palmtree99

Hi all- looking for a destination for a New Years wedding for the upcoming New Years 2019. I’m open to Mexico, Caribbean, Belize, Costa Rica...it just has to be affordable and not too expensive. Any suggestions? Thanks!

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I'm officially married! My wedding was crazy but all in all it was an amazing day. My husband (weird to say that!) fainted twice during our ceremony which made for a lot of drama. I will post more pics of decor and such later, as well as lots for sale.

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Thanks everyone! I can't believe I leave in 6 days! I'm the worlds biggest procrastinator so I still have SO much to do.

Guestbook:

instead of doing a traditional guest book, we are going to have everyone sign their name on a shell and put it in a vase. This way we can display it in our house. I got the vase for $3 at Michaels and I hot-glued rope halfway up it. Filled it halfway with sand and then everyone can put the shells in. I figured the shells would be scattered on the table in front of the vase. This is the vase full of shells:

Table numbers:

We have 31 guests so we only need 3 tables (two of ten and one of eleven). For the table numbers I got 3 white frames - sand pattern scrapbook paper from hobby lobby, and stick on numbers!

I also ordered us these toasting glasses from etsy:

To do:

Assemble welcome bags

Whiten teeth!

Wax eyebrows

Figure out ceremony music and assign someone to man the iPod

Buy speakers for reception music

Pack!!

Cut out all of the place cards

Buy a new bathing suit!

Figure out makeup (having a friend do it)

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Wow, it's been so long since I updated this! I leave for my wedding in 8 days, I can't believe it's finally here!!

As I said before, I am the odd one out here - I'm doing a cruise wedding in Bermuda.

We have a total of 31 guests coming to our wedding. 26 are taking the cruise with us and 5 are flying to Bermuda and staying on the island.

I've been busy; here's the few things that are completed....

Here are our menus, we ordered them from Wedding Paper Divas. I copied the starfish and shell on the menus and used it to coordinate the place cards, thank-you letter (to go in welcome bag), welcome bag tag with each persons name, and a directory of everyone's cabin on the ship. I was going to order the welcome bag tags and thank-you letters from etsy but was able to DIY them myself - only paying $8 for the heavy cardstock!

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I also had my final dress fitting today! I had them add extra crinoline to make the dress more full.

I decided to wear white wedges that I've had for a long time. My wedding is on a deck, I'm 5 feet and my fiancé is 6'4 so I needed some height. I also didn't want to sink into the sand with heels on. I'm wearing my grandmas pearl necklace, bracelet, and matching earrings.

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I had my bridal shower a few weeks ago at a winery. It turned out soo nice, my family did an awesome job!

My future sister in law handmade each bracelet for a favor. They were put in a small gift bag with a cookie shaped as an anchor and homemade chocolate candy my mom made from a seashell mold.

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Thanks for the ideas, ladies! I love the Stevie Wonder idea, just may use that!

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Hey everyone! My planner is asking me to come up with a song to play while we sign documents during the ceremony. Help!

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

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Haha, thanks everyone! Spanx hide the belly area, but nothing hides arm fat! hehehe 

I will have more updates soon! Next updates will be OOT bags & Pre-travel mailers..thats what I am working on now! 

Great story! I loved that you shared some of your favorite songs, I just listened to them all! Thanks for sharing!

Update:

Hey everyone! Wow, I haven't been on this site since January! Work and school have consumed my life in the past few months. No real updates except that I found my dress!!

I was on the hunt for a short wedding dress which seemed like mission impossible. I finally found one...for $300! I was hoping for sleeves - was trying to avoid strapless in fear of having that dreaded "arm fat", but I still love this dress...

You look amazing in that dress!!

Looks great! Thailand...awesome!

Ugh, this is my fear! I am sending my invites out soon and I'm scared my friends and family will pull the same thing. :/ hang in there, in the end, the people that are there are the ones supporting you. I'm sure I will have flaky people back out at the last minute, but at least at my wedding I'll be surrounded by the ones who care!

That 50% off coupon was nice. I love the hair! That's about the same length mine is. Looks like you are ready to go..exciting!!

Thanks @@calgarybride2015! I love the idea of putting the letters by the cake!

I've been working on my centerpieces... This was my inspiration, found this on Pinterest

I've been working to recreate it, I found the stones and the tall vase at the dollar store, and the other two vases at hobby lobby. I have the large starfish, just not the tray with sand. My FI is pretty good at wood working, going to see if he can make me the tray..

I also found these little lanterns at Hobby Lobby, they were $3 each on sale, and the LED frameless candles were $3 I think. Thought I would use these to decorate the bar.

Our reception area is an open deck, so I'm trying to stick with the nautical/beach theme. It's basically outside overlooking the beach.

Okay everyone, I've been bargain shopping. Been to Michaels, Joanne Fabrics, the dollar store, and Hobby Lobby. Pretty much everything I got was on sale..I don't think I spent over $10 on any item. I haven't started putting things together yet, but here's a few things...

These I found at Michaels. Small candle holder $2.99, crushed shells $5...used 50% off coupon so $2.50

I added water and a floating candle...

I thought it came out cute! I'm going to get more of the candle holders, thought id scatter them around the reception area, maybe on the table with the guestbook.

Then I found this little treasure chest at Hobby Lobby. It was $2 on sale. I love it! The size is small, and I love the clasp. I found inserts from ring boxes I have and put them in there. I'm going to maybe wrap those in burlap. And have FI add a wood divider.

I'm pretty excited about this one... I really wanted to incorporate my grandparents that have passed away. I lost two on my side and the FI lost both sets of grandparents. I made up this "in memory" sign on publisher, and got the frames, candle, and candle holder at hobby lobby. The small frames were $4 each on sale. I love how they all look together. They have an expensive antique-y look to them.

Not sure what I'm going to do with these letters yet, but thought they were fun..

There's more but I'll save for another post..

Not sure why some pictures are sideways... Sorry!

Haha @@beckys98! My fiancé is the same way! I've been doing a lottt of shopping this week (!) and he's been annoyed that I'm buying things now. I tried to show him our guest book and he said show me again in 5 months lol.

I do have a few ideas of bands for the ring but i haven't looked at stores yet. I have one pic I saved on my computer, I'll post it when I get on there.

I'm going to post some of the things I bought real soon! Did some damage at hobby lobby, michaels, and Joanne fabrics....

Congrats to you!! Can't wait to see everything all together!

You are so right @@acw271011! The bar bill is rough. We are going to buy the unlimited drink package...I think it's around $500 for both of us....but sooo worth it!

Oh man, why didn't I think of that @@acw271011?? Thanks!

I saw that! I've been checking groupon daily for a vistaprint deal..I realllly hope they add one.

It just worries me on that dress because they do make it to your measurements, but then ship it from London. There is no way to try it on before I buy it. They are coming to the states in may I think, to NY. They are bring dresses and doing some bridal show. I considered doing that, but my wedding is in July and that is cutting it too close!!

Thanks @@calgarybride2015! Just looking this over now, apparently I don't know how to add full size pics in a post! Just realized the ones in the post are tiny and then there's attachments at the end. Oh well...I have 7 months to get it right

Well, I am about 7 months away from my wedding and I think a planning thread will keep me organized. I cannot thank everyone on these boards enough. I have been cruising these boards for a long time, so if you see anything that is yours or your idea…thank you!! I work full time and I am a full time grad student so I don’t always have time to wedding plan. Since I still have 7 months to go..I’m not done getting ideas from you all! I love these boards! I have a while until my wedding so this thread will be a work in progress.. that means it will hopefully be very pic heavy. Hopefully something on here can help someone out, I’ve been wanting to pay if back for all of the help I’ve gotten so far.

How we met

Believe it or not, my fiancé and I have actually been together since highschool. We recently celebrated our 11 year anniversary! Yes, you read that right…we have been together 11 years. We obviously were in no rush to get married, as we put it off this long. I have been focused on finishing grad school, and we both have been trying to save money. Here’s an old school picture of us back in 2005, and the second is an updated pic. We decided not to do engagement photos to save money, so old ones will have to suffice!

 

The Proposal

He proposed while we were on vacation in Connecticut. His brother lives in Greenwich, so we were there for week to visit him. His brother insisted that we go check out a local beach. I was doing homework, and didn’t really want to go so I kept saying no. The beach closed at 8 and it was 7pm so finally he said..get up, lets just go for an hour. We took his brothers beach pass and left. When we got to the beach, I started taking pics and uploading them on Instagram. Then he said, lets go walk that path so we have a higher view of the ocean. We walked up a steep path, and when we got to the top I stopped to enjoy the nice view of the ocean. I looked at him and noticed he was looking down. I looked down, and realized I was standing on a large rock that said “Will you?” in chalk. When I looked up, he was down with the ring. After we got back to his brother’s house, I learned that he had been in the bushes taking pictures the entire time! Apparently him and his brother went to the beach early in the day to pick the spot out. I had NO idea…and definitely didn’t see it coming!

The Ring

I had mentioned to him before that I wanted a round ring with a thin band, and that’s exactly what he picked up. I loooove it!

Our Wedding Website

I spent a LOT of time on this…way more time than I should have lol. Check it out if you’d like: www.theknot.com/wedding/steven-and-cathy

The Wedding Venue
Steven and I took our first cruise in 2010, and we were hooked. We instantly became “cruise junkies”, and have since been on six cruises. Since this is something we do every year now, we decided that a cruise would be the way to go for the wedding. Yes, I am the 1% of people on these boards that is doing a cruise wedding. It seems that the majority of members on these boards are doing resort weddings…which we considered, but we just love cruises so much.

Our only complaint on cruises is that you do not get much time on the island. We didn’t want to take up an entire day on the island for guests since they only get so much time, so we decided on a cruise to Bermuda for the wedding. Bermuda cruises are different, the ship will dock at the island for 3 days, so you can get on/off the ship as much as you want. This way guests will have more time to explore the island.

The Ship

We will be sailing on the Norwegian “Breakaway”. This ship was built in 2013 so its basically brand new. It is the 8^th largest cruise ship in the world. We have never sailed Norwegian so this will be new to us. The ship comes with all the bells and whistles.. ziplining, ropes course, bowling, putt-putt, ect. It leaves from the Port of New York so we will probably spend the day before the cruise in NYC.

The Ceremony

We decided to get married on the actual island instead of the ship, so we found a wedding planner on the island that has been working with us. We cruised to Bermuda in August to look for a location for the wedding & reception. We ended up falling in love with the second location we checked out…which was The Reefs Resort. This resort is STUNNING! It is nestled up on a cliff of limestone rocks, and has a 2 tiered deck overlooking the water. The wedding ceremony will be on the bottom tier of the deck, then guests can go up to the top tier for cocktail hour.

The reception will be at Coconuts, which is the outdoor restaurant at the Reefs Resort. This is also high up overlooking the ocean.

 

 

Music:

I’m thinking I will walk down the aisle to the song “Somewhere over the rainbow” by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole. If you haven’t heard this island version of the song, look it up! I fell in love with it as soon as I heard it, and felt like it would be perfect for walking down the aisle.              During cocktail hour we plan on hiring a Steel Pan player for one hour. Found some steel pan players on youtube and love it! Would be perfect to have while guests enjoy their cocktail hour and Steven and I go take pictures.

Bridal Party:

At this point, we have decided against a bridal party. We don’t want to add extra costs to our friends/family and we cannot afford to pay for their attire. We will keep it simple and have no bridal party.

Sand Ceremony:

We ordered from Forever Frame (foreverframe.com). It was pricey, but they had a sale on black Friday so I bit the bullet and got it. Since we were engaged at a beach, and will get married on a beach…I collected sand from the beach we got engaged at in Connecticut, and when we were in Bermuda I collected sand in a bottle. This way, our sand is a little more special since I has more meaning to us. Since Bermuda sand is pink you can definitely tell the difference between the two sands.

Wedding Colors:

This has honestly been the hardest part for me! I have changed colors multiple times. Now I am thinking orange and aqua. Hopefully I don’t change them again! Here is my inspiration:

Save the Dates:

We ordered our save-the-dates from The Stylish Scribe. It was around $50 for them. We ended up going with postcards and ordered custom stamps from Zazzle.

 

Invitations:

We ordered our invitations from Wedding Paper Divas. They had a 30% off sale for Cyber Monday that we jumped at. I did want to do passports, but wasn’t ready to tackle that DIY yet. I was thinking of maybe doing something like “Passport to Paradise” and do that for the pre-travel mailers but I haven’t quite decided yet.

Lots more to come!! Next update: dress, centerpieces, décor, OOT bags…

Thanks ladies! I think I was over-thinking this one. I was thinking..everyone must have at least one luggage tag of their own, so they might not need two. But sending two does make more sense.