Marina view!
My wedding folder. I *think* I bought this in the mid 90’s.
Sorry but this is the only shot I have of Franck’s. We only had a half hour in there and I had a ton of stuff to go over. I totally forgot to take pictures inside!
We went into Franck's and met with Kathleen. I am SO glad we did this. She made wonderful suggestions for everything and worked with us to keep the cost down. We put every option that we could think of in our BEO and she will update the costs and send us a revised BEO. I had to hug her!
Our half hour session went quick and Kathleen even stayed a bit longer and it ended up being 45 minutes even though she specifically told me she would only have a half hour. She really wanted to make sure we understood everything. I had listened to an episode of Inside Disney Weddings about the meeting with your wedding planner so I knew going into it that we wanted to put in every option we might possibly want so that we could get prices and go back later and remove things. They do not have every price available for you at your meeting so what you have to do is wait for the revised BEO. We just got ours back on Friday and unfortunately we will have to cut a lot of stuff. I’m pretty sure at this point we will be cutting the Bridal Portrait sessions mainly because that is something we can do at a later date.
I created a spreadsheet where I listed our BEO costs and then the changes I would make to have this fit into our budget. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that we could actually come in UNDER budget for this event!! My original budget was $10k.
Bridal Portraits
Removing the Bridal Portraits alone save us about $2k when you factor in the bouquet refresh, duplicate boutenniere, floral delivery service, dress steaming and pressing, and extra hair and makeup. We were going to have our pictures included in our photo archival disc. I’m not heartbroken over this, we can always do it in the future and we have already planned the WDW Radio Cruise on the Disney Dream in Nov 2012 so we could get Christmas MK and EPCOT shots. Plus it would give me a reason to keep the weight off!!
Florals & Unity Candle
Kathleen said we have the option to bring our own Unity candle set and I think that’s what I’m going to do. I just scoped out a really pretty set for only $59.95 that has the carriage as the unity candle:
http://www.fairytaleweddingstore.com/rcProd1.asp?id=1913&c1=9
We’re also saving a bundle by doing our own silk flowers instead of fresh floral for our bridal party. Unfortunately we are not allowed to use silk flowers for the staged exit so we will either have to get fresh flowers from Disney for $2.50/person or we can bring our own bubbles. I think we may go the bubble route because it’s way cheaper and I’m not all about literally throwing away $50.
Dessert Party
Jason picked our Dessert Party Menu and he felt very important! Now he feels like he’s more a part of this whole planning process and I think that made him happy! He chose the Celebration Dessert Buffet $27/person. We added 1 hour to our dessert party and our planner automatically added additional food which made the cost $32/person but I am going to request that we stick with the $27/person pricing. This is another thing I learned from Inside Disney Weddings – they give you so much food at the DP that you do not need to extend it if you extend the venue rental time.
Here’s our menu:
Hand Dipped Vanilla Bean Ice Cream served with Root Beer & Coke
Chocolate Fudge Brownies
Assorted Homemade Cookies
Toppings: Bananas, Chocolate Sauce, Caramel Sauce, Strawberry Sauce, Oreo Crumbs, Candy Pieces, Whipped Cream, Cherries, Nuts, and Jimmies
Fresh Fruit Salad
Fruit Punch
Coffee, Decaf Coffee, Selection of Teas (hopefully Twinings since we’re @UK!)
Flavored Syrups, Sugars, Cream, and Honey
I know that you can mix and match menus but I really didn’t see anything else that we would need. Our families have pretty simple tastes so this menu of basic ice cream sundae fixins will be fantabulous!
Wrap Up
That’s it for now, I start my new job tomorrow so we’re going to wait until I get a few paychecks to figure everything out with our BEO. Plus, we have a few guests who STILL have not booked their hotels! Kathleen told me that I can add additional transportation up to 1 week before the wedding but I’m telling all my guests that I need to know where they are staying by August 1st. We’re getting down to the wire now and can you tell I’m excited?? 117 Days!!
