"You and me, we're in a club now!" - a DFTW/Disneymoon/Vacay August 2017 PTR

[Raeven]

And I went online and bought a tiny 4" topper for the cake, since our included Minnie/Mickey topper will now be too big. (It's made for a 6" top layer.)

Ooo I love it! But I also deeply love Happily Ever After and get emotional whenever I watch it.

This topper will become even a little more meaningful for us for reasons that will soon be revealed over in my May TR.

And it sounds like you do too!

It felt a little silly and disappointing when you also happen to know that they used to give out annual passes as gifts,

I would get re-married every year if they did that

 

[MeghanEmily]

Ooo I love it! But I also deeply love Happily Ever After and get emotional whenever I watch it.

And it sounds like you do too!

All will be revealed in time!

 

[missangelalexis]

The split between cake/cupcakes sounds like a great idea! Love the cake topper you purchased, as well as the flowers you picked out. I think giving your bridesmaid a clutch instead of flowers is a good idea!

 

[Bethislucy]

Mickey and Minnie at your wedding will be awesome some people won't understand but if you are a Disney person it's awesome. Your other plans sound great too!!

 

[afwdwfan]

(I'm hardier than I look!) I have no idea what we're doing. My only requests were no strippers, no alcohol (I'm allergic), and no painting my fingernails (princesses can't wear nail polish.) More on this to come soon.

What's a party without strippers and booze?????

Just kidding... I hope the weather didn't cause any issues and everyone had a good time!!!!

And also, the leftovers will be easier for us to take back with us as cupcakes, so we'll have them to snack on later in the week! <3 Yay cupcakes! We're having our top cake decorated like this:

Good call! This seems like it should work really well!

That was a nice surprise they sent for your wedding. Too bad they still don't do the AP anymore. That would be a heck of a nice wedding gift!

 

[chunkymonkey]

and no painting my fingernails (princesses can't wear nail polish.)

I never realized this! But I guess I've never seen a princess with nail polish! Also, a lot of princesses wear gloves, I've noticed, so I guess they can be painted underneath?

When we ordered them last week the guy said they could take 6-8 weeks to arrive, but I knew that wouldn't be the case. Pictures will come soon.

Ooooh can't wait!

I absolutely love this cake topper, it's perfect!

I also got an unexpected package in the mail from DFTW this week containing a gift of all kinds of little "mementos." This was super sweet! It felt a little silly and disappointing when you also happen to know that they used to give out annual passes as gifts, and then they decided to downsize and gave out fancy engraved watches instead, and then they downsized again and gave out special limited edition magic bands, and now they do this... but since I wasn't expecting anything at all, it was really nice! There were collar stays, a little prince charming token, a charm for my bouquet, shoe bag, pocket square/handkerchief, etc.

Wait, what? They gave out annual passes as gifts?!? I did not know that. That would be great! But your gift is very very cool too

 

[MeghanEmily]

I Have the Best Friends (and other updates)

I didn't think this day would come, but alas, it has: I've fallen victim to the Photobucket popularity curse! You may have noticed some other people having issues with their photobucket photos not showing up because they've used too much bandwidth and have been viewed too many times. Now, me too! Long story short, I've already started using Imgur for all new posts. But hopefully I'll find time at some point to go back and switch my old Photobucket photos over to replace all the ones that have "disappeared." In the meantime they may periodically disappear and reappear, since your bandwidth allowance resets once a month. Sorry for the inconvenience!

In other life news, I've had what feels to me like a major development. It involves my job. Originally I'd been planning to leave (quit!) my job immediately before the wedding, go to Disney, and then come home and go straight into my masters degree. I'd already given my extended notice at work that I was leaving August 10th. But I've been unhappy in my job for quite some time now, and the closer it got to the wedding, the more stressed and unhappy I became. I'd gotten quite depressed and had a few meltdowns. So I talked it over with N and my family, and then my boss (the former were more supportive than the latter was!) and have decided to leave my job mid-July, four weeks earlier than planned. This means that I only have three weeks of work left, and I'm on top of the world! It will make our financial planning more of a struggle, but my mental health is already much better. And I'm looking forward to having a few weeks to get everything in order for the wedding and my return to school without having to be in too many places at once. Feels good!

And it also means I'll get a few days of summer fun!

As much as Disney is AMAZING, when we do Disney we go hard...it's not exactly a relaxing vacation the way we do it. I was already worried about burnout going from work to Disney to school. Now I feel things are much more manageable.

In other news, I promised photos of our wedding rings! My engagement ring was rose gold, and I like jewelry that looks unique, soft, nature-inspired, vintage, etc. So I'm really loving our simple and sweet wedding bands.

You may also remember that in my last update I was about to go on a Bachelorette Adventure, and I didn't know what we'd be doing. All I can say is that I'm incredibly grateful to have a couple of great friends who know me well and put in the effort to give me a special day! Here's how it went down...

My bridesmaids picked me up from my building in the morning. It was going to rain all day, so they ended up changing their plans. Originally we were going to go tour a nearby tourist town, but most of the activities were outdoors. So instead they picked me up and took me to our local downtown market and made me pick out and purchase yummy treats, including fresh local produce... (this world's tiniest potato, included!)...

...apple cider, and this delicious piece of gluten free chocolate cake:

It was too yummy to wait for the picture before I took a bite.

Then they took me to the local science museum, which has been updated with neat exhibits and is getting a lot of good buzz. I'd never been, and we had lots of fun learning about dinosaurs...

...and about the human body, etc. (This was a sign warning that there were realistic images of human anatomy in this section of the centre.)

While I was at the museum I got a call from Disney to adjust a reservation I'd made. Where was that reservation, you ask? More on that in a second...

Then they took me for lunch at a local restaurant that cooks with a lot of local/sustainable foods and has lots of experience dealing with dietary restrictions. Their version of fish and chips is baked and is naturally gluten free:

To cap off the day, we went to a place where you paint your own pottery and they fire it and glaze it for you. This is the work-in-progress, and soon I'll be going back to pick up the finished bowl!

So more directly related to the trip I'm supposed to be discussing here...this came up in the comments of another friend's TR, and I realized I never mentioned it here:

All Star Sports! ​

If you're curious as to what that has to do with our trip, I don't blame you. Here's what happened: when I planned our schedule, I wanted to plan most of our Epcot/MK time when we were at Poly for monorail access, and the timeshare is closest to AK, so it was easiest to get to AK from there...so I booked most of our AK time when we were staying there. But as we got closer to FP day I didn't like that I couldn't book AK FPs for Pandora at 60 days out. I also looked at our AK days and realized they were pretty full days in the heat of summer...and I thought it might be helpful to have somewhere on property to take a nap/hit a pool/rest, etc. So we decided to book one night at Sports with our reasonable AP rate for the night sandwiched between our two full AK days. This would give us our 60 day FP window, and it would also give us a room on property to use for as much or as little as we wanted it.

But, as @ariane37 made me realize...this means that we will technically stay at 5 different WDW resorts during this trip. Five!!! And that's not even taking into account that we're also staying at the timeshare, and that we'll likely be spending a night in Daytona on our way home. Woah.

I'm crazy, and I know I'll totally regret so much resort hopping...but I'm also excited about it. It's going to be so neat to use our honeymoon as a chance to see so many WDW hotels and cross them off our Disney List! Fortunately, we'll have the trunk of my car to store things, which will make all the moving easier. But still. I'm nuts. I'm already tired just thinking about it. Never ever again.

And finally, I've been able to go ahead and book our FPs! I'm really pleased with what we were able to get, including the Pandora FPs I wanted, and I was even able to get almost everything fairly close to the times I'd planned. Our plans are fairly flexible for a lot of our days, but there is still a spreadsheet (there's always a spreadsheet), and so I'll start giving you a vague idea of how every day is supposed to look...starting with...

AUG. 13-14
These are travel days. N has secured an event (work) in Massachusetts the weekend before the wedding, so the plan is for me to drive down and pick him up there and keep driving, and we'll have his family members pick up his truck and drive it home. (If anyone knows of a good pick-up location just a bit north of Boston off the 95 without too much traffic, I'm open to suggestions!) We were originally planning to take lots of time on this road trip, but now that we have our free night at the GF to look forward to, we'll be driving as quickly as the fatigue and my neuro issues will allow.

AUG. 15
We finish our drive and arrive at the GF sometime (hopefully) before supper time. We will probably just enjoy the resort and start catching up on rest, but just in case we want them I've booked evening FPs at MK:

7:00-8:00 Buzz Lightyear
8:05-9:05 7DMT
9:05-10:00 Splash Mountain

I love the mountain ranges at night, and N hasn't done much nighttime mountain riding, so I've tried to book a few of those evening FPs throughout the trip. If park hours end up being extended again I'll go back and try to push them all later.

More daily itineraries coming in the next update. Thanks for reading along!​

 

[Whit64130]

The cake/cupcake idea sounds great!

This morning was also my FP day, and I'm excited to have some things booked! Spoiler alert: I had no trouble getting an evening FP for Flight of Passage at 60+2 days out, so that's great. I had some last-minute issues with N's family's MDE accounts (more on that later) but otherwise all went smoothly. That also means itinerary is coming your way soon!!

Glad to hear you FP+plans went good!

LOVE your rings!!!!

5 different Disney resorts! wow! I am sure it will be an adventure changing from place to place but I am glad you are getting to experience several in one trip!

 

[ariane37]

I'm so bummed you had the same photobucket problem because I fell behind and now I won't see your cakes and cake toppers I'll have to wait for actual wedding pictures and that's too long lol!! But I absolutely love your wedding bands, they're beautiful. And it sounds like your friends gave you a really fun and thoughtful day tailored to you which they definitely put thought into, having to switch it up last minute like that when it rained

I actually envy you staying at so many resorts because no way could I move the boys around that much! I want to stay at every resort too, although I probably won't mind if we never cover a couple value resorts. It'll definitely make it easier having your car and not having to pack/unpack EVERYTHING at every resort so while after the trip you may say you won't do that many resorts again, I don't think you'll mind at all while you're there.

Glad you got all your FP's!! Really a smart move booking AS Sports to help get the AK ones!

 

[afwdwfan]

This means that I only have three weeks of work left, and I'm on top of the world! It will make our financial planning more of a struggle, but my mental health is already much better. And I'm looking forward to having a few weeks to get everything in order for the wedding and my return to school without having to be in too many places at once. Feels good!

Definitely makes a lot of sense. With such big life changes, there's always a lot to do and a lot of stress and you need some time for yourself thrown in there too. It might make money a bit tighter for the short term, but you have to take care of yourself first!

As much as Disney is AMAZING, when we do Disney we go hard...it's not exactly a relaxing vacation the way we do it.

I just can't not go as hard as possible.

(this world's tiniest potato, included!)...

Might be able to get 1 or 2 french fries out of that one!

(This was a sign warning that there were realistic images of human anatomy in this section of the centre.)

I thought you said no strippers?

I'm crazy, and I know I'll totally regret so much resort hopping...but I'm also excited about it. It's going to be so neat to use our honeymoon as a chance to see so many WDW hotels and cross them off our Disney List!

I like it! I want to stay in as many resorts as possible. And on a trip like this if you have the means and the ability, why not go for it???

And I obviously don't know what your future plans are, but I'll just say that resort hopping will be much, much easier now for just the 2 of you than it would be with kids.

Fortunately, we'll have the trunk of my car to store things, which will make all the moving easier.

I don't know if you've said what you drive or not, but I do have one thing that may or may not help. Last summer when we had Ryder in the hospital, we knew we'd be living in hotels/hospitals for quite a while. We bought a rod that hung across the back of DW's vehicle from the clothes hanger on one side of the car to the other hanger across from it. We just hung all the clothes we'd need or could fit in there and took a toiletry bag and one small bag as well as a dirty clothes hamper. There are times we'd stay in the hospital a few nights in a row, maybe go get a hotel for a few nights just for comfort and a change of scenery. But basically, we'd just re-load our bag at the car. Drop dirty clothes in the hamper and get whatever clean clothes we needed off of the hangers and toss them in the bag. Again... may or may not help for your situation, but we found it easier than having a lot of extra bags.

But still. I'm nuts.

Yes. Yes you are. But we already knew that.

 

[missangelalexis]

I think leaving your job earlier is a great decision. It will give you time to focus on the wedding and enjoy yourself instead of worrying about work and your unhappiness!

Your weddings bands are gorgeous!

Your bachelorette day sounds so fun! I love going to paint your own pottery places!

 

[missjackiemcg]

It sounds like you already can feel some of the weight off your shoulders having made your job decision, so good for you!!!

Love rose gold and the sweetness of your delicate rings. They're beautiful!

FIVE resorts?!! That's incredible!! What better way to start checking resorts off your bucket list than as you start your own Happily Ever After!!

 

[amazingact21]

Okay, I have hopped over and am slowly but surely catching up on updates. Your bands are gorgeous; I love the choice of rose gold.
Sounds like it was a fun day with your bridesmaids.

Five Disney resorts! That's impressive. I think with it just being the two of you, it should be completely doable, and you guys are getting a great opportunity to explore a variety of resorts.

 

[schmass]

Hi! I found your TR the other day (clicked on your TR link while reading through Dugette's TR) and have really enjoyed reading along. A WDW wedding must be the most exciting thing to plan!

I apologize if I sound creepy since I just started following along, but I actually live just north of Boston, so PM me if you want regarding the truck pickup. I'm happy to help if possible.

 

[vrajewski10513]

I didn't think this day would come, but alas, it has: I've fallen victim to the Photobucket popularity curse!

Ugh! So annoying! I haven't had the issue yet, but I might just proactively switch to another site.

and have decided to leave my job mid-July, four weeks earlier than planned. This means that I only have three weeks of work left, and I'm on top of the world!

Yayyyy!

It will make our financial planning more of a struggle, but my mental health is already much better.

Gotta take care of yourself first!

To cap off the day, we went to a place where you paint your own pottery and they fire it and glaze it for you. This is the work-in-progress, and soon I'll be going back to pick up the finished bowl!

I've wanted to try this! Looks like a good time!

But, as @ariane37 made me realize...this means that we will technically stay at 5 different WDW resorts during this trip. Five!!! And that's not even taking into account that we're also staying at the timeshare, and that we'll likely be spending a night in Daytona on our way home. Woah.

Holy moly!

Our plans are fairly flexible for a lot of our days, but there is still a spreadsheet (there's always a spreadsheet),

Idk how people plan WITHOUT a spreadsheet!!

 

[thumper*]

Hi Meghan I read your last TR and jsut discovered this PTR. I'm so happy to be joining along on this Magical Maritial journey. Will have to come back later as this Dis is going down for the night but looking forward to your plans. again congratulations.

 

[krrrristen]

We decided that we'd have too much trouble trying to pick a flavour, so Disney, being awesome, said we didn't have to! We're doing a tiny 4" cake in red velvet with vanilla frosting, and then we're doing a display of 2 dozen cupcakes under it, half red velvet and vanilla, half chocolate and cinnamon frosting. Everybody wins! And it means we won't have to spend as much time cutting cake for each person and they can just pick whichever cupcakes they prefer. And also, the leftovers will be easier for us to take back with us as cupcakes, so we'll have them to snack on later in the week! <3 Yay cupcakes!

Great idea! Who wouldn't be pleased with cupcakes????

This means that I only have three weeks of work left, and I'm on top of the world! It will make our financial planning more of a struggle, but my mental health is already much better.

Mental health is def the most important thing! That's why I encouraged BF to go ahead and leave his job without having another lined up. It's working out alright for him so far, I'm sure it will work for you too!

So I'm really loving our simple and sweet wedding bands.

Oh goodness those are beautiful!!!

this delicious piece of gluten free chocolate cake

That looks delicious.

Their version of fish and chips is baked and is naturally gluten free:

I wish more people did stuff like this!!!!

It's going to be so neat to use our honeymoon as a chance to see so many WDW hotels and cross them off our Disney List!

That will be a WHIRLWIND! But so fun! We want to try all of the hotels too, so we'd need a free night like you got for your wedding to get into some of the more spendy resorts. It will probably take us a while, lol.

 

[MeghanEmily]

LOVE your rings!!!!

5 different Disney resorts! wow! I am sure it will be an adventure changing from place to place but I am glad you are getting to experience several in one trip!

Thank you!

I know, it's gonna be so wild, but I'm exciting to give it a shot!

I'm so bummed you had the same photobucket problem because I fell behind and now I won't see your cakes and cake toppers I'll have to wait for actual wedding pictures and that's too long lol!!

Hopefully I'll get around to getting the pictures fixed soon. But to save you the inconvenience of going back to find them, I can assure you that wedding pictures will eventually also be posted

I actually envy you staying at so many resorts because no way could I move the boys around that much! I want to stay at every resort too, although I probably won't mind if we never cover a couple value resorts. It'll definitely make it easier having your car and not having to pack/unpack EVERYTHING at every resort so while after the trip you may say you won't do that many resorts again, I don't think you'll mind at all while you're there.

I'm going in with the "it'll be fun!" attitude! We're up for the challenge...once.

Definitely makes a lot of sense. With such big life changes, there's always a lot to do and a lot of stress and you need some time for yourself thrown in there too. It might make money a bit tighter for the short term, but you have to take care of yourself first!

Absolutely was the right choice. I'm already feeling better, and I have about 6 work days left.

I thought you said no strippers?

Bahaha I didn't even think of this, but they totally broke the stripper rule...

I like it! I want to stay in as many resorts as possible. And on a trip like this if you have the means and the ability, why not go for it???

And I obviously don't know what your future plans are, but I'll just say that resort hopping will be much, much easier now for just the 2 of you than it would be with kids.

Absolutely, I'm really excited to give it a try! We're not sure yet whether we'll ever have any little Meghans and Nathans running around, but if we do it'll definitely change our park touring style...

I don't know if you've said what you drive or not, but I do have one thing that may or may not help. Last summer when we had Ryder in the hospital, we knew we'd be living in hotels/hospitals for quite a while. We bought a rod that hung across the back of DW's vehicle from the clothes hanger on one side of the car to the other hanger across from it. We just hung all the clothes we'd need or could fit in there and took a toiletry bag and one small bag as well as a dirty clothes hamper. There are times we'd stay in the hospital a few nights in a row, maybe go get a hotel for a few nights just for comfort and a change of scenery. But basically, we'd just re-load our bag at the car. Drop dirty clothes in the hamper and get whatever clean clothes we needed off of the hangers and toss them in the bag. Again... may or may not help for your situation, but we found it easier than having a lot of extra bags.

That's really neat! I imagine it made a huge difference when you were spending so much time at the hospital.

I think leaving your job earlier is a great decision. It will give you time to focus on the wedding and enjoy yourself instead of worrying about work and your unhappiness!

Your weddings bands are gorgeous!

Your bachelorette day sounds so fun! I love going to paint your own pottery places!

Thanks! Leaving work early was definitely the right call.

It sounds like you already can feel some of the weight off your shoulders having made your job decision, so good for you!!!

Love rose gold and the sweetness of your delicate rings. They're beautiful!

FIVE resorts?!! That's incredible!! What better way to start checking resorts off your bucket list than as you start your own Happily Ever After!!

Definitely feeling better knowing I've only got about 6 days of work left. We made the right call. It's a hard decision to make, but I'm glad.

Thanks!

And five resorts will be nuts...but I think it'll be a lot of fun!

 

[MeghanEmily]

Okay, I have hopped over and am slowly but surely catching up on updates. Your bands are gorgeous; I love the choice of rose gold.
Sounds like it was a fun day with your bridesmaids.

Glad you're here!! And thanks–I'm a big fan of rose gold. I like to think that I liked rose gold before liking rose gold was "cool."

Five Disney resorts! That's impressive. I think with it just being the two of you, it should be completely doable, and you guys are getting a great opportunity to explore a variety of resorts.

Hopefully you're right. We're excited to give it a shot.

Hi! I found your TR the other day (clicked on your TR link while reading through Dugette's TR) and have really enjoyed reading along. A WDW wedding must be the most exciting thing to plan!

I apologize if I sound creepy since I just started following along, but I actually live just north of Boston, so PM me if you want regarding the truck pickup. I'm happy to help if possible.

Hi, and welcome!! We've been having a lot of fun planning everything, especially as it's getting much closer now!

Gotta take care of yourself first!

Absolutely!

Idk how people plan WITHOUT a spreadsheet!!

No idea! Haha I like to see things laid out visually.

Hi Meghan I read your last TR and jsut discovered this PTR. I'm so happy to be joining along on this Magical Maritial journey. Will have to come back later as this Dis is going down for the night but looking forward to your plans. again congratulations.

Hello, and welcome over to this thread!! Thanks so much for the congrats and the well-wishes!

Mental health is def the most important thing! That's why I encouraged BF to go ahead and leave his job without having another lined up. It's working out alright for him so far, I'm sure it will work for you too!

It's really so important. You can't be any good to anyone around you if you're not taking care of yourself. I think everything will work out fine in the end, so we're trying not to stress and just enjoy things this summer.

I wish more people did stuff like this!!!!

Me too! And it was really tasty

That will be a WHIRLWIND! But so fun! We want to try all of the hotels too, so we'd need a free night like you got for your wedding to get into some of the more spendy resorts. It will probably take us a while, lol.

Yeah, that will definitely help for us. I don't know that we'd ever get to the GF otherwise. Maybe renting DVC points or something. And Poly is typically out of our budget, too, but we got a great deal on those nights for our honeymoon.

 

[MeghanEmily]

Aug. 16 Plans and Life Updates...

Hi, friends! A very happy Canada Day/Independence Day weekend to you all!

This has been such a crazy week, and I know I'm behind an update or two on quite a few TRs, but I'm going to get there soon. I'm also planning to slowly work at updating all the missing pictures on my TRs. I started doing some of them on my oldest TR, then needed a serious break, and then realized I should probably work backward from most recent so people can see missing wedding planning pictures. That's my next goal.

Again, this has been the wildest week, and I feel like I'm only just surfacing this weekend. I won't go into details about what happened, but a week ago on Monday I was in a nasty little car accident. Fortunately, I walked away with a few bruises and a very sore neck, and nobody was seriously hurt. My car, however, wasn't as lucky. With the holiday weekend this weekend, everything is moving slower than normal, so I won't get official word until sometime this week, but it looks like my car will be a total write-off. Hopefully the insurance company will decide it's worth at least as much as I have left owing on my car loan, and then I'll be starting over and needing to find a new replacement vehicle before we drive down to Florida. It also doesn't help that my mother is on vacation in Europe right now, so while I would want her here to talk to about these things anyway, the bigger issue is that her name is also on the insurance (I bought the car when I was younger and still needed her to cosign on the loan) and she will need to be back to sign some things before everything is said and done. Dealing with these things and alternating between different pain killers has been the extent of most of my week.

I got to have a long weekend this weekend, but it rained out every day except for today. This was a blessing in disguise in a way, because N had an outdoor show he was supposed to go to, but he didn't like the idea of leaving so soon after my accident, so the show being rained out meant he could justify staying home. It was finally sunny today, so we got out for a bit–I got to go for my first jog since the accident!–and we went strawberry picking!

There will be gluten free shortcakes tonight, and they will be magical.

This weekend, I also made a brand new friend! Ariel made her first party appearance as one of my buddies! Don't tell my other princess friends, but I think she may be my new favourite <3

SO! Now on to the reason you're here: Disney trip plans! I'd left off with plans up until Aug. 15, so today you're getting our plans for...

Aug. 16
This day had the potential to be fairly busy no matter what since it's the day before our wedding...so why not jam-pack it with other plans, too!?

You may remember me mentioning issues with Nathan's family's MDE accounts...what happened was that there were multiple family members planning for different people, and we ended up with a few different versions of a couple of his sisters (i.e. both his mom and his sister made plans for his other sister, which caused her hotel reservation and her park tickets not to be associated with the same version of herself.) So when I went to make FP+ for his family (since they refuse to take my advice and plan much in advance...they've never been before and don't know what to expect...but I know for a fact that when they arrive and see the crowds and length of lines, they'll be wanting FP+ and/or ADRs, etc.) Anyway! When I went to make them FP, nothing was linked properly and their dates weren't available. After some troubleshooting, I got them sorted out, and now everybody only has one version of themselves with everything linked properly on the website. Such a headache. I wish the first time they went to Disney had been a time when I wasn't also planning a wedding so I'd have the time to just plan everything for their trip, but it just wasn't meant to be this time.

The reason this is important is that N and I are spending at least a portion of the 16th park touring with his family.

When they first decided to come to the wedding they wanted it to be a short trip, not a Disney vacation. But the closer it got, and the more they heard about how we were doing Disney things with my family on the 18th, the more they wished they've made more of a vacation out of it, and the more they were expecting us to tour with them.

The only day they'd be at Disney that they could tour the parks was the day before our wedding. So originally I told them to do Magic Kingdom, to go at rope drop, that I'd book us all an ADR at Crystal Palace (to see characters without having to wait in line, since I know they'll have zero patience for long lines) where N and I would join them, eat with them, make sure they were on the right track, hit a few rides with them, and then go about the rest of our pre-wedding plans.

They shot it all down. Breakfast was too expensive. They didn't like meeting "characters," which they didn't understand the point of. Magic Kingdom didn't appeal to them because it was for children. Etc.

So I said, "That's fine." I told them to do what they wanted, and we'd meet up with them later at the wedding events, and if they needed any help planning to let me know.

With some guidance from me, they ended up deciding to do Epcot that day, and they bought tickets. But apparently N's mother was under the impression that no matter what they chose to go or where they went, he and I would just be tagging along with them all day long as their Disney-guardian-angels, to help them with anything they might encounter. On the day before our wedding.

I was a little shocked.

I don't, however, want them not to enjoy their first Disney experience...so we came up with a compromised plan, which causes our day to look like this:

8:00am: Cape May Cafe for Meghan and Nathan (his family does whatever they please! I told them to arrive a bit before opening and rope drop the park for lowest crowds/temperatures. This is unlikely to actually happen.)

Following breakfast: we go over to Epcot and meet his family, check on how they're doing, take them on a few rides, including FP for Soarin' and Seas with Nemo. Then N and I have FP for Character Spot, while N's family (who apparently hate Mickey Mouse?? That's fine!) have a FP which I booked for them for Spaceship Earth. They wander World Showcase, and N is welcome to stay and help them do so while I go finish up wedding stuff like welcome bags, etc., and then I head to...

2:30pm: Manicure at Mandara Spa at the Swolphin!

I had been searching for somewhere where I could get a shellac manicure, but that wasn't quite as pricey as the GF salon since I'd heard some lukewarm reviews about it. This was what I came up with, and I'm looking forward to pampering my hands! I was open to going off-site since we'll have a car, but this seemed to be a good choice regardless of location. My pedicure will be done before I leave Canada since it'll last longer, but I didn't want my manicure to get destroyed in the many days of travelling before the wedding.

Then at 7pm that evening we're meeting all our wedding guests in Disney Springs for a meet & greet event. Then the girls will be heading to Ghirardelli with me (and I'll be bringing treats from Erin McKenna's for myself) and the boys will be going to Jock Lindsay's (and/or whichever other drinking establishments they so choose) with N!

I already anticipate that N's religious non-drinking father will choose not to attend, as will my uncle who still can't decide whether or not to even let his family come to the wedding. N's family (mostly women) don't quite know how they feel about me without N as a buffer, so they may not attend either. So "boys" may include N and his best man, and "girls" may just be my family and bridesmaids. We're going to have fun with it no matter who shows up.

N stays with his best man that night, and my mom comes over to stay with me, and it'll be an early night for me since I'll have a 3am wake-up call! That means the next day is wedding day! Plans to come next time...​