Wafflesmom

It may be the way I walk but in addition to slapping my heels, sometimes I kick up sand when walking in flip flops on the beach! So I'm opting for barefoot sandals. And as I've said before, I love your sandals @@LisaAnthonyPoppy!

@@LisaAnthonyPoppy thank you for the advice. I was quite lucky that the bridal store let me keep it there for so long! I did get nightmares though because there was an instance here where a bridal store had a fire and all the dresses were ruined! It will be good to have it home safe. @@MissJen3 thank you for the advice I'll be sure to keep it out of direct sunlight!

3.5 years for us!

We were able to get prices in September 2014 for our wedding in January 2016. I'm not sure if you're from Canada but my TA was able to get package (air and hotel) prices from both Sunwing and air Transat. We knew roughly how many would be attending since we've always known that we would be having a destination wedding. Like @@calgarybride2015 said, you don't necessarily need numbers ahead of time, unless of course you have a certain budget.

Hi everyone! Although I didn't plan on buying my wedding dress so early (15 months before the wedding to be exact), of course that's exactly what happened. I thought I'd check put a local bridal store's sample sale and my dress immediately caught my eye. I ended up falling in love with the first dress I tried on and still love it as much. So the bridal store has agreed to store the dress for me until spring of 2015 which was great but now my time is up. I'm picking it up next weekend and need your advice in the best way to store it. I was initially going to store it at my mom's but if anyone has been to a Filipino house, the whole house tends to smell like food. Fried food to be exact! It smells great but not the smell I want on my wedding dress. So we're going to keep it at our house and my FI has promised not to look at it. He's trustworthy so no worries there! But what's the best way to store it? Hanging or laying flat? Type of bag? Do I need to take it out to "breathe" and how often? I plan on asking the store but thought I'd ask my bridal friends for advice too! Thanks in advance ????

I'm sure the money spent will be worth it with that many ppl, I agree that 4 hours will work best

I'm in the same boat as you @@Lia33! We only have about 30 ppl max including both of us and I'm trying to see if 3 or 4 hours will work.

Thanks for the link

Thank you @@liz24! My postal code is V3X2K3

I love the cartoon idea! Your invitations are really unique and such a creative idea. I wish I had even half the amount of creativity you have!

@@TinkerSofi I love the sunglasses! Where did you get them?

Hi @@liz24, I'd like to take the chair sashes if I could. Do you know how much shipping would be to Vancouver, BC Canada?

@@marinah84 29 days? I'm so excited for you!! You have done such an amazing job with everything and I can't wait to see it all come together. I'm glad you were able to move your time to accommodate the new sunset time. I kept my schedule the same and have now timed our first dance at the beginning of the reception, just in time for sunset I'm hoping it will look good. I may have steal the stadium cup idea because those are great!

Haha, you and I are old school this way! It's my A-type personality that needs this Lol. I was going to tab it so I had all the correspondences separated for each vendor (photographer, decor, DJ, etc). Since we're doing a civil ceremony, all the required paperwork will also be in the binder. I can always pull up the messages on my ipad but I don't want to have to rely on the wifi. With my luck it probably won't work if I had to use it asap.

Thank you for the great advice @@misbosox! Based on what I've gathered from the palace brides on here, I've been saving all of my email messages and will have a binder of all of the correspondences handy. Elizabeth has already sent me an email that they're honoring the old photographer vendor fee for us, and I didn't even have to ask her! I've saved this email We're hoping for a site visit but not certain due to budget.

Just sent you an email on your Hotmail account And forgot to add, can you please also add a pic of the lanterns? Basically anything you have that's coral LOL

Hi @@lovetrice23. From what I've gathered, in addition to the vendor fee you may have to pay day passes especially for photographers. For outside DJ, there is now an additional electricity fee. I believe it's $250

Hi @@Victoriabride, I'm also a 2016 BC bride congrats on your engagement! January and February are popular months for travel and you'll get high season rates. As @@calgarybride2015 mentioned, to get the price range you're looking for, you may have to go during low season. My sister and mom traveled to Riviera Maya in July and got great rates. If you're set on traveling during January or February, your best bet would be to speak to a TA. They can try to get you great rates and can get comparable rates from the different air carriers. The Toronto pricing should be cheaper given that they're on the same side as riviera Maya. Another tip would to consider air carriers like Air Canada who have connecting flights. These can get cheaper than the direct flights out of Sunwing or Air Transat. Our wedding is in January 2016 and we were quoted $2030 for 7 nights at Moon Palace. This was the best rate we could get, we initially received a quote for $2300! But keep in mind that Palace resorts are pricier so I'm sure you can get a better rate by choosing a different resort

Hi @@krystalball! It's still early enough so see if you can speak to other travel agents. Some agents have better contacts than others and it wouldn't hurt to get different quotes. Our wedding is in January 2016 and we were trying to get quotes in September. We knew we wanted to get married in Riviera Maya and it was hard for us to find pricing in the $1500 mark. Of course, we are on the other side of the coast and our choice of airlines were a little bit more limited since we refused to book connecting flights (Air Canada no longer offer direct flights from Vancouver). To make it easier, we told our TA that we weren't fussy on exact date or week so the cheapest package in January would work. She sent me quotes from Sunwing and Air Transat which were around $2300. In the end, she found us a deal with Air Transat for $2030 which is a lot better than $2300. We know it's a lot to ask of our guests but at least Palace resorts offer $1500 resort credits per room for a 7 night stay. It was a little bit of an incentive. Our guests have a year to save up so that's also nice. We do get a 1 time price adjustment if the price drops. However, with the Canadian dollar being so low, I think the prices will just go up for us. I'm hoping not but that seems to affect everything else for us!

Your e-ring and wedding band look so great together! Only 6 more months until you get to wear them together I love the decor and can't wait to see your pics with that spectacular background.

@@Marieisgettinghitched Congrats on your engagement! I'm so sorry to hear about your first time planning but this forum is a great resource to help you successfully plan your upcoming DW. We are going to have about 30 people at our wedding and have set a $10,000 budget for the wedding (minus flight and accommodation costs). So far we're managing to stick to our budget and still get a lot of what I wanted. The only thing affecting our budget is the poor exchange rate of the Canadian dollar. In Canada, we usually book our flight and accommodation as a package with the airlines. Our travel agent/destination wedding specialist took care of this for us and also took care of contacting Moon Palace to get our wedding contract. Once that was finalized, we were assigned an offsite wedding coordinator to plan the logistics of the wedding with us. Our coordinator has been nothing but great. She replies to my questions and email messages within 24-48 hours (usually 24 hours) and even gives me a heads up of any changes to vendor fees. I think I would have been more stressed out had she not been so helpful. In terms of planning, this forum has also been very helpful so ask away! I hope this helps out somehow.

@@cometgirl You still have a little over 3 months, you can do it. Yes, I agree that this site is addicting but I say it's research to save money. My fiance doesn't mind when I say it like that LOL We're spreading out costs too but you're right, time flies by too quickly! @@calgarybride2015 You deserve some time off! You worked your butt off prepping for the wedding so a little down time doesn't hurt. Plus, I'm sure everyone agrees with me that we love having you here to share your knowledge

I love planning threads, you ladies are fantastic! I love the story of how you first met and your engagement story too. Your invites look great, can't wait to read more

@@calgarybride2015, I know you've told me this before but I've forgotten. Where in Northern BC?

Maybe it is a Canadian thing, because we were going to ask our brother in law to MC. He loves talking and is very outgoing so he was the logical choice