ALegrande
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2017
All caught up! Escape Details
Alrighty so with the last post on my bridal shower, we're pretty much all caught up! I wanted to make a post explaining some of the choices we made within our Escape limits that may be helpful to future brides reading this. Escape may appear to be very rigid and strict, and in some ways it can be, but I was actually really surprised to see all of the ways we could change certain elements of the package to make it fit more within what we wanted for our day. Photography
I'll start with photography because I know that's always a big item on every bride's list! So with Escape, you get 2 hours of photography included in the package. What they don't really advertise is that you don't HAVE to take their photography for your ceremony. Many brides actually choose not to because of the crap shoot DFAP is with their photographers. You are not able to be guaranteed a certain photographer or photography style. This bothered me, like many other brides, and I decided to go with an outside photographer. I would have needed one anyway to document our reception, since it's off site, so I figured we might as well have them shoot our ceremony too and see what else we could do with those 2 hours of photography. After researching on Passporters and listening to the Disney Weddings Podcast, I realized we could swap this out for a family photo shoot. I decided this would be a perfect little treat to offer our family, almost as a "thank you" for coming to our wedding. Many of my cousins and siblings have recently had new babies, and we are a pretty close-knit extended family. I think that the photo shoot will be a great way for each individual family to get photos with their new babies/kids, and then we can get some whole group shots to keep and cherish forever and always look back on that time we are all together. This is a resort shoot, so we are doing the photos at the Boardwalk, and I'm actually really excited for them! If we get matched with a photographer that isn't that great, then at least we didn't spend oodles of money on this and we can just take the photos for what they are. I know that they also allow you to use the 2 hours for photography for a Dessert Party if you choose to have one. I'm really happy we were able to still get some use out of the included photography but not have to worry or stress about our wedding photos not being the quality or style we want.
Floral
Another big item included with Escape is the floral. There are actually 3 options for this that they don't really advertise. You can get the included 1 bouquet and 1 boutonniere, or you can do 2 "petite" bouquets or 2 boutonnieres, or you can do a corsage and a boutonniere (or something to that effect). We are going with the traditional choice 1, but what I was really pleased to hear is that we CAN switch out certain colors and flower types in the bouquet and boutonniere we choose. For example, I LOVE the cascading beauty bouquet, but I didn't like the idea of having the pink stargazers. I really love lilies, they are my favorite flower, but with our colors being mostly purple dominant, I felt the pink would clash. So we are switching out the pink stargazers for plain white ones, and we are switching out the pink spray roses in the bouquet for lavender ones! We're also able to switch Matt's boutonniere from a pink flower to a white flower. So, if you see things online or in your planning kit you want to tweak- just ask! They can pretty much switch out anything within reason as long as the flower grows in that color naturally.
Transportation
Another thing I wanted to see if we could change up was the Transportation element. We definitely won't need the transportation between our ceremony and our reception, because they are literally right next door to each other. I was so relieved in doing my research to find out that we could take the transportation off site! So then it was a matter of deciding what we wanted to do with it. Originally, I thought about doing what most brides do which is take after the wedding when we leave for our honeymoon (in our case, to Port Canaveral for our honeymoon cruise). But then, I realized it would be quite fun to share in this experience with our friends and family, since most of us don't get the opportunity to take limos around often! Lol. So we actually decided we would use it to take everyone to and from our "night before nightcap" at the Boathouse restaurant at Disney Springs. Technically we'll lose out on some time while the limo waits for the 1-2 hours we're in the restaurant, but I figure that would happen anyway even if we took it to PC since its definitely not 4 hours away. So, for anyone planning and reading this, just know you have lots of options when it comes to the transportation!
Cake
So if you're anything like me, you may read the cake choices for Escape and feel a little....underwhelmed. Lol. They're just so BASIC. So, once again, through my research, I was really happy to learn that we could change our cake flavors and design to pretty much anything we wanted within reason, as long as we were willing to pay a small fee. So we are upgrading our cake to have it's own design not offered on the list of choices at all, and our cake flavors will be as mentioned in the previous post- Yellow cake with hazelnut crunch filling and Chocolate cake with "the grey stuff" filling. We're only paying $75 for this upgrade, which I thought for Disney was really a steal! I'm so excited for our cake and really wish we could have had a tasting before hand, but I know it will be great. So don't be afraid to think outside the box if you want something better for your cake! We're also boxing up our cake entirely and taking it to our reception- we're not doing the cake cutting portion of the "cake and champagne" hour. Just champagne and pictures during that time
I'm really happy that overall we were able to tweak a lot of the things that seemed at first very straightforward in the package and really make the ceremony fit our vision. I still wish SO bad that Escape included more like 25 total guests- that would make my life so much easier- but at least even with such tight guest restrictions, there are ways you can make your ceremony "your own" and make it the perfect day for you! I can't wait to see all of these elements come together to form our Big Day!
What's next
So now that I'm pretty much caught up, I guess the next big thing will be my Bachelorette party in January. We just actually booked it yesterday- A 2 bedroom Villa at Saratoga Springs! I'm so excited. Of course, there were hiccups lol (everything in my wedding journey seems to have SOME obstacle in the way), but overall I know its going to be a great weekend. I'll get more into what those hiccups were when I post my entry about the bach party to put it into some context.Yesterday we went shopping for the bouquets for my bridesmaids! That's another one of the things I was happy to hear- we could use our own vendor/bring our own personal floral for the bouquets. I'm definitely going the fake flower route for these, because honestly I feel like in photos you really can't even tell the difference. So, me and my mom and Matt schlepped off to Hobby Lobby and tackled the task of figuring out the floral we wanted. I knew I wanted combinations of purple (of course) and I wanted to stick mostly to roses, hydrangeas, and carnations. We were actually having kind of a tough time with finding flowers that "worked" together, when we turned the corner and had an "aha!" moment- they had pre-made, small bouquets! And they had a purple version! They were almost perfect! We decided we could just add a couple of singular flowers we had picked as being my favorite to really round it out and make it perfect. Here's what we came up with!
We'll obviously be cutting off a lot of the greenery and stems at the bottom, but at least you get an idea. I ended up going over to one of my bridesmaid's houses for a bonfire last night and her dress just had come in, so I brought the flowers with me to hold up against the dress and make sure they looked good- and they did! Great in fact! I'm so happy that ended up being an easy process and that's one more thing to check off the list!
I'll check back in in a few weeks and update you guys on any other developments!