A Surprise Disneymoon - Oct 2011

[brookelynpenguin]

Hi Brookelynpenguin,

Congratulations on your wedding and honeymoon!

I just read through your PTR so far and am enjoying it. I think that AIW is a fun theme for a wedding. Do you ever watch Weddings with David Tuterra on WE? He did a AIW themed wedding for one of his brides and I thought that it was really fun. If you get a chance you should check it out

DH and I love AKL!! You are lucky to be staying there! It is on one of our must do's for Disney in the future. I can't wait to read about your experiences there. We have visited and it always seems really romantic to me, with the lighting and ambiance.

MNSSHP is a lot of fun! It is one of our favorite things from our previous trips. The MK is really cool at night and they do fun lighting effects for the party. The fireworks and parade are my favorite that Disney puts on.

I can't wait to read more

I'm so jealous...I don't get WE but everyone has told me about that show. You'd think for as much as I pay I'd get more channels but no.

I'm still waffling over my Liberty Tavern/California Grill decision. It's tough and I'm not a big eater. I eat pretty often I just don't eat much. Whenever James cooks I take three or four bites and then proclaim that I'm full. After three years together you think he'd be used to it by now but it still surprises him. BTW, my boyfriend went to culinary school. Yeah, that's right, I get spoiled at home. Everyone at work is jealous because I'm always regaling them with tales of lamb chops, ribs, buttermilk biscuits, and cinnamon rolls from scratch. It works out really well because I can't cook a lick. I can do macaroni and cheese and stove top grilled cheeses. I shudder to think what my life (and menu) would be without him. I may not be able to cook but I can bake some pretty awesome cookies from scratch. About a week ago I made some scrumptious chocolate cookies with Andes mint frosting. I meant to take a picture to post but the cookies were gone about twenty-four hours later. I told James I'd make some more within this week so I'll make sure to get a pic then.

Speaking of pictures, I'm having trouble uploading pictures to photobucket. I'll try again tomorrow night and if it doesn't work I'll trade some cookies for computer servicing...there's a guy at work who knows all kinds of stuff about technology that is complete gibberish to me. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was him who installed something to make my computer run better but completely confuses me. I can't figure out how to work whatever it was and as a result can't update my computer or anything. I need to ask him to take it off and install the program that I used to use. I'm fairly certain that photobucket isn't working because I can't do the latest updates.

 

[blairbear]

I haven't eaten at either LTT or CG. You are a lucky girl, having a fiance that has been to culinary school! Your cookies sound pretty great too! I am a big sweets person. Good luck with getting your pictures uploaded.

 

[brookelynpenguin]

Today James and I had the day off together so we got some stuff done. We had photos taken of the three of us; a sort of family/engagement photo. I forgot how much I hate looking at pictures of myself; I think we might have bought just one with the both of us. Anyway, when those come in I'm going to send off to my family as save-the-date type things. Scribble something on the back about we're getting married soon blah blah blah. We also did a cake tasting today. We have one more on Monday before we make the final decision on our cake. I really liked the woman there today; only thing that might deter us from using her is the delivery cost. I didn't think to ask about it but her bakery is in Norman and she has a mini shop in OKC so customers don't have to drive all the way to Norman to see her. It wouldn't be so bad if our wedding was actually in OKC, but we're getting married in Guthrie so it goes...Norman, OKC, Guthrie. It's about an hour and a half drive from one to the other so I think the delivery cost might deter us from using her.

After the cake gets taken care of, I'm moving on to either flowers or bridesmaid dresses. As to flowers, I don't want any big expensive arrangements for the tables. I just want bouquets for us to carry...no boutonnieres, no flower girl flowers, no corsages for anyone. We're having an outdoor wedding and making our own centerpieces for the reception so I don't see the point in spending lots of money on flowers that we can't really enjoy. I'm hoping to have everything done for the wedding within the next two months that way I don't have to do any running around in the last few weeks. Here's to hoping.

 

[brookelynpenguin]

Yuck, I think I'm getting sick. A girl at work started it, then James caught it, and now I'm feeling a little icky. Oh my goodness, adr day is on Tuesday! I'm ecstatic and nervous. What if I can't get anything that I want. Haha, I'm just being silly. I don't really have any specific times that I just have to have. I just categorized my ressies into lunch and dinner so hopefully that will make it a little easier. The only thing that baffles me is whether I want to do Jiko or CG on arrival day. I just want a semi-early dinner (6ish) before we go back to our room and crash early. Does anyone know when you can book the tours...specifically the ATW segway tour at Epcot? Do they only do the tour on certain days because if so I need to rework the schedule a little bit. In fact, I'm going to look into that now.

 

[brookelynpenguin]

This morning I made my ressies. I was super worried that I wasn't going to get anything because I didn't get up before the sun to make them. I think I started around eight am my time; I think we're an hour behind Florida. I kept thinking that they weren't going to have any open spots for the days or times I wanted and that I'd have to do major rearranging on my schedule in order to get any restaurants in. Silly me, I worried way too much over it. The only one that I had "issues" with was California Grill. We have a reservation at 5:50 and I wanted one more toward 6:30ish but it's really nothing I'm upset over. Anyway here's our schedule:

Oct 2nd (arrival day)
Flight gets in around 1:00 pm, we hop on board the ME, and explore AKL until our room is ready, we change clothes, and hop onto a bus to head over to the Contemporary for 5:50 dinner at California Grill. Turn in early for our first full day.

Oct 3rd
Magic Kingdom (isn't a rule that MK has to be your first park, I mean it's so iconic) lunch at 1:00 at Tony's Town Square (must remember to wear L&TT shirt that day)

Oct 4th
Epcot World Showcase day, we'll roam around the world and snack all the way

Oct 5th
DHS (I'm super excited for this one) lunch at Sci-Fi Dine-In Theatre at 1:10

Oct 6th
Animal Kingdom and 6:15 Jiko dinner, this is also the night we'll attend MNSSHP if we decide to do it

Oct 7th
Epcot or AK and Spirit of Aloha dinner show at 8:00 pm

Oct 8th
DHS and a haunted carriage ride later that night at Fort Wilderness

Oct 9th
Epcot and lunch at Coral Reef at 12:25 pm, this is the day I want to do the ATW segway tour also...need to book that

Oct 10th
Departure day, have an early flight so we can get home in the afternoon and spend time with Mr. Ian because even though we've left him for the weekend before, this is the first time we're going to be spending a whole week away from him

So that's what our schedule looks like. We might try to catch Fantasmic on Sunday night but I'm really hoping they add an extra day for it to make it easier for us to catch. I've already saved all our confirmation numbers on paper and in my phone in case I need them while in WDW. 180 more days until our honeymoon starts. I need to get focused on wedding stuff now. We found our cake baker but more on that later!

 

[dtr_angel]

I'm glad you got all your ADRs! Your plans all look really good!

 

[TanzUnited99]

Yay on getting all your ADRs sorted It sure makes the trip feel real, right?

Also am looking forward to your thoughts on the haunted carriage ride - it sounds like a great idea

 

[brookelynpenguin]

Yay on getting all your ADRs sorted It sure makes the trip feel real, right?

Also am looking forward to your thoughts on the haunted carriage ride - it sounds like a great idea

It sure does make everything more real. I've been paying for the trip but actually having a solid idea of what we're doing makes it solid, not just some day dream!

 

[brookelynpenguin]

Today Ian, James, and I decided to head for the nature park. Ian did good walking for a while before his little legs got the best of him. We spent a good few hours there and I think we hit all three trails. I'm tired now and Ian is done for the night. He took a three hour nap this afternoon before we headed out again. This time we took the civilized route (e.g. shopping). I stopped and made a payment on my dress (should get it next month), bought some sunglasses, headband, and knee high socks and then we hit the Disney Store. I bought some cool stuff there and hopefully I'll have pictures up within the week of my purchases. That's all I had; the sun sapped me as did pushing Ian's stroller around over gravel and dirt. I have nothing else.

 

[brookelynpenguin]

If I could retitle my ptr it would be: Geek Chic or Romantic Whimsy? Our Wedding & Surprise Disneymoon

Why would I name it so? Every day I am finding more and more details to make the wedding specifically detailed to our personalities. Everything from our seating music, first dance song, cake toppers, and my wedding jewelry reflect us. More on all those details as I finalize them though.

I did call the baker to book her cake services though so now I feel safe telling you all about our brilliant cake. It's going to be three tiers: the top will be peaches & creme, followed by confetti, and then strawberry lemonade as the very bottom tier. The bottom of the cake is going to look like a hat with a band around it, in that band will be a little card tucked into it with 9/29. The top tier will have a diamond pattern in black and white. The piece de resistance though will be pink and purple striped with a big white grin. That's right, our cake is a colorful, whimsical AIW-esque cake.

I remember thinking when I was younger that weddings were supposed to be all white, elegant affairs held in ballrooms or churches. Well, elegant and traditional doesn't really describe James and I. A little part of me still wants to do the traditional thing but I think a themed wedding fits us so much better. Why do something traditional if it won't feel quite right.

Back to what I was saying though. We were talking about some backward bent card people around the bottom of the cake and some white roses with red paint splatter near the top tier. Those were both James idea. Our baker had the idea that we could do a big, fluffy tail wrapped around the bottom edge of the second tier. I called her this morning and she was super excited to start working on some ideas she had. It was about 30 dollars cheaper than another place we looked at. She didn't charge us a delivery fee because she lives/works two minutes away from our venue. So we decided to take that money we would have used for delivery and put it toward the fun details.

 

[TanzUnited99]

Lol at wanting to rename your PTR!!

Your plans seem to be coming along nicely! Your AIW cake sounds great and yay on saving on delivery and being able to add to the cake instead!

 

[brookelynpenguin]

Lol at wanting to rename your PTR!!

Your plans seem to be coming along nicely! Your AIW cake sounds great and yay on saving on delivery and being able to add to the cake instead!

Thank you, I'm very proud of the title myself and I can't wait to see the end result on the cake!

Moving on, I'm so excited; I joined ebay in order to buy my cake toppers through them and because I like shopping I started browsing. I decided to make a bid on some Minnie Mouse bridal ears...not the ones they sell now, the headband ones. I actually won the bid. Tonight I borrowed someone's phone to check the auction because I thought it was already over. Well it wasn't and someone outbid me so I thought why not make one more bid. I didn't expect to actually win because I made my bid and got back to work. I didn't know when the auction ended or anything then came home, checked my email and I won! Yay me!

 

[brookelynpenguin]

So back to what I originally wanted to say before I won the auction. I've already talked about my awesomely amazing wedding cake but now it's time for the grooms cake. The flavor is butter yellow and it's going to be a cog from the Gears of War video game. For those who aren't video game savvy, it's a black cog on a red background with a skull and black oozing down one of the gears. Why something so violent and non-weddingy looking?

Well, it was my idea. James originally wanted an xbox with Link thrusting his sword through the xbox. James was asking me when Gears 3 was going to be released so I hopped online to look. The game comes out September 20th. What the hell? Our wedding is September 29th. I can't have James playing a big video game like that nine days before the wedding. I'll probably be on the verge of having a meltdown (hopefully not but I don't really expect everything to go as smoothly as I'm hoping). It wouldn't be so bad if Gears of War 2 didn't come out on my birthday. I'm convinced that there is an ex-boyfriend of mine working at the game. He's just trying to ruin my life. Why else would Gears be dropped on dates that are totally inconvenient for me? It's a conspiracy; someone is out to ruin my life. James is trying to tell me that I'm just being paranoid but I think it's true. Anyway, he really liked my idea of a Gears cake so he happily discarded his Link idea.

Anyway, back to the cake. The other two bakers we saw were just going to print the image onto edible paper and slap it on top of the cake but our baker started talking about trying to spray it on in order to really get the cool painted on look instead of taking the easy way out. This is why we booked her. Her workshop is built onto the side of her house, she has cake books galore all over her shelves, and I've never seen her advertised in any big bridal magazines or anything. We asked Dominion House if they had any recommended bakers and they gave us her name and I'm so glad we made an appointment with her. She has amazing ideas and seems to really love her job (plus she gave us another couples cake samples because they canceled on her last minute and she didn't want to waste them).

And a little random tidbit for you: We originally decided on strawberry for the grooms cake but I thought it wouldn't go well. I mean, we've got this masculine red and black cake with a skull then you cut it open and it's pink. I thought it might not quite fit and James agreed. After him tossing out inane ideas like white cake with lots of strawberry filling oozing out as soon as we cut it and a mini chainsaw to cut the cake, we decided to switch out the flavors on our two cakes so we still got everything we wanted.

 

[dtr_angel]

So back to what I originally wanted to say before I won the auction. I've already talked about my awesomely amazing wedding cake but now it's time for the grooms cake. The flavor is butter yellow and it's going to be a cog from the Gears of War video game. For those who aren't video game savvy, it's a black cog on a red background with a skull and black oozing down one of the gears. Why something so violent and non-weddingy looking?

Well, it was my idea. James originally wanted an xbox with Link thrusting his sword through the xbox. James was asking me when Gears 3 was going to be released so I hopped online to look. The game comes out September 20th. What the hell? Our wedding is September 29th. I can't have James playing a big video game like that nine days before the wedding. I'll probably be on the verge of having a meltdown (hopefully not but I don't really expect everything to go as smoothly as I'm hoping). It wouldn't be so bad if Gears of War 2 didn't come out on my birthday. I'm convinced that there is an ex-boyfriend of mine working at the game. He's just trying to ruin my life. Why else would Gears be dropped on dates that are totally inconvenient for me? It's a conspiracy; someone is out to ruin my life. James is trying to tell me that I'm just being paranoid but I think it's true. Anyway, he really liked my idea of a Gears cake so he happily discarded his Link idea.

Anyway, back to the cake. The other two bakers we saw were just going to print the image onto edible paper and slap it on top of the cake but our baker started talking about trying to spray it on in order to really get the cool painted on look instead of taking the easy way out. This is why we booked her. Her workshop is built onto the side of her house, she has cake books galore all over her shelves, and I've never seen her advertised in any big bridal magazines or anything. We asked Dominion House if they had any recommended bakers and they gave us her name and I'm so glad we made an appointment with her. She has amazing ideas and seems to really love her job (plus she gave us another couples cake samples because they canceled on her last minute and she didn't want to waste them).

And a little random tidbit for you: We originally decided on strawberry for the grooms cake but I thought it wouldn't go well. I mean, we've got this masculine red and black cake with a skull then you cut it open and it's pink. I thought it might not quite fit and James agreed. After him tossing out inane ideas like white cake with lots of strawberry filling oozing out as soon as we cut it and a mini chainsaw to cut the cake, we decided to switch out the flavors on our two cakes so we still got everything we wanted.

mmmm, cake! We didn't do a grooms cake, but if we did I'm sure it would've been a baseball! Your cake sounds really good. We originally were just going to be simple with our cake flavor - white since most people like it, and I'm allergic to chocolate. Well when we went to meet with our baker, she had a sample of her strawberry cake and it was to die for! Our wedding was very pink, so the thought of the pink cake inside and out was awesome to us, so we went for it - it was yummy! We ended up getting 2 heart shaped cakes and made them white for anyone that might not want pink. Well it turns out a lot of people don't eat cake because those 2 cakes never got cut. We had SO much cake leftover, I wish we would've gotten a smaller cake.

 

[Princess.Rachel]

I'm loving the PTR and the Wedding Planning. Disneymoons are so much fun to plan! Can't wait to hear more!!

 

[brookelynpenguin]

I'm loving the PTR and the Wedding Planning. Disneymoons are so much fun to plan! Can't wait to hear more!!

Thank you and hello!

So now I'm starting to get annoyed with our trip planner. I emailed her asking for the total price of our honeymoon and I got an email back saying she was on vacation and wouldn't be back until Monday. Okay, that's fine; I can wait. The weekend passed and on Monday night I checked my email and nothing. So today I fired off another email asking the same request. I checked my email and another email saying the same thing but she should have been back yesterday.

I don't think I like travel planners. When I was first talking to her about my trip she quoted a price for me that had one day less on my park hoppers than I originally wanted. I then decided to extend our trip by a day so I asked her to book me nine days with seven day park hopper passes. She booked me the nine days but only six day PH. I rechecked all my emails and sure enough I asked for the proper amount of days, she just read my emails wrong. So all the info I have is slightly off; I know it's not much more to add an extra day to the PH but I'd really like an accurate price on the trip.

In other news, I booked James and I the ATW@Epcot tour on the last full day of our trip so yay! Hopefully next week I'll get flowers taken care of for the bouquets. I really need to start on bridesmaids dresses too. Yuck, the two things I don't want to do.

 

[brookelynpenguin]

I had my first floral appointment today. It wasn't as bad as I was thinking it was going to be but I sure shocked the florist with all the stuff I wasn't wanting which made me laugh (in my head of course).

We talked about my bouquet first and then followed up with the bridesmaids flowers. After that she went down her checklist starting with flower girl. No flower girl, no big deal; they take focus off the bride anyway. Corsages for the mothers: she started talking about nosegays and how they are becoming more common because people don't want to pin flowers to their clothes anymore. They don't want to ruin the nice fabric or else their clothes are strapless and it looks awkward. Now what do I like. Well, I don't want any mother corsages. Why? It's only going to be my mom there and we're not all that close. We've had problems in the past and are just at a good place now. She's not going to be walking down the aisle and since I'm footing the bill I'm not paying extra for a corsage for her. Seeing as the majority of our guests know each other I don't think I need to distinguish her; I don't know who they could mistake her for. The florist was shocked that I didn't want to distinguish her so she moved on to grandmothers. Haha, once again only my grandmother will be there and I'm not paying extra.

Then came the boutonnieres...guess what my answer to those was? That's right, no. She said that we'd be getting our pictures taken with our whole bridal party and didn't I want to distinguish him from the rest of the groomsmen. Not really, James is tall and lanky so he kind of stands out anyway. Two of our other groomsmen are about as tall as him but they're both stockier (alot of people are stockier next to my bamboo reed fiancee). The other two groomsmen are shorter, one being a woman. Besides when I first started thinking about flowers I asked James about boutonnieres and he didn't see the purpose (once I explained to him what a boutonniere was). I don't need him to match my flowers. I really don't.

The florist was just flabbergasted to hear that I didn't want any of those things. I'm also really glad that I didn't want anything else because the bill came to $600.00. You really want me to pay that much for five bouquets? What?

I might not have had a problem if she had thrown me some great ideas for the flowers. She just replicated one of the pictures I brought in though. Five different pictures and she chooses one of them for my bouquet. Hopefully I'll click with a florist who looks at all five pictures and says we could do pic ones flowers in pic twos colors, take out ______(random flower name), and throw in the blossoms from pic four instead. I want someone who will work with me and throw out ideas instead of just replicating a photo of her choice. If I can't find that florist then I'll just go with the florist with the cheapest price. I'll pay $600 dollars for bouquets, they've just got to be something that I can't live without.

 

[brookelynpenguin]

I picked up my wedding gown today! Even better news, I don't need any alterations except for a bustle. I tried the dress on with my shoes and it was a smidgen too long but then the girl helping me reminded me that I didn't have a petticoat/slip on underneath and did I want to add one. I decided that I wanted the full-on poofy, princessy look (plus the top layer was poofy and looked funny with the slimmer skirt). So I decided to try on a petticoat with my dress and the length is perfect...although now that I think of it, the slip will be about 50 dollars and the bustle 15 so I still need to put about 65 more dollars into my dress. Damn nickel and dime charges to make it perfect.

I still don't have any flowers or bridesmaids dresses. I have one more flower shop to visit so I'll compare them all after the last appointment. Oh my goodness, I just decided to try uploading photos again and it worked.


Hello, my name is Brooke. My favorite Disney movie is The Lion King and my favorite princess is Belle (she was brunette and bookish like me). My favorite character is Stitch (although Lilo is high up there as well).


This is my James. I just love this photo, he looks kind of like Edward Norton in this photo but he doesn't see it. His favorite movie is Aladdin and his favorite character is Stitch.


This is us together! Look at us so cute.


These are our fuzzy children...Midna Tuesday and Rajah Ann. Rajah was adopted from Petsmart. Her name was originally Ann but we didn't like it so James suggested Rajah. Yes, he did get it from Aladdin. Midna was rescued from my grandma's neighbors house. It was Christmas and she was feeding the stray cats like she always does. Little Midna came running over and then inside where she promptly started purring. Obviously the people next door didn't take care of her at all.


Pathetic looking wasn't she? She's now all soft and silky though.


And here's our real child, Mr. Ian. He was showing off his new outfit (kind of). Please ignore the unvacuumed floor.

Well, I'm so excited that I finally figured out the picture feature so I apologize for the numerous photos that I will be posting within the next few days.

 

[TanzUnited99]

Yay on being able to post pics!!! Love all of them and how cute is Mr.Ian!

Am glad the dress fitting went well and it looked perfect. Boo with having to part with 65 more dollars!

 

[brookelynpenguin]

When I figured out how to post pics I was so excited and had a few posts all planned out. Then one of our girls got hit by a drunk driver on her way home from work Tuesday night. She's okay. As a matter of fact she stopped by today to show off pictures of the accident. She's still shaken up (obviously) and sore but she's coming back to work on Wednesday. Anyway, I've been helping cover her shifts the past week. I've always liked Sam (the one who got hit). She's an older woman, 50 I think, and she looks fabulous. She's got some crazy stories about her past...betting on horse races, drugs, rock & roll, sugar daddies. She cracks me up; she's a little loopy sometimes but I love her. She also makes me glad that I don't do/never did drugs. Anyway, she's doing good physically but she's still shaken up mentally. Hopefully she'll be okay and we are getting one of our girls back for the summer so depending on how things go at work my engagement story, wedding dress, and my honeymoon shopping purchases will all be online within the week!

Oh, and please forgive any typos. I'm trying to watch Gossip Girl and type cohesive sentences at the same time.