Planning our Wedding – Blau Marina Varadero, Cuba November 20, 2013

[Lydia1120]

After many years together, my fiancé and I have perfected the Art of Marriage. We are best friends, lovers and soul mates. We have grown together to have the same sense of value and common objectives; we have learned to speak words of appreciation; we have learned to compromise and know that being the right person is just as important as being the right partner; we are able to forgive and forget; we never go to sleep angry; we stand together and face the world; we say "I love you" at least once a day; we form a circle of love that gathers all our friends and family and we will never be too old to hold hands. We are getting married knowing that our love will last a lifetime!

 

Now, time to start planning the wedding.  We decided on a destination wedding as we love to travel.  We’ve been to Belize, Cuba, Dominican, Barbados, Mexico, Jamaica and Cayman Islands and I have to say that Cuba has pretty good beaches.  We also chose Cuba as it is the most cost effective for our guests and has the best nightly entertainment (Costa Rica comes in 2^nd).   My future brother-in-law had been to Blau Marina Varadero (formerly Barcelo Marina) and he absolutely loved it!  I checked out the packages and compared with some of the other local resorts and decided to go with Blau Marina as that where we got the most for our money.   After getting quotes from Sunwing, Trans-At and Signature Vacations, we booked with Transat Vacations…. $1032 for regular rooms and $1104 for oceanview rooms and some really impressive incentives.

 

 

 

FYI:  I paid the $30 so that I could start looking at pictures and downloading the templates which I found so very helpful!  Thanks to all for their contributions. 

 

 

SAVE THE DATE CARDS

We immediately ordered our Magnet Save the Date cards from http://www.magnetstreet.com/.  Paid $2.05 each in total (incl taxes and shipping).  See picture attached. 

 

 

 

 

GIRLS DRESSES:Given that people are paying for their trips, I wanted to pay for the bridal party’s attire.  I bought the girls dresses at www.venus.com and paid $39 each.  The girls love the way the dress fits and love the fact that they can wear it again after the wedding.

 

 

 

 

For the ceremony, I purchased barefoot sandals for the girls from e-bay for $13.49 for a pair.  For the reception, I ordered personalized flip flops from www.partyflops.com.  I ordered 25 pairs for my guests as well and with shipping, it came out to $9.48 each. I would suggest going to Wal-mart and buying the $3.00 pair instead, albeit they came out fantastic!   I also ordered the wedge for myself. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GUYS ATTIRE:

My fiancé wanted to wear Cuban attire for the wedding.  I did plenty of online surfing before I found a reasonable price www.guayaberascubanas.com .  The guys shirts were $28.99 and the pants were $39.99.   I also ordered the ring boy attire from there for $32.99 for the shirt and $34.99 for the pants.

 

 

 

 

I will keep posting as my plans progress.  I must get back to finishing up my Message in a Bottle Invitations which I'm really impressed with.  Here is the first bottle:

 

 

 

 

[zupochka]

thanks for sharing!