Wishes Wedding 1/17/11-WP/CG-TR Day 6, Last Day

[geek+nerd]

Yipee for TRs!

I agree; your DH's mom looks too cute. I love being at Disney with a first-timer!

 

[Jules~Marie]

Yay! I'm so glad you started your TR!! Can't wait to read more!

Thanks! I'll be posting more this weekend.

YAY trip report!!

I wish I could leave at 1:30 and be in Disney by 2!!

Yeah, I definitely love how close to Disney we are!

Yay you started!!

How cute that his mom was so fascinated with everything. I can only imagine how she was once she was at the wedding pavilion.

Sigh...I wish she would've gotten the full view of the wedding pavilion...it rained so hard you couldn't see the castle in the window. Oh wait. It was good luck. Right? haha I've been looking at everyone elses pictures and they had gorgeous sunny days and the castle looks amazing. I'm just having a moment of jealousy. It'll pass. I hope.

Yipee for TRs!

I agree; your DH's mom looks too cute. I love being at Disney with a first-timer!

Eddie's parents were so cute, they want to go back right away.

 

[Princess SarahK]

I have a feeling my DFs parents will be much like Eddie's once they get there...haha! I cant wait to read more!!

 

[Jules~Marie]

Day 2 - Saturday 1/15/11-

On Saturday Eddie and I went to the Magic Kingdom by ourselves. His parents didn't get tickets to the parks, so they hung out around the Pop resort. We were supposed to be with my sister and mom and everyone at the park, but they all didn't wind up getting into Disney until around 2. We didn't do too many rides, the park was actually pretty crowded. We did thunder mountain and haunted mansion right away and then we got a fastpass for buzz before getting some fries from Casey's Corner (they were delicious!). OK, buzz really annoyed me. Eddie always does so much better than me! I hate it! So I told him that I was going to dominate this time. Of course, what happens, right off the bat he hits some magical target and has 500,000 points! Before we even had the ability to move the seat thing he already had that many points. So I was not happy.

Before the ride started -

After he got the ridiculous amount of points -

The ride was stalled, so of course Eddie got a ton more points. I'm just not good with that laser thing!

He ended up with 999,999. Whateverrrrr.

When we got off Buzz, we were going to do Space Mountain, but the fastpasses were for after 6 and we had dinner reservations and the stand by line was 50 minutes. It was already 2 and everyone had arrived, so we went back to the room. We had an early dinner planned with the bridal part so we got ready and met everyone at Downtown Disney. We had reservations at Wolfgang Puck and Planet Hollywood. I didn't know what everyone was up for, so we looked at the menus and decided with Planet Hollywood. Our reservation was for 4pm. That was a really good time to go there. It wasn't crazy noisy yet, so we were all able to hear each other talk and we had a pretty good time.

After dinner, Eddie and his 2 guys went to Epcot to "drink around the world" and everyone else went to JellyRolls. We got there super early, at around 7:15, but that turned out to be a good thing. We had great seats, and around 8:30 it was packed in there! Standing room only. We had an amazing time at JellyRolls. If you've never been there, you have to go, at least once. The piano players are amazing and have really good voices. They sang everything! Every request that went up there. They even sang Ariels song from the little mermaid, it was hysterical. While we were sitting there enjoying the music and singing along, they picked up a request and said "Julia is getting married!!!! Where is she? Get up on stage!". Apparently, my sister stuck a note on a napkin saying I was getting married. She wanted them to just do a shout out to me, but they actually had me get up on stage and play some game. Every time they sang a word that started with the letter "b" I had to stand up and then sit down when they said "b" again. It was very hard (especially since I had 3 drinks and was in huge high heels!). They had everyone in the audience play the game with me and then afterward everyone sang "going to the chapel" to me. It was so much fun and an amazing experience. Of course, I looked completely uncomfortable up there, but I'm glad I went up. Normally I would have refused. Must have been that liquid courage. Jellyrolls is so much fun, we all stayed until about midnight. Everyone in our party started to leave (we had a total of 13 people with us), but my sister my bridesmaid and Eddie's parents were still having a good time so we all went to Atlantic Dance Hall and had some fun there for a while. I love the Boardwalk, it is such a fun place!!!!

The boys heading to Epcot-

We all had the "sex on the beach special". It was a huge and delicious drink!

Me up on stage, looking so uncomfortable.

Eddie's parents got up and started dancing. Everyone was cheering them on.

After Epcot closed, the guys went to Downtown Disney and hung out at Paradiso. When we were done dancing at the Boardwalk, we went and met up with them. Please excuse the way I look in this picture, it was a long night!

I got into the bar to see Eddie wearing this hideous thing!!!

Saturday was such a fun day. It was amazing and I can't wait to get back to Jellyrolls!!!

 

[Princess SarahK]

I think Jellyrolls may be one of my favorite attractions at Disney! LOL!! We are definitely having a night there before our wedding, too! Last time it was just me and Mom there and the guys got a "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga request...the killed it! They sang the french portion of it, even did the back beats of the song with the top of the piano and tambourine! We loved it, now everytime I hear that song I think of Jellyrolls! And I always talk about it to all of our friends..theyre like "a bar at disney thats kind of like a sing a long??...umm Ill pass." they just dont get it! im going to have to make it a mandatory event!! lol. Im so glad someone else loves Jellyrolls as much as I do.

And I tooootttaally think your husband and my DF are very like-minded. Im expecting a viking hat or a some type of troll clothing to come out of our trip there..haha.

Your TR is great, I cant wait to read more! Awesome pics!!

 

[lilsqueakrr]

I want to go to Jellyrolls so bad! I've never been!! I'm trying to talk my bridesmaids into doing my bachelorette party as a weekend down in Disney! haha.

My mom's all for it and I think my MOH is too!

 

[April Elizabeth]

I love Jellyrolls too! I think we should all meet there sometime.
I'm just loving all your pictures! It looks like you had a great time that day

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Yay for TR!! I have to say that I agree with you about Buzz, I really enjoy it until I see that once again, DH has gotten a score so much higher than mine!! and it happens every time!

I'm glad you liked Jelly Rolls - I have heard so many great things about that place, but I don't think it would be for me so I have never gone.

Can't wait to read more!

 

[smileycrissy]

I love Jellyrolls too! I think we should all meet there sometime.
I'm just loving all your pictures! It looks like you had a great time that day

I agree with April Elizabeth!!!

LOVE Jellyrolls. My fiancee and I went for our anniversary in July, got there at 7 when they opened because thats what we 'heard' we had to do. Well it was just us two until almost 8:30. But that was ok because we too got to talk to the piano guys. I had asked them to play 'Don't Stop Believin' by Journey, they told me they usually hold off on a song like that because they know someone else was going to request it later and they don't like to play a song more than once. Anyway, they played the song for us under the condition that if it got requested later we were to 'pretend' like it was the first time they played it. Sure enough it was requested later on and when they started playing it, the piano guys were staring right at me & DF. LOL.

It must be a guy thing with Buzz because my DF always kicks my butt when we ride it. I told him from now on I am going in my own car because he spins the car for him to get points while I'm trying to aim.

Don't be jealous of the brides with the sunny pics. I truly loved your pic walking shoeless in the rain towards the pavillion. It is so priceless. That's something those brides won't have, so think of it that way!

 

[tinkerbell 766]

These are great pictures Jules!!! Looks like you are all having a ball!!!
I'm with Crissy (as I am in so many things!!), and think that, whilst I understand your disappointment at the rain, some of the pictures you got from the rainy conditions are amazing, priceless and unique!!! You can always plan a VR (in the hope of sunnier pictures) at a later date!!!

 

[lubee12]

I love that you went to Jelly rolls, it looks like so much fun. We are planning on going there after our wedding and i have never been. But now i am very excited Your wedding looked so beautiful

 

[Izzy Pooh]

So, taking a break from the scary budget and all that goes with that, I've decided it's time to post our newsletter. Now that we started getting our RSVP's back, we've started to send out the newsletter. Instead of sending them out all at once, we decided to send one out whenever we get a "yes" in the mail. We posted a thread asking for help with our newsletter, and we got a lot of great responses from different brides. We loved Andrea & Brian's newsletter, and basically used theirs as an outline for ours. I can't remember if that was her name on the boards, so I'm sorry if I'm not giving the credit to the appropriate person. But in case you're out there, thank you thank you thank you for sharing your wonderful newsletter!! It seriously helped us out so much, and hopefully you don't mind us stealing a lot of your ideas. I do have to say that Eddie did all of the work on the newsletter. He is the graphic designing pro, really he should be doing that as his career, but that's a discussion for another time and place, lol. I did help with as much as I could with it, and I sat next to him the whole time we worked on it, but, being the Groomzilla that he is, most of my ideas weren't used. Anyway, here it is, let me know what you think!

I looove the newsletter!! I tried sending you a PM but I don't think it went through

I was wondering if there is a template I can please borrow of it? I'd be forever grateful!

 

[Jules~Marie]

I looove the newsletter!! I tried sending you a PM but I don't think it went through

I was wondering if there is a template I can please borrow of it? I'd be forever grateful!

Thanks! I'm not sure about a template, my husband made it after we looked on the boards and found another bride's that we really liked. He modeled our newsletter off of hers. He used photoshop and just copied what he liked and made it our own. I'm going to ask him to make something up to give to other brides if they want to use it. I had another person ask for the template as well, and he said we didn't have anything that we could send since it was made in photoshop. I don't know how it all works really, I just sat and watched him work on it. But I'll see what I can do for you.

 

[Izzy Pooh]

Thanks! I'm not sure about a template, my husband made it after we looked on the boards and found another bride's that we really liked. He modeled our newsletter off of hers. He used photoshop and just copied what he liked and made it our own. I'm going to ask him to make something up to give to other brides if they want to use it. I had another person ask for the template as well, and he said we didn't have anything that we could send since it was made in photoshop. I don't know how it all works really, I just sat and watched him work on it. But I'll see what I can do for you.

No Prob! I appreciate it--That sounds good, Thanks again! And I know what you mean, I'm not creative at all so when I start working on something for the wedding I just end of stopping because it looks a mess.

 

[Jules~Marie]

Hey guys...

Sorry I'm such a slacker. I need to get pictures online for Sunday the 16th. We had our rehearsal that day and also our dessert party. I guess reality kicked in once the honeymoon was over and I was 6 pounds heavier and work was piled on my desk. So everyone at my job has started walking and then after we walk my sister and I go to the gym, so I haven't had much time to focus on my trip report. Also, I'm still waiting for professional pictures and my dvd. I haven't even heard from my videographer, so that's making me kind of nervous...

I still haven't received my deposit and refund from Disney yet. I emailed Amy on 2/7 asking about when I'd get my bill and refund and she said the billing team was working on it but they were really backed up. Then, on 2/9 she emailed me and asked where the team should credit the refund to. So I thought that meant I was going to be getting my bill and money soon. No. I haven't heard anything since then. It's pretty typical for how my whole experience with Disney went. But that'll wait for my reviews. If I ever get to them...

So, anyway, point of this post..I will get back to my trip report soon. Promise.

 

[darlenemckenna76]

I hope you have a nice time and life together

 

[DisneyShamrock]

So, anyway, point of this post..I will get back to my trip report soon. Promise.

Hopefully, the videographer and those billing people will get their butts in gear and get everything done soon.

As much as I would like more pictures, I understand that life has to come first. Work is important.



Side note, I have half a dozen pictures of you and Eddie that my mom took. Do you have an e-mail I can send them to?

 

[smileycrissy]

That stinks about your refund. Your ticker says you'll be there shortly. Maybe you can make a quick dash to speak to someone and see if you can get some more information. Sometimes people work faster with face to face interactions.

 

[Jules~Marie]

Day 3- 1/16/11 Rehearsal and Dessert Party-

Today was the day before our wedding. I woke up at 6am and went to my moms room at Pop. The steamers from Carolyn Allen's were coming at 8am to do our dresses. Today was the only day I could have them come, the day of the wedding would've been too stressful for me, and I had to have them steam the dresses in my mom's room since I was checking out of Pop that morning and into the Contemporary. I got some coffee and tried calling the steamers to let them know what room we were in. At around 8:15, we were sitting outside my mom's room and we saw 2 people knocking on the door next to my mom. It was our steamers! Luckily, no one in the other room answered the door, so I hope we didn't wake anyone up. The steamers were great! They were so nice and funny, we had a good time with them. They steamed my dress and my 2 bridesmaid dresses. It was much quicker than I thought it would be.

They finished up at around 9:30am, and that's when I woke Eddie up and we took a bus to Downtown Disney. If you can remember back to day 2, the night before we had gone to JellyRolls and Eddie drank around the world, so by the time he got to Downtown Disney with the boys, he could no longer drive. We decided to leave the car there and pick it up in the morning. So that's what we did, the bus drive to DTD took forever! But we finally got the car and went back to Pop to pack up and get breakfast. We checked out of Pop at around 11 and headed over to the Contemporary Resort to check in. Our room wasn't ready, so they told us they'd text us when it was.

We had our rehearsal at the Grand Floridian at 2pm, so we had a couple of hours to kill. We decided to walk to the Magic Kingdom (very cool..I've never stayed at the Contemporary, so I enjoyed the walk over). We met up with my mom, stepdad and bridesmaid. My bridesmaid, Jess, had never been to the Magic Kingdom, so my mom bought her a one day ticket. It was getting close to the rehearsal time, so to help her experience the rides better, Eddie and I ran to Buzz and Space Mountain and grabbed her some fast passes to use later.

At 1:30 we went to the Grand Floridian to wait for the bridal party and do the rehearsal. We had chosen to have the rehearsal at the Grand Floridian because we wanted the wedding pavilion to be a surprise on the day of the wedding. That view of Cinderella's Castle when you first walk into the WP is spectacular...had I known it was going to be impossible to see the castle on the day of the wedding due to all the pouring down rain, I would've chosen to have the rehearsal there...oh well, hindsight and all that.

If you notice, the sign says rehearsal from 2-3...yeah it lasted no more than 10 minutes. We met Amy, she was nice, and we also met Rev. Tim Herring. He was nice, but definitely wanted to get the rehearsal over with. It didn't bother me though, I wanted to get out of there too. All we did at the rehearsal was go over where to place our hands when putting the ring on, and how to kiss. Amy quickly explained what was going to happen and then that was it. After the rehearsal, we went back to Pop to move Eddie's things into my brother's room. (Eddie was going to spend the night before the wedding in his room.) While we were there we gave the guys their gifts:

You can see how excited my brother was-

We had dinner reservations at 4 at the Coral Reef in Epcot. We still hadn't heard from the Contemporary about our room assignment, but I didn't have time to run there and ask them what was happening. My sister, brother in law, and brother joined us for dinner. We had a good time. I've never been to the Coral Reef, it is so cool in there! We had a great booth with a perfect view of the tank. Normally, I'm terrified of fish (I know, it's a weird phobia), but I didn't feel nervous or grossed out here. We had steak, it was very good. Our dinner was moving quickly until the waiter decided to bring us out a complimentary cheesecake. Very nice, I know, but it was getting later and later, we still hadn't heard from the Contemporary, and I had to get ready for the dessert party by 7. Our waiter disappeared after the cheesecake, and we had to search for him to get our bill. I don't know what happened, but he left us there for 20 minutes with that cake. I was stressing, because it was 6pm, I didn't have a room and I thought I would have to get ready for the party in the parking lot at Epcot.

Waiting for our table at the Coral Reef Restaurant:
(Me and my brother)

Eddie and I decided to speed over to the resort to find out what was going on with our room. The CM looked at us and said, "Well, we texted you at 12 that your room was ready.." I was so mad. Obviously, we never got the text. I was more upset because we checked in right around 12, we could've gotten our room right away. Oh well. The guy told us what our room number was...and that was it. We had never been to the resort before, so we asked him exactly where we were supposed to go. He said outside to the right your room is right there. OK...so we go running with all of our luggage to find our room. We were in the "Garden Wing"...every hall looks exactly the same, there are no numbers in the hallways directing you where to go. We ran around the hotel for 15 minutes. I mean RAN. At one point, I think I actually started to whimper. It looked like the hallway in the Shining...I was terrified and mad that the cast member didn't give us better directions. Finally, after running around like maniacs, we found our room. I quickly got dressed while Eddie explored the room. We were upset to find out that we didn't have a balcony. We had a bar outside the window, and we had a gorgeous view of the side of the building. We didn't have much time to worry about that though. I didn't even have time to fix my hair or do my makeup. We ran through the lobby and cruised over to Epcot for the dessert party...

Our room (we took these on our last day)-
We didn't even think to be upset that we had 2 beds instead of one.

A piece of pepperoni that was in the hall for the 3 days we spent in the resort-

Up next-Dessert Party.

 

[Jules~Marie]

Day 3-Dessert Party

We arrived at Epcot at 7 exactly. We were told to look for a woman with a red wand. Well, we couldn't find her, but we did find someone with a green stick so we went to her. She turned out to be our event guide, apparently there was a lot of dessert parties that night, and a lot of the guides were using red, so she switched hers to green to avoid confusion.

At about 7:15, our party was gathered together, they asked the guests that had tickets go through the gates and have their tickets scanned, and after we were done, the guests that didn't have tickets were counted and led through the gates. We had 12 guests that didn't have tickets.

The walk to UK Lochside was long and irritating. I'm not going to sugar coat it. I was just begging to get to our location without screaming at everyone in our party. It's a pretty long walk, we got my grandma a wheelchair because she has a hard time walking. Almost everyone was new to Epcot, or they haven't been there in 20 years or so, so they were all gawking at everything and stopping to take pictures. I am a strict rule follower, so when half the group started getting left behind I started getting frustrated. I think after everyone had me and Eddie stop at the "golf ball" as they called it, to take pictures, they all realized I just wanted to get to the location without stopping again. I feel bad thinking back on it, I mean I didn't yell at anybody or anything, but you can easily see my mood on my face. I don't hide it well. I could have just been nice and just went with it, but I was already irritated because of the hotel fiasco and I was nervous because my dad was here with my moms whole family for the first time since my parents divorce. It was kind of tense at first.

So, anyway, at about 7:45 we arrived at our location. It looked AWESOME!
We opted to have the pink gel candles and that was it for decor. The location is really perfect. There's benches lining the water, and then we had 5 tables set up behind the benches. The food was set up on the right with the coffee/tea/juice set up to the left. It was such a cool feeling to have such an amazing location, while everyone else in the park was trying to find somewhere to be comfortable and watch the show.

I feel bad, because like a lot of people that don't have professional photographers, we didn't get many good shots of the party. My sister, brother, and brother in law were late getting to the party, and when I first got to the location all I did was focus on calling her and helping her find where we were. I wish I stopped and took pictures of the food and set up. I will post what I do have, but I'm warning you that the pictures aren't good. I was hoping someone would get something good, but no such luck.

It did get kind of chilly out, I was wearing a sweater dress but had to add my heavy jacket after a little while. It probably got to about 48 or 50 degrees. When the fireworks started it was nice, the heat from the fire felt wonderful.

Gel candle -

Far left-cheesecake bites (gross), chocolate eclairs (ok), fruit dish (yum)

What's left of the brownies (so good, that's why they're gone lol), cannolis (very good), and the tiramisu (supposedly good, I didn't have any)

View from UK Lochside-

The food was pretty good. I was expecting the cheesecake to be better, but I'm a cheesecake snob so I have pretty high standards. Everyone really had a blast. The hot chocolate was soooo good. You have to ask to have the hot chocolate, it's not part of the package, but they didn't charge us extra for it. Oh, and if you're wondering, it is a good idea to bring "to go" bags for your guests. Eddie convinced me not to get them and I kind of regretted it. We had SO much food leftover, so everyone piled some snacks up on plates and put napkins over the food to carry them out. Also, they will try to play with the gel candles.

The fireworks ended and we left about 10 minutes later. Our guide was really sweet and patient, she led the way and everyone kind of just slowly followed along. I did hear some complaints about how far the walk was, and I did feel bad. My feet were killing me, so I'm sure I didn't look graceful limping out of the park.

After the party, we went to pick up the bridal party dresses from Pop and bring them back to my room at the Contemporary. We would be getting ready there the next morning. Eddie said good night to me and went back to Pop to spend the night in my brothers room. I got our room ready for the next morning, took a shower and got in bed at around 12am. I don't know what I was thinking, but for the longest time I was convinced that I would be in bed by 9:30 and might possibly have been able to watch the Golden Globes. Yeah, that didn't happen. lol I checked the weather one last time, and saw 90% chance of rain for the morning, and made my peace with that. I set my alarm for 4:45am and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Next up: WEDDING DAY!!!!!