Bec & Chris - Wishes Wedding 03/01/11 WP/WHR/SCP - Some extra pics and **COMPLETE**

[BecBennett]

Thanks everyone.

No I out right asked her what dress she bought We get on pretty well, and with all the coincidences popping up I think she was quite happy to tell me the name of her dress.

She has said that she's bough Maggie Sottero's Ellen. So it's not my dress, and also nothing like my dress - yes of course I checked!

I don't care that much about the invites, it was just a flare of annoyance when I saw them, I'm just going to change how ours are sealed, because ours was going to have the gold ribbon going around it, and there's has a blue ribbon, so I'm going to find something else to change the outside appearance a little. Maybe get something like a wax seal, or something cool. At least now I know what I'm competing with!

Ok, here's a comparison:

Ours (this was only a mock up I did ages ago, I'm doing the proper ones now and they're a lot more "polished")

And here's FBIL & FSIL's

 

[Chilly]

your right they are pretty similar but I think a lot of people hardly take any notice of invites so they probably won't realise.

 

[ChocoKat]

Aaaah! How could that be? The same envelopes?
What are the odds?

Freaky coincidence, well at least your dress is different, otherwise I'd start suspecting espionage!

I can see how you would be frustrated. But your colors and style seem different enough apart from the envelope, so I think you are good on that account, can't wait to see your new version!

I am glad you got all your papers/CD, etc back! Feels like everything is real now, doesn't it?

 

[brer rabbit 28]

I see your point with the similarities. I agree that a few alterations will make them more different though.

 

[pezaddict231]

Wow the invite is really similar, but it's really only the pocket. I would be annoyed though, but I agree that most guests probably won't notice. I really like your ribbon closure and don't think it's similar to theirs, yours is more like a belly band while theirs looks like they just threw some ribbon on there.

Very glad to hear she does not have the same dress or a similar dress, and btw I looked it up too and I like yours way better!

 

[Chilly]

btw I looked it up too and I like yours way better!

way better!!!

 

[Jules~Marie]

Hey, just joining in. I've read your pj over the past few days, and I'm starting to get freaked out! You have so much planned out and booked, it's amazing! I wish I could be that organized! I love all of your plans so far, looking forward to reading more.

 

[shippedtosea]

i agree! yours is way better! hahaha. I think your invites while it is the same layout are different and people might not associate them with each other (because I am also told people throw them out anyway!) so if they don't have both of them they probably won't notice! but I see why you got upset. Careful with the seal it will raise the price for postage. i found that out when i did mine. you could get those pretty stickers made with your initials or something?

 

[BecBennett]

I think I'm going to try and find a wax seal for our invites, and find some form of Disney stamp that I can imprint in it. Does anyone know where I can get either a D stamp (As in the Disney D) or a castle stamp?

I'm going to go craft shop shopping this weekend and hopefully find something I'm after.

Finally heard back from Rev Jack. He sent us stuff by snail mail instead of email, so it's understandable it took so long. Now we've got to decide on our wording and send it all back in.

Then all I really need to worry about is getting our rings done, and everything else will be icing!

I like thinking about it that way, we've organised our flights to WDW, our accomm, our locations, my dress, my hair and makeup, our photographer and shortly our officiant too, so once the rings are organised then really, nothing else matters all that much!

Of course I need to organise food and flowers and stuff, but the wedding will go ahead without them. I suppose I also need to organise our licence, but that can wait until it's closer.

 

[Sccrmnky2005]

I love that dress you picked out!!

 

[mareeld86]

Hi bec Just a question how did you book did you ring or did you ask for a brochure and someone got in contaCT with you??
PS did you get you BEO yet??
Thanks Lauren

 

[erin.w]

Just following along! I have to follow those getting married around the same time as us to make sure I'm moving at the correct pace. hehe


BTW: I think the card from your FSIL invite about the gift is kinda, um tacky. That is if I read it correctly!

 

[BecBennett]

Just following along! I have to follow those getting married around the same time as us to make sure I'm moving at the correct pace. hehe


BTW: I think the card from your FSIL invite about the gift is kinda, um tacky. That is if I read it correctly!

Me too, then I get freaked out when I think I'm so far behind!!

Those gift cards are really quite common here, I added one to our engagement party invite. I tried to get my parents and DF's parents to just pass the word around but both said "Why don't you just put an insert with your invites?" To be honest I don't think I've received a wedding invite without one. To be honest the only reason I'm not adding one this time is because we're already asking our guests to travel half way around the world...

I love that dress you picked out!!

Thanks, now I've just got to wait until the end of November to get it!!

 

[BecBennett]

So I did 2 things today, I posted back the reservation for Rev. Jack Day. I think we're going to go with his "second most requested" civil ceremony. I don't have the wording in front of me, but I'll type it up when I next get the chance.

Has anyone dealt with Rev. Jack by email? Or do you have to speak to him on the phone?

I also left my engagement ring at the jewellers so I can get a quote done for the wedding ring. I hope they don't have it for long, I miss it already, and I have even put on another ring to try and soften the blow

I'm also hoping this means they wont need my ring when they actually make the wedder. I'm not holding my breath, but here's hoping.

We also decided what ring DF will be going with. We looked on the weekend and decided which style he wanted (just a plain, slightly rounded gold band) and all the places we looked were around $300-$350, which I thought was really good, however as I was going to our preferred jeweller today, I thought I'd check with them too, and they have the exact same ring for $155!! Bargain!! We're not completely sure whether he wants a 4mm ring, or a 5mm ring, so we just need to decide that and we can buy it!

 

[BecBennett]

I put in some estimated prices for things I don't know the price of yet, like floral, food and drinks, and it turns out we're about $10,000 over budget

So now I'm trying to work out where to cut. I might skip on the floral centre pieces, and have candles instead, and I think I'm going back to the idea of rose wands for my bridesmaids. I actually like them, but I know my bridesmaids aren't too impressed with them.

I got some tuille out of my linen cupboard (I think it's a bed mosquito net ) and some candles and created a little centre piece on my coffee table, then I did some photo shopping to try and create a mock up. Here's what I came up with.

It would be a circle of pale gold tuille clouded a little, with 3 different size candle stick holders in the middle of it. I don't want the pattern on the candle stick holders.

I got the idea from this picture:

Which I like better then my picture, but I wanted to see what it would look like with the "clouding"

I love flowers, but they don't seem to be in my budget I spoke to DF about other cost cutting ideas, like having a lunch reception, but he wants a night time one, so back to the drawing board.

I'm going to consider just extending our reception for an hour and watching the fireworks from the WHR patio, but I really want photos of us with fireworks in the back ground, and I'm not sure how good they look from the WHR. So I'm looking into that at the moment.


I ordered our wedding rings, so in two weeks time I should have my engagement ring back!

 

[Petals & Pixie Dust]

here is what I learned about the whole floral experience when I talked to Rosie. They have a fire code that they have to adhere to...So, depending on what venue you have and how many candles you use determines what you can use for candles-if that makes any sense...For example, I'm using clusters of 3 votives on the table around my centerpiece...They have to be clustered...b/c apparently in the fire service world clusters of 3 equals 1 candle and you can only have 3 lit candles on the table in the venue we are having...does this make sense...of course not..but fire code is fire code and they won't bend on it...
Now, I don't know (or think) that you'll have problems with this but wanted to give you a heads up...I love the idea and think it's very pretty...I just don't want you to get stuck...

 

[pezaddict231]

The centerpiece idea is really pretty, but I agree to definitely check with Disney to make sure they will allow that first. Their fire rules are very strange sometimes. We are allowed to have 4 real votives per table, but I was not allowed to have enclosed candles on my centerpieces. What we had planned to have were basically like giant votives so I'm not sure if it was because of the flowers or what, but it was really disappointing.

We were way over budget too and I had to cut a lot of things. My DF also insisted on an evening reception with sit down dinner, so I had to get a little creative with my cuts. We cut some pre-reception offerings, took out the appetizer and sorbet since I think they'll be plenty of food anyway. We also modified the DP menu and took out a few things there. We decided to do BOC instead of a package bar - we'll see if that turns out to be a good idea soon . Did a 2 tier cake for show and a sheet cake to make up the difference. So it's definitely do-able and I don't think your guests will notice.

I know you can definitely see the fireworks from WHR, but not sure how the view is for pictures. Are you having a DJ? If you are, you'll also have to pay him a fee if you extend the reception. For the extra hour we had to pay $650 for the room and DJ, so depending on your guestcount, it may actually be cheaper to do SCP and you'd get the pictures you wanted.

Have you thought about using an outside florist? I know it's not for everyone, but saved a ton on personal floral that way and the centerpieces cost a lot less than what Disney was quoting us. My BM bouquets cost $55 as opposed to $125 from Disney.

 

[ChocoKat]

DH did a pre-liminary budget way back, he really went way over the top with the prices expecting the Disney mark-up which was great because it gave me an idea of what to plan for.

I didn't start building incredible decor ideas for everything to later have to tear them down piece by piece. I went to the library and checked out several books about wedding floral decoration, some for brides, some for florists, and educated myself about flowers by season and price, I was shocked to find out a lot of the flowers I, for some bizarre reason, thought were going to be affordable, actually were quite expensive and difficult to get during our season.

Slowly I found alternatives that I loved, three types of centerpieces on 3 different price tiers and started gathering all that info, I scanned pages from the books then checked them back in at the library, way cheaper than buying 10+ highly specialized books I will never use again anyhow.

We too are having a small exhibition cake, then a sheet cake for serving since we will have a dp anyway and it is just for show, no need to go crazy and have tiers upon tiers of fondant that people probably won't even finish.

We will have a very basic DP menu because we want to use it for having coffee/hot cocoa/tea and watch fireworks and just end the night with our favorite firework show, our guests will probably be stuffed by then anyhow and we don't want to waste a bunch of food.

We won't decorate the WP much, one of the reason why we picked it was because it doesn't require much work, maybe an altar arrangement that can be transferred to the sweetheart table, if we have extra on the budget some petals down the side of the aisle, but I am not expecting to use a lot of the budget there.

For the open bar we will go completely open for the pre-reception and first hour of the reception, then BOC for a couple of hours and then shut it down. We have requested to have plenty of lemonade, sweet tea and water at each table, we have a lot of drinkers, but also teetotalers and people that are right down the middle so it made sense that way, still we might change that later.

We made a list of definite *must haves* then *Would like to haves* and finally a *Flights of fancy*. We will be giving these lists along with our budget to our planner during our session so they can help figure things out.

 

[BecBennett]

here is what I learned about the whole floral experience when I talked to Rosie. They have a fire code that they have to adhere to...So, depending on what venue you have and how many candles you use determines what you can use for candles-if that makes any sense...For example, I'm using clusters of 3 votives on the table around my centerpiece...They have to be clustered...b/c apparently in the fire service world clusters of 3 equals 1 candle and you can only have 3 lit candles on the table in the venue we are having...does this make sense...of course not..but fire code is fire code and they won't bend on it...
Now, I don't know (or think) that you'll have problems with this but wanted to give you a heads up...I love the idea and think it's very pretty...I just don't want you to get stuck...

Yeah, I figure I'll only need three candles on each table. The bridal table may need a little more thought because we're having a long table with us and our bridal party instead of a sweetheart table, but we might just have a round table like all our other wedding guests, to fix that problem.

The centerpiece idea is really pretty, but I agree to definitely check with Disney to make sure they will allow that first. Their fire rules are very strange sometimes. We are allowed to have 4 real votives per table, but I was not allowed to have enclosed candles on my centerpieces. What we had planned to have were basically like giant votives so I'm not sure if it was because of the flowers or what, but it was really disappointing.

We were way over budget too and I had to cut a lot of things. My DF also insisted on an evening reception with sit down dinner, so I had to get a little creative with my cuts. We cut some pre-reception offerings, took out the appetizer and sorbet since I think they'll be plenty of food anyway. We also modified the DP menu and took out a few things there. We decided to do BOC instead of a package bar - we'll see if that turns out to be a good idea soon . Did a 2 tier cake for show and a sheet cake to make up the difference. So it's definitely do-able and I don't think your guests will notice.

I know you can definitely see the fireworks from WHR, but not sure how the view is for pictures. Are you having a DJ? If you are, you'll also have to pay him a fee if you extend the reception. For the extra hour we had to pay $650 for the room and DJ, so depending on your guestcount, it may actually be cheaper to do SCP and you'd get the pictures you wanted.

Have you thought about using an outside florist? I know it's not for everyone, but saved a ton on personal floral that way and the centerpieces cost a lot less than what Disney was quoting us. My BM bouquets cost $55 as opposed to $125 from Disney.

We're probably not going to have any food available for our pre-reception, mainly because we probably wont have time for a pre-reception if we go to SGP for the DP.

We're not having a DJ, and if we stay at WHR instead of going to SCP we would have the pre-reception, so technically we wouldn't be extending the room, I think... The reception would just start an hour later because of the Pre-reception so it would go into Wishes time.

Now I'm confused

We really need to go with DFTW for our floral, because we're hoping to stay as close to the minimums as possible, and we're already going with Misty instead of DPS.

DH did a pre-liminary budget way back, he really went way over the top with the prices expecting the Disney mark-up which was great because it gave me an idea of what to plan for.

I didn't start building incredible decor ideas for everything to later have to tear them down piece by piece. I went to the library and checked out several books about wedding floral decoration, some for brides, some for florists, and educated myself about flowers by season and price, I was shocked to find out a lot of the flowers I, for some bizarre reason, thought were going to be affordable, actually were quite expensive and difficult to get during our season.

Slowly I found alternatives that I loved, three types of centerpieces on 3 different price tiers and started gathering all that info, I scanned pages from the books then checked them back in at the library, way cheaper than buying 10+ highly specialized books I will never use again anyhow.

We too are having a small exhibition cake, then a sheet cake for serving since we will have a dp anyway and it is just for show, no need to go crazy and have tiers upon tiers of fondant that people probably won't even finish.

We will have a very basic DP menu because we want to use it for having coffee/hot cocoa/tea and watch fireworks and just end the night with our favorite firework show, our guests will probably be stuffed by then anyhow and we don't want to waste a bunch of food.

We won't decorate the WP much, one of the reason why we picked it was because it doesn't require much work, maybe an altar arrangement that can be transferred to the sweetheart table, if we have extra on the budget some petals down the side of the aisle, but I am not expecting to use a lot of the budget there.

For the open bar we will go completely open for the pre-reception and first hour of the reception, then BOC for a couple of hours and then shut it down. We have requested to have plenty of lemonade, sweet tea and water at each table, we have a lot of drinkers, but also teetotalers and people that are right down the middle so it made sense that way, still we might change that later.

We made a list of definite *must haves* then *Would like to haves* and finally a *Flights of fancy*. We will be giving these lists along with our budget to our planner during our session so they can help figure things out.

We're probably not going to decorate the WP at all but it is so pretty, so hopefully that will be ok. Even as I say this though, visions of podiums filled with flowers and draped with crystals lining both sides of the aisle keep filling my head

I'm hoping carnations are still the cheap flower, because I'm planning on using them to beef out the bouquets

Does anyone know the price difference between doing real flowers and silk flowers? I wanted silk so I could bring it home, but I've heard its actually more expensive.

 

[ChocoKat]

Carnations can be a very cheap yet chic flower if arranged properly in clusters for short centerpieces along with the candles. You do need a lot of volume with carnation centerpieces to look full, but they are very affordable and can look very nice for the fraction of the cost of some flowers.

I would google some arrangements and send them to your planner ahead of your floral appt so the floral dept can start getting an idea of what you want.

I have no idea if silks are cheaper or fresh.

And the pavilion is beautiful with no decoration at all, plus from what I understand it just got a new coat of paint and some refurbishment done.
The GF ballrooms got new carpeting, and I really like the change, very happy with it, can't wait to see all the enhancements in person.