Sarah & Brandon's Swan/Il Mulino 04.28.12**The not so good stuff**
- Thread starter Sizzle
- Start date
jessiegirl84
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2011
How exciting!!! Hope you have a safe trip and everything runs smoothly can't believe its only 4 days to go!!
Hope you have an amazing day and its everything you have hoped for and more! Cannot wait to hear all about it when you are back! Enjoy
Hope you have an amazing day and its everything you have hoped for and more! Cannot wait to hear all about it when you are back! Enjoy
Icecoldpenguin
May the Force Be With You
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2010
Have a safe trip and I am so excited for you!
Teresa
Teresa
tinydancr06
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 19, 2011
Travel safely and I hope you have the most magical time ever!!!
luvs2cruise
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2010
Have fun! I'm sure it will be MAGICAL!!!!!!
NoOrdinaryPrincess
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2011
Happy Wedding Day
FlamingoAllie
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2011
Happy Wedding Day!!!!
Fairy Godmother
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2005
Happy Wedding Day!
virtuous girl
Faith, trust, & pixie dust
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2011
HAPPY WEDDING DAY!!
jessiegirl84
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2011
HAPPY WEDDING DAY !!!! 
DisneyEverAfter
Can't wait to marry my prince charming!
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2012
Happy Wedding Day Sarah & Brandon!!! Hope you guys had a wonderful time! Can't wait to see pics
Sizzle
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2011
I haven't been great about using the DISboards since we've been back. I admit I've much more active in the facebook groups (especially since the Disboards refuse to remove this awful poll from my thread)
I'm working on learning some basic website design and my plan is to host all of my pictures with a full trip report on our website. I'll link back here once that is done.
I'm cleansing myself of all the sad feelings I have surrounding the wedding. Overall, I'm happy. Happy to be married, happy with the week we got to spend in Disney with our families. So many wonderful memories. But there were some really painful things surrounding the wedding that are still hard to think about. I hadn't wanted to come back and be a downer on the boards so I've been avoiding this but there are some clear problems that happened and I want to be honest about them. Some of them were personal things which I probably won't share. But below I'm going to outline the specific things which our site vendor majorly screwed up on.
From the beginning I've been a huge proponent of using Swan and Dolphin to suit our needs rather than going through Disney. I'm not advocating one over the other and I think weddings at both places all turn out just lovely. For our needs, it was perfect. We were just a few too many people over the Escape package, otherwise we probably would have gone that route. Mainly we wanted a Saturday evening wedding which is a difficult and expensive prospect with Disney. Our original planning process with Swan and Dolphin's wedding planning vendor Just Marry had gone very well. Towards the last few months though things started slipping. Karen had been our main contact and was so speedy on email I swore she never slept. I had a great rapport with her and really was confident in her abilities.
In the final months, I was informed that Karen had been promoted and would no longer be the direct rep for S/D weddings. She introduced me to at first Jennifer, then a few weeks later Diana. Diana was my new coordinator and from the beginning I could tell there was a difference. Nothing glaring, just little details. I would send an email with 3 questions and she would only answer two of them. She wouldn't always respond for a few days either. Not the end of the world, but just such a vast difference from working with Karen.
The week before the wedding I found out that the 3 gluten free cupcakes we had ordered could not longer be offered unless we purchased a full dozen. They were apologetic about it, but I was frustrated to see the price increase 4x just to get a dozen. Especially since we had gotten confirmation and agreement to the 3 several weeks before. We had to have them since my mom has Celiacs so of course I agreed. Then when I received my final contract, it had the name of a different minister. We had requested Rev Tim over a year ago when we first started planning and here we are a month out and I'm just now being told that he isn't available. Karen had thought she told me before, but she hadn't. I freaked out a bit since the new minister, Phil McCullough was totally unknown to me. (PS Rev Phil was totally awesome) Nothing that made me worried at the time, but looking back on it these were two issues that could have foreshadowed a bit...
The main issues I will outline below. First, our final guest count was 41, and ended up only being 39 with a few guests no showing. The space we had at the crescent terrace is setup with the chairs up on the raised section with the couple unless there are more than 50 people. Our guest count was never more than 41 so it was never ever discussed that the chairs wouldn't be on the raised area. So then you can imagine my total horror when I was *walking down the aisle* to see the chairs all set up on the ground. And of course since we didn't have a wedding party, it looked totally ridiculous to have just the three of us standing there. First picture shows what it was supposed to look like (thank you Jilian) and the second was what it turned out to be.
and ours below
Did you notice the rose petals we paid for to decorate the aisle? Yeah, neither did we. I couldn't walk up the aisle because it was blocked with chairs! And you can't see it in any of the pictures so it was totally pointless.
the next issue was with the floral. Here is the example photo that they sent me. I asked for this exact arrangement, but in my wedding colors to match the bouquet
and this is what I got. Clearly nothing like the above.
close up
Speaking of flowers, here is my inspiration bouquet.
And here's what I got.
The flowers and colors aren't even the same! Where in my example is there yellow? >.<
And below you will see that the flowers were so wilty and dying that they were drooping over my hands.
After the ceremony we had decided to use the string trio to do some dances with our parents. What sounded like a good idea was so poorly executed, I wish we would have just skipped it all together. Brandon and I start by dancing with each other. It's already awkward for the guests because they are basically parallel to us. The plan had been that since they would have been previously sitting up on the terrace that for the dances they would walk down to where the band was and stand in a semicircle around us. And the parents were supposed to be lined up in front so that we could grab each set for a dance, then change out to the next parent all while the same song (Married Life from Up) was playing. So already this is a mess because everyone stayed seated and had to twist in their chairs to watch us. Diana was supposed to have the parents all lined up so we could switch out each set during the dance. Well guess where she was? WAY down the path near the walkway to the Boardwalk ON HER PHONE. Not even watching or looking over. So we had to walk into the guests area and grab each set of parent. And each time we did that, the trio quit playing. Eww! So it was super awkward and weird and no one really understood what was going on. And by the way, Married Life from Up somehow turned in the Hallelujah Chorus. In the middle of our second dance, I leaned over to one of the violinists and asked her when they were going to play Married Life. She looked at me like I had grown two heads. She stuttered for a second and said...uhhh yeah, ok. Then one of the players started it and none of the others ever joined in so it sounded terrible.
The plan had been that after we finished with the parents, we were going to do one more solo dance. Cue Minnie and Mickey cut in! Fun surprise, right? Yeah not so much. We started to do our dance and the band started packing up! I turned to the one player and said "Oh, we're not done we have one final dance" To which she very loudly responded "I"m sorry, we can not stay. We weren't booked for this long and we have a symphony to go to!!" Yup. They just got up and left. So then Brandon and I are just standing there. This would have been a good time for my planner to walk over and announce a special guest, right? Or just be there at all. Nope. She was still down by the walkway, not even looking over. So I stand in front of everyone and loudly announce that we're "Waiting on a very special guest to join us!" To which my sister was so helpful in saying "Why don't the bride and groom keep dancing" And I had to snap back "Because the band is leaving, Bethany. THANKS FOR THAT" Oh brother....anyway. Finally Minnie and Mickey come walking up, but everyone was still seated and really didn't know what they were supposed to do or how to react. I finally just told everyone to come over for a picture and then we just did some more pictures from there.
I get to the reception and my friend told me that Diana showed up with my super ugly flowers from the arch and was trying to shove them onto our main table. And Kristen kept saying "These are way to big and aren't going to fit" Apparently Diana just kept moving plates and glasses and insisting that it would be fine, when clearly there was no room for them. Finally someone from the restaurant swooped in and suggested putting them on the table with the cake. Duh.
So that brings us to our reception at Il Mulino and my guardian angel Monique. Ok ok, it might be a little much to call her an angel but she was absolutely heavenly!! The entire experience there was PERFECT. And thank goodness because after all of the above issues, I needed something to go right.
This post isn't meant to scare anyone or make anyone feel bad about their choices. In the end, I think I'm still glad I went the way I did. (I think lol) There were countless other dinners, dessert parties, park get togethers and fun memories that were made in the 8 days that I had my family in Disney World. The fact that we saved money using S/D made all of that possible. I will try to update this Journal with all of the rest of the details, (especially the good ones!!) but will put it up on my website hopefully soon. And here's a sneak peak of the photos. We'll have all of them plus the video in the next few weeks. PS - The best thing I ever did was splurge to get the exact photographers and videographers I wanted. They make that mess of a day look fantastic.
Our professional preview
Our blog Feature
I'm working on learning some basic website design and my plan is to host all of my pictures with a full trip report on our website. I'll link back here once that is done.
I'm cleansing myself of all the sad feelings I have surrounding the wedding. Overall, I'm happy. Happy to be married, happy with the week we got to spend in Disney with our families. So many wonderful memories. But there were some really painful things surrounding the wedding that are still hard to think about. I hadn't wanted to come back and be a downer on the boards so I've been avoiding this but there are some clear problems that happened and I want to be honest about them. Some of them were personal things which I probably won't share. But below I'm going to outline the specific things which our site vendor majorly screwed up on.
From the beginning I've been a huge proponent of using Swan and Dolphin to suit our needs rather than going through Disney. I'm not advocating one over the other and I think weddings at both places all turn out just lovely. For our needs, it was perfect. We were just a few too many people over the Escape package, otherwise we probably would have gone that route. Mainly we wanted a Saturday evening wedding which is a difficult and expensive prospect with Disney. Our original planning process with Swan and Dolphin's wedding planning vendor Just Marry had gone very well. Towards the last few months though things started slipping. Karen had been our main contact and was so speedy on email I swore she never slept. I had a great rapport with her and really was confident in her abilities.
In the final months, I was informed that Karen had been promoted and would no longer be the direct rep for S/D weddings. She introduced me to at first Jennifer, then a few weeks later Diana. Diana was my new coordinator and from the beginning I could tell there was a difference. Nothing glaring, just little details. I would send an email with 3 questions and she would only answer two of them. She wouldn't always respond for a few days either. Not the end of the world, but just such a vast difference from working with Karen.
The week before the wedding I found out that the 3 gluten free cupcakes we had ordered could not longer be offered unless we purchased a full dozen. They were apologetic about it, but I was frustrated to see the price increase 4x just to get a dozen. Especially since we had gotten confirmation and agreement to the 3 several weeks before. We had to have them since my mom has Celiacs so of course I agreed. Then when I received my final contract, it had the name of a different minister. We had requested Rev Tim over a year ago when we first started planning and here we are a month out and I'm just now being told that he isn't available. Karen had thought she told me before, but she hadn't. I freaked out a bit since the new minister, Phil McCullough was totally unknown to me. (PS Rev Phil was totally awesome) Nothing that made me worried at the time, but looking back on it these were two issues that could have foreshadowed a bit...
The main issues I will outline below. First, our final guest count was 41, and ended up only being 39 with a few guests no showing. The space we had at the crescent terrace is setup with the chairs up on the raised section with the couple unless there are more than 50 people. Our guest count was never more than 41 so it was never ever discussed that the chairs wouldn't be on the raised area. So then you can imagine my total horror when I was *walking down the aisle* to see the chairs all set up on the ground. And of course since we didn't have a wedding party, it looked totally ridiculous to have just the three of us standing there. First picture shows what it was supposed to look like (thank you Jilian) and the second was what it turned out to be.
and ours below
Did you notice the rose petals we paid for to decorate the aisle? Yeah, neither did we. I couldn't walk up the aisle because it was blocked with chairs! And you can't see it in any of the pictures so it was totally pointless.
the next issue was with the floral. Here is the example photo that they sent me. I asked for this exact arrangement, but in my wedding colors to match the bouquet
and this is what I got. Clearly nothing like the above.
close up
Speaking of flowers, here is my inspiration bouquet.
And here's what I got.
The flowers and colors aren't even the same! Where in my example is there yellow? >.<
And below you will see that the flowers were so wilty and dying that they were drooping over my hands.
After the ceremony we had decided to use the string trio to do some dances with our parents. What sounded like a good idea was so poorly executed, I wish we would have just skipped it all together. Brandon and I start by dancing with each other. It's already awkward for the guests because they are basically parallel to us. The plan had been that since they would have been previously sitting up on the terrace that for the dances they would walk down to where the band was and stand in a semicircle around us. And the parents were supposed to be lined up in front so that we could grab each set for a dance, then change out to the next parent all while the same song (Married Life from Up) was playing. So already this is a mess because everyone stayed seated and had to twist in their chairs to watch us. Diana was supposed to have the parents all lined up so we could switch out each set during the dance. Well guess where she was? WAY down the path near the walkway to the Boardwalk ON HER PHONE. Not even watching or looking over. So we had to walk into the guests area and grab each set of parent. And each time we did that, the trio quit playing. Eww! So it was super awkward and weird and no one really understood what was going on. And by the way, Married Life from Up somehow turned in the Hallelujah Chorus. In the middle of our second dance, I leaned over to one of the violinists and asked her when they were going to play Married Life. She looked at me like I had grown two heads. She stuttered for a second and said...uhhh yeah, ok. Then one of the players started it and none of the others ever joined in so it sounded terrible.
The plan had been that after we finished with the parents, we were going to do one more solo dance. Cue Minnie and Mickey cut in! Fun surprise, right? Yeah not so much. We started to do our dance and the band started packing up! I turned to the one player and said "Oh, we're not done we have one final dance" To which she very loudly responded "I"m sorry, we can not stay. We weren't booked for this long and we have a symphony to go to!!" Yup. They just got up and left. So then Brandon and I are just standing there. This would have been a good time for my planner to walk over and announce a special guest, right? Or just be there at all. Nope. She was still down by the walkway, not even looking over. So I stand in front of everyone and loudly announce that we're "Waiting on a very special guest to join us!" To which my sister was so helpful in saying "Why don't the bride and groom keep dancing" And I had to snap back "Because the band is leaving, Bethany. THANKS FOR THAT" Oh brother....anyway. Finally Minnie and Mickey come walking up, but everyone was still seated and really didn't know what they were supposed to do or how to react. I finally just told everyone to come over for a picture and then we just did some more pictures from there.
I get to the reception and my friend told me that Diana showed up with my super ugly flowers from the arch and was trying to shove them onto our main table. And Kristen kept saying "These are way to big and aren't going to fit" Apparently Diana just kept moving plates and glasses and insisting that it would be fine, when clearly there was no room for them. Finally someone from the restaurant swooped in and suggested putting them on the table with the cake. Duh.
So that brings us to our reception at Il Mulino and my guardian angel Monique. Ok ok, it might be a little much to call her an angel but she was absolutely heavenly!! The entire experience there was PERFECT. And thank goodness because after all of the above issues, I needed something to go right.
This post isn't meant to scare anyone or make anyone feel bad about their choices. In the end, I think I'm still glad I went the way I did. (I think lol) There were countless other dinners, dessert parties, park get togethers and fun memories that were made in the 8 days that I had my family in Disney World. The fact that we saved money using S/D made all of that possible. I will try to update this Journal with all of the rest of the details, (especially the good ones!!) but will put it up on my website hopefully soon. And here's a sneak peak of the photos. We'll have all of them plus the video in the next few weeks. PS - The best thing I ever did was splurge to get the exact photographers and videographers I wanted. They make that mess of a day look fantastic.
Our professional preview
Our blog Feature
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