Steph & Patrick-7/21/18-Wishes Wedding-Wedding Pavilion/Cali Grill

unbeknownst

Mouseketeer
Joined
Feb 12, 2010
It's taken me a while to decide whether or not to do a planning journal/hopefully eventual trip report. I fell in love with Disney Weddings as little girl; when I found this forum, it helped me realize that a Disney Wedding might be a reality instead of a fantasy. Of course, this was way back in 2007 when the board was a lot more active. It's been sad to see the activity decline so sharply. So, I figured, why not go ahead and put my wedding plans out there. My fiancé is totally on board and if any of my guests find it, they are welcome to read along too.

So without further ado,

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My name is Steph and my fiancé's name is Patrick. We met on an online dating website in 2016 and quickly realized we were meant to be. We've taken 3 Disney trips together; our most recent one was in December 2017 and included our Wedding Planning session. The picture above is from that trip - we love characters and were super excited to meet Scrooge McDuck at MVMCP.

What else to share with you about us? We both work in education. Patrick teaches high school English and I'm a school counselor. Patrick is a huge fan of Marvel - both the comic books and the movies. We also really love board games, video games, and puzzles. My brother and his wife gave us a 4000 piece puzzle for Christmas that we need to start working on. I would describe us as pretty geeky. I am much more introverted than Patrick. He is very much a people-person and draws his energy from those around him. I like people, but I often have a lot of social anxiety and it's much harder for me to form close friendships. I've been very fortunate that Patrick's friend group has embraced me, quirks and all.

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Photography credit to Jess Collins Photography.

Patrick proposed at the place of our first date, Barnes & Noble. For a few months before the proposal, Patrick had worked on creating a special picture book for me detailing important moments from our relationships. It was definitely a labor of love. Unfortunately for him though, I'm very much a homebody so when he was ready to put his plan into motion, it was difficult for him to talk me into leaving the house. Thankfully, I acquiesced. We went to the mall first and decided to just "stop by" the Barnes & Noble to look for books to read on an upcoming lake weekend. I was totally in the dark.

Patrick hid his special project on the shelf and then slyly lead me to the right shelf to find it. Unfortunately, he didn't count on me being a terrible finder. I stared blankly at the shelf. I told him I didn't see the book I wanted there. He asked me to look again and I just continued to be oblivious. He finally had to make it super obvious "hey that author has the same name as me!" for me to even notice his creation. We read the picture book together and the last page was a picture of him proposing. When I saw him get down on one knee, I thought my heart would burst.

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(us at a convention, I told you we were geeky)

Since I'm starting this wedding planning journal a little late, I'm going to try to write a post every day/few days until I got caught up a little. But, here are the basics of our upcoming Disney Wedding so you can decide if you want to follow along.

We started planning a little before the 12 month mark. We'd already talked about the possibility of a Disney Wedding before Patrick even proposed. We filled out an inquiry on the Disney Wedding website and were put into contact with a sales coordinator the week after the proposal. We quickly penciled in our preferred dates/locations. We ended up getting our first choice for everything, which was quite a relief.

We'll be getting married on July 21, 2018 at the Wedding Pavilion. Our reception will follow immediately after at the California Grill. Later that night, we'll be hosting a dessert party at Italy Isola West. The night before, July 20th, we'll be having our rehearsal dinner at the Hoop Dee Doo Revue.

I think that's enough for right now! I'll update again and go through some of the planning we've already done for our wedding. Hopefully you guys will be interested in following along!
 
:) Thanks so much! I'm glad you're following along.

So, for our next entry, I think it's important to address the question.

Why a Disney Wedding?

I addressed this some in first post, but I know this is something that a lot of people have asked me about. For me, it was never really a questioned. I've dreamed of this wedding since I was a little girl. I bought the Disney Wedding Passporter Book way back in like 2009 when I was nowhere close to even getting engaged to anyone. I've followed Disney Weddings through what seems like lots of twists, turns, and changes. My family would have been extraordinarily surprised if I had decided to get married anyone else.

For Patrick, it obviously wasn't quite as cut and dry. Before meeting me, he had only been to Disney World once when he was about 8 years old. Since the vast majority of his extended family lives out in California, his main Disney parks experience was day-trips to Disneyland. Thankfully, while he didn't have the same love of the parks that I have, Patrick is a huge Disney IP fan. When Disney bought Marvel, his love for them grew even more. When we took our first Disney trip together back in August 2016, mission "Get Patrick to Love Disney World" was in full force. Thankfully, Goofy was on my side and made our trip by playfully teasing Patrick about proposing.

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While the proposal didn't happen on that trip, Goofy (and all of the other character experiences) helped to get Patrick hooked. When we started talking Weddings and I brought up Disney World, he was immediately on board. It was a huge relief.

There were just a few bumps left in the road. As I mentioned earlier, the vast majority of his family lives out in California and we knew that traveling to Florida for our wedding might be difficult. We talked about potentially doing at Disneyland Wedding instead of Disney World, but ultimately decided against it. Neither of us have a super strong connection to Disneyland (I've never been, although that's going to change soon), and we didn't think we'd be able to afford that costs of a large Disney Wedding. However, we also didn't want to risk offended any of Patrick's family.

When Patrick talked to his mom, she was also fully supportive. She is going to be an amazing mother-in-law and constantly reminds Patrick "happy wife, happy life" haha. As a compromise since we can't afford to invite everyone to Disney, she is going to host a wedding reception for us out in California on August 3rd at a local golf club to include more of their family. Everything she has planned is so wonderful and above and beyond - we can't wait to celebrate again in California.

The last piece of the puzzles was our friends. Patrick's friend group is very close and he would have been devastated if they hadn't been able to attend. So, before officially pencilling our wedding date, we made sure to speak to them (and our families) to make sure that people would be able to attend. I know many people have pushback or drama surrounding the Disney Wedding decision, but we have been so blessed to have been met with only positivity and support.

For us, "why Disney" is pure dream/fantasy fulfillment and what could be more Disney than that?
 


Thanks so much!

I'm going to try to write another post later today about wedding stuff, but I had my bachelorette/bridal shower this weekend so I thought I would write about that. We did everything early because one of my bridesmaids lives in Michigan and only had time to travel to VA once before the wedding.

The Bachelorette

As I mentioned earlier, I'm very much a nerd haha. Partying/clubbing/drinking are not really things I have much experience with, so my bachelorette party was probably pretty lame by most standards. However, I absolutely loved it! I took Friday off work and went with some of my friends to get manicures/pedicures at a local spa.

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The spa was actually able to take all 5 of us back at the same time, which was nice.

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I got regular polish instead of shellac and that was probably a mistake. It's already chipping super badly - I have the worst luck with nail polish!

After we got our nails done, we went back to my sister-in-law's house and got ready to go to an Escape Room! If you've never done an escape room before, it's an interactive game where they "lock" you in a room and you try to solve puzzles to make it out of the room before 60 minutes runs out. Patrick and I do a lot of escape rooms together and with our friend group. The escape room we did for the Bachelorette was actually a little creepy - we were all handcuffed and padlocked together haha. It made for an interesting start to the night. I don't have any pictures in or of the room, but we did take one after!

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We made it out with 15 minutes to spar - it was so much fun! It did take us forever to find the handcuff key though. The guy running the room finally gave us a hint (although that was the only hint we needed, which was pretty good).

My sister-in-law-to-be is the one who brought the cute Minnie ears for everyone! I loved them so much.

After the escape room, we went out to a very nice dinner! It was everything I wanted and I had such an amazing time. I have wonderful friends.

The Bridal Shower

Saturday, my bridesmaids hosted a shower for me at my mom's house. They did such an amazing job on the decorations!

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My parents helped create this balloon arch - I've always loved balloons (even though I developed a latex allergy in late high school) and they just looked so beautiful.

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We had SO much food even though it was a small shower (16 people... our wedding is only going to be about 60ish most likely).

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These cupcakes were so beautiful and so delicious! I feel in love with the ones that had the rose in the middle.

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We got so many wonderful presents! We also played a fun game where we had to try to match Disney love songs with their appropriate movie.

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I'm not normally someone who enjoys being the center of attention, so the shower was something I worried about a little. It ended up being so much fun and just has me so excited for the upcoming wedding!
 
Your bachelorette party sounds like it was a lot of fun! I am also not a club type person. I am doing my big one in Disney at Epcot in May, then a smaller thing at home, going to a paint bar and then dinner. Your shower was super cute too. It is a good way to break in the "center of attention" thing.
 


Congratulations! My bachelorette party wasn't a ton of clubbing either- we went to Dueling Pianos on the Boardwalk for a more laid back experience. The escape room sounds super fun though- that's a really fun idea! Love seeing all of your pics!
 
Congratulations!! Your shower sounds great and the escape room very interesting and different!! I like it :)

Are you having an Escape wedding?
 
Thanks guys! It was a lot of fun and very me. We're actually having a wishes wedding. We're waiting to get RSVPs back now. Our RSVP deadline is May 22nd. It's killing me having to wait so long! I just want to get all of them back now.

We used Minted.com for our save-the-dates and invitations. The invitation was PERFECT (I think) for a Disney Wedding.

Save-The Date:

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Invitation Front:

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Invitation Back:

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I have a bit of an obsession with paper products haha. I'm currently working on our programs, but I've hit a bit of a wall. Eventually I just need to sit down and push through it.

I also realized I hadn't shown you guys my wedding dress!! I went dress shopping last July with all of my bridesmaids + my mom + my mother-in-law to be. It was AMAZING. I ended up ordering the Hayley Paige Chandon gown in rose.

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The dress has beautiful glitter tulle that makes it SO sparkly. I'm head over heels in love with it.
 
Love, love your wedding dress, Save the Dates and wedding invitation!!!
 
Your save the dates and invites are super cute! Your dress is stunning! I love the pink!
 
Congratulations on your engagement and upcoming wedding.

Your dress is so beautiful!
 
Thank you guys so much!

Less than 60 days to go update

Things are really starting to come together. We got all of our RSVPs back on May 22. We ended up hitting 75% of our guaranteed minimum number of adults exactly lol. We have 49 adults (including us) and two infants. That really cut our food cost down (all of our BEOs had been estimated 66), which was a pleasant surprise. It also made finishing our seating chart super easy!

Our floral has been hovering right around 5k. I really love daisies and I guess they are a cheap flower which is helping to keep costs down. I cut the aisle runner pretty early on in our planning process and part of me still wants to add it back... but it just seems like a waste of a little over a thousand dollars. I'm never going to use it again and I know I'm not going to go out of my way to get it framed. We have a bunch of already framed pictures that we haven't bothered to hang up haha.

I had a major transportation freak out early last week. Only like 9 people are staying on property. Everyone else is at Air B&B's and other off site hotels, which is fine. My initial thought was everyone could just get themselves from the Wedding Pavilion to the Contemporary by using their rental cars, uber, or the monorail. Then, I just kept having nightmares of people getting lost or the monorail breaking down. I went back and forth and back and forth, but I finally decided just to pay for the mini-motorcoach charter. I think it's probably a waste, but it's giving me piece of mind.

We're having our final BEO review call next week. It's a little early because our planner is pregnant and wants to get it done with our new planner before she goes out on maternity leave.
 
Ahhh another Hayley Paige bride!!!!! Love the Chandon gown :lovestruc I'm so excited to see everything come together! I was one of those people who kept the aisle runner mainly because I wanted to frame it and put it in our house and I love the way it turned out! It was a pretty painless process too.. just a thought if you decide to keep it :D I think you will end up being thankful that you booked transportation for the ceremony to the reception! It's nice to have that piece of mind and all of our guests commented that they loved how smooth and organized everything was with the transportation. You definitely don't want to have to worry about people getting lost! And it's nice to have everyone arrive at the same time.

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I adore Hayley Paige gowns! Congratulations on your wedding! I hope you're able to pop back with some photos :goodvibes
 

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