~*Amy and Shawn’s PJ*~June 6th, 2011 - Our Hawaiian Honeymoon!

[lilsqueakrr]

Woohoo! Happy wedding day!! <333

 

[BethieTink]

HAPPY WEDDING DAY!!!!! Can't wait to hear all about it.

 

[Disneychix]

Congratulations!!!

 

[DVC Bride 2011]

Happy Wedding Day! I saw on FB that Randy checked into ADH and was like - that's for Amy!! I hope your day is everything you imagined in to be. Can't wait to see pictures!

 

[DisneyCP08]

Congratulations and happy wedding day. I am sure it was magical

 

[Nichole33]

Congratulations!!! Can't wait to hear about it!!

 

[belle2211]

Congrats on your wedding day yesterday!

 

[Princess SarahK]

Congrats Mrs! I cant wait to see and read all about it! Hope your day was all you'd dreamt of!

 

[sw33t_angel]

YAY!! Happy Wedding Day!!

 

[Lisa29]

I'm late, and have been away from DIS for ages, but congratulations! Hope you had a fantastic day and are now having a fab time!

Can't wait to hear all about it x

 

[Sccrmnky2005]

Amy,

I hope your day was wonderful and your honeymoon was awesome! Can't wait until you get started on your TR!

 

[*Pixiedust1438*]

Thank you everyone for the happy wishes and congratulations! The wedding was absolutely perfect, even better than I had hoped! We got back from Hawaii on Sunday morning at about 2am. With father's day Sunday and DH's aunts birthday yesterday, we have been very busy! I have yet to unpack. I promise to start a TR very soon, hopefully tomorrow. For now, I have a few pictures taken by guests at the wedding. Here they are:

 

[lilsqueakrr]

Yay! They look great and cannot wait to see and hear all about it!!!!

 

[KristiLyn]

Pictures look great! Can't wait to hear all about it!!!

 

[donald&daisy]

Yay!! I can't wait to hear all about it, congrats!!!

 

[*Pixiedust1438*]

I decided I better get a start on my TR if I'm ever going to get around to doing one! Before I get started, I have to mention that me and DH are planning on going back down to Disney in October. I figure why not use our annual passes one more time? I am so excited to go back and am already planning for it! We are only going for 3 nights/4 days as DH has no vacation time left after the wedding. We are hoping to stay at the Yacht Club (provided there is a good AP rate for then or we get a PIN.) We are planning on doing MNSSHP & Epcot Food & Wine festival. More on that later, on to the TR.........


I will begin by saying that our wedding was AMAZING! It was the best day of my life and went better than I could have hoped for. Disney knows how to throw a party & we are very happy we decided to have our wedding there. We are also thrilled we chose ADH, which I will discuss why later, but I will say I highly recommend it as a reception venue for anyone having a Wedding or Vow renewal.

The day & trip were amazing, but were they perfect? No. One big bit of advice for future brides is that when traveling with a group of people, & getting married out of state (or really, getting married at all), is that not everything is going to go absolutely perfect like we all hope so much that it will. There are just too many people, details, etc. for not one little thing to go wrong, and I think the sooner I accepted this, the better off I was. So for all the future brides who might be reading this, remember what is important and if something doesn't go exactly as planned, let it roll off your shoulders, remind yourself that your in the happiest place on earth, & enjoy.

Day 1:

After a not-so-great night of sleep, we woke up around 5:00am on Saturday June 4th, got ready quickly, and went to pick up DH's Dad & his girlfriend to head to the airport. Many (most) of our guests were already in Disney, and our group was the last heading down. Our group contained, myself, DH, my sister (MOH), her DH (BM), my parents, DH's parents & his Dad's girlfriend, DH's three sisters, and my grandparents. Everyone made it to the airport on time & through security no problems.
Here is us waiting for the plane:

Since I had bought a seat for my dress.... (I could justify the cost since my dress was a mere $150), I was able to pre-board our southwest flight. DH & I sat up front, while everyone else sat in the back (luckily together, gota love southwest open seating) The flight was nonstop and quick. When we got to MCO we quickly made our way to the Magical Express where we parted ways as everyone was staying at different resorts.

Me & my dress on the way the GF:

So far the day was off to a great start. Well that would end soon. We arrive at GF with my dad, sister and brother in law (my mom went to help my grandparents check in at CBR.) We were hoping to have a quick check-in and meet some of our guests at MK ASAP. When we got off the Magical Express, a nice lady congratulated us and escorted us into the check-in line. Here is where I started getting annoyed. The lady told the man we were here for our wedding. We were both checking in, and he decides to check my sister & parents in first, even though he knew I was the bride (not to be a bridezilla, but come on!) I had done online check-in, so I knew it would only take a minute for me to check in. Since my parents and sister were sharing a room, and needed two different credit cards linked to their room keys, it took FOREVER!!!!! And on top of that, the guy checking us in kept telling us that DH & my brother in law had to stay there and wait the whole time while we checked in (they wanted to head to the pool bar & grab a beer). Now every time I go to Disney I always check in by myself and let DH go walk around the resort. So finally they got annoyed and just left anyway after about 25 minutes, and sure enough we didn't need them for anything. So we FINALLY head to our room. Walk-in, and wow, probably the worst room in the entire place, seriously. First floor, patio right out to the noisy pool area. I go up and check out my parents room, which was way better. Now on top of this, I had called about three times before our trip to tell them I had to make three different reservations at the GF because of our free night, one before, and one after, which is ridiculous, and asked to not have to move rooms. At check in I was told I would have to move rooms every time, including on the morning of my wedding. So now I am really annoyed, so my sister goes up to the front desk and explains we are here for our wedding, and not happy with our room, and can we please pay for an upgrade. Well apparently if you book through the wedding room block, you can not get upgraded or pay for an upgrade (now that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?) So, no we couldn't even pay for an upgrade. I will note to future brides, I really wanted a room with an MK view, and planned on booking it, but I decided against it because I figured we would get upgraded for free anyway so why pay for it. This is not the case. I wish I would have just payed the extra money and booked the room I wanted. Anyway, they agreed to move us to a different room in the same building which was deffinitley better, but still not great, but at this point I decided to just let it go, and head to MK. This is the point in the trip I decided that everything is not going to go as I imagined, and I need to just let the small stuff go, and so I did.

We got to MK and met up with a bunch of DH's family who had never been before. It was great showing them the castle & main street. We went on a few rides (not many since we got into MK later than hoped because of the check-in disaster), got fastpasses for Splash Mountain, and then headed back to GF to shower & get ready for our informal meet & greet at the GF pool bar.

Us & some of our guests at MK

Almost all of our guests ended up meeting us at the pool bar for drinks (and joining us for dinner after).

We all headed over via monorail to the Contemporary for dinner at the California Grill. Luckily the seating worked out fine after several phone calls, and we ended up with two tables of 12 & one table of 6. Unfortunately they had the curtains down since the sun was shinning and they said it would make it too hot in there, so we couldn't see the castle or MK which was kind of the whole point of going there. I let it go. We were able to go out on the observation deck after dinner which had really great views of the castle & POLY & GF.

After dinner we headed back into MK with a lot of our guests, rode a few more rides, and then watched Wishes. At the end of the night one of our bridesmaids and one of our groomsmen came back to the GF with DH & I to go night swimming, which was a lot of fun even though we were very tired.

So the first day was fun, but definitely stressful. (Did I mention DH broke his phone?) I think if I were to do it again I probably would have tried getting to Disney one day earlier and spent the whole first day relaxing rather than doing so much as we were so tired by the end of the day.

Coming up: Day 2.... (Segway Tour, Epcot, and the rehearsal)

 

[Sccrmnky2005]

Great start, I'm glad everything worked out for you and that you were able to let things go if they weren't working out perfectly. That's great advice for future brides.

I love your pink dress it's so cute!!

Can't wait to hear more about you wonderful trip!

 

[Disneychix]

Wow, that was a lot for your first day! Sorry you had some room troubles-it's great that you could talk yourself out of being mad about it and just go have fun!

Can't wait for more!

 

[*Pixiedust1438*]

Great start, I'm glad everything worked out for you and that you were able to let things go if they weren't working out perfectly. That's great advice for future brides.

I love your pink dress it's so cute!!

Can't wait to hear more about you wonderful trip!

Thanks, I got the dress from Marshalls, I love it there for dresses!

Wow, that was a lot for your first day! Sorry you had some room troubles-it's great that you could talk yourself out of being mad about it and just go have fun!

Can't wait for more!

Luckily the first day was the most stressful, it got better from there!

Day 2:

Next to the wedding, this was my favorite day of our trip, and possibly one of my all time favorite days in Disney. We woke up early for a 7:30 breakfast reservation at Kona Cafe with my parents, sister & brother in law. We love Kona Cafe's Tonga Toast and have been going there for years, both with my family & DH, so it is kind of a special place for us. My sister & I also used to take a picture in the lobby of the Poly every year when we were little (since we almost always stayed here), so we got a picture in the same spot to add to the collection.

After breakfast we walked over to the Ticket & Transportation center & took the monorail to Epcot. My sister & I ran to Soarin to get fastpasses for everyone, and then we headed over to the Segway tour. (My parents did a few other rides during this time, as they didn't join us.) When we checked in we were given the "Happily Ever After" pins by the CM (who happened to also be our tour guide). The Segway tour was AMAZING!!!!! We loved it so much. You spend the first hour learning about safety and how to drive the Segway, which I thought would be boring but it was actually fun and necessary. Then we headed outside towards world showcase. As we rode by park guests we heard lots of comments on how neat it was and that they should try it, etc. Riding around World Showcase with no one there was so neat. This is mine & DH's favorite part of WDW, so being able to see all the details we don't normally notice was very cool. Not only that, but riding the Segways was super fun in general, the fact that we were riding them around World Showcase was an added bonus. We all loved it & thought it was well worth the money. I would highly recommend it! We were given some free ride/picture time in Italy, and at the end of the tour we were given "Around the World Segway Tour" pins, which were a nice bonus.

After the Segway Tour, we rode Soarin and a few other rides, then headed to lunch at Les Chefs De France. We did the lunch pre fix, which was really good, but a lot of food, we were all so full! Next we headed back to the GF for some swimming, and some of our guests joined us. Then we got ready for the rehearsal. We had a town car pick us up at the GF and take us there, which was well worth the $25 to not have to deal with Disney transportation. So far the day had been going great, we did hit a little rough patch at the rehearsal. I had told everyone SEVERAL times to please not be late for events with the wedding, especially the rehearsal since we had the DP after. Half of our wedding party was almost 30 minutes late, which I, nor Amy (my planner), was too happy about. I couldn't really get mad at them because I know how annoying Disney transportation can be, especially when having to transfer at DTD, but I felt bad that the guests who were there on time, and our officiant, and Amy, all had to sit there and wait. The actual rehearsal went quickly and smoothly, and soon we were heading over to Epcot. We all went down to the Boardwalk boat dock, and got in line. When a boat came we weren't sure if it was going to Epcot of DHS, so DH told the driver we were heading to a private party at Epcot, and asked if this boat was going there. This was his reply, "No, this boat is not going to Epcot, you have to read the signs, they don't talk." RUDE! I don't know why we encountered so many rude CM's this trip, usually everyone is nothing but nice to us and that is one of the reasons I love Disney, and I was kind of dissapointed this trip with that. It took FOREVER for a boat to Epcot to come, we must have just missed one or hit it at a really bad time. We probably should have just walked, but a lot of the girls were wearing dresses & high heels so we decided to just wait. By the time we finally got the the DP, it was about 15 minutes late, but not a big deal.

The dessert party was awesome. Now I understand why this is something almost every Disney bride included with her wedding. When we got off the boat we were met by our guide and escorted to our party where all our food & the bar were ready to go. Let me just say that the staff at our DP was AMAZING! They were all so friendly and nice and kept asking us if there was anything else we needed or if there was anything else they could do for us. Oh, and they gave us a huge bag of pins to hand out to our guests. There were two, "Just Married," pins for me & DH, and then a bunch of "I'm Celebrating," pins, and a bunch of minnie mouse pins. My sister went around to all our guests and let them pick one. The food was great, everyone loved the fajita station and I am so glad I decided to include this rather than just the desserts, it was like a full meal and I think the desserts would not have been enough. The desserts were really good as well, although I will note that they were very different from what we tasted at the Planning Session, so this is just something to be aware of. Everyone had a great time & kept talking about how awesome it was. It was nice to be able to have some of our guests who weren't going into the parks at all see our favorite part of Disney. The view of Illuminations was the best I have ever had. Everyone seemed to enjoy the glow sticks we brought as well.

I have several more pictures of the food/set up if anyone is interested in seeing them just let me know.

The staff was great about letting us take our time exiting the area, and we ended up staying about 15 minutes past 9:30, which made up for the 15 minutes we were late. It was also neat leaving the park because we were among the last guests to depart, and we stopped at the telephone booths and then the ball to take some photos.

After we left Epcot, a bunch of us headed back to the GF via monorail to go swimming. Really I just wanted to go to bed early to get ready for the morning, but after an earlier suggestion by one of my bridesmaids (who I was not too happy with) to go to DTD and go out that night, I agreed to swimming at our pool instead. I ended up playing ping pong with our ring bearer for about an hour before finally heading up to our room while some of our guests stayed and hung out until I'm not sure when. Again a very busy day, but so much fun. I am really glad I decided to have the DP the night before the wedding, I thought it worked our perfect.

Coming up next: Our wedding day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BethieTink]

Everything looks fabulous so far! Can't wait to see more.

We are having our DP at Lochside, so if you wouldn't mind, I would love to see the food and the set-up pics. Thanks!!!

Sorry about the transportation issues. I am still about 16 months away from mine and I feel like I have done nothing but tell people that they can't be late. We shall see what happens.