DramaticAnnie

If you're a bride to be you know all of the contests available to you - well I was lucky enough to win one! I won a 'pink orchid brooch bouquet' from Blue Petyl bouquets(check out bluepetyl.com if you're wondering what a brooch bouquet is).

It's a beautiful thing, in a variety of pink and cream colors. Only thing is, my wedding was turquoise and purple!

We've debated on what to do with this for a while, but like I said its beautiful, but a little fragile. Not sure if this was something they had left over, as one of the pink flower brooches has some paint chipped off one of its 'petals' - I've included a picture of this. And when I was taking pictures to post here one of the little pale pink pearls came off somewhere - I just tucked it in the box, if you can figure out where it came off of you can glue it back on.

It's not very big as far as the width goes, but it's got some weight to it as there are a lot of beautiful brooches on it, so keep that in mind for shipping - I still have the box and tissue paper it was used to mail to me from them. You'd be responsible for shipping charges.

Valued at $325 and never used, make me an offer!

Hi BDW Brides!

I am ashamed to say that I visited this site faithfully in the year and months leading up to my wedding and I had all these plans for posting things but I have never gotten around to it  I'm sorry. But I think I can post in this thread now anyway.

My Oot bags (I will post another thread with pics!)

Bag itself: A LOT of people brought beach bags with them, and my oot bags were a big secret (nobody but the groom really knew about them, my brothers and mom had an idea because I went shopping for stuff with them at one point), so I couldnt tell everybody stop buying beach bags! I'm going to have one there for you guys! kind of thing.. so not a lot of people used the bags themselves but a couple of people used them, and they came in handy as extra carry-on luggage on the way home loaded with souveniers and stuff

Personalized t-shirt from Vistaprint: These I ordered for EVERYONE every time I placed an order with vistaprint for free stuff I'd get a tshirt too, it had people's names on them, said something like "Cruising with our friends ANNIE & BLAINE for their Carnival DREAM Wedding! Then their name and 'April 2012' on the bottom. Some people's had different messages, for my niece for example, it said Cruising with my Auntie Annie and my new Uncle Blaine for their Carnival Dream Wedding! My brother's had my sister Annie and new Brother in Law Blaine, etc. For the people who we didn't know very well (coming as a guest of someone we did know well) we just gave them a 'cruising with the newlyweds Annie & Blaine' tshirts without their names on them. We arranged for everyone to wear them on one of the last days aboard the boat and take a group picture of all of us in our shirts. Oh, I had a 'Bride' one and Blaine had a 'Groom' one.

Note pad & note books from Vistaprint: Not sure if anybody else used these but I know I did! We ended up having to take down a lot of information.

Pen from Vistaprint: Same deal as above ^

Postcards from Vistaprint: I didn't see anybody use these? I had dreams of using them as a guestbook and having people mail us their well wishes from the boat but it just didn't happen.. ran out of time. I know people liked having all the vistaprint stuff as souveniers so nothing got thrown away.

Keychain from Vistaprint: You don't really use keys while you're on a trip, lol, so I'm just guessing people took these home to enjoy them.

Sticky Notes from Vistaprint: Didn't really see these used much either, but they were free

Small free totes from Vistaprint: I put some of the small free totes from VIstaprint into the parents bags if they had kids, so they'd have a bag of their own, and for some kids like my Godchild I put "Godmom & Blaine's wedding Cruise" on it, stuff like that, and his name.

Sewing kit from Michaels: These came in handy, my brother needed something repaired and my nephew popped a button on his suit vest (after one too many buffets lol)

Roll of advil: I am so glad we put these in.. people were asking each other for more advil after they woke up hungover or got too sunburnt

Avon Aloe: I WARNED EVERYBODY about the sun! But the first stop the cruise ship made 80% of the group went to the beach and enjoyed the free booze and snacks and got incredibly burnt. So this bigger sized aloe was awesome. Some people did remember to bring some aloe with them, which I was surprised, usually everyone forgets aloe, but most didn't have any.

Little Sunblock: These I was afraid no one would use because they'd all bring their sunblock, but it was small enough that you could take it with you off the ship and reapply it if necessary (something everybody did after they got burned to a crisp on that first stop)

Tums: I did hear more then one person saying how grateful they were for the tums, there's a LOT of food on cruise ships, lots of stuff you've never tried before, lots of heartburn, lol

Pepto Tablets: ^ lol

Lanyard with zip pouch for your room key: The lanyards I got really cheap on eBay, they were just thin sort of lanyards with a clip gizmo at the end, but my OOT bags due to some kind of mix up weren't delivered to their rooms until the second night of our cruise, not the first night. Most people already got a free lanyard from the casino by this time, or bought one from the gift shop. Those they didn't and used our lanyards found the clip part kept coming off but they loved the little zip pouch so a lot of people just put the pouch on their new lanyards they got from the ship.

Pashmina: It was very hot.. we did not need the pashminas to keep us from cold.. lol.. but the girls loved them and talked about how they couldn't wait to use them at home

La Vie En Rose Aqua swimsuit bags: I didn't go with the crew to the beach excursions so I'm not sure how handy these were... not everyone got one, mostly the bridal party

Customized temporary tattoos: These were awesome! It was a little cartoon US dressed as pirates and had our names and wedding date on there.. biggest problem was almost nobody wanted to put them on because they wanted to save them for home to show them to friends back home, lol, my mom insisted on knowing if I had extra because she wouldnt use hers otherwise.

I will try to post more in coming weeks, this site/forums were an awesome resource for me and I know I need to pay back the favor! Good luck you guys!

TIME SENSITIVE - Any Canadian brides looking for those acrylic type cups with a straw with your logo on there?

4imprint's deal of the day is 36 of these mugs for $129 - regular $270

http://promotions.4imprint.ca/dealoftheday?deal=168

THE DEAL STARTS IN THREE MINUTES AND USUALLY SELLS OUT WITHIN AN HOUR, good luck!

Out of all of the wedding planning thus far, I have finally pulled a bridezilla moment on my wedding party, and it's about the AHR.

I got married exactly a month ago today, on a cruise ship, which was awesome. I haven't posted any reviews, wedding planning thing, breakdowns of my oots, or anything like that yet, but I will.

I didn't get to choose my wedding cake customization, or the decor on the cruise ship. The cake was very simple white two tier cake, and the decorations on the ship was mostly the background of the ship. Now I want to choose my AHR wedding cake, and I want a few specific things for decor, and my family is like no no, just keep it simple, we`ll get like a slab cake from the grocery store, and we`ll use the leftover decorations from the bridal shower and just put up a bunch of balloons.

I bridezilla`d on them. My husband is quite proud of me, lol. I told them I`m sorry if you guys are sick of hearing about this wedding and I know we`re already married and that you all spent thousands of dollars going to the wedding but stop shooting down every idea I have! DH was especially proud of my ``If i want to have a slushie machine at the reception, I`m going to have a fricking slushie machine`` line.

I have no idea if I want a slushie machine really. I just like slushies, and I saw it on the rental form for the party rental place in town, lol. But you get my point.

I don`t want an elaborate affair. Just let me do my own touches, let me make it feel like a reception. I`ll pay for the damn cake and chandelier I want to rent.

It`s not a big cost.. the hall rental is a certain price but my sister runs the hall so I`m sure we can get a discount.. my parents are paying for the catered meal.. nobody has open bars at weddings around here (I think most newlyweds in the area would file for bankruptcy if they did this) so there will be a cash bar at the dance.. my brother in law and the best man are both DJ`s so they`ll be taking care of the music afterwards..

I just want my cake. And a chandelier.

And some white lights.

And maybe a slushie machine, what the hell.

Is that so much to ask

It is nice to see another Cape bretoner on here - didn't realize there was so many of us

My Goddaughter is 14 and if she did something like that we would be more stunned then anything that she would have the courage to do it. But I'm glad you guys all enjoyed it! I don't think we're doing an official first dance at our AHR.. we had that at our reception on the cruise ship.. we're definetely not doing the fatherdaughter and mother and son dance...

OMG you guys, you GUYS, omg.

Is everybody in the April thread married except me?!?!? I have been so busy with everything I haven't been back to this thread since I last posted "80 days til my wedding" and now it's SUNDAY and we're leaving this THURSDAY the 26th to go to the airport, flying out the 27th and getting on the cruise ship/getting married SATURDAY the 28th.

There's still so much to do, I wasn't that nervous until I read over the last few pages and now I'm like OMG I'm posting a quick reply, sending a big CONGRATULATIONS out to all you brides, and heading downstairs to do my last minute wedding projects.

Also it is my fiance's birthday today - I didn't even get him a card! How horrible is that. I baked a cake though? I feel like I should run out and get a card before he gets home from work. lol

I got a good deal on little video cameras at black friday for our best man and MOH.. but aside from that he is getting a flask and some hockey-themed merch (keychain, money clip, cooler bag) with his favorite team

I'm so glad I decided to read up on this again, I totally FORGOT that I bought those wet bathing suit bags at La Vie En Rose for the ladies coming with us, I bought them when I was away and theyre probably still in the front pouch of my suitcase, omg. I just know we'll come home from our wedding week and I'll find something that I bought ages ago for the OOT bags.

I love those tumblers too. We didn't get a travel mug for EVERYONE, we did Bubba Keg Mugs, the ones that go on sale for $5.99 at Cdn Tire, and originally it was just for the boys in the wedding party and maybe one or two others. Then a girl on here who I have bought stuff from before said she was selling 7 turquoise colored slimmer bubba's, like the travel mug style and I was like omg, my wedding color, and there's 7 of us girls in the wedding party if you count my mom and FMIL. We're doing a cruise, not an AI, so its not really necessary to have big cups.

Ugh, I love this idea, since we love to travel. But we've already been to so many places. I think I'll have to cut it down to maybe 25 destinations, hehe..

 

Originally Posted by AD2012 

I can't remember where I read this... But a bride had mentioned that she putting together a box of 50 destinations on vintage like paper and they were all the places they should travel over the next 50 years. I am adding my own spin to this and making a photo album/scrap book with 50 destinations, our first being mexico for our wedding and our last being our dream home. As we travel to each spot we will place a picture or two on that page of the album. That way we can flip through the album and see where we've been and still need to go. Some of the destinations I'm adding either one of us have travelled to just not together.

 

I think it's going to be a lot of work but totally worth it! I also am running out of time!!

There is a way to disable the flash on the iphone, where it says "Auto" (or maybe it says "On") change it to "off" ! I'm looking forward to seeing the engraved mugs too

Aww this is really cute! Beautiful DIY job!

This is the most 'cruise ship themed' favor I've found:

You can find them cheaper on ebay then most wedding favor websites! So do an ebay search first..

I've also seen cruise ship luggage tags which I don't really like very much, you can do a personalized luggage tag for cheaper and nicer then the one I've seen on websites.. that wheel is cute though.

My guests are getting OOT bags filled with necessities, pashminas, and then a boatload (pardon the pun, teehee) of stuff from vistaprint, including a tshirt, notebook, pen, sticky notes, notepad and keychain (I started ordering my vistaprint stuff when there was still more then a year to the wedding!)

No problem guys

And yes, I definetely recommend getting OOT stuff early. Unless you've paid for your wedding, cruise, airfare, various hotels before and after the trip, insurance, and all your transfers already? lol.

I got my advil packs and little sunscreens last summer, just kept an eye on the expiry dates. I got immodium packets and pepto chewables too, again, just watching the expiry dates.

I am also flying with Air Transat and they let you check two suitcases.. so what I think I am going to do is fill a cheap duffle bag or box with our OOT items and just leave it there once I get all the OOT stuff dispersed..

I wasn't fussy about the colors, as we are not giving a mug to everyone coming, just for the guys in the wedding party and a couple more of groom's friends. I also wanted to get them engraved but the couple of engravers I called had never even heard of bubba mugs so I just didn't want to take the time to lug them in and be told they couldn't do it... and I shipped them to the hotel a couple months ago and I was coming up on my shipping date (i.e. trip to the states).

That was going to be it! Until a fellow BDW member posted that she had 7 turquoise bubba travel/slimmer style mugs for sale and I have already actually bought about three seperate things from this lady so I knew she wouldn't let me down - I bought them all for my bridesmaids and my Mom/FMIL. Except I'm not sure about getting one for my junior bridesmaid.. mostly because there are 8 of us and 7 cups and I kinda want one.. lol

I DID put the tags on them (I got it on here somewhere, something like I hope you enjoy this bubba mug to use by the pool, etc etc) which I thought were worded really nicely and again, the creativity of the brides on this website never ceases to amaze me.

Buying some cruise ship themed decorations from BuyCostumes.com tomorrow unless we call the party store in town and they have the scene setters I want!

Thank you! I was/am so proud of these

I got my OOT bags through an overstock sale on 4imprint - they were able to sell me a less amount of bags then the minimum they wanted because I did not get them printed! I am planning to put a lovely tag and ribbon on it so people will be more inclined to use it again after the wedding.

I contacted Carnival about these bags and they said they can deliver the bags after the ship has set sail which is fine with me, I am getting married on embarkation day on the Carnival Dream so the wedding and reception will happen before the ship even sets sail, then once we are on our way they will be delivering the oot bags to my guests cabins. But you can get them delivered on a certain day of the cruise. This is what they sent me:

Preparing Items for Cabin Delivery

.         All gifts should be prepped, packaged, and labeled to be completely ready for delivery prior to arrival to the ship.  The ship staff will not assist in prepping items for delivery.

.         If the gifts/items ARE cabin or guest specific, they must be labeled with the guests' names and cabin numbers.

Cabin Delivery Arrangements

.          Deliveries will be made on embarkation day or at turndown on a requested date

.         Delivery Fee: A $1.00 per cabin, per delivery fee will apply for delivery of group provided gifts. This nominal charge is actually a gratuity for the Housekeeping Staff as they will be providing this special service atop of their standard duties.

If there is anything else we can do for you please don't hesitate to ask.

Hope this helps! Good luck with your planning - and DON'T hesitate to buy your oot bags/oot purchases NOW even if you are a year away.. I am so glad I bought my OOT bag stuff last year, I got pashminas, manicure sets, sunblock, aloe, the whole nine yards and my fiancee kept saying its so early, its too early.. and NOW that I am 51 days from the wedding day and 49 days before we leave, I have no TIME or MONEY to be buying ANYTHING oot.. so I'm sooooo glad I got it in the early days!

When I first discovered BDW I fell in LOVE with all of the boarding pass invitations and the passport style invitations. I have never seen anybody doing anything like this for weddings around here, ever, and I knew I would BLOW people's minds if I did something like this.

There was a lot of personal deliberation but I finally decided to go with the passport style for our wedding invitations which we sent out ages ago to give people as much time as possible to book and start paying - we are getting married on a cruise, on embarkation day (before the ship leaves port in Florida).

With much help from Allurements by Rebecca who designed the passports and our fabulous monogram for us, we totally wowed our guests and family members with our passport invitations. People are still talking about them! A great success.

Of course I was still wistful about the boarding pass invitations.. lol.. so when my MOH told me we need to do the invitations for my bridal shower I wanted to do boarding passes!

I try to keep stuff from my MOH and BM's to surprise them, but I seriously could not have done these without them.. even with a paper cutter, doing all the little trimmings and cutting, then folding the frigging cardstock - oh I couldn't find a bulk pack of turquoise card stock (and it was impossible to find metallic turquoise) so I found a "Cape Cod" pack of 50 cardstock at Michael's for $3.99 - this pack of 50 had 10 each of the original turquoise color I wanted, then 10 of two other blues which were more aqua or tiffany blue, but I figured this is the cheap way to go so let's use those too! So that's why you'll see different color blues... Oh and I bought a starfish/sand dollar punch but I couldn't get it in the position I wanted so I didn't use it. The raffia took me forever to find, couldn't find the natural color at Michaels, couldn't find it at the dollar store, finally found it in the vase/fake flower section at Walmart.

We're doing a 'cruise theme' bridal shower in a big hall we're renting, and we're planning to decorate with even lounge chairs and inflatable pool toys, etc., so I kept with the 'your ticket to paradise' theme of the boarding passes and this is what I came up with!

Lol.. the raffia bows were very nice and neat and trimmed in the beginning.. from the time we started to the time we were done it took us six hours.. so by midnight when we were done the bows were kinda raggedy..

Thank you to the more-then-one boarding pass templates from fellow BDW brides that I mooched off of! You guys and your creativity never ceases to amaze me!

Do you guys personally use the EmergenC? I got the gatorade packs for my oots for hangover helpers and wondering if I should grab some EmergenC? I've never heard of it before these forums and wondering how it works?

WOW! I'm soo impressed! And you're a Carnival Bride too! I'm getting married on the Carnival Dream on April 28th, and I've been on the Liberty - I got engaged on it in 2010! Eeeek

I love everything.. I love your bag, I wish I had spotted that one, I have a similar one but its' got navy trim, and I wanted something more closer to turquoise, oh well. I am uber impressed and so envious of your welcome packets with the timeline and everything in them, wow! I am getting married on embarkation day so they told us we won't even know what time we're getting married until 2 weeks before the wedding date.

I have put most of my stuff in a 'wedding week survival kit' but I really like how you broke yours up into three little kits.. especially the fun stuff like star wars pez, my fiance would love that. But he would hate it if I broke up all of our survival kits now as we spent a lot of time packing them up.. lol.

Thanks! I'll be sure to check out those sites, I'm not opposed to a pre owned wedding dress since this dress won't be my main dress

I'm thinking something like this: http://www.davidsbridal.com/Product_Halter-Chiffon-A-Line-with-Center-Front-Draping-9BR1007_Bridal-Gowns-Shop-By-Style-Destination but knee length! I probably would have ordered this already if not for the outrageous shipping and duty fees (almost another $100) and just got it hemmed to knee length We'll see!

We went the TA route as well. We cruised in 2009 for the first time, then cruise in 2010 and got engaged onboard the Carnival Liberty, and are set to get married on the Carnival Dream on April 28th, 2012

We had people pay deposits of $60 each at the very beginning just to hold their room, with full deposit of $250 per person due in order to confirm their room. Their full cruise price was due January 28th of this year and those were all done, then we booked a group flight again through our TA, a little more then what we were hoping to pay but there's no luggage fees and it's a DIRECT flight (thank goodness, just came back from a multiply delayed flight for work and realized my father would never stand for this lol).

Best of luck!

Hi fellow BDW brides

It is coming down to crunch time and I am exactly 2 months to the day from my wedding on April 28th, 2012. I am getting onboard the Carnival Dream cruise ship in Port Canaveral, Florida before departing on a 7 day Caribbean cruise with 39 of our family and friends.

Aside from all of the other drama going on right now (one husband of a friend of ours is determined he's going to hijack one of my groomsmen and get drunk the morning of the wedding and be loaded before the ceremony, one of my bridesmaids father has just told her he does not want her to go and is being really rude about putting her down and accusing her of leaving her responsibilities behind (she's totally not), and generally everybody's money woes are being placed on my shoulders not to mention our own)...

I have just decided that I need a second wedding dress.

Am I crazy? lol

The dress I chose was the one I fell in love with, it's got lots of color IN it... so it's a white dress with a lot of turquoise embroidery and trim and ribbon.. and it's big and heavy and I still love it. I'm going to wear it at our AHR too.

The thing is.. now i'm thinking, it's Florida, I'm going to be really hot and aching to get out of the dress by suppertime, when everybody else is going to want to keep partying through the evening, which I don't mind, but I'd like to change into something lighter but still wedding-y for the evening. I'm thinking something white chiffon (very light and airy) that comes to the knee with little straps as opposed to the heavy satin strapless ball gown I will have on all day. It also needs to be plus-sized.

I have other elegant dresses I'm taking with me, to wear to the 'Elegant Night''s on the cruise, one purple and one black and silver, but I want the dress I wear on my wedding evening/night to be different.

Where am I supposed to get something like this at such short notice? lol And is it even possible? Should I just forget it?

I've looked at lots of websites that have lots of nice plus sized dresses but nothing in white. I also don't want to be spending a lot of money on it. Any ideas?

I'm getting discouraged with my boarding pass invitation (wanted to do them for my bridal shower). The turquoise colored cardstock is available online for great prices but the shipping to Canada ranges from like $35-$55. It's ridiculous for shipping. Then when I get to a Canadian site like paper garden where the shipping is about fifteen bucks, the price of the paper is dramatically higher, like they don't sell packs I gotta pay per sheet. Boooo. My hopes and dreams are being diminished.. lol

If there are any CANADIAN brides who have a FREEBIE VISTAPRINT email that still works can you please email it to me?

Hi There, and Welcome.

We got engaged on a Carnival Cruise ship in April 2010 - and right away decided to get married in 2012 to pay off some of our debt, we didn't want to go MORE into debt for the wedding. In March 2011 we decided to get married on a Carnival Cruise ship and asked some important people if they would join us (my dad, his mom) and once they said yes we told everyone close to us (wedding party, siblings) and others just booked because they like the sound of a cruise anyway.

Now it is February 2012 and all of my friends who were telling me in March/April 2011 "oh there's over a YEAR to the wedding we have LOTS of time to save money" are almost all now crying over expenses.. so I would say once you book somewhere and are able to give people some $$ figures.. sooner the better.