During the lead up to sending out the homemade wedding invitations (chronicled in the last post), Girl Scout Fiancée came across something that she saw other brides doing, and thought we should consider it as well: newsletters! One of Girl Scout Fiancée's big concerns up to this point is getting the right information out to our wedding guests, specifically her family (only one of whom has ever been to Disney World before), so that they could make plans to attend the wedding. Traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles to Disney World, and then being on a rather complex schedule with all of the events we have planned for the days leading up to the wedding, is daunting for
us, and we have all the information we need! For someone coming from far away and not being involved in the planning, though, it might seem like kind of a black box. So, Girl Scout Fiancée decided to put together a newsletter that would be a nice, tangible packet of information for our guests so that they could start planning and, hopefully, return our RSVPs with a semi-accurate count on which events they'll be attending.
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| The crossroads of Wedding Planning and Disney Trip Planning. |
Through the magic of Microsoft Word templates, Girl Scout Fiancée took the first crack at the newsletter, and did an amazing job. The front page provided a little bit of our own history, both as a couple and on the decision to get married in Disney World, and then the second page was a detailed itinerary for the five days leading up to, and the day of and day after, the wedding. This broke out all of the various activities that we have planned, as well as some extra information on where Girl Scout Fiancée when not doing big group things. The next page covered some of the advantages of staying on Disney property and some details of the Disney Dining Plan, followed by a page listing some suggested hotels and some info on the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival. The page after that touched on Universal Studios (which we're planning on going to on the day after we arrive), and had some transportation details. The final page had all of our contact information, and by this point the newsletter was up to a full six pages! It was hardly
War and Peace, but it was still surprising to me how much information we actually needed to convey!
Though I ran the risk of making the same mistake that I made with the wedding invitations, I stepped in to do some editing and cleanup. I was an English major in college, I write professionally and earn a good living doing so; written communication isn't just my forte, it's my livelihood. I felt justified in the edits I made, and expanded the text out a little bit in a few places. I tried to be careful to be the respectful Clark Kent to her Lois Lane, and not the my-way-or-the-highway J. Jonah Jameson to her Peter Parker. One thing, though, I didn't touch: Girl Scout Fiancée had peppered great love quotes from Disney movies and songs throughout the newsletter, and I thought they were the perfect accent to perk up a fairly text-heavy newsletter. Luckily for me, Girl Scout Fiancée approved of my changes, and we were all set.
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| I hope to one day get Girl Scout Fiancée a literal stamp for approvals. |
Here I repeat my wedding planning refrain: everything changes. Just before we were about to send out the invitations with the newsletters, Girl Scout Fiancée got a phone call from her family with some good news: they'd booked their accommodations, and were all ready for the trip! While this was great news for us to hear, it also meant that several of the pages of our newsletter were now redundant, specifically those pages detailing information about staying on the Disney property, the dining plan, and so forth. I hastily jumped into the document and made some edits, moving things around (and shaking my fist at the Word template for its...eager...use of text boxes). I also took the opportunity to include some park suggestions (using the guidelines posted on
EasyWDW) and included a section on trip planning resources that I have been using. Soon, our newsletter was down to a lean, information-packed four pages. Here's how ours turned out:
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| Page 1 |
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| Page 2 |
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| Page 3 |
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| Page 4 |
It was another Wedding Wednesday when Girl Scout Fiancée and I stuffed envelopes full of invitations and newsletters, and shipped them off. Amazingly, our families in Tennessee and Pennsylvania received their invitations two days after we mailed them from Washington! We plan to do another newsletter when it gets closer to the wedding, covering more specific plans, doling out contact numbers, and we hope to include an FAQ for all of our guests (and have started compiling those questions already). For anyone trying to plan a Disney wedding with folks coming from multiple locations, I would definitely recommend putting together a newsletter, and that goes double for anyone who (like us) is trying to plan the wedding while geographically separated from everyone else that is going to be there!
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| How did those invitations and newsletters arrive so--oh. |
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