A Wedding, A Honeymoon, and Lots of Disneyland Dining Updated 7/22

[DLFan123]

Welcome everyone! I'm back and finally ready to get this review started!

My wonderful DP and I got married in August 2014 in beautiful Old Town San Diego, and then we honeymooned *of course* in our happiest place on earth, Disneyland!

We decided to get married in Old Town during our 2013 trip to So Cal. You can read all about that here: Another 10 Day Dining Review!

You may be wondering, if I'm as big a DLFan as I claim to be, why we didn't get married at DL?!

Even though we considered the possibility of getting married at Disneyland, we made the decision together that we really wanted our honeymoon to be for us. Since our wedding was a destination wedding, with family traveling thousands of miles, we feared that if we got married at DL, our wonderful families would feel compelled to spend our honeymoon with us at DL. Besides that, we wanted our wedding to be quiet and lacking some of the frenetic energy of the DLR. Of course we knew we'd want to spend our honeymoon at DL, so all the more reason to keep our wedding close...but just far enough to prevent the invasion of our honeymoon by family. Does this make us sound like horrible people? Because we aren't...but we've been together a long time...long enough to know that we really depend on our Disney vacations to be for us and about us. And our wedding had just the right amount of Disney magic to really represent our personalities.


Because this is a Disney dining review, I'll refrain from posting lots of details about the wedding itself (and will make a solemn vow not to inundate you with wedding pictures...at least not too many ), but I will post some of the photos of our wedding food, as much as I have pictured anyway. I will try to keep the focus on DL food, but as usual, we traveled farther afield to some of our favorite spots, so this review will include those destinations as well (but don't worry, that won't come until the end).

Since this was a special visit to DL, for the first time ever, we stayed on DLR property. Where else does one stay on one's honeymoon, besides the premier property, the Grand Californian Hotel?!


We enjoyed a few special meals, some at first time restaurants for us, including the Carthay Circle Theater restaurant, Ariel's Grotto for WOC dining, as well as the world-famous five-star 1500 Ocean down at the Hotel del Coronado.

In between, we enjoyed some of our favorites, as well as some new restaurants in DL and DCA.

It is my hope that this review won't be too much a repeat of the meals we've eaten and reviewed in past dis threads, but I am a creature of habit. I'm going to try to move it along swiftly, since I am late in starting, after all.

I welcome your questions, comment and conversation. I hope you enjoy the photographs and opinions. Now, without further delay, let's get this dining review started!


For ease of navigating, here is a list of posts:


View some of our Wedding Photos by clicking on the link!

Day 1
Arrival Day/Root Down in DIA
Harbor House in Seaport Village

Day 2
Barra Barry Saloon in Old Town

Day 3
Wedding Day!
Wedding Food!
Wedding Dinner Selections and Dessert
Dessert Table

Day 4-Disneyland here we come!
Arrival Day and Royal Street Veranda

Day 5
Fiddler, Fifer & Practical Café
Flo's V-8 Café
Carthay Circle Restaurant
Carthay Circle Restaurant 2

Day 6
Tomorrowland Terrace
French Market
Ariel's Grotto WOC Dining

Day 7
Charlie's Chili
Rancho del Zocalo

Day 8
Jolly Holiday Bakery
Hungry Bear Restaurant
Snack
Tortilla Jo's

Day 9
Award Wieners
Blue Bayou
Fantasmic! Dessert Party

Day 10-last day at Disney *sniff sniff*
Snack
Carnation Café
French Market

Day 11-to Orange County and Beyond
L'Hirondelle
Harbor Fish (Carlsbad)

Day 12
Complimentary Breakfast at Beach Terrace Inn
Cold Stone
Jay's Gourmet Seafood (Carlsbad)

Day 13
Breakfast Beach Terrace Inn
Anthony's Fish Grotto (San Diego)
Hotel del Coronado
1500 Ocean

Day 14
Lunch on Coronado Island
Seaport Village

Day 15
Snack
Cosmopolitan Restaurant

 

[GoofySon'sMom]

Congratulations! Looking forward to your reviews including the non-DL food!

 

[tluvstink]

Congratulations!! I was fortunate enough to visit Old Town San Diego wwwaaaayyyy back in 1991 and absolutely loved it. I hope you decide to post wedding pics

Of course I'm looking forward to your DL reviews too

Terri

 

[aidansmommy]

Congrats! I hope there's lots of pics(of the wedding too!!!!)!!!!!

 

[DLFan123]

Congratulations! Looking forward to your reviews including the non-DL food!

Welcome and thank you so much! It's great to see you pop up on here. Maybe I've been out of the loop a bit, but I haven't noticed you elsewhere recently. (I was off the boards for quite some time while we were preparing for the big day!) I hope you and your family are doing well!

 

[DLFan123]

Congratulations!! I was fortunate enough to visit Old Town San Diego wwwaaaayyyy back in 1991 and absolutely loved it. I hope you decide to post wedding pics

Of course I'm looking forward to your DL reviews too

Terri

Ok maybe you've twisted my arm a bit and I will post a few wedding pics! Thank you for the encouragement!

 

[DLFan123]

Congrats! I hope there's lots of pics(of the wedding too!!!!)!!!!!

Maybe just a few! I wasn't sure if people would feel like I was too far with wedding photos, but since you asked...

 

[hockeygirl14]

Following along

 

[vettegirl]

Congrats! I love DL food, I even included my DL food from my Jan trip in my current WDW dining review

 

[Pfau]

Fun! I'm in!

 

[kastoney]

I'm so in. Congrats on the wedding. Now bring on some pictures of it ; )

 

[jabead]

Congratulations! Looking forward to hearing more about your wedding and honeymoon at Disneyland.

 

[superme80]

Here it is! I am in! Congrats!

 

[DLFan123]

Following along

Awesome welcome!

Congrats! I love DL food, I even included my DL food from my Jan trip in my current WDW dining review

I saw that! I love reading about food from any Disney park!

Fun! I'm in!

Hi welcome!

I'm so in. Congrats on the wedding. Now bring on some pictures of it ; )

Okay...here you go!

Congratulations! Looking forward to hearing more about your wedding and honeymoon at Disneyland.

Thanks so much!

Here it is! I am in! Congrats!

Glad to have you reading along!

 

[DLFan123]

Whew what a week and weekend! I thought I'd be starting on this a lot sooner, but my best laid plans have been totally blown to smithereens lately!

I'll move on to food and drink (prior to and) at the wedding in the next post, but for now, here are some of our wedding photos! As mentioned, our wedding ceremony took place at the Casa de Estudillo in Old Town San Diego's state historic park. The reception followed at the Cosmopolitan Hotel and Restaurant, a historic property just adjacent to the Casa and separated by a pedestrian walkway of about 20 feet. We loved the intimacy of the site, and all of the ten rooms at the Cosmo were occupied by our guests. This meant that we had a total monopoly on the hotel for the entire weekend. Our guests who couldn't fit into the ten rooms at the Cosmo stayed at the Best Western Hacienda Hotel, which is really a beautiful, Spanish-themed property just up the street. Even though we provided a shuttle, they mostly walked to and from the wedding. We just loved having everyone so close.

We wanted our wedding to feel sophisticated, rustic, and desert inspired. But we knew we wanted a touch of Disney, to truly represent our personalities. I think we found the perfect way to incorporate it, too!

I don't want to bore you with too many details, so here are some pics to liven this up a bit!



Here is a shot of our dresses, from our honeymoon suite, looking out into the state park. We wanted simple, vintage inspired dresses without trains. Mine was a Claire Pettibone gown, and DP chose hers from BHLDN.



Matching rings! They were brushed white gold with a cognac diamond in the center, and then white diamonds in the trinity fashion for the two outer stones. I really liked the symbolism of this...trinity rings to signify the length of time of our relationship but still commemorate our nuptials with traditional wedding stones.



For our bouquets, we knew we wanted succulents as well as the terra cotta color to really reflect our desert setting. I loved the addition our florist made with the billy balls! (So reasonably priced, too)



Prior to the ceremony, in the courtyard of the Casa



Just post ceremony, outside of the Casa

It was such a wonderful day, and just posting these few images brings it all back! Up next, I'm going to backtrack a little and begin with our dining adventures from the time we arrived in San Diego, leading up to the wedding, including a review of our rehearsal dinner venue (Barra Barra saloon) and our wedding food! Apparently anything but posting food pics in chronological order really throws me off, but you all seemed so excited and I was so late getting this started that I thought I'd give you a bit to browse for now!

 

[Susan R]

You both look wonderful. Congratulations!

 

[kastoney]

Your dresses are gorgeous. Love that they are similar, yet different. And your rings are absolutely beautiful. They are a perfect blend of vintage and modern. Think my hubby would mind if I change my wedding ring ; )

 

[Pfau]

Oh good gracious. I, for one, will never tire of wedding pictures ... fyi

 

[vettegirl]

Beautiful!

 

[GoofySon'sMom]

Welcome and thank you so much! It's great to see you pop up on here. Maybe I've been out of the loop a bit, but I haven't noticed you elsewhere recently. (I was off the boards for quite some time while we were preparing for the big day!) I hope you and your family are doing well!

We are doing good! I have been stalking but not posting. Last year was the first year without a Disney trip since 2004 and DS went off to college in August so I was in a bit of a funk! But I am (unfortunately) getting used to his being away and planning our August trip taking his GF with us so I am slowly rejoining the World of the Dis!

BEAUTIFUL wedding dresses! Love, love the pics!