twinkybel81 & workmantm's Wishes VR 12.06.16 Japan/ADH/Lochside UPDATE 11/23 Two Weeks Out!

A couple big things I forgot to add to the to-do list:

- buy hubby a non-silicone ring
-write our ceremony and vows
 
I love the Up themed fingerprint guest book, but I'm partial to that movie - I've already told my boyfriend that our entire wedding is going to be Up themed (we're not officially engaged, but we've been talking about marriage).

I can't imagine trying to plan a wedding and a move at the same time - good for you!

I love your invitations! They turned out great!
 
Your invitations turned out beautifully! I'm partial to the NBC fingerprint guest book myself since it goes so well with your theme, but I see your point about the signed silhouettes. I think either would be a great idea, but the fingerprint one would be something nice to hang on the wall somewhere. :)
 
Love the invitations! And I love the fingerprint guest book idea. My favourite is the Jack Skellington one but I am bias. I love that movie. Looks like the plans are coming along.
Moving is already stressful so I know how you feel. I don't think I could live with my mother (or MIL in your case) ever again even if it was for a few months. She drives me crazy too. I've been there, done that. Boy, glad that part of my life is past.:scared: It always hard dealing with family but I guess you need to do what you need to do right? Good luck!:thumbsup2
 


I love the Up themed fingerprint guest book, but I'm partial to that movie

We love UP also! Our first dance is going to be to "Married Life" :) I'd love to incorporate another couple touches from UP even though it doesn't really go with our theme, and the guest book would be an easy way to do so. Would keep to our colors though and have the guests use black, silver, purple, and red ink.

I can't imagine trying to plan a wedding and a move at the same time - good for you!

Thanks! Just trying to push forward and deal the best that I can. ;)

I love your invitations! They turned out great!

Thanks! Overall, I love how they turned out. Only thing I think I would have done differently was have them printed on pearl paper rather than the matte paper. There were pros and cons to both, so we chose the matte. Oh well, I know our guests won't be scrutinizing them the way that I do, lol.

the fingerprint one would be something nice to hang on the wall somewhere. :)

That's my heavy leaning as well.

you need to do what you need to do right?

Yep. Grrrrr. Lol.

Love the invitations!

Thank you!
 


We received our initial BEO (finally), made our first round of revisions, and received the latest revision back

Waiting for a BEO would drive me crazy. I don't even like waiting the weekend for quotes right now! I like to know the numbers to play around with :laughing:
We decided to list our townhome for sale (earlier than planned)
Accepted an offer on our townhome after just over a week on the market
Entered Escrow and started to pack up our home

Eek! I'm already stressing over our general idea to move out of DF's parents' place around the same time as a wedding, and we don't have a home-full of things. Well, we won't unless I keep picking up my deals (but we'll need drawer organizers eventually, and these are usually $25!)

I LOVE your invites. The tri-fold, the square shape, the graphics, how all of the different event information is provided... :love:
the husband prefers to overbudget

I also prefer to overbudget... I feel like the decrease from having less guests will also provide a cushion for any expenses I forgot to plan for!

I took a crazy leap... and ordered a dress on the internet. And it came and I love it, but the size was wrong. The new size should come today. I keep looking at pictures :rolleyes: I'm torn between just sticking with it, or going to a dress shop (because I haven't been yet :scared1:)

I have two big fears for a guest book. One is similar to yours, I don't want a book that won't get looked at. The other is something that I won't like to have out anymore... I like the wall hangings though. I think either the NBC or Up would be great, and you should go with the one that makes you happiest. As you said, you could do different ink colors!

I should work on a practice bouquet too. On the bright side, I made the leap and ordered some paper in the colors I'll actually want so that's a start!
 

I know that I have been absent for awhile, so to anyone still following along, hello and thank you! Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much progress made on wedding planning since my last update. All of our time and energy has been spent on packing up and moving out of our townhouse into my grandpa’s as a temporary residence, participating in the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend, and trips to both Texas and Georgia to decide where we want to move when we leave this state.

A few wedding related things that have been ticked off the list:

· Finalized our cake topper design (and were pleasantly surprised at the cost), but I’m keeping that a surprise until after our day. :)

· Scheduled an “engagement” shoot with our photographer for the end of October, which means we will have a chance to meet him prior to the wedding trip, yay! We will be shooting at a local park where we like to hike in the morning, and then will spend the remainder of the day and evening at Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure. :D

· Contacted Happiest Tees on Earth regarding (hopefully) some custom T-shirts for my girls and I to wear while we are getting ready. These, but hopefully a black tee w/ white print:
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· Called the bridal salon to find out when my dress is supposed to be delivered (they quoted me 5-6 months when I purchased it and we are now past the 6 month mark). They called the designer and are saying it should be delivered within the next 2 weeks, please keep your fingers crossed. At this point I am really worried that it isn’t going to fit, so I am anxious to get it tried on to see where things stand in that regard.

· Ordered earrings from Etsy today, so that they are here in time to take with me to try on with my dress when it arrives. This isn't the best picture, but here they are:
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We are 66 days out from our event and 63 days out til we leave for Disney!!! I am woefully behind on my ever-growing to-do list and am feeling stressed and overwhelmed about everything. I’m not even able to really feel excited at this moment because I feel so behind. We don’t have any plans to travel this month and now that we are completely moved out of the townhouse, I should be able to resume devoting time to wedding things.

The other thing that is really starting to get to me is the lack of RSVPs we have received. Just about everyone that has currently RSVPd are people we already knew were coming/not coming. Our deadline with Disney isn’t for another month and the deadline on the RSVPs is in about 3 weeks, so we still have time, but I feel really in the dark as to which way the remainder of our invited guests are leaning. I just want to know so that we have a better idea of what final pricing is going to look like and whether we are going to need to adjust things to reduce cost or meet minimums, etc. We are still waiting to hear back from 49 people (that includes +1s and kiddos), which can have a huge impact on what that final bill shakes out to.
 
Moving is fun, right? :crazy2: A few years ago, I got to go through the family home of 17 years, mainly alone. That was great :thumbsup2 ....... Not. Now I'm hoping for minimal moves and determined for minimal things. That hasn't been toooo much of an issue yet with our living situation, but I keep telling Zack just wait till we move, I'm gonna make you go through EVERYTHING.

Those shirts are so cute! I might have to steal that idea :goodvibes I love the earrings too

I have to say, I don't understand the RSVP issues. I like to send them back ASAP. You're either going or not, there's not a lot of debate. But I've seen so many people with the same issue, and I'm sure I'll end up in the same boat. 49 people is huge, but hopefully they'll get their butts in gear. I just see it as, by about 2 months out, you should have a pretty dang good idea if you're going to make a destination wedding, because it's extra time/effort/money, and you either have that or don't. If there's a weird extenuating circumstance affecting your decision, talk to the couple.

I say all that, and I do believe it... But I probably would have been in the same boat. I can totally see a good chunk of my family waiting till the last minute to decide if they had gas and hotel money when they'd be within 8 hours driving time ...:sad2:
 
Oh my gosh - I can't WAIT to see your Disneyland photos!!! That is so exciting! :) I love those shirts for getting ready on the morning of the wedding, too. I hope you're able to track down the remaining RSVPs pretty easily - so frustrating. I can't believe how close it's getting!
 

The last two weeks have been extremely productive as far as wedding planning is concerned, hooray!



RSVPs


After my last update, I spent a good portion of the following day messaging those we had not heard from and was able to get responses from the bulk of them (which were nos, as anticipated). I still have a handful of people I am waiting on for sure answers from, but it looks like we will end up with somewhere between 40-50 people total, ourselves included. I think this is a great number for our venues (and much better for our pocketbook)



Kiss Goodnight (aka Dessert Party)


Since our guest count has officially dropped, we are now going to be able to hold our entire party at UK Lochside! We were grateful that our planner suggested to have the party in Canada and then move down to Lochside for the fireworks viewing when she said that our guest count was too large for UK Lochside, but it was never our first preference. We are both happy with how this has worked out. Right now our menu is at $52/person, but we (especially me) are leaning toward eliminating one of the two “action stations” because that would drop the cost down to $41/person and still offer a variety of tasty items for our guests. I’ve done the math and if we co make the cut, that cost savings will almost completely cover the cost of our favors.



Practical Shoes


After much online browsing (and some time just not worrying about it), I finally found a pair of “practical” shoes to wear after the ceremony is over. They’re leather, were on clearance, are comfy, and are something I will wear again. SCORE!!!

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Earrings


Choosing earrings proved to be much more challenging than I anticipated it would. I ordered these from Etsy (for less than $20!) and I love them and think they go great with my dress. However, they are much too small and dainty, so I returned them.

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Then my Mom loaned me these, which I like, but I don’t think they “go” with the dress.

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After some thinking, I decided that perhaps I should change the direction of the type of earring I was looking for. So I put together some choices from Etsy, posted them to the DisBrides FB group, and sent them to my Mom and both MOHS. One pair was the overwhelming choice: Ta-da!

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I ordered them from Etsy (less than $25 including shipping) and they should arrive on Monday. Please keep your fingers crossed that these work out like I’m hoping they do!



Guest Book


Last weekend we finally decided on our guest book, and it isn’t either of the choices I posted about before. We spent more than we had originally planned, but it is a one of a kind painting on stretched canvas (12”x16”). We chose to have the artist create ours without the swing and will be using black, silver, and purple inks for the prints.

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The only part that still kinda bums me out, is that since this is not something that will need to be framed, we won’t have a mat for our guests to sign their names on, and neither of us like the idea of them signing on their fingerprint. I may still get a mat to have them sign and just use it around a picture of us from the wedding day.



Bouquets, Boutonnieres, Corsages, and Pomanders


Although I really need to have started working on prototypes and mock ups of the personal “floral” that I am DIYing at the beginning of September, moving did not allow that, so I am behind where I want to be. That being said, I have spent several hours of the last couple of weeks playing trial and error for getting sizes and proportions correct, and have figured that part of things out, so forward progress is being made. I need to have the elements that I am making for The Husband’s boutonniere completed by the time I travel to WDW at the beginning of November for the Wine & Dine Half Marathon, so that I can get them dropped off to my floral team so that they can incorporated them into his bout that they are creating.

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Ceremony


We spent some time last weekend putting together some ceremony ideas to send over to our officiant, so that he has something to work from. The Husband didn’t contribute much to the ideas for the actual wording of things, more to the order of ceremony, which is a tad bit frustrating, but not necessarily surprising. He did mention (for the first time) that he would like to add a unity ceremony. I’m fine with it, just was a bit surprised, and it means that we now have to decide on vessel/medium/etc. Also, we agree that we would like to include my stepson in the unity ceremony.



Escort Cards/Table Signs/Favors


It has been our plan to scan paper FastPasses that we have gotten from Disneyland/DCA in order to create FastPass escort cards and corresponding table names. Another bride on here (I don’t recall her screen name, but she is in Japan right now), linked to a vendor on Etsy who she ordered her FastPass Save the Dates from. We checked out his work and loved it and we can’t beat the price (especially for the time savings for us), so we will be ordering our Escort Cards and Table Names from him, probably next weekend, once I’ve confirmed the straggler RSVPs.



We still haven’t decided on our favors, but we have narrowed it down to either the juice glasses or the glass mugs from Arribas Bros, that we will have personalized with our date and names. We are planning on ordering them directly from Arribas Bros (something else I need to do while I’m at WDW in November) because we can use our AP discount on the cost of the glasses (sadly not on the personalization cost) and it will be cheaper than ordering through Floral. The reason that we still haven’t narrowed it down is that I don’t like the lack variety of characters they offer on the juice glasses (and it’s like the one size glass that they don’t offer the castle design, what?) and I’m hesitant to just do Mickey for boys and Minnie for girls. The glass mugs have a better variety, but are $4 more a piece, which adds up quick when you are looking at somewhere around 45 of them.



Getting Ready Shirts


The company was super excited that I wanted to wear their shirts for getting ready and were very easy to work with (and didn’t charge me any extra for my special order). The Oh Happy Day with the Mickey head for the “O” will be printed in white on black slouchy T-shirts. I placed the order earlier this week and am not sure on how long production should take, but my guess is that I should have them within the next couple of weeks.



Makeup


My friend who was going to do our makeup on the day of the wedding has had to officially bow out, so I’ve added makeup services through my hair vendor (Kristy’s Artistry Design Team). I ended up choosing to add a third artist (we only have 8 services total, 4 hair, 4 makeup) because they were only going to send 2, but because we need to have all services completed by 6:15am at the latest, that meant we would need to start at 3-3:15am instead of at 4am! I just couldn’t do it (not to mention that they would have added ANOTHER early morning charge), so she said that if we added a third artist, we could still start at 4am and be done by 6-6:15am. That was an extra $100 I wasn’t planning on spending, but my (and my party’s) sleep is worth it.

My Dress

The bridal salon called on Tuesday to let me know that my dress had finally been delivered. I made an appointment for Wednesday at opening to go try it on. My fears that the dress would not fit/zip up all the way were not unfounded. It only zips a little over halfway up. The consultant assured me that there is enough room in the seams for the dress to be let out and that I should be fine. The salon I purchased my dress from does not do alterations, but have a couple places they recommend, so I still need to take it to a professional seamstress to get their opinion (and quote for the cost), but am hoping to put that off a few more weeks. Once our house sale closes and funds (hopefully within the next few days), I will go in and pay off my balance and be able to bring the dress home. On the bright side, the length I ordered my dress is absolutely perfect with both pairs of my shoes, even though there is over 4" difference in their heights!

We still have plenty to do, but I'm feeling much closer to be on track to get everything done in time. :)
 
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Your celebration is on DH and my 20th anniversary - and in our favorite place in Epcot. Can't wait to see pics and hear more!
 
Your celebration is on DH and my 20th anniversary - and in our favorite place in Epcot. Can't wait to see pics and hear more!

Hello and welcome! Happy early 20th anniversary, that's wonderful!

I'm hoping to have another update posted within the next week. Life is just a tad bit crazy right now! :)
 

My oh my, where has the time gone?! Our vow renewal is two weeks from yesterday, and we leave to drive to Florida a week from today! It has been a very busy month-ish since I posted last, so I’ll try to get all caught up here.


RSVPs/Final Guest Counts


We are still waiting to hear back from 2 people officially, but included them in our final numbers to Disney, just to be on the safe side. Unfortunately, one of the families that were supposed to attend, just had to back out at the last minute due to unforeseen health issues eating into their travel budget, which really stinks. Our final guest counts are looking like 36 for the Welcome Party, 34 for the reception, and 34 for our Dessert Party. Definitely a smaller/more intimate gathering, but that’s ok!


My Dress!


When I went to try on my dress, it didn’t fit, as I had worried about. Fear not! I took it to a fantastic seamstress who is my hero, and my dress now fits perfectly! Originally I had wanted to have her cut the train off (and I was going to use the excess fabric for a birdcage style veil), because I didn’t want the train and I didn’t want to walk around with it bustled all day. Unfortunately, having that done was more costly than I anticipated, so the cost of that plus the cost of having it let out was more than we had budgeted and more than I could justify spending, so I told her to leave the train and add a bustle instead. I’m still a bit bummed over it, but it is what it is and the train and bustle are both beautiful. :) I picked it up yesterday and will show my Mom and sister how to do the bustle when they come over on Thanksgiving. Also, the earrings I posted about last time ended up being too dark to go with my dress, so I had to return them. :( I ended up finding a pair that I liked (and were within the budget I was willing to spend) when I went to drop hubby’s ring off to have it engraved with a surprise!

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Mind you, the first pair I chose at this jeweler were almost $550, and they were worth it, just not in my budget at this time, lol!



Escort Cards/Table Names/Favors


We ordered our FastPass escort cards and Table Names and had the proof within 24 hours and then had them printed, cut, and delivered within the next week. I was extremely impressed. The husband had a great idea and we are now going to have the guests sign the Table Name cards, since they won’t be signing our Guest Tree painting, and we will do something fun with those after the fact,


We ordered these as our favors, with our first names and the event date etched on the back:
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We will pick these up from the Arribas Bros store in Disney Springs on the day we arrive in Orlando.



Personal “Floral”


I can’t remember the last update I gave on this, so I apologize if some of this is repeat info. Originally, I was going to make the elements for The husband’s boutonniere, my bouquet, my mom’s wrist corsage, and the Mickey head pomanders for my MOHs, and I would be assembling them all, minus the husband’s boutonniere since we are having a thistle incorporated into his. Fast forward through life taking some twists and turns (and things not working like I thought they should in my head). I made/provided all the elements of my bouquet, and Disney is going to assemble it for me, for a decent price that I’m willing to pay for my sanity. ;) They will also be attaching the elements for my mom’s wrist corsage to a wristlet, since I wasn’t finding anything I liked in local stores or on Amazon. It was a bit of a hectic rush to finish making everything that I needed to take to Disney before I left to go out and run the Wine & Dine Half Marathon, but I got them done (and delivered a day late, thanks to delayed flights and missed connections). These are in no way assembled, but here are my bouquet elements:
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I’m really excited because I’m finally starting to see things come together/come to life! I completed my Dad’s boutonniere a couple days ago, it was originally going to have two smaller globes and one larger globe, but I didn’t like how the three were looking together, so I kept it simple:
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I have all the paper circles cut out for the MOH Mickey heads, but haven’t started construction on them yet. I need to hurry because we are leaving in a week! I am told that with all the elements we are including in my hubby’s boutonniere, it is going to be on the large side, but there wasn’t anything I was willing to subtract from it (and he has nice broad shoulders), so it’s just gonna be bigger than average.



“Engagement” Photos


On Sunday, October 30th, we had the pleasure of meeting our wedding photographer, Michael Meeks, and shooting engagement photos together ALL day long. We started with breakfast at one of our favorite local spots, then moved on to a local regional park where we like to hike. Once we were done there, we headed over to Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure for the remainder of the afternoon and evening. We definitely made the right choice in photographer! Not only are his pictures fantastic, but he is a great guy and we all get along really well!


Here is the link to the full gallery, in case you wanted to take a look-see: https://nonpareil.clientportal.photo/gallery/chapter-one


I need to call it quits here for today. Lots to do! Happy Thanksgiving all!
 
I told you this on FB, but your 'engagement' photos are stunning! :goodvibes It's hard to even pick a favorite.

I can't believe how close we are... just a week away now! Where has the time gone?!
 
your 'engagement' photos are stunning!

Thank you! We are so happy with them! We are getting prints made to give to the parents as gifts for the wedding and I can't wait to see what they look like printed.

I can't believe how close we are.

I know, right?! We are starting packing this evening, taking the truck to get an oil change and a once over before we begin our drive, and I'm almost done with the MOH Mickey heads!!! Btw, have I sent you the details for Sunday?
 
You're getting so close now! I'm really enjoying following along the last stretch. Those paper balls and bouquet elements turned out wonderfully. Can't wait to see it come together.
 
I know, right?! We are starting packing this evening, taking the truck to get an oil change and a once over before we begin our drive, and I'm almost done with the MOH Mickey heads!!! Btw, have I sent you the details for Sunday?

I know I have the location, but if you could FB message me the time you would like guests to arrive as well as the dress, that would be great. We're looking forward to it! :-D BTW, I keep checking the forecast (I'm sure you have too, lol) and right now it looks like the weather is going to be absolutely perfect for your wedding day! :goodvibes Fingers crossed!
 

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