Melissa and Patrick's Wishes Wedding - November 2, 2012

[mb187143]

I'm so excited to finally be starting this!! Patrick and I are thrilled to be starting this process. We've been fans for such a long time, and we've been researching and talking about our Disney Fairy Tale Wedding for over a year. We called on Monday to speak with someone and set up our site visit, and talked to a consultant on Thursday. Luckily, we're going to be in WDW in September, November, and July already for various family vacations as well as our own, so we may be able to work the planning session into our July vacation and not have to make a special trip. We're holding our events at the Wedding Pavilion, followed by the Whitehall Room and patio, and I am so excited! We have a site visit scheduled for Sept. 16, so I'll be able to add more then, but for now, i'm just loving going through the initial paperwork and information and getting my thoughts organized. It's a little overwhelming, but I'm SO excited

Happy planning to all of the other brides on the dis!

 

[mb187143]

Ok, now I can continue this. So far, we've talked with our consultant and set up a site visit to see the venues. We are going to be on vacation in the world Sept 15-21 so we figured we'd go see them in person, even though we've been to disney a combined total of 28 times in our lives, and have seen these places from afar already. We saw the WP in February. We stayed at the Poly and our room was literally like on the end of the resorts, and our view was of the GF and WP, so we got off the monorail at the GF one afternoon and looked all around since no one was using it at the time. We had been talking about getting married for about 6 months at that point, and we were seriously starting to consider WDW, but I think this moment is what sold it for us. I think this was the first time I really pictured everything and how it would look.

We were able to hold our venues for Nov. 2, 2012, but I definitely am excited to do a site visit, because we also want to see SBP, and with all of the drama over the GF construction, I frankly want to have an idea of what my other options would be. I LOVE the WP, and I'm Catholic, so this is the closest thing I can get at WDW to a church ceremony. I'm not concerned about not being able to have a Catholic ceremony in WDW. A number of our extended family members won't be able to make the trip, so our plan is to have our marriage blessed at some point after we return home, and then have a nice party with those who were unable to attend our wedding.

We've only been working with DFTW for about 2 weeks, and already I'm overwhelmed at the options, and I think my DF will need to keep me focused on the budget. We're paying for this ourselves, probably with a little help from our parents if needed, but I think it's important to both of us to make this as nice as possible and yet not go nuts.

I know others will read this PJ, but I'm really keeping this for myself - i've never been good with writing in a journal, but I think this is a process I'm going to want to look back on and remember. I have a feeling the next year will fly by and at the same time, drag on forever. I hope all of you planning your weddings are enjoying the process

 

[mb187143]

So I guess it's time for me to update this since my last... we went for our site visit on 9/16. We met with a consultant who ran us through some details - once he realized we knew what we wanted, how many we wanted, etc. he didn't waste too much of our time on that stuff. He was really great, and I felt like he was completely honest with us about the construction, as well as realistic expectations for our event with the budget we have in mind.

After that, he took us over to see the Whitehall room. We loved the space, we definitely knew we wanted it, but I think that was the moment, for me, where things became real. We had been talking about marriage for a year, we picked out the ring together, and I think it was going through the motions until that moment. I actually SAW us, next year, in that room at our wedding, and it felt real at that point.

One of the biggest struggles Patrick and I are having is the guest list. Patrick has a small immediate family and a small extended family as well. My immediate family is also small, but I have a large extended family, as well as a large number of family friends that my parents would most certainly invite if we were to have our wedding in PA or NJ. This was one of the reasons we decided to have our wedding in Disney - aside from our absolute love for it, we wanted an event that was truly "ours" and not overwhelmed by volumes of people we barely know.

The problem with this is that my parents *say* they're on-board, but their actions are indicating something different entirely. Patrick and I are paying for this ourselves, so we're comfortable with putting our respective feet down when it comes down to it, but I personally am struggling with my parents and their comments that so and so cousin wants to come, or a great aunt twice removed. I don't want to hurt anyone, and I don't want anyone to feel left out. My parents, specifically, are the ones overwhelming us with this stuff. Patrick's mother has a small family and this isn't her first son to get married, so she understands what we're going through and really isn't getting too involved other than giving us her list of people she'd like included. Luckily, it was what we expected.

We're about 2 minutes into this process, so I know this is the least of the stress that's to come. I'm also someone who takes a long time to adjust to change, so I think now that the reality of our engagement has hit, I'm beginning to adjust to it. I don't know if that's normal or not. I don't know if I'm strange for being so excited to get engaged and then get a little overwhelmed and freaked out when it actually happens. I'm still so excited, but part of me is nostalgic for a time when I was a kid and didn't have to make any decisions of any relative importance. Either way, I have a wonderful man by my side, and I am a very lucky girl.

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

Hi there! It's so exciting that you've had a site visit and it's all becoming real for you... I think my own site visit won't be for another 15 months or so, yipes, so it must be such an exciting feeling! I can totally relate to wanting to keep the day your own by having it small and at WDW, it's the same for me. I'm sure if you and your DF are adamant about your wants your parents will eventually understand. Looking forward to reading more of your plans!

 

[mb187143]

Wow, it's been a while since I posted in here - so much has happened!!!

So in my last entry I was feeling a lot of pressure from my parents and my fiancee about the guest list and whatnot. Luckily, about a week later, Patrick and I sat down with my parents and put it all out on the table, and so did they. We were all able to discuss what our overall vision was for our day, and we also were able to get the sticky "financing" conversation out of the way. My parents are kindly helping us to pay for the wedding, so we were able to meet them in the middle as far as the guest list.

Also, i found my dress, and I absolutely LOVE it. I can't wait to put it on again. I went to Alfred Angelo with my sister, mother, and grandmother, and tried on the disney gowns (of course, lol), but i picked something else for my dress. I totally fell in love with it.

Now, finding my dress was also a source of stress for me. I'm not exactly pooh-sized, but I'm also not teeny tiny. I'm 4'11" so i'm a squirt to begin with, and i have a small waist, but a large chest and wide hips. I was so concerned about being able to find anything that would fit me right and also not look like i was a kid playing dress up. I felt so comfortable when i went to Alfred Angelo, i was surprised!!! The girl who helped me was so nice and knew exactly what I wanted to look at. I had pointed out dresses I liked, and she ran off of that for some additional ones. The dress I picked ended up being one of the ones she selected.

We passed our 1 year mark last week, so we got the room block sorted out and signed out LOA. We should get our planner this week or next. I think i've got a good handle on my expectations as far as the planning - from what I gather, I won't really be working with her much until the planning session. I've got some ideas for what we want, but I am looking forward to the planning session to bounce some things off of her as well.

 

[mb187143]

So a lot and nothing has happened since the last time I updated this. We got assigned our planner, Jamie, and she seems really nice. We had a couple meetings so far just to get to know each other and so she could answer some questions. I really didn't have many since I had the Passporter for a while before we even got offically engaged, and I asked a lot of the questions up front.

Now that we're starting to look at details, I'm stressed by things I can't control, such as my mother and my sister, and my fiance's family in general. My fiance's family are very nice, but they're not as close as my family are, and we don't see them often. My fiance also had a falling out with his mother for about a year, so the wounds from that are still a little bit raw where he's concerned. I feel like I'm an outsider, and will not ever say a word about his family to him - as much as they frustrate me. My parents have spent 30 years using each other's family to cause fights, and I know i don't want that for myself. I feel like bottom line, it's his family, and I support him no matter what. It makes it difficult though, because we didn't know what his mom was going to do with the wedding. We didn't expect her to pay, nor did we expect my parents to. We made a lot of the initial plans based on us paying for it ourselves.

Now, my parents and his mother have both offered VERY generous contributions toward our wedding. So we had all these ideas about our day and what we wanted. Except, it's not our way or no way anymore, because we cannot accept their help and not their opinions. And since we've decided to accept their help, that means we're appeasing them and making some changes to our initial plans.

One of those changes is the guest count. My fiance has a small nuclear and extended family - i have a small nuclear family and a large extended family, and my parents have a lot of close friends that if we had a wedding at home, would all be invited. From the beginnig, Pat and I both said we didn't want anyone at our wedding that neither of us have ever met. Like a complete stranger. Enter my mother, who still can't quite wrap her head around the way minimum expenditures work, and now she's having a hard time saying no to anyone who asks about our wedding. Because Pat's family is small, I wanted to keep things small and have a bigger, casual party when we come home to include my parents friends and cousins. I don't want his family to feel overwhelmed and like they have 3 tables and my family has 15. I've tried to explain this to my mother several times, and she always seems to get it, and then next thing i know, she's got 5 more names for the list.

The further and further we get into this, the more often im having moments where i want to say eff it, and just elope. It's so hard trying to maintain control of this. While i want my parents and Pat's mom to feel included, after all, they are helping us, this is still our day. I want this to look like something we wanted.

My next, and possibly most annoying problem, is my sister. Or as I'm referring to her, my Maid of Honor-zilla. She seems to be under the impression that she's the bride in this whole thing. To the point where we've all had to remind her that this is my wedding. Every time she gets involved in a conversation about my wedding, she starts a shouting match with my mother. She claims she's trying to "defend me" but in reality, she's using my wedding as a convenient opportunity to further her lifelong need to fight with our mother. They've had a tough relationship, from the time my sister was little to now, and fight often. I hate that my sister uses my wedding as a bone of contention with her. And sadly, when she starts with my mother, it eventually spirals into another fight between my parents about their families, and who's family is worse.

God, it feels so good to vent. And i don't even care if anyone reads this. I just needed to get all of that out. The most important questions remain unchanged. Do I want to marry Patrick? YES. Do we want to get married in Disney World? YES. I guess the best thing we can do is try to maintain calm and ignore some of the crazy. Everyone's got family issues, and nothing brings them out like a wedding, right?

 

[yourgypsy]

Isn't it great how weddings bring out the 'best' in people?

Thankfully, when it comes to the wedding, other than Doug's mom sending me messages with 80s style prom dresses, we've been on our own. The only headache is since his parents insist on staying at a timeshare condo, I have to figure out their transportation. I'm kinda ready to say "ya know what? deal with it on your own" because it's just too much hassle at this point.

Hopefully things smooth over soon!

 

[virtuous girl]

Hi I hate family drama but it is inevitable... I am from philadelphia also!! where r u located?? i live in the northeast near the Blvd.. Do u have any inspiration pics or pics of ur color scheme?? i cant believe i missed ur PJ We r the perfect crowd to vent 2

 

[mb187143]

Isn't it great how weddings bring out the 'best' in people?

Thankfully, when it comes to the wedding, other than Doug's mom sending me messages with 80s style prom dresses, we've been on our own. The only headache is since his parents insist on staying at a timeshare condo, I have to figure out their transportation. I'm kinda ready to say "ya know what? deal with it on your own" because it's just too much hassle at this point.

Hopefully things smooth over soon!

Oh i totally get that. My parents are great, and I appreciate their help, but my mom is totally the type to "overrule" me on something by saying, "well we're paying for this too, so...". In general, I can usually appeal to my father, but it's just giving me a headache. His mom is fine, we actually were surprised to have her offer to contribute as much as she is. We just figured on doing things ourselves so we didn't consult her on a rehearsal dinner or anything, and she's not a fan of what we have planned. So now we have to start over on that a bit. Not the worst thing in the world though, just something we didn't anticipate.

I totally get where you're coming from on the transportation. I'm trying to make this as easy on everyone as possible, but at a certain point, they need to meet me halfway, or at least give a little bit. Hope you get that resolved!

Hi I hate family drama but it is inevitable... I am from philadelphia also!! where r u located?? i live in the northeast near the Blvd.. Do u have any inspiration pics or pics of ur color scheme?? i cant believe i missed ur PJ We r the perfect crowd to vent 2

I think you're right. I don't think anything brings it out quite as much as a wedding. I grew up in Huntingdon Valley, about 5 minutes from Welsh and the boulevard! Right outside of the far Northeast!! Right now my fiance and i are temporarily living in Jersey, we both work in Pharma and my job got transferred there in the spring. Working our way back though, i'm in Giants country up here and i don't like it I'll have to get some pics posted with some ideas. I definitely need some feedback that doesn't come from a boy who doesn't have any interest in a centerpiece, lol. I'm not big on flowers so i'm still working through what I want for centerpieces and things like that. Since our wedding is in November, we're going to use red wine as our main color, with a light pink accent. Since we're keeping it small, i have my sister as my MOH, and my 2 cousins that I grew up with as bridesmaids. My next project is getting the three of them to try to pick out a bridesmaid dress they're all comfortable with. It doesn't have to be the same, but i'd like at least all short or all long, etc. So that's my project for next month!

 

[BethieTink]

Just wanted to say welcome! There are a bunch of us either getting married or renewing our vows in the early part of next November.

Feel free to vent away. We all have done it and will probably do it again very soon.

Can't wait to read more.

 

[DisneyShamrock]

Welcome to the boards!

Looking forward to reading along with your planning.

 

[mb187143]

First, thank you to those of you who have been reading along, and for your messages and posts - i know a lot of you have been through similar stuff, it's just nice to get feedback from other brides who understand. My fiance is wonderful, and he's so supportive, but he's not the bride, so he's a little removed from some of this. I can lean on him, but he's not in the "line of fire" usually. It's nice to relate to people who are.

So this past weekend was Christmas, and I was honestly looking forward to just spending some downtime with my family and relaxing. We've sent out newsletters to our family and friends with wedding info, so i was anticipating some questions about the wedding, but I wasn't planning on focusing on wedding stuff this weekend. Didn't really work out that way though

I spent all day Friday getting ready for Christmas - finishing shopping, wrapping presents, all of that good stuff. This is the second year my fiance and I have spent Christmas together, but it's the first year that we've incorporated his family plans into ours, so I knew it would be a lot of running around, but I'm so glad he and his mom are speaking again that it doesn't even matter. My fiance and his mother have at least been talking to each other again, and she's really excited for the wedding, so we're making positive steps there.

In my family, we've always done Christmas Eve with my mother's side of the family, and then split Christmas day with her family (same people) and then my dad's family. Pat's family is much much smaller, so their traditions are to get Chinese food on Christmas eve (just Pat, his mom, his brother, and his sister), and then spend Christmas day eating appetizers and relaxing with each other. Which i find VERY APPEALING right now. Since we're blending our traditions, Pat and I do the Chinese food thing on the 23rd, and this year we still did all of the stuff with my mom's family on the 24th and 25th, and then skipped my dad's side and went to his mom's house.

My mother's family... well my mom has a brother who's single (Uncle F), and a sister who's single (Aunt J), and then a sister who's separated from her husband and has 3 kids (Aunt D), Jessica, who's my age, and twins, Jacqueline and Keith, who are 21. Jessica and Jacqueline are both bridesmaids in my wedding, we all kind of grew up together, as the three of them spent a lot of time in our home while my aunt was dealing with her ex when we were younger. Jessica lives in Texas currently, so she's home for the holidays - which was great. I love seeing her, I miss her now that she's so far away. And it was wonderful to spend time with her. My mom's family does all of their gift giving on Christmas eve, but tensions run high with my mom and her sister (Aunt J). Aunt J has a long history of causing problems, instigating fights, and really takes advantage of my Grandmother. So each family event, the rest of us spend holding our breath and waiting for the sparks to fly. Luckily, this year mom and Aunt J kept their distance, but Aunt J still managed to upset my grandmother. We did our thing, and then Patrick, myself and my sister all went back to my parents house, and then my sister and I went to mass. Pat isn't Catholic, so he stayed behind, and my parents went with my grandmom earlier. My sister and I came back an hour later to find my dad and Pat splitting a small bottle of whiskey, lol, and my mom with a bucket of red wine - bizzare and hilarious scene to stumble upon, but we ended up sitting around and really enjoying each other for a few hours. It was a really nice Christmas eve once we got out of my mom's family crazy.

Christmas day was round 2 - and luckily this time i had a really nasty headache. I've always gotten them, but nothing was really working to get rid of it, so off we go to my Aunt's house (Aunt D) for part 2. Because she's separated from her husband, and their financials arent worked out, Aunt D is actually living in a house owned by my uncle, Uncle F, and is around the corner from my Uncle F's house (which is where my grandmom also lives). So really, we're at his other house now. They both live in rowhomes in northeast Philadelphia, so not the biggest space in the world, made smaller by the personalities in the room. We actually had a fairly nice meal, despite my mother feeling that Christmas dinner was an appropriate time to ask my cousin Keith about his current living situation in a halfway house. Awesome. The poor kid. Pat and I narrowly escaped that situation, but not before my grandmother starts asking me whether she should book suites for the family or get a bunch of rooms for the wedding. I kind of knew she was going to pay for their family to go, that's what she does. So I told her that I would sit down with her and we'll price out her options and see. The problem is, my grandmother has always had control - she's paid for my aunt and cousins to live, she helped pay for their school, she has bailed my mom's other siblings out countless times. So now, they all expect her to pay for them to go. And my parents have also helped my mom's family, to an enourmous extent. It's created a situation where they all expect to be helped, and have a hard time doing for themselves. And i know, if it gets tight for my grandmother, my mom and dad will help pay for all of them to get to our wedding. Anyway, so I tell her that she and I and my mom will all sit down together and figure out what makes sense for her - and then Aunt J decides to tell my grandmother to make sure she books her in her own room. Totally rude. So then they start bickering, and that was our cue to head on up the NJ Turnpike for part II...

 

[mb187143]

... So Patrick and I head out from my Aunt's house, and start on our journey to NJ. His mom's house is about an hour and a half from my parent's house, a little less from my Aunt's house, so we had a nice ride and some time to decompress. Pat and his mother are very similar people, so that can lead to tension between them from time to time. 2 years ago they had a really bad argument, and it took a year for the two of them to talk again. But i know that Pat gets tense before we go into a situation at his mom's house, because he doesn't want to let that happen again. His parents got divorced when he was 6, and he hasn't seen his dad since he was 10, so it's just his mom, his older brother, and younger sister. His mom, like both he and I, works in pharmaceuticals, his brother is just out of the army and back in school, and his sister is a senior in college. So we go in to his mom's house, and she's clearly super excited for Christmas. I mean it looks like santa stopped at her house twice, there's so much stuff under the tree and in their family room. Pat had told me that their tradition growing up was to get a lot of stocking stuffers and then one or two big gifts each. So i just assumed that some of those other gifts were for other people, friends and neighbors and such. So we're waiting for his sister to get home from work (she's a nursing student and had a shift), and we're watching TV, eating appetizers, and I'm sitting there thinking to myself, this is so calm, and so easy. I wish my family did that. It really really was nice. So his sister came home and we start opening presents. His mom was so nice and had gotten me a stocking, which was really nice of her. So we finish with the stockings, and his mom starts giving out presents. 10 minutes later, Pat and I have a pile of presents that were joint gifts that were as tall as I am. It was insane. She really went all out, and she got us a lot of stuff we needed. It was really overwhelming, i wasn't expecting it at all. It was a really nice end to the day though, we had a nice time at her house, and she was asking us about some wedding details and we were talking about the flowers (her dad was a florist so she grew up working in his shop). She gave me some good advice and we had a really easy time.

I only met Pat's sister back in the summer - like I said, she's in school, and since he had a falling out with his mom, we didn't go to his mom's for the holidays last year. So by the time I met her, we were about to get engaged. And she's really nice, but we've barely really even hung out. So when it came time to picking the bridesmaids, I asked Pat whether she would want to be in it. Pat's brother is in the process of getting divorced, and his sister was a bridesmaid for his brother's ex, but they'd known each other for like 15 years. I definitely like his sister, but I felt kind of awkward asking her and i honestly think she would have felt awkward being in the wedding. So I didn't ask her - and she's totally cool with it. When we were talking about the wedding stuff on Sunday, she said she's excited for it, and she's excited that she'll be able to relax and enjoy it. I really feel like I did the right thing. Enter my mom, who decided to tell me that Pat probably doesn't even know whats going on with his sister and says I should have asked her...

For some crazy reason, I thought it would be a good idea to go shopping yesterday with my sister and cousins for bridesmaid dresses. Jess lives in Texas and she may not be home again until July, which is a little late for shopping for them. So my cousins, my sister, and I meet at my parents' house and then head to David's Bridal. I got my dress from Alfred Angelo, but I wanted to go to David's because they have a store in Texas near where Jess lives, so she could get her dress altered through there and honestly, the dresses were less expensive. Surprisingly, they all agreed rather quickly that they liked the same dress, and it looked really nice on all three of them, despite their different sizes. So what I thought would take hours took about 45 minutes, and we were all done. Fantastic. I live an hour away from my parents and had driven down yesterday morning, and was planning on going in, saying goodbye, and then heading back home to enjoy the rest of my day off. Good plan, right? Didn't really work out that way.

I spent 2 hours at my parents' house, long after my sister saved herself, listening to them back and forth with each other about their families - Mom says is if my dad's family doesn't come, he's going to all future family events alone. Dad tells my mom the only reason her family is all going is because my grandmom is paying. It's back and forth like this. So i try to re-focus the conversation, which doesn't really work. Then my mom starts in on what a hassle my wedding is and that she thought it was a good idea at first but now it's a pain. Awesome, thanks mom. Instead of fighting with her, I just kind of let it roll, got my stuff together and headed out. They also had my dog for the night, so I packed Finn into the car, and away we went. And I spent most of that car ride home trying not to cry. I mean i really feel awful, and I don't know if we're doing the right thing. So I get home, and I can't hold it in any more, and then Pat, of course, is right there, and he's so good with this stuff. He knows what my mother puts me through some times (I usually get treated to a weekly list of things that I'm wrong about, need to fix, areas of my body that she'd like me to work on, and she wishes I'd try harder to get a new job). So i'm upset, and he's about to call her and tell her. Which isn't going to help anything, and he knows that. So he lets me get it out, and then he ordered pizza for dinner because neither of us were cooking, and let me put on one of my girl movies. Of course, in the middle of all of this my dad calls, and "tries" to make it better by telling me this is what he has to live with, but honestly right now I have nothing left.

So that was my super-not relaxing Christmas weekend. I'm supposed to get a proof of our save the dates this week, which I'm really excited about. And then we have another nice long weekend next weekend, and unlike this one, Pat and I are not going out, we're not seeing family, we're spending our new years together with our dog and in our home and by ourselves, lol. And I really can't wait for that.