Amanda & Jeff 12/7/15 - YCG/Marina/Ariel's/France - Update 10/25: Napa Rose Chefs Counter!

[Disney_Alli]

I didn't really have a 'this is it' moment in the store either... But then I'd had it years before when I first saw the dress. I was just so relieved that my mom didn't hate it in person haha. But you're also talking to someone who just bought a second dress (though short, practical and cheap that I'll have lots of chances to wear) so take any dress advice I give with a grain of salt. I can be a super emotional person so I was actually a little surprised I didn't have that teary moment but the more I look back at my experience the more I know I made the right choice. Plus every one says they can completely see in my face when I know even if I don't really know it myself at the time.

The good news for you is you have lots of time to decide still as you don't really need to order your dress until like 6 months out.

Personally I LOVE that Cinderella dress and it's one of the reasons I wanted to try on a ball gown (that tiny waist!) I'm sure you looked beautiful in all of them but you definitely have to pick the dress that best shows 'you' - not your figure but who you are as a person. Hopefully some of this rambling makes sense!

 

[DisneyFirefly]

Honestly, the way I look at it is that if you can clearly imagine yourself wearing that specific dress as you marry your partner, then that's your dress. You don't have to have the teary eyed "OMG IT'S MY DRESS" moment. If you think it's your dress, then keep it in mind. You have the time to keep shopping if you want to. I think it'll be beautiful on you

I just ordered my dress on Sunday and we're not getting married until October 2016, but because of our situation (we're moving cross country in nine months) and not knowing if the dress would be discontinued, we went ahead and ordered it. I got emotional, but I didn't cry (although I wanted to and almost did later, I just hate crying in front of people). Not everyone has that reaction and that's okay. Everyone has different reactions to things. It's just the way people are built.

 

[sheri18]

following along...the AA dress is beautiful.....as others have said don't put to much into the "ah ha" moment....I agree that the industry came up with that one...or maybe years ago, like when i got married 35 years ago, there were not many choices, so we had less to pick from to give us that moment....enjoy ...relax....

 

[Amanda132]

Thanks for the reassuring words, everyone! I really do think I'm going to end up with the AA dress, based on the fact that I have realized I definitely do like it more than the Allure, plus the fact that I don't feel like I need to try on any more at any other stores. And like Jenn said about her dress, I've been getting more excited when I look at the photos of me with it on. I still haven't ordered it, since I have some time. I think I'll wait another month or two and then go back and try it on again before ordering it.

 

[elphie101]

Yay!! You definitely have time before you order it - I bought a sample gown but when I was looking 11-10 months before our wedding I only had one shop tell me I was cutting it close (and given that they also told me my budget was too low I choose to believe they were foolish!) Follow your heart!

 

[Sleepybeauty]

Excitedly following along! We are also planning a December 2015 wedding...In the first 3 weeks of the month on a weeknight you may be the week ahead of us, we are RIGHT before prices up for holiday season! We are planning a Whitehall room reception and then walking up to Sago Cay for the dessert party, weather permitting, as there is an unobstructed view and they will pipe in the music for you. Our ceremony venue is SBP.

It's so funny, your allure gown is on my list as well! I have shopped twice now but have not committed- I saw a dress I LOVE and havent yet been able to try it and just feel like I cant commit to another dress until I see this one in person on my body...Dress Stress...

I'm so excited to follow along! I need to start a journal, I'm a lurker...

 

[Disney_Alli]

Excitedly following along! We are also planning a December 2015 wedding...In the first 3 weeks of the month on a weeknight you may be the week ahead of us, we are RIGHT before prices up for holiday season! We are planning a Whitehall room reception and then walking up to Sago Cay for the dessert party, weather permitting, as there is an unobstructed view and they will pipe in the music for you. Our ceremony venue is SBP. It's so funny, your allure gown is on my list as well! I have shopped twice now but have not committed- I saw a dress I LOVE and havent yet been able to try it and just feel like I cant commit to another dress until I see this one in person on my body...Dress Stress... I'm so excited to follow along! I need to start a journal, I'm a lurker...

I did that when I bought my dress. I'd been dreaming of one for about 3 years and couldn't commit to anything until I tried it on... And as soon as I did I knew it was my dress. Then I bought a second short dress but because I wanted a very specific look for one event and it was only $169 (and this is why I'm a crazy over addicted shopper)

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[Sleepybeauty]

I did that when I bought my dress. I'd been dreaming of one for about 3 years and couldn't commit to anything until I tried it on... And as soon as I did I knew it was my dress. Then I bought a second short dress but because I wanted a very specific look for one event and it was only $169 (and this is why I'm a crazy over addicted shopper)

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

Ha ha ha!!! So now I think I know what dress you chose as I was reading your posts earlier! I'm so excited to see your event come together as well!

 

[Amanda132]

Yay!! You definitely have time before you order it - I bought a sample gown but when I was looking 11-10 months before our wedding I only had one shop tell me I was cutting it close (and given that they also told me my budget was too low I choose to believe they were foolish!) Follow your heart!

Yeah, there's definitely plenty of time!

Excitedly following along! We are also planning a December 2015 wedding...In the first 3 weeks of the month on a weeknight you may be the week ahead of us, we are RIGHT before prices up for holiday season! We are planning a Whitehall room reception and then walking up to Sago Cay for the dessert party, weather permitting, as there is an unobstructed view and they will pipe in the music for you. Our ceremony venue is SBP.

It's so funny, your allure gown is on my list as well! I have shopped twice now but have not committed- I saw a dress I LOVE and havent yet been able to try it and just feel like I cant commit to another dress until I see this one in person on my body...Dress Stress...

I'm so excited to follow along! I need to start a journal, I'm a lurker...

Thanks for following! If I were you, I would definitely try on the dress you're thinking about. Even if it's not "the dress," you'll feel better knowing that you've tried it. We loved the Whitehall room, that was our second choice reception location!

I did that when I bought my dress. I'd been dreaming of one for about 3 years and couldn't commit to anything until I tried it on... And as soon as I did I knew it was my dress. Then I bought a second short dress but because I wanted a very specific look for one event and it was only $169 (and this is why I'm a crazy over addicted shopper)

With a deal like that, how could you resist?

 

[Amanda132]

So a few big things have happened since I last posted. For one, we're less than a year out now, and we got our locations! Our ceremony will be at the Yacht Club Gazebo, our pre-reception will be at the Yacht and Beach Marina, and the reception will be at Ariel's. I'm trying to imagine a situation in which we can afford a dessert party, but I don't think it's going to happen.

We're now waiting on our letter of agreement! The one our consultant originally sent us had a couple of little errors, so we're just waiting on the new one. Once we get it, we'll mail it in (I'm trying not to think about having to go to the post office during Christmas week), and then we'll be official!

In other news, I bought my dress! I went with the Cinderella 205 dress from Alfred Angelo. I went back to the store with my mom and dad to try it on again, and I was so excited to have it back on. I ordered the dress, slip, a veil, and a beaded sash. Now I just have to wait 3-5 months for them to come in!

The only major change I want to make to the dress, as far as alterations, is to get the train removed. I'm just not a big fan of trains, although apparently everyone at the bridal store (including my mom) thinks I NEED a train for the ceremony. Then they suggested I just bustle the train for the whole wedding, but I don't want to have to carry around the extra weight of the train. So I think I'm just going to get it removed altogether.

And last but not least, we had our engagement session with the Roots! Nate and Jensey are the nicest people ever! Having our engagement session has made me even more excited to have them photographing our wedding!

We had our photos done at the Yacht Club about a week ago, and the very next day, Jensey sent me a preview photo on Twitter! Then yesterday, she sent another! I'm totally obsessed with them. I want to send Christmas cards, just so I can show more people the photo. But since we're going to be sending Save the Dates soon, we're going to hold off on the Christmas cards and wait until we have all the photos to decide which ones we like best.

Here are the previews we got! Sorry that they're so big.





We did most photos without the Santa hats, but since we're having a winter/Christmas themed wedding, we did a couple photos with them!

I feel like this post was kind of disjointed. There's just a lot of random things going on! I feel like as we get closer to the wedding, I'll (hopefully) have more focused posts.

 

[Disney_Alli]

Sorry again about your LoA that's so annoying. Hopefully you hear from them tomorrow with the corrections. I'm glad you decided on the Cinderella dress. It sounded like that was the dress for you. It's nice to give yourself some breathing room to think about it too.

Again I LOVE your pics! The Roots so fabulous work. Keep us all updated!

 

[Chris Lee]

You two are so cute, we are interested in having our wedding in Disney Park too, but there are still so many things to consider. Such as the dress, I want a dress that will make me comfortable so that I can walk and run in the park, I find this one on adasbridal, but have you ever tried on short wedding dress?

 

[Amanda132]

Sorry again about your LoA that's so annoying. Hopefully you hear from them tomorrow with the corrections. I'm glad you decided on the Cinderella dress. It sounded like that was the dress for you. It's nice to give yourself some breathing room to think about it too.

Again I LOVE your pics! The Roots so fabulous work. Keep us all updated!

It all worked out with the LoA, so it's all good now! And thank you! I love them too!

You two are so cute, we are interested in having our wedding in Disney Park too, but there are still so many things to consider. Such as the dress, I want a dress that will make me comfortable so that I can walk and run in the park, I find this one on adasbridal, but have you ever tried on short wedding dress?

Thanks so much! I didn't try on any short dresses because I pretty much knew I wanted a ball gown. But I do love the way they look!

 

[Amanda132]

Well it's official! Disney received our LoA, so we are officially getting married at Walt Disney World! We also got our planner, Kristie! We haven't had a ton to talk about with her yet, but she seems super nice. Plus, fellow DIS-er Jenn had great things to say about her, which is great to hear!

After a lot of thinking about it, we inquired about adding a dessert party. I'd imagine adding one was a lot easier when it was included in your wedding event minimums, but we decided we really want to do it even though it's considered a separate event by Disney now. How many other weddings include a fireworks show?! Plus in December, Illuminations will have the holiday tag! Kristie's assistant Catherine is currently holding Terrace de Fleurs (France Upper) for us, but I'm not sure if we'll have to change locations because the amount of guests we were planning on inviting went down. I originally told her 60 because we were in limbo about how many we would be inviting, but now we've settled on inviting about 45. So hopefully I'll find out about that soon!

Other than that, the main other thing I've been thinking about lately is videography. I hear so many brides say they regret not having a videographer, and I really don't want to feel that way! But I'm just not sure videography is in the budget. My mom thinks that I'll never watch the video after the first year of marriage, but I know I'm the type of person who likes to watch home videos. We were considering cancelling/postponing our honeymoon cruise in order to be able to add video into our budget, but I love cruises more than basically everything (except my fiance! Love you honey! ). So last night, we were discussing this conundrum, and I mentioned to Jeff that I saw someone post on the DISbrides Facebook group about a couple who stuck a GoPro inside the bride's bouquet. Well he became obsessed with this idea, so now we're researching GoPros and other "action cameras." I figure even if we buy two cameras, one for inside the bouquet and one to put on a tripod, it'll still be a ton cheaper than a videographer. Plus then we'll have cameras to take on our honeymoon to take some video. And the main part I'm wanting to have on tape is the ceremony, and if we stash a camera in the bouquet and then move the bouquet to the sweetheart table, we can try to get some footage of the reception too!

As far as bouquets themselves, I'm really not a big fan of flowers. They're so expensive, and on top of that, they give me a headache. So while looking at bouquet alternatives, I found bouquets on Etsy that are made of book pages.

I'm super in love with these! I love the way the red one looks, but I'd want to have purple flowers instead of red. Plus it seems relatively easy to be able to move the flowers around a bit to stick in the camera.

Hopefully this isn't too ambitious of a project. I'm getting a little worried that we're biting off a little more than we can chew with this whole videotaping ourselves things. Also, if anyone has an action camera and has any advice on which models are good, I'd love to hear it! Right now we're looking at the Go Pro Hero and Hero 3+, as well as the HTC Re.

Now our next step in planning is choosing Save the Dates! I'm hoping to get those chosen, purchased, and sent within the next month. Easier said than done!

 

[bigr3ddog]

If it makes you feel any better, video wasn't in our budget either. We're not regretting it.

 

[elphie101]

Ok, so first of all, I love making the connection between Facebook-people and the DisBoards world Makes me super excited!!

Oh Kristie, my Kristie. She is the best of the best of the best! I make sure to sing her praise often, because at the time we were assigned her I had no feedback whatsoever (she had recently transferred back to DFTW at that time after spending several years in other departments at Disney) and she really did make the wedding go off virtually without a hitch. Thankfully, the other brides I've heard of since then who've been assigned her have echoed my experiences, which makes me feel like I'm not spouting off false information!

I think the GoPro is a fantastic solution to your video dilemma - at least giving you a chance to record the ceremony and speeches and dances if you want those too.

I love the book bouquet idea! I agree with the idea that it's hard to spend so much money on something temporary. From my point of view, I've loved still having my bouquet around exactly as it was on the day of so many months later. If I can give you any tips about DIY-ing a bouquet yourself (I think it sounds like you'd like to make it? Or buy it? Sorry if I'm wrong!), it's start early! My aunt ended up taking over my bouquet construction but I started hoarding brooches as soon as we were engaged for the most part and the actual construction we started 3 months out, only because my aunt made it her pet project. Can't wait to see more!!

 

[Amanda132]

If it makes you feel any better, video wasn't in our budget either. We're not regretting it.

It does! Thank you!

Ok, so first of all, I love making the connection between Facebook-people and the DisBoards world Makes me super excited!!

Oh Kristie, my Kristie. She is the best of the best of the best! I make sure to sing her praise often, because at the time we were assigned her I had no feedback whatsoever (she had recently transferred back to DFTW at that time after spending several years in other departments at Disney) and she really did make the wedding go off virtually without a hitch. Thankfully, the other brides I've heard of since then who've been assigned her have echoed my experiences, which makes me feel like I'm not spouting off false information!

I think the GoPro is a fantastic solution to your video dilemma - at least giving you a chance to record the ceremony and speeches and dances if you want those too.

I love the book bouquet idea! I agree with the idea that it's hard to spend so much money on something temporary. From my point of view, I've loved still having my bouquet around exactly as it was on the day of so many months later. If I can give you any tips about DIY-ing a bouquet yourself (I think it sounds like you'd like to make it? Or buy it? Sorry if I'm wrong!), it's start early! My aunt ended up taking over my bouquet construction but I started hoarding brooches as soon as we were engaged for the most part and the actual construction we started 3 months out, only because my aunt made it her pet project. Can't wait to see more!!

I'm so glad you love Kristie! I love her already. She's so prompt at answering my emails!

We're not sure if we're going to buy or make the bouquet. The Etsy seller sells bouquets as well as individual book flowers. I might send her an message on Etsy and ask her what she thinks about how to fit a camera in there. And thanks for the advice! We'll definitely start early in case we mess it up and have to start over!

 

[Amanda132]

We have a dessert party location! We're going to be in UK Terrace (aka UK Upper)! We were originally penciled in for Terrace de Fleurs, but when we finally settled on a smaller guest list, we didn't reach their minimum guest count. So Kristie booked us for UK Upper. I am SUPER excited. I feel like the dessert party is like the icing on top of our wedding. I, somehow, got doubly excited about our wedding day when we booked the dessert party. And getting to wear my wedding dress into the park! Ah! Since our ceremony is at 2:30, we will go right from the ceremony, to the reception, to the dessert party. Illuminations is at 9:30 during December, so we'll move from Ariel's to Epcot at around 8:30. I'm hoping it won't be too long a day for people, but everyone I've told about it seems excited about getting special fireworks viewing at a wedding. If anyone's had their dessert party at UK Upper, I'd love to hear about it! I know a lot of people have them at UK Lower, but I've only seen a few at Upper.

Also, we ordered our save the dates! We're still about 10.5 months out from the wedding, but I want to send the save the dates out early. I want people to be able to take off work/save up to be able to come to the wedding. Plus we're going on a trip to Disneyland next month, and we're moving in March. So I want to try to mail the save the dates before all that crazy stuff!



We ordered them as postcards from Vistaprint. There were some designs I really liked on Minted and Wedding Paper Divas, but with all the things we keep adding on, like the dessert party, we're trying to save money where we can. Vistaprint is having a 50% off sale, so we got 50 postcards for less than $25, and that includes a premium paper upgrade and 5-day shipping. I'm pretty happy with them! Now I can't wait to actually get them and send them out. (Well, the addressing and stamp-buying and actual mailing parts I'm not too thrilled about, but I can't wait for people to actually GET them.)

Everything feels like it's really starting to come together! I know we're still a LONG way away, but time is going so fast. I feel like before we know it, the wedding will be here!

 

[andeesings]

I had my parents 40th anniversary at UK upper! I think the view of illuminations is better than terrace de fleurs!! Plus the existing seating is really great! The thing that was the worst for me was we were shoved in a rain location- in INNOVENTIONS. Which was basically a misery- and two of my desserts were HORRIFICALLY bad. Like, an EMBARRASSMENT bad. But you can't fault the location, which was brilliant!

 

[MiniMosca]

Ooooh those are really cute save the dates, and yay for getting a bargain on them! I think it's wise to send them out early. Like you said it gives the guests time to save and plan for the trip. Also of course it lets you spread out your work and not pile it on with the stress of moving. I've had to move six times and know it's exhausting and drains you from wanting to do extra work.

And yay for your Dessert party! I've not seen many UK Upper parties, and will be excited to see how your location ends up looking.