*I'm Back!* We're getting married..at Disney World!!! Jeff & Kathy's PJ! UPDATE: Let's Party! (9/18)

[kanadar]

Now that I've FINALLY finished the updates of our Bridal Showcase trip, it's time to get back to wedding stuff! Not a ton to report quite yet. We have ordered our save the dates and they should be here Monday. So I'll be spending my evenings getting them addressed and sent out. Hopefully I can have them out by the weekend. So until those are out, here are some of our engagement pictures!

We had planned to take pictures on a Sunday evening. Jeff works Monday-Saturday and we never really know until Friday of the week before what days he works half day and what day he has off....This makes planning anything very difficult!! So we planned for Sunday October 12. The leaves are changing and would be so pretty. Sadly the day we had originally planned it turned out to be a gloomy, yucky day. My friend who took the pictures asked if we wanted to try the next Sunday. We decided to wait until the 19th. I was a bit worried during the day, it was sunny then got cloudy and gloomy but luckily about an hour before the sun decided to come back out! My friend said she usually gives about 25-30 pictures. She got a bit snap happy with us and gave us 64! I love her for it, but now I have to pick favorites! So here you all go! Some of my favorite pictures!

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Hope you all enjoy! I'm loving all of them so much. The Saturday after Thanksgiving I went with my sister, aunt, and cousins dress shopping. I'll post a few of the dresses that were front runners later. None of them I was in LOVE with but I really like them. Mary will be coming to Illinois in January to go dress shopping here. I'm really looking forward to that

 

[kanadar]

For Thanksgiving, my family and I always go to Tennessee to visit some family. One of my cousins asked if I would go dress shopping. I told her that it was fine with me! I hadn't gone at this point because I wanted to wait to go with my sister. When we were younger, we saw our Tennessee family a few times a year. There were 4 of us girls. Our 2 cousins are older than us, both married with children. Here is the group that went

In the from from left to right you have my cousin Julia with her daughter Samantha, me, and Mary. Back row is my cousin Annie and my Aunt Judy.​

We went on the Saturday after Thanksgiving while the guys watched football. My dad ended up coming to meet us. I wasn't sure if he would want to go with or not. My mom passed away 11 years ago, so all this is a bit tough for us. So we called when we narrowed it down to a few. Apparently the guys joked about all going along with him, and leaving Jeff at the house alone

When we got there, we met with our consultant and she asked what I was thinking. I don't want a big cupcake dress so I knew that, I also didn't want a mermaid dress. So those were the two things I knew for sure. Once we talked for a minute it was time to start picking dresses! There were 2 on mannequins that my family wanted me to try on, so our consultant set off to take them off.

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We found some dresses to try on, and our consultant pulled a few others. Finally we decided to get started. My aunt started helping me at first, then we switched so my sister could help. I didn't find any that I really loved, but I did really like 3 of them. We secretly took a couple pictures when our consultant was away.

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This was on of the ones I liked. It was also, I believe, the only strapless I tried on.

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This was definitely in the running. I liked the lace and the color, but the next dress was my favorite!

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This was my favorite of the day, but I wasn't in love with it. I thought this type of dress would go well with the Boardwalk area. I also really liked the straps. I'm rather "well endowed" and don't want to have to worry about constantly pulling the top up. Our consultant wrote down on a card the three dresses I really liked so if I don't find anything else, we'll know which they are. We took a few minutes to browse through the bridesmaid dresses. Overall, it was a very fun day. I did end up trying on 1 cupcake dress because my aunt wanted to "play doll" and see me in it. We all agreed it was very pretty on me, but was not the dress for me. It was fun, and i look forward to trying more on in January when Mary comes home!

Next, our Save the Dates!

 

[lthiesfeld07]

Beautiful dresses! Where do you want to go next?

 

[kanadar]

Beautiful dresses! Where do you want to go next?

Aw thank you! We are going to go in my hometown in Illinois. Hopefully we find something good!

 

[elphie101]

Love your engagement pics and love the gown photos you posted!! It's so exciting to start that search Hope you find your dress next month!!

 

[kanadar]

Love your engagement pics and love the gown photos you posted!! It's so exciting to start that search Hope you find your dress next month!!

Thanks! The engagement pictures turned out so great! I hope I find a dress in January, one of the stores I plan to go to I've heard nothing but great things!

 

[kanadar]

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! I spent the holiday in Arizona with my sister and some extended family. It was so much fun. Sadly, Jeff was not able to join us this year. He works at the butcher shop here and the holidays are their busiest time of year. I came back on Saturday so we didn't spend too much time apart. Not too much to update on in terms of the wedding but I do have 2 things.

First, our save the dates! They went out a few weeks ago but I kept forgetting to take a picture to show you all! To me, picking these out was very stressful. I had so many ideas and I just couldn't decide what I wanted to do for sure. My original idea was to have a picture of the Boardwalk with some of our engagement pictures. Finally, with the help of my sister, we found a site that worked for what I was thinking! This is what we decided on!

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I am so happy with how they turned out! At first I wasn't sure about the background color, when they sent me the proof and I printed it off it was a lot darker than I wanted. But when we got them it was the perfect color! The picture behind the Save the Date wording is a picture I took on our last trip to Disney of our ceremony location, the Croquet Lawn. These are also magnets which I knew for sure I wanted. With the magnet, we sent the hotel information on a piece of paper. I know people are already talking about booking!

Our next bit of news is we have our officiant! 2 weeks before Christmas we went up to visit Jeff's mom and sister. We met his Uncle for lunch. Things have been a bit rocky for him lately, there's a lot of person stuff going on. We weren't sure how he would want to but he was so excited when we asked him First he wasn't sure what an officiant was so we had to tell him we wanted him to be the one to marry us His Uncle has been there for Jeff a lot, and he has known us pretty much since we started dating. In fact, one of our first dates was to a Cubs vs Cardinals game which his uncle got us tickets to. Of course we had to take a picture!

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So right now I think that's about all the has happened. I have started looking more seriously on pinterest at centerpiece and bouquet inspiration. We also need to decide who we want to be our photographer and hopefully they are available for our date. We are also working on settling when we will go down for our planning session. And my sister and I started discussing bridal shower and bachelorette party. Hopefully I'll have more to update on soon!

Next update: Photographer

 

[elphie101]

I love, love, love your save the dates! They came out beautifully and it makes me feel all fuzzy happy to see your wedding on our wedding weekend, silly as that sounds Makes me feel like we'll be there with you!

And SUPER BIG YAY for getting a loved one to officiate your wedding! I can tell you that having my brother officiate was one of the hands down best decisions we made - watching him tear up during our vows is a moment we will never have again and something I am so grateful for. It truly made the ceremony better than we could have dreamed and, not like you ever would, but you really won't regret it.

Can't wait to hear more from you! It's almost your wedding year!

 

[MiniMosca]

It's your wedding year, so much to plan from now on! I really like the idea of magnets for a Save The Date, I'm starting to lean towards that idea too. And that's awesome that you got Jeff's Uncle to officiate, it will add a nice personal touch.

Ahhh I'm so excited to hear about your decisions in the coming months. Pinterest has been a godsend for me looking at floral and centerpieces, theres so many great ideas there.

 

[kanadar]

I love, love, love your save the dates! They came out beautifully and it makes me feel all fuzzy happy to see your wedding on our wedding weekend, silly as that sounds Makes me feel like we'll be there with you!

And SUPER BIG YAY for getting a loved one to officiate your wedding! I can tell you that having my brother officiate was one of the hands down best decisions we made - watching him tear up during our vows is a moment we will never have again and something I am so grateful for. It truly made the ceremony better than we could have dreamed and, not like you ever would, but you really won't regret it.

Can't wait to hear more from you! It's almost your wedding year!

Maybe you will be there! Anniversary trip to Disney?! Haha. Thanks! I was very happy with how the save the dates turned out. It was very close to my vision. I am very excited to have Jeff's uncle officiate. I think it will be great! We might have to give him a time limit because he really likes to talk! We emailed a couple photographers so fingers crossed one is available!

It's your wedding year, so much to plan from now on! I really like the idea of magnets for a Save The Date, I'm starting to lean towards that idea too. And that's awesome that you got Jeff's Uncle to officiate, it will add a nice personal touch.

Ahhh I'm so excited to hear about your decisions in the coming months. Pinterest has been a godsend for me looking at floral and centerpieces, theres so many great ideas there.

It is!!! I'm so excited! On New Year's morning before we went to sleep (like 2 am haha) I was like guess what?! We get married this year!!! I knew I wanted our Save the Dates to be magnets. It's so much easier for people to keep track of. I also took all the information on the save the date DFTW sent me and put it into a word document. I didn't want to just print the sheet because it would be too big for the magnet. So we adjusted the size so it would match. Hopefully people kept the paper under the magnet so they have the hotel information.

 

[elphie101]

Maybe you will be there! Anniversary trip to Disney?! Haha. Thanks! I was very happy with how the save the dates turned out. It was very close to my vision. I am very excited to have Jeff's uncle officiate. I think it will be great! We might have to give him a time limit because he really likes to talk! We emailed a couple photographers so fingers crossed one is available!

I wish we'd be there We're taking our anniversary trip in August because it's really hard for me to take time off during the school year (my office made an exception for the wedding but there's no way I'm getting away with that again!) and since we activated our APs before the wedding we wouldn't be able to actually be in the parks or anything after October 9th. I wish though, I want to stalk some Disney brides!

 

[kanadar]

I wish we'd be there We're taking our anniversary trip in August because it's really hard for me to take time off during the school year (my office made an exception for the wedding but there's no way I'm getting away with that again!) and since we activated our APs before the wedding we wouldn't be able to actually be in the parks or anything after October 9th. I wish though, I want to stalk some Disney brides!

Ah sad! I know how that is though. It'll be tough for me as well being a teacher, but if I can fit a quick trip in I will! Haha.

 

[kanadar]

I don't have much to update on right now, but I do have a few things. First off, we picked our photographer! I had been going between Randy Chapman and Roots and at the last minute thought about Misty Mioto. After showing Jeff each ones website and some of the pictures they had taken, he narrowed it down to Roots and Misty Mioto. So I sent an email off to both places to see if they had our date available. Luckily, they were both very quick in responding to me! Misty Mioto did not have my date available but the Roots did! I was so excited! I was leaning towards them out of the two and was somewhat surprised they still had my date available! So I set up a phone meeting with them for 2 days later, and had them send me the contract! I can't wait to have them shoot our wedding day! All the pictures I've seen them take have been wonderful.

I am still thinking about videography and need to get my butt in gear to email some places for pricing. I know Trinity, but does anyone else have any other suggestions?

We have also set the date for our Planning Session. Trying to get this set was a bit of a mess. Our planner was going to be out of town until today (1/20), and I had emailed her about it about a week and a half before. Once I got this email I immediately sent an email to her assistant. This was on the weekend so I knew I would have to wait until Monday to hear. We had picked the first week in June as the best week for us to go down for a planning session. Our last day of school is supposed to be the Friday before Memorial Day, but I wanted to choose the first week in June in case we needed to add more snow days (so far we've had 2). Our school is also not having a spring break this year. I know crazy right?! I'm not sure who thought this was a good idea but I'm sure they'll be regretting it soon! We also have an Adventures by Disney trip at the end of June, as well as a friends wedding. So Monday came around and I kept checking my email like crazy to hear back from Lacee. Just before lunch, I received an email from her saying Carol was going to be out of town the whole first week of June! I started freaking out a little bit, and was a little upset. I had originally told Carol we were looking at the end of May, early June. She hadn't said anything at the time about being gone then. I asked about the following week, and even asked about the last week in May. I never heard anything about the last week in May so I'm just going to guess that wasn't a good week. After everything we are set for June 12, 9 am planning session with a 2:30 tasting. I had really been hoping for June 3rd for a planning session (I love Gilmore Girls and thought it would be funny to do it on Luke and Lorelai's wedding date ) My next step was to start making ADR's! We already have 3, dinner at Cali Grill and Raglan Road, and breakfast at Kona. Jeff's first trip with us we went to Kona Cafe and he loved the french toast, so I thought we would go there again

And now the other exciting news! My sister comes home tomorrow!!! I'm so excited to see her. It hasn't been that long, we were down in Arizona for Christmas. She is coming home so we can go dress shopping! We have appointments at 2 different places right now, though I'm hoping to find something at the first place. We might also try to go look at Davids Bridal for bridesmaid's dresses since all my girls live in different place, but first we need to find my dress.

That's all I have for now (more than I thought I had!), hopefully my next update will be about my dress! Any suggestions on videography until then would be greatly appreciated!

I said yes to the dress!

 

[Seia]

Congratulations on getting the Roots! I know your pictures will turn out beautifully! We're using Trinity, but I know some other popular choices are STVS Video, Visual Effects by Seth, and Shutter Life. Shutter Life produces amazing work, but they were way over our budget. Hope that helps a little.

 

[elphie101]

YAY ROOTS!!!!!

Ok, so obviously I'm horribly biased, but I just think they're the bees knees and the nicest of folks. Just as much as DFTW they made our day go like clockwork and they are the one part of our wedding day our guests can't stop talking about, not just the photos they put out but their demeanor and presence on the day itself. Well, them and the truffle mac & cheese

We went with Trinity, but I also contacted 829 Films, Beyond Videography, Key Moment Films, Shutter Life Productions, White in Revery, and Jeffrey Stoner. Jeffrey Stoner and Key Moment were recommend to me specifically by The Roots, but they ended up being booked/too pricey for (although I've since compared Key Moment's current prices with what we paid for Trinity and they're actually more equal than I thought). I really liked 829 and Shutter Life a lot, but they were all unavailable. On the lower budget side of things, I believe STVS and Paul Duhon Videography are often mentioned as being cheaper than all the previous mentioned ones (I think Stan at STVS often partners with Randy Chapman, to give you an idea of his work stylistically).

Good luck in your search! I was shocked how quick people book up for October, I contacted all those people and Trinity was the first vendor available for our day!

 

[kanadar]

I just wanted to pop in and say that dress shopping was a success this weekend! We found my dress! I don't have any pictures to put up yet since Jeff is sitting next to me, but I will try to write a post about the whole day tomorrow while he is at work.

 

[DisneyFirefly]

Congrats on finding your dress!

 

[elphie101]

I know I've already said it but YAY!!!!! Such an amazing feeling knowing you've found your dress!!

 

[kanadar]

This past weekend, my sister Mary flew into Champaign to go dress shopping! I made an appointment at 2 local stores, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Our group for the day was of course me, my sister Mary, my dad, Jeff’s mom and sister, as well as 2 close family friends; my dads best friends wife and one of my best friends. I think 6 of them was a good number of people to have.

Our day started by getting ready for the day and waiting for Jeff’s mom and sister to arrive. Our appointment was for 10:30 which turned out to be a great time. When we arrived we were the only ones in the store. We started out by meeting my consultant Stacy who was fantastic! She asked me about our wedding; when it is, what type of dresses I’m thinking of, and of course where the wedding was. Naturally, when I said Disney World there was like of hub-bub from the ladies working at the shop.

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After talking for a few minutes, Stacy took me around the store telling me about the designers they sold and we got to shopping! Everyone except my dad dug right in and we pulled a few different options. Next it was time to starting trying on dresses!

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Stacy had the dresses lined up and ready. While taking the picture above I noticed the mirror had a little message on it!

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Stacy came back into the dressing room to help me into the first dress. I’m not sure how many dresses I ended up trying on but it was probably around 15.

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I chose to try this dress on first. I liked this dress but I didn’t love it. We really like how the ruching looked, but we all agreed it needed a bit more. So it was back into the dressing room for me. I think the next dress I tried on Stacy pulled after the reaction to the first dress.

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The reaction to this dress was a bit underwhelming at first. We like the looks and the little bit of bling, but it felt like there was a little something missing. So Stacy was off to grab a belt to add to it. I loved the looks of it with the belt and ruching, but the bottom felt too poofy to me. Stacy showed us how it would look if we were to take some of the crinoline out. That made it look even better!

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While we were looking around, Jeff’s mom and sister had said they saw a dress in the store window they wanted me to try on. I hadn’t even looked at the dresses in the window, but I was fine with trying on anything. After trying on several more dresses, Stacy came out with the dress from the window. This dress had an illusion neckline that I didn’t really like, but Stacy said they also had the dress without it. I had tried on several dresses with straps, and hadn’t liked the way the straps felt so I knew I wouldn’t like the illusion. Stacy pulled the strapless version and informed us that they only had a sample in blue.

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I really like this dress as well. I was having trouble deciding between the two dresses, so Stacy put me back in each dress with the veil and bouquet. I was still having trouble deciding. Everyone in my group was liking both but it was hard to tell with the second dress being in blue. I had asked my dad what he thought, since he was being very quiet I thought he didn’t like it. He said he liked it but he was having trouble picturing it how it would look. Our appointment time was coming to an end, and Stacy’s next appointment would be there anytime. This is when things started falling into place. First, another consultant took Stacy’s appointment so she had an extra 30 minutes with us. Mary took me into the dressing room to talk. She asked me what dress I thought my mom would have liked best. And this is when the tears started! I don’t think I’ve said it before, but my mom passed away almost 12 years ago. So I knew dress shopping would difficult for us. As we were talking, we heard Stacy say they had suddenly found the dress in ivory! She said she had no idea how her manager had found the dress, as they thought it had been sold, but she managed to find it. We put me in the dress and I knew it was my dress.

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I came out in the dress with the veil on. I looked at my dad and could see him started to cry. I think the manager finding the dress was my mom’s way of letting me know which dress she thought I should get. I LOVE this dress. There is quite a bit of bling on it but surprisingly it didn’t bother my arms when I was wearing it. I can’t wait to see how the dress will look in pictures and outside at the croquet lawn. I received an email today that my dress is estimated to be here around March 27th!

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Left to Right: Jeff's sister and a bridesmaid Angie, Jeff's mom, Mary, me, best friend Patrick (back), Dad, and family friend Karen.

We had a great time, and tears were had by almost all of us.

 

[kanadar]

Congratulations on getting the Roots! I know your pictures will turn out beautifully! We're using Trinity, but I know some other popular choices are STVS Video, Visual Effects by Seth, and Shutter Life. Shutter Life produces amazing work, but they were way over our budget. Hope that helps a little.

Thank you! And thank you so much for your suggestions! I have emailed Trinity, STVS, and Shutter Life. Trinity and STVS are available for my date so we are just trying to decide! We'll probably end up using Trinity.

YAY ROOTS!!!!!

Ok, so obviously I'm horribly biased, but I just think they're the bees knees and the nicest of folks. Just as much as DFTW they made our day go like clockwork and they are the one part of our wedding day our guests can't stop talking about, not just the photos they put out but their demeanor and presence on the day itself. Well, them and the truffle mac & cheese

We went with Trinity, but I also contacted 829 Films, Beyond Videography, Key Moment Films, Shutter Life Productions, White in Revery, and Jeffrey Stoner. Jeffrey Stoner and Key Moment were recommend to me specifically by The Roots, but they ended up being booked/too pricey for (although I've since compared Key Moment's current prices with what we paid for Trinity and they're actually more equal than I thought). I really liked 829 and Shutter Life a lot, but they were all unavailable. On the lower budget side of things, I believe STVS and Paul Duhon Videography are often mentioned as being cheaper than all the previous mentioned ones (I think Stan at STVS often partners with Randy Chapman, to give you an idea of his work stylistically).

Good luck in your search! I was shocked how quick people book up for October, I contacted all those people and Trinity was the first vendor available for our day!

Thanks! I'm really excited to work with the Roots! I really enjoyed talking with Nathan on the phone. Like I told Seia, I have contacted a few places thanks to both of your suggestions. I am leaning toward Trinity, and should decide soon as they have a few good promotions going on at the moment!

Congrats on finding your dress!

Thank you! I'm so excited for it! I love it, it's gorgeous!

I know I've already said it but YAY!!!!! Such an amazing feeling knowing you've found your dress!!

Thank you! It definitely is a great feeling! It feels like things are starting to fall into place! I keep wanting to tell Jeff all about my dress but of course I don't want him to know anything about it! It's so hard!