marinah84

Interested in ampersand and Chapstick labels. Do you know what shipping cost would be for me? (44026)

 

 

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The & sign is 12"x12", so it's right on the cusp of the size for USPS.  It looks like it'll be somewhere between $4-6.

@@marinah84 I'd like the flower girl ball and the hole punch for the door hangers depending on the shipping to Toronto M4k 2n8

 

 

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I'll look into that today - the ball is 6" so will need to find a box that will work!

Items for sale!  More as I get more time to go through and sort my spare room

http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/topic/79146-wedding-items-for-sale/?do=findComment&comment=1895327

I'm starting to sort through the HUGE pile of things from the wedding.  Quite a bit is not worth shipping (due to damage/fragile/weight, etc), but here are some things that people might want!

All items are somewhat negotiable - buyer will pay exact shipping & paypal fees (it's 3% + .35) as I'll send an invoice.  It gives both buyer and seller something like 145 days of protection that way.  I ship out asap, once I've received payment.

As I find more things, I'll post them to this thread and update the bought/sold.  Feel free to ask any questions!

AVAILABLE ITEMS:

Ampersand Sign ($) - Photo Prop - $8

@@marinah84 what airline did you fly with the bag?  I'm considering ordering one of these bags off of Amazon but Jetblue doesn't have any hanging space and I'm not sure about them allowing this kind of bag. 

I flew Southwest Airlines, and did not have hanging space.  It fit in the overhead fine, and the dress wasn't overly wrinkled.  I had it steamed at the wedding, which I would have done anyway.  I think my husband ironed his suit, but not sure if the bag made it any worse than it would have been otherwise - I think he just likes to iron his nice clothes

Sold!

Crown Club Paradise Cancun - Resort Review

I've requested BDW add this resort to the "Resort Reviews" section, as I can't find it, but in the meantime, I'll put this here!  If I have anything else to add, I will

My review of Crown Paradise Club Cancun with 30 guests & 2 kids:

Hotel – 8/10; Overall, we were pretty pleased with the hotel.  We looked for a cost efficient resort that had decent reviews on the hotel, and was kid-friendly.  Some of the rooms smelled a little moldy when we checked in, but that’s a pretty common thing in the tropics.  The hotel was very clean overall, the grounds very well taken care of.  Most of our guests booked the standard rooms, and were updated for free to the upgraded rooms with hot tubs in the room.  We had 2 kids with us, so we had the standard with 2 beds.  It was adequate for what we needed.  The biggest complaint I had was the tub was VERY steep to get into for the regular room (shower was in tub) and had the same issue with the honeymoon suite room.  They should (for the honeymoon room at least) have a walk in shower only, not a combined shower/tub.  The kids also used the “seat” in the edge of the tub as a slide, and bathtime was a little rough!  The hotel is close to the airport, and decent location to get downtown/go shopping/etc.  The resort next door is run down, and some of the guest rooms overlook it.  It’s not a huge detraction for me, because we didn’t spend much time in the rooms, and we joked we had our own “ruins” and didn’t need to go see the Mayan ones haha.  There were some renovations going on the night before the wedding, including jackhammers; luckily they finished knocking down one of the on resort buildings before the wedding, or there would have been issues (it was LOUD).

Beach – 8; I didn’t have a huge issue with the beach, but in this part of Cancun, all the resorts are right next to each other.  The sand is very light tan, and the water gorgeous.  The wedding area is not separated, however, and while no one could come on our part during the ceremony, the post-ceremony pictures we had people who were rude and walking through/behind pictures and we kept having to wait.  It’s not a huge beach, either.  It was great for what we wanted/needed, and was a GORGEOUS backdrop for the ceremony.

Food - Buffet - 7, Restaurants 8, Room Service - 5; The buffet food was pretty good, we could always find something to eat. They did offer a good variety of food choices, though many times the choices were the same/similar.  They had several fish items that were absolutely delicious, which I don’t typically go for “mass produced” seafood.  The desserts were good as well. The restaurant food was amazing – but the portions were SO TINY.  We ate at Wayne’s Boots Steakhouse for our “rehearsal” dinner, and my husband was literally pissed because he thought we paid extra for it.  The portions were tiny – the steaks were probably 2oz, maybe 3, and there was hardly any food.  DELICIOUS, but not much on the main courses.  We (bride & groom) ate at all of the restaurants except the Mexican because we ran out of time.  Everything we had was absolutely delicious.  My advice – order 1-2 appetizers and 1-2 entrees per person, depending how hungry you are.  Room Service - there is a $5 charge now for room service, since they give you a mini fridge that they put water and (assorted, depending on room) pop & beer.  Supposed to be $5/person, they only charged us $5 for the room (got it day of the wedding for the bridal party and people getting ready).  Food was meh – burger was burnt on the bun, not a lot of options, but didn’t take more than 30-45 minutes to get there, which isn’t bad with the size of the resort.

Bars/nightlife - 7; The bars were ok – this is a family-centric resort, so it’s not excessive. There was a pub style bar that is connected to a dance club, which was fun.  We were mostly late 20s/early 30s, so we’re past the “party all night and get wasted” stage (for the most part LOL).  The karyoke night was fun; they did cancel the trivia night because not enough people came.  It was adequate for what we needed/wanted. We didn’t go to any of the nightly shows personally, though some guests went to the Elvis one and said it was the best they’d seen at a resort.

Staff – 10;  Seriously, they were AMAZING.  They remember you, and especially after our wedding (where a bunch of drunk guests jumped in the pools, and instead of freaking out, the staff was laughing and taking pictures…apparently it doesn’t happen often, even though the outdoor reception area is RIGHT on the pool lol), they would make a point to seek you out.  Somehow, my staff nickname was “Mami” (probably because I had the two kids); they would say hi and remember my drinks, and try to get me to do shots LOL.  Very pleasant experience all around with the staff.  I made sure to tip decently as well, and we did tip very generously for the staff at the wedding due to the excellent service.

Pools - 8; There were 2 family pools, 1 kids pool and 1 adult pool. We went to all the pools – my kids were small, and I loved there were different “levels” of pools.  The main pool (infinity looking over the ocean) had a lot of activities and games – one of which on the first day was who could go furthest underwater…if I hadn’t been worried about my lash extensions, I would have kicked their butts with my swimmers lungs haha.  The family pool had a bigger section, then a small pool which was perfect for most of the time with the little kids.  It wasn’t hard for us to get chairs, and we went during spring break time.  The adult pool we stopped in on the last day – other guests had told us that it’s very quiet, and while it had it’s own bar, it was very mellow…except when they blasted music.  It seemed ok to us – be careful of the drop off in the middle, other guests said they sit to watch new people slip off LOL.

Wedding Coordinator - 10; Evelyn was FANTASTIC.  She is the ONLY wedding person on site, and she runs around like a mad woman.  She was amazing over 18+ months of emails (starting in September 2013, before we were even “officially” engaged lol) and got back to me very quickly.  I was very organized (I made her a packet with instructions & pictures) and she did a seriously awesome job.  I was worried about miscommunication, or price jumps because everything was so reasonably priced, but everything went really smoothly. 

Ceremony - 10; We met the group room minimum (was 15, I believe they now have a 10 room option), so our basic ceremony was included.  The basic ceremony included the chairs with sashes, the aisle runner, shell decorations, and the altar setup plus the minister.  It was fantastic – well coordinated by Evelyn, and ran very smoothly.  We did have TONS of guests watching – I barely noticed them, but some guests took pictures of all the people watching, and it was a lot.  If that bothers you, this probably isn’t the resort you’re looking for, haha.  Minister did well, it was a little hard to understand him sometimes, mostly because we were looking into the sun and I was trying hard to keep my eyes open.  They let us do a guest-led sand ceremony, which turned out beautifully.  We used beach sand, and brought a little sifter to get out the pieces of shell/etc (it was a good idea!), and used oil pourers to pour into a picture frame.  We also did a tequila shot (blue margarita) at the end of the ceremony – they served it for us (including non-alcoholic shots for the kids and adults who don’t/couldn’t drink) and it was super cute.  My husband spilled it on his white bowtie/shirt; probably due to his hands shaking so badly, haha, but we got it out.  It was a great way to end the ceremony!

Private Dinner Reception – 9, DJ - 6: We upgraded to the private dinner reception on the pool, and it was definitely worth the extra fee.  The setup was great, next to the infinity main pool with poolside bar shut down for us at 6pm.  We went with the 5 hour reception (630-1130), and it was the perfect amount of time.  It also came with some of the extras I would have had to buy a la carte with the 3 or 4 hour option (microphone, fireworks, lights for the area, etc) – so it only ended up costing about $200 more than the 4 hour, and was a great amount of time.  Dinner was good, the drinks were fantastic, and the shots were FLOWING.  The staff loved how many tequila shots the guests did…apparently we can drink!  The DJ was just so-so; he wasn’t very good at MC’ing, but we also made the decision the week before to have a DJ, because I didn’t have time/desire to coordinate an ipod since mine died and I’d have to buy a bunch of music that I didn’t already have.  For $100/hour, he wasn’t terrible and well worth not having to worry about the music.   The guests LOVED the maracas to shake for a kiss – highly recommend doing that!  They sell them on the resort for $3 for 2, if you don’t want to bring them/go off resort.

Photographer - 10; We used Samuel Luna, who was absolutely amazing.  I’ll do a full review on him soon, but he was perfect.  A little slow on responding via email, but he’s a very busy person!  The resort vendor fee was very reasonable - $150 was the only charge, and it was actually the only charge we had for outside vendors.

Make-up & Hair - 10; I used Sara Tamargo, who was fantastic.  You can see my review here (http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/reviews/r/4968-sara-tamargo-makeup-artistry/), and they did not charge me a resort fee to bring her on for either the trial or the day of the wedding.

Overall, I’m extremely pleased with our wedding experience.  We wanted a reasonably-priced all-inclusive resort with beautiful water/beach, that was both kid-friendly and had adults-only options.  I’d definitely recommend this resort!

I almost like her version better than my actual cake I thought the real one was a little tacky, I'm more of a simple look. They put way to many flowers on there for my taste. By that point in the night, I was just glad we had a cake before the photographer left lol!

She was very professional and did a great job. Highly recommend!

Quick update

I ordered a Christmas ornament of our cake from this Etsy vendor (https://www.etsy.com/shop/CMYKlays).  It was very reasonably priced, especially as the original vendor I found on Pinterest started at 150-400!!

It's adorable!  I love it!

I made my daughter's dress from tulle

Here are some instructions - I used an old pair of shorts, and about 20 yards of tulle I think?  It cost me about $15 total to make, because I got the fabric flowers 50% off at hobby lobby

I got my son's suit at JCP - didn't exactly match, but he looked pretty cute!

Here are some couple photos post ceremony:

I know you ladies wanted to see more pictures - here is a sampling from our ceremony from Sam Luna!  He sent over 900 pictures, so I'll slowly winnow them down to share!

@@marinah84 I'd be interested but not sure how much shipping would be to Canada

Message me your zip code/postal code, and I'll look it up!  It weighs about 4.5lbs shipped, though the box is a little awkward.  

Hello ladies!

Starting to slowly go through wedding stuff and sorting out what I need to get rid of!

I know I won't need this again, so this is definitely on the list.  I bought this on BDW from another bride, and it's still in basically perfect condition!  I fit my 10lb+ dress, shoes, TTD dress, flower girl outfit, husband's suit and shoes in here, and it still had room.  I carried it on the plane (Southwest) and it fit in the overhead just fine and had no issues with it being a carry on.

$90 + shipping (it was around $15 so I can do that as a flat rate for USA, Canada I'll probably need a quote from the post office).  Selling for new for $122+ on Amazon USA as of this morning.

Pictures on request!

@@acw271011

Hmmm - here's a different link, does it work?  I got it straight from the album under "Get Link" for this one!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.784031153664.1073741863.54300091&type=1&l=a8a5688cd7

@@Wafflesmom

It was a BLAST!  So much fun!  We both swam in college, so I think it was a little easier.  Towards the end, though, I was definitely getting tired.  I fell asleep in the car on the way back to the resort, haha.  I loved that I didn't have to worry about mascara with the eyelash extensions, too!

Trash The Dress Photos!

I've been CRAZY busy lately, but wanted to stop by and say I got my photos from Sam Luna the photographer over the weekend!

I've made a public FB album of our cenote Trash The Dress session - it was AMAZING!  The shots he got were gorgeous - I would highly recommend him/the ttd session to anyone on the fence!  Review eventually, as I catch up.  Also have some items to post on the b/s/t board - I need my house back! 

Here's my album (hopefully the link works!):  https://www.facebook.com/marinahartung/media_set?set=a.784031153664.1073741863.54300091

@@kcole123  @@TinkerSofi

My biggest issue was the fact we had small kids there - and they were OUR kids, lol, so it's not like I could blame others!  My sister and brother in law graciously took them back to the states with them, so we could have a short "honeymoon", but a lot of the guests left that day as well.  If they had been older and we could have put them into the kids area for a couple of hours a day, that would have helped a lot!

One big tip - BRING WALKIE TALKIES!!  They were a LIFESAVER when we were running around getting ready for the wedding, and when people were with our kids (since they still nap).  We brought 4, and honestly I wish we had 2x that amount (we had 32 adults) at least.  We just put them on the same channel and would ping each other when needed.  Very helpful when we weren't in our rooms!

Where did you get your photo sand box? That's what I'm looking for but don't like what I've found so far!! Care to share the cost? I really like that! How much sand will it hold?

Sorry - your pictures are great!! Your daughter was just adorable with her tutu! And you were a gorgeous bride!!

It was from Hobby Lobby, it's normally $20 but got it for 40% off for about $20!  It's on sale right now for $14.99 with half off!  http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/black-unity-sand-frame-469221/

I'm not exactly sure how much sand it held - we had leftover sand after using the oil pourers, so it wasn't a ton!  The blue sand originally came in a 1.5lb container, and my bff (one of my bridesmaids) used it in her frame as well.  And it still had about half the oil pourer left when we were done.  I would say it probably holds about a pound of sand or so, so getting a pound of each color (or using beach sand like we did, which was a great idea with the kitchen sifter!) should be more than enough!

@@Meandhim

Thank you  It was a great time, lots of fun all week!  I wish we had more time with everyone - even with just 30 guests (2 cancels last minute) we couldn't spend much time with all of them, with the different stays and the coordination pre-wedding.  It was a blast though!  So happy we went with destination over stateside!

I did "Heartland - I loved her first"  -- tears all around

Guest Photo Update - Ceremony 2

Next update!

Guest Photo Update - Ceremony 3

Apparently all are going in the same post - sorry for the REALLY long post, haha!

I have the Southwest Visa and it has no foreign transaction fee! It also has the best rewards. We paid for both of our flights to Jamaica and 2 family members' flights with our points!

We did the same - it was a lifesaver!  Way worth the $99/year annual fee, plus I got a ton of points for travel

 any reason in particular you didnt go with it? Was it the price ? DId you get a better deal with Crown ? Your wedding pics are beautiful by the way!! Congrats!!

Thanks!  We have two kids under 4, and CPC had the kids club with buzzers for the parents (which we actually didn't use because our daughter was between baby & kid, so couldn't be left, and our son was too young).  Prices for travel were fairly similar when we looked, actually.  CPC has very reasonable wedding packages and Evelyn (the wedding coordinator) was awesome to work with, so that made it a better choice for us from that standpoint.

El Cid was recommended by a friend who went (on vacation) and by our photographer.  It had a lot more options than CPC for weddings, too, so it depends what you are looking for!

I also liked it because my first name IS Marina  If we didn't have the kids, we probably would have chosen it over CPC.

If you plan to do any of the day parks, the closer to Playa Del Carmen/Riviera Maya you are, the better.  It was 70 miles from our resort to Xel-Ha/Tulum area, and that was a LONG bus ride.  

I saw your picture of the legal ceremony on facebook. I love the idea of one blue nail . Did you get your acrylics done before you left or at the resort? 

 

I'm glad to hear that it was cool by the water. I'm hoping the same thing will happen for our wedding . My dress is also satin but it only has one layer

I did them about a week before - it's one of the things I actually wish I had waited on!  I had to get them filled and one cracked nail fixed the morning of the wedding, and it was more expensive than getting them done (fills here are like $14!  It cost me $43 before tip!).  The fills also cracked - I don't know if that was due to me being hard on them, or the quality of the work done at the spa.  I would definitely recommend waiting, if you aren't worried about functioning with long nails.  I had them done pretty short, so I would have been fine doing day of!

I have to ask - did you find the satin dress hot? I've wanted to stay away from satin only because I was worried that it was too heavy and too warm.

It wasn't actually the satin that I found hot, it was all the layers under it!  My dress weighed almost 10lbs by itself, and the tulle underlayers stuck to my legs during the dancing.  It was actually fine in terms of weight (made sure they corseted it VERY tight around my ribs so it wouldn't fall lol) until the guests started jumping in the pool and getting the deck wet!  They tried to get me to jump in, but I didn't want to drown!  10lbs dry = at least 30lbs wet!  The water seeped up the dress and made it very heavy. 

I didn't sweat during the ceremony or pictures, or really the reception because it was cool by the water.  Hope that helps, Ann!

Love the backdrop. That water is just so nice and blue. Looks awesome girl. Now put up more pictures...hahaha

I'm still sorting - slowly but surely  I'm hoping to get Sam's photos back soon, because I know those will blow mine out of the water LOL

It's Official!

We went to the courthouse yesterday and are now officially Mr & Mrs!  I'm glad we did it symbolically in Mexico, this elongated the process a bit so we could enjoy it a little longer

They were sweet and the court witnesses took some pictures with my camera during the less than 10 minute ceremony haha.

My new ring set and my "Something Blue"

If you're curious about Jamberry, let me know!  I can mail out a free sample for you to try

This resort was recommended to me as well - it was my second choice!  I haven't been yet, but plan to in the future.  

Pulled this shot from our Canon that a guest took - it's gorgeous!  Highly recommend the Cancun water, it's just stunning

I've started writing down my reviews in a notebook so I don't forget