ONE BRIDE'S DREAM. Carol & Iain's wedding 5/8/08 SBP, Chefs Domaine, wishes. COMPLETE

[WithDisneySpirit]

What creativity and eye for details! You really made yourself a perfect day, didn't you?! LOVE it

 

[lurkyloo]

Wow - you did a great job on those flower girl dresses!

Also, instead of cropping your pix from Randy, you can change the size of them on the site where you've uploaded them. If you are using Photobucket, you can even change your settings so that photos automatically upload at the size you want. Otherwise, look in your program's editing tools for one that says Resize or Crop - usually it offers you sizes like "Message Board" and "Email" or "Web Page" - just set your pictures to "Message Board".... And PM me if this is all too confusing!

 

[wedwdw05]

Wow everything looks wonderful. The flowergirl dresses were absolutely adorable. I can't believe you had never really sewed before. They look professionally made. Great job! You looked stunning. The dress, the hair, everything.

 

[stackyallred]

You are so creative! The pic of you where you say you are "smiling because your dress fits" is so pretty. Congratulations!

 

[lov2b@disney]

WOW! Great stuff! Excellent job on the girls dresses!

Keep it up

 

[Maddiesmum03]

Thank you all again for your kind comments.
wedwdw05 - the dresses may look good in the photos, and I was really pleased with them, but a proper seamstress would probably rip them to shreads!

stackyallred - thank you! I love my Randy photos ( and I don't really like myself in photos! ) and of course I was smiling all day, not just because my dress fit!

Lurkyloo - the problem is the site I chose will only accept pics upto 2mb and most of Randys are double that, only then will it resize the photo. I'm currently using picoodle, perhaps I'd be better off choosing a different one. I may end up PM'ing you yet!

ITINERY OF OUR TRIP
April 29th Sofitel, London Gatwick
April 30th BA Flight to Orlando, Limo to Royal Pacific Resort, Universal Studios
May 4th Disneys Boardwalk Villa's
May 8th the wedding!
May 14th Vero beach resort
May 21st, fly home

Originally everyone except Iain's dad was going to travel together and stay the entire trip ( Iains dad did not want to do Universal and joined us once we got to the Boardwalk ) We are DVC members and "paid" for everyones accomodation with this years points( and next years - no disney for us until 2010 ) , we had a 2 bedroom, plus a studio at BWV and 3 inn rooms at VB. We didn't pay for their travel or the accomodation at Universal, just our own!
Then the day before we were flying out, Ade went for a hospital appointment because he was having trouble with his eye and it turned out to be his Retina, he was refered to a consultant who couldn't see him until the thursday and wasn't allowed to fly in the meantime, so Mel made the desision to fly out with the 2 children without him, not knowing if he would be able to come out and join us or not. Luckily, on thursday he was given the go ahead to fly out and joined us on our last day at Universal. He also had to fly back early for an operation and missed our beach break, but at least he made it for the wedding and we had a best man

Im not going to write a blow by blow account of our first week, except the highlights and all the wedding related stuff, because then I'll get to the wedding day sooner

Heres Maddie and Lewis on the plane, playing nicely together. One of the things we were looking forward to was Maddie having her cousin to play with, but we ended up spending a lot of time trying to keep them apart. I guess thats 4 year olds for you!

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getting a Limo ( happy limo ) from the airport to Universal turned out to be a very good idea, and the driver even did a grocery stop for us - only 20 minutes mind, it was a real trolley dash!. But it meant we didn't have to worry about having a drink on the plane, lugging everything over to Hertz or paying to park at the Royal Pacific when we wouldnt even be needing a car for the first few days - we had sorted our licence by post and it was already safely in the hands of our wedding coordinator.

Universal was as good as always, but I shouldn't really be talking about it here
Of course getting to the Boardwalk really made it feel like the wedding was close! Once we got there I was able to get in touch with our vendors and coordinator and let them know our room number ( this is when I was told by Carolyn Allan that no appointment had been made for me , but as I wasn't that bothered when the dresses were done it turned out ok. BUT the moral of the story is to check, check and check again everything is how you think it is! )

 

[figmentcookie]

I'm really enjoying your TR Carol!!

( this is when I was told by Carolyn Allan that no appointment had been made for me , but as I wasn't that bothered when the dresses were done it turned out ok. BUT the moral of the story is to check, check and check again everything is how you think it is! )

Thank you for the advice! I haven't heard back from them since I emailed them last... I think I'll email them now and double check.

 

[Maddiesmum03]

I'm so upset DH and I missed lurking at your wedding too!!! We were trying to get out there to lurk but got caught up in MK. We finally got to SBP and saw a 5 pm wedding on May 8th.



Nikki

I'm sorry I wasn't able to catch your wedding either, The week just flew by. In fact we hardly saw the parks at all, so much for having an annual pass!
We didnt see the 5pm wedding, only a few of the guests when we got back from Citrico's, but we did get to see them setting up for that wedding, as soon as ours finished. Randy took us over to the beach at the beach club resort for photos and before we made it back past sea breeze point, it had been cleared, ready for action again, even the sign with our names on at the entrance had been changed. Luckily the man clearing it went past in his little trolley at that point and we retrieved our sign!

 

[Maddiesmum03]

"grooms day"
Tuesday 6th May
We had planned to pay for everyone who wanted to have a "ride round" at the Richard petty experience ($99 each) but called this off as I said previously, because of Ade's eye situation. We did one of the parks instead, Hollywood studios I think!
I was treating Iain to a pamper session this afternoon over at the Mandara spa. The package was called "Zen and the art of golfing" and consisted of an Elemis Urban facial clense,a deep tissue muscle massage and a sports manicure and pedicure. It lasted around 3 1/2 hours and cost $315. Iain loved it all.
While he was being pampered I finished all the bits and pieces I needed to get ready to take to Citricos and waited on the dress steamer.
That night we had what we called a "crawl around the world", the ultimate in pub crawls at Epcot, starting off with a pint at the Great Britain Pub, the on to Mexico for a Marguerita then.....I can't remember ( perhaps it was more than one marguerita )

The day before the wedding, Wednesday 7th May was officially "brides day"
and I took Mel, my MOH, over to the Mandara spa for our pampering session.
We got there at 8.30 and didnt get back to the hotel until about 2.30 so it was a good long pamper ( not too relaxing though, once I realised I had our daughters park pass in my bag!!!!!!!!!)
We had an exotic frangipani body nourish wrap and massage ( 75mins $220 each) and the ceremony for hands and feet, basically a manicure and pedicure. I ended up not doing the manicure because I needed acrylic nails as I'd picked and nibbled mine into submission!. I don't normally do manicures or pedis so I have no idea whats normally involved, but they seemed to use a lot of products you would normally save for your face which was a bit of a treat.
You have the pedicure first and they are set up to do 3 people at a time which was nice as I sat next to Mel while our feet were being soaked and wrapped in hot towels! Our legs were exfoliated and moisturised from the knees down, not just our feet. I paid $10 extra each to upgrade to french polish and I was really pleased. They then give you little disposable flip flops to wear. ( I hadn't thought about shoes and had wore my sketchers over to the Dolphin - I'm obviously not the only one because they had a selection of flip flops to buy, but we both shuffled back to the boardwalk on our cheapo disposable ones!!!)
As I was having acrylic nails on I missed out on having a moisturising mask on my hands which Mel had but I was really pleased with my new nails. I've never had them done before and it took a while to get used to using them. They lasted a week and I lost one only because we had to do an emergency stop in the car as a cyclist swerved across 2 lanes in front of us and I automatically put my hands up on the dashboard. I am so pleased I had them done, looking back on the closeups of my hands in the photos. Again, I was able to sit next to Mel and chat while we were having our maincures which was good. The ceremony for hands and feet ( 120mins ) cost $120 each plus $20 for french upgrades for both hands and feet. My acrylic nails cost $100.
I would recommend the Mandara spa, it was a nice relaxing atmosphere as long as you can resist the hard sell of products you always get at spas. ( not that I am a spa expert, I have only ever done the ones on cruise ships )

That evening we we eating at Le Cellier, in Canada at Epcot. We have eaten there before, on Iains 40th Birthday and loved it so this was one of the PS's we made at the 180 + 10 mark, just in case! we had a great meal and watched Illuminations afterwards.
I'm aware there's no photos in this bit of the report, I took surprisingly few at the spa so here one of Iains dad with his chocolat "moose" at Le Cellier!

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That night Iain was staying with his Dad in his studio rather than in our 2 bedroom. He was a bit miffed at sleeping on a bed settee when there was a king sized bed with our name on it, but tradition won!
Once the kids went to bed I brought out a load of decorations and balloons I had stashed in my case, and Mel, Ade and I decorated our suite.

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I then had a long relaxing soak in the tub, put a mask on my face ( and hands because they didnt get pampered earlier at the spa), read our copy of the vows, wrote a letter to Iain, tried on my dress just to make sure it still fit, laid out all the shoes and bits ready and went to bed. I slept surprisingly well.

Next up the wedding day

 

[MickeyAnne]

wow! I love everything! What a great job you did!! Your FG dresses were awesome!

 

[pjstevens]

Wow, what a great start! Can't wait to hear about your wedding day. For someone that hasn't sewn before, my goodness those dresses were beautiful. Great job on losing all that weight before your wedding! You looked great!

 

[Petals & Pixie Dust]

Everything looks great! Can't wait to read more!

 

[Maddiesmum03]

Thank you again everyone for your lovely comments, without further ado on with the report....

......One thing I forgot to mention about my spa session was that during the frangipani wrap the lady doing it asked if I wanted the oil in my hair as it worked as a really good conditioner especially if it was left on overnight. Well there was no chance of that, but I left it on for the day and shampooed it before we went to le cellier. As both my hairdresser back home and Anna had told me to wash my hair the day before, not the wedding day, this worked out perfectly and my hair felt great.

I slept really well and woke up bright and early. I made myself a cup of coffee and sat on my balcony with a mirror and a pair of tweezers no stray hairs in my wedding photos, thank you!. It was really peaceful as it was about 6.30!
The funny thing was later in the day, Iain told me he was going to do exactly the same thing ( probably not with tweezers! ) but was scared I might see him on his dads balcony even though it was a little bit away from our room.

Anna had arranged to arrive at 9am which gave us plenty of time for breakfast and showers before she arrived. I cant even remember what breakfast was, probably only cereal. Mel and I also made a plate of sandwiches and put them in the fridge for after the ceremony. At some point I sent Ade to give Iain his letter and present, but Iain and his dad had gone awol, it turned out they went for breakfast at the Boardwalk bakery.

At 9.00 there was a knock at the door, talk about prompt! Anna was great and I would recommend her to anyone. She is a lovely lady and made everyone feel at ease. I was delighted with my hair as I had my trial photos from home with me and also a couple of inspiration pictures I pinched off these boards. But although I wanted depth and height, my hair still felt a bit "flat" in my trial and the curls too much like ringlets, the best way to explain it is to post a picture

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I showed Anna and she said " we can do better than that!" and she did, I can honestly say I felt fantastic. It was almost as if she had read my mind, it was exactly how I wanted it. As for the make up, all I said was that I felt naked without eyeliner, and again she got it just right. The lip colour she choose for me was perfect and she gave me a whole small lipstick for touchups.
Maddie watched all this and I wasn't sure if she would sit still long enough for Anna to do her hair, but she was good as gold!

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Then it was Mel's turn

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There was another knock at the door and it was Randy. Now I hadn't arranged for Randy to come up to the room and get any getting ready photos as we only had the small 3 hour package ( times 2, as we arranged for him to come back and meet us at citricos for GF and wishes shots ) and didn't think there would be time so this was an added bonus.

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Soon after this Ade and Lewis disappeared to meet up with Iain and his Dad, and Ade finally managed to pass the bits Ihad for Iain on to him. Randy disappeared too, to take photos of "the boys" down in the Lobby as they had to meet Karen at 11.

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Then it was time to get into our dresses

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and thats when I noticed the little snag on mine that I'm sure wasnt there when I had it steamed, but I hadn't noticed it when I tried the dress on the night before, so it may have been me, but I still had plenty of time so out came the needle and thread. As I said before ,not the easiest thing to do with my new acrylic nails ( and I also had to get Mel to put my necklace on and do my zip up on the dress and buckle my shoes because of them too!, still thats what MOH's are for isn't it )
Karen phoned to let us know the coast was clear - Iain was determined to get a drink from the ESPN club before the wedding! and we made our way down to the lobby. Of course the workmen had picked the exact same time to paint our corridor, you can imagine how it was trying to keep ourselves and two small people away from the wet paint!
We made it intact!

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and of course Randy was waiting with Karen to get some shots.
Karen handed out the flowers. We had based our colour scheme around Disney's tropical bouquet and I had explained this to Rosie during our phone call to discuss flowers, bearing in mind just this one conversation and the one photo on the Disney site, I was amazed at how well the colours matched. The calla lilies were a perfect match for Mel's dress and the Girls sashes. The wands we chose for the girls picked out the colours perfectly - I was delighted.
My bouquet

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Randy took me outside with Maddie for some shots - and this is how great our co-ordinater Karen was - she entertained Ellen with bubbles while this was going on.

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Time for a few more photos ....

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then we were on our way to Sea Breeze Point.

 

[frdeb1999]

Absolutely beautiful pix!!!

 

[keenercam]

Oh, you looked stunning! The dresses you made look gorgeous. Your bouquet was so beautiful, too! Can't wait to see more!

 

[meryll83]

I'm a late joiner to this thread but I have to agree with everyone else that the flower girl dresses are awesome! They're in my colours too, but I don't have any little people to wear them, otherwise I would have been trying to recruit your sewing skills

I love your dress too, it's a gorgeous style.

I'm looking forward to the rest of your report, as we are looking at SBP and the Chef's Domaine for our day

 

[Maddiesmum03]

frdeb1999 - Thank you, but I can't take credit for the good pictures, I think it's pretty obvious which ones are Randy's work - and he should take all the credit!
Randy was wonderful. Just to think if I had never visited these boards I would have made do with Disney's 20 photos!
keenercam - many thanks , I have to admit I was really pleased with the dresses - and my bouquet was stunning, it even had a signature hidden Mickey on the stem. It wasn't too heavy either, I've heard of brides that have said how heavy their flowers were, but those were really easy to hold, a good job really as Randy had us posing for photos for around 2 hours!
meryll83 - Welcome and thank you - You won't be disappointed in either choice, SBP is a perfect location, and I'll write a lot about the Chefs Domaine later, but we would give it an outstanding 10 out of 10, you couldn't fault their service, attention to detail, friendliness and of course the food!

 

[DigitalLove]

Hiya

Everything looks absolutely fantastic. Your flowergirls dresses are beautiful... I can't believe you managed to make them with absolutely no needlework experience at all... and your tiara is incredible. I can only dream of being so talented!!

Can't wait to read what you thought of The Chefs Domaine. We got married offsite in March, but we had our wedding dinner at The Chefs Domaine and then went on the Grand 1 afterwards, so it will be good to compare. I absolutely LOVED the food at The Chefs Domaine... I have read some very 'hit and miss' reviews about it... but we were incredibly impressed. The staff were SO attentive and really couldn't have done any more for us and isn't Melissa just the best?! I'm still in email contact with her and hope to meet up with her next time we get to Orlando. We were supposed to go for coffee back in March but she was just flat out at work. She went above and beyond what I expected!!

Hurry up and write some more!!

 

[princessdisneybelle]

Carol wow everything looks beautiful. I love! your dress and the flower girls. You have a true talent for putting things together. It was great meeting your family.

 

[29apr00]

Beautiful pics!! The girls are too cute!!