sajilunni
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 5, 2007
- Messages
- 194
Hi everyone, we got back from our first trip to WDW a few weeks ago and I figured I MUST write up a trip report as a thank you for all the great advice I have received from these boards. I apologize that I am not very tech savvy and don't know how to post pictures. I've tried before but we have an 8 megapixel camera and it seems to overload the memory capacity. I don't know how to resize or anything. But I'll post the link for the Disney photo shoot and Randy's photo shoot when I get it.
Okay some background on us. We met on October 11, 1996 when his friends crashed my friends party. We celebrate this anniversary moreso than our actual wedding anniversary (May 30, 1998) because we feel that once we met it was inevitable that we would get married. We are as passionately and profoundly in love now as we were back then (so it IS possible). We have gone through surgical residencies, Bar exams, fertility problems and deaths of family members, but still our marriage remains the most defining thing in our lives (he recently got me a license plate that reads "LV MARIJ). Believe it or not we have only had a handful of fights in our decade of marriage, we're just very compatible.
We have 3 children: DS7, DD5 and DD2. We wanted to do a vow renewal for them because they are at the perfect ages to appreciate participating. Our original wedding was a long and extravagant day: a Hindu ceremony, a lunch reception for 350, a Catholic ceremony and a dinner reception for 750. And no, I don't know that many people. Both sets of parents happen to be very social, and this was the first wedding in both of our families. I had no problem sacrificing the intimate wedding I had wanted in order to get the chance to live the rest of my life married to my soulmate. But I wanted our vow renewal to just be with the people that really loved us. Originally we were going to do a kitchy Vegas VR with an Elvis impersonator, but then I realized that my kids have no idea why that would be fun. So I turned to Disney, and their Escape package seemed perfect (albeit expensive).
We knew we would be hosting our entire family, so we joined Disney Vacation Club to secure accomodations a couple of years ago, without ever visiting Disney. There were 16 of us (I'll use abbreviations in case they don't want their names given out):
Me
DH
DS7
DD5
DD2
OS (older sister)
OSH (her husband)
Niece (1 1/2)
LS (little sister)
LSH (her husband)
Nephew (3)
Mom (mine)
MIL
FIL
BIL (DH's younger brother)
SIL (his wife)
My dad is 77 and didn't feel up to coming, since he no longer likes to leave his comfort zone. I didn't have a problem with that.
Most of my family stayed at a 3 bedroom villa at Old Key West. My inlaws and my two older kids stayed in a 2 bedroom villa. Unfortunately they weren't able to get us in the same building but we were across the street from each other. Old Key West was so great. It was really roomy, and the building we were in (63 I think) was close to the entrance and exit bus stops of the resort, so we never had to wait for the bus to go around the entire resort.
Okay let me get to the vendor reviews before my kids get too ornery.
Disney Floral: B
I got a tussy mussy bouquet with white flowers with no roses. It was nice, but nothing show stopping. My DD5 had a white triple rose wand. It was pretty and she loved waving it around.
We had a family sand ceremony with 5 vials of sand so we could all participate. We chose the colors light pink, dark pink, light blue, dark blue and white. How I envisioned it was that we would each put the sand in the bottle and it would make pretty stripes that represent each of us. But pink and blue sands were practically indistinguishable. And worst of all, the sand only went halfway up the vase, it did not fill it up at all. It looks kind of dinky in a half-filled bottle. They did give us a bottle topper and pack it up for us. The sand mixed up completely in the suitcase, but it didn't leak out.
Disney Cake: A
I got the $25 upgrade on the Escape cake. It was a white fondant cake with gold stamped Mickey heads all around, and white gum paste flowers. It was very pretty. I did notice the fondant buckling a bit in the back because of the heat, but I don't know if buttercream would have done any better. The bottom layer was marble cake with peanut butter cup filling. The top layer was chocolate with rasberry mousse. They were both super-good! If I had to make a choice I think the bottom layer was the bigger hit. We had both layers boxed up and took them back to our room and knoshed on them for the rest of the week.
Ron Rosenzweig: C
I picked him because he got good reviews here, but mostly because he's a notary since we're a mixed religion couple. He was the biggest source of stress though (actually the only source of stress). A couple of months before the ceremony I was getting worried because I received no word from him as to what to expect during the ceremony. The whole point of a vow renewal is supposed to be that it's not a wedding , so it can be anything you want it to be. So I emailed him and said that I was worried and wanted to know how the vow renewal ceremony would go. He emailed me back a 2 sentence response saying it would be a greeting then the sand ceremony then the vows and kiss and it would be over. So I decided to research all kinds of wording for all the aspects. I sent him an actual 4 page letter with our entire love story, how we wanted the ceremony to be fun and intimate and make our kids feel special and the special touches we wanted to add like our DS7 and DD5 saying why we love the other. I found a vows reading in the tune of Dr. Seuss that I wanted him to read which reflected the light mood we wanted to set. He called me up 3 days before we left and sounded very put out. He said that he doesn't do custom ceremonies. Even though his website says "I am willing to go the extra mile to make your wedding extra special." He finally agreed to just read straight from my letter. But during the ceremony he didn't read one part of the Dr. Seuss poem right and messed up the rhyme. His voice did not carry and so most of the guests did not hear him during the ceremony. I think he's probably a good officiant, as long as you don't take him out of his comfort zone.
Ana Rivera from Beaute Speciale: A
We had all of the ladies hair done, and my hair and makeup with false lashes. I bought a 23" Ken Paves "Hair-Do" clip on extension with me, which she added to give me extra length. I had sent her some photos of the heavy upper-eyelid look that I liked, as well as the low side bang half-do that I liked. She told me that because of a cowlick I have on my hairline, I can never have a flat low side bang like I always wanted. That was disappointing because I love that look, but at least I now know why no one has been able to do that for me. I don't wear much makeup in my daily life, and I've never had my makeup done before, so I can't say I was entirely comfortable looking unrecognizable to myself. But everyone did say that my makeup looked pretty.
Ana had Lorena with her and they split up all the ladies of the party. Every single person LOVED their hair. Even my MIL who gets her hair done pretty often, and never likes it. She took pictures of her hair so she can now tell future stylists what she wants them to do. My DD5 went to Bippity Boppity Boutique and got her hair shellacked into an iradescent updo which she loved. But my DD2 was too young to go, so Ana did her hair with a pony tail extension and some eyeshadow and gave her some nail polish. DD2 was absolutely thrilled with it.
Oh and I had the Swarovski Cinderella tiara. Ana said that stylists dread it because it is heavy and hinged. It was a total two man operation to get it in my hair straight. So unless you have a two stylists, I wouldn't recommend that particular tiara.
Randy Chapman: A+
I haven't gotten the pictures back yet, so I can't speak for his photographic abilities, but I can speak for his personal skills. He was so accomodating and friendly. I hired him for 3 hours plus fireworks photos. Fireworks were suppposed to be at 9PM but they were pushed back to 9:45, so he stayed with us from the time of our ceremony at 5PM until about 10:15PM. I saw him take a lot of candid pictures of the kids, which I know I'll love. One thing I would recommend is to know exactly what shots you want and communicate them clearly. I wanted a kiss picture with petals raining down, but he thought I just wanted a walk through the petals picture. And I didn't tell him that I wanted family pictures on the beach, so he had let everyone go back to the air conditioned lobby. I could have just told him what I wanted, because he was very open to suggestions.
California Grill: A++
I booked the Sonoma Room at the California Grill because I knew we would need a private room with the 5 kids. The Sonoma Room is the smaller and less expensive room. The Napa Room has the fantastic view of Magic Kingdom and a door to the deck to see fireworks, but it costs about $1500 more. Guess what?!? They gave us the Napa Room!!! Is that pixie dust or what? It was fabulous beyond words! The staff was so fantastic with the kids. And the food was spectacular. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Wow this has taken a long time. Here are our Magic Kingdom family shots taken by Ty: http://www.collages.net/disneyweddings
Our user name is Unni Vow Renewal and our password is 1971
I'll try to give a day by day memoir later, if I have any memory left.
Jil
Okay some background on us. We met on October 11, 1996 when his friends crashed my friends party. We celebrate this anniversary moreso than our actual wedding anniversary (May 30, 1998) because we feel that once we met it was inevitable that we would get married. We are as passionately and profoundly in love now as we were back then (so it IS possible). We have gone through surgical residencies, Bar exams, fertility problems and deaths of family members, but still our marriage remains the most defining thing in our lives (he recently got me a license plate that reads "LV MARIJ). Believe it or not we have only had a handful of fights in our decade of marriage, we're just very compatible.
We have 3 children: DS7, DD5 and DD2. We wanted to do a vow renewal for them because they are at the perfect ages to appreciate participating. Our original wedding was a long and extravagant day: a Hindu ceremony, a lunch reception for 350, a Catholic ceremony and a dinner reception for 750. And no, I don't know that many people. Both sets of parents happen to be very social, and this was the first wedding in both of our families. I had no problem sacrificing the intimate wedding I had wanted in order to get the chance to live the rest of my life married to my soulmate. But I wanted our vow renewal to just be with the people that really loved us. Originally we were going to do a kitchy Vegas VR with an Elvis impersonator, but then I realized that my kids have no idea why that would be fun. So I turned to Disney, and their Escape package seemed perfect (albeit expensive).
We knew we would be hosting our entire family, so we joined Disney Vacation Club to secure accomodations a couple of years ago, without ever visiting Disney. There were 16 of us (I'll use abbreviations in case they don't want their names given out):
Me
DH
DS7
DD5
DD2
OS (older sister)
OSH (her husband)
Niece (1 1/2)
LS (little sister)
LSH (her husband)
Nephew (3)
Mom (mine)
MIL
FIL
BIL (DH's younger brother)
SIL (his wife)
My dad is 77 and didn't feel up to coming, since he no longer likes to leave his comfort zone. I didn't have a problem with that.
Most of my family stayed at a 3 bedroom villa at Old Key West. My inlaws and my two older kids stayed in a 2 bedroom villa. Unfortunately they weren't able to get us in the same building but we were across the street from each other. Old Key West was so great. It was really roomy, and the building we were in (63 I think) was close to the entrance and exit bus stops of the resort, so we never had to wait for the bus to go around the entire resort.
Okay let me get to the vendor reviews before my kids get too ornery.
Disney Floral: B
I got a tussy mussy bouquet with white flowers with no roses. It was nice, but nothing show stopping. My DD5 had a white triple rose wand. It was pretty and she loved waving it around.
We had a family sand ceremony with 5 vials of sand so we could all participate. We chose the colors light pink, dark pink, light blue, dark blue and white. How I envisioned it was that we would each put the sand in the bottle and it would make pretty stripes that represent each of us. But pink and blue sands were practically indistinguishable. And worst of all, the sand only went halfway up the vase, it did not fill it up at all. It looks kind of dinky in a half-filled bottle. They did give us a bottle topper and pack it up for us. The sand mixed up completely in the suitcase, but it didn't leak out.
Disney Cake: A
I got the $25 upgrade on the Escape cake. It was a white fondant cake with gold stamped Mickey heads all around, and white gum paste flowers. It was very pretty. I did notice the fondant buckling a bit in the back because of the heat, but I don't know if buttercream would have done any better. The bottom layer was marble cake with peanut butter cup filling. The top layer was chocolate with rasberry mousse. They were both super-good! If I had to make a choice I think the bottom layer was the bigger hit. We had both layers boxed up and took them back to our room and knoshed on them for the rest of the week.
Ron Rosenzweig: C
I picked him because he got good reviews here, but mostly because he's a notary since we're a mixed religion couple. He was the biggest source of stress though (actually the only source of stress). A couple of months before the ceremony I was getting worried because I received no word from him as to what to expect during the ceremony. The whole point of a vow renewal is supposed to be that it's not a wedding , so it can be anything you want it to be. So I emailed him and said that I was worried and wanted to know how the vow renewal ceremony would go. He emailed me back a 2 sentence response saying it would be a greeting then the sand ceremony then the vows and kiss and it would be over. So I decided to research all kinds of wording for all the aspects. I sent him an actual 4 page letter with our entire love story, how we wanted the ceremony to be fun and intimate and make our kids feel special and the special touches we wanted to add like our DS7 and DD5 saying why we love the other. I found a vows reading in the tune of Dr. Seuss that I wanted him to read which reflected the light mood we wanted to set. He called me up 3 days before we left and sounded very put out. He said that he doesn't do custom ceremonies. Even though his website says "I am willing to go the extra mile to make your wedding extra special." He finally agreed to just read straight from my letter. But during the ceremony he didn't read one part of the Dr. Seuss poem right and messed up the rhyme. His voice did not carry and so most of the guests did not hear him during the ceremony. I think he's probably a good officiant, as long as you don't take him out of his comfort zone.
Ana Rivera from Beaute Speciale: A
We had all of the ladies hair done, and my hair and makeup with false lashes. I bought a 23" Ken Paves "Hair-Do" clip on extension with me, which she added to give me extra length. I had sent her some photos of the heavy upper-eyelid look that I liked, as well as the low side bang half-do that I liked. She told me that because of a cowlick I have on my hairline, I can never have a flat low side bang like I always wanted. That was disappointing because I love that look, but at least I now know why no one has been able to do that for me. I don't wear much makeup in my daily life, and I've never had my makeup done before, so I can't say I was entirely comfortable looking unrecognizable to myself. But everyone did say that my makeup looked pretty.
Ana had Lorena with her and they split up all the ladies of the party. Every single person LOVED their hair. Even my MIL who gets her hair done pretty often, and never likes it. She took pictures of her hair so she can now tell future stylists what she wants them to do. My DD5 went to Bippity Boppity Boutique and got her hair shellacked into an iradescent updo which she loved. But my DD2 was too young to go, so Ana did her hair with a pony tail extension and some eyeshadow and gave her some nail polish. DD2 was absolutely thrilled with it.
Oh and I had the Swarovski Cinderella tiara. Ana said that stylists dread it because it is heavy and hinged. It was a total two man operation to get it in my hair straight. So unless you have a two stylists, I wouldn't recommend that particular tiara.
Randy Chapman: A+
I haven't gotten the pictures back yet, so I can't speak for his photographic abilities, but I can speak for his personal skills. He was so accomodating and friendly. I hired him for 3 hours plus fireworks photos. Fireworks were suppposed to be at 9PM but they were pushed back to 9:45, so he stayed with us from the time of our ceremony at 5PM until about 10:15PM. I saw him take a lot of candid pictures of the kids, which I know I'll love. One thing I would recommend is to know exactly what shots you want and communicate them clearly. I wanted a kiss picture with petals raining down, but he thought I just wanted a walk through the petals picture. And I didn't tell him that I wanted family pictures on the beach, so he had let everyone go back to the air conditioned lobby. I could have just told him what I wanted, because he was very open to suggestions.
California Grill: A++
I booked the Sonoma Room at the California Grill because I knew we would need a private room with the 5 kids. The Sonoma Room is the smaller and less expensive room. The Napa Room has the fantastic view of Magic Kingdom and a door to the deck to see fireworks, but it costs about $1500 more. Guess what?!? They gave us the Napa Room!!! Is that pixie dust or what? It was fabulous beyond words! The staff was so fantastic with the kids. And the food was spectacular. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Wow this has taken a long time. Here are our Magic Kingdom family shots taken by Ty: http://www.collages.net/disneyweddings
Our user name is Unni Vow Renewal and our password is 1971
I'll try to give a day by day memoir later, if I have any memory left.
Jil
congrats on your VR!
