Lori & Eoghan's PJ/TR -5/1/09 SBP/Jiko/Morocco-TR updated 7/12 honeymoon pics added!

[Lorelei528]

Lorelei,

Just wanted to let you know I stumbled across your MK/Epcot photo's today while doing a search, and I think they are amazing!!!! I actually pulled out a pen and paper and wrote a list of the ones I want to recreate from yours!!!

I cannot wait to read more

Thanks! We're really happy with the way they came out! We had Regina and we really liked her a LOT!
ooh oooh!! Which ones were your faves?

My next installment is right around the corner...

Thanks for reading and thanks for the 3 bananas!!!

 

[Boardwalk_bride]

I honestly loved them all!! Both of you are so adorable, and your smiles are so natural!! I really love main street in MK, so I was pumped to see others have lots of pic's there, so I know what they look like. I also think the ones of you in the bridge in Japan (I think it is Japan) are spectacular!!! Here are 3 more banana's

 

[Lorelei528]

Ok, I just want to start off by saying I hope it doesn’t sound like all I’m doing is complaining about DF’s mom and aunt. I’m really just telling you all how it happened. Plus, I know you all will understand. And all in all, DF/H and I were in WDW for like 2 weeks and the stresses and such didn’t ruin our trip or anything, they just kind of put a damper on it on some days. But believe it or not, there is actually more stress after the wedding! But, the next few installments are pretty much stress free! YAY!! Which is good because we’re heading into…WEDDING TIME!! LOL.

The bus ride to The Poly was no problem. I actually was really looking forward to having some of my family around. And although I’m closer to my other brother’s family then the one whom we were about to meet up with, he was still my brother and my family and I was excited.

Ok, so, we get to The Poly and I really thought I’d hear some comments from the group about how lovely the resort was etc….but nothing. Ok, I know they travel the world and all, but still…

Anyway, I was always under the assumption that they will not check you in at the podium until your whole party is there…well, I can tell you now from experience this is totally not true! More than once (like twice at least) during this trip, my SIL was able to check us all in before we were even there! This happened at Kona actually and I was a little miffed because…

I get a text that they (bro etc.) are there and waiting at the bar over at O’hana (actually they didn’t even realize they were at O’hana, they just said they were waiting at the bar)…so when I finally found them and said hello I was so happy to see them! They tell me they have already checked us in…I say “Really? They usually don’t let you do that if your whole party is not here yet” I get “Well, I don’t know, but we checked in”. I’m like ok, whatever no biggie except for...

DMIL and the aunts decide they have to go change clothes and whatnot in the ladies room before they meet my brother and his family…so, we get buzzed on our pager thingy and there are still like 4 of us missing (the ladies and I think even the uncle)…(now you see why I was miffed that my SIL checked us in before we were even at the resort! But she didn’t really know, so it was no biggie)

So, everyone walks over to Kona while I try to get people to wait for the rest of our group. Only DF and one other person (maybe DFIL?) end up waiting…so what happens is the host/hostess doesn’t wait either and the group is shown over to the desserts etc. and then seated. So that means that the rest of the party misses out on the whole “dessert talk”. I really wanted everyone to get the whole Kona experience, but when I told them the hostess was going to show them the desserts, I get from the aunt “oh, we’re not interested in the desserts anyway” (!) I’m thinking “excuse me for trying to be a good hostess!” (And besides the desserts came with their meals!) sigh…whatever…

No biggie, I let it go and try to enjoy myself. We all sit down to dinner. Everybody gets along great and is having a really good time. I just reviewed everyone’s photos and it looks like nobody took any!!! Weird, but true. (sorry faithful readers!)
I can’t for the life of me remember what we had, but I know it was yummy! I really love Kona Café! It’s one of my faves!
After dinner, we all take the monorail back to the MK and then we all take our respective buses back to our respective resorts (BW, CBR and POR). We kind of had to rush the end of dinner to make sure we could get a bus from MK so that kind of sucked, but it worked out ok.

The next morning we were all having breakfast at Chef Mickey at 10:05. We had to make it a later meal because Carolyn Allen’s was coming to steam my dress along with MOH and MOB dresses at 8am.
So, we made plans to meet up at Chef Mickey’s at about 9:50ish the next morning.

So, Carolyn Allen’s shows up and steams the dresses. It doesn’t take that long at all, and now my dress is out of the closet and hanging up in the room. I LOVE my dress! (sorry no pics yet! Well, actually, here’s a pic of my dress hanging up in our room at the inn where we had our at-home reception, so just picture this hanging up in a remodeled room at BW)

We head out to meet everyone at Chef Mickey’s. We take the bus to MK and then walked to CR because we were running late. Oh! So, another funny thing with DF’s family….the night before when I tell everyone how to get to Chef Mickey’s (even though specific directions are in everyone’s personal itineraries), I explain how easy it is-just take a bus to the Magic Kingdom from your resort and when you get off you can either take the monorail or walk to The Contemporary. Now, what I forgot to tell you all is the night before when we arrived via bus at The Poly, and the monorail was going above our heads as we walked into the resort, DF’s aunt and mom looked up and were like…scared! They were like “We’re going on that?” LOL..it was hilarious! I’ve never known anyone to be afraid of the monorail before!! Everyone I have ever known has either loved it or couldn’t wait to ride it! The expressions on their faces were sooo funny! I mean, really….afraid? Of the monorail?

So, consequently, they were nervous about getting on it after dinner at Kona that night! It was pretty funny actually, the whole group is hurrying to get on and they just had to get on without stopping to think about it! (Funny, I had forgotten about this until I was writing it!)
Ok, so when we meet everyone in the little sitting area outside Chef Mickey’s (and I find out again that SIL had already checked us in even though our entire party wasn’t there yet). I had made a mental bet with myself (do you guys ever do that?) that DF’s family would walk to CR from MK rather than take the monorail (and not just because the ladies were afraid of it the night before either) So, when we get there, I work it into the conversation about asking them if they walked or took the monorail and of course they walked! LOL…
Anyway…we had to wait a fairly long time for a table. I was getting kind of embarrassed and annoyed but I kept forgetting, we had 11 people, so it would naturally take longer to set up etc…here's a pic of DF and his family waiting to be seated...

We finally get seated!
So, this is the first character meal ever for everyone except for me and DF. I’m a huge character meal fan. Actually, I’m a huge character fan in general (you know, I’m one of those adults who have an autograph book for instance and has no problem waiting on long lines to get a picture taken with anyone from Jiminy Cricket to Ariel to Marie…)
Ok, so anyway, I’m thinking everyone is going to have a good time. And they did. Plus, you know, the food at Chef Mickey’s is good. I just had a really good feeling about this meal.
The thing is though, going to a character meal with more than like 4 people I realized is tough. There is absolutely no way that everyone is going to get their picture taken with each character. The way we were seated, the people on the bench side of the table could never get out before the character had to move on to the next table. Even though we were there for more than an hour, the meal felt very rushed. It was weird. But everyone liked it I know, you could just tell. It was just such a different experience for me than I was used to. But, that being said, I knew that this meal was more for my guests than for me so as long as they enjoyed it, that was the most important thing.
Here are some pics of the breakfast (not many I know, but otherwise, it’s overkill)

Me and Eoghan

Eoghan and my (step)niece

And here's our special dessert we got:

One interesting thing though…I sat across from DF’s other aunt. She is very sweet. I really like her (she is the wife of the cool uncle). Anyway, she did at one point ask me about Sea World. She simply asked about it, she didn’t say that they simply MUST go there like FMIL did, but I didn’t get upset because even though it confirmed that they didn’t even look at the Birnbaum books I bought them (in fact it was during this meal that I just happened to have glanced towards FMIL who was sitting at the other end of the table and I saw her with some book about Orlando and it was definitely NOT the Birnbaums book I had bought her (them)). I was kind of fuming on the inside, but didn’t say anything at that point (DF and I talked about it later in the trip though and it made me happy when DF said to me, “Yeah, I know, I saw that! What was up with that?” It obviously bothered him as well.)
Anyway, I think this aunt thought that Sea World was part of WDW? The way she asked me though, the tone of her voice was so different than when FMIL asked about NASA or the outlets, it’s hard to explain though. So, I briefly answered her that it was somewhat close by but is not part of WDW. I couldn’t answer that well, because I have only been to Sea World once back in the seventies. I still couldn’t get them though…they had only seen 1 of 4 parks and they were asking about other things to go see? I probably would have understood if they had been to all 4 parks and then asked about Sea World, but that wasn’t the case, so in spirit I think I was starting to give up on them.

OK, so I was kind of thinking my bro’s family would hang with us in the MK, but they wanted to go off on their own, so that was fine. They had already been to the park before meeting us for breakfast at Chef Mickey (I was wondering if MK had EMH that morning or something).
So, me and DF and his family take the monorail to the MK…this was the first time they were on it during the day. Again DFMIL says something like “Oh, it’s ok, we can just walk”…I giggled and said to her “No, we’re taking the monorail” Not in a bossy or snotty voice though, more of a “there’s nothing to be afraid of voice” like she was the child and I was the adult. I was kind of laughing at her (but again, not in a mean way, this is a big Irish thing, it’s like they all rank on each other and make fun of each other for a laugh. It kind of bothers me after a point, but a little is ok, so I was kind of making fun of DFMIL. I mean, lord knows, she does it to me)
So, we arrive at the MK and they were really impressed with Main Street. I remember hearing “ooh, look at this, this is lovely!”

The two trouble makers, my nemesises(sp?) FMIL and aunt...

My plan was to do as many of the “must-do’s” before we had to leave to meet everyone in AK for the Safari Celebration Meet and Greet dinner. (ooh! Just thinking about it now, I can remember how exciting it was as that means the wedding was really happening and soon!!) LOL
We had to leave the MK by like 3:30 I think it was, so we had a few hours to spend there which was good.
So, basically I’ll just tell you we did PoC first. I didn’t get too many questions thank goodness, I think because they all were familiar with the Pirates movies. (Of course they didn’t know the movies were based on the ride, I’m sure they thought it was the other way around!).
Everyone really enjoyed it-YAY!!
Next, I wanted to hit Fantasyland. But as we passed by HM, there was like a 10 min wait, so we got on the line. (Now again, as DF and I start to get on the line, there’s loads of hemming and hawing from the ladies but I actually was able to convince them that it was not scary at all and I had gone on as a child and wasn’t even scared.) So, I get everyone on – yay for me! LOL They were still nervous on the ride but I just kept telling them to relax! LOL
Of course everyone had a great time! There was loads of laughing!
Ok, onwards to Fantasyland!
I’m pretty sure we did IASW first. Now, I knew we’d be going on a lot of these rides again on Saturday with my mom and I did mention that to the group, but no one said anything, so that was cool. Everyone really loved it and didn’t get too annoyed by the song. (Now, I personally am never annoyed by it, but I can totally understand when peeps are) And I think we even got stuck on it for a little bit in the last room too. And they all made fun of the little Irish section with the leprechaun and the pot ‘o gold! They were all like laughing “…oh and of course, they have to have a leprechaun!!...” It was funny.
From there I took them over to Mickey’s Philharmagic. I knew they were going to love it. And they did, I know this one got a “Brilliant!” LOL.
“What next? What next?” I was thinking to myself…I would have liked to take them on Peter Pan, but the line was too long and we couldn’t wait for the FP time. I think we just did Snow White. DF likes the Pooh ride (don’t laugh) but when he asked if we would take them on that, I looked at him and laughed and was like “We’re not going to take them on the Pooh ride!” LOL…he was too cute, it was funny. I like the Pooh ride, but I didn’t think they would get the whole Poohness of it, so we did Snow White. I wanted them to go on since it was one of the original old rides etc. I think they liked it, I don’t think they were all that impressed. Sigh.
I wanted to take them on some Tomorrowland stuff, but if we didn’t have time I figured we’d have time on Saturday. And as luck would have it, we didn’t have time to do anything else as I knew it would take time to get from Fantasyland to the exit….
We start making our way out of the park and get totally waylaid by the 3 o’clock parade! Tee hee. It was tough to get everyone through the crowds but it was kind of cool at the same time because we were able to see some of the parade which I was glad about. They were all smiles looking up at the floats while we walked by which made me feel good. It was a pretty good day all in all so far and I think everyone was in a good mood and thoroughly enjoyed themselves that day. (Gee, I hope so anyway!)


Next up: Safari Celebration Meet and Greet Dinner (aka. “The rehearsal dinner”)

 

[KatGarcia]

Wow it must have been interesting to wrangle that many people around! More power to ya!

 

[lurkyloo]

I second that! I'm exhausted just reading about it!

Any bride who does that much tour guide-ing for her family before and/or after her wedding should get some kind of medal... or at least a free Mickey Bar.

 

[Stephie77]

Ok, I just want to start off by saying I hope it doesn’t sound like all I’m doing is complaining about DF’s mom and aunt. I’m really just telling you all how it happened. Plus, I know you all will understand. And all in all, DF/H and I were in WDW for like 2 weeks and the stresses and such didn’t ruin our trip or anything, they just kind of put a damper on it on some days. But believe it or not, there is actually more stress after the wedding! But, the next few installments are pretty much stress free! YAY!! Which is good because we’re heading into…WEDDING TIME!! LOL.

The bus ride to The Poly was no problem. I actually was really looking forward to having some of my family around. And although I’m closer to my other brother’s family then the one whom we were about to meet up with, he was still my brother and my family and I was excited.

Ok, so, we get to The Poly and I really thought I’d hear some comments from the group about how lovely the resort was etc….but nothing. Ok, I know they travel the world and all, but still…

Anyway, I was always under the assumption that they will not check you in at the podium until your whole party is there…well, I can tell you now from experience this is totally not true! More than once (like twice at least) during this trip, my SIL was able to check us all in before we were even there! This happened at Kona actually and I was a little miffed because…

I get a text that they (bro etc.) are there and waiting at the bar over at O’hana (actually they didn’t even realize they were at O’hana, they just said they were waiting at the bar)…so when I finally found them and said hello I was so happy to see them! They tell me they have already checked us in…I say “Really? They usually don’t let you do that if your whole party is not here yet” I get “Well, I don’t know, but we checked in”. I’m like ok, whatever no biggie except for...

DMIL and the aunts decide they have to go change clothes and whatnot in the ladies room before they meet my brother and his family…so, we get buzzed on our pager thingy and there are still like 4 of us missing (the ladies and I think even the uncle)…(now you see why I was miffed that my SIL checked us in before we were even at the resort! But she didn’t really know, so it was no biggie)

So, everyone walks over to Kona while I try to get people to wait for the rest of our group. Only DF and one other person (maybe DFIL?) end up waiting…so what happens is the host/hostess doesn’t wait either and the group is shown over to the desserts etc. and then seated. So that means that the rest of the party misses out on the whole “dessert talk”. I really wanted everyone to get the whole Kona experience, but when I told them the hostess was going to show them the desserts, I get from the aunt “oh, we’re not interested in the desserts anyway” (!) I’m thinking “excuse me for trying to be a good hostess!” (And besides the desserts came with their meals!) sigh…whatever…

No biggie, I let it go and try to enjoy myself. We all sit down to dinner. Everybody gets along great and is having a really good time. I just reviewed everyone’s photos and it looks like nobody took any!!! Weird, but true. (sorry faithful readers!)
I can’t for the life of me remember what we had, but I know it was yummy! I really love Kona Café! It’s one of my faves!
After dinner, we all take the monorail back to the MK and then we all take our respective buses back to our respective resorts (BW, CBR and POR). We kind of had to rush the end of dinner to make sure we could get a bus from MK so that kind of sucked, but it worked out ok.

The next morning we were all having breakfast at Chef Mickey at 10:05. We had to make it a later meal because Carolyn Allen’s was coming to steam my dress along with MOH and MOB dresses at 8am.
So, we made plans to meet up at Chef Mickey’s at about 9:50ish the next morning.

So, Carolyn Allen’s shows up and steams the dresses. It doesn’t take that long at all, and now my dress is out of the closet and hanging up in the room. I LOVE my dress! (sorry no pics yet! Well, actually, here’s a pic of my dress hanging up in our room at the inn where we had our at-home reception, so just picture this hanging up in a remodeled room at BW)

We head out to meet everyone at Chef Mickey’s. We take the bus to MK and then walked to CR because we were running late. Oh! So, another funny thing with DF’s family….the night before when I tell everyone how to get to Chef Mickey’s (even though specific directions are in everyone’s personal itineraries), I explain how easy it is-just take a bus to the Magic Kingdom from your resort and when you get off you can either take the monorail or walk to The Contemporary. Now, what I forgot to tell you all is the night before when we arrived via bus at The Poly, and the monorail was going above our heads as we walked into the resort, DF’s aunt and mom looked up and were like…scared! They were like “We’re going on that?” LOL..it was hilarious! I’ve never known anyone to be afraid of the monorail before!! Everyone I have ever known has either loved it or couldn’t wait to ride it! The expressions on their faces were sooo funny! I mean, really….afraid? Of the monorail?

So, consequently, they were nervous about getting on it after dinner at Kona that night! It was pretty funny actually, the whole group is hurrying to get on and they just had to get on without stopping to think about it! (Funny, I had forgotten about this until I was writing it!)
Ok, so when we meet everyone in the little sitting area outside Chef Mickey’s (and I find out again that SIL had already checked us in even though our entire party wasn’t there yet). I had made a mental bet with myself (do you guys ever do that?) that DF’s family would walk to CR from MK rather than take the monorail (and not just because the ladies were afraid of it the night before either) So, when we get there, I work it into the conversation about asking them if they walked or took the monorail and of course they walked! LOL…
Anyway…we had to wait a fairly long time for a table. I was getting kind of embarrassed and annoyed but I kept forgetting, we had 11 people, so it would naturally take longer to set up etc…here's a pic of DF and his family waiting to be seated...

We finally get seated!
So, this is the first character meal ever for everyone except for me and DF. I’m a huge character meal fan. Actually, I’m a huge character fan in general (you know, I’m one of those adults who have an autograph book for instance and has no problem waiting on long lines to get a picture taken with anyone from Jiminy Cricket to Ariel to Marie…)
Ok, so anyway, I’m thinking everyone is going to have a good time. And they did. Plus, you know, the food at Chef Mickey’s is good. I just had a really good feeling about this meal.
The thing is though, going to a character meal with more than like 4 people I realized is tough. There is absolutely no way that everyone is going to get their picture taken with each character. The way we were seated, the people on the bench side of the table could never get out before the character had to move on to the next table. Even though we were there for more than an hour, the meal felt very rushed. It was weird. But everyone liked it I know, you could just tell. It was just such a different experience for me than I was used to. But, that being said, I knew that this meal was more for my guests than for me so as long as they enjoyed it, that was the most important thing.
Here are some pics of the breakfast (not many I know, but otherwise, it’s overkill)

Me and Eoghan

Eoghan and my (step)niece

And here's our special dessert we got:

One interesting thing though…I sat across from DF’s other aunt. She is very sweet. I really like her (she is the wife of the cool uncle). Anyway, she did at one point ask me about Sea World. She simply asked about it, she didn’t say that they simply MUST go there like FMIL did, but I didn’t get upset because even though it confirmed that they didn’t even look at the Birnbaum books I bought them (in fact it was during this meal that I just happened to have glanced towards FMIL who was sitting at the other end of the table and I saw her with some book about Orlando and it was definitely NOT the Birnbaums book I had bought her (them)). I was kind of fuming on the inside, but didn’t say anything at that point (DF and I talked about it later in the trip though and it made me happy when DF said to me, “Yeah, I know, I saw that! What was up with that?” It obviously bothered him as well.)
Anyway, I think this aunt thought that Sea World was part of WDW? The way she asked me though, the tone of her voice was so different than when FMIL asked about NASA or the outlets, it’s hard to explain though. So, I briefly answered her that it was somewhat close by but is not part of WDW. I couldn’t answer that well, because I have only been to Sea World once back in the seventies. I still couldn’t get them though…they had only seen 1 of 4 parks and they were asking about other things to go see? I probably would have understood if they had been to all 4 parks and then asked about Sea World, but that wasn’t the case, so in spirit I think I was starting to give up on them.

OK, so I was kind of thinking my bro’s family would hang with us in the MK, but they wanted to go off on their own, so that was fine. They had already been to the park before meeting us for breakfast at Chef Mickey (I was wondering if MK had EMH that morning or something).
So, me and DF and his family take the monorail to the MK…this was the first time they were on it during the day. Again DFMIL says something like “Oh, it’s ok, we can just walk”…I giggled and said to her “No, we’re taking the monorail” Not in a bossy or snotty voice though, more of a “there’s nothing to be afraid of voice” like she was the child and I was the adult. I was kind of laughing at her (but again, not in a mean way, this is a big Irish thing, it’s like they all rank on each other and make fun of each other for a laugh. It kind of bothers me after a point, but a little is ok, so I was kind of making fun of DFMIL. I mean, lord knows, she does it to me)
So, we arrive at the MK and they were really impressed with Main Street. I remember hearing “ooh, look at this, this is lovely!”

The two trouble makers, my nemesises(sp?) FMIL and aunt...

My plan was to do as many of the “must-do’s” before we had to leave to meet everyone in AK for the Safari Celebration Meet and Greet dinner. (ooh! Just thinking about it now, I can remember how exciting it was as that means the wedding was really happening and soon!!) LOL
We had to leave the MK by like 3:30 I think it was, so we had a few hours to spend there which was good.
So, basically I’ll just tell you we did PoC first. I didn’t get too many questions thank goodness, I think because they all were familiar with the Pirates movies. (Of course they didn’t know the movies were based on the ride, I’m sure they thought it was the other way around!).
Everyone really enjoyed it-YAY!!
Next, I wanted to hit Fantasyland. But as we passed by HM, there was like a 10 min wait, so we got on the line. (Now again, as DF and I start to get on the line, there’s loads of hemming and hawing from the ladies but I actually was able to convince them that it was not scary at all and I had gone on as a child and wasn’t even scared.) So, I get everyone on – yay for me! LOL They were still nervous on the ride but I just kept telling them to relax! LOL
Of course everyone had a great time! There was loads of laughing!
Ok, onwards to Fantasyland!
I’m pretty sure we did IASW first. Now, I knew we’d be going on a lot of these rides again on Saturday with my mom and I did mention that to the group, but no one said anything, so that was cool. Everyone really loved it and didn’t get too annoyed by the song. (Now, I personally am never annoyed by it, but I can totally understand when peeps are) And I think we even got stuck on it for a little bit in the last room too. And they all made fun of the little Irish section with the leprechaun and the pot ‘o gold! They were all like laughing “…oh and of course, they have to have a leprechaun!!...” It was funny.
From there I took them over to Mickey’s Philharmagic. I knew they were going to love it. And they did, I know this one got a “Brilliant!” LOL.
“What next? What next?” I was thinking to myself…I would have liked to take them on Peter Pan, but the line was too long and we couldn’t wait for the FP time. I think we just did Snow White. DF likes the Pooh ride (don’t laugh) but when he asked if we would take them on that, I looked at him and laughed and was like “We’re not going to take them on the Pooh ride!” LOL…he was too cute, it was funny. I like the Pooh ride, but I didn’t think they would get the whole Poohness of it, so we did Snow White. I wanted them to go on since it was one of the original old rides etc. I think they liked it, I don’t think they were all that impressed. Sigh.
I wanted to take them on some Tomorrowland stuff, but if we didn’t have time I figured we’d have time on Saturday. And as luck would have it, we didn’t have time to do anything else as I knew it would take time to get from Fantasyland to the exit….
We start making our way out of the park and get totally waylaid by the 3 o’clock parade! Tee hee. It was tough to get everyone through the crowds but it was kind of cool at the same time because we were able to see some of the parade which I was glad about. They were all smiles looking up at the floats while we walked by which made me feel good. It was a pretty good day all in all so far and I think everyone was in a good mood and thoroughly enjoyed themselves that day. (Gee, I hope so anyway!)


Next up: Safari Celebration Meet and Greet Dinner (aka. “The rehearsal dinner”)

hi! i read through your PJ (and enjoyed it!) you two are so cute! i am looking to forward to hear about your wedding! i am also from NY and have a question. is your step-niece's name angelique? she looks so much like my friend anthony's fiance. just curious b/c it is a small world!

 

[Lorelei528]

hi! i read through your PJ (and enjoyed it!) you two are so cute! i am looking to forward to hear about your wedding! i am also from NY and have a question. is your step-niece's name angelique? she looks so much like my friend anthony's fiance. just curious b/c it is a small world!

Hi!!

Yep, my step-niece's name IS Angelique and Anthony is my nephew-to-be!! (Well, he already calls me Aunt Lori!)

You and I are practically related! LOL

Anthony would have been at the wedding, but he had another one in NY at the time and he was in the bridal party, so Angelique came stag to our shindig.

This is TOOOO weird!! Yet, how awesome!! The world is almost scarily too small!!! tee hee.

 

[Stephie77]

Hi!!

Yep, my step-niece's name IS Angelique and Anthony is my nephew-to-be!! (Well, he already calls me Aunt Lori!)

You and I are practically related! LOL

Anthony would have been at the wedding, but he had another one in NY at the time and he was in the bridal party, so Angelique came stag to our shindig.

This is TOOOO weird!! Yet, how awesome!! The world is almost scarily too small!!! tee hee.

OMG!! that is too funny. i have known anthony for years. he is really good friends with my BFF(who would have been one of my BMs if i was having a wedding party) husband. i just saw them at my BFFs daughters christening 2 weeks ago. Angelique is so sweet. we were actually talking about our weddings(i love their date 10-10-10-) but she never mentioned about being at disney wedding. it really is a small world. are you originally from rockland?

 

[Lorelei528]

Yep! Originally from Rockland...West Nyack. I went to Clarkstown South HS. Now I live in the Bronx, Woodlawn to be exact. I just read through your PJ!! Now, I have to go subscribe!!

Yep, Angelique even did a reading at our ceremony! I don't know if you're on Facebook, but she has pics from the whole trip on her profile. I am still uploading mine!

Where in Rockland are you originally from? Wanna hear something else funny? I work in a Pharmaceutical Company and do a lot of admin for the legal dept. and am thinking about getting a paralegal cert. at some point!!

This is so cool!!

 

[Stephie77]

Yep! Originally from Rockland...West Nyack. I went to Clarkstown South HS. Now I live in the Bronx, Woodlawn to be exact. I just read through your PJ!! Now, I have to go subscribe!!

Yep, Angelique even did a reading at our ceremony! I don't know if you're on Facebook, but she has pics from the whole trip on her profile. I am still uploading mine!

Where in Rockland are you originally from? Wanna hear something else funny? I work in a Pharmaceutical Company and do a lot of admin for the legal dept. and am thinking about getting a paralegal cert. at some point!!

This is so cool!!

i am your rival as i went to clarkstown north (GO RAMS) i grew up in new city! i now live in brooklyn though. what year did you graduate south? i graduated north in 1995. i am on facebook and friends with her. i will have to check out the pics when i get home, since i am blocked at work. this is so surreal!! totally get your degree. i will tell you in this economy there are always paralegal jobs. i got my paralegal degree at mercy college in white plains. they give you life time placement. still can't beleive i found another rocklandnite on these boards!

 

[Lorelei528]

Wow it must have been interesting to wrangle that many people around! More power to ya!

"Interesting" is the nice way of putting it!

I second that! I'm exhausted just reading about it!

Any bride who does that much tour guide-ing for her family before and/or after her wedding should get some kind of medal... or at least a free Mickey Bar.

Being on the DDP, it's like we get Mickey Bars for free!! tee hee. Oh believe me, I would have totally been more into rewarding myself after DH's family left if not for the whole knee/leg injury incident.... (That's what the shorty trip in Sept is for!)

i am your rival as i went to clarkstown north (GO RAMS) i grew up in new city! i now live in brooklyn though. what year did you graduate south? i graduated north in 1995. i am on facebook and friends with her. i will have to check out the pics when i get home, since i am blocked at work. this is so surreal!! totally get your degree. i will tell you in this economy there are always paralegal jobs. i got my paralegal degree at mercy college in white plains. they give you life time placement. still can't beleive i found another rocklandnite on these boards!

Steph, as you probably have guessed by now, I'm a bit older than you. I graduated in '85. Thanks for the support about the paralegal thing. I probably wouldn't start that unless/until I was "in-between" jobs....I have no time right now. But lifetime placement is good! So I'll look into Mercy for sure when the time comes!

 

[Lorelei528]

We take the monorail to the TTC and then the bus to the AK.

So the plans were to meet up just through the gate on the other side of the turnstiles. I was so excited to see my family! It’s pretty funny, because if you knew me you’d know that’s not really me. I mean, I was the kid who went away to college and was not really homesick at all etc…Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and all, I just don’t have that type of relationship with them (although my mom would love it if I did). I think I was all excited for a number of reasons. Firstly, they were all coming for the wedding, so I was just all so excited and happy about that. Secondly, I was so stressed out, I needed to be around more people who knew me better you know? Thirdly, we’ve never all been away together and I thought that it was really cool that we were experiencing this together at WDW…

Waiting for us at the gate when we got there was my mom, my other brother and sister in law and my sister in laws mom (who is more like an aunt to me). I was a bit disappointed that my nephew and his fiancé and my niece weren’t there but I was told they were on there way, that they were starving as they had no breakfast before they left for the airport and of course, there was nothing on the plane…(I find out later they went to the ESPN club and had a few beers as well…) My other brother and sister in law and step niece were already there somewhere in the AK…my other nephew and his gf couldn’t get an early enough flight so would have to miss the dinner…
It was so funny…my mom, my brother, my sister in law and I were acting like we hadn’t seen each other in like months or something! It was pretty funny/weird, yet all good.

So, here’s a little background on this dinner. Basically, as an intimate or “Escape” wedding, we do not get a rehearsal included. But I knew we had to do something so everyone could meet (most for the first time) before the wedding. I didn’t want it to be just in a nice restaurant because I figured peeps wouldn’t be able to talk very easily etc. I was trying to think of ideas that would be fun and different etc. I knew we qualified as a Grand Gathering, so I looked into those experiences and found the Safari Celebration Dinner. It fit all our criteria, I had seen great reviews online and the fact that we were doing our dinner reception at Jiko in the Animal Kingdom Lodge I thought would tie in nicely. There might have been other options available, but from what I could find, this fit us best. Basically your group meets up at Flights of Wonder with all the other groups (I think the max for this experience is a total of 150 peeps-which means all the individual Grand Gathering groups together). You meet right before the park is closing (we needed to meet up at 4:30). At Flights of Wonder your group is given a name (I can’t even remember ours, I wanna say it was The Cheetahs or something like that, but I could be totally wrong LOL). Anyway, after a brief introduction to the experience and meeting your host, Mama Dasha, your group is escorted over to Kilimanjaro Safaris where you board the ride vehicles for your own private safari! Now, I think the trucks hold 32 people and we only had 20, so I thought we’d have to share, but we didn’t, so our families got our own Safari vehicle which was sooo cool. They take you through the safari slower than the regular ride does, but not quite as slow as say the “Sunrise Safari” (which we were lucky enough to have done on our last trip back in Oct of ’08.)
We had our own guide who to be honest was kind of annoying. He kept making reference to how little CM’s like him earned. I was like thinking “Yo, I don’t want to/need to hear that” and I certainly didn’t like my wedding guests having to sit through his complaints. But DF and I were sitting in the front row, so I’m hoping no one else really heard him or were just so enthralled by the animals we were seeing that they didn’t realize what he was saying. He did also talk about the animals we were seeing as well however.
Here is a pic of peeps taken on the safari vehicle…

I know they don't look very excited, but believe me...everyone was having a great time!

So, after we go through the ride, we are escorted over to Tusker House for our dinner. We are shown to our table and we all find seats. The Safari Celebration dinner is buffet and the food is really delicious! It’s similar to BOMA but I feel like it even had a better selection. Everyone LOVED the food. During the dinner Mama Dasha had a microphone and had all the tables announce what they were there celebrating. We were the only group there for a wedding so we felt especially….special. There were family reunions and birthdays and retirements and military families. I have to say, it was nice to be with so many people celebrating such happy occasions. At one point DF and I were asked to get up so we could be introduced, it was a bit embarrassing (remember, there were like 150 people there) but it was all great fun. Then we were asked to dance and then a bunch of kids got up with us and some birthday people and we all danced, it was so much fun! I wish someone in our families would have taken some pics though!

Here are some pics taken during the dinner. I loved Mama Dasha, she was so cool.

So, the desserts they bring to your table and they were delicious. (Sorry, no food porn from this meal!) During dessert is the time you can go meet with characters (I know Timon was there and somebody else-myabe Pooh?) I was going to go with DF to get our picture taken with them, but the line was really long. They also have real animals outside at this time that you can go see and ask questions about. The night of our dinner there was a tiny owl. (I LOVE owls!) It was sooo cute! And no, I just realized I should have taken a pic! (I get so angry at myself sometimes!) and I think there was also a tarantula which was cool.

After dinner everyone gets taken back by bus to whatever resort they’re staying at. So, everyone who was at BW took the bus back with us. It was really a great evening, everyone really enjoyed themselves. On the way back to BW, we asked my mom and my sister in law’s mom if they wanted to watch IllumiNations from our balcony with us. (Because we were a Grand Gathering, our room were all next to each other which was great).

So, we had about an hour to relax and then we got together to watch IllumiNations. After that, we had to throw them out of our room as we had to wake up at 3:45am the next morning (wedding day!) because Patricia LeJeune who was doing my hair and makeup for our Magic Kingdom and EPCOT photo shoots would be arriving at like 4am!

I think I actually slept pretty well and was very relaxed even though we only got like 6 hours of sleep maximum.

Next up: WEDDING DAY!!!! (Which really means there will be LOADS of pics!)

 

[lurkyloo]

Wow - your rehearsal dinner sounds soooo fun! I love that you really used Grand Gatherings to the fullest for your wedding stay - not everybody can take advantage of it, and it seems like a great perk of traveling with a large group.

Now I want to do one just so I can meet an owl and a tarantula!

 

[Boardwalk_bride]

I love your rehearsal dinner! It sounds like you had such a good time!! I was thinking about doing something like that, but I don't know if it is in our budget to pay for everyone. I'm looking forward to more of your TR!!

 

[Lorelei528]

Wow - your rehearsal dinner sounds soooo fun! I love that you really used Grand Gatherings to the fullest for your wedding stay - not everybody can take advantage of it, and it seems like a great perk of traveling with a large group.

Now I want to do one just so I can meet an owl and a tarantula!

Not only was it fun, but it was yummy too! Well, I tried to utilize the whole GG thing, but to be honest with you, I found that there really wasn't much to utilize. (I mean, besides setting up a GG experience). In any case the Safari Celebration was awesome!

The owl was the CUTEST!!!! I really wish I had taken a photo!! D'oh!

I love your rehearsal dinner! It sounds like you had such a good time!! I was thinking about doing something like that, but I don't know if it is in our budget to pay for everyone. I'm looking forward to more of your TR!!

It probably was more than we initially wanted to spend, but I really wanted the first time the families got together to be something special and different. It was $64.99 pp. But I figured since it was more than just a dinner it kind of paid for itself (or maybe I was just trying to rationalize!) One of the things was, it had to be prepaid, so I would call every month and pay for 3 or 4 people. That helped a lot, plus also, me, DF and my mom used dining plan points (2), so we only ended up paying for 15 people since my other nephew and his gf (now fiance) couldn't make it.

Look no more, because here's some more now!

 

[Lorelei528]

I guess I will have to do the Wedding Day in a number of installments because there will be lots to write about plus LOADS of pics! We have the professional ones plus ones our families took and I don’t want to make any one post too long or overwhelming.

So, I had set our alarm for 3:45am I think since Patricia would be showing up at 4am for my hair and makeup. I originally was going to have us wake-up at 3:30, but after checking what other Disney brides did for early photo shoots, it really sounded like mostly, they just rolled out of bed and brushed their teeth before Patricia showed up. I figured if DF could jump in the shower and be out by the time Patricia arrived we’d be ok because she’d be using the bathroom area and we’d be blocking the door to the shower/toilet area.

So as my cell phone alarm rang, the room resounded with us going “ugh” LOL! But we were good and got up quickly, it’s a good thing, because Patricia called us shortly thereafter that she was downstairs! So, DF jumped in the shower (thank goodness he takes short showers!). A few minutes later, Patricia knocks on our door. I had just enough time to throw on my undergarments and my getting ready outfit (note to future brides, it’s a good thing to wear something that either zips or buttons down the front! I think I must have also slept in my soft rollers now that I think about it, because there would have been no time to put my hair in rollers, have it air dry and get it somewhat curly before Patricia got there, but it’s funny because I don’t remember sleeping with them in! I think this was the beginning of “wedding whirlwind” a phenomenon many brides (and grooms too I assume) experience where time goes by so quickly in the hours leading up to the wedding, that we are almost not conscious of things that happen around us.

So, Patricia arrives (DF is already out of the shower). He’s in shorts and a tshirt I think for now as I have instructed him he shouldn’t put on the tux until a little bit later or he’ll get all wrinkly. (LOL, not him actually, the tux!). He also wants to go back to sleep, so I tell him he can, but he can’t lay down (tee hee) This is because as you can see from my siggy pic, SF has longish, curly hair and if it’s damp/wet and he lays on it, it’s obviously not going to look nice afterwards. He was actually ok with it and totally agreed with me So, he kind of snoozed sitting up while Patricia worked on my hair.

Now, I’m totally not into the whole “getting ready pics” and besides I wasn’t going to ask Randy to also show up that early! So, I don’t have any of those types of pics. (sorry!).
I had a trial run with Patricia back in Sept. 08 when DF and I were down in WDW (which was his first trip). I didn’t like the way my hair had come out, but I had only brought one picture with me at the time or maybe I didn’t explain well how I wanted it. Also, the color I had in mind for lipstick was not your normal color (I wanted something Purpley, but not bright or pastel). I tend to wear dark lipstick, but on my wedding day I didn’t want to go too dark being that the wedding was outside on May Day basically. Plus it didn’t go with the look of the dress. But looking for such a different color, she didn’t have anything with her at the time that was close to what I wanted.
So, I was a little bit nervous about getting my hair done…but this time I had brought quite a few more pictures for Patricia’s reference and we compared the new pics to pics of how my hair looked at the trial run. I felt confident that I would like the way it would look.
It took awhile to get my hair done (I think it took until almost 5am!) and Patricia kept poking at it and asking me if I liked it and was very detail-oriented about getting it just right. And I really did like it a lot better and thought it looked great.
Then it was on to the makeup! This of course, doesn’t take as long as the hair, but Patricia again, really made sure she was doing exactly what I wanted. For some reason I forgot to ask for eyeliner under my eyes, but I didn’t notice and I think my eyes look great in the pics for our MK and EPCOT photo pics, so it was all good! I had brought with me a lip stain, a lip stick and a gloss that were all in the color family that I wanted. We decided to not use the gloss because it was too gooey and the stain and the lipstick did look a bit darker than I wanted, but again, when I look at the pics, I’m happy with the color. It may look dark for a bride, but it looks like me, you know? If I was wearing pink or something pale on my wedding day, I just wouldn’t feel like me. OH! That also explains my nail polish color which you’ll notice in some pics as well. I wanted to do a dark purple, but again for the same reasons, decided not to and right before we left NY for WDW (like a week or so) I found the perfect polish! I’m the kind of girl who really would have liked to wear Doc Martens under her dress, but the Purple ones I have would be too noticeable and I could only find White on-line which would clash with my dress…tee hee. (You’ll see my alternate footwear in future pics)

Anyway, as Patricia was finishing up my makeup, I woke DF up and we both got dressed very quickly. (Because if I’m remembering correctly, our Disney photographer was already downstairs and was about to call us!) I think we were running a bit late to be honest with you. They were supposed to pick us up at 5:45 and I think they arrived 5 mins. early, but I don’t even think we made it downstairs until at least 5:55! (It might even have been later).
So, I threw my dress on (DF was already dressed), Patricia helped me zip up, we put on my headpiece and veil (both bought from www.veilubridal.com. Elaine is awesome!) and my jewelry. I put on my shoes and I think that was it, we were ready to go!
We went downstairs to the lobby and met our photographer for the morning, Regina. We apologized profusely for being late. Regina was very sweet and understanding. She explained that she wanted us to get lots of good pictures before we got kicked out of the MK. : (I forget now what time we would have to be finished up there). Also, I knew that we missed the sunrise and therefore would not get any pics in the dark with the castle all lit up. This was ok by me. Sure, those pictures look great and I really like them, but “it is what it is” so to speak, and it just wasn’t going to happen for us. I was so excited and happy and just felt very lucky to be getting these pictures taken in the MK at all, I really almost didn’t care if they were in the daylight, the night time or anything!
So, we drove over to the MK with Regina. We chatted along the way and she was very friendly and had lots of interesting things to say and was very easy to talk to, which was good, because when someone is taking your picture like this (especially at 6am), it’s important to be comfortable around them.
We drive up Main Street and park the van. We meet someone from the floral department who has our flowers (my bouquet and DF’s boutonniere).
As soon as I see my bouquet, I think my jaw dropped. It was not at all the way it was supposed to be! I was freaking out. I specifically went over with both my wedding coordinator and my floral coordinator there should be absolutely no pink in the wedding at all. I had e-mailed my floral coordinator an inspiration pic of how I wanted my bouquet to be. Here it is:

As you see, there is no pink whatsoever. Only purples and lavenders. I literally didn’t know what to do when the woman handed it to me. I immediately said something like “This isn’t my bouquet.” She assured me it was. I started to get visibly upset. “No, it was supposed to be Purple only, no white or anything else, there’s white, pink and light blue in it! I specifically said, NO Pink!”

She started to explain why etc…but I was like not even hearing her. I knew it (and she) was wrong with a capital W. But unfortunately there was nothing I could do at the time. So, our MK and EPCOT pics were taken with the wrong bouquet. (I’ll explain in a future post how this gets sorted out later after the photo shoots).

So, the MK bridal portrait shoot usually included castle and Carousel shots. I didn’t like the idea of the Carousel, so, me loving Main Street so much, asked if we could take some there instead. It wasn’t a problem and I would have even liked to take more, but since we were running late, we could only take a few.

Here are some of my favorite MK photo shoot shots…(drum roll)

I think this one is my all-time fave from the MK shoot. I don't know why really, it just is.

Next up: EPCOT photo shoot and back to BW to continue to get ready for the wedding!

 

[MainStMandy]

WOW!! Everything is just gorgeous, even your bouquet!

 

[Stephie77]

Lori-your pics came out beautiful!!! isn't patricia great. i really loved her when she did my trial! so excited to see more

 

[Lorelei528]

So, it was time to leave the MK I actually got really sad. It would have been so cool to have the park to yourself for a few hours to take more pics. It was like a tease, you know? So, with a sigh, I took one last look around, knowing how lucky I truly was. I think we missed out on some shots for sure, but I know it was because we were late, so I can’t complain.
Regina explained that the good thing about having the EPCOT shoot was that we would have plenty of time to take lots of pics since the park didn’t open until later, there would be less workers etc and we would just have more time. (And we did, we didn’t feel rushed or anything it was great!). I’m not sure what time we got there and I know we went well over the time we were supposed to.
For our two countries we had chosen Italy and Morocco. Rosie our floral/photo coordinator told me we might be able to do another country as well and asked me if so, what country we would like. I thought Japan or China perhaps.
So, we arrive at EPCOT. We go to Morocco first. At this time, it’s already starting to get pretty hot out. And it’s only like 7 something in the morning! We start taking some photos in the courtyard

And then…..bump into another Disney Bride and Groom!!! Now, I had forgotten, but this is a very big deal with Disney’s Fairytale Weddings! Because you are supposed to think that you are the only couple getting married at WDW that day! Tee hee.
Now, I personally didn’t mind at all, I was all into seeing the other couple and nodding hello and stuff and of course I was dying to know if she was a DISbride! (So, if anyone is reading this or know of anyone that had Amy as their photographer on May 1 for their wedding and photo shoots….HI!!!) LOL
Anyway, I barely had time to smile at the other happy couple, let alone see what they looked like, but the bride had dark hair and it was kind of half-up, half-down. I’m thinking she wasn’t a DISbride, because if she was, I’m sure we’d be aware of each other before that day!
Anyway, Regina got all flustered because us brides are not supposed to run into each other. She said she thought they’d be done already (I guess photogs know the bridal shoot schedules before hand, especially to avoid this type of occurrence.). The thing was she was concerned that the other bride and groom were also doing Italy and Morocco and some other country, maybe France, I can’t remember now and Regina was concerned that they wouldn’t be done in Italy by the time we got over there, so after Morocco we got to do some of Japan! We finished up in Japan and headed towards Italy….with no sign of the others.

Here are some of our faves from our EPCOT shoot:

We really love the EPCOT photos! I think we actually prefer them to the MK ones, but we just had to get our pic taken with the castle, you know?

After we finally finished up, we headed back to BW, where Patricia would be returning shortly to do my niece’s (MOH) hair and makup and my mom’s and DF’s mom and also freshen me up!


Next up: More Wedding Day! YAY!!!!!

 

[Boardwalk_bride]

I know I have said this before (when you posted your portrait link) but your pictures turned out amazing!!! I was on the fence about Epcot (even though its my fav park) but your pictures are inspiring me to save!!!!! Did you save money by doing the 2 of them together?