Photo by Randy Chapman
Ceremony Location: Epcot Italy
The Italy Pavilion in Epcot offers a few unique ceremony venues. If you are interested in using one of them, contact your Disney wedding consultant to discuss your options.
- Epcot ceremonies must start by 9 AM.
- If you use a venue inside of Epcot for your ceremony location, you are required to charter at least one motor coach through Disney for a minimum of 5 hours at $98 per hour. Each motor coach holds 50 people.
The Cost of a Disney Wedding
It's time for the moment of truth. This blog is about my attempt to plan an amazing Disney wedding for less than $20,000. Did we do it?
Now, before we get into numbers, I need to make a huge disclaimer. I don't think these numbers necessarily reflect the average cost of the type of wedding that we had. I begged, borrowed, and nearly stole to get things to be as cheap as possible and I got really lucky with some of the deals I got, like my wedding dress. These prices reflect contracts I made in early 2008 and the prices for everything are likely to be higher now (perhaps much higher), especially for creative services like photography, videography, and hair/makeup. I also got discounts on a few things in exchange for free publicity via this blog.
Finally, Kyle and I skimped on a lot of things to make room in our budget for others. We didn't have a cake, we didn't have real flowers, we didn't have a rehearsal dinner, and the bride wore flip flops. So, before you look at our final number and say "I can do that!", remember that there's a lot of hard work and compromise that doesn't show up on this list.
So, without further ado, here are the final numbers for our Disney wedding:
All costs include tax and gratuity.
Total: $21,926.93
Oh, busted! I ended up going about $2000.00 over. I could make excuses here about how the rings shouldn't count (or at least my ring) because that wasn't part of the wedding planning and how I included the honeymoon costs, which were $1,463, and arguably that shouldn't have been included either. So, if I cheat and take off the things that were Kyle's responsibility (ring and honeymoon), then really I end up with a budget just under $19,000. But, you guys are smarter than that and you know that Kyle's money and my money isn't coming from two different places. It's all one big pot and that pot took a $22,000.00 hit when we decided to have a Disney wedding.
That being said, we both agree that it was the best $22,000.00 we've ever spent. In fact, there are a couple of additional things we would have splurged for, looking back, because it was such an amazing experience and we'll never be able to do it again. I won't tell you to break your budget if you really, really want your Disney wedding, because that's irresponsible. I'll just tell you that we aren't sorry at all that we broke ours. It was definitely worth it!
Now, before we get into numbers, I need to make a huge disclaimer. I don't think these numbers necessarily reflect the average cost of the type of wedding that we had. I begged, borrowed, and nearly stole to get things to be as cheap as possible and I got really lucky with some of the deals I got, like my wedding dress. These prices reflect contracts I made in early 2008 and the prices for everything are likely to be higher now (perhaps much higher), especially for creative services like photography, videography, and hair/makeup. I also got discounts on a few things in exchange for free publicity via this blog.
Finally, Kyle and I skimped on a lot of things to make room in our budget for others. We didn't have a cake, we didn't have real flowers, we didn't have a rehearsal dinner, and the bride wore flip flops. So, before you look at our final number and say "I can do that!", remember that there's a lot of hard work and compromise that doesn't show up on this list.
So, without further ado, here are the final numbers for our Disney wedding:
All costs include tax and gratuity.
- Bride’s Ring: $1500.00
- Groom’s Ring: $1260.00
- Wedding Pavilion for Ceremony: $2662.50
- Officiant: $300.00
- Pre-Reception at Whitehall Room for 55 guests: $2950.05
- Reception at Grand Floridian for 55 guests: $4082.31
- DJ for Reception: $1500.00
- Photography (digital files, no prints): $1950.00
- Videography (digital files, no editing): $546.35
- 142 Homemade Invitations w/ postage: $640.00
- Wedding Newsletter #1 w/ postage: $18.00
- Wedding Newsletter #2 w/ postage: $18.00
- Bridal Party Newsletter w/ postage: $10.00
- Guest Information Packets w/ postage: $245.00
- Programs for 55 guests: $7.00
- Wedding Dress: $265.00
- Bride Shoes: $5.00
- Bride Earrings: $8.00
- Veil: $10.00
- Hair/Makeup Trial: $100.00
- Wedding Day Hair/Makeup: $140.00
- Groom Tux and Shoes w/ delivery to Pop Century: $130.00
- Wraps for 5 Bridesmaids: $10.00
- Ties for 11 Groomsmen/Bridesmen: $85.00
- Flowers for Wedding Party: $150.00
- Flower Girl Basket: $4.00
- Baby Bridesmaid Wand: $6.00
- Reception Centerpieces for 6 tables: $93.00
- Placecards and Table Numbers w/ holders for 6 tables: $10.00
- Guestbook: $28.00
- 5 Bridesmaid Gifts: $50.00
- 11 Groomsman/Bridesman Gifts: $25.00
- Parent Gifts: $130.00
- Activity bags for kids at reception: $20.00
- Flight to Florida for Planning Session/Week-long Honeymoon: $461.00
- Hotel for Planning Session/Week-long Honeymoon: $602.00
- Estimated food/extras for Planning Session/Week-long Honeymoon: $400.00
- Flight to Florida for Wedding Week: $650.00
- Hotel for Wedding Week: $519.72
- Estimated food/extras for Wedding Week: $200.00
- Bridal Minnie Ears: $20.00
- Groom Mickey Ears: $20.00
- Thank You Cards: $40.00
- Two At-Home Reception Books: $56.00
Total: $21,926.93
Oh, busted! I ended up going about $2000.00 over. I could make excuses here about how the rings shouldn't count (or at least my ring) because that wasn't part of the wedding planning and how I included the honeymoon costs, which were $1,463, and arguably that shouldn't have been included either. So, if I cheat and take off the things that were Kyle's responsibility (ring and honeymoon), then really I end up with a budget just under $19,000. But, you guys are smarter than that and you know that Kyle's money and my money isn't coming from two different places. It's all one big pot and that pot took a $22,000.00 hit when we decided to have a Disney wedding.
That being said, we both agree that it was the best $22,000.00 we've ever spent. In fact, there are a couple of additional things we would have splurged for, looking back, because it was such an amazing experience and we'll never be able to do it again. I won't tell you to break your budget if you really, really want your Disney wedding, because that's irresponsible. I'll just tell you that we aren't sorry at all that we broke ours. It was definitely worth it!
Our Ohio Reception
Surprise! It's the Ohio reception post. After all the build up that happened before the WDW reception posts and the Napa reception post, I almost feel like I should drag you guys on for a while, but to be honest there isn't too much that happened between our California reception and our Ohio reception, which were only two weeks apart. Plus, it's sort of neat to be blogging about the Ohio reception exactly three months later...
Our Ohio Reception ~ February 28, 2009
*I apologize in advance for not having enough pictures. For reasons that I'll outline later, I took my camera to the reception and COMPLETELY FAILED to take even one picture at our reception. These pictures came from Neaner and Kyle's mom and they represent the only pictures we have of the event. I know, I'm a terrible blogger!
Planning the Ohio reception was both super stressful and not stressful at all. Originally, it was not stressful at all because the Ohio reception was Kyle's responsibility and he assured me that he had everything taken care of. Then, about a week before the reception, I realized that this had been a rather misleading statement and suddenly the Ohio reception became super stressful.
By "everything has been taken care of", Kyle meant "I'm sure my mom has it all under control", which was not our deal. I found out that Kyle's mom and his aunts were completely taking care of the food and his dad was taking care of the alcohol, which should have left Kyle plenty of time to take care of things like the DJ, the decorations, favors, final guest count, or any after-reception activities. But he didn't. Men.
To be fair, this reception wasn't the three ring circus that our WDW reception had been, so those kinds of details shouldn't have been overwhelming, but I was so stressed out that week that I had a hard time pulling things together. Lots of stuff in our life had been put on hold during December, January, and February because of all the wedding stuff, but it was all starting to fall down on top of us so it wasn't the best time to start planning a third reception. But, c'est la vie!
We did almost all of our reception shopping in the two days before the reception. Having completely failed at getting a DJ, despite the fact that we know a handful of professional DJs in the area who would have done it for free/cheap, Kyle decided that we could just iPod it and bought us a stereo from Target. Instead of going with a high priced stereo, he bought one of those vintage-looking ones with a turntable so that we could play our vintage Disney records. Seeing that it was iPod compatible, he figured that job was done. (Bad idea, but more on that later...)
The tables at the center are long, folding tables that aren't distinct in any way. Kyle's mom bought tablecloths to go on them, but centerpieces were still up in the air. I wandered around discount stores for a long time, trying to get inspiration for decorations, but I couldn't get anything to come to me. If you'll remember from our original walk-through, our Ohio reception location was a community center in Uniontown, Ohio, and it didn't offer a lot of inspiration.
Finally, having come up with nothing creative and faced with Kyle's "luau wedding" decor ideas, I decided to stick with what I knew. The centerpieces at our WDW reception were a hit because they were shiny and interesting, but still unobtrusive, so I decided to go with another candlelight-silver-sparkle centerpiece.
I priced out silver candle holders all over the place, but they were too expensive everywhere, so I ended up going to Goodwill and positively cleaning them out of silver-looking dishes. I bought everything from candle plates to aluminum dishes to baking pans to actual antique silver. The pieces were all between $.50 and $2, so I ended up with 26 pieces for around $20. Some of the pieces were pretty tarnished/banged-up/scratched, but after a quick rinse in a homemade silver dip (salt, baking soda, aluminum foil, and hot water), they were all reflective enough for me.
White candles came from IKEA, the land of cheap candles, and I bought five different shapes and sizes. I bought tall pillar candles, short pillar candles, round floating candles, round ball candles, and tealights. I also got those little glass tealight holders that are super cheap at IKEA, so by the time I was finished purchasing my candles I had right around 300 candles in assorted shapes and sizes for less than $40!
Also for the tables, we had the diamond confetti that we used at all of the receptions, so that added a bit of sparkle to the table. At the last moment, on a whim, I cut a bunch of small paper hearts out of wax paper and added those to the mix for a bit of variety in texture. Tissue paper hearts would have been easier, probably, but our friends are totally the type of people who would have lit the hearts on fire (and they did!) so it's good I went with wax paper.
Besides the tables, there were a couple of other elements in the room that needed decorating. We had a table for our guest book, reception books, and a small laptop playing clips from our wedding video, so we decorated that with a swath of blue sparkly fabric in our wedding color and added a couple of little touches, like wedding flowers and a stuffed Mickey and Minnie in their wedding clothes. I also swapped out the generic soap in the bathrooms for vanilla soap from Bath and Body Works and added vanilla candles, vanilla lotion, mints, and a vase of flowers in each.
The big accomplishment was the mantle, however. The mantle really dominates the space of this community center and I have to admit that I wasn't a huge fan of it, just because it was a little oppressive and not very flexible.
To decorate this area, I ended up using the trees we'd had at our WDW reception and putting them along the mantle, nesting them in a cloud of white Christmas lights that we had purchased at a post-holiday sale. In the middle of the mantle, I put a large silver frame that held two black and white pictures from our wedding. On the hearth of the fireplace, I put some square baking pans that were filled with water and added floating candles, so there was essentially a rectangular lake of candlelight in front of the fireplace, rather than a fire actually burning. Finally, I filled in the space around the fireplace by adding white baloons in different heights to make a sort of balloon curtain. It all turned out much better than I thought it would have and I'm SO MAD at myself for not taking pictures. Oh well...
Kyle's mom, aunts, and cousins created a whole buffet for us and we set everything out on two long tables that lined the area in front of the fireplace. We had fried chicken, corned beef, mashed potatoes, corn...basically all of Kyle's favorite foods...and a ton of side dishes. Kyle's aunt made us two cakes for the reception. One was a strawberry cheesecake and the other was a wedding cake topped by a bride and groom wearing custom made Mickey ears that she had created out of modeling clay!
We basically spent the day getting ready for the reception and everything would have been lovely, except for one little thing: I was so sick. SO sick. I don't know if I had the flu or what, but for the whole week before the reception and for about five more days after, I couldn't keep anything down. I didn't really have other symptoms, but everytime I ate anything, I threw up. This led to me feeling pretty cruddy and exhausted, since I didn't have any fuel, so I ended up dragging myself around on the day of our reception. This is the only defense I have against the fact that I didn't take any pictures. I was honestly so icky-feeling that it just never occurred to me.
As the reception got closer, we turned down the lights and lit all the candles. I have to admit, with the candles and Christmas lights going and the smells of all the food cooking, it really was a nice space. People started to arrive and soon the room was full of people helping themselves to our well-stocked bar, browsing through our wedding photos, sneaking handfuls of candy mints from the dessert table, and catching up with everyone else. It was such a nice, warm, comfortable atmosphere and it was really great to mingle and chat with everyone.
We had the prayer and dinner and then just hung out for a while as people started to cut into the cakes. We did have music going, but as it turned out the stereo was so quiet that you couldn't hear it unless you were standing pretty close to it. Kyle and I danced, but nobody wanted to join us on the dance floor, so that part of the reception didn't quite take off. After enough to drink, my friends decided that they were going to have a dance off, but six intoxicated dancing fools does not a dance floor make...
Engaged!
After a while people started to drift out and soon we were down to my intoxicated friends and a bunch of people who stayed behind to help us clean up. And that was that. We wrapped it up, cleaned it up, packed it up, and put it in the car. And just like that, our wedding had officially ended. 15 months of planning and celebrating later, we were done...and if I hadn't been feeling so crummy I'm sure that I would have done a little happy dance. As it was, we just followed my friends back to their hotel and hung out chatting late into the night...
Anti-climactic? Maybe, but I wish that more stories ended up a warm, comfortable evening with friends and family, sans drama and stress. It was such a good way to finish up everything and I really felt like everyone pulled things together for our reception out of tons of love, which was so nice. I just wish I had taken more pictures!
Our Ohio Reception ~ February 28, 2009
*I apologize in advance for not having enough pictures. For reasons that I'll outline later, I took my camera to the reception and COMPLETELY FAILED to take even one picture at our reception. These pictures came from Neaner and Kyle's mom and they represent the only pictures we have of the event. I know, I'm a terrible blogger!
Planning the Ohio reception was both super stressful and not stressful at all. Originally, it was not stressful at all because the Ohio reception was Kyle's responsibility and he assured me that he had everything taken care of. Then, about a week before the reception, I realized that this had been a rather misleading statement and suddenly the Ohio reception became super stressful.
By "everything has been taken care of", Kyle meant "I'm sure my mom has it all under control", which was not our deal. I found out that Kyle's mom and his aunts were completely taking care of the food and his dad was taking care of the alcohol, which should have left Kyle plenty of time to take care of things like the DJ, the decorations, favors, final guest count, or any after-reception activities. But he didn't. Men.
To be fair, this reception wasn't the three ring circus that our WDW reception had been, so those kinds of details shouldn't have been overwhelming, but I was so stressed out that week that I had a hard time pulling things together. Lots of stuff in our life had been put on hold during December, January, and February because of all the wedding stuff, but it was all starting to fall down on top of us so it wasn't the best time to start planning a third reception. But, c'est la vie!
We did almost all of our reception shopping in the two days before the reception. Having completely failed at getting a DJ, despite the fact that we know a handful of professional DJs in the area who would have done it for free/cheap, Kyle decided that we could just iPod it and bought us a stereo from Target. Instead of going with a high priced stereo, he bought one of those vintage-looking ones with a turntable so that we could play our vintage Disney records. Seeing that it was iPod compatible, he figured that job was done. (Bad idea, but more on that later...)
The tables at the center are long, folding tables that aren't distinct in any way. Kyle's mom bought tablecloths to go on them, but centerpieces were still up in the air. I wandered around discount stores for a long time, trying to get inspiration for decorations, but I couldn't get anything to come to me. If you'll remember from our original walk-through, our Ohio reception location was a community center in Uniontown, Ohio, and it didn't offer a lot of inspiration.
Finally, having come up with nothing creative and faced with Kyle's "luau wedding" decor ideas, I decided to stick with what I knew. The centerpieces at our WDW reception were a hit because they were shiny and interesting, but still unobtrusive, so I decided to go with another candlelight-silver-sparkle centerpiece.
I priced out silver candle holders all over the place, but they were too expensive everywhere, so I ended up going to Goodwill and positively cleaning them out of silver-looking dishes. I bought everything from candle plates to aluminum dishes to baking pans to actual antique silver. The pieces were all between $.50 and $2, so I ended up with 26 pieces for around $20. Some of the pieces were pretty tarnished/banged-up/scratched, but after a quick rinse in a homemade silver dip (salt, baking soda, aluminum foil, and hot water), they were all reflective enough for me.
White candles came from IKEA, the land of cheap candles, and I bought five different shapes and sizes. I bought tall pillar candles, short pillar candles, round floating candles, round ball candles, and tealights. I also got those little glass tealight holders that are super cheap at IKEA, so by the time I was finished purchasing my candles I had right around 300 candles in assorted shapes and sizes for less than $40!
Also for the tables, we had the diamond confetti that we used at all of the receptions, so that added a bit of sparkle to the table. At the last moment, on a whim, I cut a bunch of small paper hearts out of wax paper and added those to the mix for a bit of variety in texture. Tissue paper hearts would have been easier, probably, but our friends are totally the type of people who would have lit the hearts on fire (and they did!) so it's good I went with wax paper.
The big accomplishment was the mantle, however. The mantle really dominates the space of this community center and I have to admit that I wasn't a huge fan of it, just because it was a little oppressive and not very flexible.
To decorate this area, I ended up using the trees we'd had at our WDW reception and putting them along the mantle, nesting them in a cloud of white Christmas lights that we had purchased at a post-holiday sale. In the middle of the mantle, I put a large silver frame that held two black and white pictures from our wedding. On the hearth of the fireplace, I put some square baking pans that were filled with water and added floating candles, so there was essentially a rectangular lake of candlelight in front of the fireplace, rather than a fire actually burning. Finally, I filled in the space around the fireplace by adding white baloons in different heights to make a sort of balloon curtain. It all turned out much better than I thought it would have and I'm SO MAD at myself for not taking pictures. Oh well...
Kyle's mom, aunts, and cousins created a whole buffet for us and we set everything out on two long tables that lined the area in front of the fireplace. We had fried chicken, corned beef, mashed potatoes, corn...basically all of Kyle's favorite foods...and a ton of side dishes. Kyle's aunt made us two cakes for the reception. One was a strawberry cheesecake and the other was a wedding cake topped by a bride and groom wearing custom made Mickey ears that she had created out of modeling clay!
We basically spent the day getting ready for the reception and everything would have been lovely, except for one little thing: I was so sick. SO sick. I don't know if I had the flu or what, but for the whole week before the reception and for about five more days after, I couldn't keep anything down. I didn't really have other symptoms, but everytime I ate anything, I threw up. This led to me feeling pretty cruddy and exhausted, since I didn't have any fuel, so I ended up dragging myself around on the day of our reception. This is the only defense I have against the fact that I didn't take any pictures. I was honestly so icky-feeling that it just never occurred to me.
As the reception got closer, we turned down the lights and lit all the candles. I have to admit, with the candles and Christmas lights going and the smells of all the food cooking, it really was a nice space. People started to arrive and soon the room was full of people helping themselves to our well-stocked bar, browsing through our wedding photos, sneaking handfuls of candy mints from the dessert table, and catching up with everyone else. It was such a nice, warm, comfortable atmosphere and it was really great to mingle and chat with everyone.
We had the prayer and dinner and then just hung out for a while as people started to cut into the cakes. We did have music going, but as it turned out the stereo was so quiet that you couldn't hear it unless you were standing pretty close to it. Kyle and I danced, but nobody wanted to join us on the dance floor, so that part of the reception didn't quite take off. After enough to drink, my friends decided that they were going to have a dance off, but six intoxicated dancing fools does not a dance floor make...
Engaged!
Anti-climactic? Maybe, but I wish that more stories ended up a warm, comfortable evening with friends and family, sans drama and stress. It was such a good way to finish up everything and I really felt like everyone pulled things together for our reception out of tons of love, which was so nice. I just wish I had taken more pictures!
Ceremony Location: Epcot Japan
Photo by Root PhotographyThe Japan Pavilion in Epcot offers a few unique ceremony venues. If you are interested in using one of them, contact your Disney wedding consultant to discuss your options.
Questions About the California Reception
It felt so good to get that California reception up that I actually cheated and posted it on the main blog as well. You can always tell when I've put some real effort into a blog because I post it all over the place. If I spend more than fifteen minutes writing something, you can bet your sweet petunia that I'm going to spend another fifteen trying to shove it in your face so you appre-ci-ate.
After I posted about our California reception, I got a new rush of emails. The emails that come to me from wedding blog readers have been dwindling over the last couple of months as I've been trailing off and posting only a few times a week, so it was actually kind of nice to have a new surge. A lot of people just wanted to comment about the wedding or share pictures of their own tea ceremony or Napa reception, but there were also a lot of people who had questions. I suppose that's why I should have broken the reception down into bite-size pieces, like I did the Disney reception, but come on, people! At least I got it up there!
So, without further ado, here are some answers to your questions...because I gave up on emailing everyone back after the fourth or fifth email...(and I apologize for not citing the questioners, but a bunch of you asked similar things)...
Where did you have your reception?
Our reception was held at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Napa, California. My family has been going to that church for a long, long time and we have a lot of our special events there. It's the same place that my mom had her wedding reception in 2002, actually!
Why didn't you choose to have your wedding in a vineyard if you were doing it in Napa?
For a lot of people, Napa is one big vineyard, but for me it's just my home away from home. We kicked around the idea of having a vineyard reception, but in the end it was just more comfortable and convenient to have it in a familiar space.
Since when do you have sisters?
A lot of you actually wrote in to ask me this, which I found really funny. It's as though there was a general backlash from people who couldn't believe I would dare to suddenly summon two sisters out of thin air. WHAT? SISTERS? You can't DO this to us after an entire year of blogging! It's like we DON'T KNOW YOU AT ALL!!!!
Well, I swear I've blogged about them before, but yes I do have two younger sisters. I didn't intentionally keep them locked in the attic until now, they just weren't a part of any other part of my wedding besides the California reception. Oh, and Kaylee, I did mean sisters-sisters, not sorority-sisters, but I thought it was very clever of you to think that outside of the box.
Where did you get your lion dancers?
They were from the Wong Ga Hung Kuen Gung-Fu School in San Francisco, California. You can contact them at monkeyking@tigercrane.com.
Where did you get your dress?
My uncle bought it for me at the shop in the China pavilion at Epcot.
Did you have to cut your hair for your reception?
No, bangs are not an ancient Chinese wedding custom. They are a rebellion against waiting three years for a certain person to pop the question before cutting my hair because I didn't want to have bangs on my wedding day.
Is your brother single?
You know what my brother is? A minor. A non-adult. And incidentally, the baby brother of an extremely overprotective older sister. I'm glad you think he's cute. Now back off. Immediately.
Our California Reception
Saturday, February 14, 2009 in Napa, California
Saturday morning started out a little chilly and a little rainy. Kyle and I slept in a bit longer than everyone else, since we were being spoiled by not having to help everyone get ready. By the time we were really up and about, most everyone had gone to the church, since our reception was starting at one and we woke up at 10AM. This would normally have been fine, but unfortunately at approximately 10:32AM, I desperately needed my mother.
My Uncle Denis had bought me a red silk dress at the shop in China at Epcot, so that I would have something to wear to the wedding. One of my Aunties loaned me a traditional jacket to go over the dress and therefore I should have been all set. Unfortunately, when I got into the dress, I realized that I hadn’t really given the dress enough thought and therefore hadn’t realized that the dress had slits on each side of it and those slits went way, way up!
So, I fussed and stressed and tried to figure out a way to show less leg. The clock ticked closer and closer to one o’clock and I didn’t come up with anything, so finally I had to suck it up and get in the car. I decided that I just wouldn’t walk that much and I’d keep my hands at my sides, covering the tops of the slits. In the end, I didn’t really need to worry about it. The slits were indeed really high, but my dress was so wrinkled from sitting in the car for the five-minute ride to the church that you didn’t even notice the wrinkles. Guess I should have done a more thorough run-through…
When we got to the church, everything was fabulous. My Aunt Darlene had gone over all the details with a fine-tooth comb, so there were fun little touches all over the place. The first thing that we noticed was the cake. My Aunt Carole had made us a beautiful cake in the shape of the castle and the cake was on a table by itself, surrounded by bundles of lavender (my favorite!), confetti, and stuffed animals of our favorite Disney characters, Stitch and Boo.
On another table was our guest book, our reception books (with photos from our wedding), and a candy buffet featuring the best Valentines Day goodies. The Valentines theme continued on the tables, which were sprinkled with rose petals and held either bunches of red roses with stuffed Mickey and Minnie on top or heart-themed candleholders. Each of the centerpieces was set on a mirrored charger, which added to the glimmer of everything. At each centerpiece, my aunt put a small tent card bearing a quote about love, marriage, or family (as well as a note to leave the centerpieces at the end of the reception).
There were also swathes of fabric in our wedding colors and Disney balloons greeting people as they came into the reception hall. The tables were arranged so that there was a large space in the center for people to mingle and there was a head table up front which held lavender, candles, mirrors, and an incredible Disney wedding snowglobe that my aunt and uncle got for us. The snowglobe has all of the Disney princesses and their princes dancing around in their wedding clothes and it’s completely gorgeous!
As Kyle and I wandered around and took it all in, people began to show up. Most of my family was busy in the kitchen, getting all the food together, so I did my best to greet everyone. Confession: I can’t tell you the names of all of my relatives. 2nd confession: I always forget who is married to who and often forget if I’ve met someone before or if they’re a new addition to the family. Yes, I know. I’m a terrible person. It’s just that I never see them and when I do see them, I see them all at once! It’s really hard to tell people apart when they come and go in groups of fifty or sixty!!
There were some people that I never see who came, which was nice. This included some relatives on my dad’s side that I honestly have not seen in the last ten years or so. I also saw some people that I remembered from early, early childhood and Kyle had a friend from Ohio State come all the way up from Los Angeles just to see us at the reception.
Once everyone was pretty much there, my Aunt Carole welcomed everyone and indicated that they should sit down so the reception could begin. Our first surprise was that they had hired lion dancers to come to the reception and we had the traditional lion dance for weddings, which included two lions!
The last time Kyle was in Napa was for my grandpa’s 80th birthday party in 2006 and we had a lion dance then as well, so I think Kyle may be under the impression that whenever my family gets together there’s a lion dance. On the contrary, lion dances are a big deal and they are saved for truly special occasions. We were very lucky to have them at our reception!
After the lion dance, Kyle and I started the buffet line. You wouldn’t believe how much food we had to eat or how amazing it all was! Kyle really liked the dim sum, but I’m a sucker for the barbecued pork. As part of the traditional celebratory meal, we had an entire pig pit roasted and chopped up. Mmmm…it actually doesn’t get any better than that.
We ate and chatted and ate some more. People came up to visit with us and we had a chance to really talk to some people that had been lost in the rush earlier.
Following dinner, my family rolled out an incredible buffet of homemade desserts, which included pink cookies in the shape of Mickey heads, strawberry shortcakes (Kyle’s favorite), pots of chocolate mousse (my favorite), and fresh fruit.
During dessert, Randy and Casey passed out favors to everyone. Each guest got glass coasters with the word “love” written in Chinese on them. My aunt seriously went all out!
Once we were finished with dessert, it was time for the tea ceremony. I might have mentioned earlier that we were having a tea ceremony. It’s supposed to be a way to honor your parents and extended relatives, but I think it’s secretly a way for people to give you money right and left.
The tea ceremony has a handful of traditions. The first is that the bride and groom always give and take the teacups using two hands. You don’t want to hand someone a teacup using only one hand because it’s a sign of disrespect. The second tradition is that as you hand someone their tea, you say “yum cha”, which means “drink tea” in Cantonese. The people drink the tea, hand you back the cup, and then give you licee, which are small red paper envelopes that contain some form of money.
There are actually much, much more traditional ways to do a tea ceremony, but this is the version that Kyle and I did. We walked around while people were finishing their dessert and we served them tea and they gave us money.
Like I said, it’s supposed to be a sign of respect and honor, but it sort of felt like we were sneaking in a way to get money from people. Kyle did great with it. He always had two hands on the tea cups and he never forgot to say “yum cha”. I love that he isn’t weirded out by my family’s traditions…
My Aunt Carole with her little lion
The Quan family
After the tea ceremony, the reception dissolved into chatting and 2nd dessert as people started to wander out. After a while, it was just a small group of die-hard receptioners, which was fine because we all had stuffed tummies and we were partied out. Kyle had a chance to catch up with Melissa, the friend that had driven up from L.A., and Randy turned up the stereo and gave a few impromtu dance lessons.
We actually had planned on having dancing, but without a D.J. there was just no way to lead everyone onto the dance floor. This was also true for our Ohio reception, which leads me to think that having an iPod instead of a D.J. at our WDW reception would have been pretty disastrous and definitely not worth the money we would have saved. The home receptions were low key enough that they were lovely without dancing, but the WDW reception really needed that dance floor to be packed.
Kyle and I snuck in some slow dances as everyone cleaned up around us (we’re spoiled rotten) and I admit that every time I started to feel slightly less hungry, I grabbed another piece of dim sum. Once everything was packed up we all headed back to grandma’s house, munched on leftovers, drank the leftover wine, and watched the slideshow of pictures that Scott had taken at the reception.
Perfect ending to the perfect day…
My Uncle Denis had bought me a red silk dress at the shop in China at Epcot, so that I would have something to wear to the wedding. One of my Aunties loaned me a traditional jacket to go over the dress and therefore I should have been all set. Unfortunately, when I got into the dress, I realized that I hadn’t really given the dress enough thought and therefore hadn’t realized that the dress had slits on each side of it and those slits went way, way up!
So, I fussed and stressed and tried to figure out a way to show less leg. The clock ticked closer and closer to one o’clock and I didn’t come up with anything, so finally I had to suck it up and get in the car. I decided that I just wouldn’t walk that much and I’d keep my hands at my sides, covering the tops of the slits. In the end, I didn’t really need to worry about it. The slits were indeed really high, but my dress was so wrinkled from sitting in the car for the five-minute ride to the church that you didn’t even notice the wrinkles. Guess I should have done a more thorough run-through…
When we got to the church, everything was fabulous. My Aunt Darlene had gone over all the details with a fine-tooth comb, so there were fun little touches all over the place. The first thing that we noticed was the cake. My Aunt Carole had made us a beautiful cake in the shape of the castle and the cake was on a table by itself, surrounded by bundles of lavender (my favorite!), confetti, and stuffed animals of our favorite Disney characters, Stitch and Boo.
On another table was our guest book, our reception books (with photos from our wedding), and a candy buffet featuring the best Valentines Day goodies. The Valentines theme continued on the tables, which were sprinkled with rose petals and held either bunches of red roses with stuffed Mickey and Minnie on top or heart-themed candleholders. Each of the centerpieces was set on a mirrored charger, which added to the glimmer of everything. At each centerpiece, my aunt put a small tent card bearing a quote about love, marriage, or family (as well as a note to leave the centerpieces at the end of the reception).
There were also swathes of fabric in our wedding colors and Disney balloons greeting people as they came into the reception hall. The tables were arranged so that there was a large space in the center for people to mingle and there was a head table up front which held lavender, candles, mirrors, and an incredible Disney wedding snowglobe that my aunt and uncle got for us. The snowglobe has all of the Disney princesses and their princes dancing around in their wedding clothes and it’s completely gorgeous!
As Kyle and I wandered around and took it all in, people began to show up. Most of my family was busy in the kitchen, getting all the food together, so I did my best to greet everyone. Confession: I can’t tell you the names of all of my relatives. 2nd confession: I always forget who is married to who and often forget if I’ve met someone before or if they’re a new addition to the family. Yes, I know. I’m a terrible person. It’s just that I never see them and when I do see them, I see them all at once! It’s really hard to tell people apart when they come and go in groups of fifty or sixty!!
Me with my little brother and little sisters
My stepdad, my mom, my husband, me, my little brother, my little sister,
my other little sister, and my future-brother-in-law
my other little sister, and my future-brother-in-law
There were some people that I never see who came, which was nice. This included some relatives on my dad’s side that I honestly have not seen in the last ten years or so. I also saw some people that I remembered from early, early childhood and Kyle had a friend from Ohio State come all the way up from Los Angeles just to see us at the reception.
Once everyone was pretty much there, my Aunt Carole welcomed everyone and indicated that they should sit down so the reception could begin. Our first surprise was that they had hired lion dancers to come to the reception and we had the traditional lion dance for weddings, which included two lions!
The last time Kyle was in Napa was for my grandpa’s 80th birthday party in 2006 and we had a lion dance then as well, so I think Kyle may be under the impression that whenever my family gets together there’s a lion dance. On the contrary, lion dances are a big deal and they are saved for truly special occasions. We were very lucky to have them at our reception!
After the lion dance, Kyle and I started the buffet line. You wouldn’t believe how much food we had to eat or how amazing it all was! Kyle really liked the dim sum, but I’m a sucker for the barbecued pork. As part of the traditional celebratory meal, we had an entire pig pit roasted and chopped up. Mmmm…it actually doesn’t get any better than that.
We ate and chatted and ate some more. People came up to visit with us and we had a chance to really talk to some people that had been lost in the rush earlier.
My aunt running everything from the kitchen.
Following dinner, my family rolled out an incredible buffet of homemade desserts, which included pink cookies in the shape of Mickey heads, strawberry shortcakes (Kyle’s favorite), pots of chocolate mousse (my favorite), and fresh fruit.
During dessert, Randy and Casey passed out favors to everyone. Each guest got glass coasters with the word “love” written in Chinese on them. My aunt seriously went all out!
Once we were finished with dessert, it was time for the tea ceremony. I might have mentioned earlier that we were having a tea ceremony. It’s supposed to be a way to honor your parents and extended relatives, but I think it’s secretly a way for people to give you money right and left.
The tea ceremony has a handful of traditions. The first is that the bride and groom always give and take the teacups using two hands. You don’t want to hand someone a teacup using only one hand because it’s a sign of disrespect. The second tradition is that as you hand someone their tea, you say “yum cha”, which means “drink tea” in Cantonese. The people drink the tea, hand you back the cup, and then give you licee, which are small red paper envelopes that contain some form of money.
There are actually much, much more traditional ways to do a tea ceremony, but this is the version that Kyle and I did. We walked around while people were finishing their dessert and we served them tea and they gave us money.
Like I said, it’s supposed to be a sign of respect and honor, but it sort of felt like we were sneaking in a way to get money from people. Kyle did great with it. He always had two hands on the tea cups and he never forgot to say “yum cha”. I love that he isn’t weirded out by my family’s traditions…
The Chew family
My Aunt Carole with her little lion
The Quan family
After the tea ceremony, the reception dissolved into chatting and 2nd dessert as people started to wander out. After a while, it was just a small group of die-hard receptioners, which was fine because we all had stuffed tummies and we were partied out. Kyle had a chance to catch up with Melissa, the friend that had driven up from L.A., and Randy turned up the stereo and gave a few impromtu dance lessons.
We actually had planned on having dancing, but without a D.J. there was just no way to lead everyone onto the dance floor. This was also true for our Ohio reception, which leads me to think that having an iPod instead of a D.J. at our WDW reception would have been pretty disastrous and definitely not worth the money we would have saved. The home receptions were low key enough that they were lovely without dancing, but the WDW reception really needed that dance floor to be packed.
Kyle and I snuck in some slow dances as everyone cleaned up around us (we’re spoiled rotten) and I admit that every time I started to feel slightly less hungry, I grabbed another piece of dim sum. Once everything was packed up we all headed back to grandma’s house, munched on leftovers, drank the leftover wine, and watched the slideshow of pictures that Scott had taken at the reception.
Perfect ending to the perfect day…
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