Maddiesmum03
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2007
- Messages
- 434
The time has come for me to share our plans on this board. I have enjoyed everyone else's planning so much, but felt I couldn't "officially" plan until our date was confirmed.
We are over the moon that we got our first choice of time/date/place...but let me start from the beginning!
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT US - Me, Carol ( now 44) DF, Iain ( a little bit younger! ) We met at a friends New Years Eve Party in 97 and bought a house together in London two years later. We had Maddie in 2003 - she will be 4 1/2 at the time of the wedding. I also have a son from my first marriage who is 17. Deciding to get married was more of a mutual agreement than a proposal, we went to a friends wedding just before christmas and it got us thinking...
WHY WE CHOSE DISNEY FOR OUR WEDDING - Weddings here in the UK average about $40,000. As much as we wanted to get married, we just couldn't justify spending that ammount of money on one day, holding a party for lots of people you feel you just have to invite. So we started looking at combining getting married with the one big spend we have each year - our vacation! We initially looked at getting married on a cruise and searched Disney weddings as a long shot because we really thought the cost would be out of our league. We couldn't believe how reasonable the intimate wedding packages were and immeadiately decided that this is what we wanted to do.
We are DVC members and we are going to "pay" for accomodation for Iains Dad, Sister, Brother in law and their 2 children, apart from the 3 of us ( my son decided he didn't want to come away with us, which is a shame because I always sort of thought that if I married again he would give me away, but it's his desision ) these will be the only other members of the wedding party as my parents passed away just before I met Iain and Iain's Mum is also no longer with us.
We are really happy that both Iains Dad and Sister & family can make it. Apart from the wedding itself, it will be a really great holiday and Maddie is already excited about going on holiday with her cousins as well as being a bridesmaid.Thinking about the timing of our wedding , if we had rushed into getting married when I was expecting her, it would have denied her this chance to be a princess for a day and to see how much her mummy and daddy love each other
THE ENGAGEMENT - OK, so we had already decided when and where we wanted to get married. We chose May 8th purely based on the length of our stay at WDW, avoiding the weekend. Sea Breeze Point was a no brainer because the Boardwalk is our DVC home resort, it's where we always stay, and we have walked past SBP so may times without realising it was a wedding venue ( I thought it was a bandstand
) we wanted the 12 o clock slot because 10am is just too early to get ready for, 2pm will be siesta time time for half the wedding party( 18 month old, 70+ Dad and possibly the 2 four year olds!) and we thought it's more likely to rain at 4pm!!!
booking the date seemed a bit more tricky. We had already planned to cruise the Med this May and would be in Gilbratar on the 8th.So we said," wouldnt it be great if we could get a ring in (duty and tax free) Gilbraltar? " Iain phoned Disney a couple of days before we set sail just to clarify what time we should ring and spoke to Doreen. She was great, she said we didn't need to stress about phoning, she would log our first to third choice of venue/time straight away and at 8am EST on the 8th it would automatically upload to their system and she would email us to let us know what we had got.
Well, without a phone call to stress about ,we had a great day in Gib. Plenty of monkeys! and we found a ring that I loved. As soon as we got back on board, we checked for emails and there was one from Doreen with the contract as an attachment BUT we couldnt open the attachement with the rubbish internet connection on the ship, so we knew we had got something but we didnt know if we had got our first choice or not!!!
no worries, we emailed her again and after sorting Maddie out with a in room babysitter, we went for a meal at one of the speciality restaraunts to celebrate. I thought Iain would "officially" give me my ring during the meal but he didn't. After we finished we went up on deck just as the sun was setting and he got down on one knee and asked me..........of course I said yes LOL
I managed to grab someone to take a couple of shots of us. Here we are just after the ring finally went on my finger, and before the sun went down!
So now we are back home, we can really start planning. Actually, we did a fair bit before the date was official, including booking Randy Chapman, thanks to all the great things everyone has said about him on this board and seeing the beautiful photos he has taken.
More to follow........
We are over the moon that we got our first choice of time/date/place...but let me start from the beginning!
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT US - Me, Carol ( now 44) DF, Iain ( a little bit younger! ) We met at a friends New Years Eve Party in 97 and bought a house together in London two years later. We had Maddie in 2003 - she will be 4 1/2 at the time of the wedding. I also have a son from my first marriage who is 17. Deciding to get married was more of a mutual agreement than a proposal, we went to a friends wedding just before christmas and it got us thinking...
WHY WE CHOSE DISNEY FOR OUR WEDDING - Weddings here in the UK average about $40,000. As much as we wanted to get married, we just couldn't justify spending that ammount of money on one day, holding a party for lots of people you feel you just have to invite. So we started looking at combining getting married with the one big spend we have each year - our vacation! We initially looked at getting married on a cruise and searched Disney weddings as a long shot because we really thought the cost would be out of our league. We couldn't believe how reasonable the intimate wedding packages were and immeadiately decided that this is what we wanted to do.
We are DVC members and we are going to "pay" for accomodation for Iains Dad, Sister, Brother in law and their 2 children, apart from the 3 of us ( my son decided he didn't want to come away with us, which is a shame because I always sort of thought that if I married again he would give me away, but it's his desision ) these will be the only other members of the wedding party as my parents passed away just before I met Iain and Iain's Mum is also no longer with us.
We are really happy that both Iains Dad and Sister & family can make it. Apart from the wedding itself, it will be a really great holiday and Maddie is already excited about going on holiday with her cousins as well as being a bridesmaid.Thinking about the timing of our wedding , if we had rushed into getting married when I was expecting her, it would have denied her this chance to be a princess for a day and to see how much her mummy and daddy love each other
THE ENGAGEMENT - OK, so we had already decided when and where we wanted to get married. We chose May 8th purely based on the length of our stay at WDW, avoiding the weekend. Sea Breeze Point was a no brainer because the Boardwalk is our DVC home resort, it's where we always stay, and we have walked past SBP so may times without realising it was a wedding venue ( I thought it was a bandstand
) we wanted the 12 o clock slot because 10am is just too early to get ready for, 2pm will be siesta time time for half the wedding party( 18 month old, 70+ Dad and possibly the 2 four year olds!) and we thought it's more likely to rain at 4pm!!!booking the date seemed a bit more tricky. We had already planned to cruise the Med this May and would be in Gilbratar on the 8th.So we said," wouldnt it be great if we could get a ring in (duty and tax free) Gilbraltar? " Iain phoned Disney a couple of days before we set sail just to clarify what time we should ring and spoke to Doreen. She was great, she said we didn't need to stress about phoning, she would log our first to third choice of venue/time straight away and at 8am EST on the 8th it would automatically upload to their system and she would email us to let us know what we had got.
Well, without a phone call to stress about ,we had a great day in Gib. Plenty of monkeys! and we found a ring that I loved. As soon as we got back on board, we checked for emails and there was one from Doreen with the contract as an attachment BUT we couldnt open the attachement with the rubbish internet connection on the ship, so we knew we had got something but we didnt know if we had got our first choice or not!!!
no worries, we emailed her again and after sorting Maddie out with a in room babysitter, we went for a meal at one of the speciality restaraunts to celebrate. I thought Iain would "officially" give me my ring during the meal but he didn't. After we finished we went up on deck just as the sun was setting and he got down on one knee and asked me..........of course I said yes LOL
I managed to grab someone to take a couple of shots of us. Here we are just after the ring finally went on my finger, and before the sun went down!
So now we are back home, we can really start planning. Actually, we did a fair bit before the date was official, including booking Randy Chapman, thanks to all the great things everyone has said about him on this board and seeing the beautiful photos he has taken.
More to follow........
We have a 21 year old son who hasn't been on vacation with us since he was 15! Says its a vacation for him here without us! 
. Anyhow, heres the dress
eek: ) and getting married in october! just bought my shoes and undergarments for the wedding this weekend - great sales due to the holiday!! I went with beaded silver flip flop sandals...they look gorgeous and I will be comfortable!
