Dan and Meg's escape wedding - 9.29.2011 at SBP/Raglan Road **2 weeks and counting!**

[MeganAJ]

I have been going back and forth about starting a planning journal and now we are only 105 days away from getting married, so I thought it's now or never!

So many decisions have been made already, so it seems little silly, but I got so many ideas and help from everyone else's PJ, I figured why not?

About us:

Dan works as a railroad engineer and I work in the horse industry, managing a stable and teaching horseback riding lessons. We both have pretty unique careers and they are definitely time consuming.

We met my senior year of college in '06, right before my graduation, but at the time I was dating someone else. I remember thinking that night that Dan was something special and a year later when we were both single, we hung out again on a whim and it turned out I was right. We've been together ever since!

Engagement story

July 10th 2010, Dan says to me, "Let's go out tonight and let's go to the pub we first met at!" That right there should have clued me in because we live about 40 minutes away from there now and hadn't been in a couple of years at least.

On the ride there I started to get suspicious he might propose. He was acting a little stressed out, which is not typical Dan, and we had chatted a little about what I liked for rings a few weeks prior, but I didn't think it would happen so fast...

We got to the pub, ordered a couple magic hats and scored one of the private enclosed booths at the back of the pub away from the bar crowd. It was actually almost totally empty in that area, which was nice because I hate to be the center of attention.

I won't go into too many details, but he pulled out a gorgeous ring and proposed and of course, I said yes!

 

[MeganAJ]

And now I'm at 10 posts and can add pictures! yay!

Here's us:

And the ring!

Sorry this picture is awful, I'll try and get another one of it.

And our puppydog, because we think she's just so cute...

Why a Disney wedding?

I mentioned earlier that I don't love being the center of attention and am actually not one of those girls that have dreamed about my wedding and planned out all the details.

When Dan and I thought about what we wanted, we originally were thinking we'd like to have a small wedding at our house. We just purchased our dream house in January after six months of delays and heartbreak and it's a beautiful 1900 farm house on a nice chunk of land in the country.

But then reality set in. Our house needs a ton of work. Both of us have extremely time consuming jobs. When would we fit in planning and organizing a wedding? With a new house, the finances are tight. And most importantly, when we started making our list of who we would invite to our little intimate country wedding, between family, friends, co-workers and clients we were pushing 180 easily.

So I said, what about a destination wedding? Dan was on board. We thought about Myrtle Beach (my sisters live there). We thought about a tropical island somewhere. Then Dan threw out, what about Disney?

I automatically assumed it was out of our budget and dismissed the idea, but found myself in front of the computer a few days later stalking everything I could find about Disney weddings and just about fell out of my chair when I realized we could have one!

We floated the idea past Dan's mom and brothers and my parents and sisters and everyone was on board, so it was decided!

September 29th 2011, 5:00 ceremony at Sea Breeze Point
Dinner afterwards at Raglan Road
15 guests - my parents, Dan's mom, his two brothers and their girlfriends, my two sisters, their husbands and kids.

I can't wait!

 

[KristiLyn]

Your wedding is very close to mine!! 4 days after!
Congrats and welcome!!! Can't wait to hear more of your plans!!

 

[FlamingoAllie]

Congrats! We stumbled upon our Disney wedding almost the same way! Welcome! I can't wait to hear more of your plans! LOVE your ring...so pretty. And what a cute dog. So precious.

 

[MeganAJ]

Thank you! and yay for September weddings! My only regret so far with this decision is my dog can't be in the wedding.

I feel a little silly. I wasn't big on weddings before getting engaged and I didn't even know you could have a Disney wedding, but now I'm so beyond excited for it!

On to the dress...

After we got engaged, I immediately headed to the wedding magazines and started pouring over dresses. I also started a full on obsession with Say Yes to the Dress. I looked at magazines for months, but after being engaged for nearly 11 months, I still had not gone to a store and tried on a single dress.

I think I was nervous I wouldn't find anything I liked. There were lots of gorgeous dresses in the magazine, but nothing stood out to me as being "it." I knew I didn't want a big train or a bunch of poof, but other than that, no idea what I wanted.

Finally in May a friend of mine started freaking out at me that if I didn't get a dress soon I'd be getting married in jeans. So we headed to Alfred Angelo with a couple other of my close friends.

As it turns out, they were having a sale. Who doesn't love a sale? So we started at the sales rack and pulled about six dresses. First one was too heavy, second one too much train. Third one was it and I knew it when we zipped it up.

Simple, fitted, enough detail and sparkle, no hazard of tripping. And it was on sale. And it fit so perfectly, no alterations neaded. I tried on a couple more after that one, just to be sure, but that third dress was definitely THE ONE.

Without further ado, here's my dress! Sorry, no pics of me in it yet...

 

[KristiLyn]

Gorgeous dress!!!!

 

[MeganAJ]

Gorgeous dress!!!!

Thank you!!

 

[MeganAJ]

Help! I need shoe advice!

I have picked the orange calla lily boquet and we're going with orange and a little blue for our colors...

I love the idea of my shoes having a little pop of color, I think that looked super cute in the photos I saw with colored shoes. I really wanted a cute orange shoe to go with my flowers, but as it turns out, finding cute orange shoes is a little more difficult than I thought it would be.

I also wanted flats or really tiny heels and to keep comfortable. I didn't want anything too crazy or too much pattern to it, since with my dress they'd be so visible, I didn't want them to distract from the dress.

So these are the two options I'm considering, give me your opinions please!!

Option 1: Orange, which is what I originally wanted...

Option 2: Blue, which I also like and I think would complement my flowers well. More of the style I wanted, but not my original color pick...

Option 3:
Neither, keep looking?

I never expected it would be harder to pick shoes than a dress...

 

[princesswendy720]

Could you get the dyeable shoes to match your colors? There are several brands and you can order online

 

[DoomBuggy0922]

Oohh, just popping in! Everything sounds great so far! I've actually admired that dress on the AA page a few time--- I love it!

And I do actually like those orange shoes, and I think you should keep up your quest--- I agree, what about dying them?

Can't wait to read more!

 

[MeganAJ]

We are 94 days away from getting married!!! I can't believe how quickly this is going!

Dan and I have been working on getting in shape for the big day. We've been doing the Dukan Diet for about 6 or 7 weeks. It seemed like a bit of a "fad" diet to me, but it's actually been going really well. I only had a little to go down and I pretty much hit my number in a few weeks. Dan wanted to lose 30ish pounds and he's already dropped 20!

Shoes...well...I ended up ordering both the ones from Zappos, figuring if I don't like them, I'll send them back. They just came in, but I haven't had a chance to try them on with the dress yet. I think I'll probably keep looking too, because, really, you can never have too many shoes.

Other updates...

I have a phone appointment set up with Rosie from Disney Events for the 4th of July. I have a crazy schedule and was really unavailable and I can't believe she offered to do the call on the 4th! So nice of her!

We picked our cake...elegant scrolls style with marble cake and the chocolate mousse filling. I really wanted raspberry mousse filling, but Dan was leaning towards the chocolate. I figured it was his wedding too and went with his pick.

Hair and makeup is booked with Beaute Speciale! Veronica set it all up with me through email and made it very easy. Now I just need to come up with some photo inspiration for what I want to do with my hair!

 

[MeganAJ]

I can't believe we are only three months away! This is going so quickly!

My parents and my sisters and their families have all booked their travel and rooms. I'm really excited to get to share this with them. It will be the first time to Disney for two of my nieces and my nephew!

They will stay at Port Orleans Riverside, which is where we're staying as well. I'm really excited to stay there. We were originally hoping we could stay at the Contemporary or the Boardwalk, but the financial side of it just wasn't working. Everything I've read about Riverside sounds great though. I've only ever stayed at the Carribean Beach before, and that was fifteen years ago. Dan's side of the family is still working out travel/hotel details, which makes me a little nervous since we're getting close...

My Dad's 70th birthday is on one of the days we're down there. It's actually on the last day both my sisters will be there. I was thinking it would be nice for us all to do a breakfast before they hit the road, to celebrate his birthday... Any recommendations about where we should go?

We've decided on Rev. Jack Day for our ceremony. I read a bunch of reviews on here and people seemed pleased with him. So far he's been great. I'm working on writing the ceremony. He sent a bunch of examples and I liked parts of two of them, so I'm going to combine them a bit.

I'm thinking no sand or unity candle ceremony. Will that make the ceremony really short?

 

[MeganAJ]

2 months away now!

Haven't gotten much done this past month, I've been travelling for work a bunch.

I still don't have shoes... We're hopefully going to make it to the mall this weekend and I can hit up some stores. Fingers crossed I find something great!

 

[MeganAJ]

Shoe success! Finally!

So I ended up not going with anything orange or blue, like I originally wanted, but I think these work so well with the dress and most importantly, they are comfortable!

So excited!

I also have my jewelry situation worked out, I got an adorable necklace and earrings by Ralph Lauren that I love!

We still need to go shopping for a suit for Dan. He's been on a health kick and lost over 30lbs, so he's been delaying shopping as long as possible, in case of more weight loss.

Does anyone not follow the "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" rule? I don't have anything old, borrowed or blue and I'm not really planning to, but I don't want to start our wedding with bad luck... what to do? Somebody tell me I'm not cursing our marriage to doom if I don't find something blue to wear...

 

[MeganAJ]

I can't believe we are two weeks away! It's gone so fast and I definitely don't have cold feet, but I am freaking out a little that there must be something I've forgotten to do!

Dan got his suit finally and I'm pretty sure all we have left is to finish up the welcome bags and PACK! I didn't go over the top on the welcome bags, just a few essentials and fun stuff for the kids, but there are a few more items I'd like to grab if I have time.

Any advice on staying calm these last few weeks? I am crazy excited to get down to Florida.