Night or Day...? (An Elaboration)

I just received an email from a friend, who was kind enough to make the suggestions of compromising by having an afternoon ceremony and a dinner reception.

Here's the thing. Disneyland only has two wedding time slots. Daytime ~ with a morning wedding, leading to an afternoon reception. And evening ~ with an early evening wedding (some may consider a late afternoon), leading to an evening reception. It will be November when we have our wedding, thus making late afternoons dark (an idea that I love!). So, to take advantage of that sunlight (for photos ~ per friend's suggestion / not a huge concern of mine), is out of the question.

The reason why there IS a conflict in choice is this: our budget. Dinner receptions are ALWAYS more expensive than receptions held during any part of the day. Ultimately, yes, we *can* afford the evening wedding. However, Andrew is a big fan of saving that money for after our wedding, so that we can start out comfortably.

But do we go for the wedding that we both would love, but is significantly more expensive? OR do we play it safe and go for the less expensive option, where we could "deal" with the atmosphere?

So that we are on the same page, here are the visuals (videos & pictures) that we are looking at... Daytime vs. Nighttime:



(forgive the cheesy videos...it's all I could find for actual weddings at Disneyland)

A montage of the ceremony and reception (this girl has her reception in the Sleeping Beauty Pavilion):


A short documentary on a couple's Disneyland wedding. Kinda cute. They have their reception in the Sequoia Ballroom, though...not what we're looking at:


Finally, here's what the nighttime looks like for the Rose Court Garden:

Night or Day...?

As soon as we think we have it all figured out, the contract throws us a surprise! This entire time we had been working with a number of 75 ~ our coordinator even worked with us with this number. Andrew and I took a look over the contract, which came in last Tuesday, and saw that the minimum number stated in the contract was 80! Why didn't we think that there could be a minimum number of people when we were working with our budget?! I guess we were thinking that as long as we met the minimum $ per head, along with the minimum $ overall, that we would be okay. Alas, it is not so!

Now that we have discovered this, we have to reconsider that evening wedding. Boohoo! :-( Both Andrew and I have our hearts so set on having an evening wedding, that we can't even come to a final decision about it. The evening is known for romance. Twinkling lights, the moon, candles... The ceremony, the reception would all look SO much better in the evening. But do we find it worth the extra $5,000? The more I talk about it, the more I say it is. But...is it?

One positive for having the wedding during the day is that after the reception, we would have time to change and go into the park to watch the fireworks...and take pictures! Since the park doesn't allow people to come in in wedding gear, I plan on buying a nice white dress (and perhaps sneak in my veil and/or tiara), so that we still look a little wedding-y for the pictures.

If we do decide to go for the evening wedding, we will do the fireworks/park pictures the following night.

But what to do? Along with that, if we change the time of our wedding, the date could possibly change, as well. The contemplations...

The Big Reveal!!!

So, as some of you know, Andrew and I selected a wedding venue (ceremony and reception in one location) a few nights ago. We had struggled among three locations and had a really hard time letting go of the idea of having our wedding at these other locations. Because of that, we ended up "sitting" with the idea for a few days. Andrew worked at some gigs in San Diego and Huntington Beach, and while he was there, he bounced our idea off of a few people. Meanwhile, I kept the location secret among my friends. I didn't need to bounce it off anyone because I knew everyone would think it's great! Because of that, I didn't need to tell them, only to find out that Andrew was uncomfortable with our decision, and we would have to change it...making me go back to my friends and family and say "Oh ACTUALLY, we're doing it here."

Well, it turned out that Andrew got some great feedback and is excited about our decision! He sees how it fits us.

So, without any further ado...as our contract is being drawn up as we speak...Andrew and I are looking to get married on Saturday Evening, November 7th, 2009 in the Rose Court Garden at Disneyland!!! Followed by a a reception at Sleeping Beauty Pavillion.

We're SO excited to being one step closer in making it "official"!

A Low Point (turned good!)

Could this be the lowest point I'll be in during this wedding process? I sure hope so! And I gotta be thankful that it really didn't last too long.

For a moment, I felt all the research, the dream-planning was completely being ripped away from me in one fast motion (metaphor it as you wish). With stress about the budget and not knowing what we're working with, and wanting money there for our first year of marriage and for our own home, what else was there left to do to ensure that but (gulp) elope?!? And an intimate ceremony at Disney was looking less and less desirable to Andrew. So ~ what? We go to the courthouse? Vegas? Neither of which were any more desirable! My stomach turned upside down and nauseous at the thought of our dream wedding slowly fading into the distance.

Sure, we would have a nice starting-out home and not be in debt...and being married to each other is really the most important aspect of it all... but...pretty wedding... ;-( I'm not even asking for a *huge* wedding...we both wanted a small wedding, and to think that THAT wouldn't even possible? How is that so?!?

The good news is that a little over an hour later, I found out that Andrew's parents will, indeed, be contributing for the wedding. And that is huge! We will be good. AND Andrew found out that a place down the street from me went down in price by $9,000 ~ woohoo! So, if all works out, we could be set for a new home, as well.

All that is left is to PICK a venue. Could that happen tonight? Could be...who knows... (let's hope so!)

Serenity NOW!!!

Is it too early for frustrations to set in?

It is March 11th, and we are planning to have a wedding either October 24th or November 10th. That gives us roughly 7 months of planning, and we STILL don't have a venue picked. I _know_ people have done it in less time, but I feel like we've been sitting on our asses, doing NOTHING for the past month. Granted, a lot has been out of our control. We had about 4 weeks where we had nothing to do BUT wait until we could see what we thought could be our dream venue (it still could be ~ we just need to decide). Then as we waited for a good time to sit and go over our options, I had to find out that The Bachelor venue is available for weddings. Notice I didn't say that I had to find out IF it was available...because that wasn't my goal. My goal in googling The Bachelor house was to find the address after Andrew had pointed it out to my mom and me while we were touring L.A. But of course, as soon as I saw that they do weddings, I HAD to look at pictures, show them to Andrew, of which became: *we* HAD to see the venue!

*exasperated sigh*

Now add one more unique, gorgeous, accessible venue to our list.

So, we were going to do this decision making last Sunday. What did we do instead? We wired audio cables the entire weekend for Andrew's brother's client, Lifehouse. Can't gripe too much since I did get paid. Our discussion was rescheduled for Tuesday night. What happens Tuesday morning? Andrew realizes that he's leaving for Singapore that NIGHT, instead of Wednesday night. So, guess what? Our discussion is now postponed to the weekend...and let me guess, it will be Sunday ~ AT THE EARLIEST. Because let's face it. Andrew will be tired and will want to chill and recoop on Sunday.

So, what will I do until Saturday, when he returns? I will be taking hot baths and meditating to bring myself back to CENTER. Then focusing on what I can, which is making my skincare service menu for Planet Beauty (no, not a made up place ~ it's my new workplace).

Until then...serenity now...!!!

Breathe!

I need to calm down. :-)

This excitement for Villa de la Vina (aka The Bachelor/Bachelorette house) parallels to the excitement I had for the last venue we saw. I've constantly been checking Andrew's and my joint email account to see if they've emailed me back. I've emailed them through 3 websites ~ each, I'm sure, contacting someone different. Finally, it dawned on me to call them directly. Hey, that's what I was doing when we began this venue search! Somewhere along the way, I got spoiled by emailing the venues for information.

Anyway, I reached someone at the catering company that works with Villa de la Vina, and as she was taking my information, she asked "Did you send us your information earlier today?" I chuckled and said "Why, yes, I did!" LOL. She said that she printed out that information and gave it to Danny, who handles all of Villa de la Vina's events. He's gone for the day FOR an event, but he should be calling me soon. HOORAY!!!

Now to sit here and wait...

*twiddling thumbs*
*whistle, whistle...*

Just One More, Please?

SHUT UP!!! ABC's The Bachelor house is available for weddings?!?

Perhaps the venue search wasn't over... ;-D

Vote for My Bridal Canvas!!! :-D

This past Friday night, I was up until 2-in-the-morning (breaking out into a New Kids song right now ;-)) working on a bridal inspiration board on BridalCanvas.com. It was so much fun, even in an exhausted daze, I didn't want to quit until everything was "just right!" The "work" seems to be paying off so far, as the editors chose my canvas as a Top 10 Finalist for the week!

You can vote for my canvas here: http://www.bridalcanvas.com/canvas/issue/2369

Click on the "VOTE" button in the top right corner, and it will ask you log in or sign up for BridalCanvas.com. The only way for your vote to count is to register. It's free, easy, and I haven't received any junk mail from them ~ so, there's no worries on that!

The winners of the week win a $20 giftcard to Starbucks or iTunes. Then, are entered into a Quarterly contest for $200...and the winner of THAT is entered into a yearly contest for $500! Wow!

In any case, I would be so happy to have your vote and support! THANKS!!! :-D