and spent the day exploring the ship and watching Miami fade into the distance as we headed off for our first port (and of course who could forget the wonderful lifeboat drill!). After dinner I was tired and just wanted to relax in the room, while Joe was trying to convince me to go down to the lobby bar for a drink. I was lying on the bed and he asked me to come over and give him a hug (which should’ve put me on alert since that’s not really like him). When I finally got up he got on one knee and asked me to marry him! The Planning Begins: Joe was completely on board with a destination wedding from the moment I suggested it. We started looking online at different location and eventually decided on Mexico. After sorting through tons and tons of resorts on trip advisor, on this site, and the resort sites themselves we eventually settled on The Chapel at the Gran Caribe Real. We knew we were going to have a slightly longer engagement than is typical for a few reasons: 1) we wanted to give people as much time as possible to save up so we could have as many people joining us as possible, 2) we knew we would be paying for the wedding and wanted to be able to save to have the wedding we want to have, and 3) we really wanted to buy a house first. About 6 months after we got engaged we did a site visit that we split between The Gran Caribe and The Royal (their adults only sister resort) and we loved it! During our planning process we bought our house and are so happy we had a longer engagement so we were able to do that first! Stationary: We got both our save the dates, invitations, programs, and menus from Vistaprint. (We also sent our travel brochures but I can't seem to find a picture of those.)
Wedding Attire: My dress is WTOO Natalia by Watters. This is me at my first fitting! My MOH bought me this beautiful hair accessory that also can be a pin that I can wear on a nice black dress to celebrate an anniversary or something special, which I really loved! I bought my jewelry at Kay. These are my sash and hair flower laid out at one of my fittings. I found a pink pair of Christian Louboutins that I fell in love with for my wedding shoes! My garter from Victoria's Secret And of course Bride underwear from VS: And a VS Bride robe to get ready in. For my bridesmaids we order Bill Levkoff dresses in Glacier. I got my MOH this pin for her dress from Etsy. I got the flower girl dress at Old Navy Groomsmen's ties which they wore with Khaki pants adn white button down shirts. Grooms's tie which he wore with a khaki suit.
