Bex and Rick's May 2017 Wishes PJ - Mini Trip Report!

[beckyx3]

Hi All!

Our wedding is pretty much right around the corner! I've tried my hand at trip reports multiple times, but I never get too far. I've found myself with some extra time on my hands over the next month so let's give it a try!

Our DFTW experience has been quite unique so hopefully I'll be able to help another bride out if they find themselves in a similar situation. I can't wait to discuss plans and relive our planning session. It was a great time!

So without further ado!

Ma chère mademoiselle. It is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now, we invite to relax, let us pull up a chair, as the dining room proudly presents...our planning journal!

Table of Contents
Once Upon a Time
The Important Information
Disney: The How and the Why​

 

[beckyx3]

Once Upon a Time

So who are WE exactly?

That's us!

I'm Bex. The bride. I love all things Disney and Marvel. I've jumped on the Star Wars train, but I'm a bigger Marvel fan. I grew up going to the theme parks and I'm pretty sure I missed my calling to be a princess in real life, but that's something I have to take up with Rick.

And that's him! He's the groom to this bride. He's a huge parks fan, not into the Marvel and the Star Wars, but loves all things Disney parks and history. When in the parks, he's usually touching things and looking over construction walls.

Our story begins at the beginning. All the way back in 2015. We decided to take a trip with a group of our friends (to see the first couple days of that trip check out my trip report in my signature). On the second day we all had dinner reservations at Coral Reef. We had such a great time and a great meal. After dinner, we went over to watch IllumiNations. We grabbed a spot between Canada and the UK (my favorite pavilion) and hung out until the show began. While watching, Ricky kept grabbing out his phone (to check the time of the finale) and putting his hand over his pocket. At just the right time, our friends started backing away and Ricky got down on one knee and proposed. It was the most perfect thing ever! After it was over we all group hugged like the cheeseballs that we are and we called our parents and I texted my sisters and some of our friends that weren't there. We then went on our way and enjoyed some EMH at Epcot and the single rider line at Test Track. It was the greatest night of my life. The whole night is up on my unfinished Trip Report.

Here are some pictures:

This is the picture I posted on Facebook the next day.

Here we are with our friends who were there to celebrate. Luckily they'll all be there in May, too! More on that later.

And this is just a fun little collage from that trip!

So that's us and our story! Stick around and I'll get more into the planning side of things. See ya real soon!​

 

[beckyx3]

The Important Information

So now that you know a little bit about us, let's get into a few of the important details.

We are having a Wishes wedding in May. It'll be about 60 people. The ceremony will be at 12 at Sea Breeze Point.

Following the ceremony we will head over to The Living Seas Salon.

There will be a few hours in-between and then we will be hosting our friends and family for an IllumiNations dessert party where we will be celebrating at Mexico Vista.

I don't have a picture from Mexico Vista, so here's a picture OF Mexico Vista!

But wait, you may be asking yourself, you said you only have about 60 guests coming and Mexico Vista is supposed to be set up for wayyy more than that?? Well there's a story about that. It involves stress, frustration, and what I believe is Disney trying to make up for a bit of a situation they put us in. But that story will come in due time. I have to get through all the basics first.​

 

[beckyx3]

Disney: The How and the Why

Deciding on Disney is kind of an interesting story. After we got engaged Ricky said we should get married in Disney, but I laughed it off. He was nuts. Disney was probably crazy expensive and my extended family is HUGE and I'm close to so many of my cousins that it just couldn't work. Couple that with the fear that no one would come because it's an expensive undertaking and people would not be happy with the prospect.

Boy was I wrong.

The idea really started when I was talking with my oldest sister. She was trying to convince me it was the way to go. So one day while I was at work I looked into the pricing. It didn't seem too crazy. I started looking at Pinterest and there were so many pretty pictures. I really started to get excited about it and I sat down with Rick and said what if we really did try? He was thrilled and nervous all at once. Now all I had to do was convince my parents. Conveniently I had to pick them up at the airport that weekend from a nice relaxing vacation. Why not corner them in the car where they couldn't escape?

My mom liked it a lot more than my dad in the beginning. She was skeptical about the price but I told her all about the information I found. We grew up going to Disney and my mom loves the attention to detail so she knew they would do things perfectly. My dad thought it was a phase. He says he did the Disney thing and he's over it. Over the next few weeks my mom started crunching numbers and she started to believe it was reasonable as well. Eventually she convinced my dad and now he's all about it.

The next thing we had to worry about was Rick's parents. His step-mom really wanted us to look into options at home. I guess the big thing is that people don't really understand that you won't be eating chicken nuggets and french fries while sitting outside of the Magic Kingdom. So we decided that we would check out things here, but we also made an appointment with DFTW for our upcoming trip in January/February 2016 where we were going on a cruise and getting engagement pictures done in Epcot. They squeezed us right in!​

 

[beckyx3]

The Site Visit Mini Trip Report - Jan/Feb 2016

I'm going to dust off my trip report writing skillz. This is going to be both TR and site visit. So hopefully ya'll like TRs as much as I do! If not...well, sorry!

Before we went to Disney in 2015, which in my DVA was known as "The Gang Goes to Disney" (the wedding trip is now known on Snapchat as "The Gang Does Disney" any It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia fans out there?), Rick and I booked a Disney cruise. I have to tell you, I have absolutely no idea what caused us to do this. Up until that point he had never been on a cruise before and it's not like they were having a big sale or anything, but we booked it and decided to bookend it with stays in WDW. It could potentially be because we were doing a bit of a long distance thing at the time, but tbh I really don't know! So when we got to the gate on the first day in 2015 we upgraded our packages to APs with the thought that we'd only have them for a year (LOL) so we should make the most of them.

My last day at work before vacation came. I printed out all of the materials I could find from the DFTW website, which is annoyingly a lot and nothing all at the same time. My mom sent me a checklist of things to ask at the meeting and I was off!

We had a later afternoon/early evening flight out of Philly which is super unusual for us. We leave really early in the morning for Disney trips and hit the ground running.

From what I remember the flight was uneventful. I started a book by Bill Bryson called I'm a Stranger Here Myself. I was IN LOVE with it. I never got the chance to finish it though and I got another one of his books for Christmas that year. Life's been pretty busy, my reading has suffered tremendously.

We landed at MCO and instead of heading for the ME, we went to the rental car desk. Another first for us!

We were hoping that this would be a quick process. Not correct. We waited. And waited. And waited. It seemed like our plans of hitting the Magic Kingdom was slipping between our fingers. We had plans of hitting the *new* Jungle Cruise Skipper Canteen since this was when they were doing walkups. Until finally, we were called! We got a Chevy Equinox which was super nice. And then we headed out!

We navigated the roads and made our way to the MK parking lot and headed on to the monorail.

Hooray! A picture!

We decided to forgo Skipper Canteen until later in the trip and I hit the Emporium to buy myself some ears since I was seriously lacking.

We wandered around the Magic Kingdom. Just happy to be there. And we watched Wishes from Fantasyland.

Why so serious, Rick??

Better!

After the fireworks we stopped to buy a balloon and we headed out to the car and decided to make our way to our home away from home, Pop Century! I always say hey let's try a moderate next trip, but we usually end up at POP. The buses are fantastic, the food court is good, and we almost always get our requested room.

We plopped into bed and passed out. We had an early day the next morning.

We woke up bright and early and got dressed in our finest. This was the day we decided to have our engagement pictures taken.

I loved the idea of the pictures, but I really hate most pictures I'm in so I was a little skeptical.

We brought a change of clothes and left them in the car at the Beach Club (my all time favorite resort) and walked over to International Gateway. We met with the photographer, his name was Jake and he was from Ohio, probably around our age. He was super great. His assistant was nice as well, really chatty which helped to stop the awkwardness.

The morning was freezing. We walked through World Showcase and made our way to Italy. Ricky loved the whole thing. There were people out power washing the walkways and cleaning and getting ready for the day. He would've stopped and just watched them all morning.

Our shoot took place in Italy, Morocco, and the UK. Some of the pictures I was really disappointed in. Some looked like they tried to photoshop makeup on me. I'm not a makeup wearer, I felt like I looked like a clown. But there were some really good pictures that came out of it and it was quite the experience so I'd give it an overall thumbs up.

This one is my favorite that came from the shoot. I LOVE the UK pavilion (I'm a complete anglophile) and I just think it's so cute.

After the shoot we headed out to the car to get changed and then head to Hollywood Studios for the afternoon. On our way out we saw another couple who was getting ready to have a photoshoot. They had a balloon and we had a balloon. They asked us about the experience and they were super nice.

Changed and ready to go, we walked over to the Yacht Club boat stop to hitch a ride. It was a little warmer than it had been, but there was still a chill in the air. I started to realize this was not my favorite time of year to be in Disney.

Our time in Studios consisted of meeting some galactic friends and getting the Studios Starbucks mug.

We met Vader too, it was back before he was replaced by Kylo Ren, but I can't find those pictures so you'll just have to trust me that it happened.

We probably headed back to POP for a nap and then we went to Ohana for dinner.

It's our favorite meal. So much so that during our wedding trip we will be there 3 separate times. Once for breakfast and twice for dinner.

After Ohana we headed back to the Studios for the old, but new to us, Star Wars fireworks and then I think we called it a night!

The next morning we packed up our things, left the balloon with a note hoping that some family would be able to have it, and then made our way down to the car.

It was cruise day!

First we stopped at the outlets because we wanted to hit the Disney parks outlet, one of the reasons we rented the car. There I got a Hocus Pocus Spelltacular shirt, a few tsum tsums for my nephew, and some awesome Poly/Adventureland plates, all for a great price. We hit another outlet store or two and then we were on our way to the port.

I know it's not a lot of wedding stuff just yet, but since I have so much time on my hands I figured I'd give the info. Next up I'll give a quick cruise recap and then we'll be on to our site visit. I hope you'll stick around!​

 

[MeghanEmily]

Just found your PJ and started following along! I'm anxious to hear what happened with your Mexico dessert party thing. We're planning an Escape wedding for August, so I'm satisfying my Disney fever reading all kinds of Dis threads! Looking forward to your next update.

 

[beckyx3]

Just found your PJ and started following along! I'm anxious to hear what happened with your Mexico dessert party thing. We're planning an Escape wedding for August, so I'm satisfying my Disney fever reading all kinds of Dis threads! Looking forward to your next update.

Thanks for dropping by! Mexico was quite the interesting story. It really spun from some other crazy things that happened with DFTW. I truly believe they were trying to bend over backwards to help us. I'll have to keep updating so you aren't stuck waiting to hear the story!

 

[beckyx3]

Real Wedding Update!

I was on Spring Break last week and we got some more things done. We mailed out our application for our marriage license and head to Starbucks. Since we're about a month out, we had a phone meeting with our planner, Christy. It started out with some BIG news!

Unfortunately, it turns out Rev. Tim isn't able to officiate our ceremony anymore!

My first thought was "Is he okay?? Is he going to be alright??" Our wedding was on the back burner. I just hope he gets well soon. So it turns out our new officiant is Rev Kev! I've heard a lot of really great things about him so I'm pretty excited. Although Tim was our number one choice, the turn of events isn't earth shattering.

After Christy said Rev Kev would be reaching out, she asked us about some things that we haven't done yet. Including music and all that good stuff. We're really good at this planning thing

The conversation was great. Our rehearsal is set, our final payment is made, and we still have a TON of things to do! Come back again for another update and I'll see ya real soon!​

 

[MeghanEmily]

Oooh exciting stuff!! I'm sorry to hear about your officiant trouble (and I hope Tim is ok!!) but I think RevKev is probably going to be a great second choice. We have him booked for our August wedding and he was our first choice. We haven't had that much contact with him yet since it's still so far away, but he's been good about getting back to us quickly and seems kind and professional and friendly.

 

[beckyx3]

Oooh exciting stuff!! I'm sorry to hear about your officiant trouble (and I hope Tim is ok!!) but I think RevKev is probably going to be a great second choice. We have him booked for our August wedding and he was our first choice. We haven't had that much contact with him yet since it's still so far away, but he's been good about getting back to us quickly and seems kind and professional and friendly.

It seems like he's doing well! It wasn't a big deal to us, but we really hoped that it wasn't something serious!

 

[beckyx3]

The Site Visit Mini Trip Report - Jan/Feb 2016 Pt. 2: The Dream

I didn't bring my good camera on this trip. I wanted to focus on the ship itself since it was our first Disney Cruise. So I literally have no pictures. I'll skim through the cruise stuff.

Let's see! When we last left off we were getting ready to head out on our cruise. We had rented a car and decided to take a quick pit stop at one of the Disney outlets. We picked up some awesome Adventureland/Polynesian plates, some tsum tsums for my nephew. And I got an awesome Hocus Pocus Villains Spelltacular shirt since it had opened at the Halloween Party that fall.

We headed to the port. Dropped the car off and got a shuttle to the Dream!

It was incredible. The ship was beautiful. In Nassau we got off the ship and took a walk over to John Watlings Rum Distillery. If you have the opportunity, I totally suggest going to see it. It's this beautiful old house where they make rum. They have a really cool tasting room and a nice porch you can relax on and have a nice cocktail.

After the rum distillery we headed back towards the ship. I made Ricky go to Señor Frogs because I feel like you have to do that once in your life. He was not amused. So we headed back to the ship and took a ride on the AquaDuck.

During our down time we talked about the questions we wanted to ask the planner. I had printed out all of these papers thinking we'd pour over every word, it turns out we barely looked at them.

On Castaway we did the 5K. I hate running but I'll partake in the occasional race. This was brutal though. It was so hot and humid. I was over it before it began. I won't do the race on the Honeymoon. He might, but I'm going to sleep and eat breakfast and mosey on to the beach. Castaway was beautiful. It was relaxing and I was exhausted from running so I took a nap.

The At Sea day was spent exploring the ship and completing some of the onboard activities. Then it was over! It was a whirlwind and such a blast.

Next we head back to property for our meeting with Disney's Fairytale Weddings! The good stuff is coming up! ​

 

[beckyx3]

The Site Visit Mini Trip Report - Jan/Feb 2016 - Pt. 3: The Site Visit

So we were back on property and it was finally time to visit the different sites! We went to Franck's and met Stacey. She was awesome! We already knew that we wanted our ceremony at Sea Breeze Point, but we've seen it and told Stacey we could skip that.

Our first stop was Ariel's. Luckily, they were setting up a wedding and we were able to see some of the different wheels in motion. We spoke with the DJ and he was telling us how great Disney is to work with. He told us we'd have a great time. I loved Ariel's. It was bright, themed, and cocktail hour would have been in a lounge space which I loved. The dance floor was small but an afternoon wedding may not get too crazy. Ariel's was officially my first choice.

Next was the Living Seas. Going backstage was awesome. You don't realize how close everything is until you're driving around the back. Stacey was telling us all of the different information we'd need to know. We walked through the park and she let us in to the Seas. When we got up there, there was a scuba coordinator. He was talking to the divers over a walkie talkie while they were in the tank feeding the fish. It was so cool. He even called them over to come and wave to us! He told us this was a great place for a reception and we could even hire him to come and talk to people!

After the tour we got back to Franck's and said goodbye to Stacey. We had so much to talk about. We headed over to the Magic Kingdom all abuzz.

In the end, we decided on Ariel's and Sea Breeze Point! It would be a bright, airy wedding and we were so excited!​