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

[alyaki]

Ugh, 1am crash time off a plane, and you two had work the next day? Yuck, yuck, yuck! I've done it, but it always makes me screw up my face.

Sinclaire looks awesome in the dress she picked, and I think your group will all look really cute together! Sounds like you guys had a fun day.

 

[elphie101]

Yay for finishing your first TR!!! And yay for having such an amazing planning session trip! Your last day seemed a great finish and thanks for the full pics on your bridesmaid's dresses, I just started looking at what would work for mine!!!

How fun!! Every time I look at that picture I do a little squeal of happiness. I can't wait till they all come in.

It all looks so amazing! I'm so happy for you! Can't wait to follow along with the rest of your journey.

Thanks!! I can't believe how close it's getting

Ugh, 1am crash time off a plane, and you two had work the next day? Yuck, yuck, yuck! I've done it, but it always makes me screw up my face.

Sinclaire looks awesome in the dress she picked, and I think your group will all look really cute together! Sounds like you guys had a fun day.

Kevin had the next day off, lucky dog, and only I had to go back to work - I'll be doing the same thing after the wedding trip too! (My office only has to work 4 weekend days a year, and one of them happens to be the day after we get back from the cruise )

 

[alyaki]

Kevin had the next day off, lucky dog, and only I had to go back to work - I'll be doing the same thing after the wedding trip too! (My office only has to work 4 weekend days a year, and one of them happens to be the day after we get back from the cruise )

Lucky you! *being sarcastic* Any chance you could get someone to switch you so that you could just work the next weekend after you guys get back from your cruise at least? Or just not worth asking in your work environment? =/

 

[elphie101]

Lucky you! *being sarcastic* Any chance you could get someone to switch you so that you could just work the next weekend after you guys get back from your cruise at least? Or just not worth asking in your work environment? =/

Sadly no - those are our school's 4 open house dates that are very all-hands-on-deck. We get about 1000 people coming to the University every date so we are in major trouble if we miss them. I'll actually be missing the first one because of it being the weekend before (while we're on the honeymoon) and the whole office is shocked I got the OK to not be here for it. I don't mind so much though - the open houses are the only time I get to wear my office name tag, and so it'll be the first time I get to display my new name

 

[elphie101]

Hello again, and welcome back to your regularly scheduled Planning Journal, now TR free! Until November anyway - it's a little hard to believe that in just 5 months I'll be starting my POST-WEDDING trip report! Insane.

As I mentioned before, the nice thing about taking 1 month to write the PS trip report is now I have a bunch of nice & shiny updates waiting for you:

Odds & Ends

Firstly, the new season of TLC's I Found the Gown started airing. I had set a series recording on our DVR since I knew they were filming the day I bought my dress, and low and behold......WE'RE ON TLC! Right in the top of the screen you can see my mom, myself, and my MOH as we are in the process of purchasing my very own gown.





I'm never ever deleting the episode from our TV. I even bought it on iTunes (thank god for iTunes!) just in case we ever switch providers so I'll always have it

Also, this past weekend Kevin & I completed our second 5K of the month - the Color Me Rad Boston. I've been looking forward to this race for awhile now, and booked it because it was actually in my hometown instead of Boston, though the location soon got moved. The course was HORRENDOUS - out of the 3.1 miles in the 5K, I would say about 2.8 of them were uphill, without exaggeration. Within the first quarter mile there was a hill so steep they actually tied ropes to trees to assist runners in climbing up it! Plus in addition to being uphill, the course was slightly tilted the whole way, so it felt like we were running (although really just walking) on rolled ankles the entire time. I would still run this race, but never in this location again.

The before pic, all nice and clean:



And the after!:



MOB and MOG Dresses

So after all this time, my mother decided she didn't actually like her dress She was very adamant about not telling FMIL though, as FMIL had refused to start HER dress search until my mother had selected a dress.

So a few weeks ago I went with FMIL to start dress hunting. We went to Alfred Angelo first, where they told her that her dress would need to be rush ordered (at 5 months from the date?! ). She only tried on about three dresses that she liked from the rack, and once they were on her she hated them all. The woman we were working with at AA told us of a place down the road that had a great selection, and since it was only 5 minutes away we headed there. And that's where FMIL found her dress! She looked great in it. Sadly it was one of those shops that wouldn't let me photograph until she had decided to purchase, and she had already changed out before I got photo permission, but here's her dress on the hanger, in her color (which is photographing far darker than it actually is - it's more of a periwinkle):



I went to visit my mom after my FMIL's appointment and told her of our success - and then SHE wanted to go to the same shop! You should have seen the look on the employees faces when I walked in again with my mother after having been there this morning. This time around, my mom found a dress she loved much more than anything else - but it was out of her budget. Thankfully we snuck a glance at the style number and designer and were about to find it close by at about $60 cheaper. And she bought it! She ordered it in teal, and it comes with a little wrap thing I didn't get a photo of.





Shoes

I believe I mentioned I was OBSESSED with the idea of having cobalt blue shoes - OBSESSED. I knew exactly what I wanted, cobalt shoes no higher than a 2 1/2 inch heel, with a peep toe but otherwise closed shoe and a rhinestone on top. I had these exact shoes picked out from an Etsy seller (even though they're open on the side):

Well, at this mythical Mother of the Occassion dress shop I visited twice, they had the exact make of shoe I would be getting dyed, and I tried them on - and they were INSTANTLY uncomfortable. I was heart broken. I took to the internet and every dyeable shoe I could find that was closed with a peep toe was over 3 inches high - if it was shorter it was open on the side. In the meantime, while I was at the shop I tried these shoes on, and they were immensely comfortable:

I found them for $47 online and I couldn't NOT get them. And so I tried to live with replacing my blue wedding shoes with these cheaper, sparkly ones, as I couldn't find anything online that seemed to work. Until.....I discovered the website of this dyeable shoe shop about 45 minutes from me, and decided to travel there this past weekend with my mother. And there I found my blue shoes, comfy and perfect and everything I wanted!!


This is the shoe and.....


This is the rhinestone that will be glued on top.

They are the exact same heel height as my sparkly shoes, so I'm thinking about wearing the blue shoes for the ceremony and sparkles for the reception......or maybe blue for ceremony & reception and sparkles for dessert party........or maybe just sparkles at the welcome party........I haven't quite decided yet.

And that's about it! Of course, there is one other thing........we got our BEOs!! We're about 4,000 over, which is better than what I was anticipating, but I can cut about 2,000 easy. But the BEO deserves it's own post I think

Just 131 days to go!

 

[elphie101]

So I completely forgot in my flurry of posting earlier to show you my total planning session trip cost

One of my absolute favorite things to look at during my not-actually-engaged-just-speculating phase of "wedding planning" was Carly Morgan's breakdown of how much her wedding cost, down to the honeymoon, rings, random expenses, everything purchased for the wedding. (Read it here: http://magicaldayweddings.com/category/our-wedding/total-cost-of-our-disney-wedding/) I aim to do the same, so after you'll be able to see EXACTLY how much this whole shindig cost - including things like invitations, favors, alterations, and other little things that fall through the cracks when all we do is obsessively hunt down BEOs. So behold, a screenshot of my beautiful excel spreadsheet that has recorded the price of 4 days in WDW when you're planning a wedding - the first column expenses of ours covered by our parents, the second by others (in the form of Disney Gift Cards) and the third out of our own pocket:

A grand trip total of $1,685.63, with $1,335.63 coming out of our own pockets. (I'm not including my trial with Patricia, as that's in our final contract for the day-of.)

Now that's a LOT of money. Definitely more than we should have spent (and believe me, we felt the financial backlash). But we really didn't need to spend as much as we did - if we remove the Expedition Everest race cost as well as one room's night stay, that brings Kevin & I's out of pocket total to $942.92. Better but not great - so let's assume we didn't go into the parks at all, where most of our out of pocket spending came from. Given that we were lucky enough to travel with our parents who insisted on paying for the majority of our food, let's assume we spent $150 on extra drinks and merchandise here and there, and since the Disney gift card was used for Kevin's park ticket plus extras let's just say that covered our whole miscellaneous budget. That would make our total out of pocket cost for the trip $417.92 - and that's a bit more realistic for most people, I would imagine. Again, we were incredibly lucky to be traveling with our parents who insisted on paying for some things for us, in addition to having airline points to make our flights cheap, so your mileage may vary. But hopefully this can help some of you in the planning process, as I know being able to afford a PS trip is a question for many couples along the course of the wedding planning journey

 

[edeneye]

Firstly, the new season of TLC's I Found the Gown started airing. I had set a series recording on our DVR since I knew they were filming the day I bought my dress, and low and behold......WE'RE ON TLC! Right in the top of the screen you can see my mom, myself, and my MOH as we are in the process of purchasing my very own gown.

That's awesome! Shame they didn't talk to you, I bet your story is way more exciting! It's really interesting to see exactly how the planning session trip went and precisely how it worked out budget-wise. It seems like it was a very fruitful trip for you guys, I'd say you definitely got your money's worth! It's hard to put a price on peace of mind but it looks as though your experience will make the next 130 days a little less stressful. Especially with such huge successes in your hair/makeup trial and MOH dress shopping. And there was CAKE. Yep, worth it.

 

[elphie101]

That's awesome! Shame they didn't talk to you, I bet your story is way more exciting! It's really interesting to see exactly how the planning session trip went and precisely how it worked out budget-wise. It seems like it was a very fruitful trip for you guys, I'd say you definitely got your money's worth! It's hard to put a price on peace of mind but it looks as though your experience will make the next 130 days a little less stressful. Especially with such huge successes in your hair/makeup trial and MOH dress shopping. And there was CAKE. Yep, worth it.

I agree, it was totally worth it. For us, it was never an option NOT to do a planning session in Florida, though my heart definitely hurts a little seeing how much we spent. In retrospect, we shouldn't have gone to Epcot, not only for monetary reasons but also to spare our feet for the race that night - but what can you do. What's done is done!

 

[elphie101]

So here she is - the glorious Estimated Budget.

I'm....ok with it. Sort of. One of our struggles has been dealing with a kind of lack of a budget - that is getting our parents to put forth a number that we will not go over. Both sets agree they want us to have what we want - but Kevin & I refuse to bleed them dry for their generosity, and are very aware that there is a general comfort level we shouldn't pass, about $4,000 ago. And so, we make cuts.

First things first is the floral & decor. I've already started researching outside florists for our personals, and out of the two that have gotten back to me so far (Lee Forest and Petals by Design) Petals is winning, with their floral estimate for our personals coming in 51% cheaper than Disney (Lee was about 20% cheaper, but I believe they do more extravagantly styled weddings on a whole, so I was kind of expecting that). I'm still waiting on quotes from Peddles and Greenery Productions, as well as any reply back at all from Raining Roses.

In the land of Disney-provided decor, I've cut: mahogany folding chairs for the ceremony (the most depressing cut), ivory petals and cones for a petal toss (since we can't have colored rose petals, I'd rather look into something cheaper and DIY like streamers) and all dessert party decor. What we're keeping is my ivory rose petals lining the aisle, as well as blue & green swagging going down the aisle.

For the reception, our centerpieces will look something like this:

Instead of glow cubes, we'll be filling ours with colored water, some cobalt blue and some lime green, and instead of a flower we'll be topping ours with a candle. I'm having a hard time reading this part of the BEO (I strongly suspect there's a typo), but I believe they come out to be $24.75 per centerpiece.

Those cuts & using outside floral take $1,585.46 off of our total, making the cost $25,752.68, which itself is a lot closer to where we wanted to be. However, I've asked about adding upgraded napkins (blue & green to match the centerpiece colors) and adding one colored cylinder to the smaller existing tables we'll be using (right now we're split between 6 rounds on the dance floor and 3 existing 4-tops) so I'm expecting some of those savings to go away. I guess we'll just have to work with what comes next.

In terms of the actual BEO as it is, right now we're not doing much in the way of cutting. We're 100% cutting the fondue and Mickey rice crispy treats from the dessert party - $46 per person is absurd - but I also wanted to add in the 'croissant donut' Epcot now serves. I might ask to see if we can get a cheaper wedding cake somehow by NOT doing the Mad Hatter style, just doing a simple rounded 2-tier. None of the parents want to cut the buffet menu - I know it's so expensive because of having 3 action stations, but they don't want us to change it. That's basically all we can touch, the menus - everything else is pretty much required.

So that's where we stand right now. I know the bar estimate is ridiculous and we'll almost certainly get $1,000 back from that, and the bartender fee will be waived after $500 (which we'll definitely hit), so that would make the total cost $24,252.68 after a refund - but who's to say. This does not include the Welcome Party at Ariel's, where we selected a menu of $43 per person, making the cost of that event at least $3010, maybe more with tax. I think I even heard DF's parents thinking of having some kind of an open bar. Anyway, that would bring our grand total for the WHOLE event (including photo & video) to $32,299.68 - and that I am definitely not ok with. Throw in the fact that my dad is now talking about inviting 10 of his cousins and it's all a bit of a kabosh. I guess we'll just see what happens next.

 

[Aschenputtel]

It's highly appreciated that you share everything with us!
Hope that you're able to cut down the price, you're plans sound great so far! I really like the idea for the centerpieces - it will look great with your colors!

As for the planning session budget: I think you can book the tickets under "budget for reunion with an old friend" not the actual ps trip

 

[Saradactyl]

Thank you for posting your budget; it's very helpful to see more of those! It's so hard to let some things go even if it's the easiest way to cut spendings. Good luck getting your numbers down

 

[kmg3366]

Yes definitely thanks for sharing the BEO. I'm glad people are starting to actually post them so we can get an idea of what's in site for us. Seriously, thank you! I know you'll be able to make the cuts you need to be more comfortable. Sending positive thoughts!

 

[alyaki]

I'm sure some of it is because you've got a slightly bigger group than some (thought smaller than others), but ugh on the prices in your BEO. I'm sorry you had to cut the folding chairs - that's the only item we're definitely doing for our ceremony, so boo. But, sounds like you guys are keeping a few things - I'm sure the swagging will look awesome there, and the petals will be cute for the aisle. And, as much as I can say I'm not a huge fan of the default Epcot ceremony chairs, they're really not horrible looking (at least in pictures), so I'm sure it'll all look lovely.

Also, random thought, but man, those media guide fees add up quick! It actually makes me happy that we only have one outside vendor...even if I would still love at least a second shooter (but it was a pain getting Raist to agree to the photographer I liked due to cost, so that probably won't happen unless I have some extra money at the end and she can find a second).

I love the Mad Hatter cake, so, bleh that you'll likely have to cut it, but you should easily be able to get a different two-tier style for around $280'ish after tax and whatnot, if what I've seen in some of the other BEOs are on target. With that half sheet on top of whatever cake you get, you should have plenty of cake for everyone at least.

Also, holy crap at the price of your DP menu! I think that's one of the more expensive ones I've seen. Hopefully cutting the things you mentioned get that down quite a bit, even with that cronut addition.

Thanks for sharing this elphie, it's really interesting to see how things priced out for you, and get a feel of how prices scale with guest count. Even though some of us may be under a different overall pricing structure, the individual things are still priced out the same, so I appreciate seeing this, as I'm sure others do as well.

 

[elphie101]

It's highly appreciated that you share everything with us!
Hope that you're able to cut down the price, you're plans sound great so far! I really like the idea for the centerpieces - it will look great with your colors!

As for the planning session budget: I think you can book the tickets under "budget for reunion with an old friend" not the actual ps trip

 

[Bewitch324]

Thank you for posting your BEO, I'm anxiously awaiting ours, and it helps to see current pricing on some things. Even for those brides that will be operating under the new pricing--I suspect there is still value in seeing the breakdown of costs...

I'm sorry you have to make cuts, I know we'll be in the same boat...

I like that you included the costs for your planning session...I need to sit down and figure out what we spent.

I really enjoyed your trip report, and I love your bridesmaid dresses. I love that they're all a little bit different but they'll look great together.

Brooke

 

[elphie101]

Thank you for posting your BEO, I'm anxiously awaiting ours, and it helps to see current pricing on some things. Even for those brides that will be operating under the new pricing--I suspect there is still value in seeing the breakdown of costs...

I'm sorry you have to make cuts, I know we'll be in the same boat...

I like that you included the costs for your planning session...I need to sit down and figure out what we spent.

I really enjoyed your trip report, and I love your bridesmaid dresses. I love that they're all a little bit different but they'll look great together.

Brooke

Thanks for your kind words! Having to cut stinks, but we were planning on having to make some cuts going into the planning session and for us we're putting priority over things that ALL the guests will experience (like food, the dessert party, etc) instead of things that are really just for me/us (bouquets & upgraded chairs that no one else but me will notice )

 

[elphie101]

Just a few updates to report today. This past weekend my mother and I went to pick up the spoils of our previous shopping trip: her dress for the wedding and shoes for the both of us.

First up was her dress - and she's thrilled! She looks fantastic in it and it doesn't seem to need much in the way of alterations, which is always good



Once we had her dress we headed to DSW to browse shoes - my mom wanted to shop around before we went to the store where my shoes were so she would have something to compare to the pair she ordered there (she found a pair when I bought my shoes but they didn't have them in stock in silver, like she wanted). She found a couple things she liked, but nothing she loved, so we headed to the dyeable shoe store. As soon as she tried on the shoes she ordered, we knew they were the ones. They were perfect!



Finally the owner unveiled the box with my shoes..........and let me tell you THEY. ARE. PERFECT.





I've never been much of a fashionista, especially concerning shoes. I wear my flip flops through the summer and my Converse in the winter, and dress flats to work. But I never wanted to take these off - in fact, I'm wearing them right now! (Taking advantage of Kevin not being home to start breaking them in.)

Finally we've begun working on our invites. I had been hoping to get them in the mail on the 16th of the month, but thanks to our Father's Day plans with both our families we had to push our big invite-assembly weekend back one week (meaning we've also pushed our RSVP date back to August 29th). I don't mind, as we were sending things out pretty early, but I'm chomping at the bit to get started. Once the invites are done we'll be able to focus on menswear (erhem, make Kevin decide on menswear) and bouquet assembly. Just about 4 months to go!

 

[mintd]

I am the MOB and I am doing all of the planning for my DD wedding in January 2015. Wow, I do appreciate the depth and detail of your planning journal. It is helping me to make some decisions about how to proceed before the planning sessions. Beautiful colors and very thoughtful to make certain that you operate within reasonable parameters. Kudos to your parents for raising considerate and loving children.

My DD got engaged last month. I am so excited that I got hives (which I got when I was child of 5-7 whenever I was excited). We have our dates and locations YCWG and Contemporary Resort. Still working on rehearsal dinner and farewell brunch. Large family so we have told them that some of them may have to skip the ceremony because of the 120 guest limit. C'est la vie.

Our planning date will be next month. However, I have a planning conference on Thursday.

Thank you for sharing your experience. It seems to be a wonderful one and best wishes on your impending nuptials.

 

[Aschenputtel]

Wow! Love the shoes! They look a bit like Carrie's from SATC!
And your mom looks beautiful. Great to hear she found her shoes as well.

Only one week late with the invites? That doesn't seem bad.

And I'm looking forward to see what you (I mean Kevin ;-)) will come up for menswear.

 

[kmg3366]

Those shoes are gorgeous! I am very jealous!

I'm under the new pricing structure, so I hope things aren't way off, but there's not much to do but ride it out. So happy for you!