Lauren & George's Wishes Wedding- 12.01/16- WP/Attic *Updated 11/06: TR Day 6!

I am obsessed with your colors your reception and how it all flowed so well without seeming like a strict uniform. It seems like the attic was made for those bright/lovely colors. I love every detail. I can't wait to see/read more. It's also the night before your portraits and I'm so excited for you!!
 
Everything looks amazing! You had so many fun ideas and it all really flowed well together. I might have to use (steal) some of these ideas in the future for my wedding lol :stitch2: Also, your pictures came out beautiful and your dress is wonderful! Can't wait to see more!! popcorn::

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm so glad to hear that my ideas flowed well together! At some points in the planning process, it seemed like everything would be a random mess, so I'm glad that everything flowed cohesively. Feel free to steal away! I'm sure 90% of my wedding details were stolen from someone at some point.

I am obsessed with your colors your reception and how it all flowed so well without seeming like a strict uniform. It seems like the attic was made for those bright/lovely colors. I love every detail. I can't wait to see/read more. It's also the night before your portraits and I'm so excited for you!!

Thanks, lady! While I did choose those colors before we committed to the Attic, we did plan on having our reception somewhere on the Boardwalk, and knew those colors would flow well with that theme/setting. Ahh the portrait session was SO MUCH FUN and I'm dyinggggg to see how our pictures turned out!
 
Part 8: First Dance & Father-Daughter Dance

After a few minutes of checking out all of the reception details at The Attic (and George and Meghan hooking up our iPod speakers), we were told to go back to our hotel room for a few minutes since our guests were all on their way up from the lobby. Meghan stayed back, but George and I went back to our hotel room to wait for our queue from Kristie. I went to the bathroom, finished chugging my Diet Coke, and reapplied some lipgloss while back at the room. We were probably there for 5 minutes when Kristie knocked at the door to come and get us.

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Guests mingling right before our arrival

Since we didn't have a DJ at our wedding, my bridesmaid Meghan (who works in PR and hosts events all the time) acted as our MC and announced our entrance.

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From there, we went right into our first dance, which yes, ended up totally being the middle school shuffle. HAHA. George and I are NOT dancers, and even briefly considered not doing a first dance at all, but I thought I would regret it. We thought about possibly taking a few dance classes together so we wouldn't feel uncomfortable, but nixed that idea because we didn't want it to look fake and choreographed, which is so not us. The only practice we did get was at my friend's wedding a few weeks prior to ours, where we decided to do once dance together and that was the extent of our practice.

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We were really stiff and awkward the first minute or two (I couldn't decide where to keep my hands!), but after that, we got a bit more comfortable and eased into it a little more.

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By the way, we danced to "At Last I See The Light" from Tangled as our first dance song. This was something that changed literally a week before the wedding. Choosing a first dance song was actually one of our biggest wedding planning struggles/arguments because we are both punk rockers and knew we couldn't really dance to a fast punk song, but didn't want to choose something that didn't mean anything to us either. A few months before the wedding, we chose a song by my favorite band Against Me! called "Fu**mylife666." HAHAHA, I promise the song has no cursing in it and it was a nice, acoustic version of the song. I love the song, but wasn't sure that I wanted it as my first dance song, even though the title is hilarious and it was a song by my favorite band. We tried to come up with alternatives that meant something to us, but just couldn't so we settled for this song. Then the weekend before the wedding, Tangled was on and I was watching it while George was cooking dinner. Of course when the lantern scene came on and Rapunzel and Flynn were singing "At Last I See The Light," I started crying, because I ALWAYS cry when that scene comes on. At that moment, George just happened to walk in the room and see me sitting there crying and asked if I wanted to dance to that for our first dance. I jumped up and said YES faster that I think I even did when he asked me to marry him. Lol. So that's how we ended up dancing to "At Last I See The Light" over "Fu**mylife666."

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Ahhh I loved my hair SO much <3

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See, we eased up a bit. So much that George even decided to twirl me.

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And then all of a sudden, our music cut off! And all George and I could do was laugh because literally a minute before that we had started talking about how freakin long that song was and how we should have tried to find a shorter version. But Meghan ended up accidentally turning the song off when she was getting ready to queue up the next song and started to apologize profusely. George and I totally laughed it off and said FINALLY, but according to Meghan, she was getting quite the death glare from Kristie. Haha.

So now that George and I had our first (and last) dance together, it was time to dance with my dad, which was also a first for me! I had asked him a few weeks earlier if we could practice together and he said we'd be fine. I was nervous it would be awkward, but my dad is a really good dancer (that's how he met my mom!) and he was whispering to me exactly what steps to take and we apparently looked great!

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For our dance, I chose the song "My Girl" by The Temptations. The song doesn't hold a special meaning to us or anything, but its just a fun, cute, upbeat song that wasn't extra cheesy. My dad taught me everything I know about music and gave me my love for classic rock (he's the ultimate classic rock connoisseur and the concerts he's seen make me green with envy) so I searched up and down for a good classic rock song to dance with him to, but came up short. This song is a classic though and it fit the mood and our relationship perfectly.

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Love this one so much!

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And in no time, our dances were over (phew)! What a relief...now it was really time to get this party started!

Up next: Toasts and FOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!
 
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Haha Fmylife66 is a great pick! I would've enjoyed it. LOL
The first dance is something I am so nervous about since we don't have a DJ either but whatever we are just going to go for it. I had no idea what to use as a first dance song but Roy and I first really bonded over still liking green day after american idiot so we're going to dance to 'Last Night on Earth' Roy wants to dance with Marcy to 'My Girl'
 


Haha Fmylife66 is a great pick! I would've enjoyed it. LOL
The first dance is something I am so nervous about since we don't have a DJ either but whatever we are just going to go for it. I had no idea what to use as a first dance song but Roy and I first really bonded over still liking green day after american idiot so we're going to dance to 'Last Night on Earth' Roy wants to dance with Marcy to 'My Girl'

Bahahaha "Roy and I first really bonded over still liking green day after american idiot" is the best thing I've ever heard. Their new song actually isn't too bad. And Roy and Marcy dancing to "My Girl" will be adorable.
 
Love all your elements!! You look so pretty, too!! Thanks for all the awesome details and congratulations!!
 
Amazing wedding, I get lost sometimes on that section of the forum just dreaming, but reading your TR I'm hoping to one day find a woman ready to be a Disney bride because that's the kind of wedding I want now
 


Love all your elements!! You look so pretty, too!! Thanks for all the awesome details and congratulations!!

Thank you so much!

Amazing wedding, I get lost sometimes on that section of the forum just dreaming, but reading your TR I'm hoping to one day find a woman ready to be a Disney bride because that's the kind of wedding I want now

Thank you, Steven! I hope you find that special someone too because Disney weddings are truly incredible and something I will remember forever!
 
Part 9- Toasts & FOOD!

Sorry for the delay in posts, especially after I mentioned that food was next. Things picked up at work last week and then I took a few much-needed days off for spring break, but I'm ready to march forward and get the rest of this wedding day covered!

After our dances, it was time for our toasts, which were given by George's dad and also by my sister and Meghan. Both were short and sweet and sadly I don't have them recorded so I don't 100% remember them. George's dad more or less thanked everyone for coming to the wedding, said some nice things about us as a couple, and that he was knew there were a few grandfathers who would have loved to be here (both of mine and George's grandfathers have sadly passed away).





Then my sister and Meghan came up to give their speech. I made them promise not to tell any embarrassing childhood stories (which pretty much all of them are) so they apparently had a hard time coming up with stuff to say. Haha. They did talk about growing up together and how the three of us have been best friends for over 20 years. Meghan did most of the talking because my sister is shy and I didn't notice at the time, but got really choked up after George's dad's speech because she was very close with our grandfather who only passed away a year and a half ago. She talked about how it didn't even matter if we had no plans or were doing nothing at all but as long as we were all together, we always had such a great time together. That's pretty much all I remember...it was a short speech and my sister had more to add originally but couldn't form the words.















After the toasts were done, it was time to EAT! Kristie escorted George and I out first and once we had all our food, the rest of the tables could go out. I was so excited to eat everything! We didn't pick the most photogenic foods for our meal so the pictures are what they are, but I can promise you that everything was AMAZING. In fact, it was far and away the thing we got complimented on most about our whole wedding day. Especially the mac and cheese bar, which was apparently the best thing ever. My dad even complimented on how much he loved the plain old seasonal veggies that we literally only added because we felt like we needed to serve some kind of vegetable. HAHA.

My favorite part of the meal was of course the sweet and spicy chicken and waffles. I'm salivating just thinking about them (thank the baby Jesus they brought them back to the Magic Kingdom).






Mac and cheeeeese. This really looks like nothing special, but it was HEAVENLY. So creamy and flavorful.


Toppings for said mac and cheese bar (and standard rolls). My favorite topping was the lobster (hello, lobster mac and cheese!) but we also had bacon, tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, green onion, toasted breadcrumbs, and parmesan.


Seasonal veggies, which I skipped. I mean come on, veggies are just filler anyways.


This was the greyere and bacon potato tart. Really good, but sadly tasted better at the planning session.




Seared angus beef with drunken cherry sauce on the side. This was George's favorite. I was indifferent about it during the menu tasting, but when I had it on the wedding day, it was a lot better than I remembered it. I really enjoyed this. We also had a red wine reduction for those who were on the fence with the drunken cherry sauce.


Cute Mickey and Minnie statute that was placed on the buffet table. We totally took those rice krispie treats home.

We also had the build-your-own Hollywood Brown Derby cobb salad station, but our photographers didn't get photos of this. It was really good, but the lettuce wasn't shredded really fine like at the Brown Derby.

And thats pretty much it as far as food goes. We don't have any pictures from lunch time because we did let our photographers eat. Lol. I know George scarfed his food down really quickly (which is totally the norm for him) and I took my time because I didn't want to over-stuff myself. At some point, Kristie came up to me and high-fived me because I was actually eating. She told me NUMEROUS times that my one job of the day was to make sure I ate. Sorry, I may have been nervous throughout the day but I paid too much for that food and I like eating too much to not eat at my wedding. I'm happy to say I ate my whole plate of food that I got and enjoyed every bite of it. In fact, I so wish I could have gotten seconds, but I was almost to the point of not being able to breathe and my wedding dress/spanx were stopping me from eating more.

Next up: Some surprise guests from the Dark Side...
 
Part 10- Surprise Guests from the Dark Side

Our guests had about an hour to eat lunch until the next surprise in our reception would happen. While most finished eating in under an hour, myself included, this gave me just the right amount of time to mingle with our guests before our surprise guests were scheduled to arrive. Here's a clue...

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Since I had been with all of my family the previous day at the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, I tried to spend the bulk of my time with our friends who attended the wedding. That included my friend Anna (who did my hair and makeup that morning), Irene (she's the one who got George and I connected way back when!), Jeff (our officiant), and our Disney besties Eve and Phil. Eve was also a Disney bride and if it wasn't for falling completely head over heels in love with every aspect of her wedding, I never would have had a Disney wedding of my own. After hanging out on the Attic patio with all my friends and enjoying the beautiful Florida weather for a bit, I started to notice the arrival of our surprise guests inside.

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Yup, you guessed it...we had the 501st come to our reception! I mean, come on, everyone pretty much knew it was going to happen anyways knowing George and his heavy involvement with the 501st. As you can see, we had two Stormtroopers (our friends Gary & Gary), Boba Fett, and Darth Vader. These are all close, personal friends of myself and George so it was so much fun to see them in character around our guests. As they entered the room, they would kind of walk up to our guests and randomly mess with them. After a few minutes, we then did a bunch of posed pictures with them, then allowed them to mingle so that our guests could get pictures with them too. It was SO. MUCH. FUN.

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George brought along his own helmet and blaster, as you can see.

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I can't believe he actually let me kiss his helmet. Lol.

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I think this one is my favorite:

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I also absolutely love these ones with my sister and I fighting, and then my dad and George fighting over me. So fun!

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We also got some really fun pictures with the guys holding the Mickey balloons and stealing some Mickey bars (that picture was inspired by one of the pins Disney sells in the parks).

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I LOVE this picture of George with his fellow troopers.

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Some of our guests had a lot of fun with the Star Wars characters, but my all-time favorite picture of the day has got to be Darth Vader trying to challenge my grandma. My grandma is very serious and conservative, so this was HILARIOUS.

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And then we took a few more pictures with them before their 30-minutes was up.

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Here's the sign that we had to have displayed in order to have the 501st at our event. Disney wanted to make it VERY clear that they are not employees of Disney.

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And just like that, their 30 minutes was up. I know I've already said it once, but they were so much fun to have at the reception. I was initially nervous about what our guests would think about them being at our wedding and if it would be too childish, but everyone wanted a picture with them and it really made the atmosphere so entertaining, especially since we didn't have a dance floor or DJ at our wedding. I should have known that all along and saved myself a lot of stress.

And now I will go off on my one and only rant about Disney. While it ended up being completed worth it for us, the process of getting the 501st approved to be at our wedding was a huge pain in the a**. Warning, this rant will probably be somewhat long-winded. When we had our planning session, George had asked our planner, Kristie, about getting the 501st for our reception. After being on the Disboards for so long, I already knew the answer to that would be no, but it never hurts to ask. Of course, Kristie did say it was not allowed.

A little backstory on why the 501st is currently not allowed. Up until Disney acquired LucasFilm and the Star Wars brand back in 2013, or maybe 2014 (can't remember), Disney allowed 501st at their weddings, as long as they were approved by entertainment. That's because Disney wasn't affiliated with Star Wars. Then when they bought Lucasfilms, everything got all mixed up with the different departments within Disney so they just started telling people they could not have the 501st at their events because they could be mistaken as Disney employees by guests.

So back to our planning session. Kristie told us no, and George gave a little push back and asked if there was any way she could make it happen. As I've mentioned, he is a very active member of the 501st and has close connections with the people who booked the Disney events previously. After a little back and forth, Kristie said she would pass along George's requests to Disney Event Group and see what they come back with, but that it probably would not be possible.

Fast forward to about 2 months before the wedding and we get a random call from Kristie telling us that Disney approved us to have the 501st at our reception, but that we had some very strict rules we had to follow. First is that the 501st could not be seen by any resort guests outside of our wedding party, which meant that we had to get the hotel room right next to the Attic for them to change in and we could not have them out on the balcony of the Attic since guests walking around the Boardwalk would be able to see them from up there. Second, we had to have signage placed in the room stating that the 501st characters are part of a cosplay group and not affiliated with Disney. That sounded all fine and well, especially since we already had 2 nights booked at the Boardwalk, but ended up being the biggest, most stressful thing. The reason for that being because we had two separate reservations for our 2-night stay at the Boardwalk because one night was gifted to us by our friends who own DVC and the second night we booked ourselves. Normally this would be fine and 90% of the time Disney has no problem combining the rooms for the 2 separate stays, but since one night was with DVC points and the other was regular, this became a whole big mess that Disney didn't want to help us with. Finally during the week of the wedding, Kristie went to the front desk of the Boardwalk to talk to the manager to see if he could help us and he agreed to give us the room closest to the Attic at no additional cost (it was supposedly an upgrade from the DVC rooms). Such a relief, but man was that a stressful month leading up to the wedding.

I've spoken with Kristie since our wedding and she has told me that we were probably the first and last couple to ever have approval for the 501st at the Attic. I've heard from some sources that they are now allowed at Disney receptions as long as its held in a conference room, and then I've heard from others that they are just telling everyone "no" all over again, so I really don't know what the status with the 501st is now, but I can say that for those still planning a Disney wedding and really wanting to 501st at their event, just keep pushing and asking because it is so worth it to have them come to your event!
 
After seeing your 501st pictures and realizing just how great they are both charity wise and looks, I wanted to see if it was possible to have them at house of blues. House of Blues asked disney and they said no. So I think Disney may even stop the 501st from being at swan and dolphin weddings. It's such a bummer!! Your pictures are so cool and even though it was tough to make happen atleast it happened and you have great pictures!!
 
After seeing your 501st pictures and realizing just how great they are both charity wise and looks, I wanted to see if it was possible to have them at house of blues. House of Blues asked disney and they said no. So I think Disney may even stop the 501st from being at swan and dolphin weddings. It's such a bummer!! Your pictures are so cool and even though it was tough to make happen atleast it happened and you have great pictures!!

Aww I so wish you could have had the 501st at your wedding...I know we were incredibly lucky, especially with Disney's current stance on everything with them. It is such a bummer and I hope they start to allow this franchise back at weddings because I know so many brides and grooms would love to have them to part of their day.
 
Part 11- Cake Cutting

After the 501st left, everyone pretty much mingled and got drinks afterwards. The energy was really brought up because our guests had been so excited about seeing the Star Wars characters. I know I mostly hung out on the balcony with my friends because it was such a beautiful day and I wanted to spend as much time with them as possible.

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My 3 favorite ladies in the entire world--sister, Meghan, and Mom <3

And apparently George was inside taking shots, which Disney is not supposed to do, but George asked politely. Haha.

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Not sure if I mentioned it on here, but it was also Meghan's birthday on our wedding day, so I wanted to do something special to commemorate that for her. At our planning session, I asked Kristie if I could present her with a special cupcake before our cake cutting, so that she could get a little attention since she was so cool with us having our wedding on her birthday. She did have to clear it with Chef Redgie, but he did include the cupcake on our BEO and I don't even think he charged us for it.

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Happy Birthday, Meghan!

A few minutes after we gave Meghan her cupcake, we knew that our cake cutting would be starting and we would once again have some special guests to help us with that. Since we already had everyone's attention, Kristie kind of just chimed in and said "You guys, I think we have some more friends here that would like to help you with the cake cutting." and then the Mickey Mouse Club House song started playing and in came Mickey and Minnie!

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I'm pretty sure most of our guests knew that they were coming (even though we didn't tell anyone except my sister and Meghan) but I think people expected it less, especially after we had already had the Star Wars characters there. My friend Irene, who is also a huge Disney person, absolutely lost her sh*t and started crying and Snapchatting their entrance. Haha.

We would have Mickey and Minnie for a full 30 minutes, but before mingling with guests, we went right into the cake cutting. This was a lot less ceremonial as I had expected it to be and more so just for the photo-ops. LOL. Minnie knew how to cut the cake a lot better than we did and started placing out hands exactly where they needed to be. It was super awkward trying to cut the cake.

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Once we finally got the knife through the cake without totally collapsing the thing, we made our promises not to smash it in each other's faces but instead, nicely feed it to one another. I almost didn't even want to do this because I was still so incredibly full from lunch, but once I tasted the cake, I knew I had to force down a piece because it was SO GOOD.

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And then we sealed it with a kiss! These are my favorites!

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I don't know if I already mentioned it, but I LOVED our cake so much. Not only was it delicious, but I absolutely loved how the design of our cake came out. Originally, we wanted to do a Haunted Mansion-themed cake because its our favorite attraction. I really wanted the wallpaper print but I also had my heart set on the Mad Hatter-styled cake and they could only print the Haunted Mansion design on the normal round cake. We went back and forth on a cake design and ultimately decided to keep it more simple to stay within budget. I knew I wanted Mickey stamps in our wedding colors, and then some other fun, whimsical design on the other layer. I had already picked out our cake topper, so I wanted to keep the design light and fun and that would match with the rest of our décor and I think the cake came out perfectly. Since the Mad Hatter style cake also feeds more than a typical round cake, we had TONS of leftovers, which was fine by me. We only ended up passing out the bottom layer of the cake (almond cake with amaretto crunch filling) and then brought home the entire top layer (orange cake with amaretto crunch filling), which we froze and then ate at Christmas.
 
It's so cute Meghan's reaction when you are presenting her the cupcake. And by the way the bridesmaid dresses are gorgeous. Not as much as the wedding dress but still worth notifying ;)
 
It's so cute Meghan's reaction when you are presenting her the cupcake. And by the way the bridesmaid dresses are gorgeous. Not as much as the wedding dress but still worth notifying ;)

Thank you Steven! I love the bridemaids dresses so much that I actually bought one for myself too, but in a different color. I appreciate you mentioning it :) I think they complemented the wedding dress very nicely.
 
Part 12- Mickey & Minnie

After cutting the cake, me, George, Mickey, and Minnie actually went outside to the balcony for some photos, while the cake was being cut and handed out to our guests. It was so beautiful outside, so thats where we decided to take our posed pictures with our favorite mice <3













Looking at all these pictures, I still can't believe how gorgeous that balcony view is. Hands-down our biggest reason for choosing The Attic as our venue. Also, sorry for the lack of commentary in this update. We were literally doing whatever poses with Mickey and Minnie that Cricket told us to do.

After about 10 minutes of taking pictures with Mickey and Minnie (and I guess everyone finishing off their cake), most of our guests started to trickle out on the balcony to join us for pictures with Mickey & Minnie (and for those who wanted pictures of their own too).


Bridal Party


Ladies <3


The Guys


My Family


George's mom being adorable


Our Disney besties and fellow DisBride/Groom, Eve & Phil <3 They were 100% my inspiration for wanting a Disney wedding


Irene! She's the one who you can thank for George and I getting together!


LOL my uncle being super creepy (he even pushed Mickey completely out of the way)

There's a ton more guest pictures, but I won't bore you with all of those. After all of our guests who wanted pictures with Mickey and Minnie were finished and made their way back inside to finish their cake and get drinks, we were kind of stumped with what to do next. We still had 10 minutes left with Mickey and Minnie, and with no dancing, and already tons of pictures with them, we were kind of just standing there like "what next?!?" When we found out that we would only be getting Mickey and Minnie for 30 minutes, I thought for sure that whole time would be rushed and it would go by so fast, but contrary to that, it actually felt like it was lasting FOREVER. Luckily, Cricket thought of more random poses for us to do and we got some more cute pictures :)




Our first married selfie!






Copying the Partners statue







Then all of our guests came out one last time for a big group picture. I'm so glad we got these (even though a couple of people had left already)!





And then our time with Mickey and Minnie was up. While it did drag on a bit and made it a tad awkward, it was still absolutely worth the money to have them at our wedding! It wouldnt have been a Disney wedding for me without Mickey and Minnie to help us celebrate!
 
Last Moments & Boardwalk Portraits

Well I've been somewhat procrastinating writing this update because it is the last one for our reception :( Its been so much fun capturing the wedding day all over again, that I don't want it to end, but alas, all good stories must come to an end.

In my last update, we had just spend 30 minutes with Mickey, Minnie, and our guests. Once our favorite mice bid us adieu, everyone went back inside the Attic to finally eat their cake. I was still super stuffed from lunch, but I forced a small piece down. It was so amazing and I was glad to see that we hadn't even made a dent in the top layer, so we were able to bring that whole layer home with us. We also had bill-on-consumption Mickey ice cream bars, but most people were so full from lunch, that many didn't take advantage of them. The Mickey bars were also a surprise for our guests and my dad told me after the fact that he was so upset he didn't know about them because he had already finished his piece of cake and my mom wouldn't let him have a Mickey bar after that (he's diabetic and can't have a lot of sugar).

As our guests were finishing off their cake and mingling for the last few minutes of the reception, Cricket pulled us away for a few more last pictures together and then grabbed our rings to take some fun ring shots.

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After those last couple of photos, it was time to start packing everything up and saying goodbye to our guests as the time for our reception had come to an end. While I didn't really have to do anything, I felt bad having Meghan grab all of the odds and ends so I helped her a bit...especially since our room was just right next door and it was easy to bring everything back over. I did say goodbye to all of my family, as they would be heading back into town, but I would see them just a few days later. Meghan did such a great job packing everything up so quickly, that I didn't even have to chance the help her with anything. Before leaving the Attic, George did grab a couple cans of Guinness and a few Mickey bars to bring back into the room with us (since they were all bill-on consumption, this was fine). I took one last look at the Attic and then walked back to my room with George, Meghan, Cricket, and Sean.

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We quickly dropped everything off at the room and used the bathroom, then we were off to the Boardwalk for one more hour of portraits. When we booked Cricket, we booked a package that came with an engagement session, but since we had already taken our engagement pictures at Disneyland, we asked if we could swap that session our for an extra hour of photography after the reception. Since George and I didn't see each other at the Boardwalk before the wedding and we wouldn't have time to do pictures at the Boardwalk between the ceremony and reception since we didn't have a cocktail hour, I knew I wanted to add an extra hour at the end since it was really important for me to get Boardwalk portraits.

My two main requests that I wanted when it came to Boardwalk pictures were that I wanted pictures against the Jellyrolls striped wall (my favorite wall at WDW) and I wanted to try and get some pictures inside the new Abracadabar, so that's where we started. I'm so in love with our striped wall pictures and am planning to make a canvas of one of these (though not sure which one yet).

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Then we walked over to the bench and took some super awkward and uncomfortable ones lying down. LOL. I would like the one with the Boardwalk logo on the bench if it weren't for my dirty *** shoes in them. Haha.

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After that, we just walked casually down the Boardwalk towards Abracadabar, stopping for some slighty-lessed posed pictures along the way. It was at this point in the day where we encountered the most guests that we had seen all day, and so many people were stopping to congratulate us.

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When we did make it over to the bar, we took a few pictures in the front, which I think is actually one of my favorites, and then went inside for a few photos. I love how dark and romantic these ones look, which are so the opposite of the rest of our bright and happy photos from the day.

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Sadly, there was a couple already sitting up against the wall of mirrors, which I really wanted to get photos in front of, but didn't have the heart to ask them to move. So instead, Cricket set us on some chairs across from the wall of mirrors, and then posed us to where our reflections would show in the mirror. I think these turned out awesome and super creative!

As we headed back outside to the Boardwalk, the lighting in the sky was looking so perfect (it was 5PM in December, so the sun was slowly starting to set) and we took a few more pictures to highlight the gorgeous colors of the Boardwalk and the sky.

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Our time with Cricket and Sean was almost up, so we headed back towards the Boardwalk's lobby for our very last pictures. We couldn't have Boardwalk pictures without the famous Boardwalk sign!

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And finally, some pictures in front of the Boardwalk marquee, which was actually a super pain in the butt to get because buses and cars kept pulling up, so these pictures were literally taken in about the 5 seconds between one bus leaving and another bus pulling up.

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And that's where we said our fond farewells to Cricket and Sean. It was such a pleasure working with them and they assured us that our photos would be done in about 4 weeks (it ended up only being 3, yay!). Needless to say, we were thrilled with our final product and even more thrilled when they sent us a 40-picture preview just 3 days after our wedding (which we saw while waiting in line for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in Disneyland).

At this point we were so happy that photos were done and we gleefully walked back up to our room to get changed into comfy clothes. While I was sad to get out of my dress, it was one of the greatest feelings in the world to put on jeans and a sweatshirt. Once we were changed and comfy, we sat on the couch in our hotel room and starting opening some cards and gifts from our amazing and VERY generous friends and family. We were blown away with everyone's generosity and felt so happy and lucky to have them in our lives.

After that I checked my phone to see a message from Eve and Phil saying they purchased last-minute tickets to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party and she was seeing if we wanted to join them. While I was happy to be sitting down and comfy, I didn't want my wedding day to just end by staying in the hotel room all night, so we decided to join them! I called Meghan up (who was back at Pop Century resting) to see if she wanted to come and she said she totally wanted to come too! Hooray! Within a few minutes of that call, Irene had called to tell me she was actually still at the Boardwalk in her car sobering up (haha) so we told her we were going to MVMCP and she was welcome to come if she wanted, so she met us back up at our hotel and did! Within an hour of being back into our hotel after our pictures, we were changed and heading down to our cars to head to the Magic Kingdom for some post-wedding/Christmas-time festivities!
 
Wah! Just as you were procrastinating to post this I was procrastinating to read it! I don't want your report to ever end. I love all your pictures as always. I wish I knew how to edit photos, you should totally see if someone could 'clean' up your shoes in that pic for you!
 
Wah! Just as you were procrastinating to post this I was procrastinating to read it! I don't want your report to ever end. I love all your pictures as always. I wish I knew how to edit photos, you should totally see if someone could 'clean' up your shoes in that pic for you!

Aww don't worry, I still have my MVMCP update, family celebration update, and like 7 whole days of our honeymoon trip report if I ever get to that. Lol.
 
Part 14- Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party

Sorry for the almost month-long delay in my final wedding day post (BOOOOOO!), but I had to have emergency surgery a few weeks ago and have been playing catch-up at work ever since. I'm totally ok now, and fear not, because I do plan to still cover my "at-home" wedding celebration, honeymoon trip report, and portrait sessions, so there's still plenty more to come!

When we last left off, we were heading out to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party with the gang. Since we had not pre-purchased tickets and wanted to avoid any long lines at the Magic Kingdom entrance, we actually ended up driving to the Polynesian, parking there, and purchasing our tickets to the party at the concierge desk. And while we were there, we had to get some adult beverages at Trader Sam's to-go and brought them on the monorail to the Magic Kingdom with us. LoL.


With my bestie at the Poly <3

A short monorail ride later and we were all walking into the Magic Kingdom to meet up with Eve and Phil, who had scoped out a spot for us near the castle to watch the stage show. As we were walking down Main Street, it was furiously snoaping (fake snowing) and I was LOVING every second of it. I was just so blissfully happy to be in the Magic Kingdom with my husband and best friends on my wedding night. It was just a surreal feeling. Plus Meghan had not been to the Magic Kingdom for quite a few years so she was loving every second of it and was SO excited when she saw the castle from the distance.

Once we beat the crowds of Main Street, we headed over to where Eve and Phil were saving spots by the castle. We had a pretty decent view and the show was super cute (apart from that weird cell phone Christmas song).


Waiting for the castle show to start

By the time the show was over, we were all STARVING since we hadn't eaten since the wedding. I was craving some corn dog nuggets and everyone else seemed down, so we headed to Casey's for some grub. I think I inhaled my corn dog nuggets and fries in like 10 minutes flat I was so hungry (I would later regret this). Everyone else was pleased with their hot dogs and we then decided our next plan of action.

This was such a weird night for me because at a typical Halloween or Christmas party, I'd be running around like a madman to meet every character, plus find awesome spots for both the parade and fireworks. But this one was such a last-minute decision and being with a big group of people (some who don't care about characters and/or hadn't been to Disney in a long time) left me dumbfounded on what to do next. Since it was Meghan's birthday and she never gets to come to Disney, I asked her what ride she would want to ride the most and she said Space Mountain, so that's where we headed!


Group shot #1! And LOL at half of us being covered by the Baymax Magic Shot

Meghan is hands-down one of the most FUN and funny people to go to theme parks with...especially riding anything faster than a snail's pace. Haha. So riding in front of her on Space Mountain was just filled with her screaming so hard that she was cracking up and me laughing so hard that I was crying. I love her so much. And we had so much fun that we rode it twice in a row (perks of going to a not-sold-out MVMCP).

I knew that character meets were not a top-priority for anyone in our party aside from me, so I didn't want to waste anyone's party time by standing in a long character line (especially since I've met most of the characters from the Christmas parties before), but the one character I HAD to get and is exclusive to the Christmas party was Jack Skellington dressed as Sandy Claws. I've been DYING to meet him as Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favorites! Thankfully, everyone was cool with that and the normally 1-2 hour line for him was only 45 minutes tonight. Since I didn't want Meghan to miss out on any rides either, I also asked George and Phil if they would mind waiting in line for Jack while the ladies went to ride Thunder Mountain real quick, which they agreed to. Yay for awesome hubbies <3 So me, Meghan, Eve, and Irene hoofed it over to Thunder Mountain, had a super fun and really chilly ride, and then ran back over to the Jack meeting spot with just about 5-10 minutes left before our meet with him!




One of my favorite meets ever! He even asked us if it was "til death do us part!"

After meeting Jack Skellington, it was almost time for Holiday Wishes...one of my FAVORITE fireworks shows (after Hallow-Wishes), so we went to the Hub to find a spot. We really lucked out with finding a good spot only 10 minutes before the fireworks. This party was definitely a low-capacity party compared to any others I've ever been to in the past.


Waiting for fireworks with my favorite people <3

As you all know, I was super disappointed that I couldn't have a Dessert Party for our wedding night, but I did get to see fireworks on my wedding night afterall, so this was an awesome alternative. We were also wearing our "Just Married" buttons, and the cast member that had taken our group picture right before the fireworks started tapped George and I on the shoulder once Wishes started, and then took some pictures of just the two of us, so we ended up getting fireworks portraits afterall :)





After Holiday Wishes was over, we headed to new Fantasyland and rode the Littler Mermaid Ride. We also stopped by Gaston's Tavern as Eve and Phil wanted one of the specialty cupcakes. It was at this point that the extreme exhaustion had finally started to hit me (plus scarfing down those corn dog nuggets so fast) and I started to feel really sick to my stomach. I ran over to the bathroom next door and just kind of sat there for a few minutes in the stall while my anxiety got the best of me. I didn't really start to feel any better, but I also didnt think I was going to puke anymore, so I met back up with the group and we decided to go watch the Christmas parade from Frontierland, since its less crowded there.

We got a spot maybe 15-20 minutes before the parade started and I just felt awful the whole time. I was beyond exhausted by this point, but I didn't want to ruin anyone else's night, so I just tried to keep it cool. We watched the parade, which I love so much, but doesn't hold a candle to the Halloween parade. Once that was over, we walked over to Mine Train to see what the wait was, but it was still 45 minutes, so we decided to skip it and then everyone else got tired too and wanted to call it a night. I was SO relieved. We made a quick stop to the Emporium for some souvenirs, and then we were heading out.

I was a little sad, because I already had to say bye to Eve and Phil, since we were leaving for our honeymoon 2 days later. I was so sad that I only got to spend a few hours with them, but so grateful that they made the trip out for our special day! I also had to say bye to Meghan, who was driving home the next morning. While I at least got to spend a few days with her, its always really sad saying bye to your best friend. Plus, we had no plans of when we would see each other next, so this goodbye was extra hard.

After we dropped Meghan off at her hotel, it was finally just George and I again and we went back to the Boardwalk for our first night as a married couple. The first thing I did was spend 30 minutes ripping out all my extensions and taking all the makeup off my face. I looked like the crypt keeper when that was all done. Haha. Then I changed into my pajamas, took one last mosey around our super amazing hotel room, and passed the heck out. I was BEYOND tired, but went to bed so happy because December 1, 2016 truly was our best day ever and I couldn't have been happier.
 

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