Happy 110th Birthday!!!!

It's kind of weird to offer birthday wishes to someone posthumously but I felt compelled, today, to say "Happy  Birthday Walt!"

He's been there for me throughout my whole life.  Seriously.  There was a cute little wall hanging above my crib of Mickey Mouse holding Morty and Ferdie (those are Mickey's nephews, FYI) by their tails over a big washtub full of bubbles because they had jammy hands. 

Once I could walk, I used to hold one person parades around the coffee table in my parents' living room to the scratchy record I had of the Mickey Mouse March. "Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?  M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"  Over and over again until I drove my poor mother crazy.

My first vacation to Disney World was at age three, right before I became a big sister. 

Childhood was filled with movies and TV specials like "The Wonderful World of Disney" where Tink would fly across the screen before the castle came up on the screen.  And it wasn't just Mickey Mouse and animation.  There's a whole spectrum of nature specials about animals and live action movies that are a lot more wholesome (read: corny)  than some of the "family programming" that's available today.


I'm old enough to remember the first VCR that my family bought.  That sucker was huge and the video tape went into a pop-up door on the top.  The remote had a WIRE!  It cost something like $800.  The first videos that my family bought?  I remember Dumbo and one of my favorite movies ever, Pete's Dragon.

Walt was the original voice of Mickey.  Walt persevered through times of financial hardship, when no one believed in him or the work he was doing.  He was truly an brilliant businessman, an innovator and an icon.  My live would have been very different if not for the life and work of Walt Disney.

So thank you, Mr. Disney, happy birthday, and thank you for my lifetime full of believing in magic and pixie dust and wishes that come true.

Now it's ON, baby!!!!`

Not actually our planner!

I just got a call from DFTW!!!!  We've been assigned our planner!!!!  It's the amazing Maxine. 

First thing I did was go to the Dis Boards and see what the other brides had to say and everyone loves her!  And then I googled her and found her on Twitter.  Followed!  

Oh, I am so excited.  I am literally bouncing up and down in my seat.  I went squealing down the hall to my co-worker's office just to share the excitement!

So now we get to see if we can swing a planning session sometime in the late spring, early summer.

You gotta have a PLAN!

Not my actual planner. 
Our wedding is on a Thursday!

Our check has been in Disney's hands for a little over a week and I keep watching our checking account to see when it clears. Once it clears I can await the assignment of our planner and a bunch more stuff to look through.  In getting ready to make the deposit and wondering whether or not we were going to have to go into a lottery for our venues or date I kind of forgot about, or put off, some of the smaller details about the wedding.

Like planning the actual trip for the wedding.

It just kind of hit me this weekend that the hotel and airfare and spending money for the wedding trip aren't included in the minimums we need to spend with Disney for the wedding. Ouch!  Aside from that, I think that our wedding trip involves some logistical issues that perhaps other Disney Brides don't really face. 

Big Fat Check!!!

We received our THIRTEEN page contract for the wedding from DFTW and, whew, we signed it and the check is going out via Priority Mail today.

It's really going to happen!  Now the real planning starts.

Weigh-In Wednesday #9

I've been doing my Weight Watchers thing-- eating better (actually remembering to eat before dinnertime!) and getting a little exercise and tracking all of my Points Plus, tm. 

I started on October 12.  I weighed in today at 285 even. 

I am down 8 and a half pounds.  I want to hit ten down this coming week. 

It's kind of ridiculous but I can feel it.  I put on a pair of jeans tonight that I bought last spring and they're falling down.  I have to keep hiking them up when I walk.  Wow.

I'm hoping to lose 8 pounds a month for the next year.  If Weight Watchers keeps working for me like it is now, I know I'll be able to do it!!!

Oh the confusion...

So now that we're within that year mark we get to start the real planning stuff and, oddly, before we can sign a contract or provide Disney with a check, we have to deal with the room block.

I would always chuckle at the messages I'd see on the Dis Boards with people all stressed out over the room block, asking all kinds of questions.

Yeah.  Um.  I had NO IDEA what a confusing mess it is to set up the room block or how much information was required.  Or that if we don't make it to the number of reserved rooms that we requested be held, Prince Charming and I will have to pay to make up the difference. I thought it was as simple as picking three hotels and being done.  Nope. 

OMG!!!

It's a year away.  Only a year away.

365 days.


525,600 minutes. 

We can finally sign our contract with DFTW and send them a big check and start making decisions and making it REAL.

I'm hyperventilating.

Weigh-in Wednesday #8

I've been rocking the Weight Watchers points all week.  I've still eaten some stuff that could clearly be considered "unhealthy" or "not diet food" but I didn't go over my points and I finished off the week with 32 points plus to spare.

And I walked up to the scale.

And I took a deep breath.

And I said a quick little prayer.

I lost 6.8 pounds.  Today's weight?  288.6

No expectations or anything

Prince Charming and I have been living together for a little over four years now.  We have a toaster.  We actually have two toasters.  So we weren't planning on doing a registry.

I mean, we're asking people to travel to Florida to come to our wedding so we certainly don't expect gifts on top of that.  So I've been spreading the news that "your presence is your present," but still I'm told that some people might want to get us something.

In light of that, we set up a Disney Honeymoon Registry.  So if someone were all inclined to want to give us something in celebration of our marriage, they could pick something off the list for our wedding trip.

Weigh In Wednesday #7

Weight Watchers started TODAY!!!! I left the meeting with an armful of materials, a new food calculator  thingee and a cookbook.  I weighed in at an appalling 293.4.  Kill me now. 

For some reason, WW makes a big deal over losing 10% of your body weight.  In order to achieve that 10% loss goal, I need to lose 30 pounds.  That's daunting.

Still, here we go, chugging down the track.

So how did I prepare for this new start? I spent the weekend really enjoying food.  Prince Charming and I went to our favorite Amish buffet restaurant over the weekend and then again on Monday to sort of purge our systems of bad eating.  I don't think I was like a raging glutton or anything but I ate food that I knew wasn't the healthiest choice. Sort of a last hurrah before getting serious.

It's kind of weird to think of it that way since the premise behind the Weight Watchers program is that you don't have to be deprived of your favorite foods.  If it's worth it to you to spend the necessary Points Plus (tm) to eat the food, then you can! And you can do it guilt free!

I bet a piece of fried chicken is like 24 points plus.  That's more than half my day's points!  I love me some fried chicken but I don't know if I love it that much!

Yikes. 

Just Dance? 3?

Over this past weekend my family and I went to my niece's birthday party.  I'm clueless when it comes to shopping for other kids so I asked my sister what we should bring for her daughter's birthday present.  I was told that my niece (who just turned 5) loves dancing games and Just Dance 3 was just released for the Wii and she really, really wants it.

After the party was over, we went back to my sister's house and my boys played Just Dance 3 with their cousins.  It was hysterical watching my poor, rhythmless boys jumping around dancing.  Munchkin #1 danced to Kung Fu Fighting over and over and over.  The kids LOVED the game so much that today Prince Charming and I popped in to Game Stop and picked up Just Dance 3 for our XBox Kinect. Apparently it's the first "Just Dance" title that's available for Kinect.  The first two were only for the Wii console. 

I was really surprised.  The game has a huge amount of music by the original artists (or the original cover artists for some remakes...) in multiple genres. I feared it was going to be all current hip hop and dance stuff and that I'd have to screen for lyrical content before I could freely let the kids play.  So far we've heard Kiss, Janelle Monae, Laura Bell Bundy, The Pointer Sisters and a song from The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Weird!  But so much fun!

The game is really easy to play too.  It's basically (according to Prince Charming) "washed-out albino neon people" dancing in front of a plain background and you mimic what they're doing, as they're doing it,  as if you're looking in a mirror.  The game tracks your movement with the Kinect camera and tells you if you're doing okay, good or perfect and somehow or another, you score stars.  I need to figure this out a little better- I let the kids set everything up.  For all I know, they were in practice mode or something.

It looks so easy.  I had to get in on the dancing and holy COW!  I danced to three songs and was sweating like crazy.  This game really is quite the workout!  Apparently, the creators knew that because the game logs something called "Sweat Points" and I have a feeling it's just how many calories I burned while jumping all over my living room, making my bookshelves and all the stuff on them rattle and shake.

This could be a nifty little workout for me, that I can do with my boys!  I need to move around more and Jillian is great, but not as much fun as dancing to Sugar Hill Gang's Apache like the dude in that Evolution of Dance video. (It's at about 3:50, if you're looking!) How funny would it be to get the kids to memorize a dance routine for the wedding?

So after one hour of play, I highly recommend Just Dance 3 for the Kinect as a viable and fun workout tool! 

Overdue Trip Recap, pt 1: The Site Visit!

Franck's Bridal Salon, home of Disney Fairy Tale Weddings

It's over a month since our trip to Disney World and our site visit with DFTW.

How'd it go?  Hmm.  That's tough to answer.  We were in Florida for almost a week and our appointment at Franck's was the last morning of our trip.  While we were in Disney we did not have email access and my phone was destroyed on the first day in the parks by a sudden rainstorm.  At one point I checked my voicemail from Prince Charming's phone and there was a slightly frantic message from a guy at DFTW saying that someone else wanted our appointment time and would we be okay giving it up and he needed us to call back immediately.

A year already?

I can't believe it's been a year since my surprise one-day trip to the World.  I still can't believe that Prince Charming planned the whole thing and that it went off so perfectly. 

I thought that by this time I'd be 50 pounds lighter and that we'd have a chunk of money saved.  Yeah, not so much.

Still, the planning continues and the saving continues and I just keep trying to diet and will be starting on Weight Watchers next week.  Some days are better than others with the dieting.

But every day is part of my happily ever after and I'm just so glad to have found my prince.

Weigh-In Wednesday #6: the failure

Ugh!  So my Weigh-in Wednesdays have not been going as well as I'd hoped.  I have been walking and for the most part I'm eating well but things like summer carnivals have thrown me off; celebrations for birthdays and anniversaries; vacation.  I like food.  I’d call myself a Foodie.  I just need to be making better choices. 

The biggest problem, I think, that is keeping me from successfully losing the weight I need to lose, is eating out.  Fairly often I’ll decide I’m not making dinner after a day at work where there’s issues or when there’s a lot of traffic on the commute home.   Many nights I’ll have hungry faces staring at me because I forgot to thaw something to make for dinner and then it’s pizza or Chinese or going out to one of the hundreds of chain restaurants in our area.   A small, local place has an all-you-can-eat wing buffet on Monday nights where they serve a dozen differently sauced chicken wings and sometimes  Prince Charming and I will give in to the temptation.  Oooh!  And on Thursday nights they have shrimp night and it’s the best, large, clean peel-and-eat shrimp you ever had…

(Do you see what happened there?  I start getting all excited and boom! Three more pounds! ARRRGHHH!)

My office has a Weight Watchers meeting every Wednesday (convenient for my blogging, right???) and it runs on a 12-week cycle.  The new cycle starts in October, I think, and I’m going to suck it up and register.  I need the help and the support and the accountability to do this.  Apparently I can’t do it on my own and Weight Watchers has worked for me in the past.

When that starts up I will be writing about it.

Checking the mailbox...again!!!

It was some time toward the end of July.  I was excited and bouncy and just knew that everyone would immediately check off the yes box and send those postcards back to me.

It's a month later.  I've gotten some of the postcards back but not all of them.  I keep checking my mailbox and sometimes I'll see those polka dots and my smile appears.

Sadly, some of our family and friends aren't able to make the trip to Florida for our wedding and we knew that would be the case when we made the decision to have a Disney wedding.  It's our dream to have the Fairy Tale wedding to really start our happily ever after and we'll do all we can to make our loved ones who can't be there physically still feel like a part of the party.

In the meantime, if that postcard is sitting on your countertop.  Check yes and send it back, okay?

Disney Trip!

We're back and I'll do a full trip recap over the next few days.  Much fun was had.  We got to see the Wedding Pavilion and may have chosen a completely different room for the reception that wasn't even on our radar.  In the meantime, some photos:

The Suite Life!

I head out to the World tomorrow for vacation with Prince Charming's munchkins and our Site Visit with DFTW but before I left I had to share this link to pictures of the actual suites at Disney's Art of Animation Resort that will open next year!

We're using AoA as one of our room block resorts because so many of the people we're inviting are families that will require extra sleeping space. 

It looks amazing.  I think the Nemo suites are my favorite.

First Look at Disney's Art of Animation Resort!

Fit to be Tied, part 2

The Results are IN and they're bright and colorful!

Fit to be Tie-Dyed, part 1

This is not a shirt I made.  I just liked it.
So I had to attempt my own.

Prince Charming and I are getting ready for our trip to the World on the 17th.  I cannot wait.  CAN. NOT. WAIT!!!!  So we've been buying those little odds and ends that are needed for the trip like cheap ponchos and anti-chafing stuff and new shoes.

Since I'm me, and I'm not happy unless I've got some random craft project in the works, I decided to make tie-dyed tee shirts for all of us.

I spotted these on the DIS boards.  There are a million pictures posted over there, some more successful than other, and lots of instructions and tips and hints.

I had to give it a shot.

Whistle While You Wait!

I went to the post office this morning with a pile of envelopes.  Inside those envelopes were the long-discussed Save-the-Dates!  It took me forever to get the project to come together but I finished half of them this morning and just had to rush them out. 

The envelopes are modified 6x9 white catalog envelopes.  I cut about 3 inches off the end and created a flap and then used a glue stick to seal them.  The J&W came from the Close to My Heart Polka Dot Alphabet Stamp Set.  And you can't see it in this photo, but I also stamped a polka dot arrow and the phrase "Just for You" from the Close to my Heart stamp set called Magic Tabs.  

Upgrade!

Not me!  Or us!  Disney's Wedding Pavilion got some new stained glass windows and they are GORGEOUS!

You can see more after the jump. 

Weigh-in Wednesday #5

It's slow going here and I'm not sure why but I'm another two pounds down.

Today's weight: 284. Bleh.  My nextest goal is 275.  Let's see how long it takes me to get there.

Site Visit Scheduled!

This is Franck's. Pictures courtesy of Carrie Hayward of
Disneytravelbabble.com.She's totally a Disney wedding
celebrity.  Go to her site.  She has the awesome.

It's almost like it's really real!  I've been in contact with a senior Wedding Consultant over at Disney Fairy Tale Weddings to schedule a site visit while we are in Florida on vacation next month!  We're going to go look at the rooms I mentioned in my Location! Location! Location post.

The site visit will start off at Franck's, the center of all things DFTW in Florida, based on Martin Short's character in Father of the Bride.  (I love that movie!  Kimberley Williams-Paisley, the bride, is a Northwestern Alumna.  Will love her forever!)  Anyway, the visit will take about 2 hours out of our vacation.  We're planning to do it in the morning before our day gets started and we will either get a sitter for Prince Charming's munchkins or schedule them for one of the kids-only activities that the Grand Floridian offers.  

What a tease!

I found these on the web.  It's not ours.
Just so you know...

I've been sweating over these save-the-dates for awhile now.

When I started, I thought we should do a simple postcard or a magnet with out wedding information and a pre-RSVP.  I went to a bunch of websites and played with a few layouts and asked some of my fellow Disney brides what they thought. I calculated and thought and deliberated and ruminated and all of that stuff and then I scrapped the whole idea.

A Save-the-Date should be memorable and hint at other things to come: the invitation and the wedding.  Because we were planning to send these so far in advance to gauge who may or may not be coming to the wedding, we wanted something that wouldn't be as likely to end up in the recycling bin, something uniquely Disney.  Short of sending mouse ears embroidered with the date, we couldn't think of anything good.

And I brush and brush and brush and brush my hair...

That darned song from Tangled has been stuck in my head for weeks!  Last Saturday I finally made it to the salon where I get my hair done for a trim and highlights.  I'd never had color done in a salon before so it was kind of fun to have all of my hair wrapped in aluminum foil.  Between Tangled and my appointment, I started thinking about wedding hair. 

It's kind of hard to make a decision about my hair for the wedding this early because I don't have a dress or anything yet but I do know the "feel" we're trying to achieve and I know me.

Weigh-in Wednesday #4

My new job is great.  I love the people with whom I work and the work itself is interesting. Who could ask for anything more?  I am doing a lot more walking than I had been at home but I feel like I need to add an actual workout more often. 

I do have my Jillian DVD but by the time I get home and feed the family all I want to do is check Facebook and park my butt on the couch. 

Last night Prince Charming caught an informercial for a new pylometrics exercise program called "Ten Minute Trainer."  I'm intrigued.  He said it looks a lot like P90X but instead of hour long workouts, each one is, duh, ten minutes.  If you complete one workout and aren't winded or sore or tire, you can always do another.

I am also eating more consistently.  I developed a horrible habit of having coffee in the morning and then not eating again until dinner.  Often, I wouldn't even drink anything all day either! I have a 24-ounce water bottle that I fill up and drink at least twice over the course of my workday.  I've been adding calorie-free flavor via those cutesy little MIO bottles.  It makes it more palatable for me.  Now, if I can make time to make my own lunches instead of going over to the food court, I'd be doing even better.

My boss is doing Weight Watchers in the office and has lost almost 30 pounds.  They're starting a new cycle and I'd love to join but you have to pay $144 in advance and I haven't started getting paid yet so I don't have the funds to join this time.  Next time.  I'll post about it in 12 weeks when the next cycle starts.

Today's weight: 286. Minus two for the week.  WOOO HOOO!

Momentum: I'm getting some

For my lunch hour today, I went in search of places to get lunch.  I had a vague notion where I might be able to find some places so I headed off in that direction. I'm wearing my new Sketchers Shape Up Sandals and I love them.  They're super comfortable, and if they help my thighs and butt, well then, that's added value!  After walking in them at a brisk pace for half an hour, I started to feel a little soreness in my calves and thighs.

Maybe more than a little.

I kept going.  I started to get a little sweat happening.  I felt winded.  It was great! I walked in a big circle and then came back around to this mall type place where they have a food court with lots of options and what did I choose for my lunch?  A healthy salad?  A sandwich with some crisp veggies? 

I probably made the least healthy selection available.   Those darned Auntie Anne's people with their bewitching pretzel aromas!  I ended up wasting all my exercise points by chowing down on a cheese crusted pretzel dog.

Bad! Bad Bad!

Still, I walked.  I walked quite a bit and let me just tell you:  It's really hot outside. 

So I'm going to give myself a little credit for moving around during my free time.  Tomorrow is a special "Hot Dog Day" at my office, a fundraiser/morale improving social lunch event so I can't promise I'll get my walk, but I'll try to behave myself in the face of an array of baked goods.

Location, Location, Location!

Indoor?  Outdoor?  Indoor?  Outdoor?  It's going to be November in Florida.  It could still be fairly warm weather but it could also be insanely cold weather.  It's so hard to choose!  It's too tough to decide?  Luckily, we still have plenty of time.

Despite being up in the air, there are some frontrunners in the Great Wedding Venue Race.  I think we're pretty set on the Wedding Pavilion for the ceremony, but where, oh where, shall we dance the afternoon away?  I have some ideas about what I want the reception room/space to be like.

It needs to coordinate in "feel" for our theme, which I'm calling "Retro 50s Ice Cream Shoppe Party."  So any old convention center room is just not going to work.  I want some natural light and if possible, a view of the outdoors (if we're not actually outdoors!)

Weigh-in Wednesday #3

It's my first week at my new job and I think it's a great time to start new, better habits. 

Walking during my lunch hour is on my agenda, and if the first two days are any indication, I'll be spending a lot of time running around the office, bustling here and there, running to meetings, going to the mail center, dashing down the stairs and up the stairs and all around.  It's been exhausting.

Also on the New-Habits-I-Need-to-Start list is actually eating more than once a day, and hopefully, making choices that are healthier, whole foods.

It's mostly so far, so good.

But with all the stress and nervousness leading up to starting this job, I gained two pounds.  I am so ashamed of myself.  It's terribly embarrassing.  I'll do better next week, I promise.

Today's weight: 288. Bleh.

Sparkly, Sparkly, Sparkly

I admit I am a serious dork and I am counting down until November 18th when Breaking Dawn premieres.

I'd like to point out that I've been a huge fan of vampire fiction since my junior year in high school when someone loaned me Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice.  I swear, I've read most of the Vamp Lit that's out there.  Still, at least right now, the Twilight series is my favorite series and I love the movies.  I watch them a lot. I have an addiction and it must be fed. 

In case you didn't know, the last Twilight book, Breaking Dawn, starts with a wedding. Hello!  CityGirl is in HEAVEN!  Woo hoo!  I must analyze every aspect!

Last night, after Game of Thrones, I had to watch the MTV Movie Awards because the cast of Twilight was nominated for a bunch of awards.  Additionally, they premiered a longer sneak peak trailer of Breaking Dawn, part 1, and there were some tidbits of wedding-y goodness.

Be Our Guest!

This is kind of random but I was thinking about guestbooks.  I love the idea of recording who was actually in attendance at our wedding but the traditional guest book full of signatures is, well, IMHO, kinda boring.  Once the wedding is over, you put it in a box in the closet and forget about it.  Lame!

Cruising around the web, I saw some nifty ideas for more interesting, creative and inventive guest options.

Go name free!  Check out this piece of artwork I found at Paper Garland, where the couple asked their guests for a thumbprint.  It's adorable.  I could see this kind of thing hanging on a wall in my house forever.  It even has a little bit of Disney flair in that it reminds me of Carl and Ellie Fredriksen from one of our favorite movies, Pixar's Up! 

I've also seen the thumbprint thing done as leaves on a tree.  Cute, but not Disney-fied enough.

It's unique but you don't know which thumbprint belongs to which guest.  It's a teeny tiny drawback.  I wonder if we'll have enough guests to make this really work for us?   I love the idea though! This one is a frontrunner!

What about something less arty and more personal?  Some clever, game-loving couple came up with the idea of a Jenga guest book.  I found this at Oh Lovely Day (an amazing wedding blog packed with DIY ideas) and she found it on photographer Jennifer Roper's webpage. It would be interesting to see how this would work with my favorite board game, Scrabble.  How tiny would you have to write to get your name on one of those little tiles?

I love this idea but what if you're having a whole lot of guests (not that we are!) but this could become quite the unwieldy game of Jenga!

Weigh-in Wednesday #2

No change.  Blasted Memorial Day BBQ and your yumminess.  Oh well, it's better than a gain! 

Sorry for the lack of posting but it's been a busy week!  I have officially been offered a job.  I accepted!  Now it's a crazy scramble to get the kids into a daycare. I promise a better post soon.

Weigh-in Wednesday #1

I feel like Wednesday is a good day to check in with the whole diet thing.  I like alliteration and it will keep me accountable.

My last recorded weight on My Fitness Pal was 287.  I weighed in this morning at 286.  Wooo hoo, one pound lost.

Of course, I've slacked on hanging with Jillian and I've not been eating particularly well.  I'll do better.  I have to.

Thinking about Clothes

Today, on the David's Bridal Facebook page, this rocking pair of polka dot peeky toe shoes made an appearance.  My lovely and wonderful friend who works in the corporate offices of David's Bridal pointed them out to me.  At first, I was all, "Meh," but then I noticed that sassy platform.  I'm not normally a heel girl.  My messed up ankle makes wearing heels for a long period of time painful and I tend to look like a spastic robot trying to walk in them but I'd be willing to give it a try again for these babies.  Probably not for the actual wedding, but definitely for a wedding-related event.

That Girl is a Crafty One...

One of the things I'm really excited about with the impending nuptials and the Disney-ness of them (not considering for a second how excited I am to finally be Mrs. Prince Charming!) is that I get to be all kinds of crafty with all of the wedding accoutrements.

Hi!  My name is City Girl Lost and I am a crafting addict!

(Everyone say it together:  Hi City Girl!)

I spend a significant chunk of my time cutting out pieces of paper and gluing them together in interesting and appealing patterns.  I've also taken to playing with fabric.  So looking at the prices some of my other compatriot Disney brides are paying for things I can do for next to nothing, well, it makes me feel kinda bad.

How can I make such nifty things on the cheap?  I am a Cricut owner.

Never heard of a Cricut?  It's the niftiest thing ever.  It's kinda like a printer only instead of putting ink on paper, it uses a blade to cut an image (or letters) out of paper or fabric or vinyl. There's literally hundreds of themed cartridges filled with letters and graphics that you can  cut out. 

Walt's Rules part 2: Minimum Expenditures

Last time I posted about the rules I mentioned that we're planning to do a Wishes wedding.  What does that mean for us in terms of rules?  Lots.  Lots and lots of cross figuring and tabulating and math and stuff. 

Wishes weddings have a bunch of minimum expenditure rules.

There is a total amount of money you must spend on the day of your wedding depending on what day of the week you choose and the time of your events. Like most wedding type places, it's most expensive to get married and have your reception on a Saturday night.  That's why we're not doing that.

A little mouse-y magic

Oooh, sparkly, sparkly!

What a downer that last post was, right?  Thinking about my weight issues always puts me in a depressive mood so I think it's time for a perkier post. Something mouse-y and wedding-y and generally good.  So to give my amazing Prince Charming some of the credit he's due, I'll discuss his proposal.

We'd been living together for three years so it's not like we didn't have plans in mind for marriage. We'd gone to a few jewelery stores together to shop around for a ring and I knew the big proposal was coming sooner rather than later.  I tried really hard not to think about it too much.I couldn't help myself though.  I am a big mushy, sappy, romance-loving girl.

Standing in the kitchen one evening, cleaning up from dinner, Prince Charming dramatically paused and asked, "Do you want me to do it sooner or do you want me to do The Grand Plan?"

Why do I let TV do this to me?

Last night was the Prom episode of Glee.  I love me some Glee. I let last night's episode get to me a little bit.  Forgive me the whinypants post.

Of course, there was a sequence where all the girls were dress shopping and checking each other out.  Now, one of the many things I love about Glee is that there are two- TWO- girls on the show who aren't super skinny.  The character Lauren Zizes is one of the plus-sized girls (in royal blue over there) and has paired off with the hot football player, Puck, who likes her because "she's a bigger badass than he is."

Somehow, Zizes is able to shop for a prom dress at the same store as her regular-sized teammates and she has a choice of dresses to pick from.  That was soooooo not my experience. I was jealous.  I felt the tears start to run down my face remembering my prom dress shopping experience.

I wasn't horribly overweight in high school, probably on the high end of average with a tendency toward plumpness.  Shopping for my junior prom dress remains probably one of the worst experiences of high school and I've never really talked about it with anyone.

First things first: Ceremony

The Walt Disney World Resort is a big place.  It's pretty much it's own city, right there in the swamps of central Florida.  There are a whole slew of places where you can choose to have your wedding ceremony within the magical sprawl that is WDW. It's not an easy choice to make and there are lots of factors to consider in making a location choice,  including cost and scheduling and transportation.

Everyone I've mentioned our plans to wants to know if it's happening in THE SPOT.  Yes, you can get married in the Magic Kingdom, in front of the castle, but it costs close to $30K to do it.  That's just the ceremony site fee- that's not including anything else.  All that money, just to use that location. That's not the route we're taking, just for the record! 

Prince Charming and I are fairly certain that we want at least one aspect of our soiree to be INSIDE one of the theme parks but the ceremony in the MK isn't going to be it.  Having something else inside one of the parks is totally do-able but there are lots of things to consider and I'll get to that later.

Here's the kicker- if you want an in-park ceremony, in one of the other parks like Epcot or Animal Kingdom, it has to be before the park opens for the day or after it closes.  That means a 9 a.m. ceremony, which doesn't sound so bad, right?  Then you factor in prep time, like hair and makeup and dressing.  Add in time for professional photography.  Breakfast.  Transportation.  Now I'm looking at a 5 a.m. wake-up call on a day when I really don't want to have huge bags under my eyes.

But there's other drawbacks as well.  Like, if any of your events are in a theme park, you cannot bring in an outside photographer.  You have to use Disney Fine Art Photography services. You also have to use Disney florists and in some cases, you can't have amplified music.

So I think we've ruled out actually getting married in a park.

Prince Charming and I sat in front of our computer and looked at all the options and came up with what we think are our plans.  (Keep in mind we can't actually book or confirm anything until that 16-month mark!)

All the cool girls are doing it

There's something fairly new in the realm of wedding planning: The Style Board.  (Well, new since I planned my first wedding back in the dark ages!) It's basically a collage of elements that you like or plan to use.  They generally show colors and themes and make it easy to give sort of a one-glance idea of what the wedding will be like.  I've been collecting stuff for, like, ever and so I put together one of these new-fangled thingamabobs myself. 

There's a lot of red there, right?  Funny.  I wanted red just because it's striking, romantic and Prince Charming's favorite color.  A couple weeks ago I was watching a webcast of an event at DFTW where David Tutera declared that red would be the big color for weddings in 2012.  So much for my life as a trendsetter! 

Here's what I hope this little collage gives clues to:  we want the wedding to be a celebration.  Because of the kids and the second marriage thing and the destination wedding element, we want our wedding to be a big, silly, whimsical party with hints of Main Steet USA and 1950's ice cream soda shoppe sweetness.

As for the tone.  Formality shmormality.  We don't want any of it.  It's a P-A-R-T-A-Y!  I want to dance with my Prince Charming and our kids to every goofy participation dance the DJ can dig up. I want to look back on the day and remember feeling loved, laughing my head off and having an amazing time. I need to start brushing up on my Cha Cha Slide and Time Warp, I guess.

The Rules, according to Walt, part 1

There are lots of rules to this whole Disney wedding thing. I'm going to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start!)

I'm not actually allowed to start planning our wedding yet.  Disney Fairy Tale Weddings (DFTW is so much easier to type) is all hard core about their planning rules and how things work.  It's truly all weird and odd and strange to me that they won't actually let couples start planning (or take any money from them) until a certain number of months before the wedding.

I really, really hate her already

I've been using this website to track my calories and exercise and all that stuff to help me with the weight loss thing. Some of my friends have had tremendous luck using just the site and watching what they eat.  Me?  I'm falling far short of my goal of six pounds per month.  Here we are, four months deep into the year and I've lost eight pounds total.  I haven't been particularly dieting or exercising, so that's not so hard to believe.  Actually, I'm quite shocked it's that much. I need to do better.

So, I did something drastic. I drove myself over to Target and bought Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred.

I felt like I needed to be sneaky about the purchase, like the rest of the Target shoppers would point and snicker when they saw the fat girl putting a workout DVD in her cart.  I was careful to hide it under some Special K Red Berries and some socks.  I picked a cashier who was a bit on the chubby side too.  At least I can point and snicker at myself, right?


The DVD sat on the shelf in my living room for two days.  I put it in today and HOLY COW, the basic level-1 workout totally kicked my butt.  I mean really.  REALLY.  The sweat was pouring down my face and back and toward the end I just couldn't keep going. And of course, Jillian was berating me for not being able to finish.  She kept pointing to the incredibly fit chick to her left that was doing the "modified" (read: fat person) routine.  She mentioned how she's had 400 pound people do these exercises and they did it and she knew I could do it too. I wanted to throw something at her. Prince Charming might kill me if I threw something at his new tv.  I'll have to restrain myself.  Anyway, my heart was pounding and my boobs hurt from jumping up and down because I didn't think to put on a sports bra.

It hit me about five minutes after I was done. I sat down and I felt good.

Isn't that weird?

I loved that tight muscle feeling and being a little winded.  I kinda can't wait until tomorrow.  It is kinda cool to know that I can switch the DVD to music only and not listen to Jillian but for now, I need her to be mean to me.

So what's this all about anyway?

I never thought that I'd be starting all over in my thirties.  Dont' think that it's all about the griping though.  The bad stuff is behind me.  Things are pretty sweet right now because there are three things I'm sort of dealing with all at once.

The first is a lifelong struggle- the pounds.  That's so big, I'm going to put it in capital letters: THE POUNDS.  Right now, my weight is way too close to 300.  For my health, for my appearance, for my life, they've got to go.  Last year, I went all through the work up for gastric band surgery.  I received my approval two days before my insurance policy changed from allowing such surgery and paying for it, to specifically excluding it.  It SUCKED and I was really upset, especially after having gone through all the horrendously embarrassing parts of the work up.  Like having to poop in a Tupperware container and bring it to the hospital.  Yeah.  It was bad. Thinking about it now, the gastric band is very limiting.  It would allow for a rapid weight loss quickly but really changes everything about a person's relationship with food, especially in ways that I don't want to deal with.  So I'm going it on my own.  My goal is to lose at least 6 pounds a month.  I think it's doable.

The second issue is wedding planning.  A re-marriage.  I've been down the aisle before. Wedding planning at 23 was stressful and insane and every detail had so much gravity and importance.  This time around there are children involved - two that I birthed and two that belong to my fiance.  That changes things.  Also, this time around, my focus is way more on the marriage part of the wedding than the party and while I'm hoping the party will be epic, I have faith that the marriage will last.  I'm not so naive as to think that everything is perfect through my rose-colored glasses, but I think maturity and those lessons I learned will serve me well going into this.  The fiance and I have been living together for several years now so we feel a smug sense of "we rock at this relationship thing." So all we have to do is get around to getting married.

The third thing, and first on the list is The Mouse.  Come on, you have to know what mouse I'm talking about. Mickey.  Em- eye-see...kay- eee- why... Em-oh-you-es-eeeeeee!  We are Disney nuts.  Disney dorks. Disneyphiles.  Whatever word you use to describe the obsession, that's us. As soon as the idea of getting married came up, we knew it would be a Disney wedding. And my fiance, Prince Charming that he is, somehow managed to surprise me with a one-day trip to Orlando so he could propose in front of the castle. A Disney wedding with a Minnie and Mickey cake topper at our local hotel ballroom was never going to be the plan for us.  No!  Not Disney enough!  We are planning our nuptials in Florida at the house of mouse and we want it with all the Disney-ness our money can buy.

So that's what I'm here to type about, planning my Disney wedding and losing the pounds at the same time.  The wedding's the deadline.