Our Wishes Wedding~11/7/2013~WP/WHR~Updated 9/19: Tuxes & BM dresses

[BenKling]

Hi there! I just wanted to say hello! I loved reading your plans and can't wait to see how things come together!

Also needed to say hi to a fellow diser from WI!

 

[DisneyShamrock]

Hi there! I just wanted to say hello! I loved reading your plans and can't wait to see how things come together!

Also needed to say hi to a fellow diser from WI!

Thanks! It's nice to find more people from WI. I don't see too many.

 

[rachaelk101]

Hi!
My wedding is exactly a month before yours so I will be following along to see your plans! They look fantastic so far, I'm excited to see what else you come up with

 

[DisneyShamrock]

Hi!
My wedding is exactly a month before yours so I will be following along to see your plans! They look fantastic so far, I'm excited to see what else you come up with

Thank you and welcome! I should (hopefully) have my site visit TR done soon.

 

[charliegirl76]

I just read through your entire PJ.....on my iPhone.....which I don't recommend. My eyes are, well, there aren't words or emoticons....LOL.

You are so super organized! And I don't know how you've been patient enough to wait so long to contact Disney. I was insane after I called them just waiting to see if we'd get our date.

I really am enjoying all of your ideas and DIY projects. I love to do that stuff, but get very discouraged when the stuff doesn't come out the way I want or envision it to....so frustrating. I will be following along from now on...your wedding is just about a month before mine.

 

[DisneyShamrock]

I just read through your entire PJ.....on my iPhone.....which I don't recommend. My eyes are, well, there aren't words or emoticons....LOL.

You are so super organized! And I don't know how you've been patient enough to wait so long to contact Disney. I was insane after I called them just waiting to see if we'd get our date.

I really am enjoying all of your ideas and DIY projects. I love to do that stuff, but get very discouraged when the stuff doesn't come out the way I want or envision it to....so frustrating. I will be following along from now on...your wedding is just about a month before mine.

I've actually been reading your PJ, too, though I'm not sure if I've commented. I've read a few posts on my phone, and ouch! I can't imagine reading an entire PJ that way.

One nice thing to help with the waiting was that I was a student the first time, and it was busy season at my job the second. I was kept plenty busy.

I'll be starting on my flowers in the next few weeks, so I will start having pictures of those to post, too. I'm super picky, and I was too scared to not know what my flowers were going to look like, so I opted to do them myself.

 

[FairytaleBelle]

Hey !

I also read through your entire pj on my iPhone...it took me through breakfast and the walk to my car...and it's raining so I hope I didn't damage my phone eek haha.

I love everything so far and I'm so excited for you! I hope for a disney wedding and I'm pretty sure my pj would/will be an exact replica of yours in the itching to get started as soon as humanely possible ! I'm also an avid planner aha.
Anyway happy planning, ill be following along
X

 

[DisneyShamrock]

I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated, but I’ve just been so ridiculously busy at work and at home with the holidays and everything.

So bad DISbride aside, this post will be about our site visit!

Our site visit was on December 5 at 9:30am. We had gone out to Downtown Disney the night before, and I didn’t realize until right before breakfast that I didn’t have my wallet. I bought dinner, so all I could figure was that I left it at the restaurant. Let me just note that trying to find a lot anything at DTD prior to 8:00am is like walking on water: it takes a miracle. Lost and Found was no help (super friendly, but no help), and no one was at the restaurant to answer the phone. We took a chance and drove over because the restaurant opened at 9:00am. As luck would have it, they had my wallet. I still cancelled my credit card, but I was just happy to have my driver’s license back.

We arrived at Franck’s only a few minutes late. I had tried to call Pam at 9:00am, but it went to her voicemail, so I sent her an email (thank you smartphone) to let her know we would be a little late. Pam was amazing. She was incredibly sweet and kept us laughing through the whole appointment. We absolutely loved her. She answered all of the million questions we had like they were nothing.

My parents and I had been in the Pavilion and Whitehall before, but DF had never seen more than pictures. None of us had seen it since the renovations and new windows. I know there are mixed feelings about the windows, but I LOVED it. I thought it was even more beautiful than when I had seen it before. DF thought it was pretty. I think he was more surprised by the window behind the altar.

We walked around the whole building, saw all the little nooks and crannies, and did a bit of checking on the DVC construction. I relaxed a ton seeing how far they were because I knew we still had 10 months. We then walked back to Franck’s, piled into Pam’s car, and she drove us over to Whitehall. I was very excited to see that there were tables set for a meeting in the exact same shape I wanted for our reception. I’m pretty sure DF thought I was nuts for being excited about tables, but I was able to show him the setup I really wanted, and now I know it’s possible.

DF was impressed with the room, and I was really glad to get to see it again. After we were satisfied with the looks and locations, we piled back into Pam’s car and drove back to Franck’s. We walked back over to the Grand Floridian and wandered around for a few minutes to gawk at the Christmas decorations before hopping on the monorail and getting our annual passes.

When we got into Magic Kingdom, we did the traditional stand at the end of Main Street and stare at the castle. DF had only been to Disney World twice, and both were for band trips, so he had never really had time to let it all soak in. He got a little teary-eyed, and I got a little teary-eyed, and my parents thought it was cute.

We walked around, went on all the old favorites, and then were absolutely blown away by the New Fantasyland. I LOVE the Little Mermaid, so my heart stopped right there. We didn’t get to go in Be Our Guest, but the area around it and the mountains they built are just fabulous. It was beyond anything I had ever seen. We’re not going to talk about how many photos I took of rocks, and trees, and water, and the like. The trip continued business as usual for us, though it did get a little hot and humid later in the week. I also got to see the Main Street Electrical parade for the first time. I still like SpectroMagic better, but it was good.

The next big thing we did, which was also a first and an agreed upon repeat, was Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas party. All of us agree it was probably the coolest thing we have ever experienced at Disney. The parade was really neat, and we loved the snow on Main Street, but I think our favorite was the Holiday Wishes. I love the regular Wishes with all my heart, and so did DF, but the holiday version is something else. It really needs to be experienced because there are no fitting words to describe it.

We also got to see the Osborne Spectacle of Dancing Lights for the first time.

On December 8, we also got to do something new: stalk a Disney bride I had actually met (at least online). Michelle was getting married on our last day at Disney, and I just had to meet her in person. She’s so pretty!

She was kind enough to let me know her schedule, so we arrived at the Grand just before she came down for pictures on the staircase. It was really fun to meet someone from the boards in person, and in her wedding gown! When she moved outside, we wandered over to Whitehall to see what the decorations looked like. On our walk back to the main lobby, we saw Cinderella’s carriage coming around the back. Like the nut I am, we HAD to walk around the outside on the entire building until we found Michelle out by the courtyard pool taking pictures with the carriage. I had never seen it in person before, and it is a sight.

We spent the day in Magic Kingdom after that. I was hoping we might make it over to EPCOT to crash a dessert party, but we were just too tired.

I will conclude with various photos from our trip:

Sorry if the pictures are big. I re-sized them all, but photobucket hates me.

 

[DisneyShamrock]

Since December, I have been swamped with work, so most of the wedding stuff didn’t get picked up again until March. March involved flowers, flowers, bridesmaid dresses, and more flowers. April will be much of the same.

I will post pictures of the flowers and other décor as soon as I get them done. They are 99% done, but I want them to be 100% before sharing.

Last weekend, I finally got a chance to take my maid of honor dress shopping again. She had a good time, and found a few dresses she liked, though nothing was concrete. We’re taking her again in two weeks to a different shop to see if we can find something she really likes.

Here are her top three:

She put this one on last just to make us all laugh:

I will be taking my matron of honor shopping this weekend.

 

[bradleyjess]

Nice update! I like the black BM dress!

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

Loved the site visit recap! I love it when I hear about disbrides meeting in person, so cool!

Those are cute BM dresses too. (I think the black one is the style one of my MOHs is wearing.)

Can't wait to see all the flowers, flowers, flowers!

 

[DisneyShamrock]

I know it's been a few months since my last update, but I've been super busy with work, Faire, and wedding. I am in the process of writing update posts for several things:

Our Planning Session
Final Bridesmaids dresses
Flowers
The Tuxes
My Dress Journey

I hope to have these done soon!

 

[charliegirl76]

OOh! Yay! I think you must have known I was looking for your PJ the other day to see if you'd updated and I missed it!

Can't wait to see which dress you picked for the bridesmaids....my favorite is the middle one, it's very flattering! I also like the black one. The first one doesn't look as formal to me. And I can't wait to see your dress!!

 

[DisneyShamrock]

This recap might be a little short since it was a while ago, but I wanted to share what I can remember in case something may help (and so I don’t forget the rest!).

We had our planning session and menu tasting on May 14. If you can do this, I highly recommend it. We had a blast with Michelle picking everything out, and the food and presentation was amazing.

We met with Michelle and Elizabeth in the morning to go over the basics: linens, cake, décor, floral, pricing, etc. The cake tasting was a lot of fun and super yummy. We ended up choosing the top and bottom layers to be traditional butter cream with white cake and the middle layer as white chocolate with white cake. We are having them do small slices of each so everyone can taste both.

We actually got done with our planning session early, and decided to wander around the Grand a bit to find some of our picture spots. They were taking the walls down around the steps from the Courtyard Pool to the beach as they were being moved closer to the DVC construction. We took some photos by the fountain, and DF got me a hat in the store inside. We still had some time before our tasting, so we hung out in the lobby for a little bit. I actually fell asleep on the giant couch.



The food tasting was amazing. We met with one of the interns as Michelle had a cold and didn’t want to be around the food. He took us back into the kitchen in the convention center. We were seated at a really fancy dining room table with complete formal place settings. It was really neat to be sitting there with the kitchen around us. We met our chef Mikko and head server Todd. Both of them were extremely nice, very friendly and insanely efficient. There were times Todd was clearing things off the table, and no one noticed him.







I have to say that I was having so much fun, I did not take pictures of all the food. I kind of wish I did, though, because some of the presentation was just plain awesome. We tasted Parmesan Crusted Chicken with Cheddar Sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, Herb Roasted Pork Loin with Date Compote, Cesar Salad Cones, Bacon Wrapped Beef with Bleu Cheese, Macaroni and Gourmet Cheeses with Poached Lobster, and Canadian Beer Cheddar Soup. Everything was fantastic.

Our final menu is:
Canadian Beer Cheddar Soup
Choice of Parmesan Crusted Chicken with Cheddar Sauce or Herb Roasted Pork with Date Compote
Garlic mashed potatoes
Fresh Seasonal Vegetables

To end: Random photos from our trip!

 

[DisneyShamrock]

The final bridesmaid dresses were chosen (a few months ago), and I am really excited that both ladies love their dresses. Both ended up with darker pink dresses which made me re-think having the groomsmen in light pink vests and ties. There was a color that was a little bit lighter than the dresses, so I changed to a darker pink for them as well. I figure it’s better to have them kind of match the girls than the tablecloths.

These are the dresses the girls ended up with:



Since I don’t have any photos of DF in the tux as he didn’t actually try it on, here is the photo from the web site. We went with this tux in the steel grey (as shown):



DF’s vest and tie will be Ivory, while the gents will have Light Watermelon:

 

[charliegirl76]

OOh, love the dresses for the girls! AND the color! But I love pink. LOL

I think the guys will look very sharp in their suits!