An Online Ordering FOOL!!! (and other updates)

It's hard to believe that in 2 months, 1 week, and 5 days our magickal wedding day will be here! I am SO excited for it. :-)

In the meantime, I'm getting the "smaller" details checked off the list! "Smaller details," but details that have been running through my head since we were engaged. As I sit here and run through that checklist, I realize that I can't go into too much detail about it, or share pictures by chance any of our guests or my MOHs read this blog! I promise I will show-and-tell AFTER the wedding! :-) But I CAN announce that favors, bridal shower hostesses gifts, and centerpiece items were purchased! I've received everything but one part of the shower hostesses gifts and the centerpiece items. AND we officially approved our invitations today!!! So, they'll be going into print and delivered SOON!!!

Several weeks ago, we picked up Andrew's wedding band!!! Here's a pic of our wedding rings set!
Andrew and I finally went through Disney's Banquet Event Order. Did I call it Budget Event Order at some point (or more)? I meant "banquet." We signed off on everything and started to contemplate other possibilities for our wedding. I'm excited to say that we will now be having a Catholic mass incorporated into our wedding! I know the non-Catholics (and maybe a few Catholics) will groan at this, as Catholic weddings are known to be super long (meaning, 1 hour). However! our officiant, Father Brian is able to shorten the mass by 15 minutes, thus making it a 45 minute ceremony. Without the mass, it would've been a 30 minute ceremony. So, 15 minutes extra...who's really counting? So what if I want to relish in the wedding ceremony? ;-) It's important to me, it's meaningful to me, and I know it will also make my parents very happy!

Another option we're looking into (cost dependent) is using a colored dance floor. Not too long ago, our wedding planner, Traci updated one of her statuses (Twitter? Facebook?) raving about a white dance floor one of her couples used. If we do decide on a dance floor, I believe it will be the chocolate dance floor... Look at the deliciousness of it!!! (yes, I know I can't eat it...)Finally, Andrew is trying to find the answer for us of "To use a DJ...or not to use a DJ? That IS the question." We realize the benefits of using a DJ...and our only "con" is that we could save that money by using our iTunes playlist and have a friend man it and MC when need be.

We're checking things off, one by one...I now wonder: is this the quiet before the storm? Or has my diligency of staying on top of things going to make things smooth sailing?

Our Planning Session

It's been a week+ coming, so here it is... my Planning Session with Disney Fairytale Weddings!

I have a feeling that ours wasn't as exciting as other Disney couples because most everything was "planned out" before our planning session. Our meeting with Brian back in April covered all design, which I'm assuming is a topic that can consume half of the meeting. The rest was simply double checking on our wants/needs for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception.

Here are some notable decisions made or in the works:

My bridal dressing room will be near the reception room (woohoo!) and for an extra $50, we will get to keep the room until 11pm that night. I'm gonna love the ease of just leaving our personal belongings when we're done pretty-ing up, and the easy access that we'll have *during* the reception. I won't have to go far for my bridal emergency kit!

I also have to interject that I am sooo happy we're having an evening wedding. We have the dressing room starting at 10 or 11am...I can't imagine getting up earlier! Eek!!!

Andrew and I will be seeing each other before the ceremony for photographs (called a "First Look"). It was something we had contemplated for a while, as we originally wanted to stay traditional and waiting to see each other AT the ceremony. But seeing that it will be Daylight Savings Time and completely dark by the time we take formal pictures, our photographer, Jill Thomas highly recommended we consider taking advantage of the sunlight with the First Look photos. Oh, twist our arms! It was quite convincing and also made sense. We didn't want all of our photos to be in the dark, and I KNOW it will help shake off any jitters we'll have before the ceremony... and having that private moment with him before we present ourselves in front of all our guests will be SO special.

*I can't bring myself to talk in detail about the ceremony and reception, as I do want my guests to have something to look forward to.*

The one thing I will say, since I have mentioned it already, we WILL be doing Cinderella blue uplights on the columns between the windows. :-)

And on to the FOOD TASTING!!! By far, the most fun part of the day...besides designing our cake, which I'll get to after talking about the FOOD!!! Again, I think I'll be keeping just a smidge to myself. ;-)

When we arrived to the Sleeping Beauty Pavilion, we were greeted by the Disney wait staff. The head waiter described how the staff would run, and also pointed out our table setting. I had read about this before, so, was not surprised by the request to pick one of their napkin folds. I was torn between two looks (a flat and a poofed/rolled), so what should Andrew do, but combine the best of both worlds and ask if we could roll up the flat fold. And that will be accented with layered blue and silver ribbons.

The meal will start off with a variety of bread ~ apparently, all "new" breads they'll be bringing in come fall. That will be followed by a some of the yummiest butternut squash soup I have ever tasted! :-P Our entreé is a Pan Roasted Chicken Breast with Cilantro Pesto Cream Sauce, with Cippolini Onions, Cremini Mushrooms, and Swiss Chard. The ONIONS were THE BEST!!! We have some options for our starch. What came with it was Red Bliss Potatoes. Two other options we're considering are Yukon Gold Garlic Mashed Potatoes (which are FABULOUS ~ the chef trekked to their Disney restaurant that serves it, just so we can taste it!) and a cheese-stuffed ravioli. The garlic mashed potatoes were fantastic, but I'm also thinking that having the ravioli on the plate could be a nice treat for those who may not want chicken. Not to mention, I love pasta ~ especially stuffed pasta! ...then with the pesto sauce...yum yum!

Then it was dessert! We're going with their Tahitian Vanilla Bean Créme Brûlée with Seasonal Berries...which, of course, did not disappoint!And finally...THE CAKE!!! Our planning worksheets had space for 3 cake combinations (for the 3 tiers), but we had the pleasure of tasting four. And what do you know, the cake we like the best is the one we did not ask for!

The first cake we tried was the Red Velvet...which I had heard GREAT reviews on... we actually weren't impressed at all. The next one was a Kahlua soaked Marble cake with Tiramisu filling ~ it was...all right (seeing a pattern?). I tried to save the best (of our choices) for last ~ the Grand Marnier soaked Chocolate cake with Cappuccino filling. Again, I thought it was all right. It didn't blow me away like I thought it would. Anytime I've had chocolate cake soaked in Grand Mariner, it's always been amazing. So, I was surprised. Andrew and his siblings (his best man and my maid of honor) thought it was the best of our three "chosen" cakes, though. Our fourth cake (the surprise cake) was "The Traci" ~ LOL, that's right! Our wedding planner created this combination: Chambord soaked Lemon cake with a Cream Cheese filling and Fresh Red Rasberries. THAT was delectable!!!

As of now, we've chosen The Traci and the Grand Mariner soaked Chocolate Cake with Cappuccino filling. A third is in the works, as Traci has given us other suggestions. I definitely want to work in chocolate chips somewhere (perhaps with the cappuccino filling) and their Praline Buttercream, which tastes like Nutella! mmmm :-P

The Disney team surprised us with boxes of all four cakes to take home! But with Andrew and I both on an exercise regimen, we passed the cakes on to my maid of honor and Andrew's best man. :-)

Photos provided by Disney Fairytale Weddings

Once Disney had properly stuffed us, we went back to the wedding office to pick out our cake design! While we liked elements of different cakes, no one cake popped out at us. So, Andrew started sketching up an idea. We will have a Cinderella blue cake with 3-D dark brown branches and leaves crawling up the first two tiers. The leaves will be outlined and veins accented in silver. The top tier will have the "Mickey Wave" (as pictured in the middle picture above) overlaying wispy clouds like the Castle in the Clouds cake, and those clouds will get thicker as it gets closer to the top of the cake. The very top of the cake (as if you were looking down on it) will be all clouds ~ all white, but textured to look like clouds. A silver ribbon will also line the base of the bottom tier.

I'm SO excited about the design!!!

That about wraps up our planning session!

Sketching Linens

So, let me start this blog off by saying that IT IS OFFICIAL!!! Andrew and I will be getting married on Saturday, November 7, 2009 at Disneyland! We signed the contract and handed over the deposit yesterday morning. More details on our Disneyland visit next time!

As promised, I gotta tell you about the linens. I know. It sounds SO mundane, but it's a worthwhile story. LOL

Our budget talk from a few days ago, led into linen/decor/lighting talk. Since we were getting rid of the ceiling drapes, we figured we could bring in lighting to light up the walls between the windows to give it "a little something."

Our wedding colors are a dark chocoloate/espresso brown and blue. The blue is T.B.D. Originally, we were thinking of a Tiffany Blue, but there are concerns of it "matching" the Sleeping Beauty Pavilion. I read on WeddingLinens.com that we shouldn't worry about our colors matching the room ~ more particularly, the carpet because guests will be focused on the decor, and not anything below the tables. Okaaay. Our coordinator, Traci, also told me that the Tiffany Blue would still look fabulous in there.

Traci then sent us many pictures of blue themes done in the Pavilion. One being a Cinderella Blue. Oh - my - gosh!!! SO pretty! It had me thinking that we may do the Cinderella Blue, instead.Now here's the discrepancy. What exactly IS Cinderella Blue? The picture she sent us kinda shows a medium shade of blue. But in looking at another blog where the bride used Cinderella Blue, it looks like a light, sky blue. We had discussed the possibility of using sky blue as an alternative to the Tiffany Blue. So, that would be just be hunky dory!

In any case, back to the story at hand... Andrew was thinking of using blue LED lights to accent the walls.

We also discussed linens in depth. Where I originally had thought to use satin linens for EVERYTHING, Andrew pointed out that if we have satin chair covers, our guests may end up sliding out of their seats! Okay, it may be a bit of an exaggeration, BUT there might be a bit of slide-age going on! So, we agreed that we may want to stick to polyester when it comes to that. ;-)

Another thought I had was to do blue chair covers with a white bow (mmm Tiffany box!), along with the dark chocolate/espresso brown table overlay. It may sound a bit extreme, but I was taking my idea from a David Tutera picture. At this, Andrew needed to actually see it. Up popped his sketch-up program, and he started configuring and "drawing" away!

We realized that the blue chairs WERE a bit too much. It was very pretty on its own... but next to the table... yeah, too in-your-face. The problem was that David Tutera had a lighter fabric that he covered the chairs with...or those chairs simply came with that blue fabric, and it didn't go all the way down to the floor. We have the thick polyester taking up a lot of space. Not happenin'.

After playing with the sketch up of linens, Andrew added in the lights (the "little something" extra). We had a nice pretty picture to what our wedding reception could look like.

Fast forward 2 days later... I walked in as Andrew was working on his computer. He looked very focused, and I asked what he was doing. I got closer to see a picture of the Sleeping Beauty Pavilion on his screen, and a graphic drawing of a star to the right of it. He was drawing the floor pattern in the Pavilion!!! Not only was he drawing the star patterns (gold AND light blue), but he had also sketched in some windows (with a simple skyline in the background), and walls. He laughed, turned to me and asked "Do you think I'm crazy???" In turn, I said "No! This is AWESOME!!!" LOL ~ this is one example of how we're made for each other.

And here it is, friends... our wedding reception...minus centerpieces... (and a reference pic of the Sleeping Beauty Pavilion). Click on the sketch for a bigger picture and to see the details.

The Look...(of love)

After confirming that we could absolutely do an evening wedding, Andrew and I started to discuss table and general decor details. Our reception decor is something that has been filling my brain for almost two months now! My wish order is: I'd like a look that's somewhere between classic and modern. Not too stark, and nothing too cheesy. My imagination has taken the original simple idea of candles and mirrors to...well, let me just bullet this out for ya.

• Tall candelabras and strands of crystals. Granted, I know compromise is in the works because it seems to be that candelabras are one of the most expensive ways to go when renting or buying a centerpiece. How expensive? One event designer told me it could be around $40-50 per candelabra (obviously, does not include floral, if the candelabra has a place for floral). In looking to purchase, the price ranged from $25 (kinda crappy looking) to $200+.

• Varying height, antique-looking pillars. Or even modern-looking glass pillars. I realize that I'll have to go one way or another. It will absolutely depend on the other centerpieces.

• Did I mention I also like cool looking lamps?

• Branchy centerpieces. At the very least, I'd love to have one of these branchy centerpieces on either the guest book table or gift table. I discovered a website the other day that sells branches for about $14! How do-able! If anything, if we're in a pinch, this may become one of the main centerpieces!

The idea of something a little different going on at each table appeals to me. So, not every table will get a branchy centerpiece. Not every table will get a candelabra, etc. To tie it all together, crystal strands on the candelabras or branches, and crystal confetti scattered on the tables will be incorporated. And of course, every table will have flickering candles. ;-)

In my next post, I will tell you all about the exciting world of our planned wedding linens and our colors! :-D