Wishes in Catsablanca: 7.22.13 Epcot Wedding PJ&TR! Updated 03/09/15

[asunnysideup]

I'm SO excited to see pictures after your wedding...it sounds like it'll be gorgeous! And so unique, I love it!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

I love your table themes with the old movies, and I think your little framed movie posters are brilliant and beautiful. I think you are on track with your centerpieces too...much more "Restaurant-y" than wedding-y, so perfect!! And the escort cards are so perfect too. LOVE!!!

I think your dress is lovely on you and perfect with your theme, I can't wait to see how everything looks together. I'm glad you trusted your instincts and went back when you weren't 100% in love with the way it was looking...it's so important that you love the way you look that day, so I think it was so important that you honored your feelings!

Those earrings are perfect and I love that they are vintage, and full of family history, too... love the shoes. I would fall over or break an ankle as I am not good with heels that high, but I love them and so wish I could wear shoes like that!

It's getting so close now! I'm so excited to see how everything turns out for you! We're in the very early planning stages of our wedding (Nov 2014) and I haven't started a PJ yet, but I've been reading on here for years and it is so much fun to see everything come together and hearing about the actual events!!!

Take care of yourself and make sure you don't let yourself get too stressed out!

It's all going to be beautiful and so much fun!

Brooke

Congratulations Brooke on your own upcoming wedding! I hope you will start a PJ, it really is a lot of fun to see all your plans take shape in one place. I started my PJ very early too -- at 22 months out! Seriously though writing this PJ has really motivated me to keep on track (for the updates, lol!), kept me organized (it's all here!) and makes me even more excited to see how my wedding will come together!

Thank you so much for your lovely comments! I am really happy with how the movie theme is coming together. And also the dress, I am very glad that I decided to go back and get it fixed. I was keeping it all to myself for a couple days because of the fear of the hem alteration cost and just going on sheer hope that the hem wasn't as long as I thought it was and I could just not put the crinoline on on my wedding day and it will all work out. I'm glad I really did not go back, because with in moments I was stepping all over my dress hem and it would have been horrible! The person assisting me that day was even trying to convince me to get higher heels, and I was like, No! These shoes are non-negotiable.

Hi Nicole!

I just sat here and read your entire planning journal. It was beyond fantastic. I absolutely love your vintage movie/Casablanca theme. It reminds me of The Great Movie Ride, which is my favorite ride at Disney.

My two most favorite things:

Your Cake Topper is simply divine. I have never been super interested in the cake topper, but yours makes me want to care and have mine as perfect as yours. Plus Champagne is my fav. drink.

Your invitations the bomb. I couldn't even come up with a better way of describing them. I cannot put into words how absolutely wonderful they are. I am super jealous.

I cannot wait to read more as it gets closer and closer to your wedding day.

Aww, thank you so much for reading! Whenever someone says they've read the whole thing I can't help my reaction: I think this smilie says it best -- LOL And thank you so much for your lovely comments. I'm so glad my cake topper could help inspire you to want your own perfect cake topper! There are so many cute and personal cake toppers these days, it's really great. My parents' cake topper is one of those stereotypical two doves under an arch... things have come a lot way!

That. Sounds. AWESOME.

Thank you!

I love what you're doing with the tables (both names and centerpieces). It's simple but elegant, and I think it'll be awesome with your theme. And really, at $15 a centerpiece, that's a steal.

I'm a bit jealous of your spray painting btw - last time I tried that with something, it came out looking a bit....comical.

Thank you, I'm so happy I was able to get my lamps. Well, I wouldn't say I'm an expert spray painter, I still got a couple cracks in a few frames. But a couple years ago I actually had to spray paint a pair of boots and a pair of shoes for some costumes. It taught me a lot about taking time to prep the surface, prime in thin layers and then spray paint in thin layers. Also using floral spray paint, because it is meant for fake flowers the paint is somehow more flexible. And that was probably a lot more than you needed to know about spray painting, LOL! I won't lie though, there are quite a few little splotches on the back despite my best attempts to avoid it.

You're so detail oriented, I love it! The centerpieces are perfect. I love that they take you back to that era and set the scene of Casablanca. The table names are great! As I started reading the idea, I thought, "That's the one!" The movie tickets. Love.

Your dress, it's so beautiful, but the crinoline can definitely make a huge difference. You'll have to take photos when you have it all fixed and love it again. Alterations are expensive! I haven't even had a fitting and I'm nervous about how much it will cost. Sounds like you have awesome parents to help you out, but really you should love the way you look on your wedding day, so it's definitely necessary!

Thank you so much! I'm very happy that I'm making this Casablanca look come out. And I know DF is very happy about the movie tickets tie in, most of our table name movies are his favourite movies.

Ugh, alterations. I think I said my dress was quite under budget. Well, maybe my consultant knew all along that these alterations would bring me right to my full budget. I've had basically every single area of my dress altered at this point: back taken in, side taken in, bust taken in, cups purchased and sewn in, lace straps purchased and sewn in, modesty panel moved, and now hem. The store didn't tell the alteration prices before we had it all pinned up in place, and the individual breakdown of each item is not that bad, because I sew, I know how much the alterations I need would suck to do.... but once it's all added up it's insane. The only upside is if one of the alterations is not to my liking, they won't charge again for it to be fixed and we don't have to pay until it's all done. But I would advise, if you can definitely find out how much they charge first and see if you can shop around if it's too much.

I'm SO excited to see pictures after your wedding...it sounds like it'll be gorgeous! And so unique, I love it!

Thank you so much!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

Well ladies, as of Friday we have officially finished our BEO changes and floral BEO and paid off our final balance!

Less than a month to go, I can't believe it!

I think this calls for some banana dancing!

 

[alyaki]

Well ladies, as of Friday we have officially finished our BEO changes and floral BEO and paid off our final balance!

Less than a month to go, I can't believe it!

I think this calls for some banana dancing!

You're so close! I think you guys deserve a party for paying that off.


Oddly enough, whenever you post I remember that I should really post an update about something we've figured out.

 

[disneydania]

Well ladies, as of Friday we have officially finished our BEO changes and floral BEO and paid off our final balance!

Less than a month to go, I can't believe it!

I think this calls for some banana dancing!

I bet you fell down on your knees. I know I will when all is paid off.

Congratulations!

 

[Kaylars]

Well ladies, as of Friday we have officially finished our BEO changes and floral BEO and paid off our final balance!

Less than a month to go, I can't believe it!

I think this calls for some banana dancing!

WOOOOO

 

[charliegirl76]

Well ladies, as of Friday we have officially finished our BEO changes and floral BEO and paid off our final balance!

Less than a month to go, I can't believe it!

I think this calls for some banana dancing!

Wow! Congratulations on paying off the final balance! I can't believe it's less than a month, I'm sure you are super excited. Let the banana dancing commence!!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

You're so close! I think you guys deserve a party for paying that off.


Oddly enough, whenever you post I remember that I should really post an update about something we've figured out.

I bet you fell down on your knees. I know I will when all is paid off.

Congratulations!

Oh yes, I am so happy! Never mind all this work, paying it off means it's officially official!

WOOOOO

Double wooo!

Wow! Congratulations on paying off the final balance! I can't believe it's less than a month, I'm sure you are super excited. Let the banana dancing commence!!

I can't believe how close it is too, especially when other people tell me, makes it feel even closer. Thought it would never come

* * * * * * *

Thank you all so much for partying and banana dancing with me!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

Just a little backtrack to the Programs project. When I last posted I had three pieces for my fan program and I was contemplating a fourth. I didn't make a fourth, so I printed out all my pages and start doing some assembling to see the finished product. Cutting out all the pieces took ages. 30 programs with 3 pages is each is 90 fan pieces. Luckily I found a bunch of brads from who knows how long ago just lying around in an old desk, so I didn't need to make a trip out for those.

Here is my prototype. I showed my mom. She said, "what is it?" I was like... it's our program, it's a fan. And she said that she didn't realize it was a fan. So I showed her the inspiration photos I'd collected around the internet, and she says: "Oh, but they all have four pages. It would look more like a fan if it had a fourth page." D'oh! I wanted to ignore the comment, but I just can't... so I what did I do? I made two more pages just to make sure everyone got the fan concept! That's another 60 pages to cut out. A little while of cutting rotfl later and I had a big stack!

Here's the giant stack:

All ready for assembly:

Well, almost. I didn't have a hole punch, so I was figuring on using an awl to make the holes. It didn't work, the paper looked very distressed from trying to get that awl through all the cardstock. So we ended up having to go to staples to buy a mini single hole punch (1/8" hole) and it worked wonders!

All done!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

Welcome Bag stuff:

I think I mentioned I was going to do "Bare Necessities" baggies in our welcome bags. These are the signs I came up with. I handwrote a little message on the back of each: "Here are a couple 'Bare Necessities' we hope will make your trip even more magical! Love Bryan and Nicole".

In all likelihood I won't get a picture of the final product until we're in Disney, because that's where they will be assembled.

I made a newsletter to go in the bags. Originally I was planning on mailing these out but I am so sick of paying for stamps . I'm hoping people will be more likely to look them over because they'll be excited about getting the whole pack when they check in. If they don't... well, I guess they won't know how to get to the wedding or meet and greet.

Front:

Middle:

Back:

Now I showed the newsletters to my parents and my dad said, what if someone waits until after the wedding to read the newsletter and they miss the wedding. Well... then they're dumb, is what I wanted to say. I'm sure you can imagine how annoying this question would be after working on a newsletter for pretty much... a year. Our bus transportation pick-up times are located in the newsletter on the second page along with a firm statement about how missing the bus will lead to not being admitted to the wedding. Of course these questions always irk me more than I like to let on, so long story short, I ended up with yet another DIY project.

Bus tickets:

There was still some complaint my dad had about these. But honestly if you go all the way to Florida for a wedding and wait until the wedding day to ask where it is and what time it is... well... I don't care. My only problem is DF's aunt and uncle who are staying at the Polynesian. I've been asking DF to figure this out since April, hopefully it will happen soon.

The only other thing I'm going to do regarding guest information is probably send out an email to let everyone know to ask for their welcome bags if they don't get them immediately when they check-in.

Oh, and I guess I did one other thing. I made little cards (business card size) for the major dinner reservations: Be Our Guest rehearsal dinner and 'Ohana after wedding dinner. Also, my parents and family are doing dinner at Bongos the day after the wedding and DF's family is doing a dinner at Flying Fish the night before the wedding. Haven't finished the Flying Fish one though, because I don't know any of the details.

Now I just need to figure how to ship all this stuff down to Disney!

 

[rrali33tt]

Welcome Bag stuff:

Now I showed the newsletters to my parents and my dad said, what if someone waits until after the wedding to read the newsletter and they miss the wedding. Well... then they're dumb, is what I wanted to say. I'm sure you can imagine how annoying this question would be after working on a newsletter for pretty much... a year. Our bus transportation pick-up times are located in the newsletter on the second page along with a firm statement about how missing the bus will lead to not being admitted to the wedding. Of course these questions always irk me more than I like to let on, so long story short, I ended up with yet another DIY project.

Bus tickets:

There was still some complaint my dad had about these. But honestly if you go all the way to Florida for a wedding and wait until the wedding day to ask where it is and what time it is... well... I don't care. My only problem is DF's aunt and uncle who are staying at the Polynesian. I've been asking DF to figure this out since April, hopefully it will happen soon.

I laughed when I read this. I think giving them a bus ticket will actually make some people think they "need" the bus ticket to actually take the bus to your wedding events. This may prove to be quite effective despite your dad's comments. I wonder if there is a way to have the concierge at each resort call each guest room like a half hour before bus leaves and remind them? Obvi this would only work if they are in the room. lol

A like everything you have done so far as well!

 

[charliegirl76]

Your newsletter looks great! I wish I had the patience to sit down and do a newsletter, but the truth is, I just don't.

I literally LOL when I read your post. "Well....then they're dumb." Classic! That's totally something I would say. And I agree that if they've gone to the effort and expense to get to WDW, and they don't know where to go, then they don't really deserve to get in. You don't have time to worry about all of that on your day. If they miss it, they miss it. The bus tickets are a great idea though, people will surely look at them and think they need to use them. Also loving the cards for the dinner reservations.

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

Your newsletter looks great! I wish I had the patience to sit down and do a newsletter, but the truth is, I just don't.

I literally LOL when I read your post. "Well....then they're dumb." Classic! That's totally something I would say. And I agree that if they've gone to the effort and expense to get to WDW, and they don't know where to go, then they don't really deserve to get in. You don't have time to worry about all of that on your day. If they miss it, they miss it. The bus tickets are a great idea though, people will surely look at them and think they need to use them. Also loving the cards for the dinner reservations.

Thank you! The newsletter really is a chore. I spent so many hours writing and rewriting all the information to make it fit or to make sure it made sense for people who have never been to Disney. But as I get to the end of these projects I'm actually starting to feel annoyed at all the hand holding I've been doing (or have been asked to do). Seriously, you're going all that way to Disney and it's not a cheap trip, you should do some research for yourself! On the day of the wedding, I just hope that if someone misses it nobody tells me. I better start warning everybody now, do not tell me any thing on my wedding day because I may have a meltdown! All that being said I do like the bus ticket idea, it's cute if nothing else.

I laughed when I read this. I think giving them a bus ticket will actually make some people think they "need" the bus ticket to actually take the bus to your wedding events. This may prove to be quite effective despite your dad's comments. I wonder if there is a way to have the concierge at each resort call each guest room like a half hour before bus leaves and remind them? Obvi this would only work if they are in the room. lol

A like everything you have done so far as well!

I don't mind at all if the guests try to use their bus tickets, hopefully the bus driver doesn't confuse anyone by saying they don't need tickets or something. I'm sure it will be fine..... I think my dad wanted me to put all the pick-up times on the front of the tickets (I made resort specific tickets with just their own bus pick-up time and the alternate times on the back), but I feel like it would be less of a real ticket if all the times were on there, and perhaps taken less seriously. I'm now over-analyzing this whole thing I think. That's a not bad idea about reminder calls or even forced walk up calls, haha! I'm not sure I'm up for organizing that, but it could be really effective if possible.

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

Miscellany:

I made up these little signs for the Meet & Greet, I'm going to write whimsical food names on them once we figure out what food we will be serving (most likely the day-of). Chim, Chim, Cherie Cheese, anybody?

DF found this little box online and we'll be using it to hold our rings. It's a Wedgewood trinket box that (according to some ebay listings I found later on) was sold at Disneyland along with a plate with the same design. (The plate wasn't for sale.)

I cut down the velvety foam piece that the rings were shipped with to fit in the box, it was a perfect fit!

Thank you/Tip cards:

I made little thank you cards up to go with tips. One for the wedding day and one for the honeymoon. I still need to figure out how many of these I should print up. I did 10 wedding days one and 6 plain for now. I really hope that's enough, if you know what I mean!

Finished pin and thank you note card things:

We couldn't get any cardstock heavy enough to hold the weight of the pins, so we ended up printing the notes on labels and putting those on bristol board. Cutting the labels was a lot trickier than the cardstock, so they aren't all as nice and perfect as I'd like, but I'm running out of steam and ready for everything to be done!

We also ordered some honeymoon shirts last weekend. Hopefully they arrive in time although we are really cutting it close. I also made a bunch of designs to print on magnets for our cruise, I designed them to look like the "I'm Celebrating" buttons. I will post those up either when I print them up or on our stateroom door, depending on how nuts the 12-13 days go!

Speaking of other last minute projects, I made a brochure of the schedule of the wedding weekend for my MOHs, to go with their gifts. If you see the little Mary Poppins and Bert chibis at the bottom of one of the pages you'll get an idea of what our Honeymoon shirts looks like.

I've been going crazy making lists of stuff to pack; stuff that needs to be dropped off; stuff to remember to do before we leave; stuff that needs to be done after we arrive! All the major tasks feel taken care of, except for shipping down the welcome bag and Meet & Greet stuff to Disney. But all the minor details are really stressing me out.

Oh and our reception music. I've still not finalized all this, I never knew how hard it was to pick good music for the different parts of the day -- characters, dancing, cake cutting, etc. And also making it all appeal to the crowd, which is really mixed. My family is full of people who love dancing (in particular my mom's side who like super dancy cluby music) and DF's family who basically never dances, except to music from their youth? The only time I've ever seen DF's parents dance was to "My Girl", so that kind of music... which my family would roll their eyes to and call super dull. I'm in between, I like a lot of both. But still trying to decide how to appeal to both is so hard! DF obviously wants to appeal to his family more, but I kind of feel like it's pointless to appeal to the people who almost definitely won't dance at the expense of the people who will for sure. And hey, I need to get in a good quota of '90s boy band music!

Hopefully it will all come together.

 

[Summer Daydream]

I have been a PJ slacker...the bus tickets are a really creative idea! I love them. I busted out laughing at the name of the cheese, because I would do something like that while my fiancé just shakes his head and smiles at me. Reception music is hard to choose. I think I am going to just tell the DJ what I DO NOT want and tell him to mix it up. Most DJs have a good feel for what the guests want a few songs in (says my brother's best friend and current DJ) so I will put my faith in him. I hope your shirts get to you in one. I can not believe how close your day is!!!

 

[rrali33tt]

What my friend did at his wedding was play all the dance/house/club music at the end of the reception ( I think the last hour, or hour and half) . He figured all the old boring people would go home by then anyway lol

 

[charliegirl76]

11 days! I love your updates, especially the ring box.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

I have been a PJ slacker...the bus tickets are a really creative idea! I love them. I busted out laughing at the name of the cheese, because I would do something like that while my fiancé just shakes his head and smiles at me. Reception music is hard to choose. I think I am going to just tell the DJ what I DO NOT want and tell him to mix it up. Most DJs have a good feel for what the guests want a few songs in (says my brother's best friend and current DJ) so I will put my faith in him. I hope your shirts get to you in one. I can not believe how close your day is!!!

The music was a really tough task on the to-do list, luckily we managed to pull it together a couple days ago. I definitely understand the value of a DJ now! Not having a DJ really forces us to anticipate which songs will go over well, and if they don't... oops! We don't have back-ups! Anyway, since it's a lunch reception there probably won't be a huge amount of dancing, but it's nice to have the songs as an options.

What my friend did at his wedding was play all the dance/house/club music at the end of the reception ( I think the last hour, or hour and half) . He figured all the old boring people would go home by then anyway lol

Hahaha! That's great, the older crowd really do usually clear out early anyway!

11 days! I love your updates, especially the ring box.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

Thank you! I can't believe how close we are... Less than a week until we leave!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

This time next week we will be in Disney World!

And my to-do list is finally winding down!

We shipped off our welcome bag stuff, along with a bunch of the Meet & Greet decorations, wedding programs and favours. My dad sent it for us through his work, so I believe he said it cost around $25.00 for a 17.5lb box. It's scheduled to arrive on Tuesday, two days before us. (According to tracking it's in Ohio now! )

Our Adventures by Disney box arrived. Considering how much I was looking forward to this package, the contents were pretty unremarkable, and there was no new information in it about the trip that can't be taken directly from the ABD website. Aside from the gratuity envelopes for our guides... lest we forget...

Our honeymoon t-shirts also arrived. DF's t-shirt was a little iffy in the printing quality, so he called customer service and they are doing a reprint, but it's a little doubtful if it will arrive in time... I think he's still going to use the one he got if a new one doesn't come, but it's a little disappointing.

DF's shirt. Notice some missing white on Bert's jacket, hat and shirt, and Mary's legs and dress.

My shirt (it's a tank top actually) came our perfectly. (And the site had a buy 2 shirts get 1 free thing going on, so I got my Yeti kitten tank top to match the one I gave to DF for Christmas.)

Last minute updates:

-Rehearsal is all set and ready to go in Morocco
-I pick up my dress on Monday
-I got the Bride robe from VS to wear while getting ready, and my MOHs and I got buttons that say Bride and MOH to wear at Harry Potter World
-I got a dress to wear to dinner at V&A
-DF and BM pick up suits on Tuesday
-My mom and I are getting our hair coloured on Saturday (this wedding planning has given me A LOT of premature grey hair! )
-It's my aunt's birthday during the trip so we ordered "Just Ducky" from Disney floral to have sent to her room on her birthday. If anyone's curious about that: http://www.disneyflorist.com/produc...rist-Flowers-Donald-Duck-quack-daisy-/display

Also, for anyone who has heard about the fridge recall at WDW resorts. We called and put a request on our reservation. We called yesterday and they said we had to wait until 10 days out to make the request. Since that was only one day away, we didn't press it. We called back this morning and the first person had no idea what we were talking about and said fridges will be in the rooms. DF hung up, but I said we had to call back to make sure. We called back an hour later and another person had no idea what we were talking about, but DF was more insistent until she found someone who knew the whole story and put the request on our reservation. A bit of a pain. I'm going to get my parents to call and request the fridges because unfortunately just last week we were convincing my aunt and uncle how convenient it will be for us to get groceries for them so they can save money on breakfast... Anyway, it's not an emergency for us to have fridges, but this is pretty bad timing.

Annnd... I think I'm officially running out of things to update about on here too! Yay!

I guess that means we are getting close!

 

[1000HappyWishes]

Only 10 days to go!