Katie & Fred - wishes fairy tale wedding 2/14/2015- WP/LSS/TDF

[katiebride2015]

Long time lurker of these forms but finally ready to start my wedding planning journal.

**~ABOUT US~**
Fred and Katie first met at a friends lake house. After discussing technology with Katie, Fred offered to hire Katie as a programmer. Ever sense, Fred and Katie continue to work together on all of lifes projects together.

-katie-

I spend my time figure skating at the ice rink, taking care of Jordan and spending Fred's money!

-fred-

I spend my time working in technology earning money for Katie, supporting her passion to figure skate. In my free time I enjoy playing video games with Jordan and traveling with my family.


**~PRE PRE PLANNING~**

PICKING DISNEY
Fred grew up in Florida and spent many family vacations at disney and was the one to suggest having our wedding at Disney. Initially we discussed having our wedding at disney world because my family is originally from California( more convenient). After comparing WDW to DL Fred and I decided that WDW had more options and more features than DL.

PICKING A DATE
Fred suggested Feb 14. I said YES!

WAITING TO CALL DISNEY
This I consider an important planning time for the bride and groom. To pass the time fred and started looking at different venues for the ceremony and reception. We were able to eliminate several of the ceremony venues at Epcot based on the number of guests we are expecting. Fred's first pick for venues was the WP-- I had hesitations (more on that later). From there we made a list of venues for the reception in order of fist choice second choice ect. Fred and I also began discussions about budget during this time. These conversations helped our initial conversations with Disney go much smoother and take less time.

THE FIRST CALL TO DISNEY
so it's one year out and we can finally call disney make reservations and get the wedding planner and get started. UMM NO. That's not how it works. When you first call DFTW you do to automatically talk to a wedding planner. You talk to a booking agent whose job is to basically make the initial reservation. She also explains to you the lottery process.
The lottery process-- to be fair disney has a lottery for wedding date and use of the facility. If you get lucky you might be the only couple interested in that specific location on that date on that time BUT there is a possibly there might be someone else. So Disney has a lottery. Waiting to hear back about the lottery was very stressful for my fiancé. This is something I definitely did not know and caught me off guard when disney told us. While I waited I started to look at photographers.

 

[LadyD]

A figure skater!! A passion of mine too! What a fantastic date the two of you have. Can't wait to hear what you have planned! The struggle of DL vs WDW with family in California is hard.

 

[katiebride2015]

*~INVITATIONS~*

After much research and searching through Pinterest and slightly running out of time, I have decided to go with Impressions/Themes Come True/Shelly. Fred and I are big fans of disney history and fell in love with her vintage ticket design. We have requested to change the colors to match our wedding colors of gold and pink but not much else. Working with her has been super fun and easy. They are very responsive via both email and phone. However the price she charges is definitely a premium. I will post a follow up after we have finished working with her.

*~MY FAIRY GODMOTHER~*
I know many of the disney brides live local in Florida and therefore most of their guests are also local too. Unfortunately, we live in Texas and most of our guests live outside of Florida as well. This is why I am giving my travel agent the title of fairy god mother. I highly recommend working with a travel agent. She helps me manage my guests and is very helpful when it comes to planning group activities. The best part about her is she is completely FREE. She makes a commission off the reservations she makes and disney pays her NOT ME! I met her at a summer camp fair at a local mall purely by accident. If anyone is interested PM me and I can pass along contact info.

*~THE REHEARSAL DINNER~*
This has to be the second negative part of my planning process. When we first talked to our WP from disney, she totally sold us on having our rehearsal dinner in the animal kingdom with a ride on the safari ride. Unfortunately due to the renovations at animal kingdom our only dining option was Pizzafari, which was not exactly the vibe we wanted. On top of that after getting our budget back we quickly found out that any extra money we thought we had was rapidly disappearing. SO we got a little creative. Instead of our fabulous African safari rehearsal dinner we changed it to a welcome dinner/bachelor and bachelorette party in Epcot and it is half the price. After several phone calls to disney dinning and one phone call with a manager we were able to make a reservation for 40 people at Germany. We will spend the rest of the evening doing a drinking scavenger hunt around the world show case collecting disney trading pins!