Jennifer & Brandon's Wishes PJ-10/12/09 France/LSS/Italy- 11/2 even more pics!

[jspahn]

So I am finally getting around to starting my planning journal – with less than 6 months to go!
I will try to keep this as organized as possible, I know my pet peeve is trying to wade through pages and pages of trip reports or planning journals when I am just looking for something specific. This first post will be a summary (and index as the thread grows

Welcome Dessert Party Saturday 8pm - 10pm: Italy West Plaza

Ceremony Monday: 9am Epcot France
Reception monday: 10-2pm Epcot Living Seas Salon.


Our Theme/Colors: Little Mermaid – Jade and Purple
Our Website: http://www.ourmagicalwedding.com We did this ourselves.

Index:
Vendors – post 2
My dress – post 5 (pic), post 93 (Dress fitting)
Favors - post 10 (ideas), post 70 (mock up), post 119 actual
Invitations - post 59
Bridesmaid Dresses & Mens Tux - post 69

Planning Session Trip report starts - post 22
cake tasting - post 28
menu tasting - post 43
site visit - post 44-47
Raglan Road visit - post 48
Tux Fitting - post 49
Mickey Head Fan Pricing from Shelley/Impressions - post 40

Water Bottles - post 60
Floral Estimate - post 68
Window Clings & Table Cards - post 78
Programs - post 119
Welcome Bags -


Official Pics from Disney - post 175
Dessert Party, Rehearsal, Theme Park pics - post 188

 

[jspahn]

Planner: Ken Weaver (assistant Jennifer Flores)

Hair & Make up: Ana - Beaute Special
Tuxes/Steaming: Carolyn Allens
Photo: Disney Photo, David and Vicki Arndt
Video: Disney
DJ: Disney - Charles Miles
Floral: Disney
Invitations: Doing them ourselves - pocket style from Paperandmore.com
My dress: Mary’s
Bridesmaids: Alfred Angelo
Officiant: a family member (back up is Rev. Jack Day)

 

[jspahn]

I am 33, never married, and originally from NY. I moved to Atlanta in December 2001. I have 5 cats (yes I know, holy cow) – and no desire to have any kids other than that!
Brandon is 28, moved around a bit growing up but finally ended up in Texas

Brandon and I met in February 2008. Both of our companies sent us to a class to be certified in web & application design/usabilty. It was a 2 week class held here in Atlanta.
I never believed the people who told me “it’ll happen when you aren’t looking for it” or “when it’s the right person you’ll just know.” My reaction would be “yeah, right, whatever.” But I now find myself saying the same things to my single girlfriends. Brandon and I just knew we were perfect for each other. We started doing the long distance thing – he lived in Houston when we met. We talked on the phone for hours every night, and saw each other every other weekend. (Boy did that get expensive!!)

He proposed in June, and moved to Atlanta in July. At first we both wanted a Disney wedding, but then decided it was too expensive and started planning a wedding in NY instead. After booking a location and working out menus, I decided I was unhappy with the whole thing.
Now we are back to having a Disney wedding, just not the size we would have wanted originally, but we are very happy with the decision.

Some pics of us (sorry for the big size! i guess i need to learn to make them smaller!):
Last april

Last Memorial Day

Christmas in NY

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee242/jspahn/20081226_christmas_2008_0152.jpg

 

[jspahn]

After much debate on whether to have a bridal party or not, we decided we really wanted to include our family. Brandon has 3 younger brothers and I have one as well, so right there we had 4 family guys we wanted in the party. For the girls I wanted my cousin, Brandon’s 2 cousins, and 2 of my closest girlfriends. It does seem a little odd that we will have 10 people in our party, standing up there with us when there will only be 50 guests in the audience for the ceremony…

The girls are all picking their own dresses. I gave them a little guidance on what to choose – Alfred Angelo, in Jade Satin, cocktail length. We have some very different body shapes so I didn’t think it would be possible to find one dress that really looked fabulous on everyone. I think they are much happier this way.

The guys will have purple vests and ties. We couldn’t find anything that came close to matching the Jade satin of the girls dresses, so we went with the purple. It’s darker that Ariels shell bra, but the color combo looks great together.

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee242/jspahn/Disney Planning Session/tuxes.jpg

 

[jspahn]

My mom came to visit last September, and we found a dress that weekend. Initially I thought I wanted one of the Alfred Angelo ones that had color in it, but they didn’t look as nice on me as they did in pictures.

We found 2 dresses that I had a hard time deciding between, but in the end this is the one we got:

We ordered it in an ivory, but it really is more "antique white" - not very creamy at all.

It came in and I picked it up in December - but have been terrified to try it on. We ordered the same size as what I tried in the dress shop - which zipped but I couldnt breath.
I havent been quite as diligent about losing weight as I needed to be
So for now it is hanging on the back of the bedroom door in a protective dress bag.

 

[jspahn]

DF and I went back and forth on location when we first started planning in February.
We both felt that photography was very very important - DF is an ametuer photographer himself. So the rule of having to use Disney Photo for an in park wedding really made us stop and think.
France has a special meaning for us, and I knew I wanted our theme to be little mermaid, so the Living Seas Salon was perfect. BUT... after reading so many bad reviews of Disney Photo on the boards, we wondered if we should change it.
We looked at SBP, and considered Ariels or California Grill - which although lovely, just wasnt what we really wanted. We even talked to Misty Miotto for photography, and absolutely loved her - making our decision even tougher.

Ultimately, desire for location won out. So I began researching all the Disney photo people, and decided to request David and Vicki Arndt. They are a husband and wife team, which I thought was great! The disney photo website in my opinion, is horrible.
It was hard to get a good feel of what thier style was, but we requested them anyway.

As of right now, I couldnt be happier with our decision. We met David and Vicki when we went down for our planning session 2 weeks ago (details to follow) - and they are wonderful!! I cant say enough great things about them and I feel completely comfortable working with them and trusting them to capture our most important day.
They seemed very excited and had plenty of ideas on great shots for us, and as a husband and wife, you can see they know what the other is thinking and play off each other really well.
I am sure I will gush some more about them when I get to the planning session trip recap

So we are having our ceremony in France, with a brunch reception at the Living Seas - which we are keeping secret from our guests. The only thing they are being told is "epcot" - I want as much of the wedding as possible to be a surprise to our guests.

 

[Bolanette87]

I'm loving reading all your plans!

Bob xoxoxoxox

 

[jspahn]

I'm loving reading all your plans!

Bob xoxoxoxox

Thanks so much! I procrastinated starting a PJ for so long, now I have tons to catch everyone up on!
Going for our planning session made me realize how helpful it was to read other brides posts, so I want to return the favor!

 

[mermaidbride1108]

I'm so excited you started a PJ! I got your message this morning and that well now I know what I'm doing for lunch!

Can't wait to read all about it! Another Little Mermaid theme! Whoohoo!

 

[jspahn]

We started working on favors already. We wanted to stay with the whole under the sea/beach theme if we could. There are actually way more favors out there for that than I thought once I started looking!!! I have spent hours trolling favor websites (as I am sure most brides have!)

DF and I finally decided on a few things...
we are going to do custom M&Ms as we get closer, in our colors, with our names and wedding date. I love the new Disney ones they have, but not the colors they come in unfortunately! We are still looking for a container for these. We like something like this:

Then we found these really cute candles on sale on one of the many favor websites, so we ordered them - and are now taking up space in my dining room!

We may end up wrapping them up in some sort of fabric with a little Thank You tag - still working that out.

Our poor dining room has become wedding central. We are slowly losing more and more space as we start to buy favors, welcome bags, item to go in the welcome bags, cake topper, etc. Really wish we had a bigger house!

 

[jspahn]

Once we decided we were going to have a Disney wedding, the website was one of the first things we started working on.
Brandon and I are both web people, and we were incredibly disappointed in the website that Disney gives you to use for your wedding. So as soon as we got assigned our sales manager, Joe Dematei (was was awesome by the way), brandon and I started hunting for the perfect url.

We were initially going to use BrandonandJennifersDisneyWedding.com but ran into 2 problems - first, thats really long!! We would have lived with it except that when we signed our contract, we noticed in one of the last sections a rule about not using the disney name. When we questioned Joe about it, he said it would be better if our website name didnt have "disney" in it. And yes i know there are other brides on here who have it, and maybe we just shouldnt have asked!

Anyway, we went back to the drawing board and decided on www.ourmagicalwedding.com

Brandon worked on the design and graphics while I worked on the actual content (and critiqued Brandons work of course ).
Since we wanted our site address on the save the dates that disney sends out, it was almost a race to the finish! We spent quite a few late nights the week the STDs went out, trying to make sure the whole site was up and running before our guests got the cards.

But we did mange to finish it, and we will be making updates as we go along too. I already have some ideas -an example - as our date gets closer we may put a song request form up for people to request music at the reception.

Feel free to check it out and let me know what you think!

 

[MainStMandy]

Just stopping by...your plans look lovely. Df and I just decided on France also!

 

[lthiesfeld07]

I love your wedding website! It's wonderful!
I look forward to more of your report!

 

[MegKate]

I'm so happy you started a PJ! Wicked excited! Your website explained something to me though. I picked out POP, POFQ and Boardwalk for our block. They put us at POP, Coronado, and Boardwalk. I told them I chose POFQ and they said I chose Coronado. We went back and forth and then they said that another bride on the 12th chose those and our block got confused with that bride! I should have figured it would be you! Too funny!

I love the sea vibe you have going. Your colors are just gorgeous!! And the dress is just perfect! My DF stopped by while I was reading through it and I explained how you're getting married the same day and the weatherman in him came out. He said "Oh great - God forbid it rains - now I'll have two women ready to off me!" Yep! LOL

Great start to the PJ - can't wait to read about the PS!!

 

[princess22]

Just wanted to stop in and say hi. You guys make an adorable couple and you are going to be a beautiful bride. I love your dress, it's stunning! Oh, and I like the theme you have. My classroom is ocean themed and my house is all beachy. Loving everything, I can't wait to read more!!!

 

[jspahn]

I'm so excited you started a PJ! I got your message this morning and that well now I know what I'm doing for lunch!

Can't wait to read all about it! Another Little Mermaid theme! Whoohoo!

It is so hard to find nice little mermaid items - too much cinderella wedding stuff out there!

Just stopping by...your plans look lovely. Df and I just decided on France also!

Thanks so much - I will have to check out your PJ this afternoon!

I love your wedding website! It's wonderful!
I look forward to more of your report!

Thank you - we are pretty proud of that website.

Just wanted to stop in and say hi. You guys make an adorable couple and you are going to be a beautiful bride. I love your dress, it's stunning! Oh, and I like the theme you have. My classroom is ocean themed and my house is all beachy. Loving everything, I can't wait to read more!!!

Sounds like you would have some great ideas for our theme!

I'm so happy you started a PJ! Wicked excited! Your website explained something to me though. I picked out POP, POFQ and Boardwalk for our block. They put us at POP, Coronado, and Boardwalk. I told them I chose POFQ and they said I chose Coronado. We went back and forth and then they said that another bride on the 12th chose those and our block got confused with that bride! I should have figured it would be you! Too funny!

Oh my! That does not give me great confidence in how organized things are over there! But hey, at least you knew who it was

I love the sea vibe you have going. Your colors are just gorgeous!! And the dress is just perfect! My DF stopped by while I was reading through it and I explained how you're getting married the same day and the weatherman in him came out. He said "Oh great - God forbid it rains - now I'll have two women ready to off me!" Yep! LOL

Great start to the PJ - can't wait to read about the PS!!

Yes tell Rob we dont want any rain!!!! That would really put a damper on our outside ceremonies and pics!

I will try to get to my planning session report this afternoon. I do have a few things I need to do for work today! Havent won the lottery yet you know!

 

[jspahn]

totally forgot to post my ring! It's a set - I'll have to go take a picture of the band, but for now, this was just after Brandon proposed (excuse the purple nail polish!)

 

[jspahn]

This is the "inspiration picture" we sent to our planner, floral, bakery etc.
The color of the girls dresses (Alfred Angelo Jade satin) is similar to Ariels tail/fins.

 

[Ann117]

I love your dress! Good luck planning

 

[princess22]

Your inspiration photo made me so excited to see your big day. I love it!!!!! I like you ring also, it's very nice.