Faith, Trust & Pixie Dust! Jenn & Kevin 10/12/14 Italy/ADH/France - The End (7/2016 New TR Link!)

[Seia]

Love the update! It was nice of them to send the goodies to your room. I laughed at the "Jennifer and Bradley" especially after you mentioned it's your FIL's name. Hahaha. That's nice to know about SAB, too! I told my FMIL that I was going to steal her magic band for a little while so I could swim there during our trip. I've always wanted to swim there!

 

[obxlvr13]

Great update! Too bad the guys couldn't finish the beer challenge? Can you start at any country or could you start with UK and Canada?

 

[elphie101]

Love the update! It was nice of them to send the goodies to your room. I laughed at the "Jennifer and Bradley" especially after you mentioned it's your FIL's name. Hahaha. That's nice to know about SAB, too! I told my FMIL that I was going to steal her magic band for a little while so I could swim there during our trip. I've always wanted to swim there!

I seriously want to know where Bradley came from - DH or FIL!! Or maybe I don't want to know.....

You can 100% get into SAB at night, no one questioned our groomsman (we assumed at the time it was because he had a magic band, but we didn't realize until we went to SAB during the day that it was because no one was scanning MBs to check if you were staying there).

Great update! Too bad the guys couldn't finish the beer challenge? Can you start at any country or could you start with UK and Canada?

You can start anywhere you want, however you want! We chose to start in Mexico because our family wanted to eat there and I knew I was going to get the margarita, so I was thinking liquor first then beer/wine later (since Canada/UK are 100% beer for me). Our friend recommend a double circuit of Drinking Around the World, where you go around the World Showcase twice so you can do every other country. For example

Drink in Mexico, China, Germany, America, Morocco, UK, and then walk around AGAIN and do Norway, the Outpost, Italy, Japan, France, Canada (a lot of people skip the outpost, so just readjust if you do). This way you don't have to quickly down your drink to make it to the next country, and you can just stroll and enjoy everything!

*********
Next update will hopefully be coming over the weekend - my father has the only pictures of our wedding rehearsal, so I need to get them from him!

 

[jAcKs_x0]

Following along! Love your TR so far!

 

[elphie101]

Following along! Love your TR so far!

Thank you!! The best is just about here

 

[elphie101]

Saturday, October 11th

Saturday morning started with Kevin's alarm going off right at 6:30am. He hopped out of bed and jumped in the shower - he was headed into Orlando with his parents to get his beard trimmed by a professional barbershop. He also needed to pack his bag with all his wedding-related things, as he was moving into his parents villa for the night.

6:30am happened and my eyes opened and I knew instantly that I was done. D.O.N.E. Done. That sore throat from the end of Day 1 that I had hoped in vain was just from shouting too much had blossomed into a full-fledged sore throat, cold edition, with the accompanying utter exhaustion that always seems to plague the first few days of a cold.

I knew instantly that if I wanted to be a fully functioning human in 24 hours (24 HOURS) I had to scrap my plans of meeting friends in Studios that morning and bum around the resort until the wedding rehearsal that afternoon. So when Kevin got out of the shower, I asked him to grab me some breakfast from the Beach Club Marketplace and rolled over for another hour of sleep or so.

Sweet Kevin made good on his 'bring me back whatever you know I'd like' and got me the standard Disney cinnamon roll, as well as every variety of cold & flu medicine being sold.


Ye Olde Standard Disney Cinnamon Roll

I don't know if it's a deluxe resort thing, or because it was so early in the day (at least 7:30am) but this tasted far better than any other Standard Disney Cinnamon Roll I'd had before (predominately at Everything Pop). It was warm, cinnamon-y, flaky where it was supposed to be flaky and soft where it was supposed to be soft. I give it a 7/10.

While he has getting ready to head out, our best man texted Kevin to say he had decided to get a park ticket for the day and wanted to go to Epcot. As bummed as I was to miss that (since our BM had steadfastly refused to visit the parks before this) I felt like I could barely get out of bed. So once Kevin left, I decided to make myself useful and got to work on wrapping all our gifts for the wedding party & parents.



I also turned on Stacy, as Kevin hates her

Carolyn Allen's was scheduled to come steam my dress at 1:00pm, and based on their website and the estimated samount of time needed per garment I knew it could take right up until the rehearsal to steam all our garments, so midway through wrapping I called my mom to see if she wanted to do a pre-steaming lunch somewhere at the resort. My BM Sinclaire also texted me to see what time she should arrive (being that she was local) and so I told her to join us for lunch around 12:00pm.

The gift wrapping took about an hour, and then I went to my mother's room and we brought my dress, my mother's dress and my cousins' bridesmaid dresses back to my room pending CA's arrival (we already had my MIL's dress).

Meanwhile, Kevin and his best man had completed the remaining countries in DATW:

Johnnie Walker flight in UK - I'm told they were delicious

Back at Beach Club, I thought we would try to get into Beaches and Cream, despite our lack of reservation - we were told it was an hour and a half wait Delicious ice cream was not to be.

Preferring something indoors vs the pool bar of Hurricane Hanna's, we decided to go to the Crew's Cup Lounge at the Yacht Club, so we headed to the hotel lobby to wait for Sinclaire - and found this!


Eeeeeee so close!

After a lovely parking detour we ended up having to double back to Beach Club to grab Sinclaire, and enjoyed a quick lunch at the lounge.

It's my wedding weekend, I'm sick, and I'll do what I want! So I ordered two apps for lunch: House-cut Truffle Fries with roasted shallot mayonnaise and shredded parmesan and New England Clam Chowder



Now given that I am actually from New England, born and raised, I tend to judge my chowders by a pretty high bar when we travel outside the region. Yacht Club's version is perfectly adequate; not the "I can't believe they call this a chowder!" atrocity I've had at some restaurants, but far from my favorite.

Those truffle fries were OUT OF THIS WORLD! Crispy, hot, delicious, perfect. The parmesan shavings gave it an extra savory kick that was just right, and the mayo that accompanied them was fantastic. It takes a lot to get me to dip my fries in something other than ketchup, and this definitely fit the bill.

I give the chowder a 6/10 and the truffle fries a 9/10 Yum Yum!

By the time we finished eating it was nearing 1:00pm, so we scampered back to the room to prepare for Carolyn Allen's to arrive and to meet our best man, who was dropping off my MOH's dress.


Freeeeeeedom. This was when I realized it wasn't going back in the bag until post-wedding.

A little after 1:00pm two women from Carolyn Allen's arrived, and went to work on our array of dresses and suits. Since my mom, Sinclaire and I had nowhere else to go, we decided to tackle assembling the welcome bags for distribution at Ariel's that evening.





I don't have a complete contents of the welcome bags, but they contained: one map of each park, one poncho per person/per room, one first aid kit, one mini sunscreen, one button per person/per room (except for those people we had already run into previously), Disney themed Jelly Belly packs (Villains, Princesses, Mickey, Frozen), a hastily typed up letter with transportation directions for the ceremony bus and the welcome party, some more candies that I'm probably forgetting, and these little beauties:

We also made tags for every person with their name and bus pickup time (because I was operating under the assumption no one would read their letters - always be prepared for the worst!):

While we were working on the bags, I realized that the sheer volume of stuff we needed to take (all the welcome bags plus our wedding party gifts) was far more than anyone anticipated, so I shot off a quick e-mail to Kristie to ask if we could drop all the bags off at Ariel's on our way over to the Yacht Club (for the record, she responded within the hour and said that she had checked and there would be CMs there, but anything we left would be at our discretion). Once I got the OK from Kristie I texted Kevin and our groomsmen and asked them to swing by before the rehearsal to help with the carrying of things.

The steaming didn't take nearly as long as we planned it to, and so we finished up the welcome bags and every parted ways to get ready for the rehearsal. Pretty soon there was a knock on my door and Kevin & his groomsmen had arrived to pick up all our crap (well, the guys came in to collect said crap while Kevin patiently waited outside - after appropriate ooohing over the dress of course!) and we all schelped over to the Yacht Club lobby (with a detour by Ariel's).

Wedding events were officially a go!

 

[Disneyducks12]

Your TR report is so amazing so far, I love your ratings on all the food and drinks that is so helpful! also I really love your buttons I so might steal that idea it looks amazing and you guys looked like you had so much fun pre-wedding trip and that stinks about you being sick but glad your recovered! can't wait for more!

Melissa

 

[LunaMini]

I keep finding myself checking back for updates! I love your TR and you two make a lovely couple!

 

[Aschenputtel]

Oh you can't stop before the food that's mean ;-) (only thing I'm missing is the "to be continued" at the end).

 

[elphie101]

Your TR report is so amazing so far, I love your ratings on all the food and drinks that is so helpful! also I really love your buttons I so might steal that idea it looks amazing and you guys looked like you had so much fun pre-wedding trip and that stinks about you being sick but glad your recovered! can't wait for more!

Melissa

Steal those buttons!! They were the best and I'm so glad we did them. I'm a teensy bit obsessed with Disney food so I can't help but do the reviews

I always get sick when it comes down to crunch time - happens nearly every time I do a play/musical. I shouldn't be too surprised it happened this time!

I keep finding myself checking back for updates! I love your TR and you two make a lovely couple!

Awwww thank you!! You're too sweet

Oh you can't stop before the food that's mean ;-) (only thing I'm missing is the "to be continued" at the end).

Well TECHNICALLY we still have the rehearsal to go to and THEN there's food.......so I'm not that mean

 

[Belle612]

I love your welcome bags - the colors matched your wedding colors and I liked all of the things you decided to include - all seemed like they would be very useful for a WDW vacation. Also AWESOME idea to put the tags with the info about the busses. For my wedding welcome bags we had a note inside with info about our farewell breakfast the day after our wedding (it was in NJ), and a couple of people never saw it

I also totally know how you felt getting sick RIGHT before the wedding...I was also sick the week before with a terrible cold and sore throat, but luckily it cleared out the day before the wedding. I hope yours did too!

Can't wait to hear about the actual rehearsal and the wedding day!

 

[Seia]

Your welcome bags looked awesome! I may have to steal your tag idea. I also don't trust everyone to read everything in our letters. Haha. Can't wait for the next part!

 

[elphie101]

I love your welcome bags - the colors matched your wedding colors and I liked all of the things you decided to include - all seemed like they would be very useful for a WDW vacation. Also AWESOME idea to put the tags with the info about the busses. For my wedding welcome bags we had a note inside with info about our farewell breakfast the day after our wedding (it was in NJ), and a couple of people never saw it

I also totally know how you felt getting sick RIGHT before the wedding...I was also sick the week before with a terrible cold and sore throat, but luckily it cleared out the day before the wedding. I hope yours did too!

Can't wait to hear about the actual rehearsal and the wedding day!

Thank you!! If anything I wish we could have given them out earlier (since most of it was for guests during their trip) but nothing could be done there (we weren't going to pay the absurd $2 per bag Disney charges, and not have a 100% guarantee they would even get to our guests!)

I don't want to give away TOO much of the best part of the story (aka the wedding day ) but I will say it was not ruined by nasty colds, never fear!

Your welcome bags looked awesome! I may have to steal your tag idea. I also don't trust everyone to read everything in our letters. Haha. Can't wait for the next part!

Please steal away!! Since our guests couldn't take a cab or anything if they overslept or couldn't find the bus to the ceremony I was SO PARANOID that someone would miss the ceremony. I don't know why but that was the fear that I was totally fixated on in the weeks before the wedding (spoiler alert: everyone made it!)

Working in Higher Ed (as I'm sure you know ) I've developed the theory that only 25% of people actually comprehend and pay attention to what they read, and I feel this carries through to the non-educational world as well!

 

[TiffinyKaye]

I don't want to give away TOO much of the best part of the story (aka the wedding day ) but I will say it was not ruined by nasty colds, never fear!



Please steal away!! Since our guests couldn't take a cab or anything if they overslept or couldn't find the bus to the ceremony I was SO PARANOID that someone would miss the ceremony. I don't know why but that was the fear that I was totally fixated on in the weeks before the wedding (spoiler alert: everyone made it!)
/color]

Yay! No colds to ruin your day!

And don't feel weird. I get married in 19 days....and it's honestly one of my biggest fears that someone misses the wedding because they didn't get to the car on time. My sister is so hard to drag out of bed, and my mom is her transportation for the day. I am SOOO frightened that because she's so hard to drag out of bed, my whole family won't make it!

Can't wait to hear more!

Tiffiny

 

[TiffinyKaye]

Just letting you know that I'm still here and still so happy for you!!!!!!!!!

Tiffiny

 

[elphie101]

Yay! No colds to ruin your day!

And don't feel weird. I get married in 19 days....and it's honestly one of my biggest fears that someone misses the wedding because they didn't get to the car on time. My sister is so hard to drag out of bed, and my mom is her transportation for the day. I am SOOO frightened that because she's so hard to drag out of bed, my whole family won't make it!

Can't wait to hear more!

Just letting you know that I'm still here and still so happy for you!!!!!!!!!

Tiffiny

Haha I'm sure you'll have nothing to worry about! People definitely behave differently at weddings

 

[Disneyducks12]

Steal those buttons!! They were the best and I'm so glad we did them. I'm a teensy bit obsessed with Disney food so I can't help but do the reviews

I always get sick when it comes down to crunch time - happens nearly every time I do a play/musical. I shouldn't be too surprised it happened this time!

I think they are great! and they let everyone know your there for the wedding, and I am foodie so the reviews are apperciated! and thats my biggest fear getting sick right before we go! but can't wait for more updates!

Melissa

 

[elphie101]

So brief disclaimer: the only photos I have of the rest of the day are actually stills from my dad's "documentary" (which is what he's calling the hours-long result of him never putting the camcorder down for the whole trip) that I screencaped, so the quality and color is a bit subpar. That being said, I thought bad pictures were better than no pictures, so here we are!

Our rehearsal was scheduled at 4:30pm in the Ashbury A ballroom of the Yacht Club Convention Center (which I had scoped out when we picked up our boxes on Thursday so we would have an idea of where we were headed). Not wanting to take the chance that people would be confused and end up in the wrong place, I asked our whole wedding party to meet at 4:15pm in the Yacht Club lobby, so we could all walk over together. If memory serves, the boys and I left the Beach Club Villas around 4:00pm with our stash of stuff - my box of wedding party/parent gifts, my 4 bridesmaid bags (which were way too big to fit in anything), and all our welcome bags (I think we had just shy of 30). Between the 4 of us we had no problem carrying everything. We stopped at Ariel's along the way to deposit all the Welcome Bags at the entrance before we continued outside along Stormalong Bay to the Yacht Club lobby.

Kevin's parents and some of my girls had beat us there, so we hung around chatting while we waited for the rest of the group to arrive (and everyone ooo'd and ahhhh'd over the convention sign with our events for the day). I also took this time to discuss with the guys my distaste for the traditional groomsmen pose (or what I've always seen) of guys with their arms in front of them. You know what I'm talking about -

To me, the first thought that always jumps into my head is oh look, a bunch of guys protecting themselves from being kicked in the family jewels, so to speak. The last thing I wanted to be thinking of as I walked down the aisle was my guy friends' family jewels, so I took this moment to ask all of them to PLEASE avoid this pose - I didn't care what they did, just no cupping!



My brother had sent me his opening for the ceremony a few days ago, but I hadn't had a chance to actually read it over until that morning, so I took the chance to go over the few comments and changes I wanted (just a couple phrasing qualms - for the most part it was perfect though!)



If I remember correctly Sinclaire was the last one to arrive (she tried to park at Beach Club because we were ending the day at Ariel's, but the attendant made her go to Yacht Club since that was her first destination) and we set off only a few minutes past 4:15pm.


I love this photo because you can see our groomsman Charlie (in the blue shirt on the right) carrying all the bridesmaid bags - he refused to let me do it!

Kristie was waiting for us when we got to Ashbury A, and it was so good to see her again - I remembered when we said goodbye at the planning session and she left us saying "the next time we see each other will be at your rehearsal!", and it felt very full circle almost to have that moment finally arrive. We introduced everyone to Kristie and then she pulled us aside to go over the order of the processional as well as the music selections. Kristie then took a minute alone with my brother Greg to walk through the parts of the ceremony we were running through that day, since he had never officiated anything before (of course!)


Introducing Kristie to everyone


The men practicing hands behind the back as the answer to my anti-cupping wishes




Our handsome guys! From L-R we have Charlie, my brother Greg (our officiant, demonstrating the WRONG hand position), my brother Chris, our Best Man Kevin, and Brian


Kristie & my brother


For some reason my MOH Vanessa was practicing her Princess Diaries wave (say it with me now - THAAANK you for being here today)

We started the rehearsal by assembling everyone at their correct places at the 'altar', where Kristie gave everyone instructions on how to stand & where to face ("when in doubt, face the couple"). She went on to tell the guys the traditional way of standing was the "fig leaf" - aka the exact pose I had just gone off minutes before about how much I did NOT want to see it. The guys were so cute, almost immediately they started jumping over themselves trying to say that I had told them otherwise, and I let Kristie know that I had asked them NOT to fig leaf, so we proceeded onward with hands behind backs for the men.

I can tell you that while I haven't gotten my pictures back at this point, thanks to my dad's "documentary" of the pre-ceremony photo-taking I know that the fig leaf did return again the next day.....


The one picture I remembered to take!

I've never been to a wedding rehearsal before, so as far as I know this is pretty straightforward, but if you're like me and this is new to you here's the rundown of events. We walked through how I would be passed off once I arrived at the 'altar' (I don't really know what else to call the front of the ceremony ) and the passing of my bouquet & dress fluffing technique for Vanessa, and we walked through the wine box ceremony since that required us to do some walking and therefore required a lengthy discussion on Which Way To Walk For The Bridal Gown. We also decided that our ring bearer Kyle would sit with my parents during the ceremony, and be called up by my brother when the time came to put on the rings. We then practiced the recessional, as that put everyone in the reverse order of how they would have entered (minus the men and women being separate) so that we could practice the processional from out in the hallway.

As you may or may not remember, everyone but my parents and I were walking in to the same song and it was important to me that each 'group' (Kevin's parents, the men, the women, and Kyle) be revealed at a certain point of the music. We decided that since we were doing a first look and there was no reason to keep me separate from Kevin pre-ceremony that I would cue the first person in each group to start walking once I heard the music cue I was looking for, and for the men & women Kristie would take over once the first person started walking to make sure the spacing between them all was proper and made sense.





The walking was pretty seamless, and I accepted I'd have to make certain amendments to what I had planned in my head in terms of which beats of music were the cue for which groups, because the gaps in between were proving to be quite long (or so I thought.....you'll see on the wedding day!) There was a hilarious moment when our ring bearer Kyle, being shy and not one to bask in the attention, half ran/half slouched up to the front of the room, which made us all burst into laughter.

After that we were officially done rehearsing. Kristie sat us all down and instructed us to not go wild and crazy with any adult beverage antics and told us we'd see her (or one of her assistants) the following morning before giving Kevin & I as well as our parents her cell phone number in case of emergencies (which to my knowledge no one needed) and headed off to Ariel's to check on the set up of the Welcome Party.

Since we were having our entire guest list at our rehearsal dinner, Kevin and I felt it would be more appropriate to give our wedding party gifts out at the end of the rehearsal itself rather then in front of everyone at the party. I had made little gift tags with extra wrapping paper and Kevin passed them out while I said something along the lines of you mean a lot of us, yada yada yada I had brought all but Kevin's gift (of course) and the mom's handkerchiefs (because I wanted photgraphic evidence of the giving of these and eventual tears the next morning)



And now, lots of smiling faces!




My mom in a "you got one too?" moment with Kevin's mother




Brian had just been telling Kevin he needed a money clip the day before, so this was perfect! (I don't remember if I covered it before but Kevin got his guys each a monogramed money clip as well as a giant boot for beer drinking, which he gave to them back in MA)


My brother and his pocketwatch


I had to keep instructing the girls to dig deeper in their bags - first to find their jewelry in their cosmetic bags, then to show them their matching cups for the morning. Vanessa was so excited about her pearl plugs (for her gauged ears) that she put them in immediately *cue foreshadowing music*


Yay!!!

At this point it was very nearly 5:30 on the dot, so we hussled everyone and their new gifts out as quickly as we could - we had a party to get to!

 

[TiffinyKaye]

So fun!

You're such a better bride than me. I didn't make welcome bags. Cost, and time, has mounted all together that I just haven't had the energy to even put them together. Plus, I'm not sure they're really necessary for my particular situation. One of the bridesmaids lives there, and the other is coming down...but she's not the gracious one to have accepted my invitation (she pretty much just made it known that she'd be the maid-of-honor, even though I was thinking about not having a party at all ). They are getting a little token of appreciation (which I cannot name right now, because the Florida bridesmaid could very well be reading this right now--she's a Diser!), plus a super expensive brunch/dessert party.

Do you know what Kristie's last name was?

It looks like you had a blast though!

Tiffiny

 

[Seia]

Your bridesmaid bags were so cute! I cracked up at the "protecting the family jewels" groomsmen pose. I'd never thought about it before, but you're so right!

I'm anxiously waiting for the next part, especially now that we're having our rehearsal meal at Ariel's.