Our October Escape 10/13/11. TR Day 4 Wedding Day Part 5 A Little Fun Time at MK:)

[DoomBuggy0922]

Your FG is so adorable. I love her. Congratulations on being SO close, Allie!!!

 

[librarygeek]

Allie! Today is your wedding day! Congratulations and I hope you have an amazing day full of Disney magic!!

 

[Mindyjoy]

HAPPY WEDDING DAY! I hope it was everything you dreamed of!!!

 

[pinkfairy1684]

Happy wedding day, Allie! I hope your day was magical!!!

 

[FlamingoAllie]

We are back! I'm a married woman!!! And as I predicted, I will have to do a few "recaps" to get you all caught up. I need to fill you in on the week before the wedding before I start on the wedding TR. I can honestly say that was the best and worst week of my life. While there were so many amazing and magical moments, there were just as many stressful and horrible moments to go with them! And while I am so so happy to be married, and loved most of the wedding week, I will say that at some points, I remember thinking, "It's a good thing I have a few days to calm down before I do my TR. Cause if I tried to do it right now, no one would EVER have a Disney wedding!" That's how bad it was at times! It will take me a while to muster up the energy to finish this PJ/TR, but for now, I'll leave you with a few pics to tide you over. Some of these DH took with his phone during our MK/Epcot photo shoot, and the others are from my mom. And sorry the pics are so huge, too lazy to resize! Enjoy!!!

On the way to the ceremony...I couldn't breathe!

Thanks for capturing this mom!

Walking over

Tanis telling me to boogie. I was a little emotional!

I love my nephew's face here. He is taking his job so seriously!

Dancing to Married Life from UP

Stand by Me

Our awesome shoes!!!

Dessert Party

 

[FlamingoAllie]

Here are a few from the MK/Epcot photo shoot! DH took these with his phone, and then we played with them a bit in iPhoto. Can't wait to see the real ones!!!

they are a little blurry, but what do you expect from a camera phone? But this will give you the general idea!

 

[DoomBuggy0922]

Ack! I am so sorry I forgot to wish you a happy wedding day!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!

And... I'm glad you had good moments! And sad you had bad ones.

BUT, you looked gorgeous! And I can't wait to read all about it!

 

[Mindyjoy]

Shoes, Maids Dresses, Wands = FTW. I love the look of your wedding and you look beautiful. Can't wait to read the full report.

 

[librarygeek]

Everything looks so beautiful! I love the shoes picture! Can't wait to hear all about your week. Sorry you had some stressful moments, I know that week before the wedding was probably one of my most stressful of my life too.

 

[Tinker Bell Fan]

First of all Congratulations!!! I love your dress and shoes!

I see that you had Robert the violinist - he played at our VR in April and we LOVED him. He was very entertaining for our guests. We didn't do the "first dance" (been there/done that according to DH) but he did play "our song" - Unchained Melody for us.

And second of all...OMG I totally forgot to "stalk" your wedding! Actually we were busy packing up and heading home.

Congrats again! Wishing you many, many joyous years!

 

[FlamingoAllie]

Today is my 30th birthday!! I dont even feel like its my birthday at all, because I've been so engrossed in this wedding, I haven't even had time to think about it. And also, I always spend my bday's at home in the mountains of NC. This is my first bday anywhere else, and I'm in Florida! No mountains, no changing leaves, no sweaters! It's so strange to me. So, totally doesn't feel like my birthday, but I'm going to try to celebrate anyway. It's a big one! The big 3-0. I surely don't feel thirty. Are we sure this isn't my 23rd birthday!? Anyway, going to St Augustine for the day, then a little mini moon at the World this weekend! I'm slowly gathering pics for you guys, and will finish my PJ and start on my TR very soon!

 

[pixie921]

Happy Birthday!!

 

[FlamingoAllie]

Double post! Sorry!

 

[FlamingoAllie]

Thank you!!

Happy Birthday!!

 

[FlamingoAllie]

First of all Congratulations!!! I love your dress and shoes!

I see that you had Robert the violinist - he played at our VR in April and we LOVED him. He was very entertaining for our guests. We didn't do the "first dance" (been there/done that according to DH) but he did play "our song" - Unchained Melody for us.

And second of all...OMG I totally forgot to "stalk" your wedding! Actually we were busy packing up and heading home.

Congrats again! Wishing you many, many joyous years!

Thanks so much! I wish you could've stalked the wedding to tell me how it went! It all went by so fast, I can't remember hardly anything! Robert was nice, although he kept messing up the order of the songs we wanted.

Everything looks so beautiful! I love the shoes picture! Can't wait to hear all about your week. Sorry you had some stressful moments, I know that week before the wedding was probably one of my most stressful of my life too.

Thanks! Aren't the shoes so cool? My mom gave me such a hard time about those shoes. She HATED them! But I'm so glad we wore them. We got so many compliments! (Even though they gave me horrible blisters! I even wore them around the house for weeks to prevent that. I guess it was just so hot out that my feet were sweaty )

Shoes, Maids Dresses, Wands = FTW. I love the look of your wedding and you look beautiful. Can't wait to read the full report.

Thanks! Everyone seemed to love their shoes/dresses. We had so much fun!

Ack! I am so sorry I forgot to wish you a happy wedding day!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!

And... I'm glad you had good moments! And sad you had bad ones.

BUT, you looked gorgeous! And I can't wait to read all about it!

Thanks Jackie! I have some backtracking to do, then I'm all over the TR!

 

[FlamingoAllie]

Ok...so I just have one last post (maybe two! Or three or four.....) of planning journal stuff to take care of then it’s on the the TR of my WEDDING WEEK!!!

Where did we leave off? Oh yes...ranting about my bridal party and guests! Hahahaha. Heads up, there will be quite a bit of that in my TR.

So, about a month before the wedding, I get a text from my Maid of Honor asking me to call her. So, I call her right back and say, “Hey! How’s my best girl?!” She says: “Frustrated.” In this hateful, matter of fact tone. So, I’m clearly taken aback, but I just try to stay upbeat and ask her why, what can I do, etc. Turns out, she’s trying to book her hotel and tickets. For the wedding. That’s a month away. That I asked everyone to do a month and a half before this. That I sent out 2 newsletters basically with step by step instructions on how to do so. And she still can’t figure it out. It’s down to the wire, and she’s hateful at me. HUH?! Well, I guess this is all my fault. I did decide to have a Disney Wedding. Although, I asked everyone involved about it first. If this was something everyone was okay with before I even called Disney. And she was my most enthusiastic supporter. I guess til she saw the price tag. Of which I was also very upfront about costs with everyone. Grr. Whatever.

So, I’m driving down the road, trying to run all these important errands, and walking her step by step through the reservation process from memory. This woman is a teacher! In her late 20’s. How can she not navigate the Disney reservation website?!? Grrr. Then, she lays it on me that she is arriving late on Wed (the wedding is on Thursday morning) and leaving early Sat morning (so she will miss the farewell dinner). AND that she doesn’t want to buy tickets to the park. I mean, I understand I guess. But I was so excited to hang out with my favorite people at my favorite place. That’s why I chose a Disney wedding! I was more excited about that than the actual ceremony. I finally convince her to get a two day park hopper and be happy about it. (she’s never been to Disney, so she has no idea the fun in store for her!) So we finally get her handled and then she tells me she cant get in touch with Joyell (a BM that she is splitting a room with). Ok...so I pull over and try to call and text Joyell to see whats up. I get nothing back from her for days. But when I do hear from her, she lets me know that she and Hillarie have everything settled and taken care of. Whew. Just for the record, I had to personally book or help book over half of my guests’ reservations and tickets to Disney World. After I spent hours working on the newsletters, hoping that I’d invest that time, be helpful, and only have to do it once. Very frustrating.

So, my next rant has to do with same MOH, and I need you all to know that I love her very much, and during the wedding, she totally came through for me. But geez if she didn’t give me hell before the wedding! haha...

I decided to order the BM’s dresses and shoes all together to save on shipping. I also wanted to put hidden Mickeys on the shoes, so I needed to have all the shoes with me. So, I asked the girls to send me a check for the shoes and dress, and gave them a deadline. I have to praise Hillarie and say she was the only one who got me the money and the measurements on time. There was one BM that was so far behind that I almost didn’t get the dresses on time...and I had to front the money for the shoes. Grrr. So, dresses get ordered (more drama with THAT later), and I’m ready to go get the shoes. I pull up the measurements emails that my girls sent me and realized that only one out of five gave me their shoe size. Luckily for me (and them), I’ve known them long enough that I remembered. (I also am a dance teacher and used to own at dance retail store. Fitting shoes has been a forte of mine for a long time! Haha) So, I send out a text to everyone, just to make sure of their sizes, because this is crunch time and I am a forgetful, stressed out bride, and head to the mall. I hear back from everyone but Hillarie. So, finally I can’t wait any longer and come up with this solution. Hillarie’s foot is just slightly smaller than mine. But, her foot falls between two sizes. I have no idea whether she’d rather have a little room in the shoe or squeeze her foot into a smaller one. I personally like my shoes a little tight (must be all those years of wearing pointe shoes). But, I know this isn’t the case with everyone. So I text her AGAIN. Nothing. I finally go with the size up, mostly because it’s the smallest size they have without going down to the kid’s size. My shoe is a kid’s shoe, a little tight, and just slightly different than the BM’s. (It was on sale). So I figure, if all else fails, Hillarie can wear my shoe, and I’ll wear hers. Done. Shoes ordered, and I’m on my way home when I get a text that basically says she doesn’t know what size, and she’ll have to go home to check. Um...really? You are a grown woman and a TEACHER!!! And you don’t know what size shoe you wear? I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. (In her defense, Converse can be a little weird with sizing...but still).

Ok....one more pre wedding week rant, and I promise no more for a while! This one has to do with my SIL. When I got the dresses in, I mailed them to the girls, so they could try them on and make sure everything was good. Three of the five girls live in the same town, so I just mailed all three to Deana my MOH2, and thought they could just pick them up from her. Saved me almost $20 in shipping! So Katie Sue picks hers up no problem. I text Stef, and call Stef, and DH texts and calls Stef, and even tells his mom to remind Stef to go get her dress from Deana. Deana calls, concerned cause she still hasn’t heard from Stef. So we go through the process again, and Deana joins in this time. We get the ‘yeah, yeah, I’ll get it...whatever” response from her. Mind you, this is a 27 year old woman with a 6 year old son, not a teenager. So, finally, I just tell Deana to hold on to it for me and bring it down with her, and not to worry about it. If it doesn’t fit, oh well. Never heard another word from Stef about the dress. It was so frustrating and disappointing. (Remember this little rant later...it will come back to haunt us all the night before the wedding....)

So, I am done with the rants, and I feel so much better! It’s so nice to have the boards because who do you rant to when all of your rantings are about the people you usually go to to rant with? Next post will be full of fun things and pictures and all the good stuff leading up to the wedding week! MUCH more fun!

 

[DoomBuggy0922]

Ack! That sounds stressful--- BUT I'm glad she came through for you in the end. I hope she ended up having fun... in spite of herself.

And... get to the wedding stuff, missy!! (Or, I suppose I should say "missus"...)

 

[librarygeek]

Ew, I'm sorry you had to deal with all that! Though the boards are definitely great for ranting. Still, I'm just in shock of people sometimes. I don't know whether they are just irresponsible or what but really, grown women acting that way is just sad!!

 

[FlamingoAllie]

Ok...Happy post!! So we spent most of the week before the wedding running around, errands, DIY projects and packing. It was actually a lot of fun and was the most time DH and I had spent together in a while! Monday we took the dog to the vet and found a place to board him while we were gone. It was so hard for us. We’ve never had to do that because we always have someone who wants to babysit. But all of our dog sitters were with us at the wedding! But he was happy and had fun.

So on Tuesday I went to get a trim and my eyebrows waxed, and DH went with me. Well, I was getting my eyebrows done and chatting with the lady about how I teased DH about getting his done too, and how he was like, “uh...no.” So the lady gets this look in her eye and asks him to come over and sit in the chair beside mine and watch. You can tell something is up, and DH isn’t too thrilled about it, but he does it. Then all of a sudden, when she’s done with me, she’s laying him back and is waxing his eyebrows! Crazy lady!! I was so worried that DH would be mad, but he was such a good sport and just went along with it. He did say he’d never do it again though. I have photographic evidence! (DH is gonna kill me!)

Wednesday was shopping day, and we got all the last minute snacks for the room, bagels, muffins, and stuff for mimosas for wedding morning, and bags, and boxes for presents. We also got a 24 pack of red bull! Which I knew that we were definitely going to need! 10 AM wedding, 7 AM breakfast the next day, 6 AM photo shoot the day after that. Needless to say, redbull was my friend!! We also bought a few tubs to put all of our wedding stuff in and starting packing it all up.

Thursday was arts and crafts/assembly day. The day started off kinda stressful when I decided to make castle candy pops to put in the welcome bags. I’d never used melting candy before, and my first batch was disastrous! I didn’t think I was getting the right consistency and DH convinced me that it wasn’t hot enough. I kept following the directions and warming it up 20 sec at a time, stirring, etc. So finally, (after some coaxing from DH) I decided to up the microwave time to 30 sec. THIS was the result of that smart decision.

Gross! So, I went to Michaels and bought a couple more bags, and just went with it. They came out pretty good! I don’t think I have any pics, but I got the white chocolate kind with sprinkles. They were so pretty. DH said they tasted good as well, but I didn’t like them. They were supposed to be vanilla flavored, but it just tasted like chocolate to me. Too rich and chocolatey for my taste!

Here are a few pics of the semi-assembled welcome bags in various stages, as well as Noelle’s special “it’s my birthday/I’m a teenager” bags.
Bag contents:
Mini fan
Hand sanitizer
Disney cup
Disney pen
Celebrating buttons
Gum
Ring pop
Drink packets
Water bottle
Sunscreen
Tissues
First aid kit
Rain ponchos
Disney Princess gummies
Cars pretzels
Individual packet of Maxwell House Coffee (because that’s my new last name!!)
Autograph book
Deodorant
Personalized items
Glo necklaces for the dessert party
Plastic cinderella’s slipper with candy inside
Castle pops
And whew...I THINK that’s it! But that’s enough right?! Haha.

We also put together a welcome folder with this inside:
Park maps
Welcome letter
Hidden Mickeys
Disney fun facts and trivia
An invitation to Margaritaville farewell dinner
A little “don’t be late” card (THAT one was a waste of time!) Grr.
Drinking around the world passport
A card explaining our Ellie badges
Food and wine passport
A Photopass that linked to our main acct
Dessert Party menu
Hints, Tips, and tricks
And other fun little Disney goodies like a welcome from Cinderella, chef mickey invite from mickey himself, and a to do list for each park.

I went to Home Depot and got the mickey head paint chips to use for name tags for each of the bags, and also had a little card attached that said, “here are the bear necessities for your trip” with Baloo on it. I had so much fun putting all of this together. And it was a big hit with our guests. No one could believe how much stuff they got! It was so worth the “hassle”

Once I got all the welcome bags together, I started working on bridal party gifts. Each of the girls got this:
A personalized Tee Shirt
A mini bag with their initial “embroidered” on it (I actually used iron on patches...shh!!)
Bath and Body Works lotion (full and travel size)
A shoe pedi kit (the red and white polka dot made me think of Minnie!)
Bath petals
A notebook
A Cinderella shoe carabiner
A personalized something (notebook, sticky notes, etc)
Hair clip to wear the day of that I made

Then I put them in these cute red and white polka dot bags that I found at the dollar tree. All the girls LOVED their gifts.

For the guys, we picked up some tumblers in Germany with Mickey’s face etched on to it. Then, we had them both personalized. We also put a few coasters from around the world in them, as well as one from the Rose and Crown. DH’s dad collects coasters, so this was especially cool for him. I found these cute little boxes at the Dollar Tree and switched the lids to make it even more Mickey-esque.

For Joey’s flying buddy and good good friend Randy, we got him a print of Jiminy Cricket and framed it. There is a definitely a story that goes with this, but it’s too long and complicated for the boards. I’ve rambled and bored you enough! We didn't get anything for our parents yet. We wanted to do something really special for them, and there just wasn't time or money in the budget. Plus, we knew they'd want something weddingy, so we are going to make them some sort of dvd/book/picture frame/scrapbook something or other once the pictures and video are back. For my dad, I'm going to take my blusher veil and a pic of him pulling it back and put it in a shadow box for him. I also found a necklace that says "stand by me" on it, and that was the song I picked for our father/daughter dance, so I may get that too and put it in the box. I wish the pics would hurry up!! Christmas is looming on the horizon!

 

[FlamingoAllie]

Ack! That sounds stressful--- BUT I'm glad she came through for you in the end. I hope she ended up having fun... in spite of herself.

And... get to the wedding stuff, missy!! (Or, I suppose I should say "missus"...)

It was pretty stressful. But so worth it. She ended up having a blast! And she was so on it the whole week, and really took care of me. I was glad I had two MOH's. One was really there for me during the planning process, but kinda fell off during the wedding week, and the other was the complete opposite. So I was at least taken care of at some point by both of them! Wedding stuff is coming I promise! I am lagging my heels a bit, 1. I'm waiting on the pictures and 2. It's going to be emotionally draining for me to relive that week. For good AND bad reasons. I'm summoning up the courage!! Plus, if I'm not done with my PJ/TR then it's not over yet right?!

Ew, I'm sorry you had to deal with all that! Though the boards are definitely great for ranting. Still, I'm just in shock of people sometimes. I don't know whether they are just irresponsible or what but really, grown women acting that way is just sad!!

For real! I think it's partly irresponsibility and partly self absorption. And I dont mean that in a bad way. I had to keep reminding myself that this wedding was MY wedding. And while it was the most important thing in my world, it wasn't for everyone else's. You mean other people have lives that dont revolve around me!? Anyway, MOH came through in the end, and SIL was there with her dress...everyone had sparkly shoes on....all in all a great success!!