Wishes in Catsablanca: 7.22.13 Epcot Wedding PJ&TR! Updated 03/09/15

[NoOrdinaryPrincess]

Oh my goodness! I'm so glad things worked out in the end!

 

[tinydancr06]

So, I just read through your whole pj so far and I have to say I love all of your plans! Your engagement story was so cute and the whole missing ring thing just adds to it's charm. I also loved your save the dates and the book invitation idea is so cool! I hope those work out!

I've chosen a really similar color palette (blush, a peachy shade of pink, and pewter) so, of course, I adore yours.

As everyone else has said, your theme is so special and I'm excited to follow along with your plans. Yay, 2013 brides! Subscribed!

 

[Allyourwishes]

I'm loving this planning thread so far. Your cake topper is adorable I've had the monkies from the same seller pinned on pinterest for sometime now but they have so many cute one's to choose from even the lobsters are sweet lol.

What an amazing stroke of luck finding the diamond talk about emotional highs and lows.

I do have a little question since you love the Casablanca movie and are basing your wedding on it did you ever consider holding it in the Great Movie ride at the Casablanca section? Don't get me wrong I love your location choices I'm hoping for Morocco myself I was just curious

 

[princess_ariel_85]

Oh no! So glad you found the stone. What a nightmare eh? But I think you right, it must be a sign. A panic inducing one, but a sign none the less xx

 

[CinderALLIE]

OMG that is extremely lucky about your ring. I would have been going nuts tearing the place apart LOL.

Can't wait to see more of your plans progress.

 

[mebbradley]

I lost my engagement ring in the grass for about 45 minutes at a restaurant right before I got it re-sized. I'm right there with you! I'm glad you found your stone!!

:hugs!

 

[librarygeek]

Wow, I am so glad you found the missing piece of your ring! What a scare.

 

[Wshs0127]

Just joining in on your PJ...

Love the ring, it's so unique! You are so crafty, those bridesmaids boxes were amazing! I also love the movie "Love Actually" and it's cool that you picked music from that!

So glad you found the missing stone, I can't imagine the panic, what luck that was!

 

[DisneyBrideCKB]

I second that "just joining in on your pj!" but I am so glad I found it. Your ideas are wonderful so far! I love your theme and your e-ring! (I mean that in an amazing, shocked, jaw hit the floor kind of way!) Uh-AWESOME!
I wish wish wish I had been thoughtful enough to do bridesmaids boxes like you did. I feel like such a do-do that I just called and asked. MAN! I wish I had read this before hand!
Can't wait to see how the rest of your plans turn out! I'm officially stalking you now!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

Thank you everyone for all the comments, and to the new readers who joined in while I was on hiatus. I usually reply to every comment, but since it's been over two months since I've last been here I'm going to skip it this time. And I also apologize to all the PJs I was following, I've been doing a very poor job of catching up and commenting, but I hope to rectify that soon!

A lot has happened since my little ring scare, but unfortunately not very much has been wedding related. As I mentioned way back in my very first post I was attending school for costume design/creation, and as of this past Saturday I am officially finished! I'm pretty excited. The program was extremely intense in the last semester, and my fellow students and I had to deal with more than our fair share. We put on two productions, for one of which I had to make two late nineteenth-century ballgowns. I made a late nineteenth-century tailcoat tuxedo for my DF (and got a lot of questions about if he'd be wearing at our wedding, no way! - ). And I also made a 1910-1912 replica gown for the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking.

Our class's final project was to make the gown from the underwear out and then present it in a fashion show. Since the program is in Halifax, Nova Scotia there was A LOT of press around our event and I was interviewed by the radio, newspaper and the local tv news. The whole thing was insane, especially considering all this was happening while I was putting in several 16-hour days of construction into this gown. Oh, and did I mention while all this was going on we also had to juggle two different faculty/staff strikes (that were luckily averted in the eleventh hour) and a six-week long transit strike. At this point I'm barely recovered but I've been looking too forward to getting back to my PJ to stay away any longer!

[Wedding stuff starts here]
Needless to say after all that exposition, I don't have a ton of updates to share. However, DF and I made the major step of actually calling Disney to start our DFTW process! We called first in February, while I was at home for reading week/spring break, because it was my understanding that we could start after the 18-month mark. Well, apparently that's changed. The lady on the phone told us they wouldn't talk to us until the 16-month mark, which was March. Fine. We called back last month and we are officially in the system! We told them our preferred date, location choices and scheduled a site visit for this upcoming August. So excited!

I have to ask though, is that all that is typically covered with the wedding consultant. I feel like I should have millions of questions or something but I don't know if I should be asking the consultant or waiting for our planner... or really what I should be doing at all?!

Other than that, DF and I have been making a lot of headway with our invitations. We have most of the pages for invite-books finished, and we just need to make a few more graphics and wait to settle a few important details - like, you know - the date! Then we'll be all set for printing and constructing. We're hoping to have them sent out by September at the latest so that no one can say we didn't give them enough time! (They probably still will, but, I'll worry about that later).

This weekend is a bridal show that my mom and I are going to go to. My mom asked me pretty early on if she and I could go to the first couple of these things just she and I, which I'm fine with. Generally my mom and I have similar taste, so I'm not too worried about major drama between us over picking a dress, but I guess this weekend is the first test.

Okay, now that I've bored everyone with all that text, hopefully next time I'll be back with some photos of pretty things from the show!

 

[DisneyShamrock]

Yay! Another costumer! Can I demand pictures?

Good news on calling DFTW! And, I'm glad to know they dropped back to 16-months so I don't fall behind . . .

Have fun at the bridal show!

 

[virtuous girl]

Yay on the first call! things are finally feeling more real I bet.. Have fun at the show!

 

[librarygeek]

Wow, what an amazing program you just completed! Costume design sounds like so much fun but also a ton of work. What an amazing opportunity to design a replica gown right for the Titanic anniversary. Do you have any pictures of your gown that you designed that would be willing to share? I 'd love to see it!

Can't wait to see pics from the bridal show!

 

[tinydancr06]

Wow! Costume design is so cool! What an awesome talent to have!

Referring to your question about the consultant, I was a little confused like you are but during our site visit I asked ours just about every question I could think of and she was able to answer all of them. We have Diane and, so far, she seems to be just as knowledgeable as the planners. This could be different depending on who you have but I think the very worst that would happen is that you may ask a question and they'll just tell you to keep that question for when you are assigned a planner. Seriously, though, we are still far out (about to hit 18 months!) and Diane gave us even more info than we expected at our site visit. I would definitely keep a list of your questions as they come to mind and bring them up during your site visit. I even asked some I already knew the answers to just to be sure. Hope this helps! Do you know who your consultant is yet?

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

So wouldn't you know it, as soon as I start getting back into my planning journal and all excited for making new posts my computer goes and dies and I'm left completely without a way of making updates. My new laptop arrived yesterday, so the first thing I knew I had to do was update my PJ, because a few very big things have happened!

First, I know it was a looooong time ago but here are a couple pics of the costumes I mentioned making:

The Titanic dress:

The nineteenth-century dresses:

And the only photo I have of my tailcoat/tuxedo, sadly:

Bridal Show (Mini Report?)

I just realized that I never posted about my first trip to a bridal show. Well, I have to say it was not what I expected. It was probably the smallest exhibition style show that I’ve ever been to, however, apparently it’s not the biggest one held in the area, that one will be coming up in September, I think.
I went with my mom and two of her friends, who were invited to the wedding. We got a little tote bag filled with vendor information and a free drink ticket to use that the Bacardi rum booth. For the most part none of the booths were terribly relevant to our event, and the ones that were (for our at-home reception) I felt like I hadn’t discussed at all with DF, so I didn’t really know what to do.

I’m sure this is typical but I was accosted by several vendors, and each time my mom and her friends would keep walking leaving me to fend for myself. I’m a shy girl; I really go out of my way to avoid talking to people in general, but salespeople especially. I’m such pushover. I’ll admit it wasn’t too hard to say “no” to the custom candy buffet person with a Disney wedding in the works, but it was still quite a challenging experience. At least I got some “caviar” candy samples out of it: little black spherical mints.

I ended up buying some mineral make-up, partly because I was a shy girl getting the hard-sell from a very pushy and flamboyant (he swore an unnecessary amount for a make-up pitch), but also partly because I was interested in trying it out. It was a better deal than I would have gotten at Sephora, is what I think to console myself.

Keisha from Say Yes to the Dress was there promoting her new show and doing casting calls, I suppose. That was pretty cool. I don’t know if she was wearing 5” heels or something but she is very, very tall.

After we did two or three rounds of the exhibition floor we got our seats for the fashion show. There were a group of girls behind us who had unfortunately used all their drink tickets and then some (which seemed a little tacky for early afternoon on a Saturday) and they were screaming and cat-calling the models on the stage. I guess they were starting the bachelorette party a little early.

There was a decent variety of dresses in the fashion show and I took a few photos of the ones I liked best. Unfortunately no mention of the designers of the dresses, only the salons. And I ended up actually deciding to go to one of the salons from the show, because it had the most dresses that I liked.

Some gratuitous dress pictures!
These were some very fast walking models, it was either take the photo or miss it, so I apologize in advance for the quality of some of these.

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

And now Wedding Stuff!

I think the biggest and most major event I can mention is that I ORDERED MY WEDDING DRESS! It's the Ella Marie by Maggie Sottero.

I really enjoyed my appointment, although as I posted on the DISbrides facebook page the day before I went, I was feeling a lot more nervous than excited. I've read the book Bridal Bargains and I was endlessly worried about being pressured into buying something or worse, tricked into buy something. I think I needn't have worried. My consultant was very helpful as soon as I walked in I showed her my ideas, I was looking to try on a-line dresses and ballgowns and I told her my budget, and that was the last we talked of money until I was really getting serious about one or two dresses. I had my Disney princess Dooney and Burke purse with me, which she noticed, so she pulled the Alfred Angelo Cinderella dress for me to try and told me it was her first time putting someone into one of the Disney Princess dresses. It was the second dress I tried on, and it was big I had no idea! It was lovely and I felt very sparkly and princess-y, but unfortunately totally lost in the dress. It was the last ballgown I tried on for the day but I was really thrilled that if I only tried on one it was that one!

The appointment last about two and half hours, which I had no idea it had been that long, and if I had wanted to try on more she seemed willing enough to go get more. I think I tried on about twenty dresses, and I was surprised that even though many were very similar, once I put them on there were such definite things I loved or hated about them. Anyway the dress came out under-budget (I worried for nothing about being up-sold, apparently), but I'm going to making a few little adjustments. I'm getting rid of the flower under the bust and I'm going to have little matching cap sleeves made.

My only negative experience has to do with the closure. This has nothing to do with the salon and everything to do with the designer. This dress has a corset closure. As I was getting ready to "say yes to the dress" I asked if it was possible to get buttons. I've always loved the little buttons and there aren't many situations where you find them on clothes these days. She went and checked and said it only comes with the corset closure. That was fine.

Later that night I had a moment of, shall we say, panic. That I chose it too fast, that it wasn't the right one, blah, blah, blah. So I looked it up on the website to keep reminding myself what it looked like. It was then I saw the back view image of the dress on the website had buttons. I was like, WHAT?! I wasn't inclined to think the girl had deliberately misinformed me or anything, but seeing it made me both hopeful and annoyed. We called the salon and the consultant said she would call the designer right away to confirm. She called me back and apparently they had discontinued buttons in November but they do not take new photos. She asked if they would make an exception to which the flatly replied "no". Sigh. In a way I was more disappointed to be told no a second time, but oh well.

And finally to end things on a positive note:

I am strategically holding the fake bouquet to hide the bust flowers. I love it!

Oh, one last thing! In the photo I am wearing a birdcage veil. We only briefly talked about veils because I think I'm going to try to make my own veil or maybe get something off Etsy. When I was going through and re-trying on my top faves, she gave me a veil. And I really liked how it completed the look, but I said I was thinking of doing a birdcage. So she said she had one and gave me that right before picture time. But I think I actually prefer the veil. It was just a really lovely touch. Totally surprised myself.

 

[MrsDuck]

WOW. Your Titanic dress looks GORGEOUS. All of them are great! So impressed!

Welcome to the awful world of Bridal Shows. I hate going to them as I feel that the vendors are waayy too pushy. And some of the other brides are nasty. Eek!

Some of those dresses are gorgeous!

Your dress is ABSOLUTELY stunning! And it looks amazing on you. You made such an awesome choice! I love it! CONGRATS!

PS. the birdcage looks awesome!

 

[pixie921]

Your dress looks gorgeous on you! It's so very pretty and feminine - I think you made a wonderful choice!

 

[Icecoldpenguin]

your dress looks absolutely gorgeous. Your titanic dress is pretty darn amazing. still following along sorry if I have not commented lately.

Teresa

 

[dsnygrl21]

I am finally caught up!

First off, you are such a creative person with the costumes you design and even with the bridesmaid giftbox. So different and I love it!

Your theme is going to be awesome and I hope you are putting Catsablanca somewhere in the wedding!!

Your STD's are so cute! It's a perfect replica of you both, lol.

You engagement story was perfect, even with the missing "real" ring. DF was actually afraid that I would see it somehow when going through the metal detectors and all on our trip! Too funny!

Your dress is incredibly gorgeous. So romantic. I also have a Maggie Sottero dress. I love the style of them. Dress Sisters!

I cannot wait to see more of your planning. Keep me posted often! Subbing!