Wedding Rings . . . . Check!

We went shopping for rings in the downtown Los Angeles jewelry district on my lunch break today.

One of those details we probably should have taken care of sooner, but still it got done, and it was pain free. I think if we had started the process of looking for the "perfect" rings months ago, I would have gone crazy by now.

As it is, the ring I chose was very similar to many rings I've been looking at, so I was kind of leaning in that direction anyway. It's the sparkly one of the two. Diamonds can be a boy's best friend too, right?

I Will Not Call Them STD's

Our Save the Date's went out last week, which was totally exciting. It snapped me back into wedding planning mode, and it made the whole thing seem much less surreal, and a lot more realreal.

These are the standard letters sent out by Disney. They usually send them out with a sheet that has ticket ordering info on it, but we opted not to do that. It just felt a little tacky to us, and besides the savings were not all that significant.

I loved that they took care of this detail for us. I really did not care to make our own save the date's and send them out.

Here's a dirty little secret: no matter how cute and perfect your save the date is, I make note of the date in my calendar and throw it away, unless you sent me that magnet, which gets put on the fridge for a few months and then thrown away.

This letter though, I will keep in the forever pile.

Finding the Right Balance of Traditions

This weekend we sat down to fill out the questionnaire the Disney people sent us. Some of the questions were simple, some took a little discussion (I managed to give the future husband a tension headache, yay!)

It made us think about things we had discussed before, but not at length. Things like walking down the aisle, and wedding parties. We decided the best approach for us would be to walk down the aisle together, since this whole concept of being "given away" didn't really work for us. Not to say traditions are wrong just because they don't apply to us, I just feel like the whole scene plays out like this:

"I am a father and this is my daughter, I own her and now I am giving her away to you, so now you own her. Am I glad to get rid of her, she may not look like much but girl can eat. Thanks for taking her off my hands, I'll throw in this goat to sweeten the deal."

Overall I think we are managing to make decisions that are right for us. Some things take us a little while longer, and a big part of that is that we are very different people. On the other hand if I were marrying someone just like me we would probably end up like Thelma and Louise, flying off a cliff in a classic car, which is a lot of fun, until you land.

Finally An Update From Disney

After what feels like an eternity (even though in reality it's only been three and a half weeks) I received an e-mail update from the lovely people at Disneyland Fairytale weddings. It was just a quick check-in with an attached excel worksheet. The worksheet is for names and addresses for our Save the Dates!

I am really excited to be making some progress with this. The save the dates will have information for guests about booking hotel rooms and buying theme park tickets if they choose to do so. I have no idea what will be in the planning kit so I will rush home every day this week to see if it has arrived!

In my usual obsessive wedding planning fashion I have completed my part of the data entry for the save the dates and I have sent the form off to my lovely husband to be for him to finish. He's not as obsessive about this whole thing as I am, but one of us should keep a level head, right? I sent it to him half an hour ago, I wonder if he's done yet . . .

Disneyland Wedding Information

For anyone out there that thinks a Disneyland or Walt Disney World Wedding might be for them, the best place to start is the Disney Fairy Tale Weddings Website. I think I have poured over every single page on this website enough to be able to rebuild the website if need be.

The website is great and shows you some general options, but is definitely lacking in the arena of specifics. My first question was: How much will it cost? For specifics you have to call the Disney people and sometimes it can take a few days to get a hold of them (this is according to other people, in my experience I've never had any trouble getting through to them).

A great source of more specific information is www.mouseweddings.com. This woman has put together a wonderful resource for anyone trying to plan a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding. One work of warning from the webmaster herself, she does not work for Disney, and the prices she gives might not be up to date.

A Disney wedding is not for everyone, but it's also a class act all the way. Just because you get married at Disney, it doesn't mean you get a Mickey Mouse wedding, unless that's what you really want.

More Wedding Details After a Shaky Day - Location, Location, Location

The great thing about living in Southern California is that when we have earthquakes we can use them as excuses for nearly everything. So you see, that's why there were no posts yesterday, we had an earthquake.

Working with Disney up until now has been a really great experience. They know their business well, and it seems like their wedding operation runs really smoothly. Disneyland definitely does not have all the choices that Disney World does, but what they do have is really nice.

Usually Disneyland has two ceremony locations, one at the Grand Californian Hotel and one at the Disneyland Hotel. Unfortunately because of construction going on for the new Disney Vacation Club Villas at the Grand Californian they are not using that site, which is a shame because from the pictures I have seen it looks lovely.


Instead we will be getting married at the Rose Court Garden at the Disneyland Hotel. It has an amazing gazebo and is surrounded by over 800 rose bushes (so they claim, I'm not going to bother to count them). It's an amazing space, and although the currently unavailable Ceremony Site in the Grand Californian seems more masculine and in the craftsman style I like so much, I would probably choose the Rose Court Garden only for the topiaries.




It's going to be an amazing day in an amazing setting. I don't know if you have all deduced what a big Disney fan I am, but this is like a dream come true. I've always wanted to stay at the Disneyland Hotel, and now I have the perfect excuse to. More to follow on our reception site at a later date.