Peepster
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2005
- Messages
- 827
It's been a very long time so for those of you who don't remember us, we're the two middle aged (only if we live to 120) women who cracked open the closet door to celebrate our 20th anniversary and all of you were the first to know about it.
So, if there is anyone interested, this is what our snowball has become.
We sent out invites and asked everyone to give us six words that meant "love" to them. What a hoot! And very few peeps even wanted to stick to six. Even the men were calling me up and asking "did you get MY words?" did you figure out which were MY words?"....We're putting them together into a little booklet so everyone can share...anonymously, of course. EXAMPLE: "milk out of your nose laughing together" "Willing to see Mamma Mia for the 38th time" ( "my faith" "husband" "family" "hair spray" - all from the same person) And we asked for a favorite song. "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" MeatLoaf........big winner. "Unchained Melody" second place
We have a relaxed tropical theme so everyone is invited to dress casually in tropical dress and the church has okayed (encouraged actually) it also.
First of all we hired coach buses to transport our guests from the reception site to the church. The church is beautiful but there is very little parking and we wanted the day to be stress free for our guests so we thought a free ride was the way to go. Park once and forget about it.
We found a wonderful Reverend who understood that we want to celebrate not only our 20 years together but our wonderful family and friends who've supported us so we have a service planned at the church that revolves around family. It opens with our soloist (and friend) singing "You Raise Me Up". Later, friends and family offer memory stories about us and them and we'll have members of our family do a "sand and shell" unity thing as the "Welcome" song from Brother Bear is sung. The shells are some that my Mom and I had collected in the past 30 years and the sand is from the beach where my partner and her family grew up. We'll exchange flowers as my niece sings the song "Always" (Irving Berlin very old-1926) which was my Mom & Dad's song for their 70 years of marriage and we also love. We're ending with the song "Promise" from Illuminations. The music would never have been so perfect had it not been for the wonderful people on these boards! You guys are the best! Many, many thanks!
Then the celebration begins as we bus back to the hotel for the reception. We'll have cocktails, hors d' oeurves and umbrella drinks for an hour prior to a Key West buffet. The entrees are mango salsa shrimp, jerk chicken and mojo pork. The sides are tropical slaw, sweet potatoes with brown sugar, butter and cinnamon, rice & beans, tossed salad with mango (and regular) dressing, steamed veggies and, of course, mac & cheese! Our cakes are chocolate with chocolate cream filling, yellow cake with raspberry filling and marble with chocolate/raspberry filling. (Sorry, I was a caterer in a former life...too much detail, huh?)
And of course, the DJ and dancing.
Did I mention we ended up renting Palm trees? The inflatable one looked a lot like trees with breasts. And we sent out invitations to about 200 thinking about 125 would show up.....evidently it must be a slow weekend or something because we have people we didn't even invite calling and asking to come (is this something new?) and we're up to 180 guests!
I'm sorry, I still lurk on the board more than I post so I feel like I know all of you probably better than I do, but I truly wish all of you could be there with us on April 10th. It would certainly be our honor. This whole process has been unbelievably uplifting and many of you have helped us to move ahead with it for which we will be ever grateful. The ability to actually share with people how happy my partner has made me for the past twenty years makes me more ecstatic than I ever dreamed.
Thank you for letting me share all of this. If anyone is interested I will let you know how it went. My partner's health is a bit of a concern right now due to some stress at work but we're sure that our trip to Disney a week following our celebration will help cure that! If any of you are there let us know and we'll buy the first round!
Well, now all we have to do is live long enough to pay for all of this!
So, if there is anyone interested, this is what our snowball has become.
We sent out invites and asked everyone to give us six words that meant "love" to them. What a hoot! And very few peeps even wanted to stick to six. Even the men were calling me up and asking "did you get MY words?" did you figure out which were MY words?"....We're putting them together into a little booklet so everyone can share...anonymously, of course. EXAMPLE: "milk out of your nose laughing together" "Willing to see Mamma Mia for the 38th time" ( "my faith" "husband" "family" "hair spray" - all from the same person) And we asked for a favorite song. "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" MeatLoaf........big winner. "Unchained Melody" second place
We have a relaxed tropical theme so everyone is invited to dress casually in tropical dress and the church has okayed (encouraged actually) it also.
First of all we hired coach buses to transport our guests from the reception site to the church. The church is beautiful but there is very little parking and we wanted the day to be stress free for our guests so we thought a free ride was the way to go. Park once and forget about it.
We found a wonderful Reverend who understood that we want to celebrate not only our 20 years together but our wonderful family and friends who've supported us so we have a service planned at the church that revolves around family. It opens with our soloist (and friend) singing "You Raise Me Up". Later, friends and family offer memory stories about us and them and we'll have members of our family do a "sand and shell" unity thing as the "Welcome" song from Brother Bear is sung. The shells are some that my Mom and I had collected in the past 30 years and the sand is from the beach where my partner and her family grew up. We'll exchange flowers as my niece sings the song "Always" (Irving Berlin very old-1926) which was my Mom & Dad's song for their 70 years of marriage and we also love. We're ending with the song "Promise" from Illuminations. The music would never have been so perfect had it not been for the wonderful people on these boards! You guys are the best! Many, many thanks!
Then the celebration begins as we bus back to the hotel for the reception. We'll have cocktails, hors d' oeurves and umbrella drinks for an hour prior to a Key West buffet. The entrees are mango salsa shrimp, jerk chicken and mojo pork. The sides are tropical slaw, sweet potatoes with brown sugar, butter and cinnamon, rice & beans, tossed salad with mango (and regular) dressing, steamed veggies and, of course, mac & cheese! Our cakes are chocolate with chocolate cream filling, yellow cake with raspberry filling and marble with chocolate/raspberry filling. (Sorry, I was a caterer in a former life...too much detail, huh?)
And of course, the DJ and dancing.
Did I mention we ended up renting Palm trees? The inflatable one looked a lot like trees with breasts. And we sent out invitations to about 200 thinking about 125 would show up.....evidently it must be a slow weekend or something because we have people we didn't even invite calling and asking to come (is this something new?) and we're up to 180 guests!
I'm sorry, I still lurk on the board more than I post so I feel like I know all of you probably better than I do, but I truly wish all of you could be there with us on April 10th. It would certainly be our honor. This whole process has been unbelievably uplifting and many of you have helped us to move ahead with it for which we will be ever grateful. The ability to actually share with people how happy my partner has made me for the past twenty years makes me more ecstatic than I ever dreamed.
Thank you for letting me share all of this. If anyone is interested I will let you know how it went. My partner's health is a bit of a concern right now due to some stress at work but we're sure that our trip to Disney a week following our celebration will help cure that! If any of you are there let us know and we'll buy the first round!
Well, now all we have to do is live long enough to pay for all of this!
I hope your day turns out as great as it sounds. I wish you both the best! I hope you will post some pictures.
Penny
