Wedding favors!

My fiance came up with a very cute idea for what we could give our guests as wedding favors (in addition to possibly getting a hand-made wedding program, which will be very beautiful!). On our very first date, he gave me three Milky Way bars as a way to impress me(he was 17 at the time, so not exactly a smooth operator). What was hilarious was he then told me why he got three of them "they were on sale at the gas station for three for a dollar". It was so adorable and awkward that it makes me tear up (from laughing so hard). So, in honor of our first date, we will put three mini Milky Way bites into little gift bags along with a note describing the relevance of the candy. It will definitely be a very cute little gift since it has a lot of sentimental meaning for us, and I think that's how wedding favors should be (plus, it's Milky Way, and most people, at the very least, do not dislike Milky Way).

Obviously, we will not be purchasing the Milky Ways from the gas station, nor will we be doing it any time soon (though feeding our guests candy that has been sitting around for nearly a year would be kind of funny).

Invitations, programs, and other calligraphy items

So, my fiance and I have started thinking about invitations and that whole situation. I don't really see the need to send out invitations really since we will have to work closely with the people who are coming to arrange airfare, hotel stays, and Disney tickets. I imagine that everyone will want to book only after everything about the discounts is known. Since I am the calligraphist for this whole event (since my fiance and I both agree that doing hand-written things for a small event adds a very classy touch, especially since I have done wedding calligraphy before), I would definitely appreciate not having to do the invitations. I will already have to do the Thank-You cards, the wedding programs, and whatever else needs to be done.

I think it will be very cute to add some paper punch designs to the wedding programs with the classic Disney designs, like Mickey Mouse and Cinderella's Castle. I am hoping that I will only need to make 20 of these (or else, I'll have to start tomorrow in order to finish them on time!). I definitely think these would make very unique little keepsakes for all of our guests, that they will hopefully appreciate! If I do decide to make the programs by hand, I may as well just add the name of the guest who will receive the program (you know, to make them feel more obliged to keep and cherish my hand-made masterpiece). Who knows what we will ultimately do, but it is definitely a nice thought. :)

Bridal Jewlery!!

I was poking around online to see some prices for pearl jewelry to wear on my wedding day, and I found this really nice-looking necklace. After a little more research and comparing some prices online, I snatched this up! I'm not too concerned about something happening to the necklace, like me not liking it or anything since I saw that I could return it. That makes me very happy :D. I went ahead and found some earrings and bracelets to go along with the necklace. I even got a couple of bracelets for my bridesmaids! I'm sure they will love them :). What better jewelery to wear to a beach-themed wedding than pearls?! I considered doing something seashell-y like the person who owns this site does, but in the end, this lady just has to have her pearls!

I was sort of playing around the with the idea of getting something with Mickey Mouse on it since that would just be too cute. I could still attach a little Mickey charm to my bracelet or something if I want to do so later on.

All I need now is...well... everything else!

Still waiting

Actually getting started on the planning, so far, seems to be the hardest part of the whole thing. We still don't know how many guests we will have! Of course, I can't even reserve a date if I don't even know if I'm going to have fewer than 20 guests or more than 20 guests.

While I'm just sitting around and waiting for everyone to hurry up and make up their mind, I'm deciding what colors to go with, and what style dress I should shop for. I've been reading plenty of guides on what kind of dress would look best on my kind of figure (tall, slim, not exactly voluptuous). What I have been finding along the way is just how ugly wedding dresses can be. I mean, seriously, some of these dresses put the Top 5 Sluttiest Wedding Dresses of 2009 to shame. On the other hand, I find it ridiculous to spend a fortune on a dress that I will be wearing for about 3 or 4 hours on one day.

I really like the princess-style dresses. You know, the kind of dress that is so poofy that no one can touch you (image from iVillage):


However, my fiance and I will most likely be doing a water-side wedding at Disney, perhaps at Yacht Club or Boardwalk, so that kind of dress may look slightly ridiculous for that setting.

Instead, I might go with either an A-line dress, or a romantic beach style dress (images from Bridal wave, and Dressinsexywoman respectively)




What I found very entertaining to look at was this site with Disney-themed wedding dresses. I have no idea what they cost, but it's probably a fortune.

Oh, well, happy hunting, right?

Aggravations abound!

I think my fiance and I have finally made up our minds between a Wishes and an Escape wedding. We definitely prefer the intimacy of the Escape wedding, especially since there are a few people we wouldn't necessarily mind not having there. Escape weddings are much more simple than Wishes weddings, thus they are also quite a bit cheaper. Of course, the downside is that there is no reception included in the Escape package. That, however, does not bother neither myself nor my fiance. We figure that we can do the wedding, then the cake cutting reception (Disney will have the slices of cake boxed up and ready to be eaten after your lunch or dinner reception, so there's no problem there), and then we can go to a Disney restaurant to enjoy some food after a wonderful ceremony.

However, my fiance has a large family, one which his father does not want to exclude. So he is daintily asking each one if they would like to come and if they'd be able to pay for their airfare and hotel for them, their spouses, and their kids (we will be damned if we are paying for their airfare and hotel). This is slowing the whole process down and driving me insane. The attendance of the non-essential family members will be what bumps the size from Escape wedding to a Wishes wedding. We would have maybe 16-20 guests if these non-essential family members came (20 being the maximum number of guests allowed at the Wedding Pavilion, Yacht Club, and Boardwalk locations). If they all decide to come, the minimum number suddenly jumps to 30-35. This jump basically means that the price increases from roughly $7,500 (including the ceremony, extra photography, reception at a restaurant, service charges, and tax) to a minimum of $13,500 (including service charges, and tax). I don't know about anyone else, but I don't think that non-essential family members are worth $6,000.

To top it off, I have even fewer family members going than I had originally anticipated. My family and friends are dropping off the invitation list like flies, which will result in the ceremony and reception being held for my fiance's family. Personally, I would love to have people I know and cherish to be there to witness such an important event, but as things are.... Argh!

Beginning the planning

So, my fiance and I have decided that we absolutely want to have a Disney Fairy Tale wedding. We aren't sure about anything to do with details, so we've been doing a lot of reading into the subject. We've only just started discussing budgets and costs with his parents and mine and working out a very rough guest list.

The main thing that my fiance and I are trying to do with this wedding is to have an event that our guests will really enjoy. We are both the kind of people who don't have a good time unless everyone around us is happy and at ease, so our goal is really just that - to have everyone at ease so that we can enjoy ourselves (selfish in a weird way?). We would love to have our two families mingle for the first time in a happy, eased, and enjoyable setting. What better place than Disney World, am I right? Additionally, Disney does basically all of the planning, setting up, cleaning up, and worrying for you, so we would be free to focus on quelling any family drama that will inevitably pop up between now and next Spring.

Today, I actually got the chance to talk to someone from Disney to learn about any of the rules, regulations, and benefits that come along with doing a Disney wedding. It was actually very relieving to get to talk to an actual person today after trying to navigate Disney's site for information for so long. The man on the phone was very pleasant, very eager to help me, and was able to answer most of the questions I had (as is expected of anyone employed by Disney).

So, Disney has two main wedding package types to choose from: Escape and Wishes. Escape weddings are usually cheaper, allow for fewer guests (18 or fewer, but at certain sites, such as the Polynesian Resort and Wilderness Resort, you have a maximum of 10 guests). Wishes weddings have a minimum expenditure that you have to meet, and this minimum price depends on the day of the week you're planning on doing the wedding, as well as the season you're going for. (http://disneyweddings.go.com/site/wed/cus/wed_guide/com_quest.jsp see "What is a Disney wedding going to cost?").

The other thing about Wishes weddings, you have to guarantee a certain number of nights (depending on the number of guests) at Disney operated hotels. Based on what I can see in my Wishbook (Disney's free-to-use wedding planning tool) for between 10 and 40 guests, you must guarantee 25 hotel room nights (so, if your party booked 5 rooms at various resorts for 5 nights each, you'd be good to go). For 41 to 75 guests, you have to guarantee 50 nights. For 76 or more guests, you have to guarantee at least 75 nights.

Since we will likely have fewer than 41 guests, we would be booking 25 hotel nights for everyone. What we weren't sure about is which hotels we could use. I asked the gentleman on the phone today that question, and fortunately, he said any Disney hotel, whether it be a value, moderate, or deluxe resort, will satisfy the requirement. Additionally, what's really nice is that the man also told me that Disney Vacation Club timeshares will also count toward the requirement.

The other nice thing is that the bride and groom each get an annual pass to the parks. This is true for the Escape collection, and as far as I can tell, is also true for the Wishes collection. Additionally, your guests get discounts on hotel rooms and park tickets.

What we are still unsure about is what kind of food we could have at the reception. I am personally leaning toward brunch, but my fiance's parents seem to like the lunch idea better.

For a brunch, the minimum food expenditure is $75 per person, with the Tinkerbell brunch option used as a sample of their food menus costing $55 per person. What I gather from reading the various guides on Disney's website is that the rest of the money, the $20 per person, goes toward desserts, the cake, and beverages. The site also seems to suggest that you can put more toward food to supply your guests with more options to choose from. Personally, I kind of liked the idea of forcing all of my guests to eat lochs and gruel with V8 to wash it down, but I guess options aren't such a bad thing either.

The lunch option is a minimum of $100 per person, with the sample menu, "Tony's Town Lunch" costing $79 per person. Since alcohol is expensive, and neither me nor my fiance actually drinks at all, we'll save some money there by having only non-alcoholic beverages at the reception. If anyone complains, we are planning on hiring Goofy to rough them up (outside the sight of children, of course).

We are hoping to solidify an actual wedding date soon, after discussing the latest updates with family and friends!