CherylLynn
Disney Bride 11/11/11
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2011
- Messages
- 84
The things I'm looking for with our dinner:
Taste (yummy & universally pleasing to a wide range of palates).
Look (I want it to look fancy, elegant & appealing on the plate).
Sound (this might sound lame, but when guests read our menu I want their mouths to water. 'Chicken and mashed potatoes' doesn't leave much to anticipation).
We also always knew we would do a plated dinner. I have stood in far too many long, miserable buffet lines.
Not my idea of a fun reception. Plus, they're more expensive. Buffets should never be empty, so they have to have enough food prepared to keep everything full, whether it gets eaten or not. Plus Disney serves each course on a covered dish and make a bit of fanfare removing the cover in front of the guest. It's just fancy! 
We met Christy in the Boardwalk Ballroom for our Menu Tasting. With her was Chef Charles, who did all the food & will be the head chef on Our Wedding Day. He is super nice, and a GREAT chef! He told us to give him all our feedback (no holds barred) so he could make improvements if needed. He wrote down everything we said- I liked that our opinion was so important to him.
We had a choice of 8 items, with up to 3 entrees. We had the idea that we would serve the International & Domestic Cheese Display at the Pre-Reception, and at the Reception an appetizer, Table-Plated Caesar Salad, followed by an entree. And to save a couple bucks, drop the dessert (wedding cake is more than enough sweets for our crowd). This is what we chose to taste:
(Soup) Canadian Beer Cheddar Soup
(App) Lobster Macaroni and Cheese
(App) Italian Risotto and Scallops
(App) Seared Crab Cake served on Braised Cabbage Slaw w/ Blood Orange Gastrique
(Entree) French Cut Tanglewood Farms Chicken Breast w/ Blackberry Demi accompanied by Parmesean Potatoes (Chef Mickey's recipe) and Asparagus
(Entree) Grilled Mahi Mahi topped w/ Shaved Baby Fennel Buerre Blanc accompanied by Saffron Couscous & Fresh Seasonal Vegetables
(Entree) Seared Beef Filet with Red Wine Demi served w/ Duchess Potatoes and Seasonal Vegetables
A preemptive: COME STARVING. Some people assume you get a tasting portion, and this is not the case. Each person gets a full potion of every single thing you elect to taste. Just the entrees alone are 3 full plates, not to mention all the apps & extras.
So the food started coming. First, the Crab Cake. Let me tell you-it was the best crab cake I've had in my entire life.
I mean, out of this world good. Everyone at the table loved it. Since I tasted it, I have had dreams about it. No joke.
Next, the Lobster Mac & Cheese. It was damn good. Everyone at the table thought it was the best thing ever, but I personally thought it was a tad too garlicky. And the asiago cheese was really strong. But, the lobster pieces were HUGE so that was a bonus- most places give shreds of lobster you have to hunt to find under the pasta. Not Disney. The lobster hunks were the size of sea scallops. Yum-O.
Then the Italian Risotto. Um, ew.
The risotto was bland, and the scallop had no flavor. I thought the whole truffle oil thing would be super yummy and fancy, but it was blah.
Beer Cheddar Soup. Oh good lord it was heaven in a bowl. I mean good. Next to my FMIL famous soup (we call it "The Soup"- it's to DIE FOR), it is the best soup I have ever had. Soooooo good.
The server tried to take it away and I almost stabbed her (okay not really, but I wanted to).
[By this point we were all stuffed, and we hadn't even gotten the entrees yet]
The Chicken was the first entree, and it was fantastic.
It looked elegant on the plate, and tasted great. Juicy, full of flavor, and the Blackberry Demi was the perfect balance of flavors. Unfortunately, the Parmesean Potatoes were NOT like Chef Mickey's. They had skins and were chunky. 
Color me disappointed. They're supposed to be smooth & creamy. Boo. I don't eat asparagus, but DH loves it and said it was cooked well & had great flavor. I tasted it, because I figued that if anyone could make it good, it would be Disney. Nope. IMHO there's no saving asparagross. 
Next was the fish, which I loved. It wasn't as good as the chicken, but it was good. Everyone else thought it was sub-par. DH thought it tasted like something else but couldn't put his finger on it. [A few days after we got home DH had Burger King & figured out the Mahi reminded him of the seasoning they put on the Whopper. I personally think he's nuts, but whatever.] Now let me say this: the saffron couscous was foul. It looked like giant yellow fish eggs and tasted like pee. We all wanted to spit it out. My FMIL thinks it's what ruined the fish- anything on a plate with that stuff gets ruined. The utter nastiness of it became the joke of the trip. Blech. I don't remember the veggie we got with that one. It was obviously forgettable.
The beef was just okay. It was 2 fairly dinky beef medallions. Both my Mom & FMIL had one that was a hockey puck, and one that was cooked perfect. Chef Charles explained that it's very hard to get the temp right on beef because as it's being plated up & served in the covered dish it continues to cook. Either way, it wasn't impressive at all. I think our guests would scoff at the size alone. Now the sides with this were good- but I got the wrong potatoes. Apparently I got the names mixed up
between Duchess & Dauphine. I wanted the ones that were whipped, piped & browned (kinda like the inside of a twice baked poato). I got the ones that were au gratin. Oops. The Duchess were good, I recommend them, but not what we were looking for. The carrots we got were awesome. Super yummy & pretty.
Now that we tasted everything, it came time to make decisions. Of course, a great deal of our decision is based upon cost. We can't afford a 2-meat duet plate, so I thought maybe we could get the crab cake in an entree size (the app is 3 small ones)and serve it with the chicken. Chef Charles told me that the way they would plate it as a duet would cause it to break and fall apart. So we nixed that. Since the cheddar soup & lobster mac are so similar (and the soup not as strong as the mac) we decided to go with the crab cake for an app, the soup instead of a salad, and the chicken with dauphine potatoes. We couldn't decide if we wanted the carrots or asparagross, so Chef Charles said we could have both. Yay! Now we have a pretty, elegant, colorful plate.
Once decided, of COURSE my next question was cost. I got a whole lot of nothing. It really bugged me that I couldn't get a straight answer on how much everything would cost. The only # I got was that she thought it was $75 for the chicken with soup or salad, app, entree, sides & dessert. But she wasn't sure. And she was well aware long before we went to the MT the fact that we aren't going to serve dessert, so do you think she got a list of how much the price would be lowered by ahead of time? Nope.
As I mentioned in Part A, isn't this the damn point of the PS? To PLAN? One of the biggest part of planning is BUDGET. Apparently they assume every Disney Bride has a bottomless pocketbook. Praise my FMIL's cut-through-the-crap-attitude; she let them know our displeasure so I wouldn't have to be the *****. I also had a discrepancy with the menus. At one point during our prelim planning I was given a 'Boardwalk exclusive' menu and told I could use that to make our menu (from someone who's been working there 15 years- I think they know the rules). Half the items I chose from that menu. And for a hell of a lot cheaper than the wedding menus. So when I asked about the costs of certain items I was told I was not allowed to use those menus. Um, excuse me? Then why was I given those menus in the first place? So if I order chicken off one menu it costs me one price, but if I order the same exact meal off another menu it's signifigantly higher? That makes no sense at all! What a racket. 
It p*ssed me off but I tried not to reveal it. Bickering wouldn't solve anything.
Besides that, it was a lovely MT. The food was EPIC, and we were very pleased with the entirety of the experience. Christy said she would check on the price of what our meal would be at different courses (the price of soup, app & entree, just soup & entree, or just app & entree).
After all that we left, wishing we had wheelchairs to roll us out to our cars.
We were FULL. Then we discussed how to make this cost effective. We finally decided that there was really no need to serve the cheese display at the cocktail hour. That $1250 could be better used somewhere else, like a better meal at the reception. I'd much rather a guest enjoy a bowl of the beer cheddar soup than a couple of cheese slices.
Then we walked over to the Croquet Lawn. And that's when we saw the aforementioned dead grass. It looked awful.
I seriously thought I would cry. DH suggested that maybe they resod it before an event. Really? So we have uneven grass squares all over? Mom suggested that maybe they color the grass to make it look green (my old neighborhood used to do that to make it pretty during winter). But then would the dye come off on the bottom of my dress? After going over it for awhile we came to a group consensus- we HAD to cut the Guest List to 80 so we could fit at Sea Breeze Point. We had already chopped it from 160 to 125. 
That's alot of friends & family that will miss out. But it would save so much money. Food, alcohol, chairs, table linens, centerpieces, etc.
Sidebar: I have to point out that it was abround 100 degrees that day. I have lived in Florida my entire life and swear it has not been as painfully hot as it has been the last couple years. It was hot back in the day, but not the point where it's hard to breathe (like it is now). If you are from up north, do NOT book a summer wedding in Florida. Hell, if you're from anywhere do not book a summer wedding in Florida. It's miserable. Beautiful, but miserable. Stick to Spring or Fall. Even winter is only about a month & a half long. Summer lasts for about 5 months here.
Even without the heat we realized it was an awful lot of walking for our guests. From the Resort entrance to CL, all the way to the other side of the property to SBP, then all the way over to the Promenade Ballroom. It's not bad for the younger folk, but for our older family members it might not happen. And there's 1 or 2 that walking that far would not happen at all. We toyed with the idea of getting wheelchairs, but there's no guarantee they'd be available. At this point we're thinking we may have to cut out the CL altogether & just have the CH at our back up spot- St James Hall & Patio (in the same building as the PB).
Since we were a hot mess, we all decided to brave rush hour and head home. [For those of you that don't know: during rush hour in Orlando, I-4 & all roads downtown// near downtown are a parking lot for about 3 hours. 6-9am & 4-7pm.]
While we didn't get the definitive answers on prices that we were looking for, we were happy that some decisions had been made. We also know how lucky we are to have done everything in person. I feel for the girls who do everything by phone & don't see anything in person til their Wedding Day. All in all, it was a great experience.
I know I had a few gripes, I just wanted other people on a budget to be aware of the good & bad so they aren't jumping in blind. Plus it's nice to vent from time to time. 
Now we wait for the BOE........
Taste (yummy & universally pleasing to a wide range of palates).
Look (I want it to look fancy, elegant & appealing on the plate).
Sound (this might sound lame, but when guests read our menu I want their mouths to water. 'Chicken and mashed potatoes' doesn't leave much to anticipation).
We also always knew we would do a plated dinner. I have stood in far too many long, miserable buffet lines.
Not my idea of a fun reception. Plus, they're more expensive. Buffets should never be empty, so they have to have enough food prepared to keep everything full, whether it gets eaten or not. Plus Disney serves each course on a covered dish and make a bit of fanfare removing the cover in front of the guest. It's just fancy! We met Christy in the Boardwalk Ballroom for our Menu Tasting. With her was Chef Charles, who did all the food & will be the head chef on Our Wedding Day. He is super nice, and a GREAT chef! He told us to give him all our feedback (no holds barred) so he could make improvements if needed. He wrote down everything we said- I liked that our opinion was so important to him.
We had a choice of 8 items, with up to 3 entrees. We had the idea that we would serve the International & Domestic Cheese Display at the Pre-Reception, and at the Reception an appetizer, Table-Plated Caesar Salad, followed by an entree. And to save a couple bucks, drop the dessert (wedding cake is more than enough sweets for our crowd). This is what we chose to taste:
(Soup) Canadian Beer Cheddar Soup
(App) Lobster Macaroni and Cheese
(App) Italian Risotto and Scallops
(App) Seared Crab Cake served on Braised Cabbage Slaw w/ Blood Orange Gastrique
(Entree) French Cut Tanglewood Farms Chicken Breast w/ Blackberry Demi accompanied by Parmesean Potatoes (Chef Mickey's recipe) and Asparagus
(Entree) Grilled Mahi Mahi topped w/ Shaved Baby Fennel Buerre Blanc accompanied by Saffron Couscous & Fresh Seasonal Vegetables
(Entree) Seared Beef Filet with Red Wine Demi served w/ Duchess Potatoes and Seasonal Vegetables
A preemptive: COME STARVING. Some people assume you get a tasting portion, and this is not the case. Each person gets a full potion of every single thing you elect to taste. Just the entrees alone are 3 full plates, not to mention all the apps & extras.
So the food started coming. First, the Crab Cake. Let me tell you-it was the best crab cake I've had in my entire life.
I mean, out of this world good. Everyone at the table loved it. Since I tasted it, I have had dreams about it. No joke.Next, the Lobster Mac & Cheese. It was damn good. Everyone at the table thought it was the best thing ever, but I personally thought it was a tad too garlicky. And the asiago cheese was really strong. But, the lobster pieces were HUGE so that was a bonus- most places give shreds of lobster you have to hunt to find under the pasta. Not Disney. The lobster hunks were the size of sea scallops. Yum-O.
Then the Italian Risotto. Um, ew.
The risotto was bland, and the scallop had no flavor. I thought the whole truffle oil thing would be super yummy and fancy, but it was blah.Beer Cheddar Soup. Oh good lord it was heaven in a bowl. I mean good. Next to my FMIL famous soup (we call it "The Soup"- it's to DIE FOR), it is the best soup I have ever had. Soooooo good.
The server tried to take it away and I almost stabbed her (okay not really, but I wanted to).[By this point we were all stuffed, and we hadn't even gotten the entrees yet]
The Chicken was the first entree, and it was fantastic.
It looked elegant on the plate, and tasted great. Juicy, full of flavor, and the Blackberry Demi was the perfect balance of flavors. Unfortunately, the Parmesean Potatoes were NOT like Chef Mickey's. They had skins and were chunky. Color me disappointed. They're supposed to be smooth & creamy. Boo. I don't eat asparagus, but DH loves it and said it was cooked well & had great flavor. I tasted it, because I figued that if anyone could make it good, it would be Disney. Nope. IMHO there's no saving asparagross. Next was the fish, which I loved. It wasn't as good as the chicken, but it was good. Everyone else thought it was sub-par. DH thought it tasted like something else but couldn't put his finger on it. [A few days after we got home DH had Burger King & figured out the Mahi reminded him of the seasoning they put on the Whopper. I personally think he's nuts, but whatever.] Now let me say this: the saffron couscous was foul. It looked like giant yellow fish eggs and tasted like pee.
We all wanted to spit it out. My FMIL thinks it's what ruined the fish- anything on a plate with that stuff gets ruined. The utter nastiness of it became the joke of the trip. Blech. I don't remember the veggie we got with that one. It was obviously forgettable.The beef was just okay. It was 2 fairly dinky beef medallions. Both my Mom & FMIL had one that was a hockey puck, and one that was cooked perfect. Chef Charles explained that it's very hard to get the temp right on beef because as it's being plated up & served in the covered dish it continues to cook. Either way, it wasn't impressive at all. I think our guests would scoff at the size alone. Now the sides with this were good- but I got the wrong potatoes. Apparently I got the names mixed up
between Duchess & Dauphine. I wanted the ones that were whipped, piped & browned (kinda like the inside of a twice baked poato). I got the ones that were au gratin. Oops. The Duchess were good, I recommend them, but not what we were looking for. The carrots we got were awesome. Super yummy & pretty.Now that we tasted everything, it came time to make decisions. Of course, a great deal of our decision is based upon cost. We can't afford a 2-meat duet plate, so I thought maybe we could get the crab cake in an entree size (the app is 3 small ones)and serve it with the chicken. Chef Charles told me that the way they would plate it as a duet would cause it to break and fall apart. So we nixed that. Since the cheddar soup & lobster mac are so similar (and the soup not as strong as the mac) we decided to go with the crab cake for an app, the soup instead of a salad, and the chicken with dauphine potatoes. We couldn't decide if we wanted the carrots or asparagross, so Chef Charles said we could have both. Yay! Now we have a pretty, elegant, colorful plate.
Once decided, of COURSE my next question was cost. I got a whole lot of nothing. It really bugged me that I couldn't get a straight answer on how much everything would cost. The only # I got was that she thought it was $75 for the chicken with soup or salad, app, entree, sides & dessert. But she wasn't sure. And she was well aware long before we went to the MT the fact that we aren't going to serve dessert, so do you think she got a list of how much the price would be lowered by ahead of time? Nope.
As I mentioned in Part A, isn't this the damn point of the PS? To PLAN? One of the biggest part of planning is BUDGET. Apparently they assume every Disney Bride has a bottomless pocketbook. Praise my FMIL's cut-through-the-crap-attitude; she let them know our displeasure so I wouldn't have to be the *****. I also had a discrepancy with the menus. At one point during our prelim planning I was given a 'Boardwalk exclusive' menu and told I could use that to make our menu (from someone who's been working there 15 years- I think they know the rules). Half the items I chose from that menu. And for a hell of a lot cheaper than the wedding menus. So when I asked about the costs of certain items I was told I was not allowed to use those menus. Um, excuse me? Then why was I given those menus in the first place? So if I order chicken off one menu it costs me one price, but if I order the same exact meal off another menu it's signifigantly higher? That makes no sense at all! What a racket. It p*ssed me off but I tried not to reveal it. Bickering wouldn't solve anything. Besides that, it was a lovely MT. The food was EPIC, and we were very pleased with the entirety of the experience. Christy said she would check on the price of what our meal would be at different courses (the price of soup, app & entree, just soup & entree, or just app & entree).
After all that we left, wishing we had wheelchairs to roll us out to our cars.
We were FULL. Then we discussed how to make this cost effective. We finally decided that there was really no need to serve the cheese display at the cocktail hour. That $1250 could be better used somewhere else, like a better meal at the reception. I'd much rather a guest enjoy a bowl of the beer cheddar soup than a couple of cheese slices.Then we walked over to the Croquet Lawn. And that's when we saw the aforementioned dead grass. It looked awful.
I seriously thought I would cry. DH suggested that maybe they resod it before an event. Really? So we have uneven grass squares all over? Mom suggested that maybe they color the grass to make it look green (my old neighborhood used to do that to make it pretty during winter). But then would the dye come off on the bottom of my dress? After going over it for awhile we came to a group consensus- we HAD to cut the Guest List to 80 so we could fit at Sea Breeze Point. We had already chopped it from 160 to 125. That's alot of friends & family that will miss out. But it would save so much money. Food, alcohol, chairs, table linens, centerpieces, etc.Sidebar: I have to point out that it was abround 100 degrees that day. I have lived in Florida my entire life and swear it has not been as painfully hot as it has been the last couple years. It was hot back in the day, but not the point where it's hard to breathe (like it is now). If you are from up north, do NOT book a summer wedding in Florida. Hell, if you're from anywhere do not book a summer wedding in Florida. It's miserable. Beautiful, but miserable. Stick to Spring or Fall. Even winter is only about a month & a half long. Summer lasts for about 5 months here.
Even without the heat we realized it was an awful lot of walking for our guests. From the Resort entrance to CL, all the way to the other side of the property to SBP, then all the way over to the Promenade Ballroom. It's not bad for the younger folk, but for our older family members it might not happen. And there's 1 or 2 that walking that far would not happen at all. We toyed with the idea of getting wheelchairs, but there's no guarantee they'd be available. At this point we're thinking we may have to cut out the CL altogether & just have the CH at our back up spot- St James Hall & Patio (in the same building as the PB).
Since we were a hot mess, we all decided to brave rush hour and head home. [For those of you that don't know: during rush hour in Orlando, I-4 & all roads downtown// near downtown are a parking lot for about 3 hours. 6-9am & 4-7pm.]
While we didn't get the definitive answers on prices that we were looking for, we were happy that some decisions had been made. We also know how lucky we are to have done everything in person. I feel for the girls who do everything by phone & don't see anything in person til their Wedding Day. All in all, it was a great experience.
I know I had a few gripes, I just wanted other people on a budget to be aware of the good & bad so they aren't jumping in blind. Plus it's nice to vent from time to time. Now we wait for the BOE........
I can't believe how much he's grown up. sometimes he'll crawl into bed and beg me to lay down and cuddle him 
, but then he hops on the bus and goes to school looking like a little man. I'm so proud of him, but so sad he's growing so quickly!
![Invitation_Mat_Perfetto_Product[1].gif](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cardsandpockets.com%2FProductImages%2Fmats%2FInvitation_Mat_Perfetto_Product%5B1%5D.gif&hash=45480dc7c820aebad0524b65ebf97781)
and getting the invitations together. They've been sent out a lot later than we wanted, but luckily most people already had all the info so these are just the (pretty) formalities. I don't have time to post much, I PROMISE I will sit down this weekend and post all the stuff that's happened recently, as well as catch up on all my friend's PJ (Danielle, Deena, Jennifer, etc....) Send me some pixie dust to help me get all this stuff DONE!!!!!!!!!!!
