Liz & Lorne's DIY Memories Wedding 8/7/11 *UP-dated: Hats, Shoes, flowers and more!!*

[lizbd23]

Hey everybody. I've been lurking and posting for a bit. But, I didn't want to start my PJ until it was official. Well, he finally popped the question! (and I said YES!! ) So, here we go. .. .

First, a little about us. . .

Lorne and I are both Michigan natives who moved to Florida together in 2004.

We currently live in Orlando and are only a short drive to WDW. In fact in the picture below, we're at Star Wars Weekends at HS.

Lorne is a big Star Wars Fan (almost as big of a SW fan as I am a Disney Fan!) and also a big collector of Autographs. One of his prized posessions is a Star Wars poster with over 100 autographs from cast and crew of the original Star Wars Triology.

I tell you all this because it plays an important part in our engagement story.

I'm Liz and I'm a HUGE Disney fan. As a child, our occasional trips to WDW were always my fondest family vacations. My first visit was at the age of 3 in 1982. Since then I've been there more times than I can count and now visit at least one of the parks a month (I'm an AP and LOVE the monthly payment plan).

I'm also what I like to call myself: a "scrapbook artist." Currently, I'm trying to get my custom scrapbook business off the ground. I work retail full time to pay the bills, but, I finally opened my Etsy site two weeks ago. Once again, all this info plays a big part in my engagement story.

Well. . . That's enough about us.

Coming next, Our Engagement!

 

[lizbd23]

Ok. . . so this story is a little long. Please bear with me.

I still can't believe he did this!! It was truly amazing and something very unique and personal.

We bought a ring a few months back. It was second hand but was perfect and exactly what both of us wanted.

So, two weeks ago, I was heading home from work and picked up some chinese food for dinner.

When I got home, everything was normal and we sat down to eat. We ate everything and even opened our fortune cookies (I'll tell you more about this later).

After dinner, I went to my scrapbook room and was checking email. Lorne came in to talk, which he did quite often. We started talking about wedding stuff and work and such.

About a week earlier, we decided to push back our wedding to August 2011 from our original June 2011 date.

While we were talking, he said: "Oh. . .I have something for you."

Since my DF is the one who checks the mail, I thought it was probably just a piece of mail. But, instead, he came in with this:

He had told me he was making a scrapbook for me for Christmas. He had borrowed a few of my supplies. So, when he set this in front of me, I said: "I thought this was a Christmas gift?"

He said: "Just open it and look."

So, I did. . .

On page, was an autograph from the voice of Cinderella, Ilene Woods, that read:

"Elizabeth - Will you do Lorne the Honor of becoming his wife?"


I was in tears and as I looked up, he got on one knee and pulled out the ring.

I said "Yes. . . Yes. . . Yes!"

I was so excited, I didn't even look at the other pages of the scrapbook. I just hugged him and kept looking at my ring!

 

[lizbd23]

So, he had to calm me down and told me to keep looking at the scrapbook.

As I turned the page I saw this:

A proposal from the model for Snow White and the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio, Marge Champion.

The next page:

A proposal from the voice of Sleeping Beauty, Mary Costas.

Every page I turned had another autograph from a Disney voice actor or a star of one of my favorite tv shows or movies. I was amazed. He told me he had been collecting them for the last THREE YEARS! I had no idea I was completely surprised.

Here are the rest of the autographs:

 

[lizbd23]

Above is an autograph from Paige O'Hara, the voice of Belle.

The voice of Pocahonts, Irene Bedard.

The voice of Ariel, Jodi Benson.

The voice of Alice and Wendy from Peter Pan, Kathryn Beaumont. (My DF said this is a very hard one to get.)

Bill Phipps, the voice of Prince Charming from Cinderella.

 

[lizbd23]

This is one of my favorites:

The original voice of Jiminy Cricket, Eddie Carroll. He passed away a month after my DF received this in the mail.

The voice of Mowgli, Bruce Ritherman. The voice of Bambi, Donnie Dunagan, and the voice of Bambi's "girlfriend," Carmen King.

The current voice of Goofy, Bill Farmer (plus I have a video clip of him doing the Goofy voice and asking me to marry Lorne!). The author of some of my favorite Disney themed books, Kingdom Keepers: Ridley Pearson. The final picture on this page is Corey Feldman for Fox and the Hound.

 

[lizbd23]

A personalized picture and autograph from the voice of Chunk in Toy Story 3, Jack Angel.

The voice of Mr. Potato Head (among many other roles), Don Rickles.

The voice of the old man from UP (among many other roles), Ed Asner. Jane Foray the voice of the Cheshire Cat.

The amazing Phyllis Diller!

The animator of the Magic Carpet in Aladin, Randy Cartwright.

 

[lizbd23]

Lea Salonga, the singing voice of Jasmine and a personal favorite of mine (even though my DF didn't know this when he requested the autograph!)

The voice of Jafar, Jonathan Freeman.

The voice of Ursula, Pat Carroll.

The actor who played Rod Serling in the pre boarding Tower of Terror ride.

The Actress who played Alice in Disney's first short films, Virginia Davies.

The voice of Dumbo in Dumbo's Circus, Katie Leigh.

 

[lizbd23]

James MacArthur from Swiss Family Robinson and the original Hawaii 5-0.

David Croft, producer, writer and creator of many BBC comedies. Jay Leno, the Tonight Show (This one was somewhat damaged in the mail. But a few days after the proposal, we received a brand new even better one!).

Another one of my favorites, Carol Burnett.

Another fave, Vickie Lawrence with a cute quote.

 

[lizbd23]

Comedy great. . . Tim Conway.

Larry Storch of F-Troop and the Doris Day Show.

Debbie Reynolds from Singing in the Rain.

Richard Briers from Good Neighbors (or in the UK the Good Life - a Brit. com.)

 

[lizbd23]

Doris Day. . .my ALL TIME FAVORITE ACTRESS!!

Don Grady, the Livingston brothers from My Three Sons.

Bob Newhart. . . I love him in a lot of things but especially ELF.

Dick VanDyke from . . .do I have to write it. . .Mary Poppins and the Dick VanDyke show.


The hardest to get autograph, Julie Andrews, came in the mail the day after the proposal. It was a hand written autograph (most of hers are preprinted) but I don't have any pics.


So. . . .this proposal was so personal because it had so many of my likes, it was a scrapbook (remember i'm a "scrapbook artist"), and Lorne's passion for collecting autographs. I was amazed he kept it a secret from me for so long.

I was so amazed and still can't believe it. It is one of my best memories of all time.

Oh and here are the pics of the ring. . . I love that too!

Well. . . now to the planning. . I'll post again soon!

 

[polynesianbride]

WOW! That is one amazing proposal! Can't wait to read more!

 

[KitKat5]

What an amazing proposal!! One of my favs by far!!

 

[FutureMrs.B]

Love the proposal story. I'm looking forward to following along with your planning.

 

[lizbd23]

Thanks guys. . . .I'll start with the wedding details on my next post in a day or two.

 

[lizbd23]

So, while my DH and I just got engaged in November, we've been talking about getting married for some time. But, we never imagined we'd be able to afford a Disney wedding.

But, when DFTW announced the Memories Collection in September, when knew our dream could become a reality!!

We never wanted a big wedding. We want a small very intimate wedding and the Memories collection is perfect for us. We thought that at most, my DF parents would be the only ones attending. Now, it might include his sister and brother too. Good thing we have a four guest limit!

Lorne, my DF, is not much of a planner and is pretty easy going. So, he's left all the details up to me. But, I do ask for his imput every once in a while.

I love the movie UP and after seeing pics of an UP inspired wedding, I knew that I wanted to incorporate some aspects of it into my wedding.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/liz_and_lornes_wedding/5294805155/" title="Carl-and-Ellie-disney-9309233-852-480 by liz_and_lornes_wedding, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5001/5294805155_3b099608d1.jpg" width="500" height="282" alt="Carl-and-Ellie-disney-9309233-852-480" /></a>

With Disney Worlds 40th anniversary and a lot of vintage WDW themes throughout the parks, I also thought I could tie some vintage WDW aspects into my theme. Since the beginning of UP is so nostalgic, the vintage WDW elements will definitely fit in.

Drawing from the balloon colors and house colors in UP, I don't have a small palate for my wedding colors, instead I'm just going with a bright pastel color palate. My main colors will be a bright pink, orange and yellow with accents of aqua, purple and lime green.

My inspiration!

Up next. . . My bouquet!

 

[lizbd23]

So, while my DF and I just got engaged in November, we've been talking about getting married for some time. But, we never imagined we'd be able to afford a Disney wedding.

But, when DFTW announced the Memories Collection in September, when knew our dream could become a reality!!

We never wanted a big wedding. We want a small very intimate wedding and the Memories collection is perfect for us. We thought that at most, my DF parents would be the only ones attending. Now, it might include his sister and brother too. Good thing we have a four guest limit!

Lorne, my DF, is not much of a planner and is pretty easy going. So, he's left all the details up to me. But, I do ask for his imput every once in a while.

I love the movie UP and after seeing pics of an UP inspired wedding, I knew that I wanted to incorporate some aspects of it into my wedding.

With Disney Worlds 40th anniversary and a lot of vintage WDW themes throughout the parks, I also thought I could tie some vintage WDW aspects into my theme. Since the beginning of UP is so nostalgic, the vintage WDW elements will definitely fit in.

Drawing from the balloon colors and house colors in UP, I don't have a small palate for my wedding colors, instead I'm just going with a bright pastel color palate. My main colors will be a bright pink, orange and yellow with accents of aqua, purple and lime green.

My inspiration!

Up next. . . My bouquet!

 

[2011bride]

This is so cute and awesome! Congrats!

 

[lizbd23]

So, as a Memories collection bride, I get a choice of one of four bouquets. I think I'll go with the gerber daisy one if this is what it looks like:

We're also planning on adding some additional photography including a Theme park bridal shoot at DHS. Because of this, and after looking on Etsy I thought a Button Bouquet would be great for some of the theme park photos.

This one fit right into my color scheme:

But, since I'm on a small budget I thought I could make my own and add a little Disney magic. Here is what I came up with (although I did make the stem a little smaller after taking these pics):

While I haven't started them yet, I hope to do the buttoniere for my DF something like this but incorporated a Grape Soda cap/"Ellie Badge":

Up next: A little bit of back tracking. . .

 

[lizbd23]

So, I had gotten so excited about posting pics in my PJ and updating my PJ I forgot to add some basic details.


First, living here in Orlando has allowed to check out the venue we want to have our wedding. We thought that with the UP theme, that the Polynesian would definitely fit the vintage vibe I love too!

So, we decided we are going to try for a 9 or 11 am ceremony at Luau Beach:

We orginally were going to have the wedding in June. But now, we hope to have the wedding the first weekend of August 2011. Then, we are having a small reception/dinner at our apartment the next weekend. Followed up by our Honeymoon at the D23 Expo at Disneyland the next week. August is defintely going to be a packed month.

To get all organized and do a little scrapbooking, I decided to create a wedding planner that I have titled "Our Wedding Adventure Book" tying in our UP theme:

I made several areas, including: budget, clothing, floral, photography, disney reservations, honeymoon etc. I love looking at it and getting ideas and such.

 

[lizbd23]

So, with Christmas, we decided it might be time to send out our Save the Dates. Plus, my DF parents had been hinting that they wanted more details to get their plans in line.

So, sticking with a vintage WDW/ UP theme I started to surf the web to get ideas. That's when I came accross this:

These are pictures of a vintage WDW Magic Kingdom Club application. The club allowed members to get discounts on tickets and other things while visiting WDW. I thought It would be a unique way to create a Save the Date. So I made my own and created: "Walt Disney's Fairytale Wedding Club"

I made one for each guest of the ceremony (4) and two four ourselves too!:

The cards follow the basic form of the the orginial but have our Wedding info and contact info on them. I made them with clear printable stickers and white cardstock which gave the cards a plastic/laminated feeling. I'm really proud how they turned out!

To follow this theme, I thought I would make a newsletter detailing the events and more about the Wedding. Since we can only have four guests, my DF siblings will not be able to bring guests to the ceremony. However, we are inviting their guests (if they choose to bring one) to any other events that weekend (i.e. the welcome lunch, Wedding luncheon and possibly a Wishes Dessert Party - not a reception just the normal event). So, I used this newsletter from the 1970's for my inspiration:

And this is my version:

Up next: Tie together my Save the Dates!