April and Jeffery's Wishes Wedding May 14, 2011 - WP/LS - I'm Married!!!

[Sapphire_Ag]

Sorry I haven't been on here for a while, but I finally have a few updates.

I ordered my dress in September because they told me that it could take up to 6 months to get my dress. Well, it just arrived and I am going to pick it up on thursday. I am very excited! I am not sure how much time alterations will take, but since I am still trying to loose weight, I think I will weight till the last minute possible to do alterations.

Second update. Jeffery and I are planning on spending 2 weeks at Disney for the wedding. We are arriving in Orlando May 8th. We booked a 2 bedroom DVC room at Saratoga Springs. My mom will be traveling with us early so that she could help out with anything we need to do the week before the wedding. For our second week at Disney, we booked a 1 bedroom DVC room also at Saratoga Springs. For our last 3 days at Disney, we decided to book a Disney Cruise to the Bahamas. I am so excited. Our cruise is from May 19-22. I have never been on a cruise and I can't wait. We also get to be on the new boat, Disney Dream! Very cool.

Lastly, we finished our invitations. We won't be sending them out till February, but I wanted to get them finished before the holiday chaos. Here are some pictures of our invites.

Inside:

Outside:

Reception Card:

Response Card:

 

[Sccrmnky2005]

WOW Those intives look AMAZING!! Did you print them and do everything yourself??

 

[NOMNOMNOMS]

So Gorgeous! Everything is coming up great for you guys! I can feel you on trying to correspond with people with the time difference, That's been one of the biggest pains about this whole thing...We are also going for our planning session in December!!! YAY! How exciting!!!

 

[Pirate's Princess]

I LOVE the lanyard idea!! I'm so jealous. We gave out pin trading kits I made with 2 pins, also from Disney, and then did Mickey Ears, but I love the Lanyard idea. Too cute! Was it expensive?


Also great invite! What an awesome monogram.

 

[Sapphire_Ag]

So Gorgeous! Everything is coming up great for you guys! I can feel you on trying to correspond with people with the time difference, That's been one of the biggest pains about this whole thing...We are also going for our planning session in December!!! YAY! How exciting!!!

We also have our planning session in December. We are super excited and very ready to start putting a face on our wedding. We also have our engagement pictures with Randy scheduled for when we are over there. When is your planning session, ours is December 14. Do you know what things you are tasting for your menu? We are still stuck on that.

WOW Those invites look AMAZING!! Did you print them and do everything yourself??

Thank you. We had the main invite printed with the motif and then when we got them, we scanned the motif and matched the fonts and I made the response cards and reception cards myself. I still have to add a Rehearsal lunch invite card to those people who are invited to that and put stamps on the response envelope and address the envelopes, so there is still some work to be done. But it feels nice to have the bulk of it done. The border behind the invite is glitter paper. I absolutely love the glitter paper and we are using it for our place cards and menus also.

I LOVE the lanyard idea!! I'm so jealous. We gave out pin trading kits I made with 2 pins, also from Disney, and then did Mickey Ears, but I love the Lanyard idea. Too cute! Was it expensive?


Also great invite! What an awesome monogram.

The lanyards were not too expensive. We ordered 100 of them and got them for about $200. We are still trying to find cute ways to package them. We got the pins from ebay, so they were not too bad. We got a lot of doubles, so when we go in December for our planning session, my DF and I will be doing a lot of pin trading. We want people to have enough different pins that, if they want, they can trade during the wedding.

http://www.lanyardlab.com/

I got this site from another Disney bride. These guys are really fast in sending you a quote and a picture of what your lanyard would look like before you buy it. We had to ask for the Disney font in the comments box. The lanyard we got were that soft, almost ribbon like feel, but still the thickness of a lanyard. I was so happy that they were not the thick, hard, uncomfortable lanyards that I sometimes see.

 

[Sapphire_Ag]

Wednesday my DF and I leave for our trip. We have a 3 day lay over in San Francisco so we can see DF's family before Christmas, then we are off to Disney World!!! While we are there we have our planning session scheduled, my hair and make up trial with Beaute Speciale and our engagement pictures with Randy Chapman. I am very excited. I just have to remember to bring everything.

Updates:
We still have no idea what we want for our centerpieces, but we have been buying WDCC Little Mermaid figurines that we want integrated somehow into our centerpieces. Here are a few of them.

 

[Sccrmnky2005]

Can't wait to hear all about your PS!! Hope you took lots of pictures!

Love those figures I'm sure you can think of a way to include them!!

 

[donald&daisy]

i'm loving your PJ! I find it so helpful to read other bride's ideas about how to decorate at the LS. I hope your PS was awesome!

 

[Sapphire_Ag]

Hello Everyone,

I am so sorry this has taken me so long to do. With the holidays and everything, it has just been a little crazy.

Well, Jeffery and I had went to Disney for our planning session. We left December 11 and we came home December 17. We had a wonderful time, but it was freezing cold. I guess it was the coldest there than it had been in years. It was below freezing, with the wind and everything. We got Disney gift cards from my DF’s mom for Christmas and we used them to buy hats, gloves and a scarf. Luckily, we brought coats, so we were okay there.

Day 1.

We arrived in Orlando. After we got our bags we headed towards the Disney buses. We arrived in the evening, maybe around 6 or 7pm. I can’t remember now. Our bus dropped us off at the Disney Boardwalk. I absolutely love this resort. We had booked a DVC one bedroom and it was beautiful. The only bad thing was that our room was at the very end of the resort so it was a bit of a walk to the bus stop and the boat stop. When we checked in, we told them we were there for our planning session with Disney. They gave us “Just Engaged” buttons and we were sure to wear them our whole trip.

The resort was beautiful. I was decorated for Christmas with decorated trees and a wonderful gingerbread gazebo that was created by the bakery there. It had hidden mickeys on there. We found a few of them, but we couldn’t find them all. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it. Sorry.

That night, we went to Magic Kingdom. We brought our annual passes, but we forgot our IDs, so when we went to redeem them, the guy at guest services couldn’t do it. He wanted us to buy a ticket for that night and then he said that when we came back the next day to redeem our APs, that we would be refunded the ticket price. We were going to do it, but then he gave us the tickets for free. I guess because we only had a few hours until the park closed anyways. We thought it was super nice of him and it created less of a hassle for us later.

Magic Kingdom was beautiful. I took tons of pictures of the castle. I love how it is decorated for the holidays.

That night we had dinner at the The Pinocchio Village Haus. We were on the dining plan and had all our table services booked with reservations. They had meatball sandwiches, which were really good. I don’t think they had them last time we were at Disney. That night, we didn’t go on too many rides. The park was open till midnight, so we stayed till close. We had a lot of fun.

 

[Sapphire_Ag]

Today we slept in and went to Animal Kingdom. We love this park. My DF loves the Kilimanjaro Safari and I love the Kali River rapids.

We ate at Yak & Yeti Local Foods Café. This is probably one of my favorite quick services. They give you Chinese boxes, with white rice and vegetables and a type of meat. I had the crispy honey chicken. It was so good. By this time it was pouring down rain, so we decided to go on the rapids. We were getting wet anyways, so why not. I didn’t get wet at all, but my DF was soaked. He was not too happy.

Afterwards, we went to the Safari and of course, I took tons of pictures. I got a new camera a couple of months ago and I was so excited to use it at Disney. It did so much better on the safari than my old camera.

When we walked out of the Safari, it was time for Mickey’s Jingle Jungle Parade. We love this parade normally, the Christmas version was just as great. The floats for this parade are absolutely amazing.

After the parade, we headed over to Dinosaur, which we had never gone on before. We actually didn’t know that it was there and it was a ride. It was fun, not a favorite, but we are glad we did it.

Then we headed to Epcot. The buses for Boardwalk are the worst that we have ever experienced at Disney. We had to wait almost an hour for all of our buses.

At Epcot we went to dinner at the new Mexican restaurant, La Hacienda de San Angel and I, now it is a new favorite of mine.

I got the shrimp tacos, or Tacos de Camarones, which I normally don’t like, but I loved these.

They were so good and I can’t wait to go back. My DF got the Arrachera. It was Flank steak served with spring onions, tamal with rajas, cactus leaves, and beans.

For dessert, we had an apple Empanada. It was so good.

My DF liked it, but not as much as I did. After dinner we went and enjoyed Epcot and Test Track. Love it!!

 

[sw33t_angel]

Loving your TR so far!!

Your camera takes awesome pictures!!

 

[Sapphire_Ag]

We woke up early and went and did a character breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. Before we went in to breakfast, they took a picture of us in front of a Christmas tree, but they wanted $30.00 for the picture so we didn’t buy it. Loved the breakfast and the characters there. They were great. My DF especially liked the omelet station.

I can’t remember what we did after that.

That night, we went to dinner at the new Italian restaurant, Via Napoli. While we were waiting for our table I got a call from Randy. He wanted to know if we wanted to go through with our engagement session or cancel it because it was so cold outside. I told him that we would be okay, we were from Washington. But really, we didn’t have any other time to make it up. This was our last trip here before the wedding.
The food at the restaurant was good, but not my favorite. I had a cheese pizza. Of course, it had a fancier name. My DF got the Spaghetti and Meatballs. The food was okay, the dessert was wonderful. I had the Zeppole Di Catarina. Ricotta Cheese Fritters, served with whipped cream, chocolate sauce. Loved it.

 

[Sapphire_Ag]

Today we woke up early and got ready to meet our planner, Carol Mikels, for our planning session. We hadn’t seen the new Franck’s yet, it was beautiful. We went and saw the Pavilion again, for a refresher. Then we went back to Franck’s and talked about the timeline for the wedding. We also talked about the ceremony and who would walk when. I am having my parents walk me down the aisle and my DF is also having both his parents walk him down. My parents did this and I always thought it was nice. His parents were a little surprised by this, they had never seen this, but they are willing to do it.

Then we tried cake. It was all very good. We are very simple with our tastes though. We chose the white cake, with butter cream and cut up strawberries. For our top tier, we are having the marble cake with butter cream. No strawberries, since they said they wouldn’t keep well.

We decided to go with the Coral and Reef cake, but with more teal and purple colors and I wanted a turtle on it, out of fondant or chocolate.

For our rehearsal lunch, we decided to do a catered event in the Whitehall room. We chose to decorate it in the Mad Hatter theme and we are still working on the menu. We are not sure if we are keeping this yet, we will have to wait to see what our final quote is.

Then Elizabeth came and we went over the floral. I can’t really remember what we choose, but I do know we are going to do orchids, in 2 different colors. Kind of similar to the pictures below, but a little different. We are having Elizabeth do a mock up of some of flowers and take pictures. When she sends them, I will post them.

The whole meeting went so fast. It was a blur. I can’t remember what we actually chose, but I know I was excited about it when I chose it. We are still waiting on our BEO, but once we get it, then I will know what we chose.

After the meeting, we had an hour or two before our tasting, so we walked over to the Polynesian to check it out and then hung out at the Floridian.

When it was time for our planning session, we walked back to the Franck’s. Then Carol took us to the catering kitchen at Epcot. In the kitchen, there was a table with a white, cloth tablecloth. We sat down and the waiter introduced himself and the chef. Then they served the food. It was weird having the people watch us eat, waiting for our opinions. I felt a little pressured, but it could have just been me. The food was really good though. We started with the appetizers.

We tried the Italian sausage and mushrooms. They were very good. We choose to go with this one.

We also tried the Bacon-crusted beef and blue cheese meatballs. These we good too, but my DF liked the other one better.

We also choose to do a cheese and fruit platter.

Then we did the salads. We tried the Caesar salad. This was very good. My DF doesn’t like caesar, but he liked this one.

We also tried a salad with peaches. I wanted the seasonal salad from Jikos with the peaches and so we tried their version. It was very good. We decided to go with this one, except that the peaches will be cut up in the salad.

We tried the mango sorbet in the lighted rose. We weren’t really going to get this. We think they cost too much and my DF doesn’t really understand the point of it, even after I explained it. So, even though we knew we weren't’ going to get one, I wanted to see it so I asked to try it. It was beautiful and the sorbet was really good.

Then we tried the Entree. We chose the Le Cellier Mushroom Filet MIgnon with Wild Mushroom Risotto. This was very good and one of our choices.

Sorry its a little blurry.

We also tried the Grilled Chicken Breast and Blackberry Demi with Truffle Macaroni and Fine Cheeses. I loved the macaroni, but not fond of the chicken. I thought it was too peppery. My DF loved this though. He is still talking about this.

Lastly, we tried the Parmesan Crusted Chicken with the macaroni. It was very good, so we decided to choose this one as well.

For our 3rd entree we went vegetarian. We chose the vegetable lasagna from the Coral Reef restaurant. We didn’t try this at the tasting. I had already had it and liked it.

At the end they surprised us with letting us taste some cookies, brownies, cupcakes and smores. My DF loved the smores. The rest was very good as well. They let us take these home with us. The rest of the food, I guess they just threw away.

We also tried a signature drink. I didn't give them much direction here. I just asked for a fruity one that was teal and one that was purple. As of now we are going with the teal one in a glass with a light up ice cube. The blue one was so good. The purple one was just okay.

After the planning session Carol dropped us off at our hotel since we were done. That night we went to Tutto Italia Ristorante in Epcot Italy. Its my DF’s favorite restaurant. I think it is just okay.

 

[Sapphire_Ag]

I woke up so early today. Laine from Beaute Speciale came to my hotel room at 6:45am to do my hair and make up trial. Laine was so cute and I thought she did an amazing job. I had clip in hair extensions, to make my hair look thicker and she put them in with no problem.

I showed her some pictures that I liked for my wedding hair and this is what she came up with. I really like it.

Then she did my hair and make up for my engagement pictures.

After she left we ran out of our place and met Randy at Magic Kingdom. We got there on time, but he was already there. We have not seen our pictures yet, but he did send us this sample.

That night we went to the Yachtsman Steakhouse. My DF loved it. I am not a big steak fan so I got the House Made Gnocchi. It was good, but not a favorite.

 

[Sapphire_Ag]

Today we had dinner at the Floridian Cafe. It was very good. They gave us a free cupcake because of our engagement pins. After dinner we headed over to Magic Kingdom for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. It was a lot of fun. First we headed over to Tomorrow Land for A Totally Tomorrowland Christmas Show. This was very cute. They had Stitch, Mike Wazowski, and Buzz.

Then we went on Space mountain. At certain places around the park, they were giving out free hot chocolate, which was very good, and sugar cookies, which were not very good.

On our way to Main Street, we ran into Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. They were so cute when they saw our engagement buttons. It was hard and confusing trying to explain that we had been engaged for over a year now.

Once we got to Main Street, we picked a spot in front of the castle, right on the street curb. We were in the perfect place to watch the Celebrate the Season Show with Mickey and friends, The Holiday Wishes Fireworks and the Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade.

They were all very fun to watch and so good.

Afterwards we went to the Haunted Mansion. We thought it would be done up in Nightmare Before Christmas like Disneyland does, but it wasn't. That was kind of disappointing.

I wanted to go on Splash Mountain but it was so cold that they turned off the water to the ride, so there was no Splash, just the Mountain. Not too much fun at all.

 

[Sapphire_Ag]

Time to go home. We packed and went to downtown Disney. We finished off our snacks at Goofy’s Candy co. and then we went to the Earl of Sandwich. We got one for then and one to take with us on the plane. They were very good. Then we headed back to Boardwalk and it was time to say good bye. It was a very fun trip.

 

[elleinad16]

Your PS report was very informational, thanks!
Looks like you had a great time I loved your hair from the trial.

I just have a couple questions after reading your food choices: Are you guys having a buffet option? and how much is it to have a signature drink?

Thanks, darling!

 

[pixie921]

You guys are so cute! It looks like you had a great PS trip!

I have a question on your tasting session ... how much is the ice rose with sorbet? I've never seen that before it's soooo pretty! We might need to bump up our food spending, and that might be just the thing!

 

[Sapphire_Ag]

Your PS report was very informational, thanks!
Looks like you had a great time I loved your hair from the trial.

I just have a couple questions after reading your food choices: Are you guys having a buffet option? and how much is it to have a signature drink?

Thanks, darling!

We are doing a plated dinner for the reception and a buffet in the Whitehall room for the rehearsal lunch. As to the signature drink, we are not sure yet how much it will cost. They told us somewhere in the $6-9 dollar range. But since we are adding the ice cubes, they may be more. If we need to cut things, this may be one of the first to go. But they were so good and I think my guest will really like them.

You guys are so cute! It looks like you had a great PS trip!

I have a question on your tasting session ... how much is the ice rose with sorbet? I've never seen that before it's soooo pretty! We might need to bump up our food spending, and that might be just the thing!

I am not sure what the price of the rose is. When I get my BEO, I will let you know. Sorry.

 

[pixie921]

I am not sure what the price of the rose is. When I get my BEO, I will let you know. Sorry.

No problem. I just thought they might have told you when you said it was expensive. But it's Disney -- I guess that goes without saying, LOL!