Sorry for the delay in starting my planning session recap - I was out shopping with my maid of honor yesterday. I think we have the dresses mostly sorted out for all the girls now. I'll post pics of each one when I know for sure....
PLANNING TRIP -
Our planning session was scheduled for Friday April 3rd, so DF and I went down wednesday after work. It's only a 7hour drive for us, so that wasnt too bad. We stayed (gasp) off property this time
Financially there just werent any deals on property that worked out as well as staying off did. I will however say that i will never ever stay at the "marriott village" again!
It was terrible! Beds and pillows were awful, the "marketplace" which is basically a food court was really awful and service couldnt have gotten much worse!
But on to the fun stuff...
We decided that Thursday would be our "fun day" - basically the only day we would have time for the parks. Friday was completely packed with planning, menu tasting, and an appointment at raglan road. Saturday we wanted to visit hotels, meet with photographers, tux fitting, and other errands and then we were headed home sunday.
Anyone who has ever been to Disney with me will tell you I am a schedule nazi. You are up at the crack of dawn, waiting at the gate when the park opens, and you dont stop till the parks close. Everything is planned in an excel spreadsheet and we try hard to stick to the schedule! This was DFs first time going to Disney with me - poor guy
Thankfully Brandon is a morning person (normally a quality that drives me nuts, but very handy for Disney!) So Thursday morning we were up at 6:30 so we could get dressed, grab breakfast and head to the TTC (we wanted to start at EPCOT and end the night at MK so we parked the car at TTC).
Since we were only going for one day, we just decided to buy the tickets at the window that day. We got a super nice woman (i so wish i had gotten her name!) - and with a rather pouty face I asked for 2 one day park hoppers. (one day????!!!!) And that was her reaction - "just one day?" - so I explained we were in town to do our planning session for our wedding and we only had one day to play. She was very excited for us and handed us 2 "Just Engaged" buttons! Despite being bright pink, DF and I pinned our buttons on and headed up to the monorail for EPCOT.
Well, we were REALLY early - so early that we were at the EPCOT turnstiles by 8:12, when the park didnt open till 9
Finally they let us in, and we quickly made our way up to the rope drop at the fountain. Since there was still a few minutes before rope drop, we started chatting with some cast members while we waited. Our bright pink buttons were pretty obvious, so the CMs ask about when the wedding was etc. When we told them it was going to be in EPCOT France in October they were excited for us (actually, pretty much everyone we talked to on our trip was excited for us!).
Well one walks away and comes back a minute later with another CM with a headset on. She chats with us for a minute and then says...
How would you like to be the family of the day and help us open the park?