Ben and Libby's Happily Ever After - A Fairytale Wishes Wedding *Updated 14/3/18 + Wedding Video!

Libby_Darling

Flippin' Her Fins
Joined
Jul 4, 2010
Ben and Libby's Happily Ever After – October 2016

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Welcome, welcome! Sit down, make yourselves comfortable, maybe grab some olives and a glass of wine or something as we are in for the long haul here folks! Ohhhhh I have waited so long to write this! This is so exciting!! This is the story of how a boy and a girl met, fell in love, got engaged, and planned their magical, fairytale happily ever after.

Enjoy!




The Cast

I'm Libby, I'm 27 and I'm the bride to be :D

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My interests include, but are not limited to, food, Disney, Harry Potter, trashy American TV shows, planning holidays, and cats.

This is Ben, he's 27 in 2 weeks and he is the groom to be :)

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His interests include basketball, food, Disney, music, and rum.

Honorary Cast Member

This is Saffie, she's an 18 month old Birman :cat:

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Her interests include eating, sleeping, meowing to be let out of rooms, meowing to be let into rooms, crawling in to small spaces, and catnip.




The Beginning

Our tale begins one dark, stormy night in 2003, in a little village in Southern England. Our hero and heroine were both attending a murder-mystery party with a group of their mutual friends (for some reason, murder mystery parties were all the rage when we were in Year 10...) They had never met, but in a weird (and actually really spooky when you think about it) twist, the two characters they were playing were married. Was their fate sealed from the very beginning?

*cue dramatic music (in my head it's the music that plays at the beginning of Beauty and the Beast with the stained glass painting...maybe stick it on for a bit of atmosphere...)*

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I was excited about the party. I had to dress up in one of my Mum's black cocktail dresses and pearls as the characters we were playing were quite wealthy. Ben wore a suit and I remember thinking he was kinda cute when I first saw him :) We spent the evening chatting whilst playing the game, with me trying not to make eye contact or get too embarrassed...I didn't have much experience with boys! There were lots of jokes about us being married (as is the norm when you're 15) and I smiled and tried not to go too red. It was a fun night!

A few months passed and we went to a few of the same parties, and started sitting together with a big group of friends at lunch. I was too shy to speak to him really, and watched from afar as he chatted with other girls in our group :( Tragic!

Enter MSN Messenger! Everyone had it and we all used it to keep in touch after school. It was like, the bees knees. I felt I could talk to Benj on MSN like I couldn't when we were face to face. We started chatting every night, sometimes for hours and hours until my Mum kicked me off the computer haha! MSN Messenger honestly was how our relationship began :) We were texting lots too, and flirting, but not speaking in school still! By the end of Year 11 we were really good friends, texting every night, talking about anything and everything...but I had the biggest crush on Benj and didn't know if he knew :( Or felt the same way! It was tough times!

When we were all making plans for our Year 11 prom, another girl asked Ben to go to the prom with her!

HEY :mad:

Anyway, I was going with a group of friends in a limo so couldn't really say anything... And then, a few days before prom...

HE ASKED ME OUT!

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I can't remember how it happened but it was by text and I saved the text for ages on my phone :D (back in the days when you could only have like 10 texts stored on your phone) He said some really sweet stuff though and it was just the best thing ever. I remember going downstairs the next morning and telling my Mum and being so ridiculously happy. Yay! Our first date was a couple of days before the prom; we went to the cinema and neither of us can remember what we saw. Obviously, it was memorable. At prom I was so excited to have an actual boyfriend to go with, even though he was technically still going with the other girl...yes, it was in a big group of our friends, but still. It was the principle. He couldn't cancel on her though, it was like the day before...Lets just say that once we got into the venue, she didn't get a look in ;) ;) :D Our prom night was amaazing and at the end...WE HAD OUR FIRST KISS! To Robbie Williams' Angels, that end-of-disco romantic classic :) :o:

So that was that! Apart from a minor blip a few months later when I was being a bit of an idiot at college, we have been together ever since. 12 years in June! Madness! We've grown together and experienced so many of life's major milestones together. We're different in personality; I'm easily stressed, highly strung, excitable and a worrier...he's laid back, relaxed, calm and level-headed. He balances me! Since we got together we've experienced college, spent 4 years long-distance as he went to Uni in Essex and I went to Uni in Cardiff, each struggled to get a job post-Uni, moved into our flat, been to Florida twice, been to Disneyland Paris 5 times, tried out countless fashion fads and lived to tell the tale (emo, scene etc) dyed our hair many different colours, moved into our new flat, and got a kitten!

Phew, there's been a lot!

Some photos of us through the years...

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Young love :)

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Aand recent!

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And I still look forward to seeing him each day after work, and miss him horribly when he's away...and he still makes me laugh every single day :) He's the one!





The Proposal


The full story of how Ben proposed to me can be found in my dining review here, so I'll just post the edited highlights, to keep the story flowing :D

On Saturday 19th October 2013 after our first wonderful morning at the Magic Kingdom, Ben got down on one knee next to me in front of Cinderella Castle and proposed :) It was unexpected and amazing and I cried, he cried, our friends cried, guests clapped, birds sang, the sun shone... it was just the most perfect moment ever. Dream proposal!

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We then spent the next two weeks in a haze of loved-up, just-engaged bliss, and I started dreaming of what our wedding would be like. We visited the wedding pavilion and although it was beautiful, at the time a Disney wedding wasn't something that was really on our radar.

Aaaaaaand so began a very long and drawn out decision making process which if I'm honest, has only very recently come to an actual conclusion. And so ladies and gentlemen, we come to the next chapter!


Coming soon...The Decision

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Beginning
The Proposal
The Decision
Initial Thoughts
Dates and Locations
Save The Dates
Small but important update
Mini update!

The Photographer
Wedding Guests (Pt 1)
I said yes to the dress!
Planning the planning trip
Major update - we got our date!!
The Details - hair, make-up, floral, general decor!
 
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Welcome!!! I love your story so far, and your honorary cast member is adorable. :) I'm excited to follow along.
 
Congrats on your upcoming wedding! Your story is amazing I love that you have know your DF for so long I have known mine since we were 7! It really does help to grow together and just have that best friend love it :goodvibes and going through fun fashion phases together so cute! I am very excited to hear the rest of your plans

Happy planning
Melissa :goodvibes
 
I've been wondering when this was going to pop up! Good to see you on this side of the boards (and gee, I really ought to get back to my dining review huh?) Can't wait for more, and to see what made you chose Disney!
 


Welcome!!! I love your story so far, and your honorary cast member is adorable. :) I'm excited to follow along.

Thank you so much! :D Hehe well obviously I'm a teeny bit biased but I think she's adorable too! Too adorable for her own good!! Glad you're following along! x

Congrats on your upcoming wedding! Your story is amazing I love that you have know your DF for so long I have known mine since we were 7! It really does help to grow together and just have that best friend love it :goodvibes and going through fun fashion phases together so cute! I am very excited to hear the rest of your plans

Happy planning
Melissa :goodvibes

Thank you! 7! Wow, that's amazing!! Yeah it's the absolute best getting to marry your best friend, I can't wait :) Thank you for reading along, I hope you enjoy! xxx

I've been wondering when this was going to pop up! Good to see you on this side of the boards (and gee, I really ought to get back to my dining review huh?) Can't wait for more, and to see what made you chose Disney!

I've been so excited to post it Jenn!! Couldn't handle it anymore!! Wellllllll yes your dining review awaits but I just saw in your PJ how busy you are so I'm sure everyone will let you off :hug: Glad you're following along! xxx
 
The Decision

You join our intrepid couple at a key stage in the wedding planning process...trying to decide if they should get married in the UK, or Orlando. It was a pretty big decision and one they didn't want to enter into lightly...which one would they choose?

As I mentioned in the last instalment, we went to visit the Wedding Pavilion during our 2013 holiday. It was absolutely beautiful and I think even I was a little shocked by how amazing it actually was.

I'm not one of those girls who's spent years and years dreaming of her wedding...we'd been together so long I wasn't sure he'd ever propose! Hahaha juuuuust kidding. But seriously, I knew we'd get married one day and I knew it would be amazing, but I didn't have any ideas about the kind of day we'd have.

So we went to see the Pav, loved it, came home, and didn't do anything about the wedding for 6 months. Haha! We had our reasons though – we were in no real rush to get married (I know some girls want to get married within a year of getting engaged which is totally cool, but we were in no rush!) we had a bit of a faffy start to 2014 as our landlord announced he was selling the flat we lived in, so we had to find somewhere new to live. Then, we got our kitten. Then Ben got a new job. Sooooo there was a lot of change and upheaval in our little life, and the wedding was put on the backburner! By about May 2014 we'd started thinking seriously about what we wanted to do. For whatever reason, a Disney wedding kept coming up. Like I said before, it was never something we'd thought about as we weren't sure about family etc travelling, and we weren't sure if we'd even want to have such a small wedding. But before we'd even started looking at venues and what would be realistic, we kept coming back to Disney.

By late Spring, I had bought Carrie's book, started drawing up rough budgets for Disney weddings, researching all the different options, listening to Carrie's podcast and reading the various boards for information. I seriously started thinking that a Disney wedding could actually be the most awesome thing ever. We then broached the subject with a few members of our families, and people were surprisingly up for it! This made us even more excited and we started to think it could happen. Our rough idea was a Wishes wedding for about 24 people and 3 amazing weeks in WDW for our honeymoon.

By the Summer, I had drawn up an exact budget of what we'd need to save each month for a Wishes DFTW.

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This saving plan, combined with Ben's job requirements (he works for a company that has school holidays off, so our wedding/honeymoon needed to fit in with this as we wanted to go for 3 weeks) meant we had our wedding month – October 2016. We have only ever been to Florida in October (I've been in the Summer with my family back in the day) and we love the weather, the crowds (although it is getting busier) the Food and Wine festival, and Halloween. Ben would get one week off for half term, and we'd have 1 week either side. We did discuss other months – May was a possibility but it would have to be 2017 as we couldn't save in time for 2016 and we didn't really want to wait any longer. August was an option but it would be HOT and busy and my Dad owns a tearooms and wouldn't be a fan of closing it during the busiest month. October was the best fit!

So, we had all these plans. And I pretty much knew exactly how our day would run, what would happen, what our colour scheme and theme would be, how much it would all cost, who would come...

But I couldn't make the decision! I know, it seems so crazy now. And it was crazy even at the time. I remember having a conversation with my friend Victoria about the day and I was telling her all the awesome stuff we had planned and getting so excited and she was like 'Errrr why are you even considering anything else!?'

Hmmmm. Well. There were a few reasons, mainly my chronic indecisiveness based on a couple of comments from some family members. I won't go into it too much here but essentially we had some comments from people who just weren't that into it, and thought we should get married in the UK. With like 25 people, on a budget of about £5k. Not going to happen. Not what we wanted! To be fair, they weren't really being negative, but just kept saying how would we afford it, who would go over, wouldn't we prefer a small wedding over here if a small wedding was what we wanted etc etc. Anyway, it was really stressful and horrible and I just couldn't decide what to do.

Ben was absolutely amazing during this time – it was HE who was pushing for a DFTW although I know he'd have let me do whatever I wanted – he's a babe like that, but he was frustrated that I was letting other people cloud my decision to do what we really wanted. And he was totally right! Unfortunately, the way my mind works is to need to know all the information before I can make a decision. So, we decided to go and visit a few venues during the Autumn, so we could see what our money could get us in the UK, and if any venues matched the Wedding Pavilion in terms of amazing-ness (HA.)

I actually really enjoyed this part of the planning process :) From September onwards, most Sundays were spent just the two of us driving to different wedding venues for their open days and wedding fairs. We saw some really lovely venues; some we liked, some we didn’t feel were very ‘us’. We were leaning towards the smaller venues where everyone could stay over and it would be like a long weekend of celebrations. However, one thing we didn’t like with these types of venues was that the rooms earmarked for civil ceremonies were quite often small and pokey and just not very…wow. For us, the ceremony is the most important part of the day, and I wanted to walk up an aisle that gave me chills *coughtheweddingpavilioncough* One venue we did like was called The Malthouse, which was a lovely big Victorian manor house that you could rent out just for you and your guests, and spend the whole day in the house and lovely grounds. It was a bit offbeat and quirky and we really liked it.

Some photos of the Malthouse:

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There were 13 bedrooms so lots of our guests could stay over, and it would be a wedding for about 50 people. However, once we added up the cost of the venue, food, DJ, transport etc etc….I'm not even joking, it was about the same price as we had for a Wishes wedding! I mean, come on. If it was like 5 or 6 grand cheaper, maybe it would have been a no brainer. But to pay the same!? Not what we’d expected! We were comparing the two and it was a bit like, end the wedding watching Wishes from the Grand Floridian after a day spent celebrating in our favourite place in the world, or end it stood in a small (albeit lovely) garden in the UK at the end of a very classic, very English, not very us, wedding day. Hmmm.

A selection of photos from our many, many visits to wedding open days...isn't he a good egg letting me go to all of these!? :)

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This...is pretty much our worse nightmare for a ceremony room...

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And just an example of a smaller ceremony room

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This was the Clock Barn, a GORGEOUS barn venue but super expensive, like a lot more than Disney!

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I think it was about December when I finally reached my breaking part. I was seriously starting to annoy even MYSELF with my constant indecisiveness and second guessing about where to get married. I just needed to say we were getting married in Florida, accept it, and not think about any other venues or getting married in the UK. I also needed to not worry what anyone else thought – 10 years from now our wedding will be a distant memory for most of our guests, but for me and Ben it will have been the best day of our lives. Did we really want to look back and think…hey, I wish we’d got married where we really want to, and did what we really wanted to do, and not worried about anyone else. Whenever I thought about walking down the aisle at the Wedding Pavilion, I got all teary and soppy. When I imagined myself walking down a tiny aisle in the drawing room of a fancy country house...well lets just say, I couldn't imagine it.

So, I just said to Ben, let’s get married in Florida. He was like FINALLY hahhaa :D It felt SO GOOD to just say it out loud, and honestly, my mind instantly felt calmer and less stressed.

So, it was official! :D

WE'RE GETTING MARRIED IN WALT DISNEY WORLD!

Wow, that was insanely long. Hope y'all are with me! We're getting onto the good stuff next, some ACTUAL PLANNING!

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Hooray! I'm so excited to follow along with your planning! I had a similar experience with telling people about getting married at Disney. Even though we live in central Florida, I had some people saying that if I want a small wedding, I could do it a lot cheaper elsewhere. Which is true, but it's just not the same. Once you finally tell everyone that it's your wedding and this is what you're doing, it gets a lot better! :)
 


Glad you decided to go with a Disney Wedding it is really about what you and your DF want no one else!!!! we had the same problem with a cruise wedding and everyone coming from California mostly but its what we wanted so glad you got your fairytale location!! Can't wait to hear more!!

Happy Planning
Melissa :goodvibes
 
That is QUITE the epic tale!! I'm so glad you followed your heart to Florida :) I'm dying to know - do you have an ideal date in mind in October? (I know it's too early to formally sign anything, I just had to know!)
 
Ahhh I'm so excited for you!! I've been waiting to see a post like this pop up from you, so happy to follow along!
 
MSN MESSENGER! That's how Jess & I met! In fact, there's a few instances where I really see where you're coming from - our stories are similar in a few fun little instances like that. We also met in 2003! So to that end I know this has all been a long time coming and your friends and family must've been so glad this is all finally happening! I know exactly what it's like trying to find something local that will suit the occasion. Trouble is, nothing in the world measures up to Disney. I'm so glad you made the same choice we did, it is your one and only biggest best day of your life and we have too many friends who very seriously gave us the same advice; DONT give in to what others want, it is your day. The single biggest regret of all my married friends is that they compromised their day and ended up in situations for reasons outside themselves. I'm glad you aren't afraid to dream the impossible (seeming) dream and that you're chasing that dream back to WDW. Disney will take amazing care of you and you will have the time of your life and you will both be so happy ever after that you followed your hearts and made your perfect fairytale. Oh & that's a great time of year too! Two of our three Disney trips have been during Oct/Nov and I always find the weather to be comfortable and the crowds to be manageable. Looking forward to seeing where the planning takes you!
 
Hooray! I'm so excited to follow along with your planning! I had a similar experience with telling people about getting married at Disney. Even though we live in central Florida, I had some people saying that if I want a small wedding, I could do it a lot cheaper elsewhere. Which is true, but it's just not the same. Once you finally tell everyone that it's your wedding and this is what you're doing, it gets a lot better! :)

Yay, I'm glad to have you following along! :D Jealous you live in central Florida!! Yes def, lots of people said the same to us! I'm hoping that now we've sent the save the dates out, that will be it :) xxxx

Glad you decided to go with a Disney Wedding it is really about what you and your DF want no one else!!!! we had the same problem with a cruise wedding and everyone coming from California mostly but its what we wanted so glad you got your fairytale location!! Can't wait to hear more!!

Happy Planning
Melissa :goodvibes

Thank you so much :) I think we've made the right decision - it certainly feels like we have! Wow, a cruise wedding will be amazing :) :) Glad you're following along! xxx

That is QUITE the epic tale!! I'm so glad you followed your heart to Florida :) I'm dying to know - do you have an ideal date in mind in October? (I know it's too early to formally sign anything, I just had to know!)

I do!! October 19th!! It will be 3 years to the date Ben proposed :) Although if we don't get it, it wouldn't be a disaster...but we really want it, haha!! :) I'm so glad we followed our hearts too :) xxx

Ahhh I'm so excited for you!! I've been waiting to see a post like this pop up from you, so happy to follow along!

Yay! Thank you! Glad to have you here!! :) xxx

Happy to hear you chose a Disney wedding! Can't wait to see some of your plans :)

Thank you so much! :D xxxx
 
Yay! Another 2016 bride to follow!

Wooooo! 2016 brides rock!! :D xxxx


Thank you! xxx

Following along too from another UK Disney Bride :lovestruc Loving your PJ so far!

Thanks so much sweetie! xxxx

Love your spunkiness in your posts! Looking forward to following along!

Thank you so much! :) xxxx

MSN MESSENGER! That's how Jess & I met! In fact, there's a few instances where I really see where you're coming from - our stories are similar in a few fun little instances like that. We also met in 2003! So to that end I know this has all been a long time coming and your friends and family must've been so glad this is all finally happening! I know exactly what it's like trying to find something local that will suit the occasion. Trouble is, nothing in the world measures up to Disney. I'm so glad you made the same choice we did, it is your one and only biggest best day of your life and we have too many friends who very seriously gave us the same advice; DONT give in to what others want, it is your day. The single biggest regret of all my married friends is that they compromised their day and ended up in situations for reasons outside themselves. I'm glad you aren't afraid to dream the impossible (seeming) dream and that you're chasing that dream back to WDW. Disney will take amazing care of you and you will have the time of your life and you will both be so happy ever after that you followed your hearts and made your perfect fairytale. Oh & that's a great time of year too! Two of our three Disney trips have been during Oct/Nov and I always find the weather to be comfortable and the crowds to be manageable. Looking forward to seeing where the planning takes you!

Aww I know, our meeting stories are very similar! It's crazy! Indeed, nothing could have ever matched Disney. How could anywhere compete!? We also know a lot of married friends who had to make comprimises for their wedding day, it upsets me :( I think we'll have to make some...but I feel so happy that we haven't compromised on the thing we really, really want.

Ohhhh your post makes me so happy and excited, it's so nice to hear from a recent groom that Disney will do all the things I hoped they would! It really is going to be so magical :) :) Yep we've been in October twice too, we love it! Has to be really!! :)

So glad you're following along :) xxxxx
 
Initial Thoughts

Okay, here we goooooooo! The planning starts for real!

So, where to start!? These are the initial thoughts we've had about the wedding. Obviously we're still really far out so nothing is finalised or booked, and won't be until we get our date in October. We have a pretty good idea of what we want though so I think most of these ideas will stay!


The Vision

How cheesy haha! I've been reading too many bridal mags I think! :D I just wanted to start with our vision for the day and how that has influenced lots of other things, to get to where we are today.

When I first started looking at bridal magazines and really getting stuck into the wedding planning thing, I started to immediately get a feel for what I wanted. I was drawn towards a fairly classical style which kinda surprised me; I always imagined myself having a retro, 1950's inspired affair with a frothy, tea length dress and bright colours.

Exhibit A

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Complete with hand-jive. However, as I started to research more and see 'real weddings' I was really loving the more muted, pastel shades, and a generally more classic feel. For example, I'll be having a long dress, definitely with some lace in :lovestruc Pale pink and creamy shades will be featuring in our colour scheme (more on that later as I'm in love with our colour scheme! ) and I love pearl and lace accents. I'd like my bouquet to be roses, and I want beautiful wedding stationary with lovely swirly script typography. Ooh I'm getting excited just thinking about it! If we had to name our 'vision,' at this moment in time it would be vintage fairytale :)

Just a teeny tiny taster of some of our inspiration photos...

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Plenty more of them coming up though, don't worry!

In terms of the day itself, our aim is to have a fairly formal day so we'd like our guests to dress like they would for a wedding in the UK. We'd like lots of romance, lots of alcohol, lots of food, and lots of laughter. We also obviously want Disney touches, but they will be pretty subtle. Neither of us want characters at the wedding, it's just not something we've ever felt we'd have. It will be more like a wedding at Disney, than a Disney wedding, if that makes sense!? Saying that, we both love the history of Disney, the parks, Walt etc, so I imagine these elements will feature subtly if we can, I.e table names.

:lovestruc

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Disney also offers some pretty awesome entertainment options that are right up our street, so I may or may not share them on here depending on if any of our guests are reading!



The Most Important Things

Throughout my planning I've seen lots of people recommend that you as a couple decide on the 3 things about your wedding that are most important to you. Me and Benj had this conversation a lott! The idea is you can then adjust your budget accordingly, and spend more on the things that are more important to you.

1. Locations – This has to be number 1 really; it has to be Florida, and it has to be the Wedding Pavilion. Obviously we've already made this priority by coming so far down this road haha!

2. Photography – We're spending all this money, we want to be able to remember it. Photography and videography are both really important to us and we'll be spending a good chunk of our budget on them! I already have a photographer in mind and I'm just in love with her work!

3. Guest experience – We honestly feel so honoured that our guests are choosing to travel all that way to be with us on our special day. We want to make sure they have an amazing day at a wedding they won't forget!

Honorable mention – FOOD! We're both big foodies and we can't wait to start choosing all the yummy food we'll be eating on the day :D I'll be making sure we get a chance to eat it haha!
 
Dates and Locations


The Date

As I said before, due to Ben's job we're pretty tied to October. My ideal wedding date is Wednesday 19th :D This isn't just a random date though, there is method in the madness! Firstly, we would prefer to fly out on a Saturday, so that our 3 weeks will result in 15 days off work, no more. Secondly, with the minimums going up from $5000 to $10,000, we'll obviously be aiming for Mon-Fri!! As I get pretty bad jetlag, I want to have as much time as possible to get over it before the wedding day. However, we also want to get married in the 1st week so that the rest of the time is our honeymoon....and so we can eat American portions without worrying about our wedding attire not fitting!! (this may be the main reason...) Can you see why Wednesday is the optimum day!? Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, Wednesday 19th October will be 3 years to the day that Ben proposed. How cute is that!? If another couple wants our date, with our locations, and we get entered into a lottery, we’d also choose back-up times and dates, I.e 12pm wedding pavilion instead of 2.30pm, still on the 19th, or moving the entire wedding day back to the Wednesday before. I'm prepared for this as October is a busy month for DFTW, but we're hoping a Wednesday might not be too in demand. We shall see! For now, 19/10/16 is the date :)


The Location

So, after all the heartache of the past few months, we had decided that we'd be getting married in Florida. Specifically, we'd be getting married in Walt Disney World. We discussed getting married in Florida but not in WDW, but I wasn't going all that way and not having a Disney wedding. I was pretty specific about that! We kinda felt like if we weren't going to do it at Disney, we might as well be at home :/ It's a big expense but we were happy to wait longer and save for it :) So that was an easy decision!

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The Ceremony Location

The ceremony location will be Disney's Wedding Pavilion. Although I honestly think all the places you can get married at Disney are beautiful, for us, the WP is the ONE. It takes my breath away every time I look at it! The Grand Floridian is my favourite resort and the whole vision we have for our day fits perfectly with the WP. The architecture, the view of the castle, the beautiful décor, the white sandy beach...I couldn't imagine getting married anywhere else! I can't wait to walk down that aisle!!

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Reception

We're pretty sure we want the Whitehall Room and Patio as our reception venue. I read a planning journal aaagggeees ago, like 2010, of a UK girl who got married in WDW and used the WH room, and just thought it was lovely. One thing that's quite important to us on the day is not making our guests move around too much. We want to have all the different events of the day as close together as possible, so the day just kind of flows and we won't have to worry about transport. We also want the day to be pretty long, like a UK wedding, and to not have any gaps where guests have to find stuff to do, or are left to their own devices. Plus, as I said before, the Grand Floridian is our favourite resort. So we're pretty lucky it fits in with our plans haha! So the Whitehall Room and Patio would be perfect for our group size :) We will go and see a few other reception venues on our site visit though, just to make sure it's the right one for us.

I thought I’d share some examples of how the room can look dressed for those who don’t know, and the patio itself!

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Cocktail Hour

I'd love our cocktail hour to take place in a different location to our reception, but I need to find out if this is a possibility. I've heard of brides using Commanders Terrace at the GF for their cocktail hour which would be perrrrrfect, it's a lovely outdoor balcony space just off the grand staircase. If not, I will investigate other options with our planner. Alternatively, we'll have our cocktail hour outside on the patio at the Whitehall Room, and then have our reception meal inside :) It'll all work itself out!


Dessert Party

This is a very important part of the day! I love Wishes SO MUCH. It's one of my favourite experiences in all of WDW :) I cry every time it starts haha! Wishes means a lot to both of us and it's really important it features in our wedding day.

Luckily for us, the Grand Floridian is one of the only places you can have a private dessert party to watch Wishes :) We'll be viewing Sago Cay Pointe during our site visit in December, and I hope it's as perfect as it looks in photos :)

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So after our reception and maybe a swift drink in Mizners Lounge depending on timings (Wishes is on pretty late I think) we'll all congregate at Sago Cay Pointe in our own little roped off area, to watch Wishes and enjoy the evening with a variety of sweet and savoury snacks. YUM! Beyond excited for this!! Another good thing about our Wednesday date is historically, MNSSHP is not held on these nights....touch wood *touches wood* because I'd be gutted if we got Hallowishes and not Wishes! I know, I do love them both, but Wishes is what I've dreamed about watching on our wedding night. Fingers crossed Disney won't pull anything crazy and we'll get Wishes.

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So that's how the day will run, in a very roughly written nutshell :D


Next chapter…Save The Dates!
 

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