KellyJo18's Planning Journal - WP/LS/UK - June 21, 2007

[cryssi]

yummmmm, looks so good! especially those desserts...

 

[lindajoan]

KellyJo18, this is so helpful! Thanks so much for sharing. Your WP and food pictures are phenomenal!!

 

[orangetiggs]

We are having our wedding at the exact same places, it looks so nice and all the food looks fantastic. We looked at the chicken as well so I'm going to make sure I try that!!

We are not going for our planning sessions till september but I cant wait now!!

 

[luna99]

what a great trip report!! it's totally making me miss disney and miss living there!!!!! maybe I'll move back one day and work for the mouse when I'm old and retired.

 

[KellyJo18]

yummmmm, looks so good! especially those desserts...

They were incredible... definitely worth the DP menu upgrade

KellyJo18, this is so helpful! Thanks so much for sharing. Your WP and food pictures are phenomenal!!

I'm really glad someone is finding it helpful! I remember seeing a planning session TR that was extremely helpful (especially the food pictures). I figured it was about time I returned the favor and tried to help out others that are still planning.

We are having our wedding at the exact same places, it looks so nice and all the food looks fantastic. We looked at the chicken as well so I'm going to make sure I try that!!

We are not going for our planning sessions till september but I cant wait now!!

You won't be disappointed in the chicken (IMO). Good luck planning!

what a great trip report!! it's totally making me miss disney and miss living there!!!!! maybe I'll move back one day and work for the mouse when I'm old and retired.

I've always wanted to work at Disney too. We're moving to Florida but I figure a two hour commute to work everyday might be a little too much .

 

[sunsh1ne]

this was very helpful and informative. i love your menu chices. one question what course does the soup fit in? we also wanted the soup the one from canada in epcot is it in place of te salad??

 

[DisneyFairy19]

I love your newsletter.. I might use some of the wording myself

 

[KellyJo18]

this was very helpful and informative. i love your menu chices. one question what course does the soup fit in? we also wanted the soup the one from canada in epcot is it in place of te salad??

Following the pre-reception most Disney menus have dinner beginning with an appetizer once all of the guests are seated. We figured after having a bunch of appetizers during our pre-reception this was unnecessary and decided to substitute this course with the soup. So we will be having: soup, salad, sorbet (possibly), and then the dual chicken/filet plate.

 

[KellyJo18]

I love your newsletter.. I might use some of the wording myself

Thanks It took awhile but I think it finally turned out all right. I'm glad it might be helpful to you

 

[Kashmir104]

This planning trip report is fantastic!!!!! Thank you soo much for sharing this! I had no idea about the ice sculpture slipper! That's awesome for sorbet! You made me really excited for my own planning session (which is 15 months away!!!! hehehe)

Can't wait to hear more (and see more pictures!)

 

[KellyJo18]

Our Planning Session

I figured it was about time for me to finish up my planning session trip report since it has been three weeks already since we've been back. Hopefully I remember everything well enough to give you a good idea how the planning session portion of the day is run.

We got back from our menu tasting and our EM had to go print off the planning kit we had sent her a few days prior. While we were waiting for her to return we decided that my sister should drive FMIL back to our hotel so she could help DF figure out what to do about his flight. My sister was a little disappointed that she was going to miss the beginning of the planning session but really once our EM finished printing off our paperwork and we got settled into a conference room she had already made it back from dropping of FMIL.

I would recommend you bring your "Let the Planning Begin!" paperwork as it was pretty much the outline of questioning our EM went through for this part. I used mine to remind myself of what we had decided and it was a good place to take notes (especially looking at the notes now it makes it easier to figure out what we had been talking about).

When we finally got started she first went over what the BEO was and how it was important. She explained that the BEO is the program/guide to our wedding. The BEO will show what will happen and in what order events will happen. More importantly what is not in the BEO will not occur so once we get it back we need to go over it line by line and make sure everything we are expecting on our wedding day is written out in the BEO. She said that we'd receive it 4-5 weeks following the planning session (right now it's been three - I heard from her last week and she said that it'd be another two weeks until she completed it because of a busy wedding schedule). She also stressed that we shouldn't freak out when we receive it or the budget because changes can be made. It bugged me how throughout the day they did not discuss prices at all. A lot of my decisions might have to be altered to fit our budget.

Next she explained that our payment would be due mid-May which is 30 days before our event. We are having to email her and floral our official guest count on May 15th (38 days prior to the wedding). Around this time she also needs our arrival and resort information. During this trip we were still trying to decide where we wanted to stay before and after the wedding and DF was trying to convince his family to stay at a nicer resort. When we were discussing our reservation plans she pointed out that if anyone wanted connecting doors to make sure to request it when they make their reservations. She stressed the point of using the term "connecting" instead of "adjoining" because that is the only way the request would be fulfilled and even then there aren't any guarantees. She also gave us the tip that if we really wanted to make sure we received connecting doors to explain when making our reservation that the adjoining room has either minors that need supervision staying in it or elderly with special needs. She said that when the request is made in that manor they pretty much have to see that it is fulfilled. I thought that tip might be helpful for some of you .

The wedding pavilion is booked the entire day before our wedding so our EM reminded us that our rehearsal would have to be held in one of the open ballrooms at the Grand Floridian. I didn't think this was a huge deal, it would have been nice to get into the WP but it will keep it more of a surprise for our wedding party since they have never seen the inside of the WP in person. She made sure we knew that whatever items we would need to give her for the wedding would need to be brought to her at the rehearsal (I think it is so that she does not have to store a bunch of things for too long of a time). Another tip that you might be interested in was that if you plan on mailing guest bags to the resorts before you arrive for the wedding you either have to use UPS or FedEx or they will get lost in the mail . Apparently anything that is sent with standard US postal is taken to their P.O. Boxes instead of the actual resorts and that UPS and FedEx would deliver the bags to the resort lobbies.

After discussing the rehearsal we moved on to the actual wedding. She said that with 10 people in our wedding party (3 bridesmaids, 3 groomsmen, FG, RB, and us) we would need to book 3 limos . We hadn't even budgeted for one and figured that we could add this if our budget allowed after we saw how much we were spending. She said that we would need three to fit our parents and grandparents as well as our wedding party because each limo only hold 8 people. We decided just to book one and let our parents and grandparents ride in the buses. We also figured our FG and RB would be okay staying with their parents instead of going with us in the limo. She said that we would need at least one limo because after our "staged exit" from the WP when our guests line the walkway we are taken in the limo for a short ride while our guests board the buses and head over to the pre-reception. After they have all been taken away the limo returns to the WP for our formal photographs.

We also had to decide where we wanted our grandparents seated. She said that the formal manor is to have them also in the front row with our parents but that a lot of times if the bride and groom are worried about filling the WP they recommend grandparents sit in the second row. I didn't really have a huge opinion on where they sat and let my mom decide - she had been wanting them to sit in the front row. She also said it's better not to have our grandparents come early for the photos taken at the GF before the wedding and have them ride in the buses with our other guests. She said it works out better to do photos with them after the wedding in the WP.

Buses - we had to request one of our buses be handicap accessible because DF's grandma is in a wheelchair. Typically one of these buses hold about 45 guests but 15 seats are removed in a handicap accessible bus. Hopefully this doesn't make it necessary for us to hire three buses instead of the two we had budgeted for.

One thing I was excited about was that once DF and I arrive at the pre-reception she will pull us into a private room so we can get some food in our systems before facing everyone. She said that she likes to grab a plate full of appetizers for us and does this because so many times the bride and groom never even get to taste any of the food they have at the wedding because they spend the whole time talking with their guests. I had originally told DF that I didn't really care if we had food I didn't like at the pre-reception because I just assumed it would be unlikely for us to eat any of it.

We then moved on to photography and our officiant. We are using Randy Chapman all evening except for our DP because he was already booked for one the night of our wedding so we will be hiring DPS and using their DP package. Then we moved on to the extra Disney items - Cinderella's coach, major domo, english butler, characters, etc. We are not having any of these extra touches at our wedding - she joked about us already having enough characters coming to the wedding as guests.

One thing that I thought was interesting is how they do the budget for the bar. We picked a hosted bar (which is billing per drink) and to figure out how much to charge you prior to the wedding they do not take age into consideration. Each guest (no matter their age or if they drink) will be charged an estimated rate because it tends to balance out because some guests will drink more than others. She said that we will be required to pay this estimate before the wedding and if we do not drink as much as they expect they will refund the money or if we drink more we will just owe more after the wedding. She said it tends to be pretty accurate and if a refund or charge is made it's typically not for a large amount.

Our pre-reception begins at 3:30 and the DJ will ask guests to take their seats around 4:30. Mike and I will have our first dance and then dinner will be served. After dinner we'll have more dancing before we go outside for the DP. Sorry but I can't remember what time she said we'd cut the cake but I'm thinking it was around 6:30 or 7. The schedule I have in our notes is: announce, 1st dance, meal, dad dance, cake, last dance at 7:50-7:55.

After we finished all of the paperwork discussion we got back to the good stuff, the cake tasting!

The cake choices were yellow, chocolate, marble, and almond. The frosting they brought us (from left to right) in the bottom row is tropical mousse, raspberry, chocolate mousse, and amaretto and the top row has buttercream, can't remember? , white chocolate mousse, and Bailey's.

I picked chocolate with chocolate mousse and vanilla with buttercream. Kind of boring and basic but it's what I've always enjoyed at other weddings.

After our cake tasting our EM had figured out a way to move up our floral appointment by an hour and a half so we could get back to the hotel early to check on DF and figure out our travel plans since DF had decided to change his ticket and we had all been scheduled to leave at 7 that same evening.

Laura with floral was amazing, I can't say enough good things about her. She was interested in every little detail of the day and would get so excited about pictures we brought and ideas we had. I can't really tell you what flowers we ended up picking because I don't remember any of the names.

I showed her this picture for the bridesmaids but asked her to also add some white flowers to it since I was having an all white bouquet. I also asked her to include lots of different shades of greens in both mine and the girls.

This is the original photo I found that actually made us pick olive green for our bridesmaids dresses and the flowers are from this photo as well.

I had tons of other pictures that I had cut out of magazines and had been collecting in a folder to take with us. I bought those old school photo album pages that are sticky and have the plastic cover that pulls back. Many of the pages of my planning folder are now empty because I left things with Disney. I had even made two copies of the photos I really liked so I would be left with a copy but ended up giving one to our EM and one to floral so make sure to take lots of copies with you. This is my planning folder:

When Laura found out the my grandma was making the bridesmaids dresses she got extremely excited because she knew there would be extra fabric. She asked us if she could get three squares of the fabric (around the size of a handkerchief) and so that they could wrap the stems of the bridesmaid flowers in the same fabric as their dresses.

For our centerpieces we decided to use the same kind of flowers that I will have in my bouquet (whites and greens). We are just going to have small vases of flowers, nothing fancy or too large because the tables at the LS are small. To save money I also asked if we could have floral arrangements on every other table and just use the standard candle holder at the LS on the rest of them and maybe put petals around them. This is the candle holder:

That's pretty much all I remember and all of the notes I took during our planning session. I hope it gives some of you a better idea what to expect.

 

[ohmersgirl]

Sounds like your planning is going well! I'm from MI too, and also went to MSU (and now work there full time). Your wedding looks like it will be beautiful!!!

 

[KellyJo18]

Sounds like your planning is going well! I'm from MI too, and also went to MSU (and now work there full time). Your wedding looks like it will be beautiful!!!

Thanks . I miss it - I'm jealous you are working there full time, that's so great. When my bridesmaids saw the original green fabric for their dresses they said "go sparty!"

 

[ohmersgirl]

Thanks . I miss East Lansing - I'm jealous you are working there full time, that's so great. When my bridesmaids saw the original green fabric for their dresses they said "Go Sparty!". I love MSU but not that much and figured that was a sign I needed to find a different shade of green . I need to make a trip down to EL sometime to stock up on MSU merchandise before I move to Florida. For some reason they like a school known as the Gators down there .

Haha, yeah you could go to Steve & Barry's and stock up real well. I was the maid of honor in my old roommate's wedding and they did do the "spartan green" for the girls dresses. They did turn out nice, but after 4 years of school here, then working here full time, I'm kinda sick of green.

 

[JJClemson]

Wow you got so much accomplished at your planning session That's too bad your DF wasn't able to join you. The food from your tasting session looks amazing mmmm

 

[lurkyloo]

Thank you for all this great DETAILED information - it is so helpful to an uberplanner like me to know exactly what happens and when!

 

[KellyJo18]

Wow you got so much accomplished at your planning session That's too bad your DF wasn't able to join you. The food from your tasting session looks amazing mmmm

The planning session was what I used to convince Mike that we should have a Disney wedding so it was kind of ironic that he couldn't go. He loved the idea that we only had to spend one day to plan the wedding instead of trying to decide on what vender's to use and me dragging him to tons of different appointments.

Thank you for all this great DETAILED information - it is so helpful to an uberplanner like me to know exactly what happens and when!

I'm glad it was somewhat helpful . I wish I hadn't waited so long to finish it, I'm sure I forgot something but when you don't know what to expect any information is helpful. I know I always appreciated it when other brides posted their experiences and finally I'm at the stage where I can return the favor for those just starting to plan.

 

[KellyJo18]

We finally got our wedding invitations sent out last week and I took some pictures to show you all. We ordered pocket invitations from mygatsby.com. I had an extremely hard time finding invitations I liked and, to be honest, I am still not a huge fan of the invitations we ended up ordering. We had gotten to the point where we had to order something or our invitations would never be sent out. The only reason I'm somewhat disappointed in them is because no one sold invitations with the olive green color we have been using. I also debated getting cream pockets instead of the black ones we picked in the end.

Instead of giving a directions card (since we have buses picking up all of our guests the day of the wedding) we decided to use the third slot in the pocket to invite our guests to the rehearsal/welcome dinner. We weren't sure if we should be inviting everyone to this but when I made the reservation at 'Ohana I was told we were required to have at least 65 people and that made the decision for us (we'd have to invite everyone to hit the minimum amount).

Here is our reply card. We decided to have our guests reply to both the wedding and the rehearsal dinner. Mike hates the "M" on the line where guests are supposed to write "Mr. and Mrs. _____" or "Miss _____" etc. He said that he would assume the M was for the first letter in his name and just write "ike _____" next to it. Sure enough, we have an "ike" atteding the wedding. His college roommate and best man (also named Mike) filled it in that way . I was laughing so hard when we got his reply in the mail. I even asked Mike if he had paid him to do it that way since my Mike had made a huge deal about the "M___________" being dumb.

Lastly, this is our reception card. I just wanted the traditional "reception to follow...etc." but my mom and sister convinced me that we should give a little more information about the evening. I still am not a huge fan of this wording but it was such a headache at the time we ordered I just went ahead and used it anyway.

 

[princessdisneybelle]

We finally got our wedding invitations sent out last week and I took some pictures to show you all. We ordered pocket invitations from mygatsby.com. I had an extremely hard time finding invitations I liked and, to be honest, I am still not a huge fan of the invitations we ended up ordering. We had gotten to the point where we had to order something or our invitations would never be sent out. The only reason I'm somewhat disappointed in them is because no one sold invitations with the olive green color we have been using. I also debated getting cream pockets instead of the black ones we picked in the end.

Instead of giving a directions card (since we have buses picking up all of our guests the day of the wedding) we decided to use the third slot in the pocket to invite our guests to the rehearsal/welcome dinner. We weren't sure if we should be inviting everyone to this but when I made the reservation at 'Ohana I was told we were required to have at least 65 people and that made the decision for us (we'd have to invite everyone to hit the minimum amount).

Here is our reply card. We decided to have our guests reply to both the wedding and the rehearsal dinner. Mike hates the "M" on the line where guests are supposed to write "Mr. and Mrs. _____" or "Miss _____" etc. He said that he would assume the M was for the first letter in his name and just write "ike _____" next to it. Sure enough, we have an "ike" atteding the wedding. His college roommate and best man (also named Mike) filled it in that way . I was laughing so hard when we got his reply in the mail. I even asked Mike if he had paid him to do it that way since my Mike had made a huge deal about the "M___________" being dumb.

Lastly, this is our reception card. I just wanted the traditional "reception to follow...etc." but my mom and sister convinced me that we should give a little more information about the evening. I still am not a huge fan of this wording but it was such a headache at the time we ordered I just went ahead and used it anyway.

Very elegant!

 

[Married_Him_@_Disney]

I just tuned in... you've made some awesome selections, and you will have an incredible wedding.

We were married at the wedding pavillion in October 2005. Our wedding was amazing. The one thing that we were most impressed with is that we did not have to worry about anything on the day of the wedding.... there was always an entire crew and my planner with us the entire time, keeping us on schedule and directing us throughout pictures, travel, the ceremony, reception, etc. The best advice that I can give you is just to relax and breath it all in. Enjoy!!