@nkavanaugh i totally hear you on not being able to picture it until its right in front of you. I have struggled with this a lot. i ordered a champagne sequin table runner from chair factory just to try out. Unfortunately have to pay for the shipping, but at this point, i don't want to order 10 if they aren't going to be what i am looking for. so i will let you know as soon as i get it! my plan is to have white table linens and these gold sequin table runners. I am going to have a tall centerpiece surrounded by votive candles and gold mercury votive candles on half of the tables, and then 4 long floating candle holders and 2 smaller bouquets on the other half of the tables. my flowers are going to be all white with a tough of soft yellow (my bridesmaid dresses are yellow). and the venue itself has all gold and white (draping) hues so I am hoping it will all come together to look elegant. the only things for decorations i plan on bringing with me are votive candles, gold mercury votive candles, the ikea lanterns, and table runners.
for the videographer - this is where setting things in stone over 6 months in advance did not work out for me. originally we booked the photographer and videographer through the preferred vendor at our resort, as we did not want to pay an outside vendor fee and we thought they were good enough. but then 2 of our close friends got married this summer and they both used this one videographer that we absolutely fell in love with. his videos are unreal, the quality is amazing, and he is also a very cool guy that got to know our group of friends. So we ended up asking him to come to Punta Cana. And we are using the money we already paid for the videographer in punta cana towards the Photo Booth and some other extra things (since the photographer and videographer was the same company - Tropic One) Honestly, after watching all of this videos on his website (some more then once), I have never been so sure about anything for the wedding. He is going to be there for 3 nights and 4 days filming everything and there is no price you can put on having high quality videos to relive the most important event in your life for many many years to come. pictures just don't really do it justice, in my opinion. If you have 20 mins to spare and want to check out some of his work and get inspiration for wedding videos: www.lifeinrewind.com our friends weddings are the "liya and ben" and "kc and katie".
for welcome bags, i ordered the Hola Amigo bags from wedding chicks during one of their 40% off sales. we chose the bags and then just waited for the sale which they have once every 2 months or so. For contents, outside of the hangover kits, aloe, sunscreen, etc, we plan on getting picture frames and then putting a generic thank you note in them, and then later on sending a picture of the guests with their thank you note after the wedding, so they can put the picture in the frame. We also plan on getting cigars, just have to decide whether to do it once we get to Punta Cana, apparently there is a cigar factory close to our resort. And we are going to include personalized sunglasses just in case people don't want to wear their nice expensive ones when things get rowdy. Oh and we are gong to have flip flops at the reception, not in welcome bags. Outside of that, I am still working on ideas. Since its an all inclusive resort, getting waters or rum or anything like that I feel is unnecessary.
For decor, we are using Caribbean Celebrations which is the in house decor company for Paradisus Resorts in DR. Unfortunately Paradisus charges $1,000 outside vendor fee (plus 18% tax), so we did not really have a choice. We are only paying the outside vendor fee for the DJ, because music is incredibly important to us and we decided to use an outside DJ based on reviews. For the videographer, because he is staying for 3 nights at the resort, the fee is waived.