This is wocbride's Purple Wedding!

So I am going to let you in on a little secret that people don't tell brides. Not everyone has that special "I know!" and burst into tears crying moment. I know that sounds like a harsh thing to hear when you have been expecting to have one of those moments your entire life, but I think it's important to know. I kept expecting more feeling for a dress, but I never did. I thought it was beautiful, I loved the way I looked in it, but I never cried. I knew I wanted it, so I bought it before I had even finalized a date. I regret this sooo much. I got into such a wedding planning frenzy that I started watching Say Yes to the Dress and thus started to doubt my dress. The more I looked at my dress the more I found that I disliked it....almost hating it at certain points. Did I only purchase it because it went on sale? Did I really look good in it? Was it the right color for me? I kept thinking how I should have kept looking around and so that is what I started to do.

While in California for our wedding venue tour, I stopped at Alfred Angel (we don't have ANY in Utah) with my future mother in law and tried on the Disney collection of dresses. They were all beautiful, but there were things I wanted to change; take off this layer of this fabric and make it this fabric other fabric (estimated at $1,000 in alterations) or take the sleeve off this dress and put it on this one. I just couldn't fall in love with any of them. Luckily, I was nice enough to have a consultant who didn't care about just making the sale and told me that I needed to reevaluate the reason I really bought my original dress. And she even told me that she didn't feel comfortable selling me anything until I tried on my dress first. (If any of you are going to Alfred Angelo go to the one in Brea and ask for Olivia, she was so great!) I can't tell you how depressed I felt after that. Maybe I wasn't meant to be a bride, maybe this is a sign that I shouldn't get married, blah blah blah.

After a few weeks of moping about not liking my dress, I starting looking online and making lists of what I wanted. Dropped waist, ball gown or a-line, lots of sparkle but not the big chunky kind, and strapless. I went to several stores in Salt Lake City and to be honest, every single one of them were rude to me. They didn't like that I knew what I wanted, because they wanted to pressure me into a dress that wouldn't look good on my body shape. One place told me that since I was looking 9 months in advance for my dress that I was looking too early and that I never knew if he was going to change his mind before then....are you serious?!?! I also had a lady tell me, after I stripped down to my underwear and put on a corset and slip, that since I was bigger than the sample sizes that I wasn't going to be able to try on dresses, but that they would hold them up to me....that again pissed me off. Yes, I am technically a plus size girl. Not going to lie here, I am a size 16. But I am still a human and you don't treat people like that. There are much nicer ways to say that my ass is too fat for your dresses. But I digress...

After a day of being treated like crap and just feeling worse about everything, I went back to the place I originally purchased my dress from David's Bridal Salt Lake. The ladies were nice enough to tell me if I didn't still love my dress that I could trade for another or even for bridesmaid dresses or accessories, but they did want me to try on my dress again. So I did and I liked it, but didn't love it. I tried on more that we were what I had described, nothing stood out. It wasn't until a few dresses in that I noticed something, the color of the dress looked great on me. It was white. I had been trying on ivory dresses (and purchased an ivory dress) because everyone told me that I was too pale to wear white and I had believed that my entire life. I wear the lightest shade in every brand of makeup, and even then it is sometimes too dark. I then decided to try on my dress in white instead of the normal ivory. It made all the difference in the world. It made the dress so sparkly and it looked great against my skin. I was amazed that simply changing the shade of a dress so slightly could change everything about the dress. I did fall in love with my dress again. I still never cried. But I did have a moment of laughing. I stressed for almost a year about this dress and all I needed to change was the color....I felt so silly.

Have any of you had moments where you doubted your dress? Did you experience that crying, "I'm in love" moment?

You have set a date, great! Now it's time to look at exactly where you want to get married. Here I am going to show you all the current locations you can get married at inside the Disneyland Resort. Keep in mind, if you have a larger budget than most of us are blessed with there are more options but since most of us are limited I will share the ones inside the Escape and Wishes collections. All of these locations are beautiful and I am not trying to knock any of them, but I am going to show you the faults that each location has just in case you didn't think about it or do not have the chance to visit Disney before booking. :)

With the Escape package you have the choices of...

The Wedding Garden at The Grand Californian. Definitely beautiful, but keep in mind, even thought it is called a "garden" there are not many flowers besides small ones in the ground and your ceremony takes place on concrete. You have the charming, warm, and welcoming look of the Grand Californian as your backdrop, which is always a plus.

The Brisa Courtyard at the Grand Californian. Again beautiful with The Grand Californian literally all around you. Keep in mind, this is an open space that Disney does not keep people from walking through. This is where guests of the Grand Californian walk to get to Downtown Disney. The Monorail will also go by approx. every 15 mins.

The Adventure Lawn Gazebo at The Disneyland Hotel. This is not the rose garden gazebo! This location has no/very few flowers and gazebo only big enough for two and an officiant. Very cute location and tucked back a bit so you have less people walking by.


On to the Wishes collection...

The Rose Court Garden at the Disneyland Hotel. This location has a much bigger gazebo and has a lot of rose bushes all around. Keep in mind that roses only bloom June-maybe Septemer. Even though this location is tucked away, there will still be potential looky-loos, but then again most locations will.

The Pier Side Pavilion at the Disneyland Hotel. My wedding planner was nice enough to give me the real scoop on this location. It is beautifully covered in sand and so beachy looking...but I bet you would never guess where it is really located. In the Disneyland Hotel parking lot. Yup, all they do is set up a white tent and pour in some sand. They also charge you close to 10 grand for the set-up, decor, and tear-down for this "location". I saw if you want to get married on the beach that bad, just go to the beach :)

The Parkview Terrace at the Grand Californian. This is my location but I will still point out it's flaws so you are aware of them. This a big open terrace on the 5th level on the hotel. You can take a trip up there if you are guest or not. However, Disney does not allow anyone on to the terrace during the ceremony (unless they are wedding guests, obviously). The look is beautiful, but keep in mind during construction you can see all the cranes in the background but Disney was nice enough to say they will have them stop working during the ceremony so the noise will not reach over there. There is the noise from the pool located directly underneath you though. However, it is not extremely loud and depending on the time of day/season you may be lucky enough to not have anyone in the pool ceremony time.

Brisa Courtyard- all ready talked about in Escape package.


At this time, I will post pictures that are available from the web but I will be taking my own during my trip down in September, so keep an eye out for them. Also, if you have any questions about a location just comment and I will try and get you an answer.

Remember, in the end it is somewhere that is special for the two of you. Jeff and I picked the Park View Terrace because it was where we proposed. I have heard from several people that it is not very pretty, I don't care. It's beautiful to me and special to us. That is what matters in the end. It's not like anyone else is going to remember the exact location 5 or 10 years down the road, but you will for the rest of your life!

Here I am going to talk about setting a date since it tends to be at the top of most check lists. For some of you setting a date is simple; your anniversary of the day you met, he proposed, first kissed, etc etc. For others it may be more difficult.

Jeff and I had many ideas of when we didn't want to get married. Since we were planning for California, we decided anything from June-September would be too hot for our guests (and me in my ballgown dress!) and of course really busy in the Parks.

We also decided to avoid major holidays like the plague. My eldest brother was married the day after Christmas and while it was convenient for close family because we were all traveling there anyways, it was a pain for those not so close that wanted to be with their families on Christmas and thus missed the wedding. Plus, that can put a major damper on holiday funds. So that left out November-January.

We then took into consideration that most of our bridesmaids and groomsmen were in college and looked at their spring break. Lucky for us, they all matched up for mid-March. It was then just a matter of picking an exact date. For a date that falls on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday you're minimum goes from $10,000 to $12,000. So those days were out. We did have several friends that lived in town and from out of town, we figured it would be easier for everyone to take a long weekend instead of taking a full week off. So we ultimately decided on a Thursday or possibly a Monday. Oddly enough the last thing we did was look at the dates written out. March 12th, March 15th, March 19th. We liked the way March 15th looked and sounded and that was it.

I really suggest getting a list of birthdays, holidays, family plans and writting them on a calendar before you get your heart set on a date. Take a look at not only will work out best for the two of you but also what works out for your guests. There is a chance that you may not be able to avoid everything but be understanding if it simply doesn't work out for everyone. If they truly care about being there, they will work out a way to be there. If not, it isn't the end of the world.

PS Keep in mind things like the weather at certain times (check Weather Bug/Channel if you aren't familiar with the weather of the area year round) and that certain flowers only bloom at certain times. I really wanted to get married in a rose garden until I realized that they don't really bloom until June or July....maybe that is why that is prime wedding season?

Today I decided that it was time for me to start my wedding blog and since my dear fiance has yet to set up our site, I will start it here. While doing my searches on Disneyland weddings, I have found only a select few websites that have offered real help. So I thought to myself, how great would it be to have a place where everything was laid out and really explaining the process that you go through from beginning to wedding when working with Disney. Since I couldn't find anything that suited exactly what I wanted, I decided to make my own. I truly hope that it helps at least one person. In the blog, I will only be talking about DisneyLAND weddings, meaning the one in California. There are a million websites that talk about Walt Disney World weddings, I'm sure you will be able to find one. I will try my best to explain how things currently work, but remember Disney is ALWAYS changing how they want to do things. I hope that you enjoy following me in this process.