From Disney to Cypress Grove wedding plans

[Sarah84]

I've been sharing my wedding plans on another 'very private' Disney brides forum but as a few of you on here were interested in my plans I figured I start to share them here too

So, firstly the introductions

Bride, 27 (28 at time of wedding) and the huge Disney fan out of the two of us I love all things Disney, pink & glittery and love my holidays and fast rides.

Groom, 27 (also 28 at time of wedding) not so much a Disney fan, infact doesn't 'get it' at all and think's its for kids but happy to do anything to make me happy and loves to holiday hates fast rides.

We've been together for 5 years not and engaged since September 2009 after a fab holiday to California & Vegas. I was shocked with a proposal in Disneyland California during the fireworks (if you read my trip report http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/show...59#post4124059 - day 3 then you'll know all about it)

The important things

Before I was even engaged I had come across a picture of my dream dress in someone else wedding planning thread and kept the picture & name in hope one day I may have a need to track it down, try it on and pray I love it just as much as I did in the picture.
Here is the said dres...

The Dress

As you can imagine once we were home and got back into normal life, the hunt for the dress started. I rang almost every Maggie Sottero stockists within about a 70 mile radius of me but none had the dress anymore and then at the end of October my aunt passed away, she was the only aunt that I wanted at the wedding and of course for a while most wedding related things were just left for a while. After 2010 started I begun to start thinking seriously about the wedding again and hunting for this dress to try on, I eventually found a store with it in Watford so made an appointment to try it on, although it was 2 sizes too big and not the colour I wanted I still fell in love and knew it was 'the one'. I didn't order there and then as I wanted to see if I could order from a shop closer to me and try on just a few more dresses JUST to make sure. I did that in April 2010 an no dress lived up to the one I wanted.
My friends (bridesmaids) were coming down to London from Wales at the end of April 2010 as one one running the London Marathon so I asked the shop if they could order the sample in for me to try on with them there.

Fast forward to that weekend and I went to try it on with all 3 bridesmaids with me and they all loved it is much as I did, well maybe not quite as much as me just they said it was perfect. I loved trying it on again but the catwalk sample they had got in for me to try on was the right size and colour that I wanted, just WAY too long And then and there I placed my order.

I recieved a call almost to the day a year later to say the dress had arrived so I went to collect it to store at my mums, I've been really good and only tried it on 3 times since i've picked it up

The shoes

For my shoes I knew I wanted a heel, something glittery and come across a website called 'Pretty small shoes@ where I spotted the perfect pair and my mum kindly got them for me. Here are the beautiful shoes..

The accessories

So far I only have my tiara, which the lovely Hayley brought back for me from Florida last year. Its from the Disney bridal collection and I want to get the matching earrings to go with it.

I also have my ring which I got in the new year, as you can see I'm so prepared and organised with my stuff but Darren will be having no ring and wearing his underwear at this rate

So here's my ring with my E-ring

[NatsyNoo]

Ooh Sarah I'm so happy you did this!

Right, one at a time...

1. The story... loved it first time, loved it second time... lovely story. Can't believe after all this time DFi still doesn't get it!

2. Dress - is that Cambria Marie I spy? Beautiful and very similar to mine and as a fellow Maggie bride I must say I greatly approve!

3. Shoes - I've said to you before I absolutely love your shoes! Very princessy! Love them! Just hope they're comfy but I remember from your Cali report that you're a heels girl so you should be ok!

4. Tiara - Love your tiara! I hadn't thought of looking at Disney tiaras! Got my research project for this evening! And the matching earrings are gorge too! Beautiful

5. Ring - my ring is basically exactly the same! Mine's from Goldsmiths sat in my spare room waiting for me! Love the combo of your e-ring and w-ring, they look beautiful together! 325 days or so and it'll be a permanent fixture on that lovely finger of yours!

Can't wait to hear more about your plans!

[Guest]

OMG did we all buy our rings from Goldsmiths, looks so much like mine! Loving the wedding pre-trippie Sarah, I love all your choices. Dress is gorgeous, shoes are AMAZING, and those earring look really nice! And i get a mention too, best pre-trippie ever LOL!

[NatsyNoo]

Looks like it Hayley!

[Sarah84]

Yay, I have 2 readers more comming up soon.
Yes, my ring was also from Goldsmiths, it's actually an eternity band not a wedding band but I prefered it to the weddings bands.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by Sarah84

Yay, I have 2 readers more comming up soon.
Yes, my ring was also from Goldsmiths, it's actually an eternity band not a wedding band but I prefered it to the weddings bands.

See more...

Ummm...have you seen the last page of my pre-trippie? I think we may have the same wedding ring as mine was an eternity ring too LOL! How mad is that!

[Sarah84]

The wedding details & why the switch!

From the moment I got engaged I couldn't think of anywhere else I wanted to get married than WDW, I deamed of ending my wedding day watching 'Wishes' of course with Darren not liking Disney I didn't know how to or really if I should even bother suggesting it but after about 2 weeks of being home from our engagement holiday I decided what the heck, I can only ask and see what he says. Well to my amazement he agreed straight away, no argument, no uncertainty just said 'if thats what I wanted thats what I'll be having' so for the last 18 months or so I have been researching & planning this dream Disney wedding and patiently awaited until 12 months out when I could finally contact DFTW and get pencilled in and get a consultant.
I knew exactly what I wanted, how I wanted by day to flow every last detail was decided both in my head and in my note book.
We were planning an Escape wedding with a 12pm ceremony at Seabreeze point, private reception at either Whitehall Room & Patio or Napa room and finish the day on the Grand 1 yacht watching Wishes.

It was finally 1st May 2011 and I could contact Disney although that was a sunday so I waited until Monday, I nervously called and left all my details and was expected a call within 5 days but to my surprise I got a call back from a consultant the very next day both people I had spoken to on the phone seemed lovely and all was going well untill...

After a couple of emails back and forth I found out we couldn't have either of our reception choices, both rooms are now only bookable for Wishes collection weddings, after a couple of days of thinking about which room I thought would be ok for our reception I had narrowed it down to one yes, just one - the Escape choices are not that exciting. This was The Attic, only to be told that was being held by a conferance for the whole week that we wanted the wedding. My options were pick another room (I didn't like any of them) or I could just hope The Attic became available or pick somewhere else and hope that at 30 days out either Whitehall or Napa was free and we could switch to that I really was gutted I had my heart set on Whitehall or Napa for about a year, but did I really want to take the risk and worrying until that close to the wedding if we'd be in a room we loved or didn't like at all and as it's such an important day I wanted it all to be perfect.
Obviously this was disapointment no 1, then to make things worse I had emailed my consultant nearly 4 weeks ago with some questions but yet to this day I'm STILL waiting for a reply, this is NOT the magical Disney service I imagined and for the past few weeks I was starting to feel that I was obviously not spending enough $$ for them to make the effort with
Another perk of a DFTW is the MK bridal shoot, I love the photos from this and despite the awful early start was set on having it but with all the cancellations at the moment I kept think what if mine got cancelled? I'd be heartbroken espcially as it was one of the reason I was sticking with Disney despite the few 'issues'

Just for the sake of it I started to look at wedding options outside of Disney and came across Cypress Grove and thought it looked gorgeous. I searched a few well known Florida wedding photographers websites to look for wedding they had done there and they only confirmed how pretty I thought the location was. To add to that the difference in price with Disney was enough to give you a heart attack honestly I had no issues with paying what I was for the DFTW but when things I wanted started to be come not possible, fears of things not going the way I imagined and important parts possibly having the chance of being cancelled I had to question if it was worth paying the Disney premium, have worries about my special up until the month or so before or should I just seriously consider thinking about having it elsewhere.

I contacted the wonderful Carrie from Destination Occasion (also a Dibb member) and she made me feel excited about the wedding plans again, i felt a real sense of that 'personal touch' with her rather than the feeling of just being another number in Disneys booking system and after a few days of research I soon realised I could still have a perfect, beautiful day with a private reception and end it watching Wishes plus I could extend my photographer to all day rather than 4 hours I intially planned and even with all this I's still only be spending about half of what the Disney wedding was costing me and I'd get to enjoy my wedding planning with excitement & happiness not having worries and fears about where we would end up eating, if my MK shoot would get cancelled etc

So I'm currently sorting everything out with Carrie and we have chosen Cypress grove for our ceremony although I'm not sure if we want 1pm or 3pm ceremony yet, reception is undecided but likely to be in a private room at Celebration Golf club or The villas at Grandy Cypress Golf resort.

Since around October last year we had picked Jason Angelini to photograph our big day, his photos are gorgeous and I love that they are not obviously edited jasonangeliniphotography... gory/weddings/

I've had Beaute Special booked for my hair & makeup for about a year now (you're probably realising I like to be organised )

Here's a picture of the ceremony site

I'm sad not to be able to say I'm a Disney Bride anymore and there is no chance we'll get to do the Magic Kingdom Bridal shoot but I know the day will be perfect

Coming up next...the trip plans

[Sarah84]

Originally Posted by Hayley&Gareth

Ummm...have you seen the last page of my pre-trippie? I think we may have the same wedding ring as mine was an eternity ring too LOL! How mad is that!

See more...

No I havent, off to have a look now and see if you're a copy cat

[NatsyNoo]

Sarah, I knew about your plans but it's nice to read it as a whole story. When the venue and photography are booked (love Jason's work btw and I'm finding Randy a bit 'elusive' right now! It's been over a week!) I'm going with Beaute. Have you requested Ana?

[Sarah84]

I hope Randy gets back to you soon, one thing I must say that I love about Jason is that i've never waited more than 48 hours (probably 24) to get a reply, but I think thats cause his wife deals with all the booking stuff and when I've had certain questions for him, sorting out the contract etc which he does all that he has always emailed me back within a day of Lucia (his wife) telling me she'll get Jason to email me.
No I haven't requested Ana, I was going to but then everyone who works there seems to do a fantastic job so I'm not really bothered who I get