I went into my phone planning sessions with 3 things written in my notebook: *Ask about beverage prices
*Mouse Ears- Different Colored Embroidery?
and
That I wanted the Simple elegance-square cake.
We are having a 10am Ceremony at the Grand Californian Wedding Garden and a 10:30am Reception in the Wisteria Room.
My planning session started with Michelle telling me she was basically going to be asking my questions for 30-45 minutes. I knew going into it that I really really really wanted to go with as few upgrades as possible.... So, I did feel a little bit like about a quarter of the way through the phone call, Michelle had figured out I was pretty much going to be turning everything down and her answers started getting less perky. (This could be because I work in a restaurant that is STAUNCHLY against using the phrase "No problem" in response to a guest request, indicating that it ""could" be a problem for you.... but anyway.)
So Here is the Breakdown of our Escape wedding (with planning session elements as they arise.)
Before the Ceremony:
I can get into my bridal dressing room by the ceremony venue starting at 5am. The groom gets his at 7am. We were asked if we wanted to add any refreshments for the dressing rooms, but I don't really see myself mowing a bagel at 5am the morning of my wedding
Especially knowing what delicious food is coming later.....
We need to remove all of our personal belongings from the Dressing rooms before the start of the ceremony. She said this about 4 times. This is also where we will receive our Personal flower.
Ceremony-
Guests can self park at the GC Self Parking Lot and will get tickets validated at the event.
Our officiant is going to email me to figure out what kind of ceremony we want (An officiant is included in the Escape Package, I did not know this prior to receiving our contract) We turned down a skirted table for a unity candle or sand ceremony, as well as any extra floral for the ceremony.
And that concludes my info for the pre-ceremony and ceremony.
Reception:
Since I am doing my own centerpeices (and setting up my own favors/place cards) I can get access to the Wisteria room at 9:30 to set that stuff up. She did say that if there are no other events happening in that same room before 9:30am on a Thursday that I might be able to get in there early, but that I wouldn't know until the week before. But... I think odds are good on that.
On the previous page I had a picture of the Wisteria room set up with a long sweetheart table on the back wall under the windows with 3 round tables in the middle of a room and then a dance floor by the door. We are using this same set up.
Our table is going to have us, our siblings and their significant others, and our best friends from childhood. So, 8 people there. Our 3 round tables are going to have 6 people at each one.
There will be a Water Station and Guest Book Table set up in the Wisteria Room, as well as some counters in the room for the cake.
The Dance Floor is included with the Wisteria room at no additional cost, but if you DON'T want it they can remove it for you. (Also information I was unclear about prior to this)
The only favors we are getting are one of my favorite things I have seen while spending what seems like 500 hours researching (stalking) other people's Disney weddings.... this is, of course, the Ears. Made famous by Lurkyloo and imitated by many, I am in love with this. When I asked my planner about this, I think she was surprised I had said something other than "Nope, we don't need that..." which had been about all that was coming out of my mouth until this point, but as soon as I mentioned my idea for having Disney floral embroider sets of ears to correspond with the color of each table's centerpiece, she just shut me down.
She said since I was going to be setting up my own centerpieces any way, I should just go buy my own ears and bring them and set them out myself. I get that she had figured out my budget was tiny from all my upgrade declines... but really, that was because once I knew I wanted the ears, I was ready to cut a lot of other stuff to clear up the space in my budget. But oh well, I'm just going to order all the ears from the online
Disney store. So enjoy not getting my ++ on those
We are adding the Ipod hookup for the reception for $100.
My next actual add-on was extra champagne. The escape package includes champagne or cider for toasting. This means 1 bottle of champagne or 2 bottles of cider. At this point I am adding 9 bottles of champagne to the 1 included, but I'm thinking about adding more because that's the only booze we're having. (actually, it's the only beverage we're adding at all other than the included coffee, iced tea, and water.) She told me their bottles of champagne pour about 4-5 glasses. 26 people... yeah I think I'm going to add another 6 bottles.... I like to get my morning drinking on
We are doing their house champagne and the price I was given was $28++ per bottle. The ++ is, I think, 30% between service fee and tax... my notes on that are kind of sketchy, but I think the total added fee is 30%. A little steep, but meh.
She asked if we wanted to announce the bridal party on the way into the reception, if we were going to do a first dance, father/daughter dance, money dance, garter toss, bouquet toss...... This was a big no, yes, no no no no lol. My dad isn't going to be attending, and 95% of our guests are married so I guess or reception is going to be a little "non-traditional."
The last piece of info I have in my notes is that the reception runs from 10:30-2pm, and our centerpieces and favors need to go with us when we leave. I also wrote down that we can leave early, because I almost laughed on the phone when she assured me that we could do this.... "REALLY? I can leave my own reception whenever I want? The doors won't be locked from the inside?!"
But that's left a lot of time to get all of my DIY projects organized since we're just over 2 months away 
