Are you asking yourself where the very best destination wedding locations are to run off to and have your dream wedding?
As I'm sure you can imagine the answer to this question will vary greatly depending on who you ask, how far from home you want to travel (and even where home is to begin with), what time of year, how many guests you'd like to have and, of course, how much you want to spend on your wedding.
I ran into this very same problem when I was trying to figure out where we were going to get married too and it can be simply overwhelming! I'd start by making sure I've read our article on Destination Wedding Planning and our page on Destination Wedding Location first and that should get you started.
I don't know how anyone could tell you the best destination wedding locations because what's important and desirable for each of us is going to be totally different and our budgets can vary too (see our Destination Wedding Budget Poll).
I will share the locations we were considering before ultimately deciding on Tulum, Mexico:
Places that we put on our "maybe" list right away:
San Diego (North County)
Santa Barbara
Hawaii
Mexico
Antigua
U.S. Virgin Islands
Texas Hill Country
Again, ultimately it's up to you to decide and we're here to help in any way we can. Please ask any questions you have in the comments section below and if I don't know the answer I will help you find an answer ... probably from one of the awesome vendors who are here on our site. Let us hear from you ... so we can all learn from each other! *SmiLes* Suzanne
I've been wanting to get something to whiten my teeth for the wedding and today I finally ordered my teeth whitening kit on Amazon. I've done a bunch of research and read online to see what other brides suggest and this product has had rave reviews and the price tag is just right! LOL
I ordered today and I'll post again once I receive it and let you know how easy it is to use, if I have any problems with it and most importantly ... if it works!
Comes with the following:
Custom Mouthtrays for Total Tooth Coverage provided in attractive storage case
Get professional whitening results with Natural White PRO Tooth Whitening Kit. This system has an amazing whitening gel that will give you results that you expect in a few days. With the Natural White Professional Kit, a whiter and brighter smile is only two weeks away!
Contents: Each Natural White PRO Tooth Bleaching System contains the follow[...]
Are you going to whiten your teeth for your wedding? If so, what are you using? Have you tried anything yet? Give is the scoop ... we need to know so spill it! LOL *SmiLes* Suzanne
P.S. I tried to find this on eBay but I didn't see it there. Amazon has the best price so try the link above and see if they have any in stock and for a good price (I'm seeing it online for $40 ... and I paid $13 here on amazon)
If you're having a destination wedding and you're looking for tips and ideas you've come to the right place!
The Destination Wedding Site is a site dedicated to helping brides learn all they can about destination weddings by offering all kinds of tips and ideas. You can follow along and watch me plan my own destination wedding and hear from many other brides who have already had a destination wedding and that way you'll gain all of the knowledge you need to plan the perfect wedding trip for you and your guests.
We look at everything from destination wedding etiquette, how to choose a destination and a wedding site, who to invite, who should be in your wedding party, what to wear, how to save money by trying some great DYI projects ... and much much more!
Have a look around the site and let me know if you have any questions by using our contact us form where you can ask a private question or submit a question for our Q & A section.
Introduce yourself below and let us know you're having a destination wedding ... we'd love to hear from you! *SmiLes* Suzanne
Well ... planning your wedding and preparing for your big day is so much fun ... but with it also comes some stress and hard work.
Weight loss ...
From what I've read approximately 75% of all brides want to lose some weight for their wedding and I'm no exception.
The first step was to actually weigh in and see where my weight was as a starting point. Yikes! Not anywhere near where I wanted to be ... in fact, 23 lbs more than I wanted to be for my wedding day.
So ... where to start? I'll list out the things I decided to try and I'll be updating often to let you know how I do with each one:
One of the first things I did was I put up a weight loss goal board. I took a piece of poster board and drew a grid of sorts (boxes across and up and down) and then I put my starting weight in the top left box and started counting backwards. I then scoured the internet for pictures and I printed them the size of the boxes. As I lose weight I put one of the pictures over the weight I've achieved.
I'll check back in with what is and what isn't working for me and I'd love to hear from you with any tips, ideas, and encouragement while I try to hit my goal weight before my wedding day.
Are you trying to lose weight for your wedding? If so, what are you trying? Have you tried something that has worked well? Please share your thoughts so we can all help and support each other. *SmiLes* Suzanne
Once we finally decided on a destination, a venue and had a date we realized that we were really in a huge time crunch for inviting our guests. We decided to go ahead and send out email destination wedding invites / save the dates to our friends and family while we were waiting to get our boarding pass invites done. Check them out and let me know what you think:
We've decided on forever
and forever begins when we, Suzanne Franco
and Kenneth Land
unite in marriage
Tuesday, the thirtieth of June
at three o'clock in the afternoon
Dreams Resort
We are so excited to be making it "official" and we would love to share this moment with you. We will be traveling to Tulum , Mexico with all five kids to exchange vows on the beach ... celebrating our love and the blending of our families as one. Our ceremony will be held on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 3:00 p.m. at the Dreams resort.
We have set up a wedding website www.kenandsuzanne.com where we have posted more information about our "big day" and we will continue to add information as we collect it.
We hope to see you in Tulum! It's a great "excuse" to get away and enjoy an amazing vacation ... and we'll all have so much fun together!
Love,
Ken & Suzanne
.. and Austin, Nathan, Emily, Alyssa, and Cobey
Our travel agent has arranged for a group discount and you can contact her here:
I am so excited about my boarding pass wedding invitations.
I initially thought I would create and make them myself but I soon realized that I would need help with the design I had in mind. After getting some email quotes I hired Jessica of The Stylish Scribe to complete my design. She quoted me $30 to design the boarding passes which I believe is more than fair (she also included a wedding logo). After pricing out the materials needed to make the invites (card stock, envelopes, printer toner, paper cutter, perforator, etc.) I also decided to hire her to go ahead and make the invitations. For what I wanted she charges $3.50 per invite and trust me ... that's a bargain! She credits back the design fee if you hire her to actually make them. I give her my complete endorsement ... she was very patient and awesome to work with.
Jessica designed, printed, and perforated the passes ... made the gorgeous boarding pass sleeves (beautiful metallic cardstock) ... designed and printed the return RSVP postcards ... and included the envelopes for mailing. We went with a starfish and hibiscus theme since we are getting married in Mexico. The first "pass" is the invite and the second has information about the resort and contact information for our travel agent.
Once I received them (packaged beautifully and sent via U.S.P.S. Priority Mail) my daughter, Emily, and I went to work on them. I wanted to have a fun wedding project to work on with her and I'm so glad I did. We went to Michael's looking for real miniature starfish and raffia and we ended up with something totally different (and much better ... thanks to Emily LOL). First we found some small wooden starfish but they only had about 20 of them so we kept looking. Emily spotted some really fun stickers and we ended up using those as well and we love how they turned out. We'd love to hear what you think of them below in the comments section.
To make these:
Tie the raffia around the sleeve and double knot
Tie the raffia in a bow
Hot glue the raffia to the sleeve (this was necessary on ours due to the tight fit in the envelope - or the raffia would've been pulled off when the guest pulled the invite out of the envelope)
Paint the starfish tops and sides
Hot glue the starfish in place
Add stickers
I ended up spending more than I should have on this project. I've been a bit distracted due to this whole "swine flu" so I didn't get around to purchasing online. I've scoured the internet to find you the best prices on some of the things I used for this project and you can see them below.
Again, we'd love to hear from you in the comments section ... Feedback? More ideas? Let's help each other out! *SmiLes* Suzanne
P.S. I went to mail these today and I wanted to let everyone know that the postcards were $.28 each and the invitations were $1.34 each. This was due to the thickness of the package once put together. I wanted to pass that along in case you're considering these. I love them so I felt it was totally worth it ... but wanted to warn you! LOL
I liked the look of it online ... but I was completely blown away when it arrived. It is spiral bound and has cardboard/cardstock type pocketfold dividers ... again, I just LOVE it and you will too!
Trotting the globe with a wedding dress in tow is no small feat. This planner takes the mystery out of staging the perfect destination wedding by outlining all of the essential information that couples need to know. Professional Destination Wedding Planner Alison Hotchkiss gives expert advice on everything from choosing the location and setting a b[...]
Do you own this book? If so, what's your review of it? Are you considering this book? Do you have any questions? Let us hear from you below in the comments section ... it will help a lot of other people so don't be shy. *SmiLes* Suzanne
This couple surprised their guests immediately after taking their vows ... watch this for a good laugh! What a great way to get started as a new "team" in life ... having fun, dancing, and laughing with their loved ones ... good for them! *SmiLes* Suzanne
We'd love to hear about any plans you have to surprise your guests ... or about a wedding you attended where the bride and groom surprised the guests ... tell us all about it below in the comments section - it's fun for everyone who reads.
We pretty much knew before we were even engaged that we wanted to have a destination wedding ... but we had no idea what destination ... much less what resort or venue.
Things we've taken into consideration while looking for the perfect destination and venue:
Our family is mostly all in California
We will be traveling with 5 kids
We will be traveling during summer vacation from school
We don't know yet if we'll be able to get passports for all of the kids (there's a story for this one *sigh*)
We want to be married on the beach - on the sand if possible
We're working with a fairly low wedding budget (considering we'll be paying for travel and accommodations for 7 of us)
We need to be careful about the travel time involved so none of us waste our vacation time in planes and airports
Places that we put on our "maybe" list right away:
San Diego (North County)
Santa Barbara
Hawaii
Mexico
Antigua
U.S. Virgin Islands
Texas Hill Country
In that post I go into how we decided that we'd like to get married in Mexico but finding a city and venue was another challenge altogether.
I spent literally all day every day (drove Ken crazy! LOL) scouring the internet looking for information ... the good and the bad ... in hopes of finding the destination of our dreams. I spent time on Trip Advisor (warning: I think more people with a negative experience are more apt to come back and submit their review here) and I found some great destination wedding forums with my favorite being http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/.
I knew early on that I really wanted an all-inclusive resort so that we didn't have to stress about the cost of our food and drinks (keep in mind we're taking our 5 kids ... ages 7 - 13). The more I read the more I was convinced that I would be happiest with a resort that had "wedding packages" as I thought that would make it pretty easy to put the details together. With all this in mind I narrowed it down to RIU Resorts and Dreams Resorts.
I started spending my time reading their websites and any bridal reviews I could find and eventually I found my dream resort ... Dreams Tulum.
After this decision ... it was time to start pricing it all out and finding out if they had an opening on their calendar for our wedding. We'll see ...
Are you in the process of choosing your wedding site/venue? What are your must have's? If you've already narrowed down or chosen your venue give us some tips and pointers! *SmiLes* Suzanne
Tip: I have added a lot of links off of the page today and I know that can confuse and frustrate some readers so I thought I’d offer a quick tip. If you’d like to continue reading this post but would like to see what I’m referring to in the links you can hold the [...] Related posts:Hot Seminar Series – All About Wordpress Blogging Hot Seminar Series – All A […]
As I'm sure you can imagine the answer to this question will vary greatly depending on who you ask, how far from home you want to travel (and even where home is to begin with), what time of year, how many guests you'd like to have and, of course, how much you want to spend on your wedding.
Well ... planning your wedding and preparing for your big day is so much fun ... but with it also comes some stress and hard work.
Jessica designed, printed, and perforated the passes ... made the gorgeous boarding pass sleeves (beautiful metallic cardstock) ... designed and printed the return RSVP postcards ... and included the envelopes for mailing. We went with a starfish and hibiscus theme since we are getting married in Mexico. The first "pass" is the invite and the second has information about the resort and contact information for our travel agent.
US $1.00
