lianee

We registered at the Bay and I hated the process.  They discontinue items far too frequently and you have to really stay on top of keeping your registry up-to-date.  But the nice thing is the discount card that you get.  If you want to buy (almost) anything at the Bay, first go put it on your registry, then buy it and get an extra 10% off.  We got a really nice food processor that was on sale for 50% off, plus the 10% off from the registry.

Afterwards I discovered the Bed, Bath and Beyond Registry.  You can register online and it's really easy.  The only problem is that there aren't nearly as many stores as there are for The Bay, Sears, etc.  

Originally Posted by janette34 

Is anyone doing a gift registry?  Neither my fiance or I are expecting gifts since our gusts are paying to travel with us, but I know there will be people who will want to buy something and have asked already.  The only place I could think of online was Sears, but there really isn't anything we need or want from there.  Can anyone think of any other online shops that would offer a nice selection with various price points?

Anel has also been hit and miss for me.  I have a few big questions that are outstanding, especially regarding the photographer.  Since I leave on Sunday, I've decided that I will just wait it out and talk about it once we're there.  My general feeling right now is, "everything will work out in the end"

I was checking online for these a couple weeks ago.  David's Bridal seems to have a good variety and good prices.  Otherwise I'd check some other bridal stores in the area.  Department stores in Canada are a bust (sorry for the pun).  In the end I decided to skip it.  I have cups sewn into my dress and I think it will be good enough because I'm not very busty.  I was more interested in the waist cinching aspect.
 

Originally Posted by seattlebrew 

Hi Ladies,

I was hoping some of you might be able to help me out.  Can anyone suggest a place where I can buy a strapless waist cinching boustier/corset to wear underneath my dress?  I am half an hour east of Toronto.  I have found a bunch online, but I know that this is something that I have to try on.  Thank you for your help!

Melissa

Hey, I didn't even know this thread existed until today!  So far we all are getting married in January.  Exciting!

Congratulations amjohnson because you've already been married for a day!!  Hurray!

Okay, so I know I keep posting about the same thing, but I found the Tide sink packs for even cheaper today!  They are at Rexall for $1.49 a pack (which includes 3 little packages of Tide).  I also got nail polish remover wipes from Rexall - $1.49 for a pack of ten wipes.  I was pretty sure the price on the shelf was $2.99, so I think they were 50% off for a Boxing Week sale.  Rexall also had some decent-looking travel sewing kits for $1.99 each and some first aid kits in the travel section for about $2.99 each.

Anyone know the best place to buy sunscreen?  So far I've checked Wal Mart, Superstore and Rexall.  It's always averaging about $9.99 a bottle (I guess this is the problem with buying sunscreen out of season).  

It's less than 2 weeks until I leave, so I'm getting down to the wire!

I'm pretty excited about my latest find from Costco - a set of 24 LED candles (12 votives and 12 tea lights) for about $24 (I can't remember the exact price) and they include batteries!!!!  I was having the hardest time finding cheap LED candles that included batteries, so I was thrilled to find this nice set from Costco.

Superstore also has SPF lip balm for pretty cheap.  I think I paid 1.99 for packs of 3.  Yesterday they also had some 60mL tubes of St Yves lotion for $1 each.

I ordered my bridesmaid dresses from www.musebridalwear.com 

They are similar to the Henkaa dresses, but I found there were more colour and fabric options.  There are also a lot more style options and they are able to do more customization at a lower cost than Henkaa. The matching tube is also included in the price.

Gorgeous pictures!  This definitely puts my mind at ease about using the resort photographer.  So thank you for that!

Also, I LOVE your flowers.  Are they purple roses with cala lilies?  Or are the purple ones something else?
 

Originally Posted by almostmarried 

It was more then I ever thought it was going to be. We went the the eternity package because we didnt really think we needed the extras included in the devine. ( we are also doing a reception back home) I worried that it wouldnt be enough but it was great. The food was the best I had the whole trip ( which I didn't have one bad meal). The servers were so attentive. We had our reception on the beach terrace and the wedding was on the beach right in front of it( which is right by the pool). We had a lot of on-lookers during the ceremony but didn't really notice after awhile. I guess thats to be expected, but we were left alone during the reception as it got too chilly and dark for people to be at the pool.

 

Ramon was so sweet and helpful. He did a great job.  If there are any questions about the resort photographer and how good they are.. here is my slide show

 

http://112011corytayshawedd.nowsapphire.adventurephotos.com.mx/

I saw this photo a while ago (seashellsinbloom.com), and thought it was beautiful.  My floral package includes my bouquet, but the price for bridesmaid bouquets was out of this world!  This picture inspired me to attempt to make similar bouquets on my own for my bridesmaids. 

Now, here are some pictures of the flowers I made.  I still have to make them into the actual bouquets and get the ribbon for the stems, but you get the idea.  I'm pretty excited about them, but I hope we don'y have any problems transporting them!

Congratulations!  Tell us everything!!

Originally Posted by almostmarried 

Just had my wedding on the 2nd. I loved everything about it!

@82turtles Thanks for all the information and tips!  I hope you have a wonderful time, and congratulations!!  I can't wait to hear about it when you return!

How about some water guns, beach balls and/or frisbees?  Depending on the kids, you could also try some activity books with word finds, puzzles, etc.  Superstore sometimes has their card games (e.g., scrabble slam, monopoly deal, etc) on sale for like $3.00.  Do you think the kids would be interested in those?

All the kids coming to my wedding will be under 3, so we're just sticking with good old sand toys... but 11, 9 and 8-year-olds might not be too old for sand-castle-building materials....
 

Originally Posted by Manda123 

If anyone wants to see my brochures, send me a PM. I don't know how to black out all of her private info, so I feel weird about just posting it publicly. I wouldn't mind emailing it to you ladies, though!

 

For those of you who want to use vista, you can still make them in Publisher and upload them to Vista. Make sure you save the front and back as two separate files, since you can only upload one file at a time on Vista. AND uploads are FREE right now.

 

So a couple of kids are now joining us in Mexico: 11 year old girl, 9 year old boy, 8 year old girl. What do I get kids these ages!? I have NO idea. Ideas ?!

 

I'm sorry to hear that you were disappointed with the food at Now Sapphire.  My fiance is a foodie, and he will be disappointed, but we're past the point of no return now.  Azul Sensatori was #2 on my list when I was deciding, but I had a lot of trouble letting go of my attachment to AM Resorts.  Do you have any other comments about Now Sapphire?  Can you describe what was bad about the food?

 

Originally Posted by jsal4 

Hi everybody! Our trip to Now Sapphire was fantastic. Let's start with the Good...I truly loved the feel of the resort. It was updated but not overly updated, so it still had that authentic Mexico feel. The people working there were amazing! The staff was helpful and friendly. We stayed as Preferred Guests. The perks were nice but totally not necessary. We spent a day by the beautiful pool, a day at the beach, a day on an excursion, and one full day looking at multiple resorts for the wedding. Even though I loved Now Sapphire (from the reviews and pictures online), I wanted to make sure that I considered all my options.

 

We visited several resorts before our scheduled appointment with Anel. During on of the resort inspections, my finance and I fell in love with the Azul Sensatori. So we have decided to have our wedding there. The resort is newer and more modern. But it was the food that changed our minds. The food at Now Sapphire was not as good as we hoped. I have been to 2 other all inclusive hotels and know that the food is different from the US. So I did not go in with super high expectations. However, my fiance and I are huge foodies. I tried my best to keep an open mind (after my first meal was not very good) because we did love everything else about the resort. But after the third bad meal...we knew we could not bring our family and friends here. We cancelled our meeting with Anel so I did not go through my list of questions.

 

I hope that this not deter any of you from having your wedding at Now Sapphire. It is beautiful resort with wonderful people. In fact we saw two weddings and both looked great. I wish all you brides a great wedding!

 

My fiance got his suit last night!  It looks good, fits well, and he says it feels nice!  Maybe I'll try to get him to put it on again so I can take a picture to post.

We're having our legal "ceremony" in Canada, and we're being honest with friends and family about it.  I think some people find it a bit strange, but others are pretty supportive when we tell them everything that's involved with the legal marriage in Mexico (e.g., blood tests, cost, etc). However, I have another friend who basically pretended their DW was the legal ceremony.  She took her marriage certificate, scanned it, blanked out all of the signatures in photoshop and changed it to say "Costa Rica" instead of Alberta... or something like that.  So they signed the doctored version at the DW in front of friends and family to give it a bit more of an "official" feel. 

We won't be signing any fake papers at ours, but we've made it clear with our marriage commissioner that the legal wedding is just paperwork.  We aren't having any sort of ceremony to go along with it, we aren't exchanging rings, etc. Our REAL wedding is going to be the one in Mexico, regardless of where and when the papers were signed.

Thanks for the tips on the chap stick, ladies!

Also, for those of you thinking of buying the tide sink packs, they are $1.79 in the travel section of Superstore, and $2.00 at Walmart.

Hey, if anyone runs across good deals on chapstick with SPF, could you please let me know?  I picked some up at the Dollar Store in the summer, but most of their stock seems not to have SPF in it right now. 

It looks like you can get them directly from Fuji, or from many other places that sell cameras - Best Buy, Future Shop, London Drugs, etc.  They're also on Amazon.ca, so you probably can't order them (for significantly less) from Amazon.com.  I don't get why they are $25 more on the Canadian site... seriously
 

Originally Posted by mishele81 

I was up in the air about doing this , now that I have seen a visual, I love it ! Anyone know where to buy the fugi camera in Canada?  I know amazon sells it but I think I had a problem ordering from there before from Canada.

Thanks!!

Your sashes are lovely!  Thanks for the link!

My travel agent is affiliated with romantictravel.ca.  I don't feel like the prices we got were any better than any other travel agent could get, but I am liking the service I'm getting from my agent, and the freebies that come along with the package.  It's also nice to have the agent coordinating travel for my guests, so that I do not have to do it!  Without a travel agent I'd be more concerned about things like flight times, transportation to the resort and keeping track of everyone who has booked.  Every time someone else books for the trip, she calls me and lets me know.  (she also calls me before she books them to make sure I want them to be there, since I didn't give her a guest list)

 

Originally Posted by ShellyCarter 

Hey guys, since were all canadian.

I was wondering who everyone is booking with.

My wedding is May 14,2012  and i contacted 2 travel agents and the quotes i got

was the same as everyone booking on thier own.

soo i need some help with a candian travel agent of sites to book with.

 

Has anyone used destination weddings.com?

 

 

 

Would you mind posting the picture instead of attaching it, for those of us who can't view attachments yet?

 

Originally Posted by DiamondGirl 

Here's are a picture of my husband in his suit. I ordered him pre-set sizes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went for the Hawaiian Linen Suit.  I'm not sure what the difference is between this and the $99 linen suit, but that's what my fiance wanted.  It was $140 plus the lining for the pants and he also ordered a linen shirt to go with it.

 

Originally Posted by Lola2012 

I can't wait to see the pictures too!  And Congratulations!

We just ordered some swatches.  What type of suit did you go for ?  Was it one of the $99 custom fit ones?  We are also looking at the Italian custom ones that are $199.  They also look great.  BTW was it extra to get lining or is that included?

Thanks!

My fiance just ordered his suit over the weekend.  I can't wait to see it!

How long should I expect it to take?  A few weeks?

@luvmoo - have you thought about finding a seamstress/dress maker in Calgary and having the dresses altered/re-purposed?

The David's Bridal website says it's expected to open in Edmonton in early 2012.  I drive by the future site every day, and it's definitely still under construction.