Sean and Maj's Majical Day!- Update- 03/06!

[majix]

Hi!
I have been meaning to start a PJ for a while, but haven't found the time!
Today, I am having a 'browse wedding stuff day' so here I go.

Introductions!
Initial Planning ideas!
A Big (but good) Change!
STDs and asking the Bridesmaids!
Bridesmaids, Groomsmen AND villa pics!
Wedding bands, hair and DJ!
Cake!!!
Dress, Shoes, Flowers!!!
5 Month Update!



Introductions.

My name is Maj, I am a Brit living in Canada. I'm 28, I am a teacher, working at a Montessori school and I also work at Starbucks! Sean is also 28 and he is a outside sales rep.

Sean and I have been friends ever since I moved to Canada almost 10 years ago...then four years ago we both became single and the rest is history!



We moved to the UK together in 2011, so that I could practise teaching, as jobs are far and few between here in Ontario. We bought Annual passes for Disneyland Paris...a place that I am in love with...and went so many times.



We moved back to Canada in 2013, bought a house and then on February 9th of this year we went for a photoshoot. Sean's cousin owns a clothing company, we were doing a promotional shoot for him, I am by no means a model, but his company uses pictures of regular people wearing his shirts to promote it! It was here that Sean popped the question and I said yes....



Here is my ring...


We are hoping to get married at the Swan and Dolphin on October 21st, 2015!

 

[NoOrdinaryPrincess]

Awesome! Welcome!

 

[majix]

We initially wanted to do a DFTW, however with the cost and the different things that were needed for these weddings we decided to stick to a Swan and Dolphin wedding.

We picked the date October 21st, 2015 to give us time to save. My sister is getting married this year so next year is best for our family too!

We are hoping to have about 50 guests, within the next few months we will be sending out Pre-RSVPs to determine how many of the people we'd like to be there would like an invite. We are going to design these ourselves, we are hoping that they will look like boarding passes. We live in Canada and have guests that we'd like to come from England too!

Once we have received responses from the RSVPs I will ask my bridesmaids to be my bridesmaids! I cannot wait! I wanted to make them little photo books to ask them, but then I decided I'd rather spend time with them. I think I'm going to do a tea party for them and ask them. Any other Disney themed ideas would be great too though?

We are currently looking at marrying at the Crescent Terrace at the S&D, it looks beautiful, at 11:00am. After the ceremony we'd like to have mimosas and breakfast snacks, if possible. (At the ceremony venue).

We'd like to bring our photographer to Florida with us. He took our engagement photos and was even there for our proposal, so it's quite important that he be there. He's also photographed our best friend's wedding. His name is Mackenzie Froats.

We are also hoping that our friend will marry us. So exciting!!!

 

[Saradactyl]

Your plans sound great so far! I'm still undecided about so many things.

On a side note, I'm jealous you got to spend so much time at Disneyland Paris! It's on my bucket list.

 

[majix]

Oh me too! It's so scary. Plans will change over and over again!

 

[Bewitch324]

Congratulations!

I love that you are including personal details/connections with your vendors. Having a personal relationship with your officiant and your photographer will make things so much more intimate and special I think!

I love the idea of breakfast snacks and mimosas after the wedding, I think that will be really nice!

I can't wait to see everything come together for you!

Brooke

 

[Suzeyquinn]

Congratulations Maj!

I am also planning a S/D VR. I'm eager to read your PJ and see your thoughts about the location. I absolutely love your idea of having breakfast treats and mimosas! What an awesome idea.

 

[TiffinyKaye]

Congrats!

 

[majix]

It's been a long time since I've written and the plans have changes so much!!!
In October of last year (2014) Sean and I, along with my parents went to Orlando to look around and make some decisions.
We started off by visiting the Swan and Dolphin, I loved it. We met with Diana who took us on a tour of the locations, our wedding count was approximately 45 people, so our two choices were the Beach or the Crescent Terrace. Then we looked at brunch venues...

I liked these, but they weren't what I had imagined; much too dark and not right. At that point, I wanted the ceremony at S&D and the brunch elsewhere...

We had an appointment the next day with a caterer, Levan's Catering. We weren't sure what would happen if we liked the company, we didn't have a venue, it was all a bit of a mess...
We loved the caterer. Dwane, the owner, was so friendly, he wanted to help us out. We told him our idea for a Minnie Mouse polka dot theme for the wedding and he was onboard. He loved the brunch idea and had so many additions, including adding a pasta dish for people who don't care about brunch so much. We got to try the food...crepes, danishes, muffins, ham, pasta and omelettes!!!

Great, so we love S&D, and we love Levan's...two things that don't go hand in hand...

The next day we had a meeting to view a variety of villas in Reunion Resort, a gated community just outside of Disney. We looked at a few villas and soon fell in love with one... it was huge, with 12 bedrooms, two games rooms, a huge pool and a beautiful secluded outside area.

It was at that point that we decided to skip S&D and just use the villa. We are still having a Disney theme and are surrounding our wedding events in Disney.

 

[majix]

FYI I tried to include pics of the food...didnt work as planned.

 

[Disneyducks12]

Glad your back! Seems like your planning is coming around nicely! Glad you found great carters food can be such a hard things with wedding with people liking and not liking so many things glad you have that settled also a 12 bedroom villa!!! I so wish I could stay in one of those thats so amazing!

Looking forward to more updates
Happy planning
melissa

 

[majix]

Thanks, I just got a bit lazy with my updates, so there will be a bunch all in a few weeks within each other to really catch up...



This is a picture of our Save the Dates, sorry that the quality isn't great (I apparently don't know how to take pictures). Sean designed them with a Minnie Mouse theme, prior to us making any final decisions about the venue and things, hence the venue being at Disney... this isn't a problem as many of our events will still be held there. The QR code takes the guests straight our wedding email address to reply to the STD. We sent out about 40 save the dates, mainly to couples. We heard from most people, those that we didn't hear from we probably won't send invites to. Most people send emails nowadays, it's not too hard to reply, "Send an invite". We are currently expecting 65 guests (if we go by who responded to the STDs).

Next up it was time to ask the bridesmaids...



I have four bridesmaids, each one received a box with Kleenex, in case they cried lol, a chocolate bar (I'm a chocoholic), a card and info cards about each bridesmaid, and finally a RING POP! Woot! My bridesmaids all live in different places, two are from Windsor, Ontario, so live near me. One lives in England and the last one in Vancouver, so they have all yet to meet.

They loved their boxes, I bought them from Dollarama, painted them red and added diamantes to them. I also made the cards and the info cards, it was a lot of fun! Each girl received their box independently from the other, and were so excited about them.

 

[majix]

Bridesmaids

I realise I didn't say a lot about my bridesmaids. I don't' have a MOH because I couldn't decide who to choose! I do have an older sister who would 100% have been my MOH, but she told me she didn't know if she could make it to the wedding and wasn't sure if she could.

So, I chose four of my closest friends:
Lauren- My oldest and first friend from Canada!
Jill- My second oldest and closest friend from Canada. I was a bridesmaid in her wedding 7 years ago and we are still BFs!
Berni- When I moved back to England my old school friend Adam had started dating a girl, Berni. She and I were so similar, we started doing everything together. It just wouldn't be right if she wasn't my bridesmaid.
Erica- My good friend Chris's wife. We've known each other for about five years and our friendship is just getting stronger.


I think I have a good mix of ladies in my chosen BMs and I'm so happy with them!

Groomsmen

Sean chose his groomsmen and wanted to ask them in a special way. He created a canvas for each of them with a collage of photos from them growing up together. He asked his cousin, Henry. And three of our closest friends, Brian, Brett (the officiant) and Chris.

Now for the fun stuff....
The Villa... This is a picture of the villa we are renting...



And this is the picture of the outside of the villa, where the reception will take place.



The Ceremony will take place on the green area that you can see beyond the fence.

 

[Disneyducks12]

OMG your villa look so amazing! and the outside reception area is really pretty congrats on getting such a nice venue

 

[majix]

OMG your villa look so amazing! and the outside reception area is really pretty congrats on getting such a nice venue

Thanks, we loved it!!


We're officially 8 months out!!!
I feel like we have so much to catch up on, but in the meantime yesterday we went wedding band shopping!!!

Wedding Bands
As I have a twisted engagement ring we were given two options for a band for me:

This one just fits in next to the ring.
OR

This one goes either side of the engagement ring.

I think I prefer option two. The jeweller suggested using white gold for the wedding band...initially I agreed but now after thinking about it I'm going to go with no.

Sean has decided to go with a plain stainless steel band, he wants something simple and practical.

Hair and Makeup

As we are talking about things I did yesterday...yesterday I put a deposit down for our hair and makeup for the day of the wedding. After searching through a few websites I decided to go with Emily Lynn Hair Design. She will come to the villa to work on myself and the girls. Her make up is very natural, which I love and her hair styles are all unique. As soon as I decide what I want to do I will send pictures of them to her and see what she thinks.

DJ

Having an offsite wedding has allowed for us to explore a variety of options for a DJ. Initially one of my bridesmaids was going to ask her DJ boyfriend to DJ for us, but we decided we'd rather have him as a guest. Then I emailed a lot of DJs that I found on Wedding Wire/The Knot. A few responded and a few were nice response. Then I had one company respond with a really excited email and phonecall. Enthusiasm really helps to persuade me. She wanted to arrange a phone meeting with us. She was awesome on the phone. When she asked what kind of music I like and I said 'Musicals and Cheesy music' she immediately asked, "what's your favourite musical" and we went on a tangent. Then she told me that she used to work for Disney for a few years. That completely sealed the deal!

Yesterday we paid the deposit for this to My DJ Rocks. They will be both at the ceremony and the reception. The villa has an outside sound system so during dinner we will just play music through that!

I'm so excited so many things are getting finalized!

 

[majix]

Cake

When we went to Orlando in October we decided to visit It's Tasty Too, due to hearing such great things about it on here. I went there with an open mind, not intending to finalize anything...then we did a tasting! Oh my goodness! The cake was amazing. Both of my parents and Sean came to the tasting and we were all blown away. My mum loved the lemon and I was all about red velvet.

Our inspiration for the cakes were:







We've decided to go for a three tier cake, red and white polka dots... there isn't any Minnie/Mickey to it other than that, so we will buy a Mickey/Minnie cake topper. Probably from Etsy, I love the ones with Mickey and Minnie kissing and either the date or the couple's names.

The flavours that we decided on were, vanilla with real strawberries and whipped cream, red velvet with cream cheese and hazelnut and vanilla with boston cream and fudge! YUM!

I just took a look at the sketch that Heather made us and it looks so awesome! I cannot wait to see the final product!

 

[Disneyducks12]

I love your cake choices I am not a huge fan of cake but vanilla with real strawberries sounds amazing! and I love the inspiration photos that is the one bummer with the DCL weddings we don't have the cool cakes to choose from!

 

[Alexsandra]

Congrats to both of you! The villa you are renting is beautiful! Love the cake choices too. Following along!

 

[Seia]

Following along! Your cake sounds amazing. And that villa is extremely beautiful!! Can't wait to see more.

 

[majix]

Dress

So, in November last year my mum and I went shopping for wedding dresses...my sister bought her dress at David's Bridal so we decided to go there. I'd already decided that I wanted a tea-length dress, so that's all I tried on. At dress #4 I'd found it. I won't post a picture, just in case... but it's tea length, white, with polka dots and pockets!!! I just love it!

Shoes

I have been thinking and thinking about what kind of shoes I want to wear. Since we got engaged I really wanted red shoes for the wedding and then my mum, being my mum, said that I should wear white shoes...now I'm in two minds...
One of you lovely ladies introduced me to the website Shoes of Prey and I fell in love...



What do you think?

Flowers

Okay, so flowers...

initially I had planned to buy a bunch of Disney books and make flowers out of them (I'd seen someone do that on Etsy). It didn't work out...each one took me too long and they looked awful.

I kept thinking and just couldn't see myself buying real flowers, they just aren't me. So I searched for vendors in Orlando and discovered Raggamuffin. Raggamuffin have a Ragga Wedding department and design and make flowers and accessories for weddings.

I chatted with Joy from the company for a while and let her know my colours and what I was looking for...red and white, polka dots and black and white polka dots for the guys.

Yesterday she send me some sample pictures!!!







I absolutely adore the boutonniere, but I feel like the corsages don't match up to it so I've asked her to add a little more polka dot to them.

I'm so excited, things are actually getting done.

We're working on our invites too, just waiting for a sample to be printed so we can print the lot and send them off. We want to get them sent ASAP, as some people are coming from the UK so it might take longer to send them and receive RSVPs.