I just wanted to post an update about how our costumes turned out. We did, in fact, make the lantern costumes.
Thanks to Iloveeliot's idea, we used foam to make the shape. Our mom took the foam and then sewed the four pieces together with yarn to make a square, box-like shape. Then we used two colors of material, one yellow, which was the sewed on closest to the foam, and a shimmery, almost iridescent gold color on top of that. The purpose was to make the lanterns look they were glowing. We cut out the sunburst shape that the lanterns in the movie had and glued them to the costume with fabric glue. Last, I used fabric paint (a glittery purple) to paint the swirls onto all 4 sides. We used a still shot from the movie as our guide for how all the little details should look. It required long hours of manual labor, especially for our mom as she did the sewing, and my perfectionism had to be tamed when doing the painting by freehand, but they turned out really great, I think!
(Posting this to show that they did bend, and we rode rides comfortably. We even rode Space Mountain - in costume - with no problem!)
If you care to read about how the costumes were received, please read on:
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We didn't wear our costumes to dinner, so we had to go back to our hotel to change. As we walked back to the Magic Kingdom, we definitely got some odd looks from people leaving the party. I won't lie; we were feeling a little self-conscious by the looks we got. About halfway there, we got our first complement from a 20something guy who said, "Oh, lanterns! Cool - love those costumes." As soon as we got to the Magic Kingdom, though, and encountered the other guests who were dressed in costume, old and young alike, we felt better. One cast member thought we were ice cubes (and we felt pretty dumb when he made that guess), but that was the last weird comment we got.
For the rest of the party, and I do not exaggerate, we got about 50-60 compliments on our costumes! (I so wished our mom could have been there to enjoy how much people enjoyed our costumes.) We had guests stopping to ask if they could get a picture with us, and many asked where we had bought the costumes. That was a big compliment! We had many people - adults women AND men, as well as lots of cast members - tell us how much they loved our costumes, what a great idea they were, how unique and well-made they were, etc. Two 20something women saw us while waiting for fireworks and called a friend to come look at us - that made us laugh that we were an attraction ourselves that night!
It was fun to dress up in a unique, creative way. Most of the credit goes to our mom, though, for all her very hard work!
After the parade, we wanted to meet the princesses. Our main goal was meeting Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, given that we were in costumes from their movie. The wait was just about 5 minutes.We walked into the main room where you could meet Cinderella and Prince Charming, Rapunzel and Flynn, and Snow White and The Prince. As we turned the corner into the room, "Rapunzel" literally cried out in surprise. A second later, "Flynn" did as well. Flynn exclaimed, "Well, now I've seen the light!" (That's a line from the song he sings with Rapunzel in the scene with the lanterns.) Rapunzel said it was "the best day ever" (a line she says a few times in the movie).
We had to meet the princesses in order, so we met Cinderella and Prince Charming first. Next up was Rapunzel and Flynn. I have to admit, it was pretty great to interact with them.
Rapunzel literally ran around us in a circle, oohing and aahing over our costumes. She said she'd never seen a lantern up close before and wondered if the whole kingdom should dress as lanterns. Flynn joined in and said they could make little lantern souvenirs and hand them out to the citizens of the kingdom. Rapunzel again said it was "the best day ever," and Flynn said, "Yes, it's like a fog has lifted!" (That's another line from the song they sing during the movie.) They signed my niece, Hannah's, autograph book (and Hannah was beaming by now with all the attention from her current-favorite princess), and Flynn talked to Hannah about asking her mommy to teach her how to use a frying pan for self-defense (which Rapunzel uses in the movie to protect herself - you're getting the hint by now that they managed to get back into and stay in character for the rest of the meet). Rapunzel talked to me about all the costumes she had seen that evening and said, "I've seen a lot of wonderful costumes, but these top the list." These character interactions usually last about 30 seconds, but they must have spent about 5 minutes with us. I was too nervous to look at the line of people waiting to meet the princesses because I felt badly if we were keeping them waiting, but my sister was more courageous. We had stopped the entire line! Thankfully, DSis said the other guests were all smiling as they watched us. We got our picture taken with them, and as we were preparing to leave, Rapunzel said, "Can I give the lanterns a hug, too?" It was the most memorable character interaction we've had in 13 trips to Disney, and we were so excited to tell our mom about it later that night. I think the picture below might be one of my top 5 favorite Disney pictures of all time, and I think I've got about 4000 pictures from all of our trips combined, so that's saying a lot!
We got some candid shots from the Disney photographer during this meet-and-greet, but I haven't gotten those yet. I might post those sometime in the future. It was fun to have the photographer so into getting candid shots of our interaction with these two characters; it made it feel like everyone recognized that this was a memorable moment.
We have enough material for that... we just need something to help hold it's shape, but not so stiff that we can't sit down in rides. That's why we were thinking collapsible or interfacing or even cardboard... it would be stiff but could snap back into place when the ride is over. Ideas? We're hoping they'll be rectangular, so longer on the front and back and shorter on the sides. We want the plastic/cardboard/interfacing at the top and bottoms only, to help hold the shape. The top plastic/cardboard/interfacing section will be slightly above our shoulders, and we'll have arm holes so we have use of our arms. The bottom will hit about mid-thigh. 
) on the plastic, but we need it to hold its shape. Also, we'll be IN the lanterns, so the costume will be all sown together before we put it on. HTH, and thanks!
