My iMac Died and it Probably Affects You

Bad news, bears.

I started having serious problems with my beloved iMac this weekend and yesterday, in a brave attempt to fix everything, I broke my computer. It's not a little broken...it's a lot broken. (Or, as the computer tech person I called said, I gave my computer a lobotomy and it's just not there anymore.)

So, I lost tons and tons of stuff, including many files that I use for the Disney blogs. This is how it might affect you:

• I've lost many of the spotlights you've submitted. At one point, I had over 600 spotlights to go through from that form that used to be on the site. Unfortunately, many were incomplete (people had forgotten albums or submitted before their event took place) and many were duplicates (people thought a problem had occurred because the spotlight didn't go up right away and they submitted their wedding thirty more times). The result was a big fat mess. To make things easier, I started saving the photos to my computer in individual spotlight files, since many of the wedding albums were expiring/password protected when I finally got to them. Unfortunately, that means that I lost around 150 spotlights when my computer died and I have no way to get them back.

• If you submitted for a spotlight and you've never seen it on the site, the chances are high that it was sitting in a folder on my computer, waiting to go up. Unfortunately, that means you need to submit again. The good news is that I'm simplifying the submission process by simply asking you to email me. Since my email is safely stored online, I won't risk losing all of those submissions again, and I'll be able to respond to you and confirm that I've received it. For more info, visit this page. (NOTE: you can also submit spotlights for The Disney Baby Blog and The Disney Party Blog by emailing me.)

• I've also lost a ton of information about vendors, both in FL and CA. I had collected vendor reviews and recommendations from brides who got married over the last few years and I had them in a big spreadsheet so that I could see all of the positive/negative reviews for each vendor and I could make notes about which vendors really seemed to excel at certain things. I used that spreadsheet all the time when determining who to invite to the recommended vendors list and who to recommend when people asked me. It's all gone now, which means I'm sort of back to square one, so I'll be less help for a while when it comes to recommending vendors (especially in the Disneyland area). 

• I had a bunch of videos and photos from the trip to WDW I took with Carrie Hayward that might be gone forever. I thought that I had saved them on an outside hard drive at some point, but I can't seem to find them. So, the location spotlights might be on hold for a bit until I can track them down.

Anyway, that's how the death of my iMac is affecting the blog. I do apologize about the spotlights and I feel terrible about it. The whole thing has been pretty devastating...I lost photos and videos of Eva, lots of photos from our honeymoon and wedding, all of my work/tax/account information, and about $700 in iTunes. It's a good life lesson, though! Now I know that I need to back everything up in the future!

I am trying really hard to keep a "Just keep swimming!" attitude about it, though. I have (a) a beautiful kid, (b) a wonderful husband, and (c) a MacBook Pro that really hasn't had enough attention in the last couple of years. What's a little iMac hiccup compared to all of that, right?

It's hard to have a bad day around this kid!

Do you want to share your photos in one of our real Disney wedding spotlights? Apply here to see your proposal, engagement session, wedding, or other event on this site!

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