Lauren & George's Wishes Wedding- 12.01/16- WP/Attic *Updated 11/06: TR Day 6!

[Lauren1027]

I love Mod Cloth! I am currently stalking that website for wedding week dresses! Also the color is fab, it'll make brown/blond tones pop, their hair will look fab!

Thank you! You really can't go wrong with any of Mod Cloth's dresses. And if you don't end up loving them, they have a really generous return/exchange policy so its totally worth the risk.

All caught up! Your engagement pics are amazing - you must be over the moon with them. Sorry you had to go through the drama to get them but I believe things happen for a reason too!

Love your BMs dresses, and your colour ideas too!

Thanks, Sarah! I'm thrilled with my engagement pictures! SO much so, that I've bought several frames and have had prints made, but am having such a hard time deciding which ones to display. I may have to get one of those electronic photo frames so that all my pictures can be displayed (do people even still use those?).

 

[Lauren1027]

Photography & Planning Session

As of last week, we have officially booked our photography for the wedding! This is so exciting for us since its our #1 priority for the wedding (after having a Disney wedding, of course). We really went back and forth between just using Disney's Fine Arts Photography or outside photography because the price difference wasn't that much more based on what we wanted, but we ultimately decided to go with outside photography since the thought of not knowing exactly who my photographer would be scared the crap out of me. We originally inquired about booking the Roots, because, hello, they're the Roots and don't need anymore explanation, but unfortunately, they were too far out of our price range.

After deciding that we couldn't afford to hire the Roots, we started looking more into the DFAP packages, which surprisingly aren't as expensive as we thought they would be. They do have a 4-hour Mini Wishes photography package, but I decided that we needed to do a 6-hour package because I want getting ready photos, first-look photos, and photos at both the Wedding Pavilion (after our ceremony) and at the Boardwalk (after our reception). If we went with that package, it would either only capture our ceremony and reception, or they would have to stop photographing the reception early. I don't want to compromise on my time so we decided we had to do a 6-hour package.

Then, about a month ago, I saw a post on here titled "Cricket's Back!" I've been following the Disboards for quite a few years already, so I knew exactly what that meant. For those of you who have not stalked to Disboards for as long as I have, Cricket is a super amazing photographer who worked with Disney's Fine Arts Photography a few years ago. She has a very unique photography style and I know was highly requested for Disney weddings back when she still worked for them. When I saw this post that she was back and could start photographing Disney weddings starting in December 2016, I immediately went to her website and started saving images to show George. I sent him the link to her website and within a minute of being on her page he told me to contact them right away because he wanted them for our wedding!

Coincidentally, the nest morning I had an email from the Knot announcing a January special with Cricket's Photography that included a free engagement session. I emailed them immediately to see if they had December 1st available and inquired about 6-hour packages. Sean, Cricket's husband and also a photographer, was super quick to respond with package pricing and that they were available for our date! He also wanted us to come to their studio in town to discuss our event and show us samples of their photography. So we went there last week and were even more impressed with what we saw in person and knew before even leaving the studio that we would be hiring them. What was especially cool of them is that instead of doing the free engagement photos with them (since we already had our done at Disneyland), they threw on the extra hour to our wedding package. So we will now be getting 7 hours of photography for our wedding day, along with all the edited images for less than Disney's 6-hour package. I'm so excited! Not only that, but our wedding will be Cricket's first wedding back at Disney since she left DFAP. I find that kind of cool!

On another really exciting note, we also have our Planning Session date confirmed! I've actually known about this for a few weeks already, but I had so many other updates that I didn't want to overwhelm. Things are really coming along quickly now that we're only 10 months out from the big day. Our Planning Session date is Monday, June 13th at 9AM and our menu tasting is that same day at 2:30PM at the Boardwalk Convention Center. We have until May 30th to complete our Planning Kit, which looks SO intimidating, and have until May 23rd to complete our menu tasting checklist, which makes me hungry every time I look at it. I have no idea how I'm going to narrow it down to only trying 8 items when they all sound so amazing.

Next up on our list of plans is to figure out plans (and hopefully book) our honeymoon and decide if we will be adding a Magic Kingdom Portrait Session. Decisions, decisions.

 

[Seia]

Lots of exciting updates! That's awesome that you will be Cricket's first wedding back at Disney.

I know the park shoots can always be a gamble since you never know who your photographer will be, but I'm glad we decided to do it. The only thing is, in my mind, if you do an MK shoot you might as well do a second park as well since the price difference is negligible. (Well, as negligible as any money towards a wedding could possibly be, anyway. LOL)

 

[Lauren1027]

Lots of exciting updates! That's awesome that you will be Cricket's first wedding back at Disney.

I know the park shoots can always be a gamble since you never know who your photographer will be, but I'm glad we decided to do it. The only thing is, in my mind, if you do an MK shoot you might as well do a second park as well since the price difference is negligible. (Well, as negligible as any money towards a wedding could possibly be, anyway. LOL)

Yeah, we will definitely consider adding the Epcot shoot if we do the MK shoot, since its only a difference of $300 (for now). I should be finding out in the next few days what I'll get/owe from my tax return and that will be the deciding factor.

 

[Hydra]

I didn't think of using my tax return as an excuse for a park shoot. Hmmmm ideas! Haha.

 

[stacy469]

All your plans so far sound amazing! Our wedding planner is also kristie!! Can't wait to read more about all of your plans! And your engagement photos are so adorable!!

 

[Lauren1027]

Honeymoon Planning

Since planning is kind of at a stand-still at the moment since we're still months away from our planning session and we've got most of our major stuff done, George and I have finally started pricing out and coming up with plans for our honeymoon. Our dream honeymoon would hands-down be a Euro-trip, but with our wedding being in December and the two of us being weak Floridians, we decided that Europe was a no-go for our honeymoon (I'd rather not freeze to death on my honeymoon, thanks). Tokyo was also in the running and so was a return trip to Disneyland, but ultimately, we decided that we should do something once-in-a-lifetime and relaxing at the same time. That's when the discussion of Hawaii began!

For the 6 years that George and I have been together, Hawaii has NEVER been on our radar as a vacation destination. I've always been a city girl and I love history, so my top vacation destinations have always been along the lines of London, Paris, and other European cities. I knew we wouldn't be able to do a European honeymoon because neither of us would be able to take that much time off work right after the wedding. If I'm going to go to Europe, its got to be for a minimum of 10-14 days. We can only take 7 days off. I suggested going back to Disneyland because I loved it and I'd have the opportunity to see it during the Christmas holidays, where it would be all decked out, but DF said that 7 days at Disneyland would be too long and not really special enough for our honeymoon. After that he asked me "What about Aulani?" That's when the light bulbs started going off in my head. I suggested that we do both! Since 90% of flights to Hawaii from the east coast have layovers in California anyways, why don't we stop at Disneyland for a couple of days to check out all the holiday décor and get used to the west coast time change, then fly to Hawaii from there for the remainder of the week? George thought it was a terrific plan so it was time to start researching!

We are in no way well-off and Hawaii (especially Aulani) is not a cheap destination, so the first step I took in the planning process was looking into renting DVC points for our stay at Aulani. I went through The DVC Rental Store and got a price estimate. It would be pricey, but over $1,000 cheaper than booking straight through Disney. We just put in our $100 deposit to begin the search and I keep anxiously checking my email to see if there are any units available to rent during our requested dates. I know it could be several days before we hear anything, but I'm just so anxious!

We also plan to go with Hawaiian Airlines for our flights from LAX to Honolulu. The airline has great reviews and they are considerably cheaper than the major airlines. However, I don't plan on booking any flights until 6 months before the trip because I'm still waiting on flight dates/times to be released for Southwest, since this is what we plan to fly from Orlando to Anaheim (with frequent flyer miles, so at least that portion of our airfare won't cost us anything).

So right now our tentative honeymoon schedule is as follows:

Thursday, December 1st- Get married!
Friday, December 2nd- Relax and enjoy our first day as Mr. and Mrs.
Saturday, December 3rd- Have a family get-together with George's side of the family (aunts, uncles, cousins) to celebrate our wedding (since only immediate family is attending the wedding)
Sunday, December 4th- Early morning flight to Anaheim, check in to hotel (hopefully Grand Californian), then rest of the day/night at DCA
Monday, December 5th- Disneyland!
Tuesday, December 6th- Fly to Hawaii, check in at Aulani, relax the rest of the day
Wednesday-Saturday, December 7th-10th- Mix of Aulani resort days, and exploring the island (North Shore, Diamond Head, Pearl Harbor, etc.)
Sunday, December 8th- Check out of Aulani and catch a (hopefully) late afternoon flight back to LAX, with an overnight flight back to Orlando

I know it isn't the longest honeymoon and that 4 full days in Hawaii is probably NOWHERE near enough time to enjoy the resort and the island, but I just really don't want to give up my 1.5-2 days in Disneyland because I truly love it there and I know going during the holidays will be hard to beat. I'm also hoping that our flight out of LA to Hawaii is an early one, that way we will still have a half day to enjoy Aulani when we arrive, and we are hoping to find a late afternoon flight on the Sunday that we leave, so we can enjoy the morning and lunch at the resort before heading to the airport. That would technically add another day to our trip. Fingers crossed we can find some good flights to make that work, but I won't know until Southwest releases their flight itineraries for December 2016.

Everyone keep their fingers crossed for me that we are able to get some DVC points to rent for Aulani or else honeymoon plans might have to change!

 

[rachel09985]

What an exciting honeymoon schedule! I hope you get your DVC points!

 

[elphie101]

Love your honeymoon plans!!! Have you thought about renting directly from an owner? Especially here on the DIS, owners have to pay the DIS to advertise their points, which IMO cuts down on the risk of being scammed. I only mention it because we had lovely success renting this way (though we used another website) and it was even more affordable! I'll be crossing my fingers for you the points come through!

Also, we flew Hawaiian Airlines and they were quite lovely (we flew them from Kauai to Maui, but it still counts!)

 

[Lauren1027]

What an exciting honeymoon schedule! I hope you get your DVC points!

Thank you! I hope we can make it happen!

Love your honeymoon plans!!! Have you thought about renting directly from an owner? Especially here on the DIS, owners have to pay the DIS to advertise their points, which IMO cuts down on the risk of being scammed. I only mention it because we had lovely success renting this way (though we used another website) and it was even more affordable! I'll be crossing my fingers for you the points come through!

Also, we flew Hawaiian Airlines and they were quite lovely (we flew them from Kauai to Maui, but it still counts!)

Thanks for the helpful advice, Jenn! If The DVC Rental Store doesn't end up finding a renter for our request, then I will definitely look into renting from someone here on the DIS! While I'm familiar with this little corner of the boards, I haven't ventured too much outside of this one so I didn't know this was something that was possible! Sounds awesome, especially since the other DVC rental website are reliable, they do tend to run more expensive.

Everyone I've spoken to about Hawaiian Airlines has only used them for island-to-island travel, but they all had good experiences so that definitely counts!

 

[epcotcenter1982]

Everyone I've spoken to about Hawaiian Airlines has only used them for island-to-island travel, but they all had good experiences so that definitely counts!

Hawaiian is pretty much our only full service airline option from Sydney Australia to Hawaii. So we have quite a bit of experience with them.
Generally I give them quite a good rating. The airline isn't as good as others I've been on but I've never flown Southwest. So don't know what they are like.

My only "complaint" on them is their baggage handling....but it must be kept in mind that ultimately it would be the same handlers for all airlines on the Islands I would presume...but it's ROUGH. Islanders are very strong and especially when we have taken the opportunity to fill our bags to the 70 pound included (yes they give Australians typically 2x32kilo bags baggage each) the bags have ended up being thrown heavily and nearly all of them damaged such that we claimed on travel insurance (the airline doesn't do anything beyond giving you a ticket that said you told them)

So...whether that's an airline thing or location thing I don't know. But whenever we go to Hawaii we get damaged bags every time. And I've been flying too and from the UK many times without having to claim anything on the luggage

As for Aulani....amazing...but do consider the next tier up from standard view (depending which you were going to rent from DVC) I know it costs a bit more but it is quite a bit nicer the experience. Not a beach view but you can see the night time show from your balcony then.

 

[Lauren1027]

Hawaiian is pretty much our only full service airline option from Sydney Australia to Hawaii. So we have quite a bit of experience with them.
Generally I give them quite a good rating. The airline isn't as good as others I've been on but I've never flown Southwest. So don't know what they are like.

My only "complaint" on them is their baggage handling....but it must be kept in mind that ultimately it would be the same handlers for all airlines on the Islands I would presume...but it's ROUGH. Islanders are very strong and especially when we have taken the opportunity to fill our bags to the 70 pound included (yes they give Australians typically 2x32kilo bags baggage each) the bags have ended up being thrown heavily and nearly all of them damaged such that we claimed on travel insurance (the airline doesn't do anything beyond giving you a ticket that said you told them)

So...whether that's an airline thing or location thing I don't know. But whenever we go to Hawaii we get damaged bags every time. And I've been flying too and from the UK many times without having to claim anything on the luggage

As for Aulani....amazing...but do consider the next tier up from standard view (depending which you were going to rent from DVC) I know it costs a bit more but it is quite a bit nicer the experience. Not a beach view but you can see the night time show from your balcony then.

Thank you for the advise on the baggage handling! I'll definitely make sure to back anything delicate we may bring with us in our carry-on luggage. As for our room, we splurged and requested an ocean view room. I know its considerably more than the standard view, but its a once in a lifetime trip and since we're traveling so far for this trip, we might as well be able to see the ocean from our balcony!

 

[Lauren1027]

Honeymoon Plans Confirmed & Our Engagement Photobook!

We just received official confirmation from The DVC Rental Store that they have secured a DVC reservation at Aulani! As soon as we pay our booking deposit, which I will be doing as soon as I get home from work tonight, it will all be 100% official! We will be staying in an OCEAN VIEW (!!!) Deluxe Studio Villa for 5 glorious nights and I couldn't be happier. My friend went to Aulani for his honeymoon in September and also stayed in an ocean view room, so my view should be looking something like this:

Seriously gorgeous. I've been reading lots of Aulani TRs now in preparation for how we plan to spend our time in Hawaii, as well as getting recommendations from my friends who have been. As I mentioned in my last update, we'll be at Aulani for 5 days, and we plan to have probably 2-2.5 days of exploring the island, and 2.5-3 days of strictly relaxing and enjoying the resort (we'll definitely need it after the wedding and 2 days in Disneyland). If anyone has been to Hawaii and has recommendations for activities to do around the island, please let me know!

In other exciting news, I got my photobook of our engagement pictures that I created using Shutterfly yesterday and I'm SO happy with how it turned out. I can't recommend Shutterfly enough if you're looking for a nice quality photobook for not a lot of money. I was lucky enough to get a voucher for a free 8x11 photobook from David's Bridal when I purchased my wedding dress through them, but paid a little extra to add an additional 10 pages and a dust cover for the book (which I HIGHLY recommend because it makes the book look so much higher quality). It did take me several hours to arrange the photos just how I wanted them and was very frustrating at times trying to fit certain photos in their layouts, but seeing the physical book now made it so worth it. Plus, there's a simple path that will arrange all your photos for you if you'd rather not spend the time arranging them yourself, but I wanted to dictate what pictures went where, so I chose the custom path. We don't plan on using this as a guest book, since we got one of those giant Vinylmations for our guests to sign, but I still wanted to make a really pretty coffee table book to display with our awesome engagement pictures. If anyone is interested in seeing our photobook, here's a link to it: https://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbOWzlmzcOGbog&cid=SM-PBAPP

Hope you all have a wonderful Valentines weekend! We have brunch reservations at Boma and then we're having a Magic Kingdom day

 

[twinkybel81]

For your flights from LAX to Hawaii, I would recommend waiting til 4-6 weeks prior to your departure date, since that is generally the window of time to get the best rates. . Just a thought to possibly save a bit more money.

 

[Hydra]

Last time we were on Oahu we stopped by the Aulani property just to wander around, it was break-taking! How exciting!

 

[Lauren1027]

For your flights from LAX to Hawaii, I would recommend waiting til 4-6 weeks prior to your departure date, since that is generally the window of time to get the best rates. . Just a thought to possibly save a bit more money.

Thanks for the advise! I will try to hold off that long, but booking that close makes me SUPER nervous. We'll see what happens!

Last time we were on Oahu we stopped by the Aulani property just to wander around, it was break-taking! How exciting!

That's great to know! I'm so excited!

 

[epcotcenter1982]

That's going to be so wonderful with an Ocean View. We've had a partial Ocean view at the Westin Villas Maui once and it was lovely.
It's such a lovely resort to be at Aulani. We went when they have Christmas decorations up and it was so beautiful. It's really quite magical. It's a little like Animal Kingdom lodge approach to decoration and it's just stunning. You can feel the Joe Rhode design magic and I spent one night just wandering all around.

If you have time go to the DVC desk and ask if you can see the 3 bed villas. I couldn't find a time to suit but my family did and they were awesome apparently. You can sort of work out from the outside where they are as there's a double balcony.

 

[fallonkendra]

I just finished getting caught up! You look amazing in your wedding dress, I think you made the right choice! I can only imagine your stress when your dog got sick, I have two dogs and I can't bring myself to imagine the mess I'd be if anything happened to them! Glad to hear she's doing better now though!

Sorry to hear about all the family drama when you first started planning. I have my heart set on a Disney wedding in the future (and my boyfriend loves Disney just as much as I do) but I know it'll be met with a lot of drama...

Looking forward to your future posts, and to see what you decide on for your tasting session!

 

[Lauren1027]

That's going to be so wonderful with an Ocean View. We've had a partial Ocean view at the Westin Villas Maui once and it was lovely.
It's such a lovely resort to be at Aulani. We went when they have Christmas decorations up and it was so beautiful. It's really quite magical. It's a little like Animal Kingdom lodge approach to decoration and it's just stunning. You can feel the Joe Rhode design magic and I spent one night just wandering all around.

If you have time go to the DVC desk and ask if you can see the 3 bed villas. I couldn't find a time to suit but my family did and they were awesome apparently. You can sort of work out from the outside where they are as there's a double balcony.

I just visited Animal Kingdom for the first time this past weekend and loved how beautiful that resort was! I can't wait to see Aulani...especially since their Christmas decorations should definitely by up by the time we get there! If we have time, we'll check out the DVC villa, but not sure how much free time we'll have there since we're only going for 5 days and I'm sure that's a really short amount of time for someone who's never been to Hawaii before!

I just finished getting caught up! You look amazing in your wedding dress, I think you made the right choice! I can only imagine your stress when your dog got sick, I have two dogs and I can't bring myself to imagine the mess I'd be if anything happened to them! Glad to hear she's doing better now though!

Sorry to hear about all the family drama when you first started planning. I have my heart set on a Disney wedding in the future (and my boyfriend loves Disney just as much as I do) but I know it'll be met with a lot of drama...

Looking forward to your future posts, and to see what you decide on for your tasting session!

Aww thank you so much! I'm so excited to wear my dress! I have no regrets what-so-ever and every time I look at pictures of it, it makes me really happy

My dog has fully recovered and is back to her old, normal self. I'm so thrilled and hope that the pacemaker will extend her life even longer! When we went for our one-month check up at the hospital, they told us that the pacemaker battery will last for 10 years! So as long as she doesn't get any other serious illnesses (fingers crossed) then she should lead a nice, long life.

The family drama was the worst. Things have been better, but I still get nervous talking about the wedding to my mom. While she's trying to be supportive, I feel like she's just judging me so hard on the decisions I'm making. I wish she could tone it down because I am close with her regardless of her judgey-ness and I would love her to be more involved in planning, but all she cares about is dollar signs and its not her decision to make since we are (mostly) paying for the wedding ourselves.

Figuring out what we want to try for our tasting session is going to be SO hard. Everything sounds really amazing. We are requesting that the chefs recreate the sweet and sour chicken and waffles from Magic Kingdom for the tasting session though, so that will be one thing! That's one of our favorite meals and I'm so, so sad that they are now gone

 

[Lauren1027]

Save the Dates and other Random Updates

Happy Friday, ladies! Its been a couple of weeks since my last update, but I got a good few things done this week so I wanted to share an update with you all! First, our Save the Dates have been created and purchased! I've actually been trying to work on STDs for over a month but kept procrastinating on it because there are just too many options that I was overwhelmed. I knew that I wanted to do a collage-style STD since we have so many lovely engagement photos, but I had SUCH a hard time finding layouts that fit my pictures properly and also pictures that went well together. One day I finally sat down and just put my favorite engagement pictures into about 20 different layouts and then just picked my favorite. George signed off on it and I got a 30% off coupon in the mail, so they were ordered this week. We got our STDs through Wedding Paper Divas and went with a magnet over paper because who wouldn't want to have our faces all over their fridge?!? I kid, I kid. Here's a preview of what our magnets will look like:

There may be some minor tweaks to the design because we are having "designer review" done and they haven't sent us the sample yet, but it should ultimately look like the above picture. I asked that they please make the numbers of the 12/01/16 aligned better, which is the only thing that I noticed didn't look right. What do ya'll think?

We also went ahead and ordered our park tickets to Disneyland last weekend, since we knew that they would be raising ticket prices this week. I'm definitely glad that we did because we ultimately ended up saving about $20-$30 each. I can't wait to see this beauty again in December!

Finally, I just made a very pricey, very spontaneous splurge. I don't know that I regret my decision yet, but George will probably kill me when the package arrives on our doorstep. Kate Spade announced a Minnie Mouse line last month, but no pictures had really been released until earlier this week. A few images sprung up on the internet and when I saw the clutch, I knew I had to have it for my wedding! Its so sparkly and beautiful, but I had no idea what the price tag on the clutch would be until it was released on Kate Spade's website this morning. I knew it would be pricey, but it was more than I anticipated. BUT, I did have a 15% off coupon, so that counts for something right? Isn't it amazing?!?

I was hesitant to bite the bullet, but I asked some of my girlfriends if I needed to get it and one told me, "YES. Every girl needs a Kate Spade bag in their life," and that was enough to convince me! Haha. The clutch is only available online for pre-order right now, but it should ship out by March 20th. I can't wait to see it in person!

9 more months to go until the big day! The rest of our goals for this month will be to create a wedding website and start looking into opening our registries. We're thinking Target and Honeyfund for sure, and want to look into adding one more.