DisneyDeeFL's planning journal: 12/16/07 WP and ADH

[DisneyDeeFL]

So I’ve been a lurker/occasional poster on here for a while now, and thought it’s about time I shared some of my planning ideas with everyone, since I’ve found so many great ideas on here! Guess I should start with a bit of background info:

DF (Jeremy) and I (Dee) met almost 5 years ago in college. From here on out I shall refer to DF as “Jerm” since that’s what I usually call him I was the much cooler and sophisticated sophomore, and he was a lowly freshman We met through a mutual friend, and started dating two months later.

Fast forward to September ‘06: Jerm took me on a surprise road trip to WDW (under the impression that we were going to celebrate his birthday ...). Next thing I know, we are pulling into the Grand Floridian (the first and only time I’ve ever stayed at a deluxe resort), eating an awesome dinner at Narcoose’s...and before I knew it, he proposed on the balcony of our room! He then admitted that this would be our only night at the GF, since we’d have to downgrade to Pop Century the next night.... The whole night was very surreal, I couldn't stop smiling!

The next day we talked about how cool it would be to get married at Disney, never thinking that we would actually end up seriously looking into one. But, here we are, less than 4 months away from our dream wedding. It’s been lots of fun planning, yet stressful too. Then I realized that within the past few months, I got my master’s degree, moved back to my hometown, Jerm started his teaching career, I found my first “big girl” job, we bought our first house, and have been wedding planning whenever I have a chance. Aahhh...makes me want to take a nap!

Here’s what we’ve booked so far:

Ceremony: December 16, 2007 @ the WP, 2:30pm
Reception: Atlantic Dance Hall
Wedding Planner: Carol Mikles (LOVE her)
Officiant: Ron Rosenzweig (haven’t met him yet, but have heard great things about him from Carol)
Photographer: Randy Chapman, we met him in February, and he was SO personable! I am verrrry excited that we got him
Videography: Apex Media Productions -video was one area that we didn’t want to “splurge” on, so we found this company who had some affordable packages, and apparently they’ve done lots of Disney weddings
Hair/Makeup: Beauty Speciale
Wedding colors: chocolate brown, light blue, and ivory
Wedding party: Matron of honor (my sister), bridesmaid (my best friend), 2 "jr. bridesmaids" (my 7 and 8-year-old nieces), and 2 flower girls (my 3 and 4-year-old nieces). On the groom's side, there's the best man (Jerm's best friend), and three groomsmen. All of the guys have been friends since HS...i think it's so cool they've kept in touch even though they all went to different colleges.

So, those are the basics. We invited about 150 people, and are expecting around 100. We chose 3 hotels for the room block: All-Star Movies, Port Orleans French Quarter (we New Orleans), and the Boardwalk. So far everyone seems to be booking ASM, which is great, because it will be fun for everyone to be near each other (not to mention, it won’t cost them tons of $$$ since the rates in December are pretty low when you factor in the wedding discount). We chose to stay at the BW on our wedding night and the night after. Then, we’re flying off to Las Vegas for our honeymoon.

Ok people, time for some pics!! Some of them are ginormous, i don't know how to make them smaller, sorry!

At Narcoose's before we got engaged..does he look a little bit pale??!

at POFQ on our most recent trip to Disney for our planning session

Here’s a this-doesn't-do-it-justice pic of my ring...it’s a platinum pave setting with a princess cut diamond

Our invitations (our actual invites just got delivered the other day, but I don’t have a pic of them yet...)

Atlantic Dance Hall across the water

the bouquets I showed to Rose during the planning session...mine should be some sort of combo of these two (mostly like the first one, minus the ivy and adding some calla lilies like in the second one)

flower girl dress

flower girl baskets

aaaand my DRESS!! since i don't have an actual pic of me in it yet, the best i can offer is the link. it's from david's bridal and the main pic of it is shown in white, but i actually got it in ivory with a champagne sash. If you click on the "alternate view" that shows the back, you can see what it looks like in the ivory.
http://davidsbridal.com/bridal_gowns_detail.jsp?stid=2978&prodgroup=127

So, that's the majority of things I have planned so far. I have some more pics to share, but since it's now almost 1:30am, it's time to call it a night! And if you made it through to the end of this post, congrats, and thanks for reading!

 

[Florida Bride]

Hey there!

Sounds like you've been busy! You sound super organised! Looking forward to reading more!

Lisa xx

 

[Glorydaz]

hi Dee,

well, congrats on ALL the things you've accomplished in the last year AND planning a wedding - whew, that's alot of work!!! and I hear you about the stress! everything looks wonderful and I'm thinking if I'm lucky, I may get a glimpse of you on your wedding day as we will be arriving at the Boardwalk on the 16th! looking forward to reading more....

Michelle

 

[poohface]

Everything looks fantastic so far, you have done such a great job at planning everything, wtg

We are getting married in the WP 2 days after you.

Can't wait to hear more from your pj.

 

[Tabetha]

Your dress is beautiful! Sounds like you've had a very eventful year, and what better way to top it off!

 

[DisneyDeeFL]

Thanks everyone for your responses so far. Man, i don't know what I'd do if I never found this board. People are so helpful and pretty much all of my ideas and inspirations and recommendations for outside vendors came from somewhere on here!

I have a few more pics to add...

Here are the bridesmaid dresses, although ours will be in chocolate brown with a creamy/sandy colored sash under the bust. I really wanted a light blue sash, but this particular dress style didn't have that shade of blue as a sash option (and it was the one dress that both my sister and my best friend liked the most and felt most comfortable in). I think they'll coordinate well with the sash on my dress. We're still waiting on those to arrive, they should be here in a few weeks

I am really proud of our guest book! Since getting my dress at David's bridal, i keep getting all these promotional emails, which i usually delete, but then one came in from shutterfly saying that you can get a free 20 pg. photobook, and all you have to pay is shippping. The offer expired a few weeks after i got the email, so i got an idea I could use the photobook as a guestbook, put some pics of me and jerm, our families, the bridal party, Disney pics, etc....and guests can sign on whatever page they want. Then we'll have a nice little keepsake for the coffee table....so i got to work, spending hours on that thing, but in the end it turned out awesome! And I only paid about $7-8 for shipping! Here's a pic of one of the pages:

I also made these candles a while ago...there was a big sale at the craft store so i loaded up on plain votives and ribbon. i think i made 36 of them, and we're going to spread them out on tables at the reception. The only thing I didn't think of was to test how long the candles last (will they burn the entire length of the reception??) I totally didn't think about that until our planning session when Carol brought it up. So sometime today, I'm going to sacrifice a candle to be the tester. I'll let you know how long it goes!!

Up next....planning session details, menu, and cake!

 

[mcarthur205]

Wow, everything looks great - I love your colours and your dress is beautiful! Looking forward to hearing more

 

[hmgolden]

Wow! Everything looks great. I especially love your dress, and the photo book you made for your guest book. Great idea!

 

[jasonandlisa]

Congratulations!! Love your engagement night photo--you're such a cute couple! Your invitations are very pretty, and your guest book is great, very creative!

Looking forward to hearing more...

 

[lpizzuro123]

I just love your Guestbook. What a wonderful idea. A friend of mine and her husband just got back from a 2-week cruise and they made a 12 x 12 photo book through Shutterfly and it came out great. This is a great way for your friends to check out your vacation pictures and a great keepsake from your wedding. I will have to check out their website and do a sample test book. This would be great for all your wedding photos.

Linda

 

[IloveChip]

That guestbook idea was fantastic!! And the votives you made were very creative... Great PJ so far!

 

[BrcsDisneyPrncs]

What a great idea for a guestbook! Congratulations on the upcoming wedding, all of your plans sound great so far! Your dress and ring a breathtaking, you will definately be a beautiful bride! And Kudos to "jerm" for the awesome proposal!

 

[DisneyDeeFL]

Ok I tested the candle, and it lasted a good 4-5 hours, though it was getting a little tired toward the end! Thanks everyone for your sweet comments. I'm glad so many of you like the dress, I've been second guessing myself about it lately, since I bought it on the first and only day i went dress shopping, I feel like I should have spent more time shopping around. But I can't name one thing i don't like about the dress, except that i have armpit fat when I stand with my arms at my side, but that's not so much a problem with the dress, but rather with my arms! So i'm currently spending some quality time on the treadmill and pumping some iron to help tone things a bit

Anyway, we had our planning session a few weeks ago, and it was so much fun! I have to admit though, that it’s a bit crazy to get everything planned for your wedding in less than 4 hours, but we somehow managed to get pretty much everything figured out (which is a huge deal since decision making always stresses me out)! I apologize in advance for my lack of pictures during the actual PS. I forgot my camera!

Since we live about an hour and a ½ from Orlando, me, Jerm, and my parents decided to head to Disney the afternoon before our PS, and spend the night at All Star Movies. I was driving so when we pull up to the hotel, I give our confirmation to Jerm to bring with us to the front desk. After waiting about 10 minutes, we get called to the next available person, and she starts typing in our information. She gets a confused look on her face... Then, in a very slow and pronounced voice, she hands back our confirmation paper and says “This is All-Star Mooooooovies. You need to go to All-Star MUUUUUUUUUSIC.” Oops! So apparently I didn’t pay very close attention the day I made the reservation! Back we go to the parking lot, and drive over to the correct hotel. Fortunately there wasn’t a line there, so we checked in quickly and headed to the room. Sidenote: the room looked like it was recently redecorated, new paint, headboards, and paintings on the wall. I wonder if all of the rooms at All-Star resorts are being updated?

Soon we headed over to POFQ to walk around because we'd never been there before, but it’s one of the hotels on our room block. It is so cute! They have little details everywhere that remind me of the real French Quarter in New Orleans. I definitely want to stay here sometime.

my dad, near the POFQ pool area

We had some beignets in their food court.....very messy but worth it

We took the riverboat over to Downtown Disney (again, something I hadn’t done before) It was very relaxing but soooo hot out you were dripping sweat just sitting there. We walked around for a while and looked in the shops. My mom bought us an ornament at the Christmas shop there and had our wedding date written at the top.

That day, the space shuttle was scheduled to launch. So people were gathering outside with cameras ready hoping to see it....but nobody knew exactly which direction it would be coming from. I think Jerm was the first one in the crowd to see it, so everyone started snapping picures. We took this pic, and you can kinda see the pink streak way off in the distance. Pretty cool!

Then we thought it was time for some dinner, and headed over to Wolfgang Puck Express. I had some sort of quesadilla and it was soo good! The guy working there was really nice too, when he took our order, he was about to tell us the total, and then asked if we had AAA (which we do). Apparently there’s a 10% discount with AAA...I thought it was so nice of him to tell us that. He actually said that they’re trained not to tell customers things like that, but he did anyway. Anyway, after dinner we were pretty tired so decided to head back to the hotel for the night.

Our PS was at 9am, so we had an early start. We woke up around 7, showered, and checked out so we could drive directly to Franc’s. After missing a turn and getting a little bit flustered that we would be late, we got back on the right road, and ended up getting there about 5 minutes early. As soon as we walked in, Carol was there to greet us, and we got started right away! She is AWESOME, so incredibly friendly and it was great to finally put a face to a name.

We sat down in one of the little rooms and she explained to us how the PS would go. We started by discussing the rehearsal dinner, which we’re having the night before. She had a bunch of different time slots available, so we picked the latest one, which was 3:30. It’s tentative though, because if a wedding is being held in the WP at that time, we'll have to move elsewhere. Then she asked where we’re staying the night before the wedding, if we planned on seeing each other the next morning before the ceremony, and who the photographer is (when she heard we have Randy, she was like “Oh, we all loooove Randy. You’re in good hands, he knows his stuff!”)


We talked about transportation, which is one area we’re still debating. We have a fairly large guest list, and talked about getting a bus, but it’s a little pricey. I’d hate to have a huge chartered bus, only to have 7 people use it and everyone else end up driving their own car, ya know? But, for now, we added it to the BEO, and can always take it out later. Then we figured out what time the girls had to meet for pics, and the guys, and how we’d be getting to each place. I think we’re going to have the limo for the wedding party.

Then we moved on to the ceremony. We decided to have open seating (i.e. no ushers to seat the guests). Jerm was worried that since my family is much bigger than his (he is an only child), there would be a ton of people on one side, and nobody on the other So with open seating, problem solved! Carol said someone will be at the door and will tell guests that there is open seating, but to please try and equal out the seating for photography purposes. Then we figured out how the bridesmaids, groomsmen, and flower girls are going to enter, and what music will be played. I don’t have the list in front of me, but we basically picked an equal mix of “traditional” music, with some Disney tunes mixed in. Like for the recessional, we have the traditional wedding music for when me and Jerm leave, but then when the guests walk out they’ll hear the fun Disney medley/spectromagic song.

Now let’s move on to some food! We didn’t actually discuss food until later in the day, because we had our menu tasting scheduled for 2:30. So during the actual PS, we skipped over the food since we’d be talking about it with the chef. But I’ll go ahead and talk about it now, because it was one of the highlights of the day!!

First, we decided to do the antipasti display for the prereception (we didn’t sample this though). ADH receptions are required to have a buffet, which I love because then everyone can have whatever they want, and they keep the food comin! Here’s our menu:

-bacon wrapped bleu cheese meatballs (these will be at our dinner buffet rather than the prereception), Deeeeeelicious!
-caesar salad
-cheddar cheese soup with pretzel bread (OMG....I heard so much about this, but never had it until our menu tasting....wow. If you haven’t had it before, it’s a must!!) lol
-parmesan crusted chicken (soo good)
-penne alla vodka (i thought it was a little spicy, but i'm a spice wuss, so it probably wasn't that bad!)
-beef filet (they might have a fancier name for this, but I forget!)
-Seasonal vegetables

We also tried the chocolate truffle torte, even though we had no intentions of having another dessert in addition to the wedding cake (when Jerm found out we could try any dessert at the menu tasting, he was like “We must find the most chocolatiest thing they have”). We were so full, but it was GOOD.

So pretty much everything we tried, we loved, and though I was afraid of what the cost would be (since we picked all of these items from several different menus, we didn't even have a ballpark idea), when we got the BEO back I didn’t faint, so that’s good!

During the tasting, we were talking about traveling, and Jerm mentioned that this summer we took a trip to Boston and since he loves Sam Adams beer we toured the Sam Adams brewery....he mentioned it just once, but as I was reading though the BEO, I noticed not just one, but several notes in ALL CAPS saying “PLEASE HAVE SAM ADAMS AT THE BAR.” So Carol must have made note of Jerm’s beer preference and requested it for the reception! It’s a small detail, but I thought it was so sweet that she’s going to incorporate that into our day.

While we’re talkin food, let’s move on to the cake. We went with the Mickey’s delight round, variation #3. Sorry I don’t have a pic of it, but it’s basically 3 round layers with fondant; ours will be alternating colors of ivory and light blue with dark brown mickey heads stamped all around it. (I thought you could only have silver or gold stamped Mickeys, but Carol thinks the bakery can do them in brown to match our colors...so we’ll see!) The 3 layer cake serves 50 people. As a way to save some money, we’ll have a sheet cake in the back, that will serve 50 more people (this is one of the easiest things you can do if you need to cut costs!)

We sampled all kinds of cake/frosting variations and I must say, given the variety of flavors to choose from, our choices might seem kinda boring: the sheet cake is going to be chocolate w/ peanut butter mousse, the bottom layer is yellow cake w/ milk chocolate mousse, the middle layer is vanilla cake w/ raspberry mousse (I was a big fan of the raspberry, but Jerm hated it...I think I liked it because we were sampling cake at 10am and I was still in breakfast mode so it reminded me of yogurt!). Then the top layer is the choc. w/ peanut butter mousse. And we have the Mickey/Minnie cake topper to complete the masterpiece! I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

More to come!

 

[IloveChip]

Your PJ is fun to read.. And your cake sounds sooooo Yummy. We are having our wedding and reception at home and then heading to Disney for our honeymoon and went the sheet cake route for ours. We will have one main wedding cake, but 2 out of the 3 layers will be fake. We will cut in and eat from the top layer but our guests will have their choices from 3 types of sheet cakes.. The raspberry sounds yummy to me.. Heck all of the food sounded great. So far so good on the planning and I can not wait to read more.

 

[jasonandlisa]

Great choice on the antipasti display for the prereception. I've seen pics: it looks amazing! And I've heard it's really delicious and a TON of food! Love your menu, too! Lots of great selections!!

So cute that you have PLEASE HAVE SAME ADAMS AT THE BAR on your BEO! That's very cool.

And I'm a big fan of the raspberry mousse, too... any guests at our wedding that don't like it are out of luck, since we're having it on ALL our layers

Everything sounds wonderful!! Glad you had a good time at your PS! Carol sounds like a great planner!

 

[zetalove08]

I'm so excited to see your PJ Dee!!! You're proposal story is so cute, I really love how Jerm was like "well actually we're only here for a night, tomorrow night we're headed to the value" because that reminded me SO much of David! We are budget people. Your PS sounded fun and I can't wait to hear more!

 

[DisneyDeeFL]

I'm so excited to see your PJ Dee!!! You're proposal story is so cute, I really love how Jerm was like "well actually we're only here for a night, tomorrow night we're headed to the value" because that reminded me SO much of David! We are budget people. Your PS sounded fun and I can't wait to hear more!

Hi Laura!! Thanks for reading, I've been an insomniac the past few nights so i decided to throw together a PJ until I was tired enough to go to sleep! it actually helps keep me organized since now i'm beginning to think of things I haven't done yet

so august 31 is right around the corner, huh? I hope you get the time you want in the lottery...Let me know how it goes!!

 

[Hillary12.8.07]

Hi Dee!! I LOOOOOVE everything you have so far! I LOVE your dress, and your colors, and your candles you made....it all sounds so elegant and beautiful! And congragulations to a fellow December bride, even though I'm not getting married at Disney. But your getting married the day before we leave from our honeymoon, so who knows, maybe I'll catch a glimpse of you?!

Can't wait to hear more!