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:

Since the site visit...a primer on DFTW timelines and a lament on a lengthy engagement

Source

So since we met with DFTW and toured our venues in way back in November 2010, I bet you're thinking: "You're so ahead of the game! You probably already have your venues booked and contracts signed!" Not exactly. As a matter of fact, other than my monthly emails to check in with Joe to make sure that no one else requested our venues on our date, there was zero progress with DFTW from November 2010 until July 2011. The DFTW booking timeline for Wishes weddings goes something like this:

"Improved" Disney Honeymoon Registry?

I just got an email from the Disney Honeymoon Registry letting me know that they had some "exciting news" about some "enhancements." Now, I know what you're thinking...why all the quotes? Well, in the year that I've been a future Disney bride and in the several years that I've been in tune with the Disney bride community, I've seen several "enhancements" come through.

The one that comes to mind first is the switch from Disney wedding websites to the Facebook app. From what I've gathered, the app is difficult to use, not easy to access, and most brides end up making their own websites and having their guests call to make reservations through their room block. There was also a switch from printed and mailed Save the Dates, to email Save the Dates. Save the Date etiquette is not as strict as the "rules" for invitations, but I'm partial to my guests receiving good, old-fashioned snail mail.

Our Site Visit - Part 2

Even though we were still about 2 years out when I went for my site visit with DFTW, I never for a second felt like our consultant, Joe, was bothered by it. I know there are some people who plan a wedding in a year or less, and the average engagement length seems to fall around 15 to 18 months, but this just wasn't going to work for us.

We arrived at Franck's early in the morning and took a look around the inside. It was empty except for another couple who came in shortly after us, however the lady behind the front counter told us we couldn't sit anywhere because all of the spaces were booked for meetings (meetings consisting of invisible people at that point I guess). The poor couple in there made the mistake of trying to sit down, and were promptly told that they couldn't.

Our Site Visit - Part 1

Did I mention that all that hemming and hawing over venue selection was done from thousands of miles away and based entirely off pictures I found on the internet? Sure, I had seen Sea Breeze Point in person before, but had never actually stepped foot inside of it or our newly chosen reception venue. The last time we were in Disney, I also wasn't scoping out the in-park locations as potential rehearsal dinner or welcome party event spaces.

To my amazement, shortly after getting engaged and choosing Disney as our wedding site, my parents proposed taking a trip there to meet with the Disney Fairy Tale Weddings (referred to as DFTW from here on out) team and to do a site visit of our venues! Well sign me up! I'll take any excuse to go to Disney. The fact that this trip would fall during the Epcot Food & Wine Festival made it an even sweeter deal.

Worst Wedding Blogger EVER

Wow! So what am I averaging here, a post every three months? I need to get my behind in gear over here! Considering how much time I spend thinking about my wedding, you'd think that I could take a few minutes to write a blog post once a week. So that is my new goal - one post a week. If I ever get any readers maybe there will be someone to hold me to it!

Now where did we leave off...