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Comment by Fur&FeathersDVM on January 23, 2011 at 9:00am

Sounds like that will be fun! Yes resorts are the way to go haha- we stayed in a fantastic one in Punta Cana and while they spoke some English they kept trying to speak to us in Spanish- especially my hubby (he's half Puerto Rican so they kept looking at him and being like really? you don't speak Spanish? haha! He speaks a bit because his grandmother and mother speak it but not enough to get by on just Spanish).  We took a very basic Spanish class online before going because even though we were assured that there would be plenty of people who spoke English... we found that wasn't necesscarily the case and people were a lot nicer to us if we made an attempt in their language first even if it's just to tell them your speak better English than their language (I feel like that's been the case for every country I've been to). It also really helped in the airport on the way home- we got trapped there due to the day after Christmas snowstorm that shut down the East Coast- the airport was like a mob scene- but we were able to get help by being polite and knowing a little bit of Spanish and managed to grab the last two tickets they were selling out of Punta Cana for the next 11 days (our original flightw as cancelled and I kid you not, they wanted us to wait eleven days to go home... which would've been lovely except that his leave was expiring in five days and I had to be back at school in five days).  I would definitely advise doing an all inclusive resort if you can.... it just makes it a lot easier because then you don't have to worry about planning out the cost of meals and drinks or activities.

 We had 100% attendance from family members but it was hard for people from overseas & out of town, especially navy friends, to make it... and to top it off our wedding week started off with a blizzard. eep. Haha. There were about 20 navy guests who didn't know if they'd be able to make it til the last minute but our venue was awesome about letting us get a last minute head count in.  You never want to invite more people than you can handle- we budgeted out how many guests we could handle and that's how many we invited.  (although in the back of our minds were like okay, our friends stationed in Italy and Japan are not gonna make it... turns out a few of them did... so let's just say we were glad we didn't follow the temptation to invite more people than we could handle) I ended up calling a few people from home a couple of weeks before the wedding once we had a better RSVP count and apologizing for the late invite but asking if they would like to come (they all did). There were so many other people that we could have/would have liked to invite but you gotta cut it off somewhere! I was that way with my bridal party- started out with nine bridesmaids, one ended up not being able to make it because her father passed away, but there were definitely other people that I was close to and would have loved to ask but at some point, it gets out of hand! Our bridal party was so big we couldn't even all fit into one limo- had to get two.

 

I obviously never plan on having another wedding but the running joke between me and the hubs is that if we ever have to get married again, we will elope because one big, stressful wedding was enough to last us a lifetime. Haha. ;) I'm very glad we did it but I am so so so glad I don't have to do it again!

Comment by Sweet*Southern*Lady on January 23, 2011 at 6:18am

We're gonna take scuba diving classes in the fall and Belize has great diving and resorts and they speak plenty of English. For Both our most recent family wedding they had 90% attendance so we're a little worried about inviting to many people.

His brother was married they had a reception in our home town (where we're having our wedding and reception. They invited 175 people. 158 showed up and 163 RSVP. I feel so over whelmed that I don't want to have some huge thing and I think its gonna keep getting larger. I think of people then I'm like oh lets add them!

Comment by Fur&FeathersDVM on January 22, 2011 at 2:38pm

I had to spread out my planning because I'm in veterinary school- aka I sit in a classroom forty hours a week and then work another forty hours a week in the hospital- so I had to plan it at like 2AM while I was sitting in the ER waiting for cases to come in, haha. We were planning it for a city that neither of us was in, and we were separated by about 4 states (still are). Yikes. Sometimes I'm still not sure how I pulled it off, haha! I wasn't indecisive about anything but whenever I wanted to check with my mom and now hubby, it invovled calling Mom and sending her pictures and then usually emailing him and waiting for a response (he was at sea for most of the planning). We had one weekend to meet with the vendors/priest and do any in person things that needed done. It was a long weekend but we made it happen ;)

There's no military bases near us either, but every venue we talked to was willing to at least give us something (although some of them it was like an extra $1 off a person or something). We got a military discount at the Tiffany's in Jacksonville when we were there on a trip once but we also have a regular person we go through at the one in Columbus, OH (where I go to school) and he talked to a diamond specialist for us at the Jacksonville one and got it for us. So I guess it depends on who you talk to!  It's not a very big discount haha it's like 5% or something but hey every bit counts, right? ;)  Being from NYC originally I am slightly obsessed with Tiffany's and ever since I was a little girl, there was always one ring that I loved in the display case in the engagement ring section. I didn't know it but my husband talked to one of my friends from there who knew which ring it was and he got it for me! (My proposal was a complete surprise- we had talked about getting married but never looked at rings together). He's always been thougthful like that. I would have been happy with any ring from any store because what mattered to me was getting to spend the rest of my life with my best friend but I definitely was not disappointed about it :)

We went to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic for our honeymoon and it was WONDERFUL- it was on my Christmas break since I'm in school and he was on holiday leave- picking a wedding date/honeymoon (we left the morning after our wedding) trying to work around not only his underway/deployment schedule but also my school schedule was near impossible but we got it done! It was nice to get away from the cold! Have you been to Belize before? I went once for a school trip and didn't want to leave!

 

Our guest list had 320 and we had about 250 able to make it (some of those were courtesy invites that we had to do but we knew wouldn't be able to make it, or navy people who ended up being underway). The guest list was super hard and I know some of my friends that I didn't end up being able to invite (had to cut things off somewhere) were a little hurt. all I can say is it's your day and it should be about who you want there celebrating it with you!

 

Comment by Sweet*Southern*Lady on January 22, 2011 at 2:18pm

NavyPrincess34, my best friend had 2 years to plan hers and it took her a 8 months to get done what the DF and my moms and I got done in 9 days. LOL. She's was like "I'm so jealous that you can be so decisive".

None of the the locations or venues I looked into offered Military discounts but the location is in the middle of Illinois and there bases near. They did have military clauses, and we did obtain Wedding insurance. The Tiffany's in Jacksonville, FL and Tucson, AZ did not give military discounts :( Poor DF has to pay full price all the time for my gifts tehehe.


I'm looking forward to Beliz which is our current pick for a honeymoon. Unfortunately we must take our trip during a school break (he's an OC at an NROTC unit).

Currently I've decided that I need more people at the wedding gotta talk about adding more people to the list cause i feel like i'm leaving everyone out. :( The guest list stuff is hard.

Comment by Fur&FeathersDVM on January 22, 2011 at 1:14pm

I just pulled off a 250 guest full wedding/reception after a year and a half of planning... so I felt like I might have a few tips :)  We used only vendors that offered a significant military discount and had enough money leftover to do a fabulous honeymoon. Also like HalfofaWhole I wanted to share my success story too because I know I had so many people telling me that there's no way to do a big wedding when you're marrying into the military!  Most of our groomsmen were military and we only had two (out of an original 8)that could not make it so we definitely lucked out. I agree you have to do what YOU want, whether it's a big wedding or a small intimate thing- we wanted a big wedding so we could have the whole family together and all our friends from college could come. But I know plenty of people who had just as wonderful weddings with just them, their spouse, and a witness :).

Oh, and just an FYI- if you are looking at rings- Tiffany's will give you a military discount, you just have to talk to a diamond specialist about it. They also will waive all shipping fees for military and if you do start buying from them, if your signficant other is away on military orders if you live close enough to the store they will hand deliver gifts free of charge- their customer service is really over the top :)

Comment by Sweet*Southern*Lady on January 19, 2011 at 1:51pm

Jess, Brady got my engagement ring there. After shopping, Tiffany's, Helzberg, Kay's, Gordon's, Jareds, Local places, and custom jewelry creations places. Eh what a headache searching for that stuff.

Comment by Jess_0411 on January 19, 2011 at 1:38am

Thanks for the welcome! Only 73 days left until our wedding, and I'm so ready for the planning to be over and done with! After weeks of shopping, we finally bought our wedding bands today. If you're looking for wedding rings, I strongly recommend Zales. They offer a 10% military discount. Most of my planning is done with, so if you need any tips, feel free to ask! On top of being a bride, I also work in the wedding coordination business. Good luck and happy planning (:

Comment by Sweet*Southern*Lady on January 18, 2011 at 12:47pm

I wanted a vegas wedding and  big reception back at home but upon finding out so many family members would come to Vegas, we decided a church wedding would be a better option cheaper in the long run for everyone (no flights this time and we're still having our big reception).

Comment by Anti M on January 18, 2011 at 12:42pm

At age 30, I'd pretty much given up trying to please the families.  Selfish?  Yes, but mom and dad were in Vegas with us at least.  I eloped, and my dad drove, LOL.

Comment by Kelliannep89 on January 18, 2011 at 11:16am

im still having the big 200+ person wedding, but thats mainly to satisfy our families. having a courthouse wedding where it is just us and a witness is so romantic. I got us bride and groom flip flops to wear!

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