Well, nothing with this vow renewal is ever happening as planned. At least I can say that I have come full circle.
Unfortunately all the people we really wanted to be at the vow renewal had to pull out of the cruise for one reason or the other. We came to the conclusion that we were really not willing to spend the kind of money that Disney Fairy Tale Weddings charges with just the two of us present. So we decided to cancel the vow renewal but still do the cruise.
For me that subject was closed and I wanted to show Graham the dress that I had bought for the day, but he refused to see it. I did not think that I would ever want to consider a vow renewal again as too much time, effort and quite frankly heartache had gone into the aborted attempt.
At the beginning of March, Graham suddenly said that maybe we should reconsider doing our vow renewal at Crystal Cathedral at Garden Grove in California. Back in 2006, when we initially started discussing the possibility of a vow renewal, it had been our intention to do it at Crystal Cathedral. Then I attended a vow renewal on the Disney Wonder in 2008 and I completely changed my mind about my dream location.
Anyway, when Graham mentioned this, it did not really sink in. However, my subconscious mulled it over. About a week later, I decided that there was no harm done in emailing them to see what they can offer us. I have been emailing backwards and forwards with their wedding coordinator, who is an absolute star and a pleasure to deal with. I explained that we want a very simple ceremony just to reaffirm our love and commitment to each other. She asked if we would be OK to do it in the offices of one of their pastors and I am more than happy with this. I was hoping that this price for this would be $1000 or less. A week or so later, she came back to confirm that she had found a pastor for us who would be happy to perform the ceremony and they will only charge us $225 for it, which is about the same that we would pay if we did it at the registry office here in Manchester.
I have since been in touch with the Pastor and the vow renewal will take place on October 9th at 1:00 PM. It is going to be a bit hectic as we will only get off the ship that day, but I am sure it will be well worth it. For those of you who are not familiar with the venue, here is a photo of Crystal Cathedral:
Our ceremony will not take place in the church, but somewhere else on campus, but we will have the run of the grounds for photos afterwards.
I have reached out to a photographer in Garden Grove. I was searching the internet and I really love her work. We have emailed back and forth a bit and she is really nice. I am now just waiting for the confirmation that she is definitely available on that day. If you are interested in her work, her website is here:
http://www.imajenn.com
Of course, all the changes left me with rather more to organize than I had anticipated. I now have to sort out my own floral and because of the timings involved, I will go for an artificial bouquet. I am still in two minds about the colour scheme. Initially I thought I would stick with the original colour scheme of ivory, pink and purple, but at the moment I am leaning towards ivory and baby blue. I also can't make up my mind about the style. These are the two styles that I am looking at at the moment:
Jewellery is another aspect that is rapidly changing. Originally I have commissioned something very similar for the vow renewal, but without the purple:
Then I decided that this would look very lovely with one of my new evening gowns and wondered if it would be bad to wear this before the actual vow renewal. Fast forward to last weekend. The same jewellery artist posted that she is looking for 5 brides for a major advertising campaign for her wedding jewelry, including a write up in Offbeat Bride. She gave 5 different themes for this and in return for the rights to use the photos, write about this and a testimonial for the bride, she offers to make the jewellery at a heavy discount. I have opted for an ocean theme, which seems very fitting considering the tie in with a cruise. I am so excited to be part of this. I can't wait to see what she will come up with.
Next up is the wedding bands. After a lot of research, we decided to get them in Dubai after all. We booked the vacation to Dubai to sweeten the blow that we ended up cancelling the vow renewal on the Wonder. At the time when we booked this, we had planned on a nice romantic trip and promised each other that we would get new wedding bands and that was supposed to be it. How things change. We fly to Dubai in 9 days
I can't remember that my actual wedding was so much work.
Corinna
At this stage I wanted to hit my head against the wall. I hope this gets easier as we go along. I can't wait to make more arrangements.
