Happily Ever After: Epcot

I had planned a group event for Saturday - Celebrating Around the World. The goal was to get a drink or a snack from every country in Epcot's World Showcase. I sent out a newsletter to our guests before the wedding informing them of our various events, and indicated that we would meet up at 12:00 in the Mexico pavilion.

FAIL.

We were two hours late. Anyone who has been to Disney knows that you rely heavily on bus transportation and that oftentimes, it can take much longer than it should to get to your destination. I was a nervous wreck about people being late on the wedding day, so we hired outside transportation for that day. For all the other group events, I stressed to our guests to allow plenty of travel time in order to arrive on time. And who ended up being late to practically everything? Me.

Saturday's epic late-ness was not the fault of Disney transportation. It was completely, 100% our fault.

Let me explain:

We thought were were being smart when we decided to stay at a resort where none of our guests were staying. It was our "honeymoon" and we figured we would not want to be bothered once the wedding was over. This ended up being so not true. Our resort (Old Key West) was right next to where my parents, siblings, & John's best friend were staying (Saratoga Springs) and we were all connected through a boat line to Downtown Disney. Little did we know, it would take HOURS to go between our two resorts. This became a huge pain in the ass - Friday night after dinner it took 2 hours to get back to our hotel room. We also began to realize that we would not be spending that much time alone on this trip - we had our family and friends here with us in our favorite place in the world, and we wanted to take advantage of that.

So, staying by ourselves in a resort away from everyone else was starting to seem like a really bad idea.

We had to do some wedding errands with my parents that morning, so we got up early to bring some items to Port Orleans resort where all of our other guests were staying. Luckily, my parents had their van, so this took much less time than we'd anticipated. During the car ride over, John had suggested stopping at the concierge desk at Saratoga to see if there was any possibility they could transfer us to that resort.

Once back at Saratoga, we got in line in the lobby to talk to one of the check-in people. There just happened to be a cast member walking around the lobby trying to help guests with unusual requests. John and I went up to her and explained our predicament: we are in Disney for our wedding but we are spending all of our time on the buses going back and forth between our guest's resorts and it sucks - we were wondering if we could possibly transfer to a room at Saratoga so we could be close to our family.

This is when we realized for the first time that weekend that Disney was without a doubt a great decision for our wedding location. Not only did this cast member really care about our happiness, she was so excited for us and our wedding and wanted to make sure we had the best trip ever. She then spent the next TWO HOURS finding us a room that was not only at Saratoga, but a two-minute walk from my parents room. This was a huge feat when you consider how incredibly large and spread-out this resort is.

Now, some people might think we are weird for wanting to be so close to my parents on our honeymoon - but John's best friend was staying in my parents villa, along with both of my siblings and their two friends. Those are the people we knew we'd be spending a ton of time with once the rest of the wedding guests headed home, so it made a lot of sense. My only concern was that our rooms not be visible to each other - since I was staying with my parents the night before the wedding, I didn't want any chances that John could see us outside taking photos the morning of the wedding. This cast member achieved all of this and more.

By now, it is 12:00 and I have texted my sister and one of my bridesmaids letting them know we would be REALLY late to Epcot. Remember Epcot? That's what we were supposed to be doing today. There were 15 or so wedding guests in Epcot waiting for us to start our event. So, I put my sister in charge and told her we'd be there as soon as we could.

We still had to check OUT of Old Key West, check IN to Saratoga, and move all of our stuff over. John and I looked at each other - how the heck are we going to do all of this and still get to Epcot?!

Thank goodness my parents drove down! We used their van to book it over to Old Key West, where my mom, dad, John & his friend started packing up our villa. I was on the phone with concierge explaining that Saratoga had moved us over there and could we please check out ASAP? They were a little out of the loop so I had to stay on hold for a little bit while they called over to Saratoga to make sure I was not some crazy bridezilla. Finally, we loaded up my parents van and booked it back to Saratoga.

We went to go check in and had the nicest cast member ever (aside from Jill, the amazing wonder woman who was able to find us a room in a sold-out resort). He was so excited when he found out we were getting married in two days and gave us all sorts of cool "happily ever after" pins to wear. Then, the magic happened.


We always buy a dining plan when we go to Disney. It makes life so much simpler and it saves us a lot of money. They had to transfer our dining plan from one resort to another, no big deal. But this super-awesome-amazing cast member gave us a whole week's worth of the dining plan for FREE! Instead of having 2 snacks, 2 quick service meals, and 2 table service meals every day, we had 3 of each! This was almost $500 worth of free food. We were so excited about this because it meant we could get meals and snacks for some of our guests who had traveled so far for our day.

SO. We are finally checked in to Saratoga and decided we would just drop our luggage off and head strait to Epcot because at this point we are an hour and a half late for our event. Luckily we got on a bus right away and made it to Epcot by about 2pm. Two. Hours. Late.

By the time we walked into the park, made our way over to World Showcase, and found my siblings near the America pavilion, we realized just how hot it was - REALLY hot. My sister had been trying to contain all of our guests to one group, but people drifted off wanting to do their own thing, and she was exhausted after trying to keep up with everyone. We decided to go see a show inside the America Pavilion to give everyone a chance to cool off. At this point the "group event" died off and my siblings went to do their own thing. A couple aunts and uncles went to see some other stuff in the park. The eight of us that were left went in to see the show which was great as it always is, and it gave everyone a chance to calm down, sit down, and cool off.

After the show, my grandparents decided to find a shady spot to sit down for a while, and the rest of us went off in search of some slushie drinks. We found them in France, and paid $10 for each of the tiny slushies, but they were just what we needed at that point.

After our slushies, we split up even more. My parents went off to find my grandparents and siblings, and John & I went off with our friends to try to do a few more countries despite the heat. We walked through the shops and found a secluded air conditioned Japanese art gallery where we sat for a half hour waiting for our dinner reservations.

We had reservations for Via Napoli, a newer restaurant in the Italy pavilion. They specialize in pizza which is the meal John would pick if he had to pick one meal to eat for the rest of his life. Clearly, we had to eat here.


We each got individual pizzas that we could barely eat after the appetizer platter we'd ordered. On top of our drinks and the desserts that came with the dining plan. Needless to say, we were stuffed when we finally left (a trend that continued throughout the entire week). We were getting close to the time when the fireworks show Illuminations started, so we decided to head out of the parks. As we left, we passed by the venue for our VIP dessert party the night of the wedding, which was so much better than I'd been imagining in my head. It made me even more excited for our wedding day and the awesome ending we had planned for our guests.


Finally, we were back into our (new) villa and began unpacking for the second time in two days. We were both looking forward to the next day...our rehearsal, rehearsal brunch, and an afternoon by the pool with all of our guests. Little did John know, I had a sneaky surprise planned for him the next day...

Happily Ever After: We Arrive!

So here we are at the beginning of our wedding weekend. I was going to post about the trip down to Orlando, but my SD card is missing in action and I have no pictures until the first night in Disney, and that would make for a pretty boring post. So, we begin with our day in Disney.

We had arrived in Orlando right on time and made our way to our resorts with no trouble at all. John and I checked in and then headed to the resort where my grandparents were staying to get lunch. We visited with them and a couple other wedding guests before heading to Downtown Disney to do some shopping and get park tickets for the best man. Before we knew it, my parents had arrived after spending two days in a car with my sister and her best friend, so we went over there to check in with them and make sure all of our wedding goodies (read: my dress) had arrived safely and in one piece. Then the boys all came to our resort to try on their tuxes and of course, the only one that did not fit correctly was John's!

After we took care of the tuxes my family left and we started getting ready for our first wedding event. I had made reservations for all of our wedding guests who arrived on Friday at our favorite resort - Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa. We were eating around 7pm at the Turf Club Bar & Grill, which gave everyone plenty of time to settle into their respective resorts. We were fashionably late (a trend during the entire week, which is so unlike me) and barely had time to get a drink and play a game of pool before our table was ready.

John & best man Josh

Me with dad and sister / Maid of Honor

There were 13 of us which was a perfect number. We filled up 4 tables that the restaurant pushed together. The meal was fantastic - we ended up coming back to this restaurant two more times during the course of our stay. It was a great way to kick off our wedding weekend: good food, good drinks, and lots of laughs with some of the most important people in our lives. The night flew by and little did I know it would be an indication of how quickly the entire week would be. After dinner, John surprised my entire family with Disney resort mugs - refillable for free at any Disney resort.



It was so surreal to be in Disney with my family/friends. I am used to going with my immediate family and John, but to be there with people who would normally never go was such a weird feeling. It meant so much to me that they had all traveled there for John & me. It hadn't hit me yet that we were getting married in just a few days...it felt more like we were on a big family reunion vacation.

We headed back to our resort - I don't think we got to bed until around midnight. The next morning we had to get up bright and early for our first day in the parks and an unexpected glitch in our plans...

Happily Ever After

Professional photos are in! Get ready for a few weeks of non-stop wedding recaps.

It's official!

Our professional photographs are on their way to us!

Hopefully within the next week I will be able to start the wedding day re-cap. I'd like to start with the few days leading up to the wedding, so maybe tonight I will get started on that. I am very excited to re-live the entire weekend!

Our home reception is next weekend so I have been busy getting ready for that. We need to finalize things with the caterer, pick out music for the DJ, figure out the rest of the decorations...it's like planning a second wedding! At least this event is much, MUCH more informal and laid back, so if I forget to do something? No one will notice.

the story of right now

- I have never in my life enjoyed looking at photos of myself as much as I enjoy looking at our wedding photos. The cosmetology team I hired was worth every single penny. I truly felt pretty on our wedding day.

- John let me buy an elliptical! It's being delivered on Saturday. I can't wait, especially after getting on the scale this morning and seeing a number I've never seen. (PS - my scale all of a sudden changed to metric. Way to confuse me at 7:00 in the morning!)

- We also bought a patio set. We spent too much money this weekend. I love how our yard is coming together, though.

- Is it normal to want to snuggle my cats instead of go to work? It's a dilemma I face every day.

- Sometimes I still wake up in the morning and think, 'how many days until the wedding?' Then I realize it happened TWO WEEKS AGO and nearly faint. How did that happen?!

- Summer is already going by too quickly. I blame it on working 40 hours a week. Seriously, it is not cool being stuck in an office during prime beach hours.

Mr. & Mrs.

I am still sorting through guest photos, waiting for professional photos, and organizing what I want to say about our wedding weekend (there will most likely be several posts), but here is a little sneak peek to hold you over:



It was an incredible ten days, and the wedding itself was just wonderful. It was the very best day of my life and I would not change a thing about it. We are pretty busy getting back into our little routines and cleaning up the house (hot weather + hardwood floors + four shedding kitties = tumbleweed-esque clumps of fur blowing through the entire first level of the house) and unpacking but I hope to set aside some time soon to start writing about our trip and our wedding.

You can watch the "sneak peek" from our videographer if you want a glimpse at our ceremony (it's really just our vows):
www.stvsweddings.com - click Sneak Peeks, then click our names.
username: blu-ray
password: magic

Enjoy!

it's flying by

When we got engaged nearly 2 years ago, I had grand plans to really savor each moment of our wedding planning process. My mom bought me a journal for all my wedding plans and ideas. I've used it, that's for sure, but have I used it to write really descriptive entries about what I'm thinking, feeling, wishing and hoping for? No. I've jotted down music ideas, floral ideas, little thoughts here and there. I have a huge excel spreadsheet on my computer at work full of my plans: guest list, budgets, seating charts, group events, vendors, and more. It's my wedding-planning bible.

Planning a destination wedding has been a really neat experience - one that I would not trade for anything. I know our wedding will be incredibly fun and unique. I feel a little sad that I haven't chronicled it the way I'd imagined. Now that we are 33 days away from our I Do's (!!!) I want to somehow capture it all so that I will remember it in 5, 10, 15, 20 years. I know that is not an attainable goal right now - with so many other items that need to be crossed off my to-do list. Not to mention my last-ditch effort to lose a few pounds before the big day! I definitely have a full plate for the next four and a half weeks.

So. I am making a commitment to capture as many details of our wedding week as possible. I want to recount it all on this blog - from the day we arrive in Disney until the day we leave. Here is a quick snapshot of what that week should go:

Friday: Arrive in Orlando around 10:00AM, head to our resort to check-in, pick up our tuxes from Bell Services and make sure they all fit, get together all of our wedding items and deliver them to Franck's (the wedding studio by the Wedding Pavilion), and maaaybe if we aren't too exhausted, hop on the monorail and head into the Magic Kingdom. That night we have our first group event - dinner reservations at my parent's resort with 14 of our guests.
Saturday: sleep in! We are heading to Epcot around noon to kick off our second group event: Celebrating Around the World. We are planning to hit as many of the countries in World Showcase as we can to sample food and drinks. Yum! That night John and I have reservations with his best man and one of my bridesmaids at an Italian restaurant.
Sunday: Our rehearsal is at 9:30 in the morning and from there we go straight to our rehearsal brunch with our wedding party. After that we are inviting everyone back to our resort for an afternoon of lounging around the pool. Hoping to keep it low-key and relaxed...I know I will be a bundle of nerves with the wedding the next day!
Monday: WEDDING DAY! Cosmetology will arrive around 6:30 in the morning, the photographer & videographer arrive around 9:00, and we head over to the Grand Floridian Resort around 10:30 for bridal party photos. Wedding is at 12:00, cocktail hour at 1:00, reception at 2:00, and our Epcot dessert party is at 8:00. It will be a long day but I think it's going to be incredibly amazing.
Tuesday: sleep in! We have breakfast reservations around 10am, and then we'll see where the day takes us. We have our farewell dinner at the Polynesian that night with 26 guests.
Wednesday-Sunday: Other than our dining reservations, we have no concrete plans. We'll probably go with the flow and try to hang out with as many of our guests as we can before everyone heads back home. After all, how many chances will we ever get to be in the happiest place in the world with the people we love the most? Nada!

So that's my goal: when we get back, I am going to bore you with all the little details of our wedding events! While I am sad that I have not chronicled my planning thus far, I really want to make sure I write it all down afterwards. Plus, I am sure it will help with the post-wedding blues - I won't know what to do with all my free time!

BTW - we have a new addition to our family. Coming up in my next post!

Fifty.

50 is not really that big of a number.

When I was little, I thought $50 made me rich. Ha! $50 barely gets me enough gasoline for the week... but I digress.

When we set our wedding date, we had 500-something days to wait. I looked forward to every "milestone" number as we counted down the days. 450 days, 400 days, 350 days, 300 days, and so on. I was really excited a few months ago when we hit 100 days, and then 99 the day after. Double digits!

Now we have 50 days left. FIFTY DAYS. And we have only 47 days until we leave.

This number is pretty much freaking me out right now. I really don't want it to be over. I remember my very first trip to Disney in 1997 - riding on the monorail past the Wedding Pavilion and thinking "That's where I want to get married someday." Someday is here - in a mere fifty days. How did that happen so quickly?!

remember the time I said I was buying a house?

We have been so busy lately. I've had wedding questions from my planner to answer, decisions to make, INVITATIONS TO MAIL OUT [this took FOREVER], and the list goes on. It's been an especially stressful couple of weeks on the house front, though. It seems like the seller is the slowest person on Earth. There have been lots of bits and pieces that need to be sorted out - papers to be signed & permits to be shown, and of course we've been dealing with the ever-difficult VA.

We are getting a VA home loan that John is eligible for after serving in the Army for 8 years. They are pretty picky about some things, but they are also SO SLOW at getting anything done. But there was one thing that ticked me off - John had to sign a piece of paper stating that he was not going to be deploying in the next 12 months, because if he was, the VA considered it "bad faith." REALLY!? If he were to deploy [which he won't; his time was up almost 2 years ago] the bank would say we reneged on the loan. I just couldn't believe that. How can you tell service men and women that they cannot buy a house if they are to deploy within 12 months? How awful is that?!

Anyway. Rant aside, things are moving along, albeit a bit slowly and stressfully. [Stressfully is not a word but I just made it up. Don't judge]. We should be closing next week! Hopefully the move will go smoothly because by the end of March, we will be in full-force Wedding Mode. Please bear with me through the sporadic posts until June - I cannot even believe it's March already. I don't know where the last 2 months have gone.

PS - our 4583745 feet of snow is finally melting. Please, weather gods, please melt it all away before we move next weekend!? Please?!

PPS - my first wedding dress fitting is next weekend also. -freaking out about fitting into it-

Ever, Ever After

There are so many aspects of our upcoming wedding that are important to me. Photography, videography, the ceremony, invitations, programs, etc. Just about the only thing that I completely left in John's hands was the cake. I am not a huge fan of cake - it all tastes the same to me. Picking out our cake was something John could actually get excited about because he was able to taste all the different cake flavors and their prospective fillings. He chose marble cake with amaretto filling for our bottom tier (the bigger one) and almond cake with raspberry filling for our top tier. Moving on...

Music is really important to me in my non-wedding planning life. My mom always had the radio on or a CD playing when I was growing up. One of my favorite childhood memories is of the day my mom was standing on the kitchen table singing into a wooden soup ladle when the neighbors spotted her - and stopped dead in their tracks. She brought me to my first concert when I was five years old and that is when my love for live music was born. I love all different genres of music, but my heart belongs to Country music. It has been really difficult for me to choose various songs for different parts of our day - I could leave most of them up to the DJ but it makes me really sad that he could potentially pick songs that mean nothing to me. That's the biggest thing - songs have so much meaning to me. I don't want my wedding to be generic wedding songs, but at the same time I don't want to play songs that are so obscure my guests don't recognize them. I need to choose songs for:

Prelude - I'm thinking I will let the organist play a compilation of Disney songs. This is the easy route, otherwise I need to come up with a few songs to play, but I won't actually be around to hear any of them so does it really matter?
Parent/Grandparent Processional - I'm leaving this decision in my mom's hands. She has a couple songs picked out, but as long as she is happy then I am happy.
Groom/Groomsmen Processional - I'm leaning towards Yellowcard's Three Flights Up. I feel funny using modern songs with words during the ceremony so I've been hunting for instrumental-only versions of songs that mean something to us, but I haven't had much luck. I found this about a year ago and fell in love.
Bridesmaid Processional - I'm 95% sure that we're going to use the Vitamin String Quartet version of Taylor Swift's Love Story. It's fun and playful, it's an instrumental version of a song I love, and I get teary when I listen to it. Good sign, right?
Bride's Processional - Canon in D Major on the organ. I don't want any traditional "here comes the bride" music - but at the same time I want something that really screams "here comes the bride!" Does that make sense??
Unity Candle - For The Beauty of the Earth on the organ. This song is in my favorite movie of all time, Little Women. It's during the scene where Meg gets married and I've loved it since I was a little girl. It sticks with my theme of non-word songs during the ceremony and I just think it's beautiful.
Recessional - here is where I have some fun! I want an upbeat, happy song to leave the chapel as husband and wife. I thought about using Welcome by Phil Collins (it's in the Disney movie Brother Bear). I thought about using What I Like About You by The Romantics, Beautiful Day by Lee DeWyze, Forever by Chris Brown, This Will Be an Everlasting Love by Natalie Cole, and so many others. But, I was watching a commercial for the Disney movie Enchanted over the weekend and was inspired by Carrie Underwood's Ever Ever After. It is perfect because our theme is Happily Ever After! I don't care how cheesy it is, I love it.

Moving onto the reception...
Entrance into reception - I'm thinking about Michael Franti's Say Hey I Love You. It's fun and upbeat and the lyrics are pretty cute. Also in the running are Beautiful Day and Forever, leftover from the Recessional slot. Any other ideas??
First Dance - AHHHH! I can't find one to save my life. We were going to use Lifehouse. We both love them. I thought about You Can Shake the Mountains, but I am having some doubts. John wants You and Me, but I think that is such an overplayed song that I'd feel like a teenybopper using it. Everything is too long. I like this one song that came out on Country radio last spring - Whatever It Is by Zac Brown Band. I really love it. When I first heard it I immediately thought it would be a great first dance song. John is okay with it and prefers it over some of my more girly suggestions. My problem here is that I want us both to LOVE the song we pick. Help??
Cake Cutting - Sugar Sugar by the Archies. Done deal! From another favorite movie of mine, Now and Then, and I think it's is perfect for the amount of sugar we will be ingesting ;)
The Father/Daughter song is in my dad's hands, and Mother/Son is in John's mom's hands. I'm working on finding a song for our last dance and I've been toying with Taylor Swift's Today Was a Fairytale just because, well, I'm hoping that the day IS a fairytale!

I know some of them probably seem cheesy, but I'm also kind of a cheesy person. I cry during ASPCA & Disney commercials and I love chic lit. Some of my favorite music is either inappropriate for the ceremony or too country for John. I'd love any suggestions I can get!

you are invited

So much for that posting-every-day thing. Sometimes life just gets busy, right?

This month has flown by. I cannot believe Christmas has come and gone already! Today I realized that we have 146 days until the wedding. [Insert panic mode here]. We have had such a long engagement - it has always felt like the wedding was so far away. I swear it was just yesterday that we hit the 9 month mark. I wrote down all of my 'to-do' items in one place yesterday and the list is a little overwhelming. I am DIY-ing a lot of things (invitations, programs, favors, table names, place cards, etc) so I need to get my butt in gear as far as starting all of those projects. My goal is to have all of my DIY items completed one month before the wedding - which only gives me a little under four months.

I am not a very crafty, creative person by nature. I totally missed out on the artsy gene in my family. I like to scrapbook but I get frustrated with my boring layouts and design ideas. I am never sure if my color combinations or fonts fit well together. I've been ordering paper samples from this website to try to get a feel for what works well together within my color scheme. Now I need to bite the bullet and order the supplies - these invites need to go out 3 months before the wedding which is fast approaching.



This is my inspiration design-wise. I like the pocketfold and the option to insert enclosures with additional information. Having a destination wedding is a lot of work - coordinating 40 people's vacations is quite a task! These enclosures will be a nice way to include information like things to do, places to eat, etc. I think I'm also going to have one enclosure with an itinerary for the wedding weekend so our guests will know where they can meet up with us if they'd like to. I can order the pocket fold from C&P, and then go to a local craft store to get cardstock for the invitation and enclosure portion. I'm excited about picking out ribbons and accessories to spruce them up a bit. Hopefully they don't come out looking like a 3rd grade art project. This is why I need to give myself a good six weeks to work on them!

it's real

On Thursday, my wedding consulant faxed me our Letter of Agreement (aka, our contract with Disney). I have been waiting for this for months - this means we are officially getting married in Disney! (Not that there was any question before...it's just all official now and our guests can start planning their trips).

On Monday May 23, 2011, at 12:00 in the afternoon, I will walk down the aisle of Disney's beautiful Wedding Pavilion to become Mrs. F---, to marry my best friend in the entire world. It is crazy that it is set in stone now - deposit will be sent tomorrow, wedding planner will be assigned in the next couple weeks, and OH MY GOSH I'M GETTING MARRIED! When we got engaged almost a year ago, May/June of 2011 seemed so far away. Now we are 351 days away from the start of our happily ever after and I could not be more excited!

I feel like there are so many things I should be thinking about. We now have all of the major things checked off our list: venue, photographer, videographer, hair & makeup artist, the wedding dress!, and bridesmaid dresses. Oh, and my awesome newsletter went out to all of our guests on Saturday! (If you'd like to see the PDF version let me know - I can email it to you!). In the next few weeks I am hoping to get John to go to Men's Warehouse with me to look at different suits and get prices for renting/buying them. I'd also like to go to a craft store that is about 30 minutes away to look at some silk flowers so I can decide if we'll be making bridesmaid bouquets or if we will use live flowers through Disney Floral.

I am so excited for this coming year. It is a bit surreal that we are getting married in less than a year - holy cow! This time next year I will be a Mrs.

priorities

When it comes to the wedding, there is an endless list of enhancements/add-ons/extras that Disney can do for us. I would love to be able to take advantage of all of them but unfortunately, I do not have an endless supply of cash. There are some extras that I can say "no" to right away - like using Cinderella's Coach to bring me to the Wedding Pavilion - totally not worth the $2,700.00 that it costs for a whopping 2 hours. I'm not even that into the idea of confetti canons that can go off during the staged exit after the ceremony. Don't know the price for those - not sure I want to know! There are, however, several things that I DO want. Not all of them fit into the budget so I'm trying to cut where I can to save money.

1. Photography This is a MUST. I am obsessed with pictures. One of my favorite things to do is look though old photo albums at my parents house. I think it is invaluable to be able to look back on special moments and memories that would otherwise be lost in the shuffle of everyday life. I want to be able to show my children the photos from our wedding. I want to be able to relive this day for years to come - you only get one wedding day, right!? I was not familiar with Orlando photographers when we decided to go with the Disney Wedding, so it took a bit of research before I was able to find one that had a good reputation and took amazing photos. I scored my photographer for the entire wedding day (no limit on the # of hours!) for a fabulous $1600.00. This includes a DVD with all of the images and some printed images. I am free to print them however/wherever I like, and I also have the option to have him print my album.

2. Floral I have a hard time justifying dropping loads of cash on flowers/boquets/decor that will die in 48 hours. I've been toying with the idea of making silk boquets - I just have to find a place where I can get nice silk flowers for a reasonable price. I'm also thinking about doing non-floral centerpieces for the reception - something beachy but simple. Something like this:

Non-floral centerpieces through Disney are much cheaper than using live flowers. Bridal boquets run upwards of $200.00 and bridesmaid boquets can be as much as $150.00.

3. Dessert Party This is a no brainer for me. I have to have this. It is something unique to Disney Weddings. It is fairly self-explanatory: it is a VIP dessert party with lots of incredibly yummy treats right in the middle of EPCOT during the Illuminations fireworks show. For those of you who have been to Disney, we are most likely going to hold ours in the Italy Pavilion in World Showcase:

We will be escorted into the park (yes, in my wedding dress!) We will eat dessert (of course) and watch the incredible fireworks show. I think it's going to be fantastic and a perfect way to end our wedding day.

4. Videography At first, I didn't even consider this element of the wedding day. The more I think about it, the more I want to have a video to remember this day by. Everyone says how quickly it goes by and how much you (bride & groom) miss because you are so focused on other things. And I also think about how much I love home videos - I love watching them. I love being able to relive the best moments of my life. The more I think about it, the more important this seems. I found a great videographer who will provide ALL DAY coverage for $1495.00 - including 3 DVDs of the final video (and I asked - it can be as long as we want it to be!). We can upgrade to BluRay for $150.00 more, and we can purchase the raw footage for $100.00. Oh! And we can have our ceremony broadcasted LIVE via webcam! I think that is so neat. I really want to find a way to make this work with our budget.

5. Magic Kingdom Photoshoot Okay. I REALLY want this. It costs $1,100.00. It includes 1 hr in the Magic Kingdom before the park opens in our wedding attire. I gush at the thought of having photos of John & me by ourselves in the Magic Kingdom, on Main St USA, on Cinderella's Carousel, on the Tea Cups...it just seems so exciting! I really want to do this, even if the cost is a little steep for just an hour. It includes a proof book, a 12 print album, and 4x6 prints of all the photos. I need to decide which is more important - this or the videography. Decisions, decisions.

I am sure I will think of other elements as I get further into the planning, but right now, these are the things I am really focusing on. I hate being on a budget!

summertime

We've had an unusually warm spring this year. Flashback to last spring when it was in the 40's until May and it didn't get above 70 until late June...and then it was cloudy practically ALL summer long. It was miserable. But this year Mother Nature seems to be making up for the pathetic excuse for a summer that we got stuck with last year.

Last Saturday, John and I took the boys to my childhood elementary school to play on the playground. It was warm - in the 70's - believe me, that is warm for April! We played on the swings, climbed the monkey bars, played four-square, and of course, we slid down the slide a hundred times.






Yesterday we went to Gabriel's baseball game and then had a cookout at John's sister's house. She made an amazing salsa to go on top of grilled chicken - it had fresh papaya chunks, avocado chunks, and chopped red pepper in a tangy/sweet sauce. It was delish! For dessert we had a super yummy peanut butter pie that wasn't exactly on my diet but it was too good to turn down.

And tonight we are headed to my parent's house to discuss the wedding budget/guest list and to enjoy some chicken on the grill. Hopefully they will be opening the pool soon and then it will officially feel like summer has arrived!

the DRESS!

Remember the time I said I was getting married in Disney World?

Well, I found the perfect dress for a fairy tale wedding.



I feel like Cinderella in the dress. It sparkles, but not too much. It's poofy, but not too much. It's comfortable, not too heavy, not too hot ... it's perfect! It's hard to see in photos, but the skirt part has a bunch of crystals that sparkle every time I move. The veil I got has the same crystals and they go together so well.

My latest venture has been trying to convince John to book a Magic Kingdom photo shoot. It would be a couple days after our wedding and it would be very early in the morning (6am-ish!)because it has to be done before the park opens. BUT, it would mean we'd have wedding photos in front of the castle, on the teacup ride, on Cinderella's Carousel, Main St USA...aka totally awesome photos!. Go to Google and search "Magic Kingdom Bridal Portrait" - you will see how incredible the photos are.

I also found a potential bridesmaid dress!



I'm still debating colors...I love the pale yellow and I was thinking of blue hydrangea bouquets to incorporate my Swedish colors. One of my bridesmaids doesn't want a yellow dress so I'm having a hard time picking the color...I really want yellow but I don't want to deal with her complaining about it. I'm not sure if that style of dress goes well with my wedding dress, I keep thinking it is too informal.


Are those flowers gorgeous or what!?

and dance forever

I've been MIA lately.

I got sick of wordpress because I am not computer savvy and couldn't figure out how to make my blog look pretty. If it's not pretty, why bother posting, right? So, I decided to move. Again.

It took me a few days to make my new blog (really, I'm just moving BACK to my original blog - but I obviously had to pretty it up first). Then I got side tracked with the Surprise Party of 2010. Then John's dad got very sick. And life just sort of got a little crazy, so the blog had to wait.

But now! The party is over and I am anxious to start blogging about the wedding so the blog HAD to be finished. The laundry that has been piling up for two weeks? That could wait. So I finished everything this morning. Voila! Welcome to my new blog.

dreams do come true

Disney's Wedding Pavilion

Remember the time I said I was getting married in Disney World?

I am so excited about it. We won't officially know the date until September because Disney has difficult policies. We can't book our ceremony until 12 months out and we can't book the reception until 8 months out. Since we know where we want to have the ceremony and the reception, and we are (I am) very adamant that both of them get booked, we are going to be flexible with our date. So, I'll still book our ceremony at 12 months and cross my fingers that the reception venue will still be available at 8 months. We're hoping to get May 24, 2011 as our date. At the very earliest, I could officially have my date on September 25 of this year and THEN all the real planning can begin.

We want to have the ceremony at the Wedding Pavilion, which is right in between the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa and the Polynesian Resort. We're hoping for a 12:00 or 2:00 ceremony. The reception would follow at the Whitehall Room at the Grand Floridian. It's an adorable octagon room that opens into a gorgeous outdoor patio. The patio would be exclusively ours for the day, which will be perfect for John's nephews to run around in. The reception would start at either 2:00 or 4:00, depending on our ceremony time, but a pre-reception would go on directly after the ceremony while we are having pictures taken.

Following the reception we are going to have a private dessert party on Sago Cay, an area of the resort that is right on the lagoon, to watch the Wishes fireworks show at the Magic Kingdom. (The Grand Floridian Resort is right on the lagoon that overlooks the Magic Kingdom). They will rope off the area so that only our wedding guests attend, and they'll have dessert tables set up for guests to choose from. The soundtrack to Wishes will also be piped in to Sago Cay.

Aside from that, there's really not much to report. I will get my wedding planning kit once we book the date and send in our deposit. Next weekend we are going to try on wedding dresses...so that will be fun! I'm not sure what I'm even looking for. We are doing a fairly casual beach theme, and John and the guys will wear Khacki's with nice (read: non flashy) Hawaiian shirts and sandals. I am almost positive the girls will be wearing tea-length pale yellow dresses, just not sure of the style yet. So, I can't go too crazy with my dress - which is fine because I do not like super elaborate dresses anyway.

Oh, and I think I want calla lilies for my bouquet. Other than that, I'm still looking at things. I have a while before the big day, and it's hard to plan anything without having a date! Send me suggestions! (Especially for dresses!)