It's finally going to happen!! - 4/29 PJ - ONLY 18 DAYS LEFT!! YIKES!!

[disprincessatheart]

Hi to everyone. I don't post on the boards that much, but I read them a lot and I've been around for a couple of years. My short story is that I've been with DF for 5 years, we've been engaged for 18 months, and I've finally booked our second try at a DFTW. The first was a custom booked for April 24, 2007, but DF got completely freaked out about getting married, and we had to cancel. We've had a rough year, but we're finally doing well again and on Monday I got our new contract for our Escape wedding for April 29, 2008. I'm so excited and I can hardly wait!!

I've already booked the WP of course, our 1 week at the GF, our dinner after the ceremony and Narcoossee's and a big group dinner later that week at LeCellier (since everyone always wants to eat there and I never call soon enough to get reservations!). SInce I was doing all of this already last year, I have favors, my dress, my shoes, and a bunch of welcome bag stuff already, and tons of DIS info, so I'm well on my way. I'll try to do a planning journal this time around.

well, now that it's been 2 more months, I'm turning this into my planning journal. I've got so much stuff to get straight in my head that I'm hoping this will help, and I know it'll be fun!

 

[caryndisneydiva]

Congratulations!!!

 

[B2B-2008]

Congratulations, happy planning

 

[tlhbdm]

Congrats! DF and I have been together for 5 years this Friday and we have been engaged for 18 months! Congrats again! Happy Planning

 

[lurkyloo]

Hooray! Congratulations!

 

[M&M126]

Yeay congrats! You're only a couple weeks after me in April. How fun. Have fun planning although you have most things done already

 

[Holly81]

Congrats and have fun planning!

 

[audisight]

Congrats!!! Have fun planning your wedding!!!

 

[Keira1387]

Congrats!!!! Happy Planning!

 

[padisneyfour]

welcome and congrats to another escape bride. It sounds like you are well on your way with planning and wedding things- will look forward to hearing more details.

 

[tchan03]

Congratulations ! Enjoy planning

 

[disprincessatheart]

The basics:

Ok, the basics are, our wedding is set for 2:30 for the WP on April 29. After that we have our cake cutting at Commander's Terrace followed by dinner at Narcoossees, and if I can get the reservation, a Wishes fireworks cruise!!

We're having an Escape wedding, and it looks like we'll be right at the 20 max. In our wedding will be my sister, and DF's brother, along with my 4 yr old niece and 2 yr old nephew - they're too adorable! We're keeping it simpler this time around, but I think everything we're doing will be really nice and I like the plans this year just as well as last year, if not better since we're doing Wishes instead of Illuminations!!

I already have a bunch of stuff that now needs to be wrapped or assembled. My parents are coming to visit this weekend, and I think we might do the favor wrapping to get that out of the way. Here's the rundown of what I have.

Colors - Silver and purple

The dress - it's a pretty tulle ballgown by Cassablanca with silver embroidery and crystals. They were great - it was custom made to my measurements, so very minimal alterations needed to adjust for my weight loss over the last year.

The accessories - I have the cinderella necklace and bracelet that swarovski discontinued and clearanced earlier this year - just need a tiara, but I think I'm borrowing one(my something borrowed) from a good friend

The favors - last christmas I got 40 (last year we were having 40 guests)silver mini mickey head christmas ornaments from disney shopping for around $1 each. I'm putting them in silver boxes with purple tissue and ribbon. The boxes make them easy to give out and easy for guests to take home since the ornaments are glass. Now everyone gets one, plus the grandparents that aren't able to make it this year, and my best friend who can't come because she's due the week before..

Gifts - I have silver plated mickey and minnie wedding frames and albums for the families/attendants. I figured they'll have lots of pictures from the trip and wedding, so they'll have a place to put them.

I think that's about it. I need to start figuring out if I'm doing anything else for the wedding. I was originally going to do programs and welcome bags, but now that it's a small group, I'm not sure.

Well, I guess that's it for now. I'll keep this updated this time!

 

[calla28]

Congrats and welcome back.

 

[OceanGdss]

congrats! can't wait to read and see everything!!

 

[figmentfan814]

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding, I'm glad that things are working out this time around I would love to see some pictures of the stuff that you have already, it sounds great Looking forward to hearing more.

 

[stitchlet]

Congratulations & happy planning! Can't wait to hear details & see pics!

 

[disprincessatheart]

So we've had a couple big (to me) changes this week. First off, I originally wanted to do a Wishes fireworks cruise from the GF after our wedding dinner. Well, as luck would have it, our wedding night there are currently NO fireworks scheduled for MK. It's one of those rumored P&PP nights, but it hasn't been announced yet so at 90 days out, I can't book a cruise, so I had to go to plan B.

Earlier this week, plan B was to do an Illuminations cruise instead, but I started freaking out that we wouldn't have time to get from Narcoossee's to where ever we needed to be for the cruise in time.... so I emailed my planner and started looking into Illuminations dessert parties again. (last year's wedding was custom and was going to be an Illuminations reception at French Island, so this is closer to the original plan anyway)

So, yesterday Tanis got me pricing and details on the DP. I looked up morocco pics online, and I think this is the way for us to go. I also happened on some other DP threads tonight, and have ideas from a couple of you on extending the time (thanks Lurkyloo) and doing different menus than what they sent us. We'll see how all that works out next week when I talk to Tanis. I think it's finally time I call her again and avoid the emails so I can talk it out with her and make sure I'm not off on any of my assumptions.

Anyway, yesterday after looking at the DP pricing, (double the price of the wishes cruise we were counting on) I decided I needed a budget on paper. Not that I'm sticking to a budget, but I needed a visual and a total on just how much money we are spending (hoping to get mom to commit to the same amount she said she would give last year )

Once I got my spending spree on paper I decided that we were spending WAY too much money (just incase mom says no to more money) and that I'd better do some trimming.

Last year, we had our rehearsal dinner scheduled at the GF Cafe. It just looks so cute and GF-ish and I thought it was going to be great. When we rebooked this fall, the wedding dinner plans came down to GF Cafe and Narcoossee's. I decided Narcoossee's would be better and booked it. Today I started second guessing that decision so I called dining and sure enough there is still room for a party of 20 at GF Cafe for dinner the night of our wedding at 5, so we'll be done in plenty of time to get to EPCOT for the DP. Needless to say I booked it. Now i have 2 dinner reservations for the night of our wedding. DF is at work, but when he called on his break I told him I was thinking of switching and that if we did we'd save $700 (almost 40% of the estimate now). He's all for less money. I'm slightly on the fence still but I think we'll switch. Hmm, maybe you girls have some opinions on GF Cafe? Since I've never been there I think that may be making me nervous. THe Narcoossees food is great, but with our group they were doing a VERY limited menu, so I wasn't going to be able to get lobster or anything anyway, so I figure if I'm getting steak or chicken I might as well get it cheaper at the GF Cafe.

So, those are my 2 big changes - Wishes FW CRuise out, Illuminations DP in

Narcoossee's out - GF Cafe in

ANyone have any GF Cafe opinions please???

 

[disprincessatheart]

Ok, so since I have a lot of my things already, I thought I would try to get some pics in here. SInce I don't know how to do that, here are some links to give you visuals. The dress is the real thing, the other two are ebay items so as long as the auctions are going, the links should work...

Here's my dress

http://www.casablancabridal.com/Products/Detail.asp?ModelNo=1805&Cat=Fall+Collection&SubCat=2005

sterling mickey cufflinks for DF and the two dads (not the black ones at the top of the page, but the monogrammed silver when you scroll down)
http://cgi.ebay.com/DISNEY-MICKEY-M...eZWD1VQQtrksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem

Oh, and our favors are silver colored glass ball ornaments in the shape of a mickey head. I got them last christmas on disney shopping for less than $1 each. THey're about 2" across and each one has a different design of sparkles on it. The basic idea is like this.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mickey-Mouse-Or...ryZ35887QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[M&M126]

I love your dress. It's gorgeous. I've never eaten at GF Cafe either so I cant help you much there! But it really is super cute. And I'm all for spending less too Good luck with your decision!

 

[keenercam]

I am all for saving money, too, and the idea of a fixed-price meal is very attractive to me, so I've been doing research on where to have our "rehearsal" dinner. I am thinking 1900 Park Faire or Ohana or Chef Mickeys. We are a very, very casual bunch and I thought our guests might like the fun atmosphere of any of these places. The menus are such that everyone could try lots of fun things without being limited to one entree item.
So, I just thought I'd point that out as a possibility, too.

BTW, if you haven't already bid on or bought cufflinks, you might want to check out cufflinks.com. I bought DH the sterling silver Mickey head icon cufflinks for $50 and they are gorgeous. The customer service is the absolute best, too. One of them had come loose in the packaging in shipping and had a tiny scratch on it from bumping against the other one. I shipped them back and they reimbursed shipping and expedited the new pair back to me. They were absolutely wonderful to deal with. I hope that helps!