Wafflesmom

Woohoo @@cometgirl I knew I couldn't be the only one! Your wedding is in 3 months and a couple of weeks. How's the planning going? And we'll count you as a BC bride Kim! Any province would be lucky to have you as one of the their own

Thanks for the info on Noir @@misbosox, our wedding is on a Saturday so luckily it's open for us too! I was hoping for this since we're also not intending on paying a lot to extend the reception. My coordinator is Elizabeth and she's absolutely wonderful! She's very helpful and always gets back to me within a day or two (usually a day). During our first phone call, we absolutely clicked and I felt like I was talking to one of my friends. I'd keep her as my onsite if I could! Who's yours?

@@calgarybride2015 oh Kim, I loved hearing your review. Despite the stress during customs and check-in, it sounds like you all had such a great time Your pics look great and you and Shawn just look so happy. Thank you for sharing your very detailed and helpful review! I wish you got plenty of love and happiness

Hi @@Everly! Congrats on getting the location and date settled, that's always a big step we booked our photographer over a year in advance; we booked him in October 2014 when our wedding isn't until January 2016. I loved his style do much that I couldn't risk having him already booked and unavailable for our wedding. In hindsight, it helped us in a few ways. 1) we were able to book and sign a contract using his 2014 prices. I've found a few vendors raise their prices by at least 10% each year 2) as a Canadian bride, having paid his $600 deposit back in October actually saved us money since the Canadian dollar was better back then 3) our hotel changed the outside photographer vendor fee in 2015 from $400 to $800. Since we booked him in 2014, the hotel is honouring the old vendor fee! Woohoo So basically lots of benefit on our end for booking early. Have you chosen a resort? If you have, make sure you factor in the vendor fees if there are any. Good luck in your search

Hi @@LauraM if you get any feedback from past PSAV brides, would you mind sharing it with me as well? I'm still trying to decide which DJ to go with. I'm so glad that PSAV have been very responsive in their emails with you. I'm sure they'll be great but I understand why you'd be worried. I'll keep my fingers crossed that they're the unknown awesome DJ company in Riviera Maya @@LMichelleB your wedding is coming up! Could you please do us all a favor and post a review of PSAV afterwards? And could you please also send me their pricing? Thanks so much

@@jencakes I'm so glad they replied back to you I hope they take care of you and wish you all the best during your planning stage And yes, this forum is amazing!

Oh no, I'm sorry they haven't gotten back to you. Did you send a generic inquiry or email Susan directly? I can email or call her if you like to contact you

@@AliciaW I agreements what everyone has said so far and they've covered a lot of very important points. I don't know if you're from Canada but if you are, you'll also have to factor in the exchange rates. Especially since the Canadian dollar is quite low right now.

@@acw271011 that is a gorgeous dress. I'll keep my eyes peeled for you to see if I can help. I'll go through my many wedding-related instagram accounts and hopefully it will be there

Thanks @@acw271011, I know I can't be the only BC bride on here!

Thais for the tip Kim, I'll make sure I bring a portable steamer. Though being short (5'0") may work in my favour!

I've seen posts for Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Toronto brides but nothing for Vancouver or any other BC city. I just wanted to say hi to my fellow Local brides and see if we can share some tips on wedding gown shopping, travel agents, local deals and anything else wedding related. I've met tons of lovely fellow Canadian brides, any local ones out there?

Thanks for starting this thread! We're also booked with Air Transat so far our contract from our TA states that an overhead bin is reserved for my wedding dress so glad to know it fits in there. We also get free seat selection so based on some of the tips, we'll try to go for the front seats if we can

Hi fellow Canadian brides! @@jencakes I sent you a pm of my travel agent's info I think @@calgarybride2015 and @@Meandhim have covered most of the points. @@Meandhim $700 price difference? Oh I would be so angry. I hope you guys get the operator to price match, that's ridiculous! Our guests all placed their deposits the week of the due date so don't worry. Once I had the operator chosen I sent out my save the dates using paperless post. Super easy and it was a great way to track who saw the invite and they can reply back/rsvp rather quickly. We did send another email after with a travel brochure that our TA made which included prices, due dates and hotel info. It was 3 pages long and really handy.

Hi @@Msmimi thanks but our wedding is still a year away. We get married in 2016

It's 80 guests for cocktail and 60 guests for buffet.

@@calgarybride2015 it certainly limits the options. I'm always so worried about losing luggage, flight delays and even cancelations so connecting flights were a definite no. Plus it's already such a long flight from Vancouver, why add layovers. And I agree that being in the same flight is more fun!

Thanks for the link @@TinkerSofi! In hindsight I should have asked those questions too but I got excited lol. No regrets for me as well

@@LisaAnthonyPoppy I'm still working out the logistics. Some sort of entertainment will be good though I've heard that the mariachi bands at Palace are quite pricey! We had a break at the last destination wedding we attended and it didn't affect the flow or mood as much. We have a few young kids attending who will probably appreciate being out of the sun for an hour

@@LauraM haha I know what you mean. It's a good thing I've been to one so I kind of have a sense of it. Based on my 1 experience, my friends got married on the beach. They walked down the aisle then basically looped back to greet all the guests. So we were all still at the beach and then servers came with champagne. So as the bride and groom get greeted with congratulations by everyone they all get served champagne. Then we all raised a toast to the newlyweds. Group pics followed then cocktail hour. This was when the bride and groom left to take pics. This was at the Riu palace in Cabo. So I guess it's a common thing

Hi @@LauraM they had post ceremony champagne toasts at my friend's destination wedding and we intend to do the same. It didn't feel awkward at all and no speeches were done. It was more of a happy toast to the newlyweds and made for a great photo op. It was nice since it was hot on the beach and cold champagne was a nice thing to have. If it feels awkward I'm sure they don't have to do it. As @@LisaAnthonyPoppy said, maybe you can save it for your reception

@@JessicaBe you are very welcome! We're all here to help each other out I have seen some lower prices but they're offered closer to the date of travel. For a destination wedding, I couldn't take the chance. Plus, some of the lower prices are offered by Air Canada and they no longer offer direct flights from Vancouver. It was basically a connecting flight that would take up two full days of travel (to and from). I hope you find a great deal

@@calgarybride2015 we went out to the keg to celebrate our 1 year countdown and the song played in the background. Totally meant to be lol

@@LisaAnthonyPoppy I've been going back and forth about our timeline especially with the new time change. Our proposed schedule is: 3-3:30 ceremony and toasts 3:30-4 group photos 4-5 cocktail hour 5-6 bride and groom photos (guests can grab more drinks and freshen up) 6-9 (or 10) reception with first dance as soon as we get introduced Now we had originally planned it so that we had sunset when we have our photos together (supposed to be at 5:30). However with the time change, sunset is now at 6:30. At first I was going to change the times to accommodate for the time change but after seeing a few photos (including @calgarybride2015) I like the photos during daylight. I thought having the sun set during the reception would look really nice. What do you guys think? And we're also planning to join during the cocktail hour and have candid photos taken of us mingling with guests. I think it will look great

That's our song too! We love that song