Guest Post at Magical Day Weddings

I've been out of town for the weekend, and in less than an hour I'll be heading to the airport to pick up my brother and my sister-in-law for their week-long visit in Seattle, which means this blog will remain quiet for a short while. However, there is some good news to console you. The totally awesome Carly Morgan asked me to write a guest post for her Disney weddings blog, Magical Day Weddings. Of course, I was honored to be asked, and more than a little surprised as I wasn't sure anyone other than internet bots was actually reading my blog posts. Anyhoo, Carly was nice enough to send me some questions as prompts for my post, and you can see the end results by clicking here.

It's the little things that add up.

We've finally reached the point in our wedding process where we're starting to actually buy things for the wedding, honeymoon, and the Seattle celebration, and I'm starting to realize that, if I don't stay organized, something crucial is going to get left behind. This is the great peril of traveling across the country for a wedding. Of course, the other side of this coin is that we're also starting to spend money out of the wedding fund on various little things, and, as it turns out, lots of little things add up.

Just as lots of little robot lions add up to become Voltron.

For example, like all good Seattleites, Girl Scout Fiancée and I are iPhone users (and, in fact, just this weekend the two of us upgraded to the iPhone 5S). I have a feeling that at Disney World we're going to be using our phones a lot, especially with the MyDisneyExperience app letting us do things like track wait times for rides, manage the FastPass+ and dining reservations we've made, etc. Not to mention snapping photos, entertaining ourselves while waiting in line, and the like. All of those things are battery drainers, so this week I ordered us a backup battery to take with us and keep in Girl Scout Fiancée's purse so we can throw a dying phone on to charge and keep it with us instead of trying to find a place to stop and plug into a wall outlet.

This image by Nathan Pyle illustrates the true gravity of the dying phone battery situation.

Then I realized I'm going to need at least three pairs of shoes for the trip. I'm going to have to bring some comfy walking around shoes for the parks, I'm going to want to bring my running shoes in case I do get motivated to get up and work out in the morning, and I'm going to need to bring my fancy shoes for the wedding. That doesn't even take into account that I might want to bring a fourth set of shoes, more traditionally dressy than the ones I'm going to wear in the wedding, for the nights we go to California Grill, Victoria & Albert's, or even places like Jiko or Yachtsman. What planet are we living on that I have to think about four pairs of shoes? Up until last week (when, for the first time ever, I finally got myself a pair of Chuck Taylor All-Stars) I'd worn the same pair of sneakers every day since last March. My friends and Girl Scout Fiancée would be the first ones to tell you that I'm about as far as you can get from being labeled fashion-conscious; fashion-unconscious might be better, as it usually looks like I was asleep while getting dressed.

Then there's the cavalcade of physically tiny objects that I have to remember to bring along. Annual Pass vouchers, bow tie, cell phone cables, earbuds, Magic Bands, FitBits, belt buckles, the wedding rings...all of these things fit in the palm of my hand, which means it's just that much more likely that I'm going to overlook one of them when we start getting ready to leave. I know it's mildly insane, but I feel like I should just start a packing list now, and add things to it over the next few months every time something pops up. I don't want anything to get forgotten, because once we step onto the airplane at SeaTac headed to our wedding, I don't want us to be doing anything but enjoying ourselves. I know the honeymoon technically doesn't start until after the wedding, but given the amount of planning, saving, and denying ourselves things like vacations and new toys* for the last six months, the moment we depart for Florida is, as far as I'm concerned, not only the beginning of the rest of my life with my wonderful Disney-wife-to-be, but also the first moments of a 15-day vacation, one that, by the end of April, I'm going to sorely need.

I'm on vacation, I don't care which elbow is in whose ear.

*Yes, I realize that I just said that we each got a new iPhone 5S, but thanks to the magic of Amazon.com's trade-in program, we got as much Amazon credit for our old iPhone 4Ses as the new phones cost. Given that we're going to be ordering a lot of the supplies for our Seattle celebration from Amazon, we'll be able to use that Amazon credit toward our wedding. So, we get new phones, and the same amount is put toward our Seattle celebration expenses. I'm going to call that a pretty good deal!

A quick outfit update

It's been a while since I talked about clothing options for me at the wedding, and for a reason: I don't have to have all of my decisions made for a long, long time yet. However, this year's Halloween holiday may have altered my thinking on at least one aspect of my outfit. Girl Scout Fiancée cooked up a great idea for a pair of matching costumes for us, and with a little elbow grease on her part (and a fortunately-timed JC Penney sale on red skinny jeans) she helped me put together this pretty awesome costume combo.

Without the ears, I actually look like just another Seattle hipster.

That photo is from a party the weekend before Halloween, but, for the first time ever, I also wore my costume to work that day, as we were going to a party at a friend's house that night. During the day, a few of my coworkers commented that they thought I pulled off the bow tie well, and while I'm sure at least some of them were being sarcastic, others weren't. I mentioned this to Girl Scout Fiancée and she agreed. A few days later, I received a few e-mails from her showing off vest-with-no-jacket and bow tie combos that other folks have been wearing in modern weddings. Then, she e-mailed me the piece de resistance.

Get out of my brain, Etsy vendor!

I love it. I actually, unironically, think it is totally awesome. I have no idea if I can pull it off, if it would look too silly, or if it's even a good idea, but I really kind of want to buy it for my outfit. I can always get the green-and-navy hidden Mickey necktie they sell in the Disney Store as a backup plan, in case it looks bad, but I think it's the perfect combination of whimsy and my personality (melding my love of Disney and my love of comics) that, provided I can pull it off, would really make me look and feel like a million bucks.

Rehearsal Dinner When There's No Rehearsal

This is a story about how plans change, and that's OK.

Once upon a time, Girl Scout Fiancée and I had a plan that involved getting our immediate families together for a rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. Since her family is in Pennsylvania, and my family is in Tennessee, there haven't really been any opportunities for our families to meet one another. Even though there isn't really a rehearsal for the wedding (at least, not as near as we can tell; our wedding planner hasn't mentioned one), it's pretty traditional for everyone involved in the wedding to get together the night before, but again since we're having such a small wedding there isn't really a wedding party; it's just me, my best man, Girl Scout Fiancée, and her maid of honor.

Tiny dessert buffet not to scale with actual tiny wedding.

So, during our early planning, the first few days looked a little something like this: We would arrive on a Sunday, spend Monday at Universal Studios (Girl Scout Fiancée is dying to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter), Tuesday would be a day with our families (culminating in a "rehearsal dinner" involving taking our immediate families to the Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue), and Wednesday would be the wedding. After that, it would be all-Disney Honeymoon, all the way. The family day would be the chance for our families to spend some time together, and then that night Girl Scout Fiancée are planning on spending the night apart, doing at least one traditional thing in this non-traditional relationship!

Oh, how naive we were! You see, the key ingredient we were forgetting in this whole schedule is that while we'll be following up our wedding with a dream honeymoon lasting a full ten days, during which time we'll be exploring the Disney parks at our leisure, and don't plan on activating our Annual Passes until the Friday after the wedding, our families would not be in a similar position. As we started talking to our families about making plans, we realized that our families would be on far more restricted schedules, as they would likely be heading home within just a few days after the wedding's conclusion. This is especially important for Girl Scout Fiancée's family, as (with the exception of her brother) none of her family has been to Disney World. This means, like Girl Scout Fiancée, they'll be exploring it for the first time, and want to make sure they have the most time possible to enjoy their vacation.

Truth be told, I think a big reason why we're excited about the Disney wedding is that, while it is a destination wedding, it's a destination wedding that is also a magical vacation. People are going to remember our wedding, and we want them to also remember that it was our marriage that brought them to the Happiest Place on Earth. Of course, that means actually giving folks time to enjoy the parks, and with Monday being taken up by a trip to Universal, that means the only real park-visiting days are Tuesday, Wednesday morning (the wedding is at 5:00 that afternoon), and Thursday, with a possible half-day on Friday if people have later flights out. Given that this would only give her family two and a half to three days in the park, it felt unfair of us to ask them to leave the park early on Tuesday to come to dinner with us, especially since the whole following afternoon/evening is taken up by the wedding.

Let's hope our wedding isn't this exhausting.

So we changed our plans last week, and have decided not to do a rehearsal dinner as any kind of formal event. Instead, we're going to relax that day, and as people become available (or arrive in town, as it's likely that several folks won't be coming in until the night before the wedding) we'll meet them on the Boardwalk for drinks, dinner, and hanging out. I still want to go to the Hoop Dee Doo with Girl Scout Fiancée, as it's right up her alley (gee, musical comedy dinner show, could you be any more built for her?), so that's now replacing the Spirit of Aloha luau on our itinerary. Gotta save something for the first anniversary visit!

Well, at least we won't starve to death.

This week, Girl Scout Fiancée and I passed a big milestone in our wedding planning: the 180 day mark. This is a big milestone because it represents the point at which you can make Advanced Dining Reservations. I've talked before about how some of the reservations I wanted to get for us could be tough to snag, and I've been spending a lot of time planning our itineraries and trying to sketch out a rough outline of what our honeymoon is going to look like. Getting all of the reservations I wanted was a big part of that, but I'll admit it's been fun, and I've enjoyed the time I've gotten to spend digging into my research and remembering (or discovering) things that should be exciting events and meals for our honeymoon. We're spoiled living in Seattle, and Girl Scout Fiancée has a refined palette, so the bar is set pretty high for food when it comes to the two of us; that made it all the more important that I get the reservations I'd planned out. So, during my research, I really focused on two things: finding the restaurants with the best food reviews, and finding restaurants that are going to give us good experiences that you can't get anywhere else. I'll talk more about these criteria later.

Scientific breakthroughs have required less research than I've done on Disney restaurants.

For those of you wondering what the process is like, let me break it down for you.You can make your Advanced Dining Reservations 180 days before the day you check into your hotel, with an additional 10-day window beyond that as a perk of staying on property. That means that, since we're staying at the Boardwalk for the duration of both the wedding and the honeymoon, I could make reservations for the first 10 days of our trip starting at the 180 day mark, getting some restaurants 190 days out. Since our trip is 15 days long, though, that means I could not book reservations for the last few days of our trip. Luckily, each day that passes moves the whole window forward by a day, so throughout the week I've been able to book reservations for subsequent days.

I got up early to make my reservations on the first day because I knew that we wanted one of the most highly sought-after reservations at all of Disney World: the Chef's Table at Victoria & Albert's, the fanciest restaurant in Florida, located in the Grand Floridian. The Chef's Table only has one seating each night, five nights per week, meaning that there are only five reservations available for an entire week. As you can imagine, these reservations go like lightning, and I've never seen a reservation time available when checking casually during the day. I knew that for that one, and for some of our other high-demand reservations (like the California Grill at the top of the Contemporary hotel during the Wishes fireworks show, or Cinderella's Royal Table dinner likewise during fireworks), I'd need to be on the reservation system right as it opened, which happens to be 6 AM...Eastern time. Yeah. Living in Seattle, that meant I was getting up at 3 AM to make my reservations. Do I recommend that for everyone booking honeymoon dining reservations? Not by a long shot...unless you want a high-demand reservation at a very specific time. Even then, the Disney reps tell me that, for a party of 2, even high-demand restaurants are easier to book, but for something like the Chef's Table, or guaranteeing a seating from which you can see Wishes, it's not a crazy idea, and it's less crazy if you're on Eastern time.

"No, Mr. Thompson, that laughter you're hearing is only the voices in your sleep-deprived brain."

Anyhoo, I think the best way to make your reservations is through the website, since it puts all the control in your hands. I made sure to log on a few minutes early to log into my My Disney Experience account, and then I headed to this extremely valuable link. That takes you to the Things to Do webpage where you can make dining reservations. This is a little trick I learned from someone on the Dis boards. Instead of going to each restaurant's page and searching for reservation times for that page, enter your meal criteria at the top (I usually entered the date, time, 2 guests, and then filtered it so I saw only the locations I needed (such as a park, or a hotel, or Downtown Disney) by clicking on the locations tab (it defaults to "All Parks and Resorts" but you can change it with the drop-down menu). Then, hit Find a Table, and wait on it to present you with multiple times for each restaurant. I found it was better to search for a specific time, rather than a meal, as how Disney defines their meal times in this system can be a bit..strange (and it's easier to get seatings during fireworks or at other very specific times this way). You click on a reservation time, confirm your guests and enter your contact number, and then it gives you a reservation number. I highly recommend writing this number down, even though it e-mails you a confirmation, as you may need this later.

For some reservations, you might need to put down the money for the event in advance. For example, two of our events (the Tomorrowland Terrace Fireworks Dessert Party, and the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Review) required payment in full in advance. Starting this month (I think?) Disney is also changing its cancellation policy, so that if you don't cancel a reservation at least 24 hours in advance, they hit you with a $10 charge to the credit card you used to make the reservation (reservations don't cost anything on their own, but they do make you guarantee your reservations with a credit card).

The architect of Disney's new reservation cancellation policy.

Once you've made your reservations, they then appear in your itinerary in My Disney Experience. That's pretty much it. All that's left to do is show up for them. It is also worth noting that some things can't be booked through the online system; I had to call the phone line to make our reservations for the Wild Africa Trek tour at Animal Kingdom, which, for the record, you must also pre-pay for in full.

There was only one snag in the entire process: Cinderella's Royal Table. I mentioned it above as a high-demand reservation, but I was stunned that when I tried to make the reservation I wanted (a late dinner, so we could watch the fireworks show from the castle) and found that no times were available, even when I logged on right as the system opened. I called the reservations phone number and the representative was unable to find any reservations past 5:45 PM. After a little digging, I discovered that dinner reservation times for May 2014 have not yet been put into the system for Cinderella's Royal Table, so now I have to keep checking every day to see if I can make the reservation I want. Here's hoping I can get it, as that's the only reservation I tried to book that I didn't manage to settle over the course of two days.

I want to go to there.

For those interested, here's the list of restaurants for which I booked reservations (with helpful links to the Disney Food Blog sites for each, if you want more thorough information):

• Kouzzina (I've never eaten here, but my parents rave about it, and Girl Scout Fiancée and I both love Greek food)
• Chef Mickey's (this is going to be our "kick off a magical time in Disney World" breakfast).
• Splitsville (never been here either, and I'm not sure we'll actually keep this reservation; this is a contingency plan for if our families decide to go to parks that day, while we don't plan on activating our Annual Passes until the Friday after the wedding).
• Cape May Cafe (character breakfast and farewell meal for our wedding guests)
• Yachtsman Steakhouse (after a hectic few days, I have a feeling I'm going to need a steak)
• Tomorrowland Terrace Fireworks Dessert Party (I figure, why fight the crowds; get a reserved area for viewing Wishes, and a delicious dessert buffet in the process)
• Coral Reef Restaurant (I don't know if I've ever eaten here; if I did, I was very young)
• Le Cellier (I almost didn't book this one, and it's definitely one on the chopping block if we find ourselves getting too worn out; plus, I'll have just had steak the nigh before; on the other hand, the food here is amazing)
• Victoria & Albert's Chef's Table (easily the #1 food experience I'm looking forward to)
• 50's Prime-Time Cafe (Girl Scout Fiancée seems very excited about this one)
• Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater (hoping this will be fast so we can get seats for Fantasmic)
• Jiko, the Cooking Place (I've never eaten here, but we're doing Animal Kingdom during the day, and it comes extremely highly recommended by, well, the Internet)
• 1900 Park Fare (This is more or less essential, given that it's a character breakfast with Mary Poppins, and Girl Scout Fiancée's famous "Chasing Mary Poppins through Disneyland" incident)
• Via Napoli (this one's on the chopping block if we're still full from breakfast, or it might overwrite another meal somewhere else)
• California Grill (another recommendation from my parents, plus the viewing of Wishes is supposed to be spectacular from here)
• Mama Melrose's (a lot of people online seem down on this place, but I've always had a good meal; admittedly, if we don't go to Via Napoli a few days before, this one may get canceled and replaced by Via Napoli)
• Biergarten (German food, and German beer, seems assured to make me happy)
• Liberty Tree Tavern (one of my favorites from growing up, but lunch only; I don't like family-style restaurants).
• Raglan Road (another place I've never been, but both my parents and the Internet agree that this place is bomb.com)
• Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue (it's the last night of our honeymoon; how can we not end it with one of the best things to do outside of the parks in Disney World?)

Wow, when I put it in list format like that, it really seems like a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if some number of those end up getting canceled just for time constraints; any of the ones where we're eating a sit-down lunch and dinner in the same day run the risk of eating up too much of our day in the parks, and then there's always our one-year-anniversary trip to go back to anything we miss this time around.

I alluded to it before, but not every restaurant on that list was chosen for its fine dining experience. Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, for example, is basically just burgers and hot dogs and such. But the real appeal of places like that, or Coral Reef, or 50's Prime-Time Cafe, or Biergarten is the atmosphere. I think what we want to get out of our honeymoon is more than just "Man, remember how good that food was?" but also a lot of memories of great experiences that we'll keep with us for a long time.

So much atmosphere, we'll need respirators to survive the honeymoon.

Whew, I think that's enough from me. For anyone else going through the process, my advice is this: decide what's important to you ahead of time (quality of food, expediency and time in parks, experience and atmosphere), and then sketch out a plan. If you find yourself with a few high-demand restaurants on your list, book 180 days out. If not, be more relaxed about it, but still make your plans. Don't expect to be able to just walk up to nice restaurants, especially if you're going during a busy season, but also remember that the reason I was so adamant about booking as early as possible is largely because A) I had a plan I wanted to execute, and I'm obsessive about that kind of thing, and B) one of the restaurants I wanted only does five seatings a week. For a lot of people, that kind of zeal won't be necessary, so you shouldn't freak yourself out if food isn't as important to you during your honeymoon.