Danielle & Chris: 11-11-11 WP/ADH/DP Wedding PJ/TR - Complete *(1 Year Anniversary)

[Mindyjoy]

Thank you so much for sharing your BEO.

 

[lilsqueakrr]

The menu sounds delicious! It's crazy as to how expensive flowers are. I'm dreading going to the florist. =[

 

[MissManners]

Just stopping in the say your engagement pics are gorgeous! I love your head band!!!

 

[NoOrdinaryPrincess]

If don't mind me asking, what arebthe minimums for your date?

 

[elleinad16]

$100 for dropping one orchid, WOW! I love that you are having Mickey-Roni & Cheese on your dinner plates everything sounds sooooo nice!

Haha--I know! That is very steep for an orchid.
I can't go without the mickey-roni! It's so yummy.

Everything looks so wonderful Twinnie!!!!

Now that you have some numbers to work with I bet it is becoming more and more real as these last 5 months tick down!!! Ahh!! 5 MONTHS!!!

Amber, I'm almost hyperventilating (in a good way, though)...5 MONTHS?! Are you kidding me? I remember we were just talking about a year away. It is becoming more REAL now!

Thank you so much for sharing your BEO.

You're welcome!

The menu sounds delicious! It's crazy as to how expensive flowers are. I'm dreading going to the florist. =[

They are crazy, crazy, m'dear! Good luck when you go to the florist!

Just stopping in the say your engagement pics are gorgeous! I love your head band!!!

Aww, thank you so much!

If don't mind me asking, what arebthe minimums for your date?

No problem! The minimum expenditure we have to meet with Disney (for our special numerical wedding date), is $30,000.

 

[elleinad16]

I've been slacking the past couple of weeks but...My Disney Store officially closed Wednesday, June 15th. It was a sad day for my whole cast and our guests. We spent the next two days (NOT enough time, thanks mall...) to dismantle our whole store. It was a weird feeling. But, I ended up applying to a couple positions elsewhere in the company, so we'll see if anything good comes out of it!

So, we have 139 days until we leave for the wedding! And I've been busy checking things off the list.
I think I'm just going to take it easy the next couple of months from the job hunting and use this time to do wedding things. I'm planning on going home in July/August to address our wedding invites, which should be almost ready now! Then my Pennsylvania MOH is throwing my 1st shower! I'm SO excited! She's surprising us with the details, so we don't know the theme yet, but I'm pretty sure it's something Disney. But we're planning on having it in our local park which has nice pavilions you can rent for the day:

My Massachusetts MOH is trying to figure out details for our 2nd shower. We're trying to find a similar pavilion-y location up here, but it's hard, because we're not too familiar with the area. We ended up driving an hour north of here to Salisbury Beach the other day to see if they had any pavilions. Neither of us had been to this beach--it was BEAUTIFUL. Probably one of the best MA beaches I've seen:

And then we found this nice area, but we don't think it's the same pavilion we read about:

It has a great view, but lacks benches and a protective roof. So we're thinking we might move the shower down to Cape Cod where Chris' family has a lake house.

Other than that, a couple more of my friends booked their flights and rooms! And almost all the boys have gotten measured for the tuxes! And me, my parents, grandparents, and brother & niece are all booking our hotel accommodations tonight, so I'm very excited!

I wanted to end this post by saying, even though I haven't commented a lot the past couple of weeks, I've still been reading everyone's posts, so I just wanted to send some love and hugs to all my Disbrides that have hit some rough patches and had unexpected accidents happen. Love you all!

 

[librarygeek]

That pavilion looks like a lovely place for a bridal shower! And I'm sure Cape Cod will be awesome for the other one. It seems like it will be a lot of fun

 

[NoOrdinaryPrincess]

I love your plans so very much.

 

[KristiLyn]

OoOh that pavillion is awesome! Especially for a bridal shower!! Cape Cod will be great too!

 

[CherylLynn]

Reading your floral breakdown just sent waves of excitement through me! Our weddings are SO CLOSE now! But WOW, what a help. I have also thought about using carnation pomanders as part of our centerpieces, so knowing the price ahead of time is a huge help. It's definitely reasonable, therefore, doable!

Your shower venues are beautiful! We'd like to do ours in a similiar location (living on the coast of FL definitely gives us a ridiculous amount of places to choose from) but the weather here is so crazy with hurricanes, rain, humidity, etc, we will prob just do it at someone's house. I'm glad I get to live vicariously through you for the beautiful outdoor party!

Cheryl

 

[elleinad16]

That pavilion looks like a lovely place for a bridal shower! And I'm sure Cape Cod will be awesome for the other one. It seems like it will be a lot of fun

Thanks! I'm getting so excited! Lots of fun to be had by everyone!

I love your plans so very much.

Thank you so much!

OoOh that pavillion is awesome! Especially for a bridal shower!! Cape Cod will be great too!

Thanks, Kristi! It's all gonna work out great.

Reading your floral breakdown just sent waves of excitement through me! Our weddings are SO CLOSE now! But WOW, what a help. I have also thought about using carnation pomanders as part of our centerpieces, so knowing the price ahead of time is a huge help. It's definitely reasonable, therefore, doable!

Your shower venues are beautiful! We'd like to do ours in a similiar location (living on the coast of FL definitely gives us a ridiculous amount of places to choose from) but the weather here is so crazy with hurricanes, rain, humidity, etc, we will prob just do it at someone's house. I'm glad I get to live vicariously through you for the beautiful outdoor party!

Cheryl

Hi, Cheryl sweetie!
I know! We're just 4 months and some change out now! It's really crazy, actually...Time is going so fast. I'm sure you will find a great shower venue, as well. Hope all your planning is coming along swell!

 

[elleinad16]

Ok, RANT TIME.

Can I just say, I love my parents because they are my parents and I appreciate everything they do for me...but my mother is PSYCHO. I live far away from her for a reason. I can not handle being with her for prolonged periods of time. Anyways, so we are having all of this room block / room discount trouble and (of course, as I'm typing this...she called me again...anyhow...) She's freaking out because I guess all the rooms at Caribbean Beach have already been booked with the discount and now anyone else that goes to book will have to pay for the full price. She's been on the phone with Disney multiple times today, switching our room block info, yet again! (Note this is the 4th time we've revised the contract...) I'm just getting sick of it. Back when we started this I could not even predict how many people could possibly come to the wedding, sure I'll admit I under estimated rooms, but I also didn't think that 80+ people would be coming!

Now I just dunno what to do. We switched 15 room nights from AKL over to Caribbean Beach so our newest up-to-date room block looks like this:

Disney's Grand Floridian Resort
11/10/2011 Thursday 4
11/11/2011 Friday 4
11/12/2011 Saturday 4

Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge
11/09/2011 Wednesday 2
11/10/2011 Thursday 2
11/11/2011 Friday 2
11/12/2011 Saturday 2

Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort
11/09/2011 Wednesday 4
11/10/2011 Thursday 7
11/11/2011 Friday 7
11/12/2011 Saturday 5

Disney's All Star Movies Resort
11/09/2011 Wednesday 2
11/10/2011 Thursday 7
11/11/2011 Friday 7
11/12/2011 Saturday 2

(Uhhh, and as I'm typing here DFTW called...) But even with the higher room block space added to Caribbean Beach, leaves nothing left for more guests because we've already gotten 7 reservations at CB! Did that even make any sense? I'm loosing my mind!

What do you all think? Should we add a crazy amount of room nights (granted if there is room)? Like 15 rooms each night at CB and 10 rooms each at ASMo? (Leaving GF and AKL as is...) I just don't wanna get stuck with unbooked rooms, even though Meredith from DFTW assures me we can take them back out again if they are not booked. Ughhhhhhh!

Frustrating. And my mother does not help.

(Cue another call from mother...)

 

[DoomBuggy0922]

Gah!!!!! That does sound stressful--- I'm sorry! (Hey, you should heckle them into giving you some more free room nights, amiright?!)

I think you should just add extra rooms--- as long as they can GUARANTEE that you will be able to remove them if they do not get filled. It sounds like the easiest, most stress-free answer. Good luck! <3

 

[LuvLuvLuv]

I would add the extra nights, but have them email you something stating you can for sure take off any extra. I imagine it would be difficult to know what everyone's plans are when you start something like this so early!

 

[elleinad16]

So, yesterday has blown over in my mind, but just to give you an idea...I was on the phone with my mother and Disney and my mother...and my mother for 7 hours, gross.

Anyways, we decided to add some more rooms to our roomblock (this will be determined by Monday if Caribbean Beach even has any rooms left to block out...) but the way I'm viewing it now is, 'whoever gets a discount, gets a discount...everyone else will just have to deal'.

The good news was that's been the only real rough-patch in planning so far...I'm just hoping I don't have to deal with anymore drama in the upcoming months.

 

[CherylLynn]

Yikes.... this room block thing is my biggest stressor as well. It's driving me CRAZY
We're booking 3 hotels- Boardwalk, Pop Century, and either Carribean Beach or Coronado Springs (they told me I could only have 3 hotels, not 4)! Knowing you have CB for the same weekend, I'm thinking I should do Coronado. So, question. Are you having problems with CB because the hotel is almost all the way booked? If it is, then it would def not be a good idea to use that in my contract as well. Also, I was told that as long as there are rooms available in the hotel, you should still get as many as you need at the discounted price whether they are reserved in the contract or not. It seems like that's not what is happening with you. So now I'm uber confused.
Seriously, this hotel room crap is driving me batty. I feel your pain.
I'm sending good juju your way so that you may get through dealing with the hotels, and mostly, your mom. :

Cheryl

 

[elleinad16]

Yikes.... this room block thing is my biggest stressor as well. It's driving me CRAZY
We're booking 3 hotels- Boardwalk, Pop Century, and either Carribean Beach or Coronado Springs (they told me I could only have 3 hotels, not 4)! Knowing you have CB for the same weekend, I'm thinking I should do Coronado. So, question. Are you having problems with CB because the hotel is almost all the way booked? If it is, then it would def not be a good idea to use that in my contract as well. Also, I was told that as long as there are rooms available in the hotel, you should still get as many as you need at the discounted price whether they are reserved in the contract or not. It seems like that's not what is happening with you. So now I'm uber confused.
Seriously, this hotel room crap is driving me batty. I feel your pain.
I'm sending good juju your way so that you may get through dealing with the hotels, and mostly, your mom. :

Cheryl

Hi Cheryl!
Yes, the room block is very chaotic. I originally had 3 hotels...but at our planning session, FMIL was very adamant about adding a 4th (none of the other hotels would do ) so...that's that, but I honestly feel like I'm going to end up scrapping Animal Kingdom Lodge because I don't know many people that are going to stay there now.
Also, what you said was correct...if there are still rooms available you should still get a discount. Well, I don't know if it's just because that weekend is full of so many weddings, or because my guests booked extra long stays, that Caribbean Beach was no longer offering discounts to any of my recent guests that tried to book. Coronado Springs is a lovely hotel as well, though! I'm sure your guests will love it. However, I do know of at least 1 to 2 more brides that have that location on their room block as well. If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to ask!

 

[xxliz28xx]

As Danielle knows, I'm one of those brides with CSR booked! We also have the GF and AS Movies booked between 11/8 and 11/16. We're not sold out yet but I'm hoping it doesn't come to the point where I can't add any more rooms! On the other hand, I feel as though my guests should have booked sooner!

 

[Bickimook2]

I totally agree with the mom thing, haha, my mother is insane as well! As far as the room block goes, I have heard horror from Dis brides about being charged for extra rooms, so make sure that you get it in writing that you will not be charged, but on the other side that is awesome that your attendance is so high, everyone must be super excited to come to your amazing wedding, I can't wait to see pics!

 

[elleinad16]

As Danielle knows, I'm one of those brides with CSR booked! We also have the GF and AS Movies booked between 11/8 and 11/16. We're not sold out yet but I'm hoping it doesn't come to the point where I can't add any more rooms! On the other hand, I feel as though my guests should have booked sooner!

Yes, that's exactly how I feel!!!!