Love Story meets Viva la Vida

I couldn't resist...you MUST listen/watch.

Secrets Maroma Beach website

Our wedding resort has finally decided to update its website, and I must say, it is fabulous! There are virtual tours of the property, and some great high-resolution photos that blow away what has been available prior to this change being made. It got me very excited all over again to get down there and get married in that gorgeous setting! (well, post-swine-flu I hope, but you get the gist)

Here is a link to the site: http://www.secretsresorts.com/maroma/photo.asp

There are, of course, the obligatory very-nice-looking people inserted into some of the photos at random ...hope this whets your appetite for Mexico!

Wedding Video

For the past few weeks I've been hemming and hawing about hiring a videographer to shoot the getting ready and ceremony parts of our day. I'm still not sure I want to bite the bullet, seeing as how the average cost for only 3 hours of shooting time with 1 cameraperson is around $700, but on occasion I look for examples of good wedding videos. Well today, I found one, and wanted to share it here. Turn up the volume; it's a beautiful piece and I love the simple cinema and how it makes you feel like you're there and feeling the love. :)

Laura + Josh // The All Brevis Wedding // Mexico from StillMotion on Vimeo.

New Suit: Found

After some extensive staring at Christopher's (the FI) lower half in the suit pants from Express, it was determined that his muscular lower half needed something a bit more comfortable for the wedding day. So, back went the suit to Express Men (thanks anyway, it was fun while it lasted), and off we went to the Men's Wearhouse. Figuring we'd find nothing (I was in a cranky mood), I didn't even think to bring the sandals the FI will be wearing on the day of. Low and behold, we found a fabulous Calvin Klein linen suit, fully customizable to Christopher's body, and they actually had it in CREAM (not white!). We also found a wonderful lightweight cream shirt that he'll wear under the suit coat, and made some important decisions (i.e., no tie will be worn, and a tangerine pocket scarf is in order for that all-important touch-of-color). We pick up the suit from the tailor this coming weekend, and are ecstatic that the Men's Wearhouse came through (the suits were on a BOGO, so we actually purchased 2 suits, a dark grey and then the cream linen, for the price of one!).
Here is a teaser pic :o)

Random Excitement

In the midst of attempting to decide which kind of starfish or coral should comprise the men's boutonnieres, I ran across a photo that I didn't even know I had once found (a few months ago, according to the 'modified' date!). Here's the VS bridesmaid dress that eventually won our personal bridesmaid dress contest in action! How exciting! (My bridesmaids will of course look waaayyy hotter in it...)

OOT Bags: Filling up

Our OOT Bags are coming along rather nicely! So far, we have travel-themed playing cards, Spanish for Dummies (the pocket guides), pillow boxes that will serve as first-aid kits, bandaids to go into the first aid kits, the waffle-weave aqua-colored bags , some decorative raffia, and will soon have the imprinted plastic travel drink cups (steins with handles) in the mail! It looks like we'll now just have to grab some Advil and Pepto packets, maybe some gum or mints, create the welcome letter and 'guest information packet', and the Sudoku books. I'm on the lookout for fun tropical pens to include too, but haven't been able to track them down anywhere for a reasonable cost. I'm also hoping that we can stop in Cancun or Playa del Carmen to grab some local snacks. Is there anything I'm forgetting??

= our Frosty Stein Mugs
= the OOT bag (a reusable shopping bag)
= I like this idea that I found on one of the boards - a couple took a silly picture of themselves, and had it printed on a postcard and placed in the OOT Bag. The purpose of the card was to encourage guests to post their photos from the trip on one website to share them among all of the guests - they gave them all the same username and password, so it was protected but still available to all guests. Pretty cool, right?

Monograms

Hey all! I'm going to use this fortuitous snow day (woop!) for some excessive blogging, so watch out.

I have been hatching plans to design us a wedding monogram for weeks, but until recently, had not been able to truly determine what elements I wanted involved. Once we settled on tangerine and aqua as our official 'color scheme', I started playing around a bit with ideas. Most monograms that I came across on the forums and other blogs were square in shape, yet everything I personally made ended up being rectangular. I figured out (finally) that this is because my name is rather short, while Christopher's name is...well, 3 times longer. So it takes up more space. And since I'm a relatively big fan of symmetry...you can imagine things got more complicated than they should have been.

The other issue I've had is that we (I) chose "coral" as our theme. Believe it or not, coral is amazingly difficult to incorporate into a symmetrical monogram. Plus, finding decent clipart of coral (free clipart) is also not easy. But - barring these potential barriers - I have developed a few good (?) ideas. We're working on ordering some drink steins for the guest OOT bags, and I'd be interested in hearing thoughts about which of these you like best! We'll probably also stick the monogram on the wedding ceremony program, the menu, and the welcome letter...just to have some continuity in the design.

A post about posting

I'm having trouble articulating this next post topic, so I figured I'd throw it up here for now and let it simmer for another day...

The topic on the table is the inevitable argument that every couple about to have a wedding encounters: the "it's just one day!" versus "we only get married once!" argument. Perhaps it is had only internally to each individual person, or perhaps it's the case that there is one partner on either side of this issue. In either case, there must be some kind of happy medium we can reach, whereby we can be guiltless in planning a really cool party to celebrate our marriage, yet not go so far out that it leaves us in crazy debt for the first 5 years of said marriage.

More on this to come....

Oh, the food you will eat!

When you stay at Secrets Maroma Beach! (almost rhymes, almost)

When I first started reading the TripAdvisor.com forums on SMB, I initially got sick and tired of all the photos that were posted by reviewers - always of the exact same things. Last night, I took some time to review the photos again, and found quite a few that involved eating and/or drinking...which makes a little sense, considering the fact that it is an all-inclusive resort. After collecting the photos, I was not only excited, but I was hungry. So, I thought I'd share them here, just to give you all a 'taste' (hee hee) of the resort's fare. Enjoy!

Found Shoes and Shirts

In a stroke of luck, this past weekend we wandered into Macys and stumbled across the most perfect Cubavera shirt (though at first we didn't want a short-sleeved shirt, but then realized it would be more comfortable for the men...in Mexico...in August...). This shirt suits our purpose perfectly and will look fabulous on all our guys.

______________________________________________

I was inspired to find the guys' shoes as well (we decided to buy all of the guys, including the officiant, matching flip flop sandals) after finding the perfect shirts, so after quite a few minutes (okay fine, hours) of searching online, I found a pair of leather, handsewn, dark brown (walnut) sandals at Sierra Trading Post - and they had all of the sizes I needed (finding 7 pair of the same shoes is amazingly difficult, even on the internet). So we ordered them - received them today (a 2-day turnaround, amazing!), and the FI loves them (he got a pair too)!
They came with a sandal bag and were very well-packaged - I would highly recommend Jeffrey Fitzhugh (the maker) and Sierra Trading Post (the shipper) to anyone. What a wonderfully productive week!

Progress!

I am so happy to write this post. It seems we may have found a suit for the FI to wear to his own wedding - hooray! We originally decided to visit Banana Republic because of past success in purchasing great-fitting, good quality suit wear there. However, this season, BR decided to implement the 'noticeable stitch' on the lapels of all its suit jacket (yack). We randomly decided to hop into Express MEN and wouldn't you know, we found this gorgeous white/ivory suit jacket and matching pants there. Ordered his size via the internet, and voila - we love it! I can envision an aqua blue handkerchief inserted into the chest pocket of the jacket...and a simple white collared shirt underneath it, with just 2 buttons un-done. (The FI still maybe wants to wear a tie though, so I'm holding back on my dreamy visions for now.) Here are a few photos of the suit. I love the idea of both of us being in all white, it's elegant and casual at the same time.

Thoughts on Veils

One element of the wedding attire I never thought I would think too much about: the veil. I figured all veils were created somewhat equally, and that there would not be too much pain or consideration in the process of finding a veil that would 'go' with my gown.

Obviously....I was so very, very wrong.

So after some botched attempts at veils - I ordered one off Ebay at the same time I bought my dress, and while it is gorgeous and beautiful and wonderous, I'm afraid it just isn't quite what I had in mind (after seeing it on with my dress). Who knew I had something in mind at all?

I traversed through cyberspace to find out how other brides have chosen their veils. Most of them have indicated that they always knew they wanted a 2-tier illusion tulle veil in the color of their dress (2 tiers so they could wear one of them as a blusher, aka, the part that hangs over the bride's face), or that they always knew they didn't want a veil at all. I read about destination brides in particular, and those getting married on the somewhat-windy beaches of Mexico had this to say: find a veil with some weight on the ends, and get one that is at least waist-length, so it isn't always blowing in and around your face, so as to prevent seeing yourself fighting with it in every single photo or video clip. A-ha, good advice! So, I began the hunt for a veil that meets these specifications.

I found one right away and thought, I better just order the darn thing. Then I realized the veil itself cost just under $200. ARE YOU KIDDING?! For a piece of tulle, that crap they put in icky prom dresses, and on prom tables and chairs, and around wedding arches? It was then that I decided to search a bit differently - I typed in "45'' bridal veil ivory" and wouldn't you know, the wonderful handmade-seller site Etsy.com came up in the first page. Someone out there was making bridal veils at a fraction of the cost of the one that I liked, and still had the style that I just loved. Stay tuned for more on whether I bought the veil or not...and how it looks with the dress!

*Photo courtesy of ETSY seller bellabridalveils

Don't Drink the Water

Yes, it's the name of a Dave Matthews song, but it's also a pretty important rule to remember when traveling through Mexico. A friend was kind enough to share some suggestions about "things your guests might want to know" after a recent trip to Mexico. For example: don't drink the water, and if there are large bottles of water sitting on your bathroom counter at your resort, use those for brushing your teeth and rinsing your mouth. I've heard people say they used the resort water to brush their teeth and didn't become ill, and have heard still others say they became ill because they drank a beverage that had ice cubes in it.

Another potentially strange-to-some-Americans tip is this: look for signs that indicate whether or not you can flush your used toilet paper. It sounds gross to a certain degree, but the sewer systems in Mexico are different than those here in the U.S., and some cannot handle paper or other objects (including feminine products). Public areas are likely to have signs posted to this effect, but many resorts will not - when in doubt, just ask someone. Some water systems go to the ocean and it's always nice to do your part in keeping the environment a bit cleaner. As a side note, it might be a good idea to bring a deodorizer or air freshener for the bathroom in your room, as the bathroom inevitably smells like...a bathroom. :o)

Be prepared to be hassled by timeshare agents arriving at the Cancun airport, particularly after you have cleared customs and are making your way to the curb to find your resort taxi. They will ask you questions that make it appear as though they are your resort's taxi service, only to suck you into signing up for a timeshare presentation in exchange for something cool-sounding.
For example, my friend and her husband ended up sitting for about 5-6 hours in a presentation (always go to the early morning presentations so you can have the rest of the day for fun) but got tickets to Xcaret and Xel-ha out of it - about a $200 value. So just decide in advance whether you'd like to be party to something like this for the sometimes-cool freebies, and keep your head low until you get outside of the airport if you are not interested. Your resort taxi/transfer service will always be outside the airport, and will almost always have a sign with either your last name or resort name on it. Accept no imitations.

And speaking of airports....the ride to the resort from the airport is usually anywhere between 20 and 40 minutes. The lines at immigration take approximately 30-45 minutes, depending on the day and time you arrive. So - if you need to use a restroom, do so before you get in the car or shuttle bus. Your bladder will thank you.

All for now...more tips to come!

Maroma Beach = "Most Romantic Beach"

New SMB Wedding Photos

Thanks to the Best Destination Wedding forum that I follow, I was able to grab a link for a full set of photos from a wedding recently held at Secrets Maroma Beach (SMB). It's pretty exciting to see some more of the details of the resort itself, as well as the possible wedding locations. Check it out!

Wedding: Gerald and Julie - del sol photography



photo copyright del Sol Photography