Honest RSVP

I am still obsessively checking the mail every day for little black envelopes.  There are so many outstanding that I just can't stand it.  So in light of my growing RSVP insanity I wanted to share this honest and comprehensive RSVP form found online.

I bought a DRESS!!!!

This is the David's flagship store, not the one I went to.
Just sayin'.

I was nervous about dress shopping.  I haven't lost all the weight I want to yet.  I've been feeling pretty down on myself.  For some reason my skin is breaking out like I'm still a 15-year-old oil factory.  I needed a good sized dose of feeling like a princess.

So my sister and my friend and I went to a local David's Bridal.  Our big budget buster is having the wedding at Disney so spending lots of dollars on a fancy dress was never going to happen.  It just happened to be the weekend of the David's clearance sale and I was hoping to snatch up one of the dresses I'd posted about last year.  

Music! For the Ceremony! We picked some!

Time is running out and there are lots of little decisions being made every day it seems.  Today it was music.

Yesterday I had a phone conference with our wedding planner (the AMAZING Maxine!) to discuss our BEO- the Banquet Event Order- basically the entire script of the day from transportation pick-ups, to the ceremony order and music, to the meal, to everyone leaving and someone packing all the remnants up.  It's an intricate document that also spells out the prices we're going to pay for the elements of the wedding.

The BEO is a daunting, scary thing.

There was a big hole on our BEO: I still owed Maxine our chosen ceremony music.  Our ceremony is going to be very simple and very personal  to us. We've chosen to use all Disney music for our ceremony and it will all be played by the organist who comes with the Wedding Pavilion.

So while I won't reveal what song is being used for what, here's what we chose:

Candle on the Water from Pete's Dragon

Weigh-In Wednesday #11

It's been a long time since I did one of these because I was so embarrassed that I fell off the wagon.  Not only did I fall off, it took off without me at 90 m.p.h.  I let myself fall into the old habit of eating my feelings and that canceled out all of the progress I'd made.

I am happy to report that I stepped on the scale this morning and the number was better than the last time I posted.  Not by much but hey, we celebrate the small successes just like the big ones!

Today's weigh in was 284.  One pound less than the last time I weighed in FOUR MONTHS AGO but in that time I've started a new job, had lots of child-related stress and I just spent three days in Walt Disney World where one day was focused on food. 

Our Disney Wedding Planning Session, part 2: floral and cake

After returning to Franck's from our trip over to the Grand Floridian kitchen, we returned to Merriweather and met with Elizabeth from Disney Floral & Gifts, who handle all of the floral arrangements and decor elements of the wedding.  I sent her the link to my wedding board on Pinterest and partially filled out the floral planning form indicating what we were want ahead of our meeting.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  I've seen other Disney brides' floral bills and I think it's insane what Disney charges for flowers but, if you use outside floral, you get stuck with fees. So we plunged in...

For myself, I wasn't really sure if I wanted all of the floral elements to be matchy matchy or if we were going to go with personal floral that was different from the decor floral.  We decided not to do matchy-matchy. 

For myself, I requested a hand-tied, red rose bouquet in the bridesmaid size.  The stems will be wrapped with a black ribbon with white polka dots.  The ribbon will cover the entire stem.  No green sticking out the bottom. 

Our princess will carry a red rose wand.  I think that's three roses and a big bow of black ribbon with white polka dots.  She will totally love it. 

More pictures from the Tasting at the Grand Floridian



The sign... and a really clean, well-organized kitchen

 


Our Disney Wedding Planning Session, part 1: menu tasting

I can't believe that it's over and I had to come back to real life today.  We had a whirlwind weekend at Disney and I have the blisters on my feet to prove it!

We flew out of Philadelphia to Orlando on Thursday evening.  After the flight, the trek through Orlando's airport, waiting for the Magical Express bus and the trip to the property, we didn't get to the check in desk at Coronado Springs until midnight.  Still, we set up a wake-up call for 6 am, we set the alarm on my Kindle for 6:30 and the room's alarm clock for 6:45.  I figured if we were up by seven for our nine o'clock appointment, we'd be in good shape.  And we were.

We took a taxi to the Wedding Pavilion so that the trip over would take 15 minutes instead of an hour plus.  When we got to the Pavilion, there were security guards parked in the driveway, blocking the way.  Our driver tried to explain with his thick Haititan (I think!) accent that we had an appointment.  The security guard kept saying "Planner?  Planner?"  After a couple minutes of this I yelled from the backseat, "Yes, we have an appointment with a planner!"  And they finally let us through.

The construction at the Grand Floridian is still ugly.



Those aren't the types of cranes I'm used to seeing at Disney.

 We were actually quite early for our appointment so we got to hang around Franck's and look around before being ushered into the Merriwether room to discuss stuff with our Wedding Planner, Maxine.  It seemed like five minutes went by before her Blackberry beeped that it was time to head over to the Grand Floridian for our menu tasting!!! We were both totally giddy with excitement.

Food photos are after the jump!