Glad I Did/Wish I'd Done
I'm back, ya'll! Its been two weeks since the wedding and time is already flying! I still can't even register that next weekend is Christmas. So crazy. Well after all the stress and anxiety that came along with wedding planning, I have to say that the wedding was absolutely perfect and went off without a hitch! The honeymoon was great too, though I was sick with a cold the whole entire time, so I kinda wish I could have a do-over with that. Anyways, before I get all caught up in the holidays, I wanted to put together my Glad I Did/Wish I'd Done list, and my vendor reviews. I'll also throw in some of my wedding sneak peek photos that our photographer's have sent us because I'm SO obsessed with them all. I don't plan on starting our wedding day recap/trip report until I have all of our photos back, which will still be another 3-4 weeks from now. Without further ado, lets start with the Glad I Did's (since they FAR outweight the Wish I'd Dones).
Glad I Did...
Had a Disney Wedding. This is by far the best decision we've ever made and if you've read my whole PJ, then you know it nearly didn't happen. Between figuring out if we could even afford a Disney wedding, cutting our guest list to only immediate family, and then all the drama (family and otherwise) that came along with planning the wedding, I sometimes didn't think I was going to make it through all of this. But having our dream wedding through Disney was perfect and seriously the best day ever! There's not a single thing I would have changed about our day and I'm so thankful that I stuck to my gut and went this route.
Used Picture Point as our ceremony venue. We originally booked the Wedding Pavilion as our ceremony venue and I'm not going to lie, I was not excited about it. Its such a beautiful venue but I always envisioned getting married outdoors and I just didn't love the churchy feel that I got from the Wedding Pavilion. However, it was George's favorite venue and he didn't love my first two choices, Seabreeze Point or the Yacht Club Gazebo so I caved (since I chose our reception venue). After we officially signed our paperwork for the Wedding Pavilion, George got the idea that the WP would look super empty with just our 25 guests and asked our planner if we could have our ceremony out at Picture Point since we already had the WP booked. She said yes, and from there on out, Picture Point was our venue! It was absolutely beautiful and perfect for our intimate wedding and I got to have my dream of getting married outside! Plus it was nice and private without any onlookers.
Had a first-look. There was never any question that I wasn't going to have a first-look, but it definitely was one of the best decisions of the day. On the morning of the wedding, I kept pretty cool...until about halfway through getting my hair and makeup done. Then I got really nervous. The nerves stayed all the way through the morning leading up to the ceremony...that is until our first-look. Right after my now husband turned around and saw my complete look, all my nerves seemed to melt away. I was no longer nervous about walking down and aisle or reading my vows because I got to spend some one-on-one time with him and everything was just right. The first look itself was actually kind of awkward as after our initial comments on how amazing each other looked, we didn't really know what to do, but then our photographers sensed that and we started on some of our portraits (which I'm also super glad we got done before the wedding). Then a swarm of birds flew over the pavilion and George got pooped on. LOL. Way to break the ice!
Hired an experienced Disney photographer. We initially went back and forth between bringing in our own photographer or just going with a package from DFAP...until we found out that you don't actually get to choose your photographer through DFAP. That's when our decision was a no-brainer. We started looking into photographers a few days after we signed our contract with Disney. I had a favorite (The Roots) but no matter how I tried to make it work, just couldn't afford them. I also looked into another former-DFAP photographer that I liked but she was already booked. Finally, that same evening, I saw a post online that Cricket (a former, very popular DFAP photographer) was back and could officially book Disney wedding again starting in December 2016. As soon as I showed George their photos, he told me to book them and it was one of the best decisions we've ever made. Cricket has an amazing eye and is so knowledgeable of Disney weddings. It was a perfect fit. I knew before even seeing any of our photos that our pictures were going to be amazing, but now that I've seen our sneak peeks, I know Cricket was the perfect photographer for us! Seriously, we have some pretty epic pictures (that we've seen so far).
Kept our guest list small. Not that we really had a choice because we couldn't afford to invite more guests, but even if we could have, our guest list was perfect. Like I've mentioned before, I hate being the center of attention, so keeping things small really helped keep me calm(er). We only had 23 guests and it was all of our immediate family (moms, dads, grandparents, siblings) and just a few of our very close, mutual friends. Between the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner the night before, everyone had started getting to know each other and by the wedding day, everyone was able to mingle and enjoy each other's company instead of talking to strangers. It was great!
Had a friend do my hair and makeup. While I'm sure that any of the preferred hair and makeup artists would have made me look beautiful, I'm so, so happy that my good friend Anna did my hair and makeup for my wedding day! While I was getting my hair done the morning of the wedding, I started to get REALLY nervous...almost to the point of shaking. It was so nice that I wasn't freaking out in front of a stranger, but rather a close friend of mine who told me it was going to be alright and was able to help settle me down. Not only that, but she knocked my look out of the park! I'm so lucky to have such a talented friend <3
Stayed in a 1-bedroom villa. While I'm sure we could have made it happen if we booked a normal hotel room, having ALL that extra room to get ready in was so convenient. The 1-bedroom villas at the Boardwalk were INSANE and I could seriously live there. We had so much room to hang out and get ready, that no one even got in each other's way once. Plus, George and I brought a lot of stuff for the wedding with us, which would have taken up half of a normal hotel room. Our planner was also able to reserve the room closest to the Attic (where our reception was) and it was literally 10 steps away, so once the wedding was over, we were able to just walk everything over to our room without having to use bell services. If you can spring to get a 1-bedroom villa for your wedding stay, I highly recommend it.
Had a designated MC/coordinator. While Kristie was the best planner ever and made sure everything went off without a hitch, I also asked my bridesmaid/bestie, Meghan, to help MC and coordinate that reception. She has a career in PR/marketing and hosts events for a living, so I knew I was in good hands. She made all of the major announcements, made sure our music and playlists were being played (which saved us TONS of money), and made sure to collect all of our wedding stuff that we had brought ourselves once the reception was over. She was organized, efficient, and such a huge help and I can't thank her enough for that.
Brought our GoPro. We knew from the start that videography wasn't in our budget and that it just wasn't that important to us. While it would have been nice to have a gorgeous wedding video that I've seen some of my other Disbrides friends have, it just wasn't a top priority for me. Then on Black Friday, we found a great deal on a Go Pro, which my fiancé bought so we could take videos on our honeymoon in Hawaii. $250 out the door. The day before the wedding, he decided that he was going to bring the Go Pro to the ceremony and set it up to face us on the Picture Point arch. I didn't think that it would look that great, but we watched the video later that night and it seriously looked like a professional video and I'm SO SO happy to have our vows (which we worked really hard on) on camera! He also set the Go Pro up on our sweetheart table at the reception and it showed the whole room, so we also have really nice videos of our first dances, toasts, and cake cutting
Such an awesome investment and literally saved thousands on videography.
Hired the 501st. Star Wars is a huge passion of my husband's (he is a stormtrooper in the 501st) and we were told over and over again that DFTW was no longer allowed to have the 501st attend their events. Well Kristie must have done some major convincing on our parts because after being told no so many times, it was finally approved a couple of months before the wedding and George was thrilled! It took me a little longer to get excited about it because I was worried that with already having Mickey and Minnie planned for the cake cutting, that it would be too much (and worried about my family's reactions/eye rolls). However, they were a HUGE hit and everyone loved it so much! We had Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and two stromtroopers (all friends of George and I) and they were just so much fun. Even my mom and grandma who I didn't think would get it said it was perfectly us! I still don't know whether or not 501st is now allowed to do weddings at Disney going forward, but if they are, I can't recommend them enough!
Wish I'd Done...
Had a Dessert Party. I really, really wanted a Dessert Party and tried so hard to make it happen, but it just wasn't in the cards. First, it was not in our budget (though I would have charged it because I wanted one so badly) and it also would have been difficult to organize with our guests since our reception ended at 4 and none of our guests were staying on property since they are all local. However, I was still willing to try, but I knew that I wanted the UK Lockside or Pubside and none were available. I had Kristie check for us every single month but it never became available and I didn't like any of the other location options I was given so I just decided to give up on the DP and save some money instead. I'm hoping we can do a small, private dessert party at UK Pubside for just my husband and I for either our first or second wedding anniversary.
Done our Portrait Sessions right away. An MK portrait session was a must for me, but so was having our wedding in December. DFAP has some many days blacked out for December so it was really difficult to schedule a portrait session anyways. I wanted to do it within the week of our wedding, but it was completely blacked out and the only December dates that were really available were either while we were going to be on our honeymoon or with routes I didn't want. While it would have been nice to have the portrait session done closer to the wedding so that it still felt like an event that was part of our wedding and we would get the pictures back around the same time that we get our wedding pictures back, I'm just glad that I get to do one at all. We're doing our MK portrait session during the last weekend in February. We decided to skip January because we knew the chances of the crane being up then were pretty great and the beginning of February is usually really cold in Florida (in the mornings at least). We didn't want to wait too long though, so we chose the end of February since we were guaranteed that all the Christmas decorations would be done by then and it would start getting lighter outside earlier (we wanted more photos during the daytime than nighttime). We also added an Epcot photo session on for the same day because it was only $300 more. Still finalizing which countries we want to do, but it will most likely be Canada, UK, and Morocco.
Booked another room at the Boardwalk. While we didn't need an extra room at the Boardwalk because our 1-bedroom was so huge, it would have been nice for George to have his own, separate room for him and his groomsmen to get ready in so that our photographers could have gotten some getting ready photos of them. Instead, George just got ready in the other bedroom and then left the hotel room super early (while I was getting my hair and makeup done) and met up with his brothers at the Grand Floridian. Since they were already gone, our photographers didn't have any getting ready photos of George or portraits with his groomsmen until after the ceremony.
Brought some boxes for leftovers. I'm not sure if Disney would have even allowed this, but since our room was soo close to the Attic, it would have been really awesome if we had thought to make some plates of food for George and I to eat on the wedding night. Our food was sooooooooo GOOD and I would have loved some more of it that evening once I was out of the dress!
Booked a more relaxing honeymoon. I have no regrets going to Hawaii...it was an amazing experience. But in my head, Hawaii was going to be a relaxing, beach-type vacation and we ended up doing so many different things and were constantly running around! I ended up getting sick the day before we left for our honeymoon and had a cold the entire time so I was just tired and run-down a lot of the honeymoon, unfortunately. I did tough it out though and we still did pretty much everything that we had planned to do in Hawaii, but to be honest, my favorite day of the honeymoon was the day we just stayed at Aulani and hung out in the pools and hot tubs all day. So fun and relaxing, which is what I really needed after all the stress of planning the wedding. If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have chosen a cruise so that we didn't have to deal with travel, renting a car, etc. Even so, I'm still super excited to check Hawaii off of my bucket list!
Whew, that was way longer than I thought. Congrats to those who actually read through this whole thing. So yes, happy to see that my list of "Glad I Did's" was much longer than the "Wish I'd Dones." And with that, I really need to get back to work! I will try to post my vendor reviews and sneak peek photos tomorrow!
