Here is a closer look at the Welcome book I added to the OOT bags.

     Below are 2 of the pages that I added to the welcome book so that our guests were in the know about our events for the weekend.  If you plan on making an itinerary, making welcome books are so fun and easy.  For you Aruba brides, if you'd like the pages just ask me and I'll email them to you!  I added maps of Aruba (geographical, hotel, & restaurant maps), Aruba info, a thank you note, photoshare site info, guest room phone list, & Papiamento/English translation, so thats 13 pages total. 
  

  I bought plastic photo albums from the Dollar Store and printed the pages on linen paper and cut the page in 4s.  I informed the guests to turn the Welcome Book into a photo book after vacay, so that's a 2 for 1 deal!

Here is some Aruba info I added...Weather, transportation, phone calls, just the island basics!

     How do you plan on informing your guests of your wedding events?

     We had family travel from NJ, NY, VA, GA, SC, and even PI (Philippines)!  The event wouldn't be the same without all of them there so to thank them all for coming and welcoming them to the island of Aruba, my Mother-in-law and I put these bags together with the help of others. 

     The canvas bags were printed in the Philippines, thanks to our Uncle & Auntie, who brought them to the states upon their arrival.  They also printed swim suit bags (his & hers) and bought fans to add to the bags. 

I also added Tylenol, First Aid kits (which we're actually used by a lot of our guests), gum, granola bars, personalized water bottles, postcards (in lieu of a guestbook), a welcome book I DIY'ed, an Aruba booklet, & a Westin itinerary.  Antibacterial & luggage tags hung from the bag handles as well!

     Here's the bag and all its contents!  Jeff & I personally handed each one during our welcome/rehearsal dinner and it was a huge hit, everyone loved it! 

What did you give your guests as a thank you for coming to your event?  If you had OOT bags, what did you include in them?

     Jeff and I have always been Westin fans, but this room by far was our favorite, after all it was our honeymoon/bridal suite!  Check it out and take a tour with me...
     Walking into the suite, you have a living room area with a sleeper sofa and a flat screen television.  In this area there was also a balcony, a smaller one of the 2 in the room.

     Here's the bedroom area.  Jeff & I love HEAVENLY BEDS (this is partly the reason why Jeff & I are Westin fans)!  But the balcony area is what made this room!  It was wonderful waking up to sunshine in the morning! 

     We had a visitor waiting for us when we arrived!

The view was gorgeous from our room!

The view of the right side of the balcony.

The view to the left of the balcony and below.  Here's the pool area of the Westin Resort.  The morning I was getting ready for the wedding I found some friends & family doing an aqua aerobics class.  Just seeing them having a great time (they caught me watching them and waved) just brought a huge smile to my face (and a tear to my eye)!

Another beautiful view of the island!  I enjoyed the sunrise and breeze every morning on this balcony (how can you not?)!  It makes me sad that I'm not there anymore!

     Here's the bathroom with his & her sinks, a standing shower and tub, and not to mention my own makeup vanity! 

     So as you can see, our living arrangements for a week were very accommodating!  We enjoyed every minute of it and can't wait to come back to it next year!

     The hubby and I are so glad we chose the Westin to host our wedding extravaganza.  They truly went above and beyond for us and we can't thank them enough!  Our wedding coordinator, Patrick, did an amazing job.  He was always on point with communication through email, answering all our questions in a timely manner (even to say he received our email and he'll get back to us shortly).  I often here of brides in Aruba having communication problems with wedding coordinators or planners, but that was NEVER the case for us!
     As soon as we arrived in Aruba, we were greeted by our driver, Patrick set up car service to pick us up (& drop us off) from the airport (another Westin perk).  Soon after, the hubby and I checked in, we were hooked up with a Suite (living area and bedroom, shower & separate tub, 2 oceanfront balconies, & a king size Heavenly Bed).  We were also upgraded to free breakfast every morning (another perk added by the Westin).  After checking our our living situation for a week, a nice gift was delivered to our room... champagne and a beautiful card from Inge & Patrick, how thoughtful!  A nice way to start of vacay!
     Jeff & I met with Patrick for our pre-wedding meeting, where we discussed details of the ceremony & reception and any other last minute details.  I had given him my DIY projects (escort cards, programs, flip flop basket, menus, table names, etc) and instructions of where and how to place them.  We walked around the property and did a quick run through of all that would happen on our big day!  The meeting was very helpful and reassuring for Jeff & myself, so we enjoyed the rest of our days prior to the wedding in the sun! 
      The big day finally arrived and it was PERFECT with a little bump but nothing that ruined the day!  A crazy thing happened as my girls and I were about to take the elevator down to the beach for the ceremony....the POWER went out on the whole island...eekkss!!!  I have to be honest, I did freak out for a minute, but luckily the generators kicked in, I was able to take the elevator down and walk down the sandy aisle!  Unfortunately the microphones didn't work on the beach, but it didn't stop us from saying our vows!
     Patrick, was the hero of the day, making sure everything was being taking care of with having no power.  I must say, he rocked it out!  I'm sure he was stressed, but he didn't show it or let me know it which relieved a lot of stress on my part. 
     After the ceremony, the bridal party took pictures while our guests enjoyed the sunset cocktail hour with the sounds of the steel pan player.  It was a gorgeous night, not too hot and the wind wasn't crazy (for those brides worried about the wind, it was fine-my veil stayed in place!)
     The reception was the best part of the night!  Patrick made sure everything was in place before the guests arrived.  He even got security to buy some citronella candles and OFF spray for our guests (we never noticed the mosquitos until that evening, must have been because of the power outage).  That was a sweet gesture, even our photographers captured the moment when our guests sprayed repellent on themselves! 
     The reception setup was perfect, Patrick did the setup as asked and everything was in place! He stayed for the whole wedding party just to make sure everything was going as planned!  We are so thankful to have worked with Patrick and we couldn't have asked for anyone better!  So Patrick, if your reading this...THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!!  YOU ROCK!! 

     The husband (I like the sound of that) and I just got back from the beautiful island of Aruba!  We can't put into words the amazing time we had this past week!  We had a great time with all our family and friends and we're hoping they did too!  We're so glad that we picked Aruba to host our wedding, the island is so gorgeous with its turquoise waters, blue skies, and beautiful sunsets!  I'll soon post reviews and stories of all we did in Aruba, but for now I have to unpack and enjoy this time home with the hubby!  Stay tuned!