Lindsay & Ryan's Wishes PJ 10/25/13 **Planning Session TR Pt 4! 5/21/13**

[KitKat5]

Have fun at your planning session!! That's one thing I missed out on being from the UK, I couldn't just fly over for a few hours to do one so had it over the phone instead! I can't wait to hear all about yours though.

You've certainly been busy lately but it all looks and sounds great!

 

[charliegirl76]

Safe travels! Hope you have a great time at your planning session, can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

Hope you have a great Planning Session! Can't wait to read about it!

By the way, saw the dress on Facebook and it's absolutely stunning!

 

[tinydancr06]

Have fun at your planning session!! That's one thing I missed out on being from the UK, I couldn't just fly over for a few hours to do one so had it over the phone instead! I can't wait to hear all about yours though.

You've certainly been busy lately but it all looks and sounds great!

You are so strong to have done your planning session over the phone! That thing was a marathon! Super fun though

Safe travels! Hope you have a great time at your planning session, can't wait to hear all about it!

Thank you! Report coming soon!

Hope you have a great Planning Session! Can't wait to read about it!

By the way, saw the dress on Facebook and it's absolutely stunning!

Thanks! And thank you so much about the dress. I cannot wait to wear it!

 

[tinydancr06]

So, here we are. It’s finally time to start my planning session TR! I can’t believe it’s already come and gone. It seemed so far for so long! Anyway…let’s start with day one. This was a busy, BUSY day! We are not napping people and we had to throw one in there just to make it to our ADR that night. Here we go!

We got up at the crack of dawn on Friday to drive to WDW. Ryan and I were meeting my parents at Best Friends Pet Care to drop our family dog off. We packed up and one Dunkin Donuts stop and 3 hours of sitting later we arrived at Disney! We met my parents at Best Friends as planned and once we were done there it was time to head to Franck’s for our PS at 9am. I got nervous in the car for some reason, wedding stuff just always has so much build up, but I was so excited once we finally parked at the Wedding Pavilion.

I grabbed my bag with my wedding binder, iPad, and packets for the planner and florist and we headed in. There was another PS and a meeting with an officiant going on and Franck’s is not that big of a space so it seemed a little busy. We had to wait maybe 15 minutes for our planner to be ready. Here are some obligatory Franck’s pictures…

It really is a beautiful space. We took pictures to entertain ourselves while we waited…

My mom and dad

Once Diane arrived we headed into our planning room (I believe it was Fauna). We would not be leaving there for 4 hours! When they say 4 hour planning session they . mean . it!!!

The way the planning session goes is they start by breaking down all of the deadlines leading up to the wedding. They do this by giving you a new timeline that starts after your planning session and ends after your wedding is over. This timeline includes all payment deadlines, when to book services (such as officiants, cosmetology, and pressing), when to send updated guest counts to receive new BEOs, room block deadlines, marriage license info, and then when you have to finalize things like head counts for cake and floral choices. Let’s just say they start you off with A LOT of info but, if you have a great planner like we do, it is easy to understand and not as overwhelming as you would think.

After that, your planner will go through every second of your wedding from rehearsal to last dance in incredible detail. We are also planning our rehearsal dinner through DFTW so that was included as well. By going through the day(s) like this, they touch on every possible thing you could discuss from making selections for things like food or decor to the actual schedule and how the whole day plays out. I must say, Diane’s knowledge of how the whole day will run was incredible. I guess this should be a given but let’s just say I cannot imagine planning a wedding without a planner like her to think of all these things for me!

Now, instead of being so general, here are some of the big points from our planning session:

- Rehearsal/Rehearsal Dinner Timeline: we’re requesting the WP at 7pm for the rehearsal, if it isn’t available then we’ll be in the GF convention center which would be fine since it’s so close to Sago Cay. The rehearsal should take around 30 minutes. Then the rehearsal dinner at Sago Cay in the marina will start at 8pm. The light dinner portion (with pasta and a carving station from the hot cocktail hour menu) will be from 8 to 9. The dessert party portion will start at 9 and the Hallowishes will start at 9:30! We’re excited to have it be the Halloween fireworks given our love of MNSSHP. We won’t be piping the music in though because the overly Halloween-ness might be a little confusing. I’ll give more details on the food choices once our BEO comes back.

- Diane easily convinced us we needed to do the limo for the wedding day. It really is a good value seeing as it will go around to multiple resorts to pick up pretty much all of the wedding party before the wedding to get everyone to pictures on time.

- We talked a lot about ceremony music. We are being kind of particular so it took some discussion. We also got to hear the organist. He was hilaaarious and extremely talented. He can play ANYTHING and literally played a few of our requests right off the top of his head. He was awesome!

- We also talked a lot about all the DIYs and other things we will be providing for the wedding. Diane was very accommodating and didn’t seem to care how many boxes we ended up bringing which is nice. They were much more accommodating on this topic than I ever thought they would be. They’ll even set everything up! The only thing they mentioned that they wouldn’t set up would be table linens if you brought your own but we won’t be doing that anyway. They will be setting up our centerpieces with the DIYed mercury glass since we’re still using Disney floral.

- We are trying to do something somewhat unique with our seating/table layout for the reception. We requested rectangular tables set up in one large sort of squared off “U” shape with the dance floor in the middle. I like the idea of having all the separate tables kind of come into one big, communal table with us and the wedding party in the center at the bottom of the “U.” This sounds weird but I promise it makes sense. Diane is looking into how this would fit into our reception venue, GF ballrooms 6-9. I think it could turn out to be very cool!

- We tried cake! Everything was DELICIOUS. We tried all the regular cakes/fillings but also requested a few others. Here’s everything we tried:

Cakes: Yellow, chocolate, almond, marble, and we requested the red velvet

Fillings: White chocolate mousse, Bailey’s mousse, amaretto mousse, dark chocolate mousse, Bavarian cream, raspberry mousse, tropical fruit mousse, and then we requested crème cheese and caramel milk chocolate (a new one!)

Honestly, they were ALL so good. The cake samples were so moist and it was really fun to mix and match them with the different fillings. We ended up going with three different combinations, one for our actual cake, one for a sheet cake that the guests will not see (Diane’s suggestion), and then one for our top tier that we’ll save. The main cake will be marble cake with the caramel milk chocolate filling, we really fell in love with this combo. The sheet cake will be the red velvet with crème cheese filling, this was seriously the best red velvet/crème cheese cake we’ve ever tasted. And then our top tier we decided to be weird and combine the two, doing red velvet cake with the caramel milk chocolate filling. Yum!!!

We also decided on what the actual cake would look like. We are going to be doing a round, three tiered cake covered in blush fondant. All three tiers will have a white/ivory lace pattern spray stenciled on and the middle tier will have a large, pewter bow around the middle in fondant. I’m really excited about the cake!


Once we were done tasting the cakes it was time to say goodbye to Diane and move one to the floral portion for the last hour of our planning session. This is getting a little long so that will be up next in part 2!

 

[Bewitch324]

I'm so excited to see you have started posting about your planning session. Thank you for including the pictures...it always helps to see the visuals to go along with the story!

Your cake sounds really pretty and tasty too!

I love your reheasal dinner/wishes party, sounds perfect!

Can't wait to hear more!

Brooke

 

[tinydancr06]

I'm so excited to see you have started posting about your planning session. Thank you for including the pictures...it always helps to see the visuals to go along with the story!

Your cake sounds really pretty and tasty too!

I love your reheasal dinner/wishes party, sounds perfect!

Can't wait to hear more!

Brooke

Thanks for reading! The pictures really help me, too. It's hard to remember to take them when you're in the middle of things but I always try for at least a few.

I'm glad you like the cake stuff, I'm still dreaming about that tasting!

I really can't wait for the rehearsal dinner. Hoping the BEO is kind to us on that one!

 

[tinydancr06]

The last hour of your planning session is when you meet with your florist. We have Heather Sparby and I really like her! She’s super sweet and really seemed to understand everything I wanted. By this point of the session the guys were a little fried and Ryan had to leave so we could talk about my wedding dress anyway so they stepped out for a bit. They did come back for the majority of it, though. I’ll just do a break down of everything we decided on and show you the inspiration photos I gave Heather.

The main theme for really all of our floral is garden roses and dusty miller. Pretty much everything has both of those in some capacity. I also was very adamant that I want ALL the roses, of any kind, to be very open. I am crazy about the look of open roses and not so much closed. The flowers will all be either blush or ivory and then the dusty miller brings a sort of grayish green which I love as a subtle way to hint towards our pewter color. If you don’t know what dusty miller looks like (I didn’t even know what it was called until Heather told us!) check out the “dusty” looking leaves in this photo.

I really love that dusty miller will be featured throughout our floral. It just looks so vintage!

Ok, so let’s start with my bouquet. As you’ll see throughout the rest of this post, once I told Heather the types of flowers I specifically wanted (basically just garden roses and dusty miller) I really just gave her direction on the shape of everything that I wanted. For all the bouquets I really want them to kind of look less purposeful, more like someone just walked around picking the most beautiful flowers ever and then made a bouquet! I’m not crazy about the super round, “ball” look wedding floral can get sometimes. Just my preference. This is what I showed Heather I had in mind for the shape of my bouquet, minus the leaves hanging down.

So imagine that shape with dusty miller, blush, very OPEN garden roses, and spray roses. We’ll be doing a 75% wrap in white satin to give it that just picked sort of look. The flowers will all be blush to contrast my dress.

For the bridesmaids’ bouquets I wanted them to be petite, again, with that just picked look. I gave Heather these two inspiration photos to work from.

The girls’ bouquets will have blush flowers but also ivory to contrast with their blush dresses and their wraps will be 75% and blush. The flowers will be blush garden roses, ivory roses, ivory spray roses, and dusty miller.

For the boutonnieres and corsages for groomsmen and then family, everyone will have blush spray roses with dusty miller and then different color wraps/ribbons to differentiate them. Ryan’s will be wrapped in white, the guys will be blush, and the dads will be pewter. The groom’s mom and all grandmas will have cream ribbons for their corsages and my mom’s will be pewter.

For the flower girl we’re doing a halo of blush spray roses and greenery. This was the picture I gave but we decided on much less greenery! I just think the halos are so precious!

This all sounds like I was very particular but really I only told Heather the flowers I liked, the colors, and the shapes and she did everything from there. She was great!

Last stop was ceremony and reception floral! These two go together since we’ll be using some of the same arrangements for the ceremony and having them moved to the reception afterwards. We’ll have two different size arrangements in our mercury glass containers. Here they are if you don’t remember:

This is the shape inspiration I gave for the shorter arrangement:

Again, I don’t want to be super round, more like it’s overflowing. Those are obviously not the colors even though they’re very pretty!

And this is the shape for the taller container:

That ones even in mercury glass! Both arrangements will be blush and ivory with hydrangea, spray roses, open roses, lisianthus and dusty miller.

For the ceremony, we will have one of the short and one of the tall arrangements (4 total) on each side of our unity cross on the alter. We will also have 2-3 of our mercury glass candle votives on each side.

Those will be moved to the reception where we'll have one of each size arrangement on each long table, (hopefully) with all the rectangular tables coming into the one big "U" shape we discussed with Diane with the dance floor in the middle. Each table will also have a number of the votives as well.

Ok that was pretty much everything. We chose some linens and things but they may be cut once we get our full BEO (we’ve gotten our floral proposal already) so I’ll wait to talk about that later.

Up next: menu tasting!

 

[happylaughingcow]

Wow hun,

Just saw your comment on my PJ so thought Id better have a catch up on yours

How exciting! Sounds so far that your planning session went well? i sometimes get a bit jealous reading all the wishes PJs when they get to the parts about cake tasting.... yum! although Im going by what you girls say to decide what to pick for my escape cake!!

Love your flowers! so pretty, the colours will look beautiful with your hair colour

Laura xx

 

[rrali33tt]

Hi there!

I love the romantic vintage look you are going for with your flowers. I have to give you a ton of credit for knowing exactly how you want your flowers. I am completely clueless about that stuff LOL They are going to look beautiful!

Looking forward to seeing and reading more

 

[Summer Daydream]

Your flower inspiration pictures are beautiful! They are going to look stunning in the mercury glass. I had never seen a reception set up in the U shape, that is so unique. And u bet it would make for some really fun pictures. Can't wait to tea more about your PS!

 

[leelee9878]

Just read everything, loving all your pics!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

I am loving your PS TR. those bouquets and arrangements you've requested sound GORGEOUS! Wow, the room is going to be absolutely stunning! I also love the cake design you've described, and the cake flavours sound delicious! And I love the idea of the 'U' layout. I am really looking forward to seeing how that looks!

 

[tinydancr06]

Wow hun,

Just saw your comment on my PJ so thought Id better have a catch up on yours

How exciting! Sounds so far that your planning session went well? i sometimes get a bit jealous reading all the wishes PJs when they get to the parts about cake tasting.... yum! although Im going by what you girls say to decide what to pick for my escape cake!!

Love your flowers! so pretty, the colours will look beautiful with your hair colour

Laura xx

Thanks for reading! It's definitely a lot, we've been engaged a looong time

Our planning session definitely went well. We had so much fun! The cake tasting was fun but, really, everything was delicious so you can know that you will love your cake! All the flavors were sooo yummy

Thanks about the flowers, hope they turn out like I imagine!

Hi there!

I love the romantic vintage look you are going for with your flowers. I have to give you a ton of credit for knowing exactly how you want your flowers. I am completely clueless about that stuff LOL They are going to look beautiful!

Looking forward to seeing and reading more

Romantic vintage is exactly what I like, glad you can see my vision!

Really, I just knew that I liked garden roses and from there all of my picks were just based on things I've found on Pinterest. You do enough research on there and you can't help but have a good idea! It can be hard to narrow down at first but Pinterest is really such a valuable tool.

Thanks for reading!

Your flower inspiration pictures are beautiful! They are going to look stunning in the mercury glass. I had never seen a reception set up in the U shape, that is so unique. And u bet it would make for some really fun pictures. Can't wait to tea more about your PS!

Thank you! I hope the u shape works out. Diane is looking into it for us, I really don't see what wouldn't work about it, though. Fingers crossed!

Just read everything, loving all your pics!

Thanks so much for reading!

I am loving your PS TR. those bouquets and arrangements you've requested sound GORGEOUS! Wow, the room is going to be absolutely stunning! I also love the cake design you've described, and the cake flavours sound delicious! And I love the idea of the 'U' layout. I am really looking forward to seeing how that looks!

Glad you're liking the TR! Try as I might to not make my TRs and posts too long they always turn out to be novels! Lol, oh well. I always like reading longer posts anyway.

I really hope the u ends up working. I think it would be so fun!

I'm so glad you like everything!

 

[tinydancr06]

*Sorry the pictures are huge. I just don't have the patience to resize every one of them! Please, forgive me! *

By the time the planning session portion of the day was done we were definitely in need of a break. We decided to walk over to the Grand to hang out since we had about an hour in between the end of the planning session and the beginning of the tasting. My dad had never been to the Grand before so we were excited to show him a round. On the way over we took some pictures in one of my favorite spots.

Ryan and I

First we headed over to Sago Cay to check it out again since it is our rehearsal dinner location. It was also a beautiful day so it was nice to be outside. Sago Cay really is much bigger up close than it seems from afar. I like that its more private than the main marina area and the trees surrounding it are really pretty.

Sago Cay

One view from Sago Cay, facing the castle

Another pretty view

Just us

After walking around a bit we still had some time before the tasting so we took a break in the GF lobby. We were all a little tired from getting such an early start so it was nice to relax on the comfy couches and chairs.

I was feeling a liiiitle loopy.

After lounging a bit it was time to head over to the GF convention center for our tasting! Of course, I had to get a picture of the daily events board with our names on it!

We met Jessica, our assistant planner, in the convention center lobby and off we went. On the way she showed us Whitehall and our ballroom(s) one more time. I forgot to mention that Diane now has GF Salon 6-9 reserved for us which is exciting because I was thinking they were going to squeeze us into one!

So, Jessica took us behind the scenes to the kitchen. When I say behind the scenes, I mean like passing cast members working other events and dodging people moving equipment behind the scenes. It was super cool, though! We even had to stop to let workers moving huge, snow covered trees go by! Not sure why that was going on in May&

Anyway, once we got back to the kitchen we saw our fancy dining table set up right in the middle of the working kitchen which was very cool. Our chef, Larry, was lovely and explained each dish as he prepared it. Were doing a buffet so he also discussed how each item would do in a buffet setting. We also had a server whos name I forget but she was great, too! Again, like the cake tasting, I hate to sound boring but everything was delicious! We did have to make some choices, though! Heres everything we tasted:

- Seafood and Hearts of Palm Salad with Lemon Basil Lime Oil
- Wild Muroom Risotto with Asiago and Romano Cheeses
- White Cheddar Baked Macaroni and Cheese
- Manchego Cheese Grits
- Grilled Flat Iron Steak with Merlot and Black Pepper Reduction, Balsamic Crimini Mushrooms, and Roasted Shallots
- Parmesan-crusted Chicken with alternate sauce (preferably something along the lines of an alfredo)
- Pork Shanks braised in a Grand Marnier Demi with Dates and Orange Zest
- Donuts Foster with Rum Caramel Pecan Glaze and Coffee Ice Cream

The chef paired each protein with one of the sides we chose which I thought was really nice and it made it easier to pick when things were grouped together. For now the only thing on the listed we decided not to get are the pork shanks and the grits, only because we had to decide the pork with the grits or the steak with the risotto. The pork and grits were delicious (grits are one of my favorite things!) but the steak was just out of this world! We also REALLY loved the parmesan crusted chicken that we had done with a light alfredo. Larry served it with the baked macaroni and cheese and it was just perfect/ Everything else we tried is still a go for now but Ill do a more in depth post on what our actual menu will include once weve gotten our BEO and finalized it. Oh, and let me just say, the donuts foster are to . die . for!!! We really only tried them for fun as we wont be doing a dessert other than cake at the reception but now weve decided we would really like to have them at our rehearsal dessert party. Think warm donuts, drenched in caramel syrup, with coffee ice cream. Yum!!!

We kind of got wrapped up in the moment and didnt take pictures of every dish but we did get a few.

The seafood salad

The pork shank with cheese grits

The steak with the rissotto

Check out our names! Fancy!

With Chef Larry and our server

When our tasting was over the chef gave us a few gifts, bath salts for me, some sort of cool cooking stone thing for Ryan, a commemorative whisk, and a picture from Mickey! I really thought that was such a nice touch.

The whole tasting experience was so fun and they made us feel so important even though we all know how many brides and grooms they work with. It was great!

After the tasting we were so full and tired so we headed to POR to check in and take a nap!

Up next: the rest of day one

 

[wiigirl]

Just caught up....love all your pics!

 

[charliegirl76]

Love reading your TR, you're making me so excited for ours on Friday! Sounds like everything went really well!

 

[tinydancr06]

Just caught up....love all your pics!

Thank you!

Love reading your TR, you're making me so excited for ours on Friday! Sounds like everything went really well!

Thanks! You should be excited, you'll have a blast! It did all go very well, just waiting on the BEO now

 

[tinydancr06]

Day one is finally coming to a close! Really, though, it was an awesome day and I’m so thankful for this PJ to help me remember it in the future. Once the wedding’s over I’ll have to print out my whole PJ so I can always look back on our wedding planning time.

SO…once the tasting was over we headed back to the lobby of the GF convention center and said goodbye to Jessica. It was time to check-in at Port Orleans Riverside. We pretty much had the whole afternoon to just get settled in our rooms. Once we arrived we checked in, my parents bought their park tickets for the day at concierge, and then we went to our rooms and crashed. Before napping, my dad and I took a walk across the river and past the pool to the gift shop to get some stuff. I really like the gift shop at POR (Fulton’s General Store) for some reason. There’s just so much activity up in the main building with the Fulton’s, the bar, the lobby, and both the restaurants. It’s a fun place!

We pretty much just spent the afternoon napping in the rooms and relaxing after the busy morning. Ryan and I watched the WDW “Must Dos” that are always on TV in the resort rooms. So cheesy but I love it!

We had a 7:25 ADR at Boatwrights Dining Hall that night so eventually we did have to get up. It’s great to have a somewhat nice sit-down place for dinner right in your resort. We were treating my parents to dinner (thanks for the wedding!) and then we planned to spend the rest of the night at River Roost to see Yeeha Bob’s show!

Once we arrived at Boatwrights we were seated pretty quickly. I’ve seen mixed reviews on this restaurant but I really loved the food. I’m a southern girl (born in North Carolina, live in Florida now though) so how can you go wrong with sweet tea and corn bread?! Just watch out, some of their dishes are SPICY! Everyone’s food was great as was the service.

*I have some pictures from dinner but they are just so huge and photobucket is driving me nuts so moving on...*

After dinner it was time for drinks at River Roost and Bob’s show! We had seen Bob for the first time on our site visit trip and we’ve talked about him like crazy ever since so we were excited for my parents to see his show. He’s really so much more than a piano player, he’s an entertainer! So funny and fun. He recently received the Disney Legacy Award if that gives you any idea of his awesomeness. He actually has it on display up on his little stage. Needless to say my parents LOVED the show and we had a blast. We all had to go up and dance at some point and we even ended up in some sort of conga line. It was too fun.

After his show is over, Bob tells everyone to come up and take a picture with him so of course we had to go up. My dad mentioned we would be here for our wedding in October to him and Bob said to bring everybody and we’d have a great time! So now we’re seriously considering doing a very informal welcome get together for everyone who’s in town two days before the wedding at River Roost to enjoy Bob’ show. I know other DIS brides have done this and it looked like a really good time. We wouldn’t really pay for anything, it would just be a “hey, we’re gonna be here at this time, come hang out!” sort of thing. It’s a lounge/bar so they have bar food and drinks if you want but there’s no pressure to buy everyone dinner or something. I think that would be so fun!

Clapping along

Ryan loves Bob!

All of us with Bob. You can see his award off to the left in the picture frame.

Afterwards we were all super tired (again) so we headed back to our rooms to get some shuteye.

Up next: Day Two - Epcot and Hollywood Studios

 

[Summer Daydream]

Your food tasting sounds like everything was so good! I don't think you could go wrong opting to keep the steak over the pork if it was that amazing.
Maybe the trees had something to do with the topiaries in Epcot? That is definitely odd in May, though.
I am so glad you posted a review of Boatwrights. I had always wanted to try it, but I had always seen such mixed reviews. It sounded like a blast. I may have to check it out next year