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

[EpicBilynn]

That dress is BEAUTIFUL! I may have shed a tear or two because I'm just an emotional wreck like that. But it is definitely the perfect dress. I think finding it in ivory was definitely a sign. You look amazing and I can't wait to see how it sparkles and shines!

 

[Seia]

Congrats on finding your dress!! It's beautiful, and you are absolutely glowing in it.

 

[Heidi Lou]

O my goodness,,,the finding the dress story and the thoughts about your mom had me in tears...i bet that was definitely her way of saying this is the dress. what a sweet memory. I am glad you had such a good experience! and it is beautiful, by the way.

 

[Amanda132]

That dress is stunning! I love that they found it in ivory as you were talking about your mom. I almost teared up at that. It's meant to be!

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!

I laughed at this, I'm the same way with my fiance. I keep asking him if he wants to know about the dress. He's like, no!

 

[elphie101]

Your gown is stunning. I think the fact that they were suddenly able to find the gown in white is absolutely a sign of your mother's approval, and thank you for sharing your dress and your story with us

Kevin was totally the same way with dress shopping - once I picked "my" dress I wanted to show him some of the reject pictures and he practically ran the other way! He didn't want to see me in any dresses whatsoever

 

[kanadar]

That dress is BEAUTIFUL! I may have shed a tear or two because I'm just an emotional wreck like that. But it is definitely the perfect dress. I think finding it in ivory was definitely a sign. You look amazing and I can't wait to see how it sparkles and shines!

Thank you! There were many tears shed at the shop. I keep looking back at the pictures haha.

Congrats on finding your dress!! It's beautiful, and you are absolutely glowing in it.

Thank you! It definitely made me feel like a bride!

O my goodness,,,the finding the dress story and the thoughts about your mom had me in tears...i bet that was definitely her way of saying this is the dress. what a sweet memory. I am glad you had such a good experience! and it is beautiful, by the way.

Aw I didn't mean to make people cry! Haha. It is a great memory, one that I will definitely remember. There's no way it was just a coincidence that they found it while we were talking about what she would think. Thank you!

That dress is stunning! I love that they found it in ivory as you were talking about your mom. I almost teared up at that. It's meant to be!



I laughed at this, I'm the same way with my fiance. I keep asking him if he wants to know about the dress. He's like, no!

Thank you! It was definitely meant to be!

Your gown is stunning. I think the fact that they were suddenly able to find the gown in white is absolutely a sign of your mother's approval, and thank you for sharing your dress and your story with us

Kevin was totally the same way with dress shopping - once I picked "my" dress I wanted to show him some of the reject pictures and he practically ran the other way! He didn't want to see me in any dresses whatsoever

Thank you! I really love it! I agree it was definitely a sign. We were discussing which dress I thought she would pick, and thats when they found it. I hadn't even thought to ask about seeing the rejected dresses! I should try that! Haha

 

[kanadar]

A few things to update on. This post won't have any pictures unfortunately. Sorry! Since I found my dress, I've started looking more seriously at bridesmaid's dresses. The day we found my dress, we went to look at David's Bridal. We found a few possible dresses but they didn't have quite the color I've been wanting. So I started looking online at Nordstrom and Weddington Way. I found one at Nordstrom that looked like it was the color, but of course the color shown online is usually a bit different so I wanted to order a fabric swatch before I decided. The problem was it was $15 for 1 swatch! I was not about to pay that much for 1 little fabric swatch. So I went to Weddington Way, I was able to find the same designer AND the first swatch order is free! I also like this site because I could narrow down my search to the teal or turquoise. This made it so much easier to find dresses! I was able to order 4 more swatches in colors I thought would match for $5 each. Much better than $15 for 1! So I got swatches for Alfred Angelo in jade, Donna Morgan in blue green, a brand called Wtoo in aqua, After Six in jade, and I decided to get an Alfred Angelo in fuschia because I am thinking of having my flower girl in a pink dress. Turns out Alfred Angelo has the color we are looking for! All the others were either too blue or too dark. The aqua is very close too so that one is an option. Another thing I like about Weddington Way is you can save dresses to your showroom AND invite your bridesmaids to view your showroom. Then they can like and/or comment on each dress. I have saved several dresses to my showroom. Now trying to decide whether to have all the girls in 1 dress, or let them each pick their own dress. All of my girls have different body types so I am leaning towards letting them pick. Any one have any suggestions?

Last weekend DF Jeff and I sat down to try to decide on our tasting. We tried to do this when my sister was in town and we got several ideas, but hadn't decided anything for sure. So for now, here is our list for the tasting:

• mini cuban sandwiches
• cream cheese mashed potatoes from Le Cellier
• oven roasted baked chicken stuffed with procuitto, spinach, and fontina cheese
• carve to order black pepper-crusted strip loin of beef
• oven baked marinated pork loin with mango and caramelized onion chutney
• almond crusted cheesecake from Narcooses
• mac n cheese

We still need one more, and we aren't 100% set on trying the mac and cheese. Jeff loves mac n cheese so we want it as a side, so if we decide on something else we'll replace it. The beef and the pork are action station items. We decided to customize our own menu instead of choosing one of the other buffet choices. Those are the tasting, but here is what we have so far for the cocktail hour and reception.

Pre-reception/Cocktail hour

• mini cuban sandwiches
• beef skewers with chimichurri sauce (from the Australia F&W booth)
• Antipasto display

Reception
Salads

• Brown derby cobb salad
• mixed greens salad
• TBD, we feel like 3 leafy salads would be way too much but we don't know what other "salad" we could put here

Sides

• cream cheese mashed potatoes (from Le Cellier)
• mac n cheese
• olive oil & herb grilled veggies

Entree

• oven roasted baked chicken
• carve to order black pepper crusted strip loin of beef (action station)
• oven baked marinated porkk loin (action station)

This is what we have so far. I am toying with the idea of having a few desserts but I'm not sure yet. I might have them put it in the BOE and decide in the end. We decided on our cake tasting choices back in January when Mary was home. It was surprisingly easy for us! Of course we would LOVE to try more but we can only have 4

Cake

• Chocolate
• Marble
• Yellow
• Lemon

Icing

• Peanut Butter Cream Cheese (Jeff is a huge peanut butter and chocolate fan. and LOVES to add banana to it too haha)
• Amaretto with almond crunch
• Strawberry Mousse
• Bavarian Cream

In a few weeks, my bridesmaid Shelby will be in town. So we are planning to go to a local bridal shop to try on bridesmaid dresses! We are both looking forward to it a lot! We will also probably look at some of the flower girl dresses. Don't know if I'll have much until then.

 

[elphie101]

I'm all for letting your girls pick (obviously, because I did it ) AA's dresses especially I feel are flattering to many body types and I've already seen at least two of my bridesmaids wearing their dresses post-wedding (and isn't that the dream?), so I don't think you can go wrong!

We had a caprese salad at our reception and a watermelon and feta salad at our welcome party and both got rave reviews from our guests if you are looking for a non-leafy option. Looking at your food makes me hungry!!

 

[Alexsandra]

Love your dress! Love your PJ so far! Following along.

 

[mare1203]

You could also look at doing a pasta salad. I've had some good orzo salads, quinoa salads, and other similar options that are a nice change of pace from the usual leafy greens.

 

[mare1203]

Testing to see if this works. Oh hi old Poly waterfall!

 

[kanadar]

Not too much to update on but there is one big thing! We have decided what we want to do for a welcome party for our guests. We went back and forth about what we should do. I think I partially fought with my thoughts that we needed to feed everyone, and my want to have a dessert party. I knew early on a dessert party was out for my wedding day in Epcot because of the F&W festival and was sad about that. I knew that a Wishes dessert party could be an option but I just wasn't sure about it.

I emailed Carol and Lacee about our options and got several suggestions for a welcome party, both for dinner locations and what our option was for a dessert party. Jeff and I discussed it for a long time trying to decide what to do. We finally decided it would be so much cooler for our guests to come to a dessert party, than have something in a ballroom. This went back to our decision on the ADH, these are options you can only get at Disney. You can have a welcome party in a ballroom anywhere, you can't have a Wishes dessert party anywhere.

So we talked to my dad about it and after a bit of some convincing, we finally got him to agree that a dessert party would be fun. I think he was a bit like me, fighting his thoughts that a destination wedding you should provide dinner for all of your guests, your asking them to travel all this way you should feed them. He won't call it a dessert party yet either! Hasn't quite gotten past that thinking. One option we are tossing around is have a few hors' de vour type food there.

So we will be having a dessert party at the Marina at the Grand Floridian. I am so excited for this! I think it will be a lot of fun, plus not long after our decision, I realized that it is a NSSHP night which means Hallowishes! Next was to start thinking about what food we wanted to offer. I knew right away 1 dessert that both DF and sister would definitely want.


(photocredit: Disney Food Blog)

The banoffee tart that was offered at the Scotland booth of the 2013 F&W festival. They both LOVED it and I had been planning on trying to surprise them with it at the wedding but now I won't need to. I have been thinking about another Disney dessert that I really liked on our last trip.

The almond crusted cheesecake from Narcoossee's. It was so good! This is one I haven't decided on yet but DF Jeff loves cheesecake as well and I think he would love this one.

I think our next tasks we want to cross off our list are registering, picking bridesmaids dresses for sure, and picking out invitations. We are talking about going up to Jeff's moms this weekend so we can register at Crate and Barrel. I went to look at dresses with my BM Shelby and found 2 maybe 3 options we liked at the shop. I need to look and see if there are other options that we didn't try that the girls might like and go from there!

 

[Sleepybeauty]

We just sent in our planning session picks and we asked for one, "chef's choice." Item. We are both so excited about it! When is your planning session?

 

[Seia]

Oh, your welcome party sounds wonderful! Especially since you will get to see Hallowishes, so that's extra special. There are plenty of brides who have more traditional "dinner food" at their dessert parties, too. I think your guests will love it!

 

[elphie101]

I love the idea of a fireworks welcome party! Really, nothing says Disney Wedding like an event with fireworks. And MNSSHP ones too! Those perimeter ones are gonna look awesome.

Can't wait to see when you decide on BM dresses! Crossing things off the list is quite exciting

 

[kanadar]

We just sent in our planning session picks and we asked for one, "chef's choice." Item. We are both so excited about it! When is your planning session?

I hadn't thought of having a chef's choice! I like that idea. Our planning session is June 12th.

Oh, your welcome party sounds wonderful! Especially since you will get to see Hallowishes, so that's extra special. There are plenty of brides who have more traditional "dinner food" at their dessert parties, too. I think your guests will love it!

I'm getting very excited about our welcome party even though no planning for it has really happened yet haha. Sounds like from my dad there will be some more "dinner food" there. He told me there would be for him but I didn't have to eat it if I didn't want to haha!

I love the idea of a fireworks welcome party! Really, nothing says Disney Wedding like an event with fireworks. And MNSSHP ones too! Those perimeter ones are gonna look awesome.

Can't wait to see when you decide on BM dresses! Crossing things off the list is quite exciting

I'm so excited for the welcome party! This way I get my dessert party haha. Getting a little closer on BM dresses, still not quite sure yet. But we are crossing things off the list! It is exciting haha

 

[MassachusettsMickey]

Congratulations!

 

[Alexsandra]

Great engagement shoot! Love your dress. Sound like thing are coming together. Great job!

 

[kanadar]

Congratulations!

Thanks! I'm very excited! 29 days until we will be in Disney World!!

Great engagement shoot! Love your dress. Sound like thing are coming together. Great job!

Thank you! Things are slowly coming together, but will speed up soon!

 

[kanadar]

I feel so bad! I haven't updated in a while. At first I thought there was nothing to update about but then I remembered I haven't updated everyone on my bridesmaid's dresses! I always want people to update a lot but then my own I've been slacking a bit. Things have been a bit crazy here lately. At work we just added a new student a few weeks ago who came from Ethiopia about 2 months ago. He knows very little English so that has been keeping me busy. And I just got back yesterday from a girls weekend trip to Disneyland for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon weekend. My bridesmaid Katie and I ran the Pixie Challenge (10k and Half marathon) and my sister came to cheer us on! It was so much fun! But, excuses aside, on to the update!

After thinking about it, I decided to let the girls pick their own dresses. Each girl went to pick out their dresses. Shelby had already been here to pick out a dress and knew which ones she was thinking about. Jeff's sister Angie came down one Saturday to look here. She said the places up by her were rude and wouldn't let her try on dresses unless she was buying, which seems very odd to me! Katie tried on dresses by her place in Texas, and Mary did the same. But we realized she would be home just a few days later and we could go to the shop here to look.

Since Mary had already been she had an idea of what dresses she thought she would want, but she ended up going with a different one. Here is the dress she chose!

Shelby was trying to decide between 2 dresses but decided on this one. Mary had actually thought about this one as well, it was in the top 2 but we decided we liked the other one better. We liked the idea of adding some sparkle to the flowers to set her apart but we just liked how the other dress looked on her so we'll figure out a way to add some sparkle to it. This is also the color the dresses will be in.



Katie was trying to decide between 2 dresses, but she decided to wait until Mary chose her dress. One of the dresses was one Mary was thinking about so she didn't want to pick the same one. This is the one she chose.

Angie tried on several different dresses and didn't choose one she thought she was going to. Here is the dress she chose.

We have also gone to register. We have registered at Crate and Barrel, and Target so far. We are still trying to decide one more and I'm trying to decide if I want to register for China or not. Jeff and I agreed before registering, that he could put 2 items on each registry that I couldn't take off He added 2 things at Crate and Barrel and 1 at Target. And we have actually already gotten all of them! After registering his mom went out and bought them for us for Easter. First he chose a hippo memo holder that hold a note in its mouth.

Next, I pointed out a set of animal cookie cutters. Since Jeff works at a butcher shop I thought they were funny and ridiculous so I pointed them out....so he added them

And lastly, keeping with a little bit of a theme which I'm guessing will now be our "thing", he chose a hippo cookie jar.



One of the items that his mom got us that I really love is a ring dish. I just happened to see it and I am so glad we put it on the registry

I have also decided on the invitations I want to get. I've contacted the place we will be getting them from, and have some "homework" to finish Once I get proofs and decide I like them I will post them. Other than that, I need to get moving on other planning because there are only 29 days until we will be in the happiest place on Earth, to plan the happiest day of our lives!