Katie & Matt's February 25th, 2013 DFTW! *Mini Update*

[KT223]

Hi everyone!!

I am a long time lurker on these boards and occasional poster. However, now that DF and I are in full wedding planning mode, I am super excited to start a planning journal as we lead up to the big day!

First I would like to share the story of how DF and I first met and came to the decision to have a DFTW.

Once Upon A Time…

My fiancé, Matthew and I first met in college back in 2007. Matt was a senior at the time, and I was a freshman. We instantly became really good friends, and we were practically inseparable after that.

We started dating on February 25th, 2008. Matt initially wanted to ask me out earlier that week, but he held off for various reasons… My birthday is on February 23rd, and one of my closest cousins and her boyfriend celebrate their anniversary on the 24th. So, Matt waited until midnight on the 25th to ask me to go “steady” with him. (That’s right..That is how he asked me.) He wanted us to have our own special day to celebrate.

While I was finishing school, Matthew remained in our college town working a full time job so we could be together. (He is originally from St. Louis.) Upon graduation in 2010, Matt and I moved into an apartment just outside of Chicago, where I am from. Matt and I, plus our dog Mowgli have been living here ever since!

Our Engagment & Wedding Plans

On April 25th, 2011 (at midnight), Matthew proposed!! He asked me to marry him just like how he asked me to go “steady” with him.

We will be getting married on February 25, 2013, which will mark our 5 year anniversary together. Matt and I LOVE Disney...me more so than him. And we couldn’t think of a better place to bring both of our families together than “the happiest place on earth”, Walt Disney World!

A photo of Matt and I during our engagement party that Matt's parents threw for us.

A picture of Matt and I during our last trip to WDW for our site visit.

This is Mowgli, our two year old Catahoula/Labrador mix. We adopted Mowgli from a local humane society. We always knew we wanted our very first dog to be a rescue. Plus, Mowgli and Matt share the same birthday; so we knew it was fate!

Next up, more details about our wedding plans and what we have completed so far!

 

[KT223]

DF and I are slowly checking more and more things off our “TO DO” list for the wedding! We will be getting married at 10:00am on Monday, February 25th 2013 (Our 5 year anniversary!) at the Wedding Pavilion which will be followed by a brunch reception at Atlantic Dance Hall. We are so excited!

So far, DF and I have done the following:

-Sent out our save the dates

-Created our wedding website

-Set up our wedding room block

-Booked Randy Chapman as our wedding photographer

-Booked our officiant for the ceremony (We have chosen Rev. Jack Day!)

-Booked Beaute Speciale for hair and makeup for the wedding

-Booked a 3 day cruise on the Dream as a part of our honeymoon (We have never been on a cruise before and are soo excited for this!)

-Purchased my wedding dress!!

-Picked out the MOH dresses

-Registered at two department stores

I’m trying to remember if I am missing anything…But I think that covers all of the major decisions we have made so far.

Here is a photo of my wedding dress! I am absolutely in LOVE with it! It is everything I envisioned that my wedding dress would look like and I am so glad that I found it..ON SALE too!

Here are the dresses I am considering for my MOHs, both of which are very similar to one another. DF and I are having a very small wedding party. DF’s childhood best friend will be his Best Man and one of my brothers will be a groomsman. I will be having 2 MOHs which will be two of my closest cousins who are also my best friends. The girls will be wearing either of these two dresses and the boys will have matching colored ties. DF will be wearing a lighter blue colored tie to stand out from the boys. Our wedding colors are navy blue, Malibu blue, and silver. So, I think either of these dresses would go well with our color scheme!

Last but not least, here are a couple photos of our save the date postcard. I think the design turned out great, and I could not be happier with them!! The front side of the postcard is a photo that was taken by a fabulous seller on Etsy and the back side was designed online through Zazzle by DF and me.

Front Side

Back Side

 

[DisneyShamrock]

Welcome to the boards! Your dress is beautiful!

I'm looking forward to following along with your planning.

 

[peachydreamyxx]

Yay for a date twin!

You got so much done so far! I have to say that your dress is beautiful and the one you choose for the bridal party looks great too! I love that color blue!!

What hotels did you choose for your room block??

 

[CinderALLIE]

Congratulations. I will be following along.

 

[KT223]

Welcome to the boards! Your dress is beautiful!

I'm looking forward to following along with your planning.

Thank you!! I just LOVE it! Too bad I don't have much of a reason to try it back on until my first fitting...

I wish I could wear it around the apartment while I clean and what not.. Just like Monica from Friends!

I am glad you will be following along!

Yay for a date twin!

You got so much done so far! I have to say that your dress is beautiful and the one you choose for the bridal party looks great too! I love that color blue!!

What hotels did you choose for your room block??

Hi twin! Don't we have just the best wedding date EVER!?

You have a lot done as well I must say!

DF and I actually have a room block set up at a hotel off of Disney property. We found the room rates they were able to offer our guests a whole lot more reasonable than the rates we received from Disney. However, DF and I will be staying at the GF during our trip.

Congratulations. I will be following along.

Thank for stopping by!!

 

[KT223]

So, I came to the realization that I shared my engagement story with you all but I forgot to share a picture of my ring!

With that being said..Without further ado, here she is!

Please don't mind my unpolished nails. I had NO CLUE that I was going to be proposed to at midnight on a Sunday!

Here is a quick story about how DF came about giving me this particular ring. One afternoon, he and I were on our way to the mall to do some light shopping when we came across a couple of jewelry stores. He had asked if I wanted to stop at Zales to browse their selection. DF knows I am very bad at just “browsing” but I was NOT about to turn down a chance to go look at jewelry.

While I was busy looking at earrings and necklaces, (trying not to make it too obvious that I wanted to look at rings ) DF headed straight to the counter that had engagement rings on display.

Matt and I have very different tastes when it comes to picking out clothes, jewelry, shoes..you name it! Later on, I found out that he wanted to stop by the jewelry store that day to get a general idea of what style of ring I had my eye on. And I must say.. he did a FANTASTIC job picking it out!

A few weeks later, DF went back to that same Zales to purchase my engagement ring. He usually gets home from work before I do every day, so he took this opportunity to pick it up before I got home. However, he did not have the ring sized before he gave it to me because he said he ran out of time and wanted to beat me home before I got suspicious that he might be out ring shopping.

Honestly, that would have been the last thing to cross my mind on a normal work day!


Net up, more wedding plans!!

 

[KT223]

Hello everyone!

I hope everybody is having a great weekend! DF and I spent the last two days relaxing, running a few errands, and getting some wedding planning done!

Last night, we booked our hotel stay for our upcoming planning session. We will be staying at Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort for 4 days and 3 nights. Originally, we wanted to book our hotel stay at the new Art of Animation Resort. However, after discussing a few ways we can cut back on some of our wedding expenses, we opted to reserve a room at All Star Movies instead. Nonetheless, we plan on using the Art of Animation Resort as one of our engagement shoot locations during our trip. I am so excited!

So far, our plans include:

Saturday, August 25th (Our 4 ½ year Anniversary )

-Arrive in Orlando early morning
-Grab lunch (location TBD)
-Spend the day at Magic Kingdom (Our favorite park!)

Sunday, August 26th

-Meet up with Randy at 11:00am for our engagement photo session
-Spend the afternoon at Animal Kingdom (DF has never been before! )
-Eat dinner and spend the evening at Epcot

Monday, August 27th

-Meet with Michelle at 9:00am for our planning session and menu tasting!!
-Eat dinner and spend the rest of the evening at DTD

Tuesday, August 28th

-Check out of our hotel
-Spend the morning at DHS until we need to head to the airport

Even though we will only be spending a few days in WDW, I am so excited about our trip! DF and I have been working very hard on saving as much money for the wedding as possible; so it will be nice to get away for a few days and have some fun!

I also spent some time this weekend working on an inspiration board for the wedding, which I’ll show to our planner during our planning session.
Because I have been a lurker on these boards for quite some time now, I feel that I have a pretty clear vision of the look I am going for.

For the personal flowers, I plan on carrying a bouquet of white mini calla lilies wrapped in white satin ribbon and two bands of Swarovski crystals. I would like the girls to carry a hand tied bouquet of white roses wrapped in navy blue satin. DF’s boutonniere will consist of one single white mini calla lily, and the boys’ boutonnieres will consist of one single white rose.

As far as guest table décor goes, I would like to incorporate square tables, silver chiavari chairs, navy blue table linens, Malibu blue napkins, Disney’s silver candelabras with hanging crystals (no floral), and white rose petals for the table.

For the head table, I would like to incorporate varying heights of glass cylinders with floating candles and submerged flowers placed on either a navy blue table linen or Malibu blue linen.

While I mentioned that I have a pretty clear vision of the overall look I am going for, I do not have that clear of an idea of what I would like to do as far as the smaller details go..such as the guest book, favors, table numbers/names, and place cards. I suppose that is what great sites such as the Dis, Etsy, and Pinterest are for…On to more brainstorming!

 

[KT223]

Hi ladies!

Sorry I have been MIA for the last two weeks! Work has been crazy busy! I work in the wedding industry myself, and with wedding season now being in full swing, I am sure these next few months are going to be pretty hectic.

Luckily, I have been able to get a little bit of wedding planning done during some down time these past couple weeks! Last week, Matt and I accomplished the following:

-Booked our flight for our planning session in August!

-Booked a hair trial with Beaute Speciale for myself while we are visiting WDW for our planning session. Matt and I will also be having our engagement pictures taken by Randy during our trip. I am pretty excited about the hair trial because this will allow me to try out a couple hair styles for the wedding and then not have to worry about my hair for our engagement photos!

-Booked the majority of our hotel stay for the wedding! We will be staying at the Grand Floridian!

-Booked Sago Cay Pointe for our Dessert Party/Rehearsal Dinner the night before the wedding

-Chosen the date for one of our wedding showers

Back story:

Last weekend, Matt and I took a trip to visit his parents and sister in St. Louis (where Matt is originally from) and they brought up the idea of throwing us a shower for all of our guests who live in the St. Louis area. Matt and I kinda figured we would need to host two separate wedding showers due to the fact that the majority of my family lives in Chicago and the majority of his family lives in St. Louis. With that being said, we all agreed on the St. Louis shower taking place the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I wasn’t quite sure if this particular weekend would be a good or bad time to host the shower, but Matt’s mom thinks it will be perfect since some of our guests who live out of town will be in the area for the holidays. Matt and I are pretty excited about the shower..Matt more so than me, I think!

Last but not least, since my last post I have been doing a lot of brainstorming when it comes to all of the little details for the wedding. Here are a few photos of some ideas that I have in mind for our place cards & table numbers, cake topper, toasting flutes & serving set, sand ceremony, and my wedding day hair piece. Let me know what you girls think!

 

[Bewitch324]

I love everything you've got so far! Your dress is so pretty, and I think the silver and white and blue thing you've got going will be very elegant and lovely!

Your dress is really pretty and looks so good on you!! I love the proposal story, sounds like you've got a winner there!!!

Can't wait to hear more about your plans as you get closer to the big day!

Congratulations!
Brooke

 

[KT223]

I love everything you've got so far! Your dress is so pretty, and I think the silver and white and blue thing you've got going will be very elegant and lovely!

Your dress is really pretty and looks so good on you!! I love the proposal story, sounds like you've got a winner there!!!

Can't wait to hear more about your plans as you get closer to the big day!

Congratulations!
Brooke

Aww thank you!! I love my dress and I wish I could wear it all the time! *sigh* A girl can dream, right?...

I'm pretty excited to see everything come together! We still have quite a ways to go, but day by day we are slowly getting things done.


Speaking of getting things done, I do have a mini update for you ladies...

I have heard nothing but great reviews about DJ Chuck Johnson, so DF and I reached out to him to see if he was available for our wedding. DJ Chuck got back to us right away and reported that he did have our date available! So, I am happy to report that we now have our DJ booked! Yay for checking off another item on my to do list!