Katiem2012

This is a great list! We usually split our clothes up too... just in case.. lol. I can't wait until I get to start packing... although I have TONS to do before then!

We did the same thing, though we are flying out of Canada too. FI and I put our deposits down end of June (though we were able to in May for most locations) for our wedding in April 2012. Our guests had to submit their deposits by October for an early booking bonus.... We wanted to make sure our guests had tons of time to plan... we even sent our Save the Dates out in April 2011 lol.

We're going to have about 45 or so guests... but I think we're just going to go with place cards and forget about the seating chart, less to bring with us down there... I hope our WC will take care of putting out the place cards, that will make things so much easier

ahh I know only 5 months away! I need to update my to do list... and get moving on the OOT bags... how far along in planning is everyone else?? I feel like I have so much left to do... yet not much else I can do yet...

1. How old are you? 25 2. At what age did you/will you get married? 26 3. Do you have children? Nope! 4. Did you think you would marry the person you are with now? I was pretty sure! 5. Were you ever engaged or married to someone other than the person you are with now? No 6. Do you want a garden wedding, beach wedding, or the traditional church wedding? Beach wedding 7. Where did you/will you get married? Punta Cana,DR 8. First dance - classic waltz, slow and sexy, or fast and spicy? slow and sexy 9. How many guests did you/will you have? We invited about 60 and 36 have booked so far... so somewhere between there 10. Do you want/did you have an extravagant wedding or a simple wedding? simple 11. Vows - traditional or something you make up on your own? We're writing our own 12. How many layers of cake did you/will you have? Not sure yet :S 13. Is/was your wedding/reception at a hotel? It's going to be an evening beach party... at the hotel 14. When did you/will you get married - sunrise, mid-day, sunset ? mid-day with a sunset reception 15. Did you/will you have your reception outdoors or indoors? the dinner is indoors but the reception party is outdoors 16. Plan every detail down to the napkins or let someone else decide? I'll do a combination of both 17. How did/will the bride enter? horse and carriage... 18. Song to walk down the aisle to: Most likely Marry Me by Train 19. Song to make your exit: We haven't decided yet... 20. Will you/did you have a solemn ceremony or a light one? Light 21. At what age did you think you would get married? 24ish 22. Who to invite - practically everyone or a select few? a select few 23. Wedding menu - fine dining or simply delicious? simply delicious 24. Champagne or red wine? Champagne 25. Honeymoon right after the wedding, awhile after the wedding, or no honeymoon? We're doing a short 3 day weekend away right after, and then going on our honeymoon a few months later... 26. Was your/will your honeymoon be at a place special to you both or somewhere brand new to you both? brand new 27. Who will pay for the bills? We split down the middle with him paying some and I paying the others 28. Living together: Not before marriage or absolutely before marriage? absolutely, we bought a house! 29. Anything else about marriage you'd like to say? Only 5 months, I can't wait

My biggest stress so far is a combination between getting guests to book... and planning for the actual wedding... or I should say lack of planning! We arranged an extremely good rate for all of our guests, but they had to put a $200/person deposit down by mid October to hold it... Now people are arguing with our TA because the rates have gone up a bit...still cheaper than the posted rates though... We sent out save the dates last April (a full year before our wedding), and provided them all of the rates at the start of July so they had lots of time to save.... so far of the 50 people who have confirmed verbally that they are coming, only 30 people have booked... and 2 of the groomsmen still haven't booked.... So I'm trying to plan out seating space (number of tables, centre pieces etc) and OOT bags for an indefinite number of people... it's so difficult to buy in bulk... I'm going to end up with 20 extra of everything, 20 few of everything or somewhere in the middle...

Thats good to know. I've been debating using their salon.... but I think I'm just going to have my sister do my hair and makeup. Her friend works for MAC and is going to show her how to do my makeup right... and we'll just experiment with a few different hairstyles till we find something that works for me that she can do... I want a simple hairstyle so it should be doable. I'll give the option to my bridesmaids if they want to use the salon or do their hair on their own/each others... just hope it works!

These are fantastic things to remember... point 2 is something I feel I could use very often... i usually do take things personally....

I was stressing over the exact thing a month ago - and still am to an extent! Our wedding is end of April 2012 and we sent out our save the dates in June as soon as we put our deposits down on the trip and reserved 35 spots (which was the max we could reserve at a time). I was hoping that most of the people who had verbally confirmed would put their deposits down ASAP as it was only $150/person...the deadline for full payment was October 20th for the early booking discount and on October 15th we had us, our siblings, parents and one bridesmaid booked... on October 20th we ended up with 35... so many people booked in those last 5 days I couldn't believe it! Alot of people called our TA late and are planning on booking in the next few months, as there is still plenty of time!

Wow! I can't believe the BM acted so immature and difficult! What a way for him to show support for you and your FI! I'm curious as to how it all turned out as well. I hope you had your dream wedding even with his craziness!

I love this! such a good article!!! I would have to say that even though I laughed at a couple of the points, many of them are right on!!

This is such a wonderful thread! We haven't started working on our script yet, but I've pulled so many great ideas from here already! Thanks to all the brides who have posted their beautiful scripts. I'll be sure to post mine when we're done

Ahh I'm so excited for my wedding date!! I can't believe that its 7 months from today! eek! Has anyone been able to receive a menu for their date? I've asked Carolina (the WC) for one but she keeps telling me I need to wait until we get there to finalize a menu... I'm too impatient lol

To be honest, I can't remember how much the bottle was, but I did get a bigger bottle, like the size of a mickey... I do remember thinking it was pretty reasonable for rum and that it was cheaper than here! Hope this helps!

Giving alcohol isn't cheesy at all! At least it's something they are going to use, and that's from DR is a big plus! They'll have a little piece of the DR to take home with them... and the first time I went to the DR I actually did bring some rum home with me as a kind of souvenir lol

This is fantastic, thanks for sharing!! I'm just starting to think about my welcome letter and OOT bags now... so much left to do... :S

I was really against the TTD at first as I didn't want to ruin my dress... but after seeing so many fun, gorgeous pictures (and my FI being in love with the idea) I caved. I'm not even buying a cheaper dress to use. The way I look at it, I'm not selling the dress and it'll mean so much more to me when I look at it years from now knowing all of the fun I had in it. We've already booked the session with our photographer for the day after the wedding... I can't wait to run into the water with my dress on lol...

We're doing DIY for the extra's... we're having our ring barrier carry a large shell filled with sand, with a nice box (with the rings in it) sitting on top of the sand down the isle (I'm a little nervous of having the ring outside a box in case he trips or something happens... it could be difficult to find our rings in the sand) . Our flower girl is going to have a white basket with shells along the the rim with the blue flower petals... although I still haven't found a large enough shell I may end up changing back to a pillow or something else for the ring barrier....

I can't wait to get to 150 posts so I can open these files, it's taking me forever!

I'm really torn on this issue... I really was against the idea of having a shower as I don't expect anyone to give us gifts when we're already asking everyone to travel for us... plus my FI is from the east coast and I don't live anywhere near my parents and my friends are spread out across the country... so no one is close. But now I've had a ton of relatives and friends ask when/where we're registering and everyone is expecting me to have one... I thought it was against wedding etiquette to invite people to a shower that weren't coming or weren't invited to a wedding, but many of the individuals asking about registry info fall into one of those 2 categories.... I'm so lost on this issue

MY FI and I are paying for everything ourselves. Both of our parents were planning on contributing to our at home wedding, but when we decided on a destination we also decided we were doing it on our own. Now don't get me wrong, when I went to put the deposit down on my dress (which was $600) my mom had her credit card out and really wanted to pay for it.... I just explained to her that FI and I had decided we were going to pay for everything ourselves and although I appreciate the gesture, we wanted to do this our way.... took quite a bit of convincing, and now she's claiming to add the sum to our wedding present... very sweet but unnecessary lol

Haha I'm scared of this too! We were at a wedding a couple of weeks ago and the groom smooshed cake all over the bride's (who is also my really close friend) face... I thought she was going to smack him. My my FI started laughing and thought it was a great idea for about two seconds till he saw my face... LOL

A scavenger hunt is such a good idea!! I may have to consider making one of those myself with a prize for the winner!I can't wait to get to 150 posts so I can see your welcome booklet! In our invitations which we're made to look like passports with a few pages of inserts, we included a mini itinerary so guests have an idea of whats going on before we even get there.

Wow I thought I was the only one!!! Once we were engaged it was planning planning planning, it was all I could think about... and now it`s like I have very little interest... I have tons of time with our wedding not till next April... but I`m a planner so not planning this is really weird for me! I`m glad I`m not alone in this! I hope we all get our mojo back soon!!!!

Thats funny Courtybeens! We got engaged Christmas Eve 2010 as well and are getting married a day after you!