lilyletigre

Does anyone know for the legal ceremonies, does the justice of the peace speak Spanish only or will they also perform the ceremony in English? I heard that they'll only do it in Spanish but all the videos I've seen are in English. Hopefully someone can provide an answer!

I would also love a copy of the template for the programs!! My email is jarvie2013@hotmail.com. Love your planning thread!! I'd never heard of offbeat bride so I'll have to check it out! Thanks and can't wait to see more!

Love that Paul McCartney song!!! I think it would be great for your cake cutting!

I just had some lash extensions done at Noir Lash Lounge. I wanted to test them out for the wedding. I wanted to be able to go mascara-free on the beach while having a little extra length for the big day. They cost me $75 and they're supposed to last for 2 months. It's been 1 week and only 1 lash has fallen out and they still look great! I would highly recommend them! I'll be getting a new, fuller set right before I leave for Mexico.

We're doing aqua/mint and coral/salmon - variations of shades. Looks beachy and tropical and it's all the rage right now!

We're walking down the isle to The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra's version of "Somewhere Only We Know" originally done by Keane. The recessional will be Keane's original version of the same song. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole also does a really amazing version of "Sea of Love". We'll be playing this as our guests are being seated.

Does anyone know of a vendor that does projection screen and equipment rental in the Mayan area?

Lperry - I totally understand - don't let anyone make you feel bad about the way you're feeling! While your sister has every right to be nervous, she doesn't have the right to flip flop on you! I'm dealing with the same thing with my sister. One minute she says she can't afford it, the next she says she'll be there.. But then the next day she complains about how she doesn't think she'll have the money. I told her I can't really afford to have a "maybe bridesmaid" and that didn't go over very well. I'm tired of people giving vague replies! Just say yes or no! It's really frustrating and I totally get it. I would be just as frustrated if I were you. PS. I would be so choked if my bachelorette party turned into a big birthing/breastfeeding convention. I don't have kids (yet) and I can't tell you how much people with children bother me when they monopolize every conversation with their baby's pooping habits.

I totally feel your pain..!! All of my bridesmaids (with the exception of my MOH) backed out and bailed on me! My FI has 4 guys on his side and I have 1. I've ended up having to ask people to be my BMs who I wouldn't normally have asked. Don't get me wrong, I love them but they weren't my first choices and I feel bad because that's not even fair to them. We had a million people saying they'd go and they were all really pumped - even when we told them the price. We did not get a single RSVP after we sent out the invites - I started Facebooking and texting people and even then, I barely got any responses. It's so incredibly frustrating and we're starting to regret the whole DW idea. We've even had people tell us the Mexico trip is pointless since we're having a reception back home!! Once we heard that, we canceled the AHR and told people that it was because of my school schedule. If they don't care about us enough to come to Mexico to watch us get married (especially when we know they can totally afford it), then we don't care enough about them to hold a reception on our dime when we get back! We told people we were getting married in Mexico well over a YEAR before the trip. We told people in September 2011 to start saving for January 2013 but clearly people don't actually take anything seriously until closer to the date and, SURPRISE - they can no longer afford it in time. My cousin got married in the Dominican and it cost $2600. I was a full-time student working part-time and I managed to save the entire amount within 10 months. Most of our friends live at home and don't pay bills or they're family that is well-established financially. It's really upsetting that these people don't care enough to save some money and share in our special day. I'm glad that I'm not the only one going through this (but also sad that others are having the same problem). Every destination wedding I've seen in my group of friends always has a huge turnout - and some of the resorts are waaaaay more expensive than ours! One of my friends had a whopping 90 people at her wedding! It's like pulling teeth to get people to even TELL us they're coming or not. One of the main things that bothers me is that the resort we booked was not my first choice. My first choice of resort was more expensive but had a cheaper wedding package ($5000 cheaper!) but we decided to go with a less expensive resort with the more expensive wedding package so that people would be more willing to come. Now we're stuck paying way more than we wanted for the wedding and nobody is coming! Sometimes I just want to scream. I keep trying to tell myself not to stress but it's tough. And it makes planning impossible when you don't know numbers. Rahh..! Okay I'm done haha.. Feels nice to vent! Phew..

Greetings, Fellow Destination Brides! I have found this website to be extremely helpful so I thought I would start a planning thread in order to help other Dreams Tulum brides with their process. I literally just booked our wedding date for January 14, 2013 today so I will continue to update as I go along. For now, I'll start from the beginning... My fiancé's name is Cameron. We had been together for five years when he proposed on a bench in the garden of our new house that we'd bought a couple months before. He awoke me from a groggy nap on the couch and lured me outside by saying he had a belated housewarming gift for me. I shuffled my lazy feet out the front door to see him dressed up, holding a big bouquet of flowers and a bottle of champagne. He sat me down on the bench and started talking about one of our first dates all those years ago - on this date, we sat on a bench and it was there that we both realized that we were with "the one". Before I knew it, he was down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I don't even remember saying yes! I just jumped into his arms and started crying. After initially starting to plan a winter wedding in Vancouver and discovering that it would cost over $35,000 because of both of our large families, we decided to go with the less expensive option of a destination wedding. I'd always wanted a destination wedding but Cam had always wanted something more traditional. He quickly changed his tune once he saw the golf course wedding prices! I started researching resorts immediately. Every coffee and lunch break were spent scrounging the internet for reviews, pictures, and information. I have spreadsheets galore comparing wedding packages, prices, locations, etc. PICKING A DESTINATION: It was really important for us to have not only a reasonably affordable resort for our friends and family, but also one on the higher end with a great wedding package. We decided on Mexico for this reason - it's the cheapest. People will complain about the price either way so it was really difficult to find a good compromise. If I can offer any advice so far, I would say to start as early as possible! It can take up to a week to get quotes from tour operators since prices aren't released yet. We have been corresponding with tour operators via our travel consultant since early January and it's now March. We would have liked to have gotten all of our stuff together and have our invitations sent out long ago but it's been much longer of a process than we originally planned on. We will hopefully have our invitations sent out next week *fingers crossed*! I initially set my heart on the Playacar Palace, but after getting quotes of $2100 from the tour operators, I had to give up that dream. We then started looking into wedding cruises as that seemed to be a more affordable option but it quickly turned out to be much more of a hassle than I had bargained for. Cruises don't really have wedding packages so you're forced to book everything separately. They also don't do receptions (just cocktail hour) and that is something that is non negotiable with me. So back to Mexico! Dreams was my second choice after the Palace resorts - simply because the Palace has AMAZING wedding packages for quite cheap. Their communication is also fantastic as the main wedding office is based out of Miami instead of on-site. The only reason Dreams was my second choice is because of the higher wedding package cost and the less extravagant wedding decor. I contacted Dreams Riviera Cancun and after the first initial response email, I never heard from them again. I emailed several times as well as wrote a few times on their Facebook wall. Even after a Facebook response saying to expect a direct message from them, I still did not hear back. It's been over a month and I've yet to hear back. This lead me to Dreams Tulum. I know it sounds bad that this place was my third choice, but I've been extremely happy with them thus far. The wedding coordinator, Natalia responds to my emails within a matter of a couple hours and has been very helpful in answering all my questions. Since we just confirmed our wedding date for next year, she informed me that I would not be hearing from them until about two months before the wedding date; however, any questions I have are welcome. Now is the time to sit back, relax, and plan the fun stuff! That's all I have for tonight! I'm a full time nursing student so I don't have a whole heck of a lot of time to write on here regularly but I do promise to update as I go along. And I'll make it more "reader-friendly" because I realize this first thread is a bit wordy.