Ashley and Jeff's Wishes Wedding WP & ADH~12-2-2011~TR Day 6 Reception/Photo gallery

[Ash8716]

With less than three months to go I am getting a little nervous. There is still so much to do. I have a list a mile long and can't imagine how I am going to get everything done. Thank god for my mom and aunt who are helping me with everything. My mom's big concern right now is working on my shower though because that is coming up on October 2nd. Her and I went to try and a find a veil this afternoon but didn't really have any luck. They are so expensive and I'm just not sure what I want. I need to make a decision quick because time is running out for ordering it. I just finished my newsletter that we sent to everyone coming to the wedding. I will take some pictures of that tomorrow and post it for anyone looking for ideas. Basically we just wanted to give everyone an idea of what we were planning for the week and important reminders on booking hotel and air. I have started a second one that I am planning on including in my welcome packets.

 

[mickin]

Your BEO looks great....we just got our initial one minus floral and we were freaking out didn't realize that all this stuff with tax and service would be that expensive...we talked it over with our parents and hopefully we won't be bringing out the scissors on too much stuff

 

[Ash8716]

No kidding the 27.5 % tax is just crazy and adds much to total. We had made a preliminary budget so had some idea what to expect but still came out higher than we hoped! We don't want to cut a lot but have to bring down some. At least we got our floral down already, that was pretty easy, Elizabeth was great. Now we have to work on the rest. Good luck with yours hopefully you don't have to cut too much

 

[Tonyandnate2013]

I have enjoyed reading your journal. I cant wait to read more.

 

[Ash8716]

Thank you!!!

 

[Ash8716]

I totally should have started this PJ earlier because now there are so many things to catch up on. We are 82 days away and here's what I still have left to ....


buy veil
find a bra
send out wedding invites
update itinerary/reservations
dress fitting-october 14th
bridesmaid gifts
print programs
newsletter for welcome packets
make bridal shirts
ring bearer pillows
marriage license
thank you notes for bridesmaids
seating chart
dance song list
print thank you letters
menu cards
place cards
book photographers hotel
cake server
guest book
toasting flutes
get wedding bands
engagement photos
frame for signing photo
shoes for welcome party

 

[PrincessTinker11]

Hello Ashley I am subscribing as well!

Good luck with all your planning and check out Etsy.com, I found so many wonderful talented people on their to help make the wedding so special

You will have a beautiful wedding!!

 

[Ash8716]

Thank you!!! Etsy is amazing I wish I knew about all this stuff earlier, I could have saved a lot of money.

 

[Ash8716]

Thought I would share our save the dates even thought this went out a long time ago. Shelley from Impressions created these for us. I wasn't too happy with the picture I ended up choosing but oh well at least it wasn't the invitation!

We also sent out a newsletter last week to our family and friends coming to the wedding. People kept asking us what was going on the weekend of the wedding and the disney website didn't seem to be working well for everyone. I took pieces from a lot of newsletters on here. Everyone is so creative. I have received a lot of compliments from people on how helpful this was.

 

[tinkerbell 766]

Ashley sweetie - I don't want to be the bringer of doom, but you do know that you are not really allowed to have your outside photographer shoot in Epcot, don't you? If Disney realize you have an outside, professional photographer and are shooting inside a park, you will run in to trouble, as outside photographers are strictly forbidden inside the theme parks!!!
I notice that your Welcome dinner is in France and you wanted to shoot around Epcot, and so your photographer would not be allowed. Just wanted to make you aware of that as I would hate for you to show up on the day of your Welcome dinner to be told that your photographer cannot shoot it for you!!!!

 

[Ash8716]

Thanks! I do realize that, we already talked to our planner about this. We told her that he is a good friend of ours and will be doing some photos there for us but without all his equipment. She said that was fine. We are counting him in our guest count and we have also made him aware of the rules so that he is careful about what he brings that night. He is going to shoot with a professional camera that many of us could easily buy. I have seen many people with these types of cameras so it shouldn't be an issue. To everyone else it should look like its our father or something taking some photos of us throughout EPCOT. But thanks for the heads up.

 

[tinkerbell 766]

That's great!!! I am glad you cleared it with your planner, I would hate for anything to go wrong for you on the actual day!!! I suspected that you probably already knew what the rules were, but wanted to be sure!!

 

[Ash8716]

Thanks!!! Hopefully my plan works but my planner has the heads up so everything should be ok

 

[tric8783]

Hi Ashley! I've been following along and love reading your plans! We are from CT also and planning our wedding in May! We are also bringing our photographer down with us! Can't wait to hear more about everything as it gets closer!!

An idea for you, we are inviting around the same amount of people, all also flying from CT. Not sure where in CT you are or what airport you are using, but JetBlue out of Hartford (or White Plains actually) you can setup a discounted group fare- if you can pick a flight at least 10 people will take, they only have to give a $50 deposit and then pay the rest 30 days before they fly. (http://jetblue.com/flying-on-jetblue/groups/leisure.asp) (I just submitted a quote for our May trip). Southwest out of Hartford also offers group discounts over 10 or more and you have to give 10% of the group total up front. Might be something to look into even if just for your families! (Southwest you have to call, they don't have an email - # 1 (800) 433-5368)

 

[Ash8716]

Hi! We are from Somers, not sure if know where that is but is up by the Massachusetts boarder. Where in CT are you from?

Thanks for the information on the air, we will be leaving from Hartford! My mom actually owns her own travel agency so she held us group space on Delta a while back. At that point jet blue hadn't come out with their air schedule for December. But we got Delta for $198 which is really good!! She held seats on the tuesday, wednesday and thursday flight for people. As long as everyone booked through this group they got there air for that price no matter how much it may be going for at the time they decide to book. I believe everyone had to put down a $25 deposit which is nice too. I was totally shocked with the amount of people we having going down, I really thought it would just be immediate family and a few friends.

Good luck with your planning, this site is amazing. There is so many things you can learn on here and ideas to get! Where is your wedding going to be?

 

[tric8783]

Hi! We are from Somers, not sure if know where that is but is up by the Massachusetts boarder. Where in CT are you from?

Thanks for the information on the air, we will be leaving from Hartford! My mom actually owns her own travel agency so she held us group space on Delta a while back. At that point jet blue hadn't come out with their air schedule for December. But we got Delta for $198 which is really good!! She held seats on the tuesday, wednesday and thursday flight for people. As long as everyone booked through this group they got there air for that price no matter how much it may be going for at the time they decide to book. I believe everyone had to put down a $25 deposit which is nice too. I was totally shocked with the amount of people we having going down, I really thought it would just be immediate family and a few friends.

Good luck with your planning, this site is amazing. There is so many things you can learn on here and ideas to get! Where is your wedding going to be?

That is amazing!! DF and I currently live in Middletown, but I grew up in Bolton Not too far! I am interested to see how many people we get too, everyone says they're excited to go at this point, but not sure if that will wear off or they'll actually come. I guess we'll see! I'm enjoying watching your plans that seem somewhat similar!! Our whole wedding is at the BW- ceremony on the Croquet Lawn and reception in the BW ballroom. We are going down in three weeks and can't wait to check everything out!! I love this site and think I would be completely in the dark about so much without it!!

 

[Ash8716]

Oh very cool, not to far from one another. Yea I am wondering the same thing. We got the hotel update sent to us recently and there aren't as many rooms booked as we thought. So it will be interesting to see if some people just said and then when actually thinking about everything won't be coming. We send out invites hopefully next week so will get better idea over the next few weeks of who really decides to come. Croquet lawn is really pretty! A site visit is exciting, have fun! You will have to share more details after you go.

 

[Ash8716]

I finally got our hotels situated for the wedding. Originally we were booked at Boardwalk for the first part of trip and then switching to the Grand Floridian from wedding night on. However, we need to try and save a little money and I am being a little bitter about staying at the Grand with the construction haha. We also had a change in our flight we were suppose to leave Tuesday morning the 29th with a direct flight. They added a connection so without penalty we were able to change our flight to November 27th. Now we will go down with my parents and aunt and uncle. We will have a little bit of relaxing time before everyone gets there Tuesday and Wednesday which is nice. We also have things that we will be able to get done while our guests are not there. We start off at the All Star Music for 2 nights because those are two added nights so wanted to make cheap, then we go to the Boardwalk with most of our guests, and finally once everyone leaves we go to Port Orleans. My mom owns a travel agency so I get travel agent rates at all these resorts so in the end I ended up saving us $2700. DF was very happy with me In the end we really don't spend much time in the hotel so I don't really care. So our schedule looks like this now:

November 27th: Arrive All Star Music, Hollywood Studios-Brown Derby @3:30

November 28th: Girls get massages at AKL and guys golf

November 29th: (Switch to Boardwalk) Most of the guests arrive mid afternoon, Mickey's Xmas party at Magic Kingdom

November 30th: Animal Kingdom, Tusker House @10

December 1st: Rehearsal AM, EPCOT Welcome party at France 7-10

December 2nd: WEDDING DAY!!!!

December 3rd: MK for Taping of Xmas parade/Hollywoods Studios

December 4th: (Most of our guests leave) Relax/Downtown Disney

December 5th: Relax/Magic Kingdom, Crystal Palace @ 6

December 6th: (Switch to Port Orleans) Magic Kingdom photos, California Grill @9:10

December 7th: Animal Kingdom AM, EPCOT PM, Garden Grill @ 5:55

December 8th: Keys to the Kingdom Tour @ 9:30, Cinderella's Castle @ 3:50

December 9th: Home


This is almost finalized. I want to add a couple more dinning reservations though. I really wanted a reservation at Narcoossees but I can't seem to get one. I am also trying to think of some others that I haven't tried yet.



Other updates: I finally found shoes for my wedding dress. This has been a long process. I have searched high and low! I didn't want a real high heel because I knew my feet would kill me after an hour and of course that is all you can find out there. I finally found shoes through sears.com. They have hundreds. The picture almost has them looking silver but they are actually white.

I also got my dress for the welcome dinner which I wasn't planning on buying because I already had a dress. I saw this and decided to just try it on and really liked it so I bought figuring if I change my mind I'll just return it. I just need shoes for it. I am also trying to find some kind of jacket or sweater for it since it could be pretty cool at night. So part of me isn't sure if I should even wear a dress???

I also ordered a little white dress from Alfred Angelo about a month ago, which I originally planned on wearing to the Welcome Party but then decided I would change into it after the wedding when we go out. Again it will probably be cool out so I don't know if that is a good idea or not. I'm also worried that we could be really tired and decide not to go out afterwards, which then means it was a waste of money. So i need to figure out what to do with these two dresses; quite the dilemma!

 

[CourtenayB]

Hi Ashley. I just started following your thread today. You really have provided us with SO much great information. My fiance and I are getting married 10-14-12 at WP & ADH. I am thrilled. Your information is very helpful to our planning. I have to say that I almost passed out when I saw the BEO....WOWZERS. We have a budget of $30,000 and I am scared we won't be able to do everything we want.

Since your BEO was a draft I was curious if that included everything? From the venues to the food to the extras? We aren't having a welcome party (great idea btw, love that, wish we could have one!) so hopefully we won't break the $30,000 budget.

I enjoy your posts and look forward to following you on this journey! Congrats on your Happily Ever After!

 

[Ash8716]

Hi Ashley. I just started following your thread today. You really have provided us with SO much great information. My fiance and I are getting married 10-14-12 at WP & ADH. I am thrilled. Your information is very helpful to our planning. I have to say that I almost passed out when I saw the BEO....WOWZERS. We have a budget of $30,000 and I am scared we won't be able to do everything we want.

Since your BEO was a draft I was curious if that included everything? From the venues to the food to the extras? We aren't having a welcome party (great idea btw, love that, wish we could have one!) so hopefully we won't break the $30,000 budget.

I enjoy your posts and look forward to following you on this journey! Congrats on your Happily Ever After!

Congratulations!!! I know the BEO seems crazy. We had a budget of 40,000 and that included the welcome party which DH's parents are paying for. We came in almost 10,000 over budget but that was because we started at the top with things and knew we could cut from there. The one I posted includes everything; venues, food, welcome party, ect. Keep in mind right away you can take off $6500 for the welcome party. We also have 85 guests going so I don't know how many you have. We are working on bringing down our dinner price and we are cutting some of the extras like the champagne toast which was about $800 for only a half glass. We decided everyone can toast with our signature drink which will be included in bar package. We are also cutting an hour from the bar. We are going to close for 1/2 between cocktail and reception while everyone filters downstairs and introductions and first dance take place. We are also closing it last 1/2 hour of the night. When I get the new BEO I will post the full details of what is included in all the prices such as what we are getting for food ect. I also chose some the more expensive flowers so your floral doesn't need to be that much. The other thing to keep in mind is that you can keep going back and fourth on your BEO until you get it to a point that you feel comfortable. If you have any specific questions with some of the stuff in our beo or on anything else let me know!