Ali & Chris's Planning Journal - WP/GF 6.30.14

[taylorali]

So we are really beginning our process right now! We got our contract and everything and we are BEYOND excited!

That being said - I thought I'd start one of these, finally.

Our Story

Meet Us ~ Ali & Chris!
This picture is taken in our city, NYC, before we were engaged. This was in November and we got engaged January 2012!

Chris & I met in our first class of the 2006 semester in college. We had both just transferd to this new college from another - and well, it was just fate! We were both in different relationships and ended up being such close friends with every day that went by. Our other relationships did not work out and come February 2, 2007 - Chris asked me out. (For the 7th TIME!)
Here is a picture taken on that day - it was snowing insanely that day!!

Meet Chris:

Chris is 26 years old and lives with me in an apartment in New York City. He works for a big hospital in the city in insurance, but his true passion is aviation. Chris studied Aviation for several years until and illness did not allow him to go further to become the pilot he wanted to be. Chris left his college to go to a business college in New York - where he met me, Ali. So although Chris is out of the game (for now - he'll be back!) it is a blessing in disguise because we would have never met!

Before dating me, Chris knew really nothing of Disney besides the Disney channel. (Movies, shows, etc.) After a couple months of dating - (I've been going to Disney since I was not even a year old) - I said we should take a trip there so he could experience it! For him it was like opening a gift from Santa every five minutes. From that time on, Chris became probably more obsessed with Disney than I am!! Makes me love him even more!! Here is a picture from that trip! We're babies!
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/134_507166497574_8601_n.jpg

Meet Ali:

Hi Guys! I'm Ali - I'm 28 years old and from NYC. Currently I am disabled because I suffer from Crohn's Disease - and right now it is extremely active! *fingers crossed* I start to feel better soon!!

I have planning my Disney Wedding since I was 5 years old and saw a bride go by in Cinderella's Carriage and said to my mom, "this is where I want to get married!" For almost every birthday my mom would always give me some sort of Cinderella's Carriage (keychain, crystal set, doll carriage, etc.) and always said - this is close as you're going to get!

Well, here I am years later - and it's still what I want and I found a man who wants to start a life with me full of love, fun, happiness, & DISNEY!



Wedding Details:
Date: June 30th, 2014
Ceremony: WP @ 5pm
Cocktail Hour: Saloon A-B @ 6-7
Reception: St. Augustine Ballroom @ 7-11

So I will be sure to post lots of planning info & our engagement pictures! Very sleepy right now. So until tomorrow. :earsboy Thanks for reading!

 

[charliegirl76]

Welcome and congratulations!! You're a lovely couple, can't wait to see more details!

 

[Bewitch324]

Welcome!!! I can't wait to read more about your plans. Sorry to hear that you are struggling with health issues; hopefully as your plans move along, you will feel better. Nothing like the positivity (is that a word?) of focusing on your love and lifelong happiness and a MAGICAL wedding day to help fight off an illness!!!!

Congratulations!!

Brooke

 

[taylorali]

Welcome and congratulations!! You're a lovely couple, can't wait to see more details!

Thanks so much! Very excited to share!

Welcome!!! I can't wait to read more about your plans. Sorry to hear that you are struggling with health issues; hopefully as your plans move along, you will feel better. Nothing like the positivity (is that a word?) of focusing on your love and lifelong happiness and a MAGICAL wedding day to help fight off an illness!!!!

Congratulations!!

Brooke

Aw, thank you so much Brooke. Sounds like a word to me! Here's hoping

 

[LittleKittyMarie]

Welcome and Congratulations! You two sound like the sweetest couple, I love how you inspired your fiance's love of Disney! Looking forward to following along as you plan your dream wedding day!

 

[theemily]

Congrats on your engagement and on starting your planning! What an exciting time! I love how you described your first trip to Disney together - so sweet!

If it helps, I have a close friend with Chron's who just got married recently, and I also recently worked at a wedding where the bride had severe dietary restrictions - the people who love you & who will be with your at your wedding understand and will do everything they can to be accommodating and to make sure you have the best, most magical day possible! Hopefully, like Bewitch said earlier, the planning will help you feel better or at least take your mind off of it!

I can't wait to read more about your wedding! Good luck with all of your planning

 

[Summer Daydream]

Congrats! Sending positive thoughts your way that your health improves.

 

[rrali33tt]

Congrats on singing your LOA and welcome! I can't wait to read more about your plans!

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

I'm getting married just after you on July 10th, 2014 with our wedding at WP, Whitehall and Patio, and reception at GF (salon 6, SA was not available)! Happy Planning to you too!!

 

[taylorali]

Welcome and Congratulations! You two sound like the sweetest couple, I love how you inspired your fiance's love of Disney! Looking forward to following along as you plan your dream wedding day!

Thank you so much!

Congrats on your engagement and on starting your planning! What an exciting time! I love how you described your first trip to Disney together - so sweet!

If it helps, I have a close friend with Chron's who just got married recently, and I also recently worked at a wedding where the bride had severe dietary restrictions - the people who love you & who will be with your at your wedding understand and will do everything they can to be accommodating and to make sure you have the best, most magical day possible! Hopefully, like Bewitch said earlier, the planning will help you feel better or at least take your mind off of it!

I can't wait to read more about your wedding! Good luck with all of your planning

That really does make me feel better about everything when it comes to food. Honestly, I will probably have my meal made separate from everyone else so everyone else can enjoy the food! Hehe.

Thanks so much for letting me know that!

Congrats! Sending positive thoughts your way that your health improves.

Thanks so much! ME TOO! Lol

I'm getting married just after you on July 10th, 2014 with our wedding at WP, Whitehall and Patio, and reception at GF (salon 6, SA was not available)! Happy Planning to you too!!

So cool! The Whitehall room might not be available for my wedding day because apparently there's a convention. :/ What is Salon 6 out of curiosity? I'm not sure where our Cocktail hour is going to be, but I know I want it to be inside because I want my guests to be comfortable. Hopefully the whitehall room opens up!

 

[taylorali]

So as we get planning kicked into gear, I thought I would share our engagement pictures with you all.

On January 29, 2012, Chris proposed to me right in front of Cinderella's Castle.

It was probably the most romantic and amazing moment of my life!! Here is a picture of my ring

Kinda, absolutely, LOVE it!

So we have had to postpone our wedding several times due to Medical issues with me - money issues - family issues, etc. So in April 2013, after I was strong enough after major surgery, we decided to get our engagement pictures taken.

We started off going through Disney, but through other Disney Brides, we found David & Vicki Ardnt! Deciding to get our pictures taken with them was the best decision we ever made. Here are some of the pictures from our amazing day. Definitely check David & Vicki out. They take amazing pictures and are SO easy going and fun to just hang out with!!

I also had my makeup & hair done (as a trial) with Beaute Speciale. Jackie was my girl. She was amazing!

Here are a few of our favorites: (There's like 150, so I can't post them all )

 

[taylorali]

So here are our Save the Dates that we had made for us Starting to get real.

We wanted to do something more traditional and fun - so we went with two different things.

This one was made by Wedding Paper Divas:

This is our FastPass that I am OBSESSED with! Thank you to Amy from Etsy. Her shop is called Main Street Designs. She made them perfect for us!

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

Hi! Salon 6 is located right across from Whitehall. Its a big ballroom that they section off.

 

[taylorali]

Hi! Salon 6 is located right across from Whitehall. Its a big ballroom that they section off.

Oh ok. Do you happen to have a picture of it by any chance?

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

Oh ok. Do you happen to have a picture of it by any chance?

We saw this when we did our Site Visit. The wedding taking place that day was use of 3 sections which Michelle (our consultant) advised us to just use two sections. There was A LOT of open space in that room with 3 sections. The dance floor was in the middle and the tables were set up how they normally would not (rectangle, not circle).

We were interested in St. Augustine room but it wasn't open for our date choices (July 9 or 10).

After seeing your wedding website, I wish I had looked at the room price for Contemporary!! I didn't realize it was that cheap for a garden view room which would have been a nice compromise for our guests who need a room that sleeps 5 but don't want to pay GF prices. I might email Michelle and see if she is able to make changes to it already..haha.

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

If you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay for your engagement shoot? I looked at their facebook page and was very impressed. My cousin is a wedding photographer so I'm going to have her shoot the day of the wedding but wanted engagement pics here before then. We also discussed just doing the Disney one as well ($150 package)

 

[taylorali]

If you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay for your engagement shoot? I looked at their facebook page and was very impressed. My cousin is a wedding photographer so I'm going to have her shoot the day of the wedding but wanted engagement pics here before then. We also discussed just doing the Disney one as well ($150 package)

I believe we paid 200. I'm not 100% on that, but it was definitely no more than $250. When we contacted Disney it was $350, so going with David & Vicki was definitely the better choice. It was a much more personalized experience too. Disney asked us what photographer we wanted and we really had no clue as to any photographers that did anything for Disney. No information was sent to us in regards to different photography styles. When we went to David & Vicki's website we just fell in love with their pictures and knew they were right for us! I'm very excited for them to shoot our wedding!

Thanks for the pics for the ballroom. It really looks the same as the other ballrooms though. It looks the same as the reception space. Just less decorated. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Convention releases the whitehall room for our date!

I would definitely talk to your planner about room rates. I think they might change for July though.

Let me know if I can do anything else to help ya.

 

[holula]

Sorry to butt in, but we are having David and Vicki do our engagement shoot in October and its $250. I can't wait. Your pics look amazing.

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

Thanks! I contacted her yesterday and she is booked for Labor Day but was charging $250 for 2 hour shoot at up to 2 locations. I might try and see if I can get her in Oct. My DF lives in Nashville so it's hard to predict when he might be down here in time to schedule them. For now I think I'm going to ask my brother and his one team member to do an informal shoot (he works for disboards with film/video) and then possibly use Disney or another vendor after I see how they are..especially if it's free or just the cost of a dinner!

I'm planning on doing the Fast Pass STDs so I won't need engagement pics for those which is good!

Our consultant called yesterday and said the convention the same day as our wedding grew out of St. Augustine and we are moved to that room which I wish I would have asked more questions about that room on our tour but we knew it was not available for us so I didn't bother lol. Needless to say she got an email of questions today since the only type of wedding pics I could find online were a smaller guest count than ours, no buffet, and sweetheart head table. lol.

Sorry for taking over your thread!!!!

 

[taylorali]

Sorry to butt in, but we are having David and Vicki do our engagement shoot in October and its $250. I can't wait. Your pics look amazing.

Thanks for posting this! Totally couldn't remember. So much going on. You're gonna have so much fun!

Thanks! I contacted her yesterday and she is booked for Labor Day but was charging $250 for 2 hour shoot at up to 2 locations. I might try and see if I can get her in Oct. My DF lives in Nashville so it's hard to predict when he might be down here in time to schedule them. For now I think I'm going to ask my brother and his one team member to do an informal shoot (he works for disboards with film/video) and then possibly use Disney or another vendor after I see how they are..especially if it's free or just the cost of a dinner!

I'm planning on doing the Fast Pass STDs so I won't need engagement pics for those which is good!

Our consultant called yesterday and said the convention the same day as our wedding grew out of St. Augustine and we are moved to that room which I wish I would have asked more questions about that room on our tour but we knew it was not available for us so I didn't bother lol. Needless to say she got an email of questions today since the only type of wedding pics I could find online were a smaller guest count than ours, no buffet, and sweetheart head table. lol.

Sorry for taking over your thread!!!!

You're not taking over my thread!! Lol, I hope you everything works out for you, but I am sure that your planner will make it perfect! Can't wait to see your pics!