Author |
Message |
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Sunday, July 06, 2008 - 10:38 pm
Wow, very enjoyable, Karen! I bet you had the happiest wedding party, ever, in terms of what they got to wear.. everyone looks good and comfortable too. I'm sorry you lost stuff to the burglars but thank goodness for Jesus, huh? as far as some stuff went .. Love your dress and loved the hammock pics at the end .. nice touch.
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Biscottiii
Member
05-29-2004
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 12:10 am
Oh what a STUNNING and beautiful wedding!! The pics are beyond wonderful and worth waiting for. Thank heavens the creeps didn't haul off with your wedding dress and the camera, after all you had gone through. Your dress just looked so perfect, couldn't have turned out nicer. Congrats. WOW Mr. and Mrs. Donnors! Nicely done.
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Sharinia
Member
09-07-2002
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 2:20 am
Congratulations. You looked really beautiful!
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Prisonerno6
Member
08-31-2002
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 5:24 am
For all the dress angst you went through, it was beautiful! (Still snickering over Belize it or not!)
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 6:05 am
You looked absolutely beautiful! Your dress was stunning.
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Holly
Member
07-22-2001
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 6:08 am
Beautiful! It looks like it turned out just as you dreamed...and your dress looked just beautiful. What great memories you'll always have.
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Vacanick
Member
07-12-2004
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 6:18 am
Congratulations Karen and Donner! The pictures are just gorgeous and you look beautiful!
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Twiggyish
Member
08-14-2000
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 6:30 am
Just gorgeous! Loved the wedding pictures. The ruins were great, too. What I especially loved was seeing the family involved in the wedding, too. 
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Lumbele
Moderator
07-12-2002
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 7:23 am
Loved all the pix, Karen, thanks for sharing.
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Hukdonreality
Member
09-29-2003
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 7:27 am
Great pictures Karen! I agree with the others...the dress was beautiful. The frog on the window and the iguana would have sent me running for the airport, yikes!
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Holly
Member
07-22-2001
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 7:28 am
Karen, from looking at your Belize City photos, I can understand why you were glad to get out. I was on a cruise at Christmas and really excited to stop at Belize, thinking I was going to see a beautiful place. Well, the cruise ship's port was Belize City and it was just stunning to see how delapidated and dirty it was. I was SO disappointed--the stop at Belize was the reason I picked that cruise too, never realizing how far removed Belize City is from the "islands". The people were lovely though--very kind and friendly. ETA: So sorry to hear you had thieves break in. I heard about a BIG wedding party in a destination wedding who had thousands of dollars worth of wedding gifts (most of it money)--they got hit while they were having the wedding reception in the very fancy hotel they were staying at! It totally ruined their wedding; apparently it's becoming quite common in destination weddings.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 7:35 am
Such a lovely wedding!
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Wink
Member
10-06-2000
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 8:10 am
Karen you did Canada proud. Congratulations to you both.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 8:43 am
Wow wonderful wedding!! Ok brotherfriend is fine! who said that?
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 8:44 am
Omg I love the rings in the shell pic!! You and Donners make a beautiful couple. Why didn't I know how cute he was? I've never seen his pics before now lol.
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Twinkie
Member
09-24-2002
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 8:46 am
Great pics and beautiful wedding, Karen!
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 10:49 am
Ok, I couldn't wait til after work, so I had to come home for lunch to look at the wedding photos. You were a beautiful bride, Karen, and y'all look so happy. congrats, again!
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Karen
Member
09-07-2004
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 11:38 am
Whew. After a whirlwind two weeks, we are so sad to be home from Belize, and so happy to be home in Canada. It kills me that I have to go back to work tomorrow. Everything about it was amazing. Belize City was a real eye opener. We couldn't get over how run down and dirty and poor the city was, yet all the people were so open and friendly. We spent three days in the city, which we learned was one day too many - we toured the city, saw the museum, and went on a tour of Lamanai, on of the ruins sites further inland. Lamanai was fantastic. We climbed the Sun Temple - the equivalent of an 11 story building. To say we felt like we were on the top of the world would be an understatement. Leaving Belize City, we boarded a 12-seater Cessna for the trip over to San Pedro, on Ambergris Caye. The difference between San Pedro and Belize City was night and day, similar I expect to the difference between Mexico City and Playa. Pristine beaches, beautiful turquoise water, resorts all up and down the beach. Our home that we rented was mostly gorgeous (a few underwhelming moments there, but whatever), and we spent two days there by ourselves before the family arrived. It was so fantastic to spend those two days alone there before they showed up, but was it ever wonderful to sit at the end of the pier and watch as the boat of our mothers and sisters and brothers all pulled up to meet us. The look on their faces as they took it all in for the first time is another of those moments I hope I managed to freeze in my memory. Took the family on a ruins tour to Altun Ha the day before the wedding. Altun Ha was not as spectacular as Lamanai was, but with both our Mums with us, there were some physical limitations on what could and couldn't be done. Feeling wonderful and spiritually refreshed after our tour, we returned to our villa to find we'd been broken into. All our electronics, booze and cash had been taken. Somehow, in a weird twist of fate, both our wedding bands that had been sitting right out in the open in plain view - the theives had to walk past them twice to get to the other side of the room to snag other items - were still sitting on the Jesus statue we put them on "for safe keeping". The locals say that because they're custom rings they would have been hard to pawn in town; Don thinks maybe they underestimated the value of what they really were; I'm running on the theory that whoever broke in saw my wedding gown hanging there, saw the rings, and at least had enough morals to let us still have our day, even if we didn't have music or drink to celebrate. The day of the wedding itself was absolutely magical. It was a sunset ceremony, and in a place where the hours seemed to slip by so easily and effortlessly, the day could not get to 4:30 fast enough!! But finally the time arrived, I did my own hair and makeup, and before I knew it I was standing arm in arm with my brother, walking barefoot towards the man of my dreams with Van Morrison's Crazy Love playing across the beach. After giving me away ("Hey Meester, wanna buy my seester? Only five bucks!") the ceremony was simple and beautiful and we both tried not to cry. I think Don succeeded. Me, not so much. A nice dinner at a gorgeous restaurant followed - my cake was gorgeous. Two tier with chocolate on the bottom tier and vanilla on the top. Not exactly how I imagined when I requested a marble cake, but tasty nonetheless. And a cake "for ten" ended up feeding everyone in the restaurant that night, waitstaff and chef included. The resort where we stayed on our wedding night was stunning. We snuck into the pool around 1:30 in the morning, after all the lights on the beach had been turned out. We skinny-dipped under the Caribbean stars with the ocean crashing on the beach not twenty feet infront of us. Again, simply amazing. Another lazy day around town with the family, and the next day was a tour to the Belize Zoo and cave tubing. The zoo was incredible. Howler monkeys and the big cats - ocelots and margay cats and leopards and pumas (Oh My!). Parrots and macaws and turkeys and crocodiles... tons of stuff to see. Cave tubing - another of those memories that I used to think only existed in my imagination... I'm not supposed to have a real memory of something like that. Hiking through the jungle in a bikini with a headlamp on and an inner tube thrown over my shoulder. After a 40 minute hike we get to an opening in the river where we jumped on our tubes and began to float. Inside some of those caves was amazing - these huge limestone enclosures with stalactites hanging down and bat holes in the ceiling. The ancient Maya would use rafts and torches to enter these caves to perform sacred blood letting ceremonies. Don and I are so proud of his Mum - a 70 year old woman who never learned how to swim and doesn't have much appetite for adventure - she jumped right into the day with only slight hesitation and no complaints. I think everyone needs to lead a seventy year old woman down a river through a bat cave at least once in their lives. The family left the next day and we had one last day to ourselves at the villa before we, too, had to head home. I'm glad to be away from the stickiness that was suntan lotion and bug spray and sweat and salty air. I'm glad to be recovering from the ridiculous number of mosquito bits and doctor fly bits and fire ant bites and sand flea bites that I haven't been able to stop scratching for two weeks. I'm glad to be home in Canada (oh my god, the air here smells SOOOO good!) and I'm thrilled to finally be Mrs. Donners. We both say thank you so much for all the congrats and well wishes. We're thrilled that everyone here was able to be a part of our day. Official wedding photos from our photographer will be coming along in about a month - she had to take off on a trip home to Canada herself and didn't have time to touch up all the raw files before she left. I'll post those when I get them, too. Mocha - my brother friend is pretty fine, no? When I was born, my Dad brought Jeff to the hospital to see me, and the first thing he said to me when he got to hold me for the first time was, "Hello my sister friend". The line stuck.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 12:18 pm
Aww that is soo cute Karen!! I'm sorry yall were burglered though but wow on them not touching the rings. I think it's cuz they were on a Jesus statue though. 
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Moondance
Member
07-30-2000
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 2:45 pm
Ahhh Karen how fabu for you. You looked so beautiful!! I LOVEd the dress and you guys look soooo happy. I am sooooo sad now, I miss Belize too!! We had our honeymoon in Belize 4 years ago. Lets go back!!
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Monday, July 07, 2008 - 7:09 pm
beautiful bride and handsome groom, I loved the beach setting. I havent looked at all the pics yet, that site is great for sharing them easily. the dress was perfect on you!! congrats and I wish you all the happiness in the world
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Karen
Member
09-07-2004
| Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 3:03 pm
Ok, the last thing to post in my wedding thread. Finally got the professional shots from my photographer. Totally worth the wait. The low res ones are posted here: http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/thumbpage.aspx?e=3995143
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Twiggyish
Member
08-14-2000
| Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 3:27 pm
Wow, those are wonderful. I love the personal shots of you and Donners looking up at the camera. All of them are lovely!
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Cwcoop
Member
04-19-2008
| Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 3:35 pm
My fave is #0934 - thanks for sharin' Karen.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 4:38 pm
Wow, so many really special ones.. I noted the numbers of 43 and 44 but so many were outstanding!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 4:39 pm
And OMG how beautiful was that CAKE??
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Holly
Member
07-22-2001
| Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 5:39 pm
Really, really beautiful pics. I love the one when you're both acting (?) like you're jumping in the sea! And btw, Karen, your dress looked gorgeous!
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 5:42 pm
Lovely photos, Karen.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 6:06 pm
Wow, those are beautiful! I love that collage and your cake was gorgeous.
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 8:42 pm
Aw, those were just wonderful. I loved 31. What wonderful memories you made with that wedding. I reckon it was worth it.
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Biscottiii
Member
05-29-2004
| Sunday, August 03, 2008 - 10:12 pm
Truly beautiful and fantastic Mr. and Mrs. Donners!
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Monday, August 04, 2008 - 6:41 am
Great pics. I love the one of the 2 of you jumping and sitting facing the water.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Monday, August 04, 2008 - 7:17 am
Once again, Sadie-Sadie Married Lady, thank you for the beautiful postcard. I mentioned it in my folder when I received it, cuz your folder had gone poof, and I couldn't find this thread. (duh).
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