Lauren & Ryan - Mini Wishes - 5-3-17 - Italy, California Grill

Laurmc8

Earning My Ears
Joined
Nov 19, 2015
Hi! Planning journal time! So I hate writing and am so much more of a lurker than poster on the boards but thought I’d give this a shot since I've enjoying reading all these PJs and been enjoying the FB group. And yes we're only 2 weeks away, so most of this is recap mode.

So I’m Lauren and my DF is Ryan.
And before I start rambling about me, I want to thank all of you who have made planning journals and posted on these boards as I’ve read and enjoyed so many and found them super helpful.
So here we go!

“Mini Wishes”
Date:
5-3-17
Ceremony: Italy Isola
Brunch Reception: California Grill Main Dining Room
Dessert Party: Italy Isola West
Guests: invited 74; actual: 50

Table of Contents

Planning:
About us & Why Disney
The Proposal
Calling DFTW, Venue Selection, Room Block & LOA
Bridal Party
THE Dress
Save the Dates/ Invites
Some details (ring box, card box, guest book)
Planning Session Part 1
Planning Session Part 2: Colors, Floral, Decor
Planning Session Part 3: Cake, Hair/Make-up Trial & Venues

BEO & Final Bill
Floral

Trip Report:
Day 1 - Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Disney Springs
Day 2 - Wedding Prep, Animal Kingdom
Day 3 - Dress Arrival, Epcot, Rehearsal
Day 4 - WEDDING DAY
Day 5 - Magic Kingdom
Day 6 - Hollywood Studios
Day 7 - Epcot and Exhaustion

Honeymoon:
Days 1-3 - Universal
Days 4-9- Return to Disney
 
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Intros/About Us

I’m Lauren, 28. From NY/NJ. I work in advertising and love my job. I talk too much sometimes. I LOVE food, cooking and eating, my life revolves around it. Other random likes include: pigs, food, a song of ice & fire/game of thrones, food, bright colors, my comfy couch I’m sitting one, Nintendo, traveling, maps, math.

DF is Ryan, 27, but will hereafter be referred to as Hoov. (My nephew is also named Ryan so I never call him by his first name). He works in business reporting at a make-up/beauty product company (I get free products). Random of interests include: chemistry, asoiaf/got, history, Legos, star wars, cats, cute animals, maps.

Our Story
So we were high school sweethearts. (go ahead let out that long aaawwww or a sigh and eye-roll). After high school, we did the long distance thing in college. After college we both moved around a bit and varied from living 5 minutes to 2 hours from each other. Eventually around 2015/2016 we starting talking about living together and were mostly waiting on his job to transfer him to another office.

Why a Disney Wedding
Yes I realize most people start with the proposal before the why Disney but we decided Disney long ago.
So as many people here, we both had a love of Disney early on. I went with my family as a child once and we had planned to go back when I was 10 but we moved houses when I was 9 and there went that plan (I got my own room though). DF went to the parks a number of times as a child and young teen and got to stay in the old treehouse villas once. So we always talked about it a lot together.

In 2009, we were trying to decide on something to do while home from school together for the summer, a roadtrip to big rollercoasters or a weekend in wildwood. Well we started looking at the options and saw the prices were ridiculous and joked you could go to Disney for that price almost. Well turns out in 2009 during the recession, you could get a package with tickets and dining plan at the value resorts for ~$70 a night. So one day while I was in class, he booked it. On that fateful trip, he had an allergic reaction to something in our room. We put an incident report in with Disney and got a refund on our hotel. So we did what any Disney junkie would do and booked a trip for 2010.
Some time on that trip or the one in 2013, I found out about the Escape package. We has spoken about getting married someday but he hated the idea of a wedding so a wedding limited to 20 people in Epcot and it comes with annual passes… we were sold.

Wishes vs Escape
So as we got closer to the marriage discussion, I found sites like this a started researching Disney Weddings. The Escape packages always seems like the way to go it was easy to plan, we could do Epcot, the price was great. But the 20 person limit was hard, just limiting us to immediate family and godparents, I found us over 20 so looked at wishes weddings but knew it was just a dream as the prices started so high… Well when Disney starting offering the catered event or mini wishes collection, I knew I found the solution and would be able to talk him and the parents this was perfectly do-able once we were engaged.
 
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The Actual Proposal
In February 2016, we planned our spring vacation (we do a vacation about once a year, last year was a family trip in Mexico so this year was due to be what we wanted and Disney). In April, we went on a 2 week adventure in southern California and ended with our first trip to DL. Now, of course, some friends and family pointed out this would be a great opportunity for a proposal. I thought so too so got my nails done before the trip just in case but didn’t want to think about it too much because he said wedding talk was on hold until after the move. On the trip I looked for clues but the DL portion of the trip as towards the end and we were changing hotels and he had no carry-on so I was convinced there was no way he had the ring. And when it didn’t happen at our dinner at Napa Rose I gave up and just enjoyed the trip.
Well he did have the ring and planned it for our first day in Disneyland in front of the castle. He didn’t like the morning photo pass guy so waited. We had a wonderful day in DL, seriously best day of my life even before I knew it would be memorable. We got on all the classic dark rides in the morning. Had fun with 60th anniversary photo spots. Here are some picture since I’ve been rambling awhile.

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(notice his face in space mountain, the ring is in his pocket…and I’m clueless…he also made sure to wear a shirt that looked good with my outfit and did his hair in the morning… I thought it was just because we love scrapbooking our trips)

So shortly after a lovely dinner in Café Orleans, an announcement came on that the fireworks might be canceled due to weather. It was getting chilly so I said if there’s no fireworks let’s beat the crowds out of here, we have 3 more nights to see fireworks. He said no let’s wait and see. So we waited, watched the parade and lined on Main Street for fireworks. They announce no fireworks, so I immediately got up and high tailed into the candy shop to warm up. He looks at me like what the heck we’re now going to leave in the droves of people heading out calm down. So then he suggests while everyone else in leaving let’s walk over to the castle; its looks pretty all lite up and we’ll get a photo pass pic for the scrapbook. I get a little suspicious but we do have a nighttime castle shot from our first night in WDW so we need one. We get over there and can’t find a photopass person…. We ask some other cast members but nothing come out great (at this point I should mention my camera’s memory cards got filled up earlier on the trip so we were using my iPhone for photos). So we hang around like everyone else is right in front of the rope blocking off the castle and taking silly pics. I see a few people escorted by security on the other side of the rope. Well that guy on the other side gets down on knee… yup another proposal. I look at Hoov to see if he reacts, nothing. Ok whatever. After the commotion of that dies down I go over to security guard who took their photo because had a flash light he used and ask if he’ll take ours. I joke with him he’s going to become a photopass guy for the night because now everyone will ask him, he said he didn’t mind.
So we take one nice photo then Hoov says one more and goes into his pocket and now I know and get a little giddy.
him: “will you marry me”
me: “Are you really f-ing doing this right now”
him: “yea that ******* stole my moment”
me: “yes!”
we kiss, people clap, some cast member says ok two in a row where’s mine. And we continue to laugh hysterically.

So our proposal: canceled fireworks, I was cold and wanted to leave, some other guy beat him to it and got better spot, no photopass guy and only my iphone… so yeah what was planned as a cliché but adorable perfect proposal was a mess but still beautiful and very us.
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So first off, can anyone tell me how to make the images smaller?
and second we'll continue recapping last summer's planning process

Getting the ball rolling with DFTW
So when we got back from our trip, we had a very busy month of graduations, nephew's confirmation, niece's communion, 2 weddings to attend and finding a place to live. Hence we kinda decided we'd talk date but put off real wedding planning until June.
In the interim though, I filled out the form on DFTW site to be contacted. (I had filled out the interest form previously and never got the fluff piece in the mail :shrug:)
We got an email from them pretty quickly since were within 12 months and they asked for initial details so we started talking dates and guest list and venues. (according to my emails this was May 10... so I guess I didn't wait that long after we returned from CA, whoops)

Date Selection:
We were thinking Pi Day 3-14-17 but first we checked touring plans and realized that it would be spring break crowds..nope. So I gave DF some parameters (during Flower & Garden Festival, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, a prime number) and told him to check touring plans for a week with low crowds so us and our guests could make the most of the trip. Based on crowds, we were left with, first week of March, Last week of April (exactly our year engaged aw) or first week of May. So May 3rd was chosen becuase of its primeness and 3 & 5 are my favorite numbers.
I emailed back DTFW with the date and our top venue choices: Ceremony: Italy & Reception: Seabreeze point, Yacht Club Marina, or California Grill

Venue choices:
So after I sent the details to DTFW, I got a phone call from our sale consultant, Michelle who was super awesome.
First: for ceremony, Italy was always our first choice and it was available. We were debating between Isola or main plaza. Michelle pointed out that while we had to specify one on contract but the whole Italy would be booked as they can't do two wedding that close to each other so we could always switch if we didn't like the Isola when we saw it in person on planning trip.

Reception venue was a harder choice.
We discussed Yacht Club Marina and the risk of outdoor reception at brunch time in May and we were both on same page that as much as I wanted an outdoor the middle of the day outside wasn't a good idea. (I think this is why Disney doesn't list Yacht Club Marina on the website, it's mostly a cocktail hour or corporate event location as most people don't want to be outside with no shade for hours).
She then emailed me over some sample breakfast menus for California Grill and we weren't very happy with them, DF hates breakfast foods and they were very pricey.
So we paused to rethink and made up a pro con list of all our locations.
TXDRQAk.jpg


So we narrowed it down and I asked Michelle a few more questions questions and I've recapped them with answers here:
Q: Are any these available on our date: YCM, Citrcos, LSS, Seabreeze point, Ariel's
A; everything but YCM and Ariel's (which we know is because of Yatchman's steakhouse construction)
Q: CG is set menus but how much flexible is there?
A: You can use any of CG's menu not just the brunch one and add ala carte items. And she sent over the full set of menus
Q: Can we do anything to create shade at Yacht Club Marina?
A: they have umbrella but it' awkward as they're just free standing, the tables don't have holes
(I've heard this has seen changed but moot point for us it was booked anyway)
Q: How many people does Seabreeze point actually hold?
A: 40 under shade, 100 if you use grass
(so another location that's good for cocktail hour but impractical for full meal at our size)

So since our only con with CG was the menu restrictions and we were now able to see all the options, we went with that. I emailed her back our choices and the contracting began.
PS Carrie has posted all the menus for DFTW on her site, Disneytravelbabble.com, so if Disney isn't giving you the menus you can see them.

I also asked if we should book Dessert Party now or add later, Michelle suggested early and I added it (even though I hadn't yet convinced DF yet, whoops). We were between UK lochside and Italy Isola West. Lochside now has a smaller guest limit so Italy it was! (spoiler alert they later tried to move us even though I booked early... thanks to the knowledge I had from DIS and Carrie, I was having none of that)


Room Block
So after I emailed back, Disney held our date and locations and send us the room block forms and asked for all the details on names, address etc. The room block was kind of a pain and I had a call with Michelle to help me figure it out (I think I've had more phone calls with her than my planner since the early steps were more nerve wrecking than later ones).
We only picked two hotels:
Port Orleans French Quarter - our favorite and it's small so perfect for group travel and it's the lest likely to have any discounts so the block would be useful
Pop Century - in case we got stuck paying for unused nights it;s the nicest value but cheap
We didn't pick any deluxe because the block rates for them aren't great, if anyone really wanted we could refer them to DVC rentals and apply them to the block.
My theory on planning the block was to make a spreadsheet of guests and figure out who was definitely coming and put them down for two nights plus 5 nights for ourselves and parents. And then I added 25 room nights for everyone else since that's the max you can drop later on. so we blocked 60 nights

Room block update (since i'm writing this many months later): around 4 months out I got freaked out I didn't have enough and added 20 more room nights; our room block coordinator added them and said we'd get a contract addendum to sign for the extra nights but we never did. Then at 60 days out, we had almost 60 nights booked and I freaked out thinking I had to drop the rooms I added, but I guess since they weren't in the contract it was fine and they were left until the 30 days at which all unbooked rooms in the block were released. And in case you're wondering... even though i would up with a very different guest list and people i was sure would stay onsite didn't..our final room block was 65 nights including one family who booked AS Music for the suites), so my initial calculations were spot on.
Moral of the story: don't second guess yourself so much and annoy the crap out of your friends to book their rooms and tell them the deadline is 60 days (it's 30)

Letter of Agreement:
With out room block sorted and date and venue picked, we signed our LOA and sent off our deposit around mid June (the same week we moved so that was fun and why I never started this PJ then).
 
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Yay following along! Its fun reading more Mini Wishes events and yours sounds super awesome! Can't wait to hear more about your wedding details!
 


So, I'm the worst at actually updating this thing, so sorry. But I'm married now and feel like I should get this thing done.

So even though we're about a month past the wedding and I have photos back already and I should just move on with recapping; I'm gonna continue the going over planning but hopefully abbreviated.

So continuing,
Bridal Party & Attire:

Even before we were engaged we knew we wanted a small bridal party. So we had just my sisters and two of his friends.
Mandy - Bridesmaid - my oldest sister; she has 3 kids, the older two severed as ushers in the wedding (mostly because I wanted to coordinate their outfits).
Michelle - Maid of Honor - my older sister (middle).
Tom - Best Man - I've known Tom since we were like 7 years old. He and Hoover have been besties since middle school. He's the cumin to our salt & pepper (How I Met your Mother reference, google it lol)
Billy - Groomsman - another high school friend who was Hoov's roommate post-collage/before we lived together so basically I lived with him too.
13606976_10208522704897994_8109185037486245252_n.jpg

Mich, me & Mandy

11666036_10152906865900846_8898838847883666767_n.jpg

Billy, Tom, me, Hoov

Attire:
So my idea for bridal party attire was all shades of grey and add the pop of color in the flowers. This would make it easier to shop as I wouldn't have to exact color match and hopefully meant people would buy things they could use again.

Gals:
So being a chill and nice bride that I was, I early on told my sisters to pick their own dresses. My requirements were: short, grey, soft fabric (suggested lace but not required). And that they wear the same and Mich had final say(it's a known fact in my family that Mandy has no fashion sense) I wanted them to be comfortable in Florida heat and am perfectly okay with being hands off. We wound up shopping together anyway.
We started looking for their dresses in a shop right next to where I started shopping for my dress (and we where I eventually bought mine from). Shopping with both my sisters and my mother was a little hectic but it was good to get everybody on same page and they were liking similar things but Mich liked strapless and Mandy did not because she was concerned about chest support.
About a week later, just Michelle and I went to look for my dress in a big shop in Manhattan after work. the place doesn't take appointments so we went after work one day but found out that the sign in list was too long and we wouldn't get to shop (weird process I know). But we were able to look at the bridesmaid dept. So we found ourselves looking at the same designer and similar to dresses we liked in the first store. But we found one the first store didn't have. It was all over lace, illusion neckline (so both girls would like it), and the part that sold Mich was: it has pockets! So we went back and ordered it at the other shop that also carried the designer since it was closer to her house.
Also the sample happened to be in the dark grey and be close to our size. (We're both kind of plus size and Mich is very tall so up to this point she was shoving me into too small dresses and wouldn't put any on herself)
Here the trying on pic:
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It's Mori Lee and the picture online looked nothing like it did in person.

The guys:
So my husband (that's fun to say) is actually somewhat into dressing up and is a difficult body shape so he knew early on he needed a custom suit. So shortly after getting my dress we went and picked his out; he found a place called Black Lapel, they have a showroom in NY but they make the suits in Asia and finish up tailoring here so they are lower priced that other made to measure suits. He got to do a summery suit but with formal tuxedo-like elements like peaked lapels (my only contribution was the color)

The groomsmen: Grey obviously and I was leaning toward vest and no jacket for the heat. Thinking the same look as Lauren & George.
This proved more difficult than I thought as most vest are meant to be worn under jackets and have backs made out the lining material and I didn't like that. (yes I was very chill about the girls attire but super picky about the boys). I also didn't want the guys to send a lot of money but I figured buying just pants and vest would be cheaper than traditional tuxedo rental. Since I couldn't find the vests with backs anywhere, we went back to Black Lapel and got the boys suits to their liking. They would up buying the jacket to match too so they'd have a complete suit for future use. The guys looked really good in the three piece so they wore that for most of the pictures and did just vests only for the ceremony since the heat and sun were crazy that day.

The kids: my sister's kids were ushers and she drove me nuts about their attire. My niece wanted to wear orange at one point and I wanted to get my nephew the same pants as the guys but with suspenders but my sister thought it was unnecessary. Well about a month before the wedding it all worked out. My niece wore the first dress my sister had bought (but it need to be altered a lot because she bought it so early and big thinking she'd grow and couldn't exchange it for right size) and one day at a family party i noticed my nephew was wearing grey pants that were good on him just needed a slight hem, so i bought him cheap suspenders in h&m and we were done.
Moral of the story: wait on kid's attire; they might grow and they're not that hard to dress and 9 year old girls are annoying.


Accessories:

Girls:
I let them pick their own shoes, just reminded them not to tower over me as I'm short and wore flats. They picked silver sandals from David's bridal that were We picked up a nice earring and bracelet while shopping for mine and done.

Guys: again the harder ones. I thought all shades of grey would be easy but then I started running into the problem of finding ties that were close but slightly different than suit and it looked odd. So eventually I ordered a ****-ton on TieBar.com and matched afterward and returned the rest. And they were cheaper than h&m and we got DH two ties and pocket square too so I highly recommend.
For their shoes, I told them brown oxfords or derby's but none of them knew what that meant so I kept getting texts of photos of shoes to approve lol.
they also kept asking about shirts (I told them white, that shouldn't be hard) so at one point DH sent them this pic:
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So Here's the final product. I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

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Last edited:
So a lot of this PJ i wrote months ago and never posted because I couldn't get pictures to post correctly. I discovered how awesome google photos is recently so now these will go much faster.

Dress shopping

We went dress shopping last August. Putting myself right in the suggested time frame of 8-10 months I think.

I made two appointments at bridal shops that were near each other and about halfway between my house and my moms. And both carried many of the designers I had liked online.

One was a small boutique that specialized in plus size - if there's any nj brides reading I highly recommend The Curvy Bride even if you're not plus size.

The other was a huge store (the building used to be a banquet hall my jr prom was there) that had a few designers that the small one didn't.


Shop #1
(We didn't realize we were allowed to take pics at first so I'm mixing stock photos and mine)


I really enjoyed the experience here. I gave the consultant my stack of printouts and she pulled some of those and we browsed the racks together. There were only two fitting rooms so I could browse the store in the dress and it was chill.


Dress #1
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The first dress I tried on was an essence of Australia organza mermaid with zig zag ruccing on the bodice and a cool detail on the neckline. I loved the fit in the middle and the skirt was cool. My sisters immediately made fun of the fan detail at the neck but I later came back to it.


Dress #2
e96a638856c0aad41226f9465ad4c9bb.jpg

I was really excited about this one in photos but the material was tulle and in person I didn't even realize it was the same dress and hated it

Dress #3
73527ace119ca64203787a6edbd9fa54.jpg

My sister Michelle's favorite. I thought I would like this one more but it was hard to visualize as the sample was too big and they didn't have the strapless version. And my mom couldn't get over the color (it also came in ivory and I was open to blush but this was a darker pink almost dirty looking)


Dress #4-5ish
We tried on a few outside my realm as this was first dress trying day. There was a big satin one that was a big nope and something else I don't remember


Dress #6
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The one the consultant was excited about as they had just gotten it in. Very pretty very fun. Not me


Dress #7

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The one was a definite contender. It had the bodice I liked from first dress and a fun skirt. I wasn't crazy about the belt though.


Then our appointment was almost up. So I put back on the first dress to compare to the last and they were the two front runners.

At this point I had pleasantly discovered my gut was right. I was open and tried some different things but I knew what I liked; I wanted a mermaid with fun skirt and soft fabric


We had a lunch break (because pigging out on pizza and rice balls when trying on dresses is a great idea) then headed to second store.


Store #2

The second store was less pleasant. It was gigantic and we weren't allowed to pull dresses ourselves and I didn't like anything the consultant picked.

But again I wanted to try some different things so I was open to get suggestions. But after a couple she pulled had beading the irritated my arms and she kept pulling more beaded dress I got annoyed.

I only recall two dress here (and we weren't allowed to take pictures (we sneaked one))


6ea63be663c9bbb4747b5c70e983dc6c.jpg

This was was super fun and a felt princess-y but modern. Perfect for my location but too much dress for me. A friend tried it on a couple weeks later and she's tall so it looked better on her but I'm short.


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This one was very similar to the Madison James dress that I specifically went to this shop for (which I didn't try on because either it didn't come it my size or the sample was too small or out of budget. I never got a straight answer) I liked it but was super self conscious about the tummy and thought the lace and beading might irritate me (it was softer than the other beaded dresses I tried though) I thought it might be better in right size so kept it in mind. But eventually i though it was more prom dress than wedding dress.


The other thing about this shop was that they trying to be considerate about my size and just didn't say anything (in between plus and regular sizing normally so I knew I'd be plus in bridal). It was nice but when I ask why you aren't pulling what I want just tell me. We didn't realize that's what's happening until we asked the Randy like employee that kept popping in with things I didn't like and we asked him. I know my size, no need to tip toe around it.

We also checked out their sample sale section and eh


So after that I made a follow up appointment with the first shop to decide between the top contenders.


But because I had a bad experience in the big shop I also tried to go to RK bridal to see some options the little shop didn't have. Well we couldn't get in there but just seeing the overwhelming number of dress confirmed for me that I wanted to go to the little shop. But we found bridesmaid dress that day so not a waste and sent a picture of me to my mom pretending we found a dress without her.



Follow up appointment

So when we went back I tried on my top two again.


We debated on this one and discussed the option of removing the belt
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But eventually I chose the other as the bodice was more of the flattering zig zags and the small train felt more bridal to me.

So I checked it out in different lighting. Debated between white and ivory (bright white looked blue so ivory it was) and tested sitting in. I also tried on a different dress from same designer to see if i liked the corset back option. I decided against it because the strings had to be satin and since this dress is all organza it seemed odd. (my sisters were very happy then wouldn't have to lace me in(we later found out buttons are just as annoying) Then cheers-ed and got measured.
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Yay! Thanks for the shout out! Obviously I'm biased, but I absolutely love your bridesmaids and groomsmen's attire :)

I also had the same experience with dress shopping, in that I had it narrowed down to 2 that I loved, went home to sleep on it for a few days, then went back to try both on over again (I think I actually tried both on again two more times each lol) and then finally picked my dress. Looking back on everything, I'm so thrilled with the one I chose and wouldn't ever change my mind! I hope you felt the same.

I can't wait to see more details on the planning and of course the wedding!
 
Yay! Thanks for the shout out! Obviously I'm biased, but I absolutely love your bridesmaids and groomsmen's attire :)

I also had the same experience with dress shopping, in that I had it narrowed down to 2 that I loved, went home to sleep on it for a few days, then went back to try both on over again (I think I actually tried both on again two more times each lol) and then finally picked my dress. Looking back on everything, I'm so thrilled with the one I chose and wouldn't ever change my mind! I hope you felt the same.

I can't wait to see more details on the planning and of course the wedding!
Great minds think alike... or it's a Lauren thing
And I'm so happy with my dress choice; I'm trying to think of an excuse to wear it again.
 
Save the date
My save the dates were made by my sisters friend who is a professional designer and does lots of invites and such. I told her I wanted luggage tags with passport stamps representing the 4 parks and sent her vectors for that.

The first draft came back covered in that font that looks like Walt's signature and tinker belle and other childish things. I had her fix a lot but we were already in August by this point so I kinda gave up when they were close enough to what I wanted. I also studied graphic design in school and thought about doing them myself but my computer at home is seriously lacking. I also wanted them printed well which she did and she even did the backing and strings so that was nice.
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of course I can't find a picture of the actual printed piece.


Invitations


I had these made by the print studio at my job. (The perks of working in advertising). I loved the idea of a booklet to include all the information about planning the trip and what not in one piece rather than having lots of inserts. Hoov really loved the idea of old ticket books but I wanted something more modern or mid-century (to match CG) and clean so we attempted to combine that.
I gave my friend and co-worker a set of magnets we have the look like the old ticket books and some history links and told him to match mine and Hoovs style.

Here's the layout I decided on
E ticket - formal invite
D ticket - transportation info & dessert party
C ticket - accommodations
B ticket - direct to our website for more info
A ticket - RSVP tear-out postcard. I was very proud of clever idea for this but we only had about half the guest actually return them and many of those who did drew inappropriate things

We worked on em together and I could never decide on colors (I hate pastels) but in the end they turned out great. He perfectly replicated the flourishes and deign elements of the original tickets. The cover was inspired by a later ticket book since I couldn't find the original and yes I know it's a Disneyland D but my guests wouldn't.

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I apparently don't have a photo of the finished product and the one I kept is currently buried in my closet. (I'll updated when I find it) This is a close to final draft. The final version was the colored pages with white cover.

And because my handwriting in atrocious they also made my wrap around labels. And I sealed them with mickey seals I found on etsy
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And we mailed some of them from Magic Kingdom while we were there in February (we only mailed the ones to guests we thought would notice the post mark or guests who lived in Florida)

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The guys from my work also made the letters & labels for our welcome bags, the card we included to explain pin trading, our favor/escort card labels, table numbers. Unfortunately I don't have a pic of everything and left the spares in Florida.
 
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Little details

In the era of Pinterest, it seems everyone tries to personalize and diy everything. We picked a destination wedding to make planning simple though so I only chose a few things to focus on.

I didn't wanted to lug things down to Florida but having family in Florida helped that problem. Each time we visited DH's parents around the holidays or whatever we brought them wedding stuff and a couple weeks before I mailed the last bit of favors and table numbers and my MIL boxed it all up for DFTW


Card box
I was excited to find a cool card box. I thought about using one of those boxes that looks like books but that wouldn't work with our mid century vibe. I found this orange lacquer one day in homegoods and it was perfect. I thought about adding a hinge but it worked fine without.

Guest book
I wanted to do a photo guest book but DH didn't so we put this off awhile. Eventually I discovered those little Instant cameras only hold film for 10 photos at a time so that was out.
We found this on our February trip. DH spotted it in the giftshop at the exit of rockin' roller coaster. I was very proud of him it matched s perfectly. I checked the shop Disney parks app and saw they had it in the emporium (I had some other stuff to buy). We picked it up on our last day and I had my in laws take on home with them so one less thing to pack from NJ to florida.
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for the guestbook, we found a pen from the a trip in the 90s while cleaning out our storage room. It's orange and had the 70s wdw logo. Perfect. The ink had dried out so I pulled apart another pen and replaced the inside. (I was later told that didn't last long and it didn't work at the reception whoops)


Toasting flutes
I got three sets as gifts including these personalized Arribas Brothers ones from my co-workers just before we left. But by that point I had already packed and didn't want to risk breaking them so we left them home. We'll probably toast our one month this weekend with them
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Cake serving set
I would have used the provided one but this was an engagement gift from my friends parents. It's Kate spade and I love it. She bought us the matching photo frame for our shower too.
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Ring box
We made a little legend of Zelda treasure chest as our wedding needed some nerd cred. It was my one true DIY project. We bought the box in hobby lobby. I painted the trim. We considered painting a triforce but I can't paint that well. The insert was slightly a pain. I bought clearance fabric in hobby lobby but we couldn't figured out the right stuffing to use. Eventually we cut the corner off the mattress topper in the guest room then I cut it into two pieces then glued it back together with the fabric between to make the slit to hold the rings.
DH was gonna put the sound effect in it but we never got around to it. But tada it looks awesome and now it lives on my dresser to hold rings I'm not wearing.
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Table numbers
Again done by my work buddies. I had them do all the paper collateral since I'm into all that
I wanted something substantial since I went cheap on centerpieces And we're math dorks so we wanted something geometric so I found this idea on Pinterest. And we did only prime numbers.
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Favors & Coasters
I bought these bottle opener favors way too early so they match nothing but I love keys and they kinda look like a Mickey head. Again my work buddies came through and did the wrap on them so they kinda matched and served as the 'key to your seat' place cards. (I'll add a picture of the finished project eventually).
I also bought coasters because they were on sale and figured I'd allow myself one stupid frivolous personalized thing early on and then I'd remind myself that later in planning and not buy more crap (I think my laziness preventing that more so but whatever I like coasters)
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Planning Session Trip!

So I have a half finished trip report from our planning trip in November but I need to get chugging along in this so I'll just recap the overview and planning session day


In July we booked a free dining package at Coronado springs with 3 days of tickets. We debated getting annual passes for the planning trip and wedding trip but it came out about even with the free dining. So we did that. But later they announced more dining discounts for APs and I realized we could upgrade our tickets and take advantage of both offers that way.


The plan

Friday Nov 25 - fly to Ft. Myers / Naples
Fri - Sun - spend time with his parents at their house
Mon - drive up to Orlando, Animal kingdom, spend time with my parents (who flew straight to Orlando)
Tues - planning session, monorail loop tour of Christmas trees, dinner at California grill
Weds - Hollywood Studios, hair & make up trial, Epcot, dinner at biergarten
Thurs - Magic Kingdom, lunch at skipper canteen


Planning session day

We woke up bright and early and smushed all 6 of us into my in laws car (my dad volunteered to sit in the trunk and of course this was the one day during the trip the magic kingdom toll plaza was backed up forever). But we made it on time for our 9am session

My mother loved Franck's and the parents all enjoyed looking at the model cakes (and pondering their costs). Meanwhile I was just anxious to get to business. And I will say I liked working with our event manager/planner, Diane because she was that way too (I've heard other brides didn't like that about her but she was a good match for us)

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(I didn't take many pictures)

So we sat down and Diane gave us a pretty DTFW folder with a timeline and planning session sheet that we didn't use.

We did go over the timeline of dates of when to do certain things and she gave us a suggested date for rsvps etc. a lot of this we knew from passporter but I like the sheet since it filled in our dates


I expected us to go through the planning kit but instead I saw Diane had in front of her a rough BEO draft so she followed along from that and asked questions and took notes. Thanks to all our research we were pretty detailed in our kit so not much was unexpected. Here's our planning kit if anyone's curious: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByOFPcHJOEpyN3c2UFRqazctRFU

First they pulled up pictures of isola set up for the ceremony to confirm we wanted facing spaceship earth.

Then we went over transportation. I knew we needed the bus for guests and vans were our best bet for bridal party and vendors so she asked for everyone names for those and confirmed we'd do 1 bus and 2 vans.
We were asked if we wanted to do first look at hotel or in Epcot; we went with in Epcot.
There wasn't much to discuss of ceremony as far as I remember.


We went over reception. Diane showed us a seating chart for Cali Grill but we didn't go over exactly which areas we use as they would be decided when we had set numbers. She showed us they usually do groups our size on the left (toward MK side) of the restaurant and that they could move some tables for flow but generally CG doesn't like to move too much furniture (later when we had numbers, I pushed her on this because she said they don't put the 4 tops together into 8 but I knew they have in the past)

We went over flow of the reception. We wanted very chill; no bridal party intros and I didn't care if we got introduced either but we did it. Just parent dances and food. We discussed that it made sense with short reception to do arrival, dances, toasts and start food all back to back.

Then we got to entertainment which was the only area I had wanted to ask questions. We wanted to do a couple live musicians. Passporter had a list but the planning kit made no mention of it and I heard the prices on them changed a lot. I hate DJs and didn't want the cost of one. So we wanted live musician and iPod. Diane said we could do the iPod set up but needed to assign someone to do announcements. But then the parents kinda jumped on me that we needed someone to MC. Diane said it was up to us but she thought receptions flowed much better with someone to MC and it's better not to assign it to s guest. She also said we could have the ceremony violinist continue into reception for a bit and that the 3 hour no lighting dj package was $1000 and the iPod set up is like $500. I thought a dj would be much more but since it wasn't we went with that. So yea my one question going in was how much is a string duo or piano and we never found out... (moral of story: don't bring your parents lol. Although we did wind up loving our dj)

We went over menu. Which was easy since our sales consultant gave us the options long ago and there isn't too much customizing at CG.

We choose the Barstow lunch buffet menu and added Mickey waffles and bacon.
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Then we talked dessert party. She said they used to have the parties start an hour before the fireworks and end with illuminations but now they're having them start at 8:45 with fireworks at 9. This is apparently in case of rain because with the backup venues they always do fireworks then food and if you get moved to back up, you'd have to tell all you guests the time changed. I didn't fully understand the logic if this but trusted their experience. So food service was 8:45-9:45 and end at 10:30.

For the Dessert Party Menu. We had already went on Carrie's site and printed out all the menus so we went off of those in my binder (I assume if I hadn't brought them, we would have been shown the same ones; I guess Diane assumed our sales consultant sent them to us because she didn't find it weird) However we worked off of 2016 menus and while they'll do custom menus based on older ones it probably would have been nice to look at 2017 menus.
We used this one as starting point and switched out the brownies, cookies, fruit and punch for items from other menus, his pick was cannolis and mine was Mickey key lime tarts (because all food is better micket shaped and I like the tarts at Sunshine Seasons and assumed these would be similar). And because both DH and my dad love orange soda/creamsicles, i asked for orange soda instead of coke (creamsicle floats!)
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And our actual menu in our BEO
upload_2017-6-30_12-24-38.png

We took a short break before floral
 
Planning Session: Floral & Decor

We took a brief break before floral and we released the guys who went and wandered around GF while moms and I met with Elizabeth. Before the planning session, our planner's assistant sent over kind of guidelines to prepare for the planning session, suggested bringing photos of decor, attire, swatches if you have etc. And they also asked if you have a Pinterest to send the link. I organized my pins into boards for ceremony decor, personal floral, reception, dress etc. I also organized and printed out photos. This was definitely overkill. You could do either. But I'm a nut about flowers so I was super prepared.

Elizabeth had pulled up my Pinterest boards on the screens before we entered but I showed her I had the printouts a little better organized so we went off of that. First I showed her pictures of the attire then we went through the pictures of floral.

Since I haven't talked floral or decor yet I'll post the same pics I used at my session with the recap.
I wanted mostly white but a few pops or bright orange. Very simple and big bold flowers.

Personal Floral

My bouquet
I had way too many pics for this as I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. I knew I wanted white and love roses and ranunculus (peonies too but they're fragrant and costly) but was torn between the classic round and the more trendy free form and greenery.
Elizabeth thought the big greenery ones can be too much (unless you're doing that whole rustic look) so we settled on a more round with greens like one picture I had with them throughout but some olive branches. (Spoiler alert: I shoulda gone in there with a clear idea or left it to them. I think my indecisiveness and mixing ideas made my bouquet turnout out eh)
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And I also asked for some hair floral. Fresh flowers turned out to be really reasonable and defiantly cheaper than any other hair piece options
Elizabeth said this was easy; they would do a few blooms each individually wrapped to pins so it gives the hairdresser the most versatility
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Bridesmaids
I knew exactly what I wanted so that was easy. I explained I didn't want too perfectly round and she noted they'd do it more 'in and put' I'm not sure if that's a technical floral term
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Oh then she asked about wrap for bouquets. I knew I liked the partial (they call it 75%) but didn't like the satin the usually do since all the attire fabrics are soft and not shiny. She said they have to use satin because it ties best but they could wrap over the satin with lace. I loved that idea and she suggested grey for mine and white for the girls. (Spoiler alert: the final result was a lot of lace. Pretty and I liked it but bulky in case your care about that)


Guys
Again this one was easy; I knew what I wanted. Single ranunculus and pretty greens. white for Hubby and orange for groomsmen,dads, and usher (and good spoiler: I loved my hubby 's boutonniere.)
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Moms
For the moms I was really adamant about it not looking like a prom corsage. I really liked the big cuffs but was kinda vetoed. My mom hates white flowers so we did all parents in orange like the bridal party. So the result for them was corsage to match the guys and noted no fillers or extra bows. (I honestly don't remember what they actually looked like Day of)
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Usher/Jr. -not-a-bridesmaid-?
Next in personal floral was my niece. She really wanted to be involved in the wedding but we didn't want kids in wedding and she's too old for flower girl anyway so I told her she was an usher. I figured I'd give her a flower and she'd feel involved (and that worked well). I always see the Mickey pomanders but thought they were pricey. She confirmed they are over $100 so that was nixed. Thankfully I had a backup idea. A big single gerbera wrist corsage was perfect for her age and reasonably priced around $20.
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We decided on no flowers for grandparents. (Mine has all passed so I left that decision to inlaws who said don't bother)

Ceremony Floral

For the ceremony, I had a couple ideas and we brainstormed a bit. I knew I definitely wanted the white chairs and aisle clusters and then wanted to discuss maybe something tall or petals or herbs.


Flower clusters for aisle
Love love love the large photo below(pinks/reds ranunculus and long greeenry); just requested white so that was easy. We figured 6 total, first, middle and last row but depending on final count we'd adjust that.

'Altar area'
My mom had asked early in our own planning talks about doing something around us. I didn't wanna do an arch because why block the view of spaceship earth. I figured even though I'm not crazy about the Venetian poles at the site, they kinda acted as a backdrop. But I also wanted some green and searches for ideas. Eventually thought of doing two olives trees around us. So I searched for some ideas ; not a lot comes up on Pinterest for 'wedding decor trees' but I curated a few ideas between pinterest and wondering the flower district on my way to work (above)
Elizabeth loved the idea and said she'd talk to the horticulture department as this would go through then as a greens package not floral. Probably a set of 4-6 trees places around the island.

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Aisle petals

I also inquired about petals or herb garland down the aisle. I wasn't sure how white petals would look on concrete so I liked the greens option. I don't know how I got out voted on that but we choose to price out the white petals in the scrolls. My mom asked about doing some on stairs but Elizabeth and I both pointed out you don't see them much because of the angle.
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That was a lot for ceremony but I knew we'd cut some.


Reception
For the reception I wanted to keep things pretty simple.


Linens
I actually really like CG's napkins but also was obsessed with an all white look so asked for white napkins
I also asked about how they do the sweetheart table and cake table if they use existing tables & same tablecloths as restaurant tables. Because I had seen in some of the venues like the attic when they bring in an additional banquet table (like hall rentals) they look different and have those weird table cloths that are like velcro-ed on...apparently it's called skirting. I was probably crazy for asking since they do use existing tables in CG but I was good to confirm and she noted on the BEO Bride dislikes skirted tables.


Centerpieces
I couldn't decided between these two looks so I requested pricing on both. Was slightly leaning toward the white squares with tangerines.
I also really liked candles and loose citrus but knew that would be silly in bright daytime venue. But Elizabeth suggested doing it for dessert party.
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Cake table
I was thinking aisle clusters on cake table and bridesmaid bouquets on guest book/ card table. But Elizabeth said don't bother with guest book table and do the bridesmaid bouquets for cake then the cake table wouldn't be so white so we did that.


Sweetheart table
Simple- my bouquet in a vase. Elizabeth also suggested the aisle clusters be reused there which was a great idea.
I also wanted something on the chairs which we all knew was kinda of frivolous but I wanted it so we kept it simple. We went with the first picture here but in white.
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The guys has popped back in some time around the personal floral but kept quiet so I don't know why they were there
 
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Planning Trip Part 3: Cake!, Pseudo-tasting session, hair & make-up, random tidbits

Cake Tasting
So after the floral portion of our planning session, we took a break. My MiL was very happy to get out of the cold room of Franck's and we hung outside the wedding pavilion for a bit chit-chatting. The men told us about their visit to GF and how fancy it was and the parents discussed their wedding attire options with each other. I had pretty much told them here's our colors and O trusted them to pick themselves yet my in-laws keep asking me to approve their choices down to ties, shows and hair... so it was nice that the parents coordinated with each other and finally left me out of it.

When we went back into Franck's, they had out cake sampling laid out for us, DH and FiL were very excited for this. my FiL was all 'well you guys try first' but I know he loves sweets and I didn't really care that much so told him to dig in.

And pretty quickly, my bubble was burst. I had my heard set on a cute little two tier buttercream cake. But was very definitively told that a two-tier would be too small for our count (at this point we were estimating around 60). I shot back but i don;t want to save the top layer and i like the look of a two tier. I expected to be given the option of a two tier for show and sheet cake for serving. But that was not the case. So i agreed to send Diane the photo of the cake I liked and she would price out the 3 tier of it. In back of my head, I was already nixing the idea of cake...

As for the tasting part that was fun. And hey look I remembered to take a picture(well my mom did):
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Cakes we tried: we got 6 little slices of each
Marble - didn't take like chocolate or vanilla
Orange - good but subtle; DH is an orange fan so this was his pick but he liked the orange filling better
Red Velvet - the best of the bunch, it was moist
Chocolate - can't go wrong with classic chocolate - nothing spectacular about it but worked well with fillings

Fillings we tried: (the selection sheet said pick 4, we picked 7 and got all 7)
Bailey's mouse - my favorite, creamy not overly sweet
peanut butter cup - just the chocolate and peanut butter filling swirled together, DH was not a fan
peanut butter cream cheese - don't remember
amaretto with almond crunch - heard so many good things about this one, it was good but i was probably expecting too much
cookies and cream - DH's second favorite - again can't go wrong with classic
orange scented white chocolate - DH's favorite and I thought it was very good too, I'm not as much a fan of chocolate and orange together as he is but the white chocolate made it more subtle so i liked it too
blackberry mouse - I wanted to try one fruity one; it was okay and i knew it wouldn't appeal to as many people

Our cake choices:
Red velvet with Orange White Chocolate Mousse
Chocolate with Bailey's Mousse

Cake follow-up
So in follow-ups to our planning session. My planner sent me pricing on the three tier buttercream cake and Chip and Dale figurines (DH loves Chip & Dale and if we were gonna do a bigger cake, we'd have room for em).
I also asked about doing a two-tier and a sheet cake.
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The cake was quoted at $625 plus delivery and serving fees and chip and dale were another $300 :O And didn't get an answer about the sheet cake option
I'm not a cake person so i was ready to nix this but DH enjoyed the tasting so I thought he'd want to keep it but he was like nope, the included desserts with our menu were enough for him...

But we had gotten a cake cutting set as gift and I really wanted to use it so then I thought about doing a small cake for just cutting and having it displayed with our dessert so I asked about this option.
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My planner said a small cake with the buttercream stripes I liked would be $65 and made by the contemporary bakery so that nixed the delivery from GF fee. SOLD!
She said they didn't have a pedestal stand that small for the cake but I asked my floral planner about it and she added it to our floral and decor.

Later in planning, our estimated numbers came down so i decided to add a sheet cake of red velvet and Bailey's mousse to serve to guests... this was only $80; another win!


Rest of Planning trip highlights:


Rest of Day 2 (planning session day): Photos & Pseudo Menu Tasting
After the planning session, We went and checked out the wedding pavilion. it wasn't a venue we ever considered as it's not our style but we thought it would be fun to see. Well that window behind the altar overlooking Magic Kingdom is really cool. It magnifies the castle but the effect doesn't come out it photos.
Then we went on a monorail loop tour of the hotels to check out their Christmas trees.
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We had planned on that day being a no-park but since we upgraded our tickets to APs we decided to pop into Magic Kingdom and took a few photopass photos that could serve as engagement pictures or something (we had already sent out STDs so had no need for engagement photos but our wedding website had a spot for photos... but because we're cheeseballs we decided to use our silly on-ride photos instead)
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I also managed to snag a California Grill reservation (thank you touring plans and their reservation finder tool) so we got to check out our reception location and try the food. None of us had ever been there before and wow the first time you go up their the view is just breathtaking. I was immediately reassured of our venue choice and the food further reinforced our decision.
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We were going to see the fireworks from there too but we didn't want to stay that late. but we did get to see the holiday lighting of the castle.


Day 3: Hair & Make-up Trial & Venue visits
The day after our planning session, we went to HS in the morning the I met my mother back at our resort for my hair & make-up trial.
Patricia LeJune had been my top pick but she was booked for my date when I called in the summer. So I looked at others on Disney's recommended list and chose Onsite Beauty. I had gone back forth on a couple possible vendors but since hair was more important to me than make-up I went by who had better hair reviews and pictures.
I brought along a cheap flower clip for the trial (since i was doing fresh flowers) and let me mom put the veil from my Minnie Ears on me so she could see me in veil since I didn't want to wear one.
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My mother and Janet got along really well and my hair took forever but I was really happy with it. I left it in and the make-up the rest of the day to test it out and see how I felt about fake lashes all day and if I wanted to change anything for day of.
The lashes didn't bother me too much; I was only eh about them but DH liked them so I decided I'd do them.
Janet had suggested trying out a dark lip so I decided to test it but no one likes it but I figured i'd test out some colors myself and go from there.
The foundation felt too heavy and even as she was applying it Janet said I didn't really need it; so I figured I'd bring my own light bb cream for day of.
And I really liked my hair but was hoping by the wedding it would be longer so I could opt for more of a pony than a bun.
Spoiler alert: on my actual wedding day, I had a different make-up person and my sister and mother somehow convinced me to do airbrush and I hated it. And didn't relay the slight hair changes to Janet well because it turned out very different. So in retrospect the trial was a waste because I liked it yet it made me change my mind and if i had stuck with first choices i would have liked it. And Janet's pricing wasn't straight forward so I don't think I'd recommend. UGH

After the trial, I took my parents to see POFQ where our room block would be. My dad was very happy it was much smaller and more recently updated than Coronado and agreed it would be great for our guests.
TIP: Picking a small hotel and encouraging most of our guests to stay there was great for meeting up with everyone.
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After meeting up with DH and his parents for dinner at Biergarten, we checked out Italy Isola, our ceremony location and found it empty so I tested walking down the aisle.
My photos came out like crud so I'll divert to Carrie for venue photos: http://disneytravelbabble.com/disney-weddings/wdw-venue-photos/italy-isola/
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And we also checked out our back-up space - American Adventure Rotunda.
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(and Carrie photos: http://disneytravelbabble.com/disney-weddings/wdw-venue-photos/american-adventure-rotunda/)

Somehow, I had never been in any of our chosen locations so it was good to see them all even if it was after we were booked and it would have been a pain to switch anything. Thankfully we loved them and were even happy with our rain back-up.
 
BEO and updates

A month after our planning session we got our first draft of our BEO (Banquet Event Order aka instruction manual anyone involved in the wedding would follow) and estimated invoice.

Now I knew it would more than we wanted to spend but it was still quite a sticker shock. It was about 2-3k over where we wanted to be and didn't include floral yet. o_O

We happened to get it the day my sister went into the hospital to give birth to my niece which was also New Year's Eve weekend; so it was a couple days before we sat down to dig through it.

Here's the first draft of our estimated invoice.
(we also got a first draft of BEO but I'll just post the final of that since it's so long and detailed and at this point it was more about costs).
Each 'event' has its own page - ceremony, cake, reception, dessert party, there is also a page for welcome bag delivery for each resort but it was just placeholder until after.
(It didn't have floral on it yet but I'll post about that separate anyway)

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Right off the bat, we cut a few things:
  • the 'greens package' that was the trees I wanted for ceremony space. The couldn't believe they were over $1000 ... our wedding was during flower and garden festival I know they have potted trees all around Italy for that; I just wanted them moved over. But whatever cut.
  • We also cut the cake as I mentioned earlier.
  • We adjusted vendor meals (I only booked video for ceremony and had 2 photographer for ceremony but only 1 stayed for reception)
  • And we asked to bring dessert party price down to $30pp; which meant cutting fruit salad and punch
  • Cut media guides for DP (at this point we were't doing photography at DP but later added 1)
  • Adjusted viewing fees for fireworks (the couple is complimentary.. make sure to check that your viewing fees are 2 less than your food headcount!
We debated cutting the toast but I like it and figured our food was pretty under the minimum and we didn't want to rely on bar tab to meet the minimum (this should not have been a concern, our guests drank.. a lot)
So in my head these cuts would be just more than our floral quote should be and we'd be just over where we wanted to be and I'd accept that.
We were also estimating for 100% at this point because I always prefer to overestimate


Updates From Jan- Apr

After that first batch of changes, nothing major changed.
We added our music selection.
We went back and fort with planner about seating arrangements and questions on day of timeline.
(I really hated that the scheduled our arrival for 45 mins into the reception since we were doing 3 hour reception. But I was told our van would be ready if we wanted to finish photos and head to reception salt we could go over and mingle and danced starting at 10:45 was just buffer).
Probably a few small things here and there but mostly I waited until we had numbers so I could send our next batch of updates at once and we wouldn't have too many versions of BEO to keep track of.


In March, we got our RSVPs back (as expected I had to call a few people) and we sent over the updated numbers. We saw we were just under 50 (we later had some late RSVPs and would up exactly at 50).
So we decided we had some wiggle room and added a few things and changed some small things:
  • Sheet cake for serving at reception
  • Switched 1 of the vans to 2 one ways instead of charter to save money
  • Van for older guests to DP (everyone else would still meet at entrance and be escorted)
  • Photography at DP
  • Bar at DP
That last one we debated a bit between adding a limited on consumption bar or package bar or booking a portrait session at Hollywood studios. DH didn't care about portraits and package bar was $20 a head so we went with that.


Also around the time of our 30 day final payment; I scheduled a call with our planner. We over the BEO line by line and went over flow of the day and this really put me at ease. I kept feeling she was missing things in my emails but over the phone we went over everything and I could understand how on top on things she would be day of.



Final BEO
This is our BEO that became the signed final one at 30 days out
(these things are long and not terribly exciting but I know how helpful seeing real BEOs was when I was planning)
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Fcz0UDQ7qTDgXB37W3dMExZMjLXqnK-QnkrQouNSRlHkmxGYpV_epRH_QP8bz_0tzqqKU4fiwt-jVClhI5PQbqDapsi2GKIWO3pKqaPVd22n-7iV3K-cmkLEJmyNXU9a7TZ9pdHPYZShOmTa6V0QqQtlYuD1qq3JZsQrWto-TkgvPGM4wiB1Nbb2VgE6YuZ65twn8WRo1ThbtXAgUsmz2pT0VdmvGtd2OCUlKcqmdThgfhuKw_XyOHmJtXhPQhENJyMILY7EyX-o6iYejaRQzeZ7f8sQ55KNleAO48x3FHx47I2O4aXv7tGGELng3XYctlaFFmaikHkWkvUQKt0MdvjoyFqvCkoiBqjGeOcpY63b5ncUapcJaduF1wUhqjDUusdnkI6Sdr04uxyLEmYlRUPI5LtL84SKVHwHWBop168G20jzq6BScqtPF-p1qgtx-vvWOIujjYIIZagwyZj5DzY6MEfpNR1sj1Y6ATQELwRWvB1Lb6R3qrq5RA95gXzZupSJ2rdK4ghBdWItskb7cpdCsoJTIif38iLMjzXJkQr50sq3M6A8Iau9BPS4p8Zd9FAIcnfOe9UFJ4AXXOIqPYPHhIjyzz_PfmNxbjwUeJV56e8UroP0n02wJBHsk_PY7z5rGPbHXOKtlU8xp6nTDRVKON0a8dYR2Ud-2-9xci148Q=w654-h947-no

wVsvUhVOGLZiVeqZhTNuSbsRk_byHQOWmcOn2riJk25HHpb4CpGsJQFddEIy8MzNscMG__TIkaDIaLMcZXB87vA_v-vFr4IJkmW8Q2ckIX7CK1FuU1hc_R9SUmSfjtW788ZHe_6thKi2IU6TQf7Om_nnyvac4ZwGEuT11ohSwP-smEUGYVlHpqEFWSQ7z_qLrd6TlyqRbmzKC77YFOW1t_XDSZilBrKCnzdTl-oxsEPETrqyBoo9o2hvEFKr79N3LykolQ1abAqcxe2m0ZaTqaMUIlwyB9VI-7Rijz8ug5WaDAENyMVZ5ysiCHLltNoaJzeC7yPNBmSdzjbxX8-JRr6Q2JeWAq8bR8EwsO9sEE-viHOFtKcdiOhlL8VHcHYrA5UmAPFYIKTnP6UbMtYQFYJbQFyydDusya-XC658gQktCEGfDwDEk7HTe4Sn1pBqTHj8QfCVpzzsbfaffuVnj5zyCOoGhDR_mGlxhqUPeh7Ho4HU_RVNSjms8a8Zp45rYxQC0Cmi4YaBghHO1gnJnCbIWhG8fG51mXkXpNMcNkV0JPXmeQ4blBa020pKTMD86IDUiLdWGdbSQCjZ9CL0CGF55y0k6eO21lbpd-cSuQTw5eR82QHx1h48uFy1SNaoi8R557TQanQn0ZaCI0DBmUOPWYQYyv33UyaopSghmFiITQ=w683-h922-no


We had like 3-4 guests added right at our 5 day cut off so they weren't reflected in our 30 day final payment.


Final bill

2 weeks after the wedding we got the final invoice. Our deposit was used toward those last minute guests and our bar bill. And we discovered our guests were heavy drinkers at the reception; the bar tab ate up all the deposit and we are charged an additional $200. But I crunched the numbers and paying on consumption was still cheaper than a package bar even though we were way over Disney's estimate.
 
Floral Proposal

A few days after we received our BEO, we got our first floral proposal.
Here's the first draft:
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9tURN4k3PWHmC7JFzg-U9m7pXLCqgm9jShPrpD_NoGmEAoTLo5r6d3BLTatuT1N0qiGxs88YZfxWQUmAgwUtoeilnZ5IBAUUhZIhupXQw4ptaazzf5l-0OZJf8ctAd1TFVkpt4cWyXiR-WaZFySt-SUcNnmCO41TU0tzH2WWYors478hlbLkG-4gY_If0ji8-8GqttNpjQh8PxAQWIw7YjjSYAFVK0n9k6lYlOi_OJ7YMVPhKjwfCBpGxB9UFGrDWygD2YFwLA9UMuXbQ0PrcNAmB8P1PVwly0z-8yW52_quhORNqP-Bd-xsK7ao-OaWB41K14n_AZNMR1k81ok-7SHpZAnjl4m330Etnnk-bZ9jzNMoPHmu9IEEeJkTr5FTfI7DhcfRIUeyx_mhoOV550eoGQDYiYVjtCcQGwSTvxUwuuFn_39y90_dSDCpan1RIdEXbQZyqUfPsTJhcVr7oA4BkILgknr1ZU0CwnQmOBQ-okBB1A2d30wVbDJrDKAVPpBT9qDc5ds7BZ1UigbmS17v0G8VactgYMKtNOPQRrvke6ogLeBuO_KI63bbzWG3_AvRoq5UL66aE23i56DE6lFeBzFFWRnMQVgeWFlvQnP4liQw5EZzLvtqS99q3YGxRQnhQtq8oYCl2V4MknB-1Qinx_gi8DIeXwuN6_qc_XV-vw=w750-h987-no


My initial notes
  • All the personal floral was just about perfect
  • What's seeded eucalyptus and are mini gerbera daisies tiny?
  • My white folding chairs were missing (that's a big one)
  • Aisle clusters in all white and add rununculus
  • Cut aisle petals
  • Cut napkins
  • OMFG centerpieces are expensive
  • cut DP floral
So I emailed Elizabeth my questions and changes and requests for some centerpiece quotes on these hopeful less expensive options.
MjXLVdGH-76ToCtegXZwdg4gMuNrZa8_NzRwR7HYFlJ1OwN_oSafRfKjx7EoRGjTy2ixEWrgNITm5X9TXSFKFIMV-trZJ5NdBI9LbZ4aCig4wv_vbE1nPHmKe_IwLzh__1_dm1sHkTTZz89THHB1GWVs1U2MTmHYwZmoPO7eseKSMqgzG7OjKCOMMaaP8HDaQxB9-yo1N9AXDapnGT839z8dC3wS6fZQJ6sHWBY-P9mCs9G7UGLFfyGEOlgu7yu8bg1Bfck8hWLfAxkSeVoFLHuJmUM40GRJr74YXcBi7CUIacflja6pcHo_0Carzu9uRL3iTbkHtL_iPfdNeO4AqCCZwoL7OZxtlSIgNS95uLRaodHGuLMjl0b7BTh_GYMMpQEElbd6B57xO_k0VPTbskBQxmQqtcd1ciVNDqbGUousCJJ8Ki8-VkpkbhAMw2odyYYuSFpDextiAQmCgzs9M9THOFhLe-ZixxjoNUJHzGhTEgHq_K0CIjIAnT0HU9MxeWMPhc62Uuqi-DwEzfjKsz4JwDYV3FT6Y1-veY16MHu9hgQPb_BecIAKkVDMPcuofY9SbeBtRMKRLHtUEUKIgO9LZFcoMtMcnVkZ37GspwD_DgMEW3JnJ_zzulgNliHgMeCbqvvlE1xfqiHu7duFSKh7Ke8USszWBNQQFDKwAANukQ=w555-h988-no
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Elizabeth was awesome and answered my questions with great detail and pictures of greens to be used in bouquet (I was being annoyingly picky on that)

And sent quotes on my new centerpiece ideas that were way more reasonable, pending the seasonality of kumquats.
We also went back and forth on centerpiece ideas and she sent me pictures of some interesting white vases we could go greens with.
I like the direction she was going but since I wanted to big table numbers I went with the kumquats and greens (once she had gotten confirmation that kumquats were good in May)
Eventually, once we had table layout and numbers down I just gave her what I wanted to spend per and said make it sized to match that price point.

At some point, my mom asked about the floral for DP and it was her idea to reuse the reception decor for the DP so i asked Elizabeth about that. I think because we were paying the delivery fee for the chairs that fee also covered this move. So we had DP decor for no cost!

A week or so before our floral cut-off, we scheduled a call and went over the entire floral and added the cake stand and viola.
Here's the final Floral Budget

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