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Hi everyone! I have decided I should start a planning thread - I figure I should share my experiences as I go. A little bit about me .. I am from Toronto, Ontario. I got engaged in August 2014 and am planning to have a Mexico (on the caribbean side) wedding in January 2016. So far, planning has been quite a process and I haven't even booked a resort yet! Kenny (my fiance) and I knew we wanted a destination wedding from the beginning. We are avid travelers .. backpackers, living abroad, that sort of thing. Our families and wedding guests are from all over the world (literally!), which makes planning a destination wedding a bit of a hassle as far as booking through an agent. STARTING TO PLAN We started in November by setting out to Mexico to search for a perfect wedding venue. We went to see 5 resorts, and have narrowed down our list to 2.. The Dreams Tulum and the Azul Sensatori. We wanted to give our guests extra time to save for our wedding, so we didn't book a venue right away. We are finally ready to book now - and our TA gave us prices that are WAYYYY above our budget per guest. (budget = $1800 per guest). Our rates given this week were between $2100-$2400 per guest double occupancy from Toronto. After visiting these resorts ourselves - we deem it outrageous to charge that much per head. (Especially when I have seen bookit.com deals for about $1500 including flights for these resorts). So, because we are now at a loss.. We are reaching out to other resorts to see what their quotes are. Unless there is a great deal - we will just continue to wait it out... see if the prices go down. Although that is really risky for us, considering we are getting married the first week of January. Its a bit stressful, because I have my invitations all designed, and ready to go ... but without a date/time/place! ARRGGHH. In the mean time, I have started a list of things that i CAN do while I wait. (decor, dress, color schemes, etc). I really never realized how much planning goes into a wedding. I wanted someone to do it all for me ... we can only wish. THE DRESS: This was another process. Dress shopping was REALLY difficult for me. Im about a size 2, so I always swam in the dresses I tried on. Nothing but $14,000 designer gowns fit me. The cup sizes were all huge, the backs so high, the waists like a paper bag. I went to about 8 shops total. And went back and forth from style to style, fell in love with quite a few, but nothing was really PERFECT. I wondered what was wrong with me. Why a dress was speaking to me... why I wasn't crying. Why nothing was quite right. I was even asked to do Say Yes To The Dress Canada, and didn't find anything. So, one day I just decided. If you like it, buy it. So this search can be over and done with. I showed my maid of honor a pictures of the dress I have been looking at online, and as we walked by a small boutique we saw the EXACT dress in the store. I made an appointment for the next day, went in, tried it on, and gave my deposit. I splurged a little (about $3000 for my dress, not including alterations). BUT, I think it will be stunning when it comes in my size. The dress is Allure Couture c288. Its truly so beautiful! Havent quite decided if I am going to have a veil or not yet.. I may get a cathedral veil for pictures, and then just have a headpiece or flowers for the ceremony/reception. What do you think? DECOR/COLOR SCHEMES: I know even though I haven't picked a resort, we will get married on/near the beach. So I have started to plan out my color scheme, archway, chairs, that kind of stuff. The more I research, the more I realize I have expensive taste. I also realized I really like dark/deep colours, which doesnt exactly fit with a "beach" theme, but why does it have to be a beach theme? I have chosen coral for my bridesmaids dresses (the girls really wanted coral, I wanted burgundy, haha). BUT, instead of burgundy dresses, my decor colours are going to be burgundy, nude, gold. I have decided I want them to have bouquets of deep red calla lillies, about 25 in each bouquet. I think I will buy silk, or fake ones and bring them with me .. I found a website online $85 for 105 fake calla lillies - making about 4/5 bouquets. As far as my archway - I want it to be draped in chiffon. I don't know if resorts do that .. or maybe they do for $$$$$$$$, but I am thinking of just bringing my own with pictures to set it up. I am going to go with Tiffany Chairs and have white chiffon decorations on the back row of all the chairs in the ceremony. Only the back row so they it doesn't look too busy. I will use the same decorated chairs for my head table at my reception. FLOWERS: I know I want those calla lillies for my bridesmaids, for myself I will probably have a mix of white/burgundy/gold flowers. I think they are usually included in the wedding packages. I want quite a bit of flowers on my arch - two circle chunks of them on each side of the archway down halfway in the middle. I may outsource and get a florist off the resort, depending. The dreams, and other resorts charge upwards of $300 per bundle of flowers on each side.. CRAZY. They also charge $6 per tea lights.. ha, insane. I hope to bring SO much stuff with me. I will probably use my bridesmaids flowers as centerpieces for the reception, which will bring in the burgundy tones. RECEPTION: My overall vision is clean, white, burgundy, gold, crisp. Nothing too tacky like shells on tables, or nothing too bright. I want it very "glam" looking, not "beachy". Although, nothing against the beachy theme. I just want more of a warm winter feel. I envision a lot of lighting, a lot of white chiffon decoration, and a lot of flowers. Not much other than lighting and flowers. I think I will buy tons of tea lights, or small candles and bring them with me. I may/may not have chinese lanterns. Depending on the reception venue, they may look cheap. But I really like them! MUSIC: Probably going to hire a DJ. Probably going to have to rent a sound system for the ceremony for music.. Dreams charges like $275 just to use microphones for vows. GEEZ! I'll keep you posted on how much that stuff costs at other resorts. You would think it would be included for the ceremony at least? DINNER: Not really sure about any of the food options, etc yet. I know that most venues with over 40 guests have buffet style - which I think is horrible when you are charging me about $100 per person to eat. I would prefer a plated meal for that price, but we'll see depending on where we book. How have the dinner prices worked out for you guys? BUDGET: Our budget was originally $10,000 - not including rings, dress, or our trips. $10,000 just for the wedding at the resort. I don't necessarily want a cocktail hour, I would rather use that money for an extra hour in the reception. The dreams only includes 3 hours .. do other resorts include 4? That would be awesome. How much is it usually to have an extra hour? I don't know if $10,000 is doable. It is seeming at a place like the dreams, it will be tight. Ie: $250 set up fee if you bring your own decorations. $300 fee if I use an outside florist. $870 for the DJ for 3 hours. $4 per table napkin... LIKE HONESTLY! Crazy! I would love to hear about pricing for other resorts. Either that, or I will be bringing in ALL of my own stuff, haha - and still probably ending up paying more than $10,000. Previous brides - is $10,000 a realistic price? Let me know. It seems like until just before the wedding you really get the pricing, which seems crazy considering we are bringing thousands of dollars into the resort. Anyway, that is all the planning I have done so far. It gets kind of crazy, and I could literally spend hours doing research - its sooooo much work! I never knew. Maybe we should all elope, haha. Good luck planning. I welcome any feedback, advice, comments you guys have! I attached a few photos of some of my decor ideas.

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Hi everyone! After months of lurking on here (and a few random posts) I'm officially ready to start my planning thread! We're at T MINUS 10 MONTHS! It looks like these things usually start with some background of us, so here it goes! The Build Up: Mr. and I met in college at a house party. We're both very sarcastic people and we essentially gave each other shit the entire night...making fun of each others' majors, etc. There was just something about the cute boy with the surfer hair, though, so I used what little info I had to facebook stalk him a couple days later. It was easier back then when it was limited to college students! We exchanged phone numbers and met up the next weekend. Unfortunately, the next weekend happened to be my 21st birthday, which means I made a complete drunken fool of myself! We count the dinner AFTER that as our official first date anniversary, haha! That was 9 wonderful years ago. We've been through so much--living across the country from each other, moving across the country together, graduate school, jobs, apartments, pets, SKYDIVING, etc.. I wouldn't change a thing. He is by far my favorite person, and we make each other better. The Proposal: There's no big story here, but it just wouldn't have been "him" if he had done something big and elaborate. I had actually found the ring box many months earlier and had been driving myself crazy about it! (and no, I didn't open it!) Every time we would go out to dinner, or go on a hike, or do anything remotely romantic, I expected that damn ring. Once, he even surprised me with a gift in a small box before I left on a work trip.....it was earrings! Such a sweet gesture, but I'm sure my jaw was just hanging. Anyway, we had family visiting us for Xmas/Mr.'s birthday, so I figured it would happen then. Nope. Then I thought maybe on New Year's Eve. Nope. On January 2nd, we had a group skype call with a bunch of friends, then settled in to eat dinner. As I'm carrying dirty dishes to the kitchen, he goes into the bedroom and grabs the box. He proposed kneeling on our kitchen floor. I SOBBED. I don't really remember what he said, but I just remember him being so sweet. He had to ask me a couple times because I forgot to say yes! The Ring: I mean, come on, it's gorgeous! (actual planning things in next post....)

31 days, my guests and I are exactly 1 month away from boarding a plane to celebrate our wedding week. In the lead up to the wedding/trip, I thought it would be fun to do a countdown on our wedding website of tips, tricks and advice surrounding travel to Mexico, specifically the Cancun and Riviera Maya area. We've never been to that side of Mexico so I thought I would reach out to my bride and bride-to-be friends on the forum. If you could help me come up with tips, tricks and advice for our trip, I would really appreciate it. This can be anything from tips at the airport (e.g. stay away from timeshares), must-see places (e.g. touristy areas, restaurants, beaches, etc) and if anyone has any tips for Moon Palace (our wedding resort) that would be fantastic. Thanks in advance

Hello, I am new to this site and hoping to get some help making a decision on which resort to book for my wedding in November 2016. I have spent countless hours going over the different options and feel like I am going crazy! My goal is to keep the trip as cost effective for my guests as possible while having a beautiful beach wedding with some good food and dancing.. I am a low maintenance, easy going bride, all I want is to do is pick a couple flowers and show up with a dress and my man As result I have narrowed it down to the following: 1. Riu Yucatan (I LOVE the beach!) 2. Grand Bahia Principe Tulum 3. Riu Playacar If anyone has any experiences with any of these hotels I would love to hear it! I read a lot of reviews on Trip Advisor and it's hard to tell which are unbiased and which are fake.. Thank you! Joanna

Hello Ladies, A lot of you have been emailing me after you have signed a contract with location/resort, and then you realized you were not aware of how wedding costs and expenses go sky rocket high and every extra detail is getting charged. This thread is for all of you brides, for everybody who has questions before signing anything with anyone. Get some professional guidance before, so you can feel less overwhelmed on what you can expect moving forward. I will be checking the thread few times a week to respond to your questions as detailed as I can. Feel free to ask away, because the question you have may help another bride;)!! Happy Planning! Joyce

Today felt like a horrible nightmare that I keep hoping I'm going to wake up from. We've had our wedding booked for April 9th at the Ocean Coral & Turquesa for past last 4 months. We've been beyond excited.. created cool website with pics... printed invites & save the dates.. Just really fell in love with the property (sans seaweed issues :-) But found out today that the travel agent we've been working with didn't hold the rooms (and didn't inform us on how important and urgent it was to put them on hold) and now the entire hotel is full. No Vacancy. Sold out until the day after our wedding. I'm not typically a "drama mama" but today, I'm Totally Freaking Out! We need to find another 3.5 to 5star all-inclusive venue in PDC, with a similar price point, that's available on April 9th (or worse case senario, the 10th). And can also accommodate 40-60 rooms for our guests. Help! Fellow Brides & wedding angels... I need a Miracle✨????????✨ Milagro :-) Any suggestions or quick tips you can offer are warmly welcomed!

Hello Ladies!! I'm launching a photography contest with 3 awesome Prizes. If you are planning on getting married or engaged in the Riviera Maya (Cancun, Playa del Carmen or Tulum) this may be the perfect opportunity for you. Before you enter please read the contest Terms and Conditions. Good luck! http://www.gonzalonunez.com/contest/ Thank you!! Gonzalo