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!

We Found an Officiant!

Sorry for the lag in updates. With all the key players in place (ooh wait ~ still gotta send out one more check before it's official), wedding planning is slowing down.

This past Tuesday, Andrew and I met with our decided officiant, Father Brian from Good Shepherd Catholic Church. As we thought, we were impressed with him, felt at ease, and we will be using him to officiate our wedding! Now to just fill out that checkbook...

It was only fitting that we end that day by going to Disney's California Adventure! After two rides (Soarin' Over California and Toy Story's Midway Mania), we experienced the BEERS from Around the World of the Food and Wine Festival, then had a nice dinner at Napa Rose. It was our second visit to Napa Rose, and it's inarguably my favorite restaurant at the Disney Resorts. As we waited for a table, I took in the atmosphere of Napa Rose's lounge and sophisticated bar. It would be a nice area to mingle with family and friends on our wedding weekend.

Along with meeting with Father Brian AND going to DCA, we also booked our Planning Session with Traci! We will be planning away and tasting Disney's most delectable food ever on Wednesday, June 17th. We are SO looking forward to it!

What to do till then? Register for wedding gifts...and brainstorm *together* on invitation ideas.

Finally ~ some even better news...I finished reading Mindy Weiss's Wedding Book last week! I stand by my blog that it is the best wedding planning book EVER!!!

Talking Flowers

These last few days have been a whirlwind of activity. With Andrew going out of the country tomorrow for the next 3 weeks, we have had quite a to-do list before he leaves!

Contracts are underway with both our photographer, Jill Thomas and our designer/florist, Brian Bosch. I figured with everything lining up, that things should start to slow down. Reading Mindy Weiss's book last night, I realized that it will NOT slow down!

Next on our list will be working on our invitations ~ especially since we'll be making them ourselves. What kind of paper? What colors? What card style ~ standard? tri-fold? What kind of font? How to word it? The choices are endless...and made me realize that we will have to start brainstorming on this as soon as Andrew gets back. The sooner the better! Waiting any longer on this task will only stress us out if we plan to get the invitations out by September.

Sooo...what to do while Andrew is away? I'm sure there will be plenty! But I'm rolling with whatever comes to mind. Today it was about chatting with Brian and figuring out my bouquet. Since I never dreamed of my wedding as a little girl, and I'm not a huge flower person, I didn't really have my heart set on any specific type of flowers or arrangement.

After our first meeting with Brian, I started to look around and see what bouquets appealed to me. Based on a picture of a bouquet that I liked, Brian originally suggested a white floral bouquet with splashes of blue hydrangeas. The more I thought about it, the more I really didn't want a white floral arrangement. It's pretty, but it doesn't POP. I then remembered a picture I saw in my bouquet search ~ a bouquet of red roses with splashes of white. Ooh, if I could only have that with a rich blue!

Then yesterday, one of my favorite blogs - Green Wedding Shoes - posted a blog on anemones. She had raved about anemones before...or I had read about anemones somewhere else, but this blog couldn't have come at a better time! I could be DOWN with blue anemones!

Discussing our final quote, I sent Brian these pictures, and he's come up with an idea for a beautiful arrangement using blue anemones, hydrangeas, and my white splashes! "Typical" bride I shall NOT be! ;-)

Photographers and Downtown L.A.

Man, it's felt like a long week! And my computer cable (that Andrew gave to me) got FRIED...so, I've been "working" off of my iPhone the past few days.

Our photographer meetings were interesting...and good. In the end, we chose Jill Thomas. As I mentioned last time, Amoré just didn't seem to match our style as we had originally thought...and the connection with the photographer just wasn't there! While he seemed like a nice guy, he was a bit stand-off-ish and didn't really seem to even try to connect with us.

I emailed my contact, Candice, at Amoré to voice our concern. She replied apologizing for the lack of connection, and assumed that perhaps he was nervous since his boss (Candice) was right there. She went on to explain her reasons for matching the photographer with us. Those reasons being that he had the most experience shooting nighttime weddings -- especially coming from the east coast. Funny that we never knew he was from the east coast, because when he asked about us, we told him that we were from the east coast. That could've been a good way to connect with us, but he didn't take it.

In contrast, when we video chatted with Jill, we made that connection that we had both lived in the D.C. area! Okay, I was the one to butt in and say that I used to live in Arlington, but that's what meeting people is all about ~ making that connection. The conversation was open and honest, and she was very easy to talk to.

The only question we had for Jill was getting copies of the raw files, along with the jpgs. Once we chatted again yesterday, all was set straight, we were on the same page, so we hired her! We're even going one package above from what we planned, but it will be well worth the extra money! She's going to be a blast to work with!

Funny enough, while we were on the phone with Jill, Father Brian from Good Shepherd Catholic church called. We returned his call to let him know that we will schedule a meeting with him when Andrew returns from Europe. Till then, he has our wedding penciled in! From the brochure we received, with information on the church and Father Brian, and from talking to him, he seems very personable. I can't wait to meet him!

Friday was my first trip to Downtown L.A.! I joined my friend, Rita, who was shopping for her baby shower. It was a long day of checking out the many types of AMAZING fabrics, buying spools upon spools of ribbon (Cinderella blue for ME!), perusing several floral shops, and hitting pretty much *every single* bridal store that carried tiaras! I found my tiara at the very first store we visited. Murphy's Law, isn't it? Well, my tiara had an original price tag of $129, it had been priced down to $99, and they sold it to me for $80. Woohoo!!! And it's gorgeous!

My other great find was some Cinderella glass slippers! I thought they would be great as table decor, but I may use them for my place cards. Rita had a great idea as to how to set them up in a great little display involving shoeboxes, fabric or cardstock, ribbon and/or crystals ~ it'll be fun to put it together!

Lastly, I'm looking at makeup and hair services. I've had quite a few offers...the last being friends of a friend. I was asked to email them with my info ~ wedding size, etc. One week later, and I haven't heard back. So, I checked out a place that Disneyland Brides have been raving about: Something Blue Stylists. Their online portfolio and the photos I've seen from Disneyland Brides have been great! And the prices...wow! From the preview to the day of, it totals the cost of JUST getting my makeup done by other makeup artists!

Oh, and did I say that we officially decided on using Brian Bosche as our designer/florist? Check another off the list! :-)

Duck Progress

The ducks are starting to line up, and it feels SO GOOD!!!

Last Thursday (as I was coming down from my NKOTB high), I called Good Shepherd Catholic Church looking for a priest to officiate our wedding. I was greeted by an answering machine, so I left my appropriate information. Gary called me the following day, but I was fast asleep at 9:40am. Unfortunately, I didn't listen to his message till after 1:30pm, which was right at the time he left the office. So, I had another conversation with the office answering machine.

This morning, Christine from Good Shepherd called me. Again, I was fast asleep at 9:25am. But she was still in the office when I called about 20 minutes ago. Yay! I received more information than I thought I would ~ from what I should expect in the packet they'll be sending us, to who the best priest is, and how their pre-marital counseling sessions work vs. individually filling out a questionnaire if we're unable to do the sessions.

The questionnaire goes through topics talked about in the sessions. From our answers, the priest sees areas where Andrew and I might need to discuss...or say "You two are PERFECT for each other!" It's not a pass/fail sort of thing; just a tool to help us prepare for marriage.

As for my other ducks falling in line...photographers! Andrew and I have a meeting with Amore Wedding Photography tomorrow. I'll be honest...they were our number one choice in the beginning, but after researching other photographers when they went MIA, we got an even better idea of what we're looking for. Suddenly, their photos just didn't compare. Even with their personal discounts for us, we could possibly go with someone else. It all depends on the portfolio we see tomorrow, and of course, how we get along with the photographer.

We also have a meeting with Jill Thomas tomorrow night via video chat. She seems like an easy, friendly person to work with, and her documentary-style photography is more in line with our vision.

It would be great to have at least one more photographer to interview to round out our choices, but we'll see how it goes tomorrow. If we're absolutely sold on one or the other, then that's it! Search OVER! If not, I'll be picking up the phone and calling one or two other photographers I recently contacted via email.

The ducks are starting to fall in line, and I am SO happy!

Down to the Details

What? No wedding blog posting for a week? Or has it been longer?

For the past week, I've been on a New Kids on the Block HIGH, fun with friends, meeting and greeting the guys, and experiencing a once in a lifetime FRONT ROW experience!

BUT that's for another blog. ;-)

The latest in wedding news is that we received our Planning Packet from Disney Fairytale Weddings! Tedious, but fun in its own odd way. At least it came with some fun gifts like Mickey Groom & Minnie Bride pens, and a Disney Fairytale Weddings pin for my lanyard! I feel like I'm missing something, but there were so many little things in there ~ business cards for vendors, postcards for photographers and bobble-head makers. More to do!

Once the planning packet is done, we'll be scheduling our planning session with Disney. On top of that, we also will be going through our florist's estimate to see where we can adjust items to meet our budget.

It's been hard to think about all of these details with the NKOTB high that I'm on...

TRYING to Get My Ducks in a Row

It's been a stressful couple of days. Now that we have a venue and date set, we need an officiant and photographer. Our photographer who we've been in touch with went MIA for over a week, so we started to look for other photographers to interview. Murphy's Law, as soon as I send out emails, our photographer gives me a call! Guess we shall see how it goes from here.

And as for an officiant...I made the call, and he has yet to call me back. Time to start calling our other options.

Schnix mix. (I don't know...a Chex Mix commercial was on. :-))

In the meantime - in the midst of getting crossed eyed looking at one photographer's site after another, and perusing Disney Brides message boards...we received an email from Disneyland with an attached Excel sheet for our guest list! They'll be sending out Save the Dates for us. Yay! One less thing for us to worry about. And Traci informed us that her request to be our "service manager" is now official! I've been calling her our "coordinator" this entire time, but apparently, I was wrong with that term.

And here's a cool thing that I found... You can find out what your weather will *probably* be like on your wedding day! Here's the outlook for November in Anaheim, CA (click on the images to make it bigger):

http://www.weather.com/activities/events/weddings/?from=eventsfeatures

And you can find out when the sun sets! Fabu-fun stuff!

Our First Florist Meeting

I feel like we're doing things out of order. First on the priority list of booking vendors (according to Mindy Weiss - see previous post ;-)), are an officiant and photographer. I would've started calling priests this past week had I not had plans and meetings every day. As for the photographer...well, I'm waiting to hear back from our "chosen one."

In the meantime, Traci suggested a florist for us to get in touch with. Brian Bosch used to work for Disney Fairytale Weddings and now works for himself. I contacted Brian earlier this week and received an email from him a few days ago. We exchanged emails through the day to talk more about our decor vision and to make an appointment to meet at Disneyland to flesh our ideas out even more.

I knew I liked Brian as soon as he wrote me with an email saying "I don't know how much Traci told you about me, but I'm a designer at heart. In fact, the Disney wedding team called me David Tutera, Jr. (it was a little weird to be introduced to him that way)." LOL!!! HELLO! Didn't I say in a blog-past "if only David Tutera could come design my wedding"? If I can't have David Tutera, his "junior" is good enough for me! AND Traci let us know that Brian worked with David Tutera when David was at Disneyland creating his Couture Collection. After viewing his website, Brian also sent me a few samples of tall centerpieces he's done. LOVE IT!

So, since we have "David Tutera, Jr.," not only is Brian willing to help out with the floral, but he is also available to work with linens and all other decor. We've got an event designer on our hands!

Our meeting day worked out to be on a day where Traci had two weddings going on in the Rose Court Garden. One at 11:30am and another at 7:30pm. So, we headed to Disneyland early and arrived at 11:45am to peek into the wedding. We were pleasantly surprised to find that even with the simplest of decor, the Rose Court Garden was still beautiful! This couple only had an aisle runner and some rose petals scattered along the sides.

After some lunch at ESPN Zone and going over the big wedding planning book :-), we walked back to Disneyland Hotel and saw from the outside that the newlyweds had decorated the Sleeping Beauty Pavilion with the gorogeous ceiling drapes. We rode the elevator up to check it out. Unfortunately, the wedding party was lined up, ready to make their entrance...so, there was no way to peek in! But we DID get to see another reception, down the hall, in the midst of a set-up. Forgive the blurriness...I was trying to be quick and stealthy. ;-) I couldn't believe it! The color scheme was the same as ours (well, with a different shade of blue), and the centerpieces had everything I could ever want in a centerpiece! Tall candelabras, floral, branches, candles, CRYSTALS!!! I was in AWE...

(Photos just came in from Traci...)

We then hurried off, back to the Rose Court Garden to meet with Brian. In first seeing him, he was friendly, approachable, and younger than I expected. No problems there ~ I just - for some reason - had pictured him to be older. I don't know why!

We moved our meeting to the lobby of the Wonder Tower. For the next hour or so, we discussed every detail of decor and flowers. As a designer, he totally came through for us (at least here for these beginning stages ;-)), bringing all of our ideas and pulling everything *together* into a coherent wedding design plan. Areas where we did not have a clear vision, he placed the missing puzzle piece(s) and has us completely excited with this new picture!

And yes, we did talk about flowers...in general. Since I don't know exactly what I want yet, we simply came up with a general idea based on our colors.

At the end of our meeting, the three of us strolled to the wedding offices to say a quick "hello" to Traci. She met us with a dolly of boxes. Poor girl wasn't even done with half her day yet! One greet led to another, and the four of us were suddenly talking about Toy Story's Midway Mania game! Then Brian tells us that they're coming out with a Wii game of the ride! WHAT?!? As we all got excited about this, I realized we were four Disney dorks standing around gushing over all things Disney! LOL ~ love it...Owning it!

Heading back to the car, Andrew sighed and said "Well, it was just what I was afraid of..." Confused as to which way he was gonna go with this, I asked "What?" He said "IIII like him!" YAY!!! Andrew really liked everything Brian suggested and loves that he would take care of all the decor, making our lives that much easier. If Brian's estimate is within our budget, we have no need to look any further. :-)

Keeping the fingers crossed!

Get This Book!!!

For all those planning a wedding, or know someone who is getting married, I HIGHLY recommend Mindy Weiss's "The Wedding Book: The Big Book for Your Big Day." I'm probably only 1/4th of the way through, and I am learning more about planning, etiquette, and gaining more ideas than I have in the last four books that I've read!

The amount of detail that Mindy goes into ~ from listing out booking priority of vendors to explaining the many different types of dinnerware to look out for as you're you deciding on what to add to your registry...to a registry checklist (there's where I ended last night ;-))!

I'm thoroughly impressed. Where I thought I knew what I needed to do next and what was ahead, Mindy threw a "Well, did you know about this?" to me. I love it! Plus, I know it's a handy guide that Andrew will be happy to flip through ~ especially the dinnerware and pots & pans section...my little chef of a fiance! ;-)

A Disney Surprise

Wow...where to start?

This past Saturday, Andrew and I had an appointment at the butt crack of dawn (8:30am :-)) with our coordinator, Traci, at Disneyland. We were going through a final walk-through and planned on signing the contract and handing over the deposit. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary (as we had visited our potential wedding site twice already), and the highlight of our day was going to be making everything official! However, Traci and Disneyland had other plans...

Traci informed us that there was a surprise in store! As we walked around the resort, Traci told us that if we signed our contract in a given time, we would get a room upgrade for our wedding night, AND she would also see if she could get the honeymoon suite for us! SWEET!!! We continued to walk and ask Traci our lingering questions.

As we entered one of the Disneyland Hotel towers, Traci again said they have a surprise for us. "What?! You mean the room upgrade wasn't the surprise?" She brought us into the Grand Ballroom, which was absolutely beautiful with its huge chandelier and oversized Sleeping Beauty Castle print on the carpet. A round table was set up in the center of the room, and my mind was racing as to what the surprise could be. Will we have the option to upgrade to the Grand Ballroom? Are we doing a food tasting now?

She brought us to the lone table and pointed out the upgraded china with the Mickey patterns, saying "See, it has your blues..." Do we get to upgrade our china?!?

Just as we're looking down at the plates, the lights dimmed... what the...what??? A voice over the P.A. system boomed (in a good way) "Disneyland Fairytale Weddings would like to welcome Charlene and Andrew..." I don't even remember what was said following that ~ I was too giddy in shock (if that makes sense). The drapey, red curtain rose to reveal Cinderella's Crystal Coach!!! OH MY GOSH!!! *squeal* The footman stood, carrying Cinderella's glass slipper, too! It was quite a sight!!!

Traci invited us up to take pictures with the coach. And we gladly went up there! Although, I was still feeling the effects of waking up at 6:30am, my hair was a mess and in need of a haircut, and the makeup was quite minimal. Yep, I was feeling quite self-conscious for these pictures! Not to mention, feeling VERY under-dressed for Cinderella's Crystal Coach!

I must insert that while we were strolling around the Disneyland Hotel grounds, Traci was quite busy typing away on her Blackberry. We found it a little odd, but I figured that she had other clients coming in that day, and she must be answering any questions they have before coming in. She had always been so attentive with us, so I excused it. Obviously, after the ACTUAL surprise, we realized that she had been letting the Disney team know where we were at and such.

Leave it to Disney to plan a surprise like that!

After peeking into the Sleeping Beauty Pavilion, we headed back to the wedding offices. Traci reiterated that we had a few more days than originally planned to turn in the contract, but we told her that we were ready to sign. If memory serves me right, Traci joked and asked if it was the surprise coach visit that did it. No, we were already ready! :-)

With the contract signed and the deposit in, a huge weight has been lifted off of our shoulders! Let the fun BEGIN!!!

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

Moving Forward

Wow ~ I got quite a few responses on my Night or Day blog. And I want to thank you for the suggestions!

The funny thing is that there's no real "bending the rules" with Disney. Not really, anyway. It is what it is. The best we can do is work as inexpensively as possible, bring in outside vendors, and possibly do a few DIY projects to keep within our budget.

Andrew and I went ahead and tackled this quandary this afternoon. In playing with the budget, we discovered that by doing a lunch reception, we were only $10 (per head) away from having a dinner reception. Andrew had overestimated a bit on the total wedding cost difference of $5,000 between a daytime and nighttime wedding. So, with that overestimation, AND taking out the lighted ceiling drapes (seen in the pictures I posted last time), we came down to a $2,000 to $3,000 difference. Not as bad!

So, we shall move forward and stick with our Saturday, November 7, 2009 wedding date! Dum dum da-dum...!

My next task to find out what these guys are about...could we possibly use them for floral and lighting decor?

http://www.bvfloralconcepts.com

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: