Mickey Head Pomander Tutorial

aka how not to create a Mickey pomander and how to fix it!

I've seen some beautiful pictures of Mickey Mouse pomanders (or kissing balls or flower balls as some people like to call them) on the Disney wedding boards and blogs. I wasn't crazy about any flower girl baskets that I saw and wanted to do something a little different. My wedding doesn't have a ton of Disney things (who am I kidding though, my Disney touches are growing by the day!), so I thought a hidden Mickey at my ceremony would be very cute.

I'll start by posting a picture of the finished product

The Wedding is REAL

It's been way too long since I posted. But...

The Save the Dates are in the mail!

The contract is signed and check is written!

My countdown is now in months and days instead of years!

We are actually doing this! We're getting married in Disney!

As soon as I get confirmation that our envelopes have started to arrive at their destinations, I will do a DIY post. Until next time, here is a picture of me registering over the weekend with Mr. Disney Groom. I hogged the scanner the whole time.

Beatles Bride

Mindy from Budget Fairy Tale shared a Beatles inspired wedding from Green Wedding Shoes on her Friday Favorites. I LOVE the Beatles and since our wedding has shifted to a more 60s themed bash, I'm loving all the inspiration.

Also, the bride's reception dress is one of my rehearsal dinner dress rejects. I still love the dress, so I'm hoping with some alterations it might make a good bridal shower dress. It photographs well!

I'm also extremely jealous of the Beatles cover band at their reception. I desperately wanted "The British Invasion" to play at ours until I found out that the fee was something crazy high like $10,000 for a few hours. I'm still bitter that they no longer play in Epcot and I don't know that I'll head over to watch the new band perform anytime soon. My live band dreams have flown out the window since we can't bring in outside entertainment vendors to our venue and all of Disney's bands start around $7,000. Ouch! I can live vicariously through this bride and her Beatles band though....and our DJ will be playing plenty of Beatles songs throughout the night!

My name is Miss Disney Bride and I have an addiction to buying dresses

I haven't gotten into my wedding dress shopping story yet, but since I literally spent hours trying to track down an elusive dress, I thought it was time to make a confession...I have a wee bit of a shopping problem.

Our rehearsal dinner is going to be epic. I might be more excited for it than the reception. Here is a sneak peak at our rehearsal dinner venue.

 

Photo from Disney Travel Babble 

Eeek! I lovveee it! So for such a fabulous venue I need an equally fabulous dress! I'm all about the white/ivory rehearsal dinner dress. No color for me! I'm going to wear as much white/ivory as I can at all wedding related events. 

The first dress I purchased was an impulse buy from Haute Look. I figured I could wear it to the RD or bachelorette party.

 

But when I got it that fluffy stuff on the shoulder was a little too distracting and the dress was more pink than white.

I then moved on to something a little more classy and romantic:

I loved this dress on the pictures of the models, but it just wasn't fitting me right. It was too long and too wide and the black ribbon at the waist was higher than my actual waist. Also, the lining on the dress was sheer and you could see even nude undergarments underneath it. I really, really wanted to love this dress. But I just didn't feel like I looked my best in it.

So I went from a demure dress, to something a little more flashy.

The dress was on backorder when I first ordered it, so I had to wait a few weeks before I got it in. This was another dress that I liked in theory. In real life...the waistband was too high and the bottom was too fluffy and made me look much larger than I am. I'd also be shedding feathers all night. Back to the store it goes.

I decided to change gears and maybe go for something flowy and ethereal...like J. Crew's Arabelle dress...until I found the dress.

You may have seen this wedding posted on Style Me Pretty.

So freakin cute! Image via Style Me Pretty

The down side? This dress is from several seasons ago a no longer available. Hence my several hour long search to find her. I checked every wedding classifieds site and used wedding dress site. I finally found one on ebay...2 sizes larger than what I normally wear. I decided to take a chance and order it, and will have it altered by a seamstress.

I hope I love it as much in person..because this one is not returnable!! 

Help Name the Budget Fairy Tale Mascot!

Fellow Disney bride Mindy is having a contest on her blog, Budget Fairy Tale, to find a name for her new mascot! Follow Mindy's blog and then leave a comment suggesting a name, and you'll be entered to win a custom caricature from Cameoland.

But hurry, the contest ends September 10!

Our engagement pictures!

I apologize (again!) for the lack of posts lately! I've been full of creative energy lately, and have been working on some fun stuff that has distracted me from sitting down and writing a blog post. I also got a new laptop and am having some trouble adjusting to the new keyboard. So, instead of racking my brain trying to think of the next wedding topic to tackle, I thought I'd just post some pretty pictures (and a vendor review!).

While most people do engagement pictures because they are included in their wedding package, I wanted to do them to:
1. Get a feel for our potential wedding photographers
2. Have some pretty pictures to hang around our house, add to my board signatures, put on our save the dates, use on Facebook, etc.
3. Have an excuse to take a trip to Disney after our Disney cruise on the Dream back in February 2011.

We were still over a year and a half from our wedding date, and couldn't even book a photographer yet. I knew from eons of planning that I was drawn to the style of two different photographers: Root Photography and Studio222 Photography. We ended up booking Studio222 for our engagement photos. Why, you ask? The pricing was similar, I liked work from both of them equally, but my gut told me to go with Studio222. I think the result speaks for itself.

More on our engagement photography experience in the next post!

All pictures were taken by the lovely, talented, and cool Studio222 Photography.

Themes, colors, and inspiration boards...oh my!

As you can probably tell from my post about selecting a venue, I had a lot of ideas about how I envisioned my wedding. I also love making inspiration boards, so in today's post, prepare to take  journey through the various incarnations of my wedding "theme" and colors.

Before getting engaged, I was convinced I was going to have some sort of Christmas theme. Think centerpieces with mountains of ornaments. Not cheesy...classy and glitzy. I went to a friend's work holiday party at the Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers in NYC (probably the nicest event I've ever been to in my life) and it had the most beautiful decorations ever! So this appears to be the only picture evidence I have: