Planning Trip Part 3: Cake!, Pseudo-tasting session, hair & make-up, random tidbits
Cake Tasting
So after the floral portion of our planning session, we took a break. My MiL was very happy to get out of the cold room of Franck's and we hung outside the wedding pavilion for a bit chit-chatting. The men told us about their visit to GF and how fancy it was and the parents discussed their wedding attire options with each other. I had pretty much told them here's our colors and O trusted them to pick themselves yet my in-laws keep asking me to approve their choices down to ties, shows and hair... so it was nice that the parents coordinated with each other and finally left me out of it.
When we went back into Franck's, they had out cake sampling laid out for us, DH and FiL were very excited for this. my FiL was all 'well you guys try first' but I know he loves sweets and I didn't really care that much so told him to dig in.
And pretty quickly, my bubble was burst. I had my heard set on a cute little two tier buttercream cake. But was very definitively told that a two-tier would be too small for our count (at this point we were estimating around 60). I shot back but i don;t want to save the top layer and i like the look of a two tier. I expected to be given the option of a two tier for show and sheet cake for serving. But that was not the case. So i agreed to send Diane the photo of the cake I liked and she would price out the 3 tier of it. In back of my head, I was already nixing the idea of cake...
As for the tasting part that was fun. And hey look I remembered to take a picture(well my mom did):
Cakes we tried: we got 6 little slices of each
Marble - didn't take like chocolate or vanilla
Orange - good but subtle; DH is an orange fan so this was his pick but he liked the orange filling better
Red Velvet - the best of the bunch, it was moist
Chocolate - can't go wrong with classic chocolate - nothing spectacular about it but worked well with fillings
Fillings we tried: (the selection sheet said pick 4, we picked 7 and got all 7)
Bailey's mouse - my favorite, creamy not overly sweet
peanut butter cup - just the chocolate and peanut butter filling swirled together, DH was not a fan
peanut butter cream cheese - don't remember
amaretto with almond crunch - heard so many good things about this one, it was good but i was probably expecting too much
cookies and cream - DH's second favorite - again can't go wrong with classic
orange scented white chocolate - DH's favorite and I thought it was very good too, I'm not as much a fan of chocolate and orange together as he is but the white chocolate made it more subtle so i liked it too
blackberry mouse - I wanted to try one fruity one; it was okay and i knew it wouldn't appeal to as many people
Our cake choices:
Red velvet with Orange White Chocolate Mousse
Chocolate with Bailey's Mousse
Cake follow-up
So in follow-ups to our planning session. My planner sent me pricing on the three tier buttercream cake and Chip and Dale figurines (DH loves Chip & Dale and if we were gonna do a bigger cake, we'd have room for em).
I also asked about doing a two-tier and a sheet cake.
The cake was quoted at $625 plus delivery and serving fees and chip and dale were another $300 :O And didn't get an answer about the sheet cake option
I'm not a cake person so i was ready to nix this but DH enjoyed the tasting so I thought he'd want to keep it but he was like nope, the included desserts with our menu were enough for him...
But we had gotten a cake cutting set as gift and I really wanted to use it so then I thought about doing a small cake for just cutting and having it displayed with our dessert so I asked about this option.
My planner said a small cake with the buttercream stripes I liked would be $65 and made by the contemporary bakery so that nixed the delivery from GF fee. SOLD!
She said they didn't have a pedestal stand that small for the cake but I asked my floral planner about it and she added it to our floral and decor.
Later in planning, our estimated numbers came down so i decided to add a sheet cake of red velvet and Bailey's mousse to serve to guests... this was only $80; another win!
Rest of Planning trip highlights:
Rest of Day 2 (planning session day): Photos & Pseudo Menu Tasting
After the planning session, We went and checked out the wedding pavilion. it wasn't a venue we ever considered as it's not our style but we thought it would be fun to see. Well that window behind the altar overlooking Magic Kingdom is really cool. It magnifies the castle but the effect doesn't come out it photos.
Then we went on a monorail loop tour of the hotels to check out their Christmas trees.
We had planned on that day being a no-park but since we upgraded our tickets to APs we decided to pop into Magic Kingdom and took a few photopass photos that could serve as engagement pictures or something (we had already sent out STDs so had no need for engagement photos but our wedding website had a spot for photos... but because we're cheeseballs we decided to use our silly on-ride photos instead)
I also managed to snag a California Grill reservation (thank you touring plans and their reservation finder tool) so we got to check out our reception location and try the food. None of us had ever been there before and wow the first time you go up their the view is just breathtaking. I was immediately reassured of our venue choice and the food further reinforced our decision.
We were going to see the fireworks from there too but we didn't want to stay that late. but we did get to see the holiday lighting of the castle.
Day 3: Hair & Make-up Trial & Venue visits
The day after our planning session, we went to HS in the morning the I met my mother back at our resort for my hair & make-up trial.
Patricia LeJune had been my top pick but she was booked for my date when I called in the summer. So I looked at others on Disney's recommended list and chose Onsite Beauty. I had gone back forth on a couple possible vendors but since hair was more important to me than make-up I went by who had better hair reviews and pictures.
I brought along a cheap flower clip for the trial (since i was doing fresh flowers) and let me mom put the veil from my Minnie Ears on me so she could see me in veil since I didn't want to wear one.
My mother and Janet got along really well and my hair took forever but I was really happy with it. I left it in and the make-up the rest of the day to test it out and see how I felt about fake lashes all day and if I wanted to change anything for day of.
The lashes didn't bother me too much; I was only eh about them but DH liked them so I decided I'd do them.
Janet had suggested trying out a dark lip so I decided to test it but no one likes it but I figured i'd test out some colors myself and go from there.
The foundation felt too heavy and even as she was applying it Janet said I didn't really need it; so I figured I'd bring my own light bb cream for day of.
And I really liked my hair but was hoping by the wedding it would be longer so I could opt for more of a pony than a bun.
Spoiler alert: on my actual wedding day, I had a different make-up person and my sister and mother somehow convinced me to do airbrush and I hated it. And didn't relay the slight hair changes to Janet well because it turned out very different. So in retrospect the trial was a waste because I liked it yet it made me change my mind and if i had stuck with first choices i would have liked it. And Janet's pricing wasn't straight forward so I don't think I'd recommend. UGH
After the trial, I took my parents to see POFQ where our room block would be. My dad was very happy it was much smaller and more recently updated than Coronado and agreed it would be great for our guests.
TIP: Picking a small hotel and encouraging most of our guests to stay there was great for meeting up with everyone.
After meeting up with DH and his parents for dinner at Biergarten, we checked out Italy Isola, our ceremony location and found it empty so I tested walking down the aisle.
My photos came out like crud so I'll divert to Carrie for venue photos:
http://disneytravelbabble.com/disney-weddings/wdw-venue-photos/italy-isola/
And we also checked out our back-up space - American Adventure Rotunda.
(and Carrie photos:
http://disneytravelbabble.com/disney-weddings/wdw-venue-photos/american-adventure-rotunda/)
Somehow, I had never been in any of our chosen locations so it was good to see them all even if it was after we were booked and it would have been a pain to switch anything. Thankfully we loved them and were even happy with our rain back-up.