Jilian & BT's VR 3/24/12 Crescent Terr/Il Mulino - Last of the Randy Chapman pics up!

[amberg@eastlink.ca]

youre welcome! i saw them and went hey i know those ppl! lol i just started reading your vr the otherday amidst the pics. dh and i did one last year in jamaica....i keep hinting for disney but with being in nova scotia air fare is a killer and for now $$ isnt there.

 

[jessiegirl84]

Jillian, I love your photos that Randy posted, they are so beautiful! You must be so so happy with them. Your VR was just gorgeous.

I adore your vows to each other and your kids that was really sweet, and how they pronounced you a family.
I'm so sorry to hear about your issues with Il Mulino, I am a little bit nervous about our reception now, but I do hope they read your email and make some changes.

 

[MrsDuck]

AHmazing photos!! Obsessed! I've looked at them 2x this morning!

 

[DoomBuggy0922]

I just looked at your pictures: they're gorgeous! I love the ones in the mirror, and all of the GF ones too. Well, I love most of them.

I'm SO sad your Trippie is over though! Are you going to do reviews and Glad I dids too?? I hope so!

 

[Sizzle]

These Randy pics are SO good! So much variety and of course you two look gorgeous in all of them!

I second the vote for a Glad I did, wish I hadn't and vendor reviews!

 

[Jilian]

youre welcome! i saw them and went hey i know those ppl! lol i just started reading your vr the otherday amidst the pics. dh and i did one last year in jamaica....i keep hinting for disney but with being in nova scotia air fare is a killer and for now $$ isnt there.

A Jamaica VR sound fabulous!

Jillian, I love your photos that Randy posted, they are so beautiful! You must be so so happy with them. Your VR was just gorgeous.

I adore your vows to each other and your kids that was really sweet, and how they pronounced you a family.
I'm so sorry to hear about your issues with Il Mulino, I am a little bit nervous about our reception now, but I do hope they read your email and make some changes.

Thanks, we are really psyched about the Randy pics. He does such a good job and gave us some unique shots that we love. I'm sure they did read our e-mail and will work on the issues.

AHmazing photos!! Obsessed! I've looked at them 2x this morning!

I think I've looked at them 7 times now!

I just looked at your pictures: they're gorgeous! I love the ones in the mirror, and all of the GF ones too. Well, I love most of them.

I'm SO sad your Trippie is over though! Are you going to do reviews and Glad I dids too?? I hope so!

I know, ending a trip report is sad I'm gonna post vendor reviews now and work on glad I did/wish I had soon. I found the reviews so helpful during my planning so I'm happy to do them!

These Randy pics are SO good! So much variety and of course you two look gorgeous in all of them!

I second the vote for a Glad I did, wish I hadn't and vendor reviews!

Thanks I'll definitely do reviews and glad I did/Wish I hads!

 

[Jilian]

Vendor Reviews
I promised to be very honest so I will. Feel free to ask any questions! I'm gonna rate everyone on a 1-10 scale, 1 being horrible and 10 being excellent.

Karen Gingerich – wedding planner @ Just Marry
10! 10+ even!
Karen was so great to work with. I have nothing bad to say about her, the entire experience from start to finish exceeded my expectations. She always replied to my e-mails the same day; often times within an hour or two. She answered all of my questions, helped me save money and was ok with me changing my flowers completely about a month before the ceremony.

The day of the ceremony we got a surprise rain shower 15 mins before the ceremony was to start and she ran out there, brought my guests to safety, saved my Mickey head fans and pomander balls AND brought the violinist and guitarist in. If that all wasn't enough, she dried everything off, brought everything back and we only ended up starting 15 mins behind schedule. Karen was without a doubt my favorite vendor to work with!

Randy Chapman – Chapman Photography
9.5
The only reason I didn't give Randy a perfect 10 is because he was difficult to reach via e-mail during the planning process. I had to send 3 e-mails to find out if we could shoot at the GF a few weeks before the ceremony. With 3 kids it is not always easy to communicate over the phone so e-mail is my preferred method of communication. I do understand that he's busy though, and he did eventually get back to me but I still took .5 point off.

Randy was so great to work with! He showed up early and we ended up getting lost on our way to GF so I called him to let him know and he was so cool about it. He just has a relaxed way about him that made me feel at ease. He's a pro too, he knew all of the great shots to get without me even asking. He just directed us where to go, what poses to do and let us know when something was off. He was also OK with me coming up with shots of my own. I love the chandelier at GF so he took a ton of pics in front of it for me.

My favorite part about Randy is that he let me know when something in a shot was off. He'd tell me to relax my bouquet if I was holding it up too much, he fixed my zipper, fixed my hair when it looped behind my earring and he even brought me paper towel and told me my deodorant was clumping! I'd rather know now than when the pictures come back! He also made us laugh a whole lot. He was really fun to work with!

Petals by Design – Floral
9
I didn't work with them directly, Karen booked them for me. I think they did a beautiful job on the flower arrangements, they showed up to deliver the floral about 20 mins early which really made me happy but the ribbon wrapping on my bouquet was a bit sloppy – that is why I took 1 point off. The bouquet itself was beautiful, flowers were fresh and it looked lovely. The stem wrapping wasn't so beautiful though. I'm not a perfectionist but I could see how some brides would be really annoyed with it. You could see the knot where the ribbon was tied right on the top, the hidden mickeys weren't together so I had to fix the pins and the ribbon was frayed where it had been cut. It wasn't horrific or anything, just not how it should have been. I know it isn't too difficult because I made dd's bouquet. Other than my bouquet's stem wrap I was really happy. The flower arrangements were beautiful, I really loved them a lot. The guys bouts were beautiful, the owner suggested the flowers for them and they looked great with the rest of our floral. Their prices are fabulous too, my whole package was just over $600!

Jennie Rudberg – violinist and guitarist
10
Fabulous vendor to work with! I worked with Jennie directly and booked her myself. Her price was great. She hired a guitarist and I paid her directly. I had wanted “Married Life” from up as our recessional but her guitarist didn't know that song so I sent them a YouTube video and a link to the guitar tab and he learned it for us! They did a great job. They were contracted to play from 3:45-4:45 but because of the rain they had to run to safety and our ceremony ran late. They stayed without even being asked too and played a bit longer than contracted. H absolutely loved the music, I didn't get to hear as much as he did but what I did hear was very beautiful. I'd absolutely book them again!

Il Mulino – Swan restaurant where we had our dinner
8
I really struggled with what to give them. My planning experience with Erica Yerton was an absolute 10. She was quick to get back to me and allowed us to have a menu tasting and adjust the menu when we didn't like one of the salads. She always got back to me quickly and was very helpful. BUT, I didn't realize that she would not be there on the day of our event. I assumed she would. On top of that, the other manager that we worked with (Brian) had transferred to another restaurant and they had a new manager that we did not know (who also was not there when we arrived), and when we arrived there was no manager at all in sight.

I'll start with the bad:
Our contract listed that we'd need 4 tables and the number of seats and high chairs at each table. Erica told us the room would be set up for us the night before and we could arrive as early as 9 am to set up our centerpieces. We arrived around 9:30 and the tables were set up, but the number of place settings was wrong at each table – which was an issue because we were using place cards. We left them as they were and set them up anyway. When we arrived back just before our ceremony was to start the servers were polishing the glasses and the tables were still wrong. Luckily I had my binder and was able to hand them my copy of the seating charts so they could fix it. Had I not checked back – who knows what would have happened? All of this was clearly outlined in my contract though, which made it frustrating.

Also in my contract was that we would arrive at 5pm and take 30 minutes to have a drink and mingle with our guests. That didn't happen either. We arrived a few mins before 5pm and the servers immediately started taking dinner orders. H was annoyed because he wanted to do a speech and have our Pastor do the blessing. He stepped outside the room to ask the servers to please not put any food on the table until after our Pastor had said the prayer. They cooperated.

Because Il Mulino has tons of really expensive wines we chose our own white and red wines to be offered. They were to be offered in addition to drinks from the bar. Only 1 table was offered drinks other than wine (and it wasn't even our table!) which annoyed us because the wine we chose was $58 per bottle. H realized when he saw some of the guys who are usually beer drinkers drinking wine so he went to each table to let them know that they could order any drinks from the bar that they wanted and they said they hadn't been told. During the planning process we were also asked if we wanted servers to free pour without asking or to offer guests more wine before pouring and we asked that they offer, but they did not. It felt as if they were trying to get our bill as high as possible and that was annoying, we already had a guaranteed minimum of $3,000!

The good:
The room was beautiful! They let us in at 9am to set up which was really helpful. They also let our florist deliver the flower arrangements to our private room and be held there for our wedding planner to set up when she arrived. The food was really good, our favorites were the misti platter of meats and cheeses and the desserts. The tirimisu is to die for! The flow of the meal went well and the servers didn't let anyone's glass get empty. Our guests really, really enjoyed the food and wines. Erica was wonderful to work with and made the planning process easy. The new manager, Daniel, was great once he arrived (sometime around the main course he came in to check on us). When we were done Daniel had the servers empty the water from our centerpieces for us so we could wrap them up and bring them home. He also called bell services right into the restaurant to pick our stuff up for us, which was really helpful!

Would I still book them again? Yes. I would, however ask in advance which manager would be present for the dinner. I'd also bring a copy of my contract and give it to the servers before the start of the meal to be sure it was followed. I'm not sure why I didn't do this because I did have my contract in my binder. Despite the issues I'm still happy with how the meal went and I don't think our guests noticed that anything was amiss.

Caribbean Beach Resort – Grand Gathering
8
We booked a grand gathering through Disney so all our our guests would be in rooms that were close to one another. The grand gathering process was tricky and involved lots of work on my part but it was worth it. When our guests tried to check in early most of them could not, which annoyed them. I understand check in isn't until 3 but the people at the front desk said they'd receive a room within an hour and about 3 hours went by. It wasn't too bad because we already had our room from the day before and let people freshen up in there. Magical Express lost my aunt's luggage too, but they did locate it by the end of the evening for her. The rooms were semi-close together. Not many were side by side though. One of our aunts ended up in a different building completely and when she complained they tried to upgrade her but she just really wanted to be near us so she refused the upgrade. Eventually they got her semi-close to us. I'm not sure why that happened because she did give the grand gathering number when booking. We did get our building request though, and we were all on the ground level as requested too. The best part was that we all faced into a courtyard and that became our unofficial gathering spot every night.

Swan – Front desk/bell services/security
5
The Swan staff members left a lot to be desired. A 5 is generous. When we were checking in to the “hospitality suite” (see notes on that in my TR) there was some sort of problem. The room she was supposed to give us was booked or something, so she kept having to go into the back room and come back. We didn't have a whole lot of time and this took up 20ish minutes. She came back and said security held the keys to the suites so they had to bring her the key, then they brought the wrong key, etc. After a long time she finally told us to just go upstairs to the room and security would meet us there and give us a key. The security guard was there and he was really not nice at all. He kept saying “Who is this room for?” and H said “us, didn't the front desk tell you to meet us here” and rather than ask our names he kept asking the same question over and over. I finally caught on and asked “Are you asking for our names?” and he said “yes”. H was pretty pissed though, the guy was rude for no reason at all. We were completely nice and polite with him. Then he let us in and left without giving us the key so H had to go follow him and get it.

Bell services coming in was great, they were very nice and helpful. Leaving was another story. The guy packed up the push cart horribly and dropped my makeup box onto our flower arrangement. He picked it up, put it back in the same spot and it fell again. It destroyed the flower arrangement, half of it fell off onto the floor. I took my makeup box and said I'd carry it and when I made a sad face about the flowers he said “At least your bouquet didn't get ruined” Aghhh. I was carrying my bouquet, that is why It was still safe! We only tipped him $2.

The “suite” they gave us was dirty. Now that I think about it, I don't think this is the one we were supposed to get so I think they just put us anywhere. I can't complain too much because it was a free perk of booking with the Swan. It was just a big empty room with a table, a water dispenser and a table with chairs. It wasn't nice at all but it served the purpose. It also had a great view of the courtyard, so that was nice. It was convenient too, which was really helpful.

Jackie from Beaute Speciale - hair & makeup
10
Jackie was great, I worked with her once for a trial and then again for our VR. She was really friendly, arrived early both times and was just a great person. I showed her inspiration pics and she made it happen. She kept me involved in the process and stopped to show me certain things along the way to make sure I was happy. I was really happy with how my hair and makeup turned out on the day of. I left it intact from 10 am until about 11 pm and it was still in pretty good shape when I took my hair down and washed my face. It easily held up for 10 hours! I'd definitely recommend Jackie!

That is about all, feel free to ask any queations, I know reviews are really important because most of us are booking from afar. Next up Glad I did/Wish I had

 

[MrsDuck]

Thanks so so much for the vendor reviews! I'm glad to see that the majority of them were positive!!

I have a question: I'm still torn between adding the guitarist to my violin player. You gave them an awesome review-- do you think it's worth the extra $$ to hire the guitarist? Would it have sounded "blah" or "empty" without him?

 

[Jilian]

Faith, I've never heard a solo violinist in person but every YouTube video I listened to sounded too screamy to me. I feel like the guitar softened the violin. I initially booked violin through Just Marry for $250 or so. Then I cancelled and booked Jennie myself, she charged $175 per musician for an hour. So it was $350 for the pair. I think it was worth it.

 

[2dogmom]

I can't view your pictures now (work firewall ugh!) but I have to agree with you that a lapu lapu is a great drink. Ohana is definitely one of my favorite restaurants and why I picked it for our reception. Thanks for the review. Always makes me feel better hearing good stuff about who I plan on using.

 

[Jilian]

O'hana would be so great for a reception! I think you made a great choice. H still talks about how much he loved O'hana.

 

[MrsDrewsky]

Jilian, your VR was absolutely beautiful!

First of all, you have such a lovely family. Your kids are absolutely precious. The look on your son's face as he is walking you down the aisle is priceless.

You look absolutely stunning in all your photos! I am going to have to book Beaute Speciale asap. That and hit the gym, I am super jealous of your arms.

Karen sounds like a total rockstar. I'm so glad you didn't have to move inside, your venue photos were perfect.

 

[BethieTink]

Jilian,

I am so sad that your TR is over. You had a gorgeous VR.

* Loved your flowers. Beautiful. I had to go back and look at your criticisms because I couldn't see them.
* The trays from Publix look great. I have to remember them when it is time.
* Crystal Palace is our favorite character breakfast. The picture of your daughter is adorable.
* Love, love, love Boma! Paul is a picky eater and even he loves it too.
* Glad you enjoyed Jelly Rolls. We have to try it in November.
* I LOL'd when you talked about TSM. I always beat Paul and he beat me last trip. I still haven't heard the end of it.
* We have owned DVC for 6 years now and are totally spoiled. Kidani is gorgeous! We may have to stay there soon.
* Absolutely adore your Randy photos!

It was a fabulous ride. Thanks for sharing everything with us.

 

[tinkerbell 766]

All caught up sweetie!!!
It looks as if it was one amazing trip!!
Thank you for the very honest reviews!!!
I am so glad you enjoyed my 'home'. I love Kidani and always feel like I have arrived home when I arrive there. Although I love BLT too, Kidani will always be my first and favourite home in my happy place!!!
As I have said before, Randy's photos are stunning!!! Can't wait to see the rest.

 

[Jilian]

Jilian, your VR was absolutely beautiful!

First of all, you have such a lovely family. Your kids are absolutely precious. The look on your son's face as he is walking you down the aisle is priceless.

You look absolutely stunning in all your photos! I am going to have to book Beaute Speciale asap. That and hit the gym, I am super jealous of your arms.

Karen sounds like a total rockstar. I'm so glad you didn't have to move inside, your venue photos were perfect.

Aww, thanks!

Beaute speciale was awesome, they are miracle workers really.

I'm so, so happy we didn't have to move inside too. I loved Crescent Terrace.

Jilian,

I am so sad that your TR is over. You had a gorgeous VR.

* Loved your flowers. Beautiful. I had to go back and look at your criticisms because I couldn't see them.
* The trays from Publix look great. I have to remember them when it is time.
* Crystal Palace is our favorite character breakfast. The picture of your daughter is adorable.
* Love, love, love Boma! Paul is a picky eater and even he loves it too.
* Glad you enjoyed Jelly Rolls. We have to try it in November.
* I LOL'd when you talked about TSM. I always beat Paul and he beat me last trip. I still haven't heard the end of it.
* We have owned DVC for 6 years now and are totally spoiled. Kidani is gorgeous! We may have to stay there soon.
* Absolutely adore your Randy photos!

It was a fabulous ride. Thanks for sharing everything with us.

I'm sad that it is over too. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself now

I'm happy that I didn't have too many criticisms, I really think everything went pretty perfectly.

Haha about TSM! Our initial rivalry began on the Buzz lightyear space ranger spin in the MK. Brian would always win. Then one day I somehow scored 999,999 right in the beginning. I have *never* let him forget it. He swears that the laser malfunctioned, I say that I hit something good and he's just jealous

All caught up sweetie!!!
It looks as if it was one amazing trip!!
Thank you for the very honest reviews!!!
I am so glad you enjoyed my 'home'. I love Kidani and always feel like I have arrived home when I arrive there. Although I love BLT too, Kidani will always be my first and favourite home in my happy place!!!
As I have said before, Randy's photos are stunning!!! Can't wait to see the rest.

It was an amazing trip. All of it. I still get a really big smile just thinking back on it. What a lovely experience

Kidani is so relaxing. I don't think my H liked it too much (the resort, not the room) but I'd go back!

 

[Jilian]

Glad I did/Wish I had


I'm glad I...

Had our VR in WDW
Once DH suggested it there was no going back. It is our happy place. We've been going at least once a year for the past 6 years. The castle still gives me goosebumps every time I walk down Main Street. Disney is us and it was so wonderful to share the Disney magic with those we love most.

Went with the Swan & Just Marry team
As you can tell from reading my PJ I'm a type A personality. I like to plan and handle things on my own. Just Marry let me have full control over my vow renewal. I was able to pick from their vendors and let them book for me or book the vendors of my choosing on my own. As far as I know there are no restrictions at all. I could do whatever I wanted and I liked that. I also loved Crescent Terrace and how it turned out. The day before my VR they had it beautifully decorated with lots of new plants and I was thrilled with how it looked on the day of our VR. I couldn't imagine having our VR in any other location or with any other wedding planner, everything was so perfect!

Encouraged guests to stay @ CBR with us
All of our guests but 2 stayed @ CBR with us under a grand gathering. We were all in the same area and used the courtyard outside of our rooms as our gathering place. We all did our own thing during the days but every night, without fail, we'd all meet up at the courtyard to hang out. It was a wonderful family/friend reunion every night! It was great running into our guests every day at the resort, we really got to spend time with everyone who travelled so far to be with us.

Had Randy Chapman do our photography
When I first started researching I wanted to go with Misty Miotto but when I found her price list I had second thoughts. Her work is so amazingly beautiful but I hadn't budgeted anywhere near that for photography. Randy was my second choice and I was somewhat concerned that I wouldn't get pictures that were as beautiful. Boy was I wrong! I really love all of the preview pictures that Randy has sent us so far. I think he did a wonderful job and clearly got what we were going for. I have no regrets at all, and the money we saved by going with Randy we were able to put toward a few other upgrades.

Had a welcome gathering
We didn't have a huge budget for a welcome gathering but still wanted to do something to welcome our guests and thank them for travelling so far to be with us. We settled on desserts and drinks at the CBR by the pool and cabana bar. We bought pastry platters from Publix and ordered drinks from the bar and it was so much fun! CBR had live music, games and then a movie going on during our welcome party and some of the kids joined in. This was definitely one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. We also got to hand out welcome bags and go over the VR day schedule with guests who were still confused. AND everyone got to meet before the VR so they all knew each other the day of. The total cost of our welcome gathering for 39 people was $404

Had our VR at the beginning of our trip
The days leading up to the VR were stressful. There was a lot of last minute stuff to be done and we were just nervous about everything going well. Our trip was Thursday – Thursday with our VR on Saturday. It was so nice to still have 5 more days to just relax and enjoy our trip after the VR.

Got ready for the VR with H
It was the only alone time we got together the whole trip and it was wonderful. We had a nice quiet room service lunch and got to chat and just enjoy the down time.

Had pictures taken before the ceremony
It was great to get them over with so we could enjoy the rest of our day. We didn't have to leave our guests and we didn't have to pose for shots after the ceremony. We got to go straight to our dinner and enjoy drinks and apps with our guests.

Wish I had...

Known Erica would not be present at Il Mulino the night of our dinner
I should have asked, I stupidly assumed she would be there since she was the one I had worked with for so many months. But she was not, and neither was the other manager I had worked with (he got a promotion and is no longer with them). When little issues started coming up there was no one there who seemed to know what we had agreed to in our contract. I also wish I had just given them a copy of my contract when I arrived, but I assumed that had already been taken care of. Things still went well, it just required work on my husband's part when we were hoping to be able to sit back and relax for the night. Had I known about the manager situation up front I would have been more prepared. My bad!

Not booked dinner reservations for every night
I know this is the nature of the beast in Disney but I find it so annoying. We had to book our ADRs 6 mos in advance to get into the places we wanted to eat at, but then we became slaves to our ADRs. I hate having somewhere to be every single night, it makes it hard to change the plans for the day if we get tired or aren't ready to eat. It became a major PITA. Having kids complicates it further because there were nap times to contend with. We like to vacation without a schedule and just go with the flow but our ADRs made that tricky.

Not done a split stay
We loved the bigger room at AKV but switching resorts was a pain. We had to be out of one by 11 and couldn't check into the other until 4 so we had to pack up and put everything in our van before we left for the park that day. Then we had to go back and pick up our van and drive to AKV to check in. It took up a lot of time and the packing and unpacking was annoying.

Planned for some alone time
Obviously because we have 3 kids this is tricky but H and I didn't get much time alone during the trip. It would have been really nice if we could have had just one quiet dinner alone. The only alone time we got at all was the few hours we had together while getting ready for the VR.

Booked transportation for ourselves the day of the VR!
We had transportation for our guests, but we were on our own to get to the GF for the pre-ceremony pics...and we got lost. I had directions and a GPS that I forgot so we relied on directions from the valet...and we missed a turn. It was really stressful and we were almost late. Book transportation for yourself. Do it!

Done the dessert party
Yep. I still wish we had done it. I just couldn't get it to work. It wouldn't have started until 10pm and with the kids that would have never worked. But I still think about it and wish we did it. I think we'll book the MK DP on a future trip so we get to experience it.

Not worn ginormous heels
They were cute, but so uncomfortable. By the time the pre-ceremony pics were done I wanted to chuck the shoes into the lake. I'm glad I brought flip flops to change into, and bandaids to put on my boo boos. Stupid shoes!

 

[virtuous girl]

After seeing the pics Randy posted of u guys (WHICH I LOVE!! ) I am starting to feel more confident about him... I know this sounds wrong but i was starting to doubt myself about my pick of photographers but he did such an AMAZING job of your big day.. U looked STUNNING!!

 

[Jilian]

After seeing the pics Randy posted of u guys (WHICH I LOVE!! ) I am starting to feel more confident about him... I know this sounds wrong but i was starting to doubt myself about my pick of photographers but he did such an AMAZING job of your big day.. U looked STUNNING!!

I think the doubting is a common thing when you get so close to the big day. I was filled with all sorts of doubts about my whole VR during the last 2 weeks. Randy is great. I really loved it. I'd absolutely book him again, in a heartbeat. He was so fun and just did a really amazing job.

 

[Jilian]

Some photopass pics:

Tiara in the MK -holla!

 

[MrsDuck]

I love that your rocking your tiara in MK! Go girl!

Your photopass pictures turned out great!!

And, thank you so much for your Glad I Did/Wish I Had.. I absolutely love it! So glad everything went well and was just magical!