Caribbean Combo Pack! Engagement TR(2/11) & Disneymoon PTR(9/12) at CBR

[oboedm]

Small weddings are nice! Someone once told me that you should spend more time and effort planning for the marriage than the wedding.... And your honeymoon will get your marriage off to a good start!

[suorkaterina]

As promised I thought I would do a little update on our wedding plans.

We are getting married on September 15th 2012 at 11:30am. We decided on a lunch time wedding because our Disneymoon plans now have us driving to Boston directly after the reception, a 3 hour drive.

We will be getting married at Merry Spring Nature Park. This is where we went for our first date so it seemed the perfect place to tie the knot. Plus, it's beautiful.

Here is a picture of the ceremony site. I took this on September 15th of 2011 so I could get an idea of what it looked like that time of year.


And these are some pictures of the Ross Center where we'll have the reception. It's also in the park. It's very small but our guest list isn't even 50 people so this should work fine. We are hoping it's a nice day too so people can mingle out on the deck.




We are having a short and sweet stand-up ceremony. I'm having trouble finding a reasonably priced officiant! But hopefully I find one soon. I bought my dress very early on. Great sale at David's Bridal. It's chiffon, empire waist with a criss-cross beaded band. I love it. My two bridesmaids are wearing one shoulder espresso brown, empire waist gowns that they love, thank goodness. My maid of honor is my best friend and her daughter is the flower girl. I just gave her the dress for her birthday and she is super excited to be flower girl. My other bridesmaid is my best friend from gradeschool. I think I mentioned her before. My family and hers used to go to Disney together all the time. DF's got two groomsmen, his cousin and friend. The three of them are inseparable. In fact the are going to Boston together this weekend! We deffinately lucked out with our wedding party. I think it helps to keep it small.

David's Bridal is actually doing our photography too. I have yet to fill out their form and receive a bio on the photographer they choose for me. I would have rather gone with a local photographer but most will not set up a payment plan for you, nor will they let you mess with the photos which I will be able to do with these. I enjoy doing my own post processing.

Decor for the reception is going to be very simple. Our budget keeps shrinking unfortunately. We are going with a simple cake I think, or cupcakes depending on prices. We are also getting platters with sandwich meats from the local grocery store. I'm hoping I can pretty this all up by surrounding it with foliage and pinecones. No band, just our favorite songs on a playlist on our ipods.

I am collecting mason jars now to hold dahlias from the local dahlia farm. The colors will be white, purple and fushia. I'm making the bouquets myself out of these. Bridesmaids will be white(or a really cool purple tipped dahlia) and mine will be fushia and purple I think. I'm looking forward to going to the dahlia farm to pick out particular types. I chose dahlias to honor my father who passed away in October. When I was a kid he took our garden and instead of veggies planted the whole thing with dahlias. I must have been very young because I remember the flowers looming over me. Here's a pciture of what I'm going for with that.


I'll also be using ferns to make table runners, cover up the bookshelves and decorate around the food table. I've also been collecting pine cones to spread around the tables. I'm trying to make it simple so it goes with the naturalness of the park. I'm hoping for a fern theme on the invites too.

Oh and here is our cake topper! Haven't ordered this yet but we decided on it long ago.


I guess that is about it. I had wanted a bit more for my wedding. Something bigger, more unique. I had many ideas. But in the end, as the budget shrank because of unemployment, we decided that what we wanted most of all was to spend our first week as a married couple having lots of fun together at Disney. So simple wedding it is. After all, the important part is saying "I do" in front of those we love and each other.

[ronnmel]

I think the place for the ceremony looks lovely!

I love the purple and fuchsia color scheme for your flowers. And of course I LOVE the cake topper!

[suorkaterina]

Originally Posted by oboedm

Small weddings are nice! Someone once told me that you should spend more time and effort planning for the marriage than the wedding.... And your honeymoon will get your marriage off to a good start!

Yeah i think it will be more sentimental with just the VIP's =D I know our engagement trip was the happiest memory ever. That's why I want to make the honeymoon extra special, but more relaxed. We zipped right through the parks in 5 days last time. It was crazy!

Originally Posted by ronnmel

I think the place for the ceremony looks lovely!

I love the purple and fuchsia color scheme for your flowers. And of course I LOVE the cake topper!

Thank you, it really is a beautiful place. I just wish we could use more of the grounds somehow. I'm thinking of doing the posed shots in different parts of the park, the hosta garden, the herb garden, on a trail. We'll see how it goes. I only paid for the photographer for 4 hours =P

[oboedm]

Love the venue! And the cake topper matches the theme nicely! I am glad that you went with the David's photographer, especially because you can do the processing and get what you want. It is really nice that they can do a payment plan! Your plans look lovely so far!

[bowlingchicaroo]

Loving your TR so far...wow we were at CBR the exact same time as you and are returning in September too! We fell in love with CBR and I do believe we found "our home" too!!!

[suorkaterina]

Originally Posted by oboedm

Love the venue! And the cake topper matches the theme nicely! I am glad that you went with the David's photographer, especially because you can do the processing and get what you want. It is really nice that they can do a payment plan! Your plans look lovely so far!

Thank you. I can't beleive it's getting so close now. The fact that I haven't picked an officiant is becoming a fear now. It's like once I hit the 6 month point everything got very real.

Originally Posted by bowlingchicaroo

Loving your TR so far...wow we were at CBR the exact same time as you and are returning in September too! We fell in love with CBR and I do believe we found "our home" too!!!

Oh that's fabulous! I've been going to CBR with my parents since I was young. DF got roped into it. Though when we watched the new promotional video he got excited about the value resorts(which I don;t like at all). I just rolled my eyes. hehe.

I hope Sept is a good month. I've never been in Florida so close to hurricane season!

[archdandy]

Wow, so many things all wrapped into one thread! Congrats on your upcoming wedding. DH and I just got married last June and went to Disney for our honeymoon as well. It was the perfect choice for us! I love your cake topper! I wish we could have found something unique like that but we could never agree on one so we went without, haha. I understand about having a wedding on a budget. It's hard to have a nice wedding these with the prices that everywhere is charging for various wedding stuff such as venues and cakes and dresses! Blarg! Anyways good luck with your planning and I can't wait to see how it all unfolds.

[suorkaterina]

That's right...we've got BIG NEWS.....

We are moving to Florida!

After much discussion on the subject, myself, DF and my mother are moving to Florida, Fall 2013.

I've wanted to move to Florida since I can remember. In HS I applied to all FL colleges except one...and unfortunately that one happened to be the one that was the best option so I ended up in South Carolina instead. When I moved back in with my parents after a bad break-up 4 years ago we talked about moving to FL together but then my Dad's Parkinson's got worse. Now that he has passed my mother has been thinking more and more about moving down and recently visited The Villages where my cousin lives. When she came back she had decided to move but was worried about being away from us and any future grandchildren. I grew up with my grandparents in FL and us in NY/ME and only saw them once or twice a year. My mother told me it was one of my grandmothers biggest regrets that I grew up so far away. And DF, well he was fluctuating on the idea of moving, and so was I actually. I've gotten to a place now where all my friends have kids and homes and I was looking forward to finally joining the "club". But I absolutely HATE the winter here and I think it might border on seasonal depression. Even though this one was mild, I still hate the gray. Anyway, DF kept going back and forth on it. But out of the blue one day he said, "Lets move to Florida, next year." He said he was ready for a new start, to get out of his hometown and move onto something new. Well that was all it took for me. I thought about the things holding me back and I have to admit, I will never be in the "club" with my friends. They are at different stages in their lives. We are ready for the adventure of starting our new lives together in the sunshine state!

So DF and I will be looking to move somewhere between The Villages and Orlando, Clermont area perhaps. So after the wedding we will have a year to save and plan for our move.

Now this ties into our Disneymoon plans because we've decided to take one day to check out the area. We are going to rent a car and just drive around the towns my Central FL family and friends have suggested.

So many things to be excited about. I just hope we can find jobs down there. Since we are both in tourism industries Restaurant/Hospitality, I think we will do okay.

Well that's it for my big news. Have any of you thought about making the move to be closer to the Mouse?

[suorkaterina]

And one more little wedding update. Last week when cleaning up the yard I collected 3 whole trashbags full of pinecones for our wedding decor. I think I'm going to string them together for garlands and hang them from the book shelves and wind them around and behind the food table and put some on the dining tables as well. It was worth the 3 hours of bending over to pick them up =P Free decor. Doesn't get better than that!

[suorkaterina]

Originally Posted by archdandy

Wow, so many things all wrapped into one thread! Congrats on your upcoming wedding. DH and I just got married last June and went to Disney for our honeymoon as well. It was the perfect choice for us! I love your cake topper! I wish we could have found something unique like that but we could never agree on one so we went without, haha. I understand about having a wedding on a budget. It's hard to have a nice wedding these with the prices that everywhere is charging for various wedding stuff such as venues and cakes and dresses! Blarg! Anyways good luck with your planning and I can't wait to see how it all unfolds.

Thanks for joining in! Congratulations on your recent wedding and Disneymoon! Isn't that cake topper adorable. I found it on amazon when we were considering a Mickey/Minnie themed wedding. It's the only thing that has stuck from that plan. =D

[ronnmel]

That is ao AWESOME that you will get to move to Florida!!! DH and I talk about it sometimes. For him it might be possible, as he often works with people from a sister company in Tampa, so he could look into transfering there. For me it wouldn't be as easy though. I've heard it's really hard for teachers in Florida. But anyway, the big things that keeps us here are his daughter, and our family. It's definitely in our plans to retire there though. And obviously we'd be okay with living there part time should we win the lottery. I hope you guys find a great home, and a good job down there.

[LisaKeys]

Come out, come out wherever you are! LOL I was reading your TR, and it ended on your 1st day in the park. Just a great photo of the 2 of you in front of the castle.

Only 4 more months. I know you are getting excited!

[suorkaterina]

Originally Posted by LisaKeys

Come out, come out wherever you are! LOL I was reading your TR, and it ended on your 1st day in the park. Just a great photo of the 2 of you in front of the castle.

Only 4 more months. I know you are getting excited!

We are excited! We were actually just now talking about how we were looking forward to spending some quality time together on our honeymoon. It's been a tough winter and will be a busy summer working hard and saving money for wedding stuff. But the rewards will be great!

I have a treat for you then...I just finished loading the Day two pics onto photobucket. I'll have a new TR post up soon!

[suorkaterina]

Warning: These pictures are HUGE but photobucket is giving me a hard time and I don't feel like starting over =P So beware!

Well we were starting to slow down today. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at Old Port Royal. I made DF enjoy a Mickey waffle so I could watch him eat it. You know, because of my gluten allergy. Now I don't remember how this happened, what order. But I think this was also the day the chef overheard me lamenting my loss of Mickey waffle and told me he can do G-free ones. Which he did and I was overjoyed! The g-free dedicated waffle iron is mini mickey waffles but they tasted sooooo good.

So after that it was off to The Studios. We ran into a survey CM who asked us some questions and congratulated us on our engagement(We had our pins on). Actually by midday I think we'd been congratulated by at least 10 CM's. We had our pictures taken in front of the hat, and the CM asked where my ring was. If I didn't mention it before, there was no ring. I had made it clear to DF that if and when he popped the question, I didn't need a ring because I wanted to re-set my great grandmothers engagement ring.

Anyhow, We started our tour of DHS at Muppet's because DF is a major Muppet freak and so am I. He loved it and we took some pictures by the fountain.



It's been so long I don't remember the exact order of things. But after that we sort of wandered. Then we ended up at 50's Prime-time for lunch. I got all excited when the chef came out and told me they had a g-free chicken pot pie. Sadly it was only a g-free biscuit with pot pie filling on top. It was good, but I was really looking forward eating pie shell...yumm.




After that we did Indiana Jones and then I ran into my first ever Dis-er. A woman I met on the Singles board. We chatted for a little bit but we both had plans to go to different areas so we parted ways. She also asked about the ring. By this time i was starting to regret my "no ring" policy. The pin wasn't enough for me

DF was sad that Star Tours was down but we did manage to get some pictures in. He was all excited about the entrance to the Traders. As you can see in the picture, there are two planets in one here. I'm not a bit Star Wars fan but I got the joke...I just can't remember the names of the planets! We also had our pictures taken as Luke and Laia(sp?) I'll post that picture once I scan it.






By midafternoon we were starting to get really tired. After getting in at 1am, then an 11pm night at Magic Kingdom, we were ready to do a little relaxing. I had intended that we go to Fantasmic since I'd never been but after sitting and watching the Lights, Motors...etc. show...we decided to call it a day.

You will notice we missed the two big ones here, actually we missed a lot. So, DF has a weird aversion to rollercoasters which I was not aware of before this trip. Apparently because he is tall, he thinks his head will be chopped off by the ride. So RR was out. He has since reformed and realized that these rides were built to accommodate freakishly tall people like himself. (He's really not that tall, like 6'5" maybe) Anyway, I also have motion sickness so TOT was out for me. (Next time I'm taking dramamine). We decided we would be braver on our honeymoon. So we made our way back to the entrance. But, since we hadn't been down that way, we wondered down to see what was down by RR and TOT and ended up spending another hour shopping. And did the requisite pic in front of the hat before we left.



As we made our way back to the main street(you'll notice i have no idea what the names of these streets are, such a bad Disney geek!) DF asked if I wanted a mickey promise ring. So we went into a shop and found this little beauty which I now wear on my right hand.



Then we went home. I got to fawn all over my little ring. And we ate burgers that evening outside of OPR. Then headed back to the room. DF fell asleep within minutes but I was too keyed up and watched a Walt Disney documentary which just happened to be on!

Tomorrow, onto Epcot!