Katlyn and Kevin- A Kingdom Hearts Wedding- *Wishes* Japan/LSS 09/17/17

MiniMosca

Take me back to Tokyo Disney
Joined
Sep 15, 2014
Hello everyone! I’ve been waiting forever to finally start my planning journal, and now that I’m at the 16 month out mark, I finally feel like it’s ok to start sharing!:rotfl: I’ve been reading planning journals for almost a year and I’m so happy to start mine now as I begin my magical Disney journey.

My DF wants to be involved in this journal so he is going to be writing his thoughts occasionally too. I won’t let him see the final version of entries because he’s not allowed to see my dress or some other surprises.:)

Basic Plans
Wedding Date: Sunday, September 17th 2017
Ceremony: 9:00am at the Japan Pavilion in Epcot
Reception: 10:00am-3:00pm at Living Seas Salon
Rehearsal Dinner: An Illuminations Dessert Party (Location TBD)

Table of Contents

Introductions
The Proposal and Tokyo Disney Trip Report
The Proposal Part 2
Wedding Plan
Wedding Party
 
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Now for some self-introductions!

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About the Bride

My name is Katlyn. I’m currently an English teacher working in Japan in a small town called Abu. I travel every between a few middle schools, elementary schools, kindergartens. I occasionally also run lessons for the elderly in the area. I have a little over a year left at this job, then I will be moving back to the states. I love you Japan, but the USA will always be my home.

I was raised by nerd parents, and they rubbed off on me. My hobbies are sewing, playing video games, watching cartoons, reading, and of course Disney!


About the Groom
(all of the things Kevin writes will be in purple)

My name is Kevin. I’m in my seventh year of college (I also work full-time at an apartment building across the street from Central Park) in New York City. I’m a media studies major who dreams of getting into voice acting. Because I work overnights at my job four nights a week, I’ve developed a slight (crippling) caffeine addiction, so I’ve become a bit of a coffee snob over the years. I’m going to take a break from all of that this January though, as I’ll be moving in with Katlyn for the remainder of her contract!

My parents aren’t as nerdy as Katlyn’s (especially my dad. He likes to act super serious all the time) but my mom is hugely supportive of my hobbies, and watches all the Marvel and DC stuff with me. I’m also a diehard Disney fan (I own most of the animated classics on Blu Ray) and I’m a gamer as well.



How we met


Pre-Kevin I hadn’t really dated or been interested in the matter. I went on one date with a guy in high school and felt like I was just going through the motions and not feeling anything. So I went to college figuring I would just leave that stuff aside and that it would be a long time before I got interested in romance.

One of the first things I did in college was join the Animation Club. It was a good place to relax between classes. You could just go down there anytime and play some games or watch some shows with friends. Kevin joined too, but somehow we never ran into each other until the club’s Halloween party in 2010.

It was a typical boy meets girl moment. I was dressed in a costume I’d made, complete with a beard. He was desperately trying to make something last minute at the party. I couldn’t help but think he was cute. I was sold on liking him when he drew a character from my favorite show in the Pictionary game.

I got a crush but I was busy and I didn’t want to rush stuff, so I started hanging out with him some just as friends. Unfortunately he got a girlfriend while we were being just friends so I thought it wasn’t going to happen.

Fast-forward to late spring and they broke up. I really didn’t want to be the rebound so I decided to be around a lot but not ask him out for a few weeks, to be safe. That idea got thrown out the window when I saw him with another girl. I tried to flirt with him and bombed hard. (Seriously, how did I not pick up on it when Katlyn joined me in my tiny pillow fort at Animation Club when I was finishing her copy of Kingdom Hearts:BBS that SHE lent me?!) I didn’t know what to do, and he didn’t get it. I ran to my friends room to cry and another friend of ours showed up and ended up calling him and telling him everything.

Turns out he had a crush on me too and didn’t think I was interested. We got together pretty soon after that, and have been going strong ever since. Sadly most of it has been long distance because he had to move home for college due to financial reasons. We have been dating 5 years now and happy as ever. Kevin is a real sweetheart who deals with all my high stress antics. I tell people I’ve never seen him mad at me, he reserves his anger for board games ;P.

When I got the job in Japan about 2 years ago he was super supportive. He had to stay to finish his degree in New York. But we figured we had practice with long distance, and Skype is great, so we could handle being apart. It’s been hard but we never gave up, and here we are!
 
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The Proposal & Tokyo Disney Trip Report


A Day at DisneySea

I felt this deserved its own post because this deserves a mini-trip report.

I had always joked with Kevin that I would refuse a proposal unless it was at Disney. We both knew it was going to happen when we decided to go to Tokyo Disney together when Kevin came to visit me for the first time after a year apart. Neither of us is super good at romance or being spontaneous, so it felt nice to have a little bit of structure to our plans.

Kevin arrived in Japan Saturday August 8th. After all the airport hugs, and I-missed-yous. We began the journey over to Tokyo Disney.

Super long tunnels, heavy suitcases, his jet-lag, and my exhaustion from taking an overnight bus made this part of the journey painful.

Exhausted, we arrived at the Hotel MyStays Maihama. It is close to the parks, without being on-property, and a much cheaper price. We could walk to the parks in about 10 minutes, and had a view of Disney Sea from our window. Amazing! We rested up for about an hour, then went over to the shopping area in front of the park for a bit. Ikspiari is huge and we had fun looking around, we debated over food before settling for a food court in the lower levels (it was a nice one). I wanted some western style food and Kevin wanted to try something more local, so it was a good compromise. We went to bed early to prepare for tomorrow. Our day at DisneySea!

The next day we got up super early to make our way over to the park. Tokyo Disney still uses the old style fastpass system, so we knew we wanted to get there before opening. Kevin was in charge of running to the Tower of Terror to get our fastpasses. (I had to push my way through the mob lining up for the Toy Story Mania! ride’s fastpass, New Yorker-style.) I had to run to get our dinner reservations set up (I’m the only one of us with any Japanese skills so I handled most of this kind of stuff.)

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I chilled around waiting for him to show up and then we got in line for Journey to the Center of the Earth. Even though this was still within 15 minutes of opening, this ride had the longest line of our trip. It was nicely themed and air-conditioned, at least.
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The ride was amazing and I really want to ride it again someday. The animatronics were top notch, a little silly looking but interesting. I haven’t read the book in years, so I can’t say how accurate it was, but it felt very imaginative. The ride at first is pretty slow, just going through caverns, but it's dark and you know something is going to happen. The whole time the girls in the car with us kept saying “kowai, kowai, kowai” (scary, scary, scary) in anticipation. Eventually the ride picked up and went fast and we went past the Lava monster, the best animatronic. He looked really fluid and cool, wish I had a pic of him… Then the ride did a drop down the outside of the Mount Prometheus and it was pretty much over.

Afterwards we ran over to our fastpass at Tower of Terror. We had mixed feelings on the ride.
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I’m a big fan of ToT in Hollywood Studios. I almost always ride it multiple times when we go to that park. I’ve had arguments with my mother, who prefers Rockin’ Roller Coaster, over what ride to reride. The intro story was cool (despite not being Twilight Zone themed) and the loading area was nice. But we both missed the creepier atmosphere of the American ToT, and the bellhops here were so friendly, perky, and nice. I found myself longing for the creepy dark humor I was used to. There was also no part where the elevator moves forward? The drop itself was fun, but we might have just gotten a bad pattern. I’d say it was fun, but we enjoyed the American version way more.
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After that ride we decided to make our way around the park a bit. We went up from American Waterfront towards Port Discovery. We looked around a bit there, but Stormrider had a long outside line (it was super hot) and the fastpass machine was down. So we went back towards the Mysterious Island area, got a fastpass for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and went to Vulcania for lunch.
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Vulcania is a cafeteria style lunch place. It's still a little pricey imo, but the food was good and the atmosphere was amazing. It's all in a cave with cool architecture built around it. We got the chilled noodles, spicy tofu, and dim-sum platter to share. It was pretty tasty. I also tried one of the special wines they offered, but wasn't a big fan.
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After that we went on 20,000 Leagues. It was very cute, and I had fun translating the audio guide for Kevin. He had to duck a little as the pods for the ride weren’t meant for someone tall as him. (Curse my Irish blood for making me tall and broad-shouldered!) The line for this ride wasn’t very long, so it might have been a fastpass waste, but oh well.

We then wandered up to Lost River Delta to ride the roller coaster Raging Spirits, and Indiana Jones Adventure. Both were fun, and I laughed a bit at how the Japanese voice over on Indiana Jones called him Indie Jones the whole time. Raging Spirits had a single rider line that we took advantage of. It’s not an amazing coaster, but it was fun and single rider made the line super short.
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After that, we walked to Arabian Coast, which was beautiful! We rode the Caravan Carousel first. We were getting hot and tired around then, so we looked for a snack. The whole time we were there we had been on a search for a very specific snack. Kevin and I are huge Kingdom Hearts fans and knew that the inspiration for the Sea Salt Ice Cream came from here. We found it at last in this area and bought a pair to try. It was super tasty, but that might just be because of the KH fan in me ;), salty and sweet.
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Then we went to the Magic Lamp Theater. They have some English translation help here, it was like a little ipad that gives a vague English translation of most of the dialogue. (Some of the live-action part seemed a little ad-libbed, so I missed out on some of the jokes.) The show was fun, and a nice mix of video and live action.

The next ride was one that became our favorite. There was almost no line here and it looked a little unassuming. Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage is the best, and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Its adorable, a nice relaxing indoor river ride, like It’s a Small World, but way better. The music was so good and the way it passed from room to room was neat! (Each room has one section of a much longer song, so the music builds off of the previous rooms and ends with a huge finale that has aspects of all of the parts!) You don’t need to understand Japanese to get the story, as it's all very clear. The characters are cute and endearing and I love it so.

We didn’t really ride any other rides after that, we were getting exhausted so we walked around and just sat for a bit. Normally we don’t like to stay so long in the parks without a break back at the hotel. But because we were only going to be at Tokyo Disney for two days, we stayed the whole day.


The Proposal


Dinner was at Magellan`s, we scheduled it during the fireworks because they weren’t busy then and it gave us some privacy. We ordered our courses and had a lovely time for the most part, Kevin was dealing with a little culture shock at this point, and I was getting antsy because he hadn’t proposed yet. I was scared he forgot how shy I was, and was going to do it in front of a lot of people.
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(We had the whole room to ourselves!)

Dinner was amazing, pricey, but amazing.

My meal was...
An appetizer mixer with a chilled vegetable soup shot, ratatouille, and there was another item I forgot because I ate it before I took the picture!
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Then a green salad with selection of cheeses.
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A main course of roast beef with fruit sauce and mashed potatoes.
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Followed by a dessert of raspberry ice cream and cheesecake
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After that we walked outside and we started towards the front shopping area, where the huge crowds of people were. He started looking around and I felt myself go into a panic and just tugged on his arm and said “no.” I have bad social anxiety that gets worse when I’m tired, and it’s much worse here in Japan because I’m always having to be a good example as a foreigner and a teacher. He took me over to a quiet spot and proposed there. It was still a little awkward because some girls were looking at us and I was on the edge of a panic attack, but looking back now I find it sweet. (The reason I wanted to do it there was because it was night time, so the lights in the Mediterranean Harbor looked fantastic from across the water. I was trying to be romantic but my nerves combined with Katlyn’s anxiety, it ended up being awkward and rushed.) I feel bad it wasn’t magical as we hoped, but I’m going to make sure the wedding makes up for it!

Here's the ring! (I wonder if anyone will get the reference?)
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Oh and before we left I went back to the store to pick this guy up!

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This post is getting long so the second, and last day will be next post.
 
following along! I love Kingdom Hearts and live in NYC too.

On the ring is that from Zelda is it the stone the Princess Ruto gives Link after you save Jabu Jabu (terrible with names but the water level in Zelda: Twilight Princes)?

Edited because I looked up the right names.
 
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Yay you've finally started your PJ! After all your attention on mine I have to come back and see how your day turns out :)

Your engagement ring is Zora's Sapphire!!! So cool and it sounds like it's so perfect for you as a couple.
 
Love it! Following along! And I can't wait to make it our to Tokyo Disney Resort! Definitely my top international Disney park to see.
 
following along! I love Kingdom Hearts and live in NYC too.

On the ring is that from Zelda is it the stone the Princess Ruto gives Link after you save Jabu Jabu (terrible with names but the water level in Zelda: Twilight Princes)?

Edited because I looked up the right names.

Very close! Yep it's the Zora Sapphire Ruto gives you, its in Ocarina of Time though. Thanks for following along!

Yay you've finally started your PJ! After all your attention on mine I have to come back and see how your day turns out :)

Your engagement ring is Zora's Sapphire!!! So cool and it sounds like it's so perfect for you as a couple.

Yay! :wave2:I loved you PJ. Kevin and I really enjoyed reading along and seeing how your day turned out. And you are exactly right on the ring.:thumbsup2 We picked it out together before the proposal, and I love it.

Love it! Following along! And I can't wait to make it our to Tokyo Disney Resort! Definitely my top international Disney park to see.

Thanks for the follow. Tokyo Disney is a really amazing park and I hope you can see it. I'm taking my parents there in the fall because I've always wanted to see Japan's Halloween celebration.:Pinkbounc
 


Very close! Yep it's the Zora Sapphire Ruto gives you, its in Ocarina of Time though. Thanks for following along!

Drat! That's what I get for asking my fiance what Zelda have I been playing a lot when I couldn't remember which one it was from. I've been playing both Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time non-stop lately.
 

Tokyo Disney Half Day

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This day was much shorter and the park is basically the same as the regular Magic Kingdom, just laid out a little differently. (TOON TOWN STILL EXISTS HERE AND I LOVED IT.) We had to leave around 4 to make our bus, so we only did a few things here. As we were waiting in line for our first ride of the day, a small parade went by. They were playing the Mickey Mouse theme on taiko drums!
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The outfits on the dancers were super cute!

We rode the Haunted Mansion first, and boy was that a weird mix of English and Japanese. The voice over was in Japanese, the song was in English, and I believe Madame Leona was speaking English too. It was the same ride that I loved, so I had a good time. We took a coffee break (Kevin needs his caffeine!) and watched part of the parade, I’ll talk more about that later.
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The next ride was our fast pass at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Not much to say about it as it’s the same as in America. Kevin was dying to go to Toon Town so we walked over there and looked around a bit. We got to meet Clarabelle and Horace! And I really like the Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin ride. The line themeing was excellent and they made a very small space seem big.
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After that we went to Splash Mountain. This was another language mix. Most of the characters were speaking Japanese, the song was mostly the English one. We were lightly soaked, and as we walked it started to rain as well. Our lunch plans were at Blue Bayou, but because we had a later start we couldn’t get a reservation and had to wait for about 45 minutes. We toughed it out and were mostly dry by the time we sat down. Neither of us had been to DisneyLand before so this was a special treat for us.

I honestly forgot what I ate. This is what I get for making a trip report almost a year later. It was delicious though. I am sure of that.

We ran over afterwards to catch the Parade. The summer parade was special this year, it was the Disney Natsu Matsuri (Summer Festival) I took a bunch of pictures and video, but it was a little cloudy and I was trying to protect my camera from the water sprays.
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To sum up the parade, there are two teams, the Purple and the Blue. Purple team had Donald, Daisy, and the Chipmunks (including Clarice who is much more popular here).
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Blue team had Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy,and Max.
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I cheered for Purple because I love the ducks and the color purple. Kevin said he cheered for purple, but he was so happy to see Max that I know he changed sides. (Seriously, Japan seems to love Max Goof, since it gives Goofy a partner for these kinds of things. Step up your Goof game, WDW!)
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The floats go around in a circle, taking turns. During their turn the characters dance around on the float while the assistants spray water at the crowd. At the end of the show the float go to the area in front of the castle and launch rockets of water up in the air. It’s a lot of fun.
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We only had a little time before we had to go so we ran over quickly to get some Honey Popcorn near the Winnie the Pooh area. We enjoyed our snack, took a quick peek in some shops, said hi to a character or two, and then ran for the hills.
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All the face characters were foreigners and they spoke English mostly, although they understood Japanese and would speak it if needed.

Our engagement trip lasted another week and a half but the rest of it wasn't Disney, so I'll just say it was a lot of fun and we got to see a lot areas in Japan I hadn't been to yet. Sadly Kevin had to leave and return back to America. I had to stay here. Long distance is never easy and I feel like the engagement made it even harder. I know we'll see each other soon and our wedding will make all the waiting worth it!

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In the meantime I have these guys to keep me company, so there's that!
 
Glad to be done with the engagement story. Now on to the future!!


Current Wedding Plan


We called Disney a few days ago and got penciled in for a wedding on September 17th 2017. They warned us that usually Food and Wine starts near the end of September, but it might get moved up. I'm flexible on the date as long as it's a Sunday in September (I have a lot of teacher friends who want to be back Monday or Tuesday). September is ideal because it’s a month after I get back from Japan. So I have some time to adjust, but don't have to wait much longer (I'm already dying from all the waiting now.) I also just like that month in general.

We want a morning ceremony at the Japan pavilion in Epcot. I've always loved how pretty it is, especially the view of Spaceship Earth through the Tori Gate. Most pictures of wedding there have the pagoda or garden in the background, but I'm hoping to do the Tori gate if possible. I love the gardens but because I can read the signs they have standing in that area, my mood would be ruined. I don't really want a sign saying grilled chicken in my wedding photo. :p Japan just felt like the right spot, I loved it when I was a little kid and I'd love to share a little slice of my life now with my family, and Kevin likes it too. For the brunch reception we are looking at Living Seas Salon. It looks beautiful from the pictures, and I like that it’s indoors and pretty much already decorated for us.

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We keep hemming-and hawing over having a dessert party. I would love to get pics in my dress with the fireworks. But after a full day of wedding shenanigans I know I'll be exhausted. I can only handle so much social interaction before my brain just fries, and I'd hate to get all grumpy on my wedding day. We talked a bit and Kevin's mom suggested that a Rehearsal Dinner DP would be a good idea. Only our wedding party and close family members would be there, so more money saved! We still are undecided on that right now and we don't have any firm ideas on the location. I'd love to hear anyone's suggestions for their favorite Illuminations spot!

I have been collecting images and ideas for about a year now so I already have a bunch of thoughts. At first I chose purple as my wedding color. But I ended up switching the colors to blue and gold, like my ring.
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Sapphire is my birthstone and I'd love to have that color everywhere.

The Kingdom Hearts games have meant a lot to me growing up and luckily Kevin loves them too. So there’s our theme! We want to make it subtle enough that our relatives won't necessarily get it, but all our friends will. So lots of heart and key shapes will be used, and maybe some paoupu fruit too.

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I'm a big DIY person but I'm trying to rope it in some, since I'd have to transport anything I make back to America. But... I am making my own wedding dress. I've already started work on it, but I'm too embarrassed to post pictures of it until it gets a little further along:o. For now I'll share the design sketch.
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Making it lets me make a design I like, that yes is a Kingdom hearts reference, but also I always feel more confident in clothing I made myself. Also it gives me a project to work on while I wait around.

Kevin is super involved in almost all our decision making. He knows I love to plan, and is happy to help and give advice. But I'm not letting him see the dress once it gets close to looking like the real thing, that is staying a surprise! Planning is kinda of hard to do together very often. We're both busy with work and the time difference is killer (13 hours). We skype 3 or 4 times a week for a few hours. I try to not talk too much about wedding stuff, but I have to hold myself back. I know it’s far away, but I'm really excited and have always been a planner. For now we've decided to list our top three things so we don't lose focus.

For me, it’s:
  1. Photography
  2. Overall aesthetic (basically does it look right, decorations and all)
  3. Food

For Kevin, it’s:
  1. Food
  2. Photography
  3. Entertainment (I guess music is included in that)
 
Love your sketch! Can't wait to see more of it! I made my prom dresses in high school, and I used to draw designs, so I am looking forward to seeing how it comes together!
 
I'm caught up now! I love the sketch of your dress, I can't wait to see pictures as it takes shape! I hope they let you get married under the gate in the Japan pavilion, that view is so beautiful with Spaceship Earth in the background!
 
Love your plans and the dress sketch! I originally wanted purple too, but have a sapphire ring and so changed my colors to blue with a lavender accent.
 
Love your sketch! Can't wait to see more of it! I made my prom dresses in high school, and I used to draw designs, so I am looking forward to seeing how it comes together!

Thank you! That's so cool you made you own prom dress! Drawing the designs is a lot of fun, but the challenge is making it happen. But, I've been making costumes for conventions for the past 10 years so I'm hoping I'm up to the challenge. I'm a good way into it but keep going back and fixing things that bother me so hopefully I can post a picture soon.

I'm caught up now! I love the sketch of your dress, I can't wait to see pictures as it takes shape! I hope they let you get married under the gate in the Japan pavilion, that view is so beautiful with Spaceship Earth in the background!

Yay, I'm glad you like it! Progress is happening pretty fast now since work is slower in the summer. Probably I can post a progress photo once I get the skirt rough sewed together. And yes, I love that view under the gate. It reminds me of the gate at Miyajima, but with that Disney touch with Spaceship Earth. Kevin told his friends about it and they all were confused why I like Epcot so much:confused:. I don't think they've had a chance to enjoy that area much since they haven't gone back to the parks since they were little (I loved it even when I was young but I was a big nerd). Hopefully our wedding gives them a chance to see that area shine!

Love your plans and the dress sketch! I originally wanted purple too, but have a sapphire ring and so changed my colors to blue with a lavender accent.

Those colors sound nice. Lavender is such a lovely shade. We probably will sneak some deep purple in if we can (maybe a gradient somewhere mixing blue and purples). It's both are favorite colors, and my father loves it too:p. And thanks for the compliment on the sketch!
 
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Wedding Party

We've already given out our invitations to our wedding party members. Most of them are still fairly fresh out of school so we wanted them to have time to start saving up. I have four guaranteed bridesmaids and one "maybe depends on how she feels that week" bridesmaid

The Maid of Honor is my best friend Karin. We met when I first started going to conventions. I think it was Connecticon 2010 or 2009? She chased after me when I was leaving a photoshoot. We kept running into each other and eventually exchanged contact info and started chatting online. We only really see each other at conventions, but we message and watch stuff together online all the time. I rely on talking to her to keep me sane while I'm stuck alone in Japan.
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(Us in our natural cosplay habitat)

The other bridesmaids are my three college friends, Izzie, Ivy, and Steph. Ivy was in Dumbledore's Army with me, and we did eboard for that club for a while too. Izzie I met my last year of college and we hung out a bunch in the Animation club. We spent many an afternoon complaining about the gross anime some of the other club members put on. Steph was a friend I met early on in college and she is the reason Kevin and I got together. It wouldn't feel right to have our day without the person who started it all. They're all great people that I'm excited to share my day with.

I have a fifth bridesmaid thats a maybe. I asked my sister, but she has some mental health issues that make her a little unreliable. I love her dearly but I'm realistic about what she's like. She recently moved in the middle of the night across the country, and she has meltdowns usually when other people have big events (this big move happened when I was visiting home and about to fly back to Japan) So I gave her an invitation and hope she can come, but I'm planning to be ok with or without her. She might end up just coming but not be up to the stress of being in the wedding party and that'll be okay too.

Depending on how early she bails, I may or may not find a backup bridesmaid. I like numbers being even, but I don't want anyone to feel like a backup friend :confused3

I'm planning on telling the girls to get blue dresses in this shade and then let them choose the style. They're all vastly different body types and personalities, so as long as they match the swatch (and don't outdo me) it's fine.
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(Probably around this color)

I want to make it easy for them and not demand too much so I told them I'm taking care of their hotel for the night before the wedding. The wedding is so early I'd rather just get a suite and have them stay with me for the night. I'm also paying for their hair styling and jewelry as part of my present to them. So all they have to do is get the dress and get down there. Oh and of course provide me support and help me make decisions time to time.

We chose to ask Kevin's friend Johnny to be our officiant. Johnny is very qualified as he is officially the most knowledgeable person in the United States about Power Rangers, as deemed by the official biannual Power Rangers convention, Power Morphicon.
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(Johnny approved this picture)

But really, Kevin has too many friends he wants involved so we are just trying to give them all something to do. I told Kevin to stop having so many friends, gosh it’s making me look bad. He's got 5 groomsmen, an officiant, 2 ushers, and he wanted to give more people tasks till I told him to just let some people sit and enjoy the party. Let the people sit Kevin!

Kevin says: My best man is going to be my little brother, James. He’s graduating high school this June, and although he’s got some social anxiety issues, he gladly accepted the job. My other four groomsmen are my best friends from high school, David, Eric, and Mycaah, and my friend Kevin, who was engaged and asked me to be one of HIS groomsmen (unfortunately, his engagement ended prematurely). I felt really bad that I had to pick and choose, as I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but Katlyn was gracious enough to let me pick 2 friends to be ushers.

:surfweb: Maybe they just want to sit and chill Kevin? Maybe~

I haven't chosen any flower girls or ring bearers yet. I'm hoping to ask my cousins if I can borrow one of their little ones for some of the roles. I'll ask when I know for sure who can come. Sadly because they live over in Nashville, and I've been in Japan the last two years, I haven't had a chance to meet their kids. I really hope they can come so we can reconnect. (Kevin says: I have some younger cousins as well, so Katlyn and I will do our best to divvy up the roles to appease both our families.) Too many babies to choose from!
 
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I've returned!:yay: Its been pretty crazy at work the last week. Mostly because I broke a couple toes when I was playing with some first graders at recess. It's a really minor injury but it's slowed me down a bit and gave me a bit more stress :(. Fortunately it wasn't too bad so I didn't have to deal with going to a doctor and have to explain it in Japanese (doctor appointments over here just stress me out). Kevin and I also spent the previous week watching E3 livestreams and getting hyped about all the new games. Can't wait for the new Zelda, and of course the new Kingdom Hearts game!

Anyway... On to the actual wedding status update! We're about 15 months out now so there's a lot of things we can't do, but I've moved ahead on a couple bits and pieces. Photography is important to me. I spent too many years cosplaying to not notice how important a a good photographer is for catching a moment. So I spent some time browsing photographers people used in past journals and then emailing around a bit. I think I'm pretty settled on The Roots as my photographers of choice. I just love all their work I've seen and so far they've been really nice and easy to work with. I'll officially book them in about a month, but that's pretty much set. I'm less worried about videographers. I asked The Roots for their recommendation of who they work well with and will be thinking about that but probably won't make a decision until closer.

Over the last few months I've really tried to hold back on buying too much wedding stuff in case I change my mind. I have a huge bookmark folder full of things I like, but I'm being good and holding back. The only MAJOR purchase I really did was buying all the wedding dress fabric. I did buy two things already though. I have already chosen and bought my shoes. I did them early because I needed to know the height so I can make the skirt the proper length. And I saw them and just knew it was the thing I've been looking for.
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I want to change the ribbon laces for different one possibly... and I might decorate the shoe a little to make it a more stylish. But its a perfect base to start from!:lovestruc I'm glad that I found a proper wedding boot. When I was searching I kept finding really cheap costumey shoes, or ones with a peep toe. I don't really like peep toes, they tend to end up hurting my feet pretty fast. For now, I had the shoes sent to my home in America, so I won't see them for a while. My mother tried them on and said they were good, we're almost exactly the same size, so hopefully there won't be any problems. I'll try them on when I make a visit home. If the worst happens and they don't fit, I'll look into a backup.
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I also ordered this shawl from the same website since it pushed my order into the free shipping pricing. I don't know if I will use it, but it looked pretty and it might be nice to have a shawl around since my dress is shoulder-less.

I've also already done some jewelry purchasing. I commissioned a custom brooch for my dress thats in the shape of a symbol from kingdom hearts, if you're interested its called The Mark of Mastery :p. The character I'm basing my dress off of wears it, so I always had the idea in my head that i wanted a brooch in that shape and was trying to decide if I wanted to try and make one. I only really have experience making fake jewelry out of things like fimo, paper clay, and worbla. And those work for costumes but I wanted something a little higher quality. I went back to the man who made my engagement ring, Austin Moore of Earth Art Gem and Jewelry, and asked him about my design. He gave me a pretty good price so it all worked very well.
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This guy is great at making nerdy high quality jewelry! I may go back to him for my wedding band if I can't find something I like.
 
The sketch of your dress is absolutely gorgeous! Can't wait to see how all your plans unfold! Loved your proposal story! Following along!popcorn::
 
I love your Aqua inspired dressed! I'm desperately awaiting the new KH games, so I absolutely adore your wedding theme!
 

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