Ben and Libby's Happily Ever After - A Fairytale Wishes Wedding *Updated 14/3/18 + Wedding Video!

[Libby_Darling]

Day 0 - Travel Day
Saturday 15th October

We woke up with the alarm (luckily, as that’s the whole point of alarms) at 4.10am. Oof, early! I was so excited though! It actually wasn’t too hard to get up, for once! I made tea, we watched a bit of news while we got ready and eventually left the room about 5.45 so perfectly on time! Very out of character for me. We were going to use the machine to buy bus tickets that we’d seen the night before, but unfortunately it was broken No worries though, it would just cost a little more but we could pay on the bus. We went outside to wait for the Hoppa and it was super chilly! I was glad for my Bride jumper!

The bus arrived on time and we paid £10 for two one way tickets - steep haha! Had to be done though. The journey was crazy short and we were at the airport by 6.10, 20 minutes ahead of schedule which greatly pleased Benjamin ‘Let’s get to the airport 6 hours before’ Millier. We thanked the driver and headed into the terminal, yay! A lovely lady spotted my Bride box and congratulated us which was so sweet, she was asking all about the wedding and she was so excited for us! We then got directed over to check in and we got a lovely girl. She checked in our luggage (underweight, phew!) and then sorted our actual check in. She said ‘I see you’re in a group of 4, would you prefer a 2?’ I was mega surprised and obviously was like ‘oooohhhh that would be amazing, thank you so much! ’ then we waited a few seconds and then she said ‘Okay all done. I saw your Bride box so I’ve upgraded you to extra legroom seats. Congratulations!’ Well, I nearly fainted! This has never happened to us ever ever ever and it was so exciting! What a total babe, and what an amazing start to our holiday! We thanked her profusely and then wandered off in a daze, two cases gone and just one Bride box and one cabin case remaining.

We then went through security which was all fine, and then we were into the proper airport bit and free to wander! Yay! Love this bit! We explored a bit cause we’ve never flown from Heathrow before, but then we realized how starving we were so we headed into Bridge for some brekkie. We had perused a couple of menus whilst wandering and this looked like the best, and cheapest! Obviously still overpriced though haha! We had a little table for 2 (pretty snug haha) and ordered a fresh lemonade and a mango juice to start with.

I then had the Bridge bubble and squeak which came with a poached egg and maple syrup.

Ummmm where’s the rest!? Haha, it was so tiny! I was not impressed! I had to eat my words later though because I was actually stuffed at the end of it…awks.

Benj got the mushrooms on toast which he looooved

The food was actually really nice and came to £21 (this is like the only day I have food prices for ha! )

We had a really cute moment during brekkie. We logged onto the wiffy and were checking Facey B as you do, and it was honestly really overwhelming – there were status updates of our friends and family checking in to airports all over the shop! It was so funny! The majority of our guests were travelling on this day and no two groups were taking the exact same flight (not sure how we managed that!) so it was really cool to see where everyone was! My parents and brother/SIL/nieces were already in WDW (they flew out the day before) so they were checking in and making us all super jel haha! The lovely Lottie (Lottie89) was also already in Florida and had been for a week so we’d been jealous of her for a full 7 days. Ben’s fam were in a different Heathrow terminal, some of our friends were sat on the flight already waiting to take off…it was amazing. We were so so happy and excited to see what everyone was doing. God bless social media!

After our breakfast we headed back out into the main terminal. Benj wanted to buy a wedding aftershave – cute! I’d already sourced and bought my wedding perfume as I knew I wouldn’t be able to make a decision during limited airport time (La vie est Belle by Lancome if anyones interested, it’s honestly one of the nicest perfumes I’ve ever smelt! I’m obsessed with it! ) We sampled loads of aftershaves and I could tell he was getting a bit fed up bless him as they were all starting to smell quite samey ha! Plus some of them were so expensive and he just didn’t want to spend that much really, just for one day/the honeymoon! In the end we found a lovely one by Salvatore Ferrigamo and I love it, it smells like cinnamon ≈While he bought it I doused myself heavily in a random perfume I liked as one does when one is in the perfume section before running away so none of the ladies could tell me off cause I didn’t buy it.

After our aftershave hunt I left the bags and dress box with Benj and popped to get some snacks from Boots – I couldn’t decide what to get (again! ) but I think I got a meal deal with a chicken caesar wrap as it was cheaper than buying just water and crisps! I always get mega hungry on planes haha! Then it was time to head to the boarding lounge! When we got there Benj browsed his phone and I saved some trippies and Spotify playlists offline so I could read/listen on the plane. We literally had 5 minutes though and then we were getting on the plane! Super speedy!

We had such nice seats! Super spacious! A lovely little 2

As we were getting settled into our seats and putting the dress box into the overhead compartment a lovely air hostess was like ooooooh I think there’s something special in that box! And I was like eeeeeee yes there is! *excited wide eyes and grin that didn’t leave my face the entire wedding trip* Then once we were seated she came back and asked us about the wedding and what we were doing, and then she said she’d bring some fizz round for us in a bit! I was thinking I could get used to this VIP treatment haha!

We took off bang on time – we were on the 9.25 to Orlando via Atlanta with Virgin and Delta The flight itself was actually amazing. It was only 8 hours and it honestly flew by. We started with fizz as promised

This was such a nice little luxury, and then during the first drinks service the air hostess (a different one) asked about why we had fizz and when we told her she just started chucking wine at us haha! It was like 10 in the morning and we had 4 bottles of wine and 2 glasses of champagne between us! I was literally loving life. We got pretzels too which I wolfed down.

All the booze!

Ben had already made a decision on his movies as always, and he was straight into one while I was still browsing the options and seeing what I fancied. I decided to start Independence Day the remake but it was so awful I turned it off after 15 minutes haha! Oops! Benj had warned me it was not great but I love a disaster flick so wanted to give it a try. Fail. After than I just read trippies on my iPad, stared out the window, took notes, and stared at our itinerary spreadsheet on my phone trying to make myself believe that it was actually happening

Lunch came by pretty quickly! Benj had his pre-ordered Lacto Ovo meal which was lovely!

His main was olive and tomato ghnocci which was amazing, I tried it too!

I was thrilled to see that the veggie option was mushroom pasta on our little menus, which is my fave. I’d much rather have the veggie option than the meat option on flights, IDK why it’s just my preference!

My meal

It wasn’t quite as awesome as it looks but I did really enjoy it I added a lot of salt to make it more...salty.

After lunch I started watching ‘The Meddler’ with Susan Sarandon but it made me really upset and I had to turn it off because I was literally sobbing! Not sure why, it’s about a widow who keeps meddling in her daughter’s life but her daughter was being so rude to her that I felt awful for her Not sure that was the aim but it upset me so much! So I turned it off. I then slept for an hour which was really good! During this time Benj managed to watch Finding Dory, Now You See Me 2, Bordertown, and play some games.

Killing time…

Trippie reading…

About an hour before landing, we were then bought out afternoon tea which was lovely

Cheese and pickle sammie and an AMAZING mini millionaires shortbread, my favourite sweet treat!

Benj got a way more exciting sandwich though, a Morrocan flatbread!

Before I knew it we were descending! This is where things went horribly wrong I had a cold about a week before we left and I proper dosed up to try and make myself feel better before we went. By travel day I was feeling pretty good, phew! However, pretty much as soon as we got on the plane my cold weirdly reappeared with a vengeance and I spent the entire flight sniffing and feeling pretty sorry for myself. We also didn’t have any pills or nice tissue with us so my nose was red raw due to having to use loo roll I didn’t really think much of it though, until the descent started. Oh my lord. It started as a gradual pain like around my eyes and nose, and as we got lower it got worse and worse until I actually thought my head was going to explode. Like I’m not lying, I thought I was dying. I’ve never felt anything like it, I didn’t know what was happening! I now know it was sinus pain, it’s a common problem when you have a cold or flu and have been sniffing, and it really does feel like you’re dying. I burst into tears and poor Benj was trying to calm me down but he couldn’t do anything as the pressure was just unbearable! He realised what it was and said he’d had it before but not as bad. But yeah, it was horrific. I basically just sat silently crying and pushing on my eye sockets for 15 minutes until we got really low and it passed, and my head started to go back to normal. But I was so shocked that this had happened! I’ve flown so much and never even had a hint of pain like that! Benj was so amazing though, honestly if he hadn’t been next to me I don’t know what I would have done!

So by the time we landed I was 100% ready to get off the plane haha, all my happy memories of the food and entertainment and free champagne forgotten! I’m just kidding, it was still an awesome flight, just horrible and confusing and painful at the end Has anyone else experienced this on a flight? Urghh!

Anyway. So we landed in Atlanta 45 minutes early. We had been nervous about going indirect so we’d booked flights with a 4 hour layover as we didn’t want to be stressing about time at all. But now we had 4.45 hours haha! Definitely cautious. It was all good though. Now that my head wasn’t about to explode I was feeling pretty chill, and obviously thrilled to even be on American soil! But yeah, the transfer was very smooth and easy! We queued for about 20 mins at immigration which was awesome and way faster than expected. Then we picked our bags up, or maybe we picked our bags up before I can’t remember haha! We went through security and all was good, and then we passed a Delta desk so I asked if there was any chance on getting an earlier flight. It was only free for special Delta members which we most definitely were not, nd it was $50 each to go on stand by. I didn’t think it was worth it so decided we’d just relax and embrace Atlanta.

Sticking to the original plan, we gave a man our bags (not just any man, he worked there) and then we were back to just the bride box and Ben’s cabin bag. Awesome! We headed into departures – I was so excited to be in America finally!

We went on a monorail!

Mid travel day portraits!

As we had so long haha we took a leisurely stroll around to explore. We went into a newsagents and I was beyond excited to buy my first American mag – Cooking Light <3 LOVE it! We also bought me some cold and flu pills and some water. We then wandered all around the terminal (Concorde A) browsing the food options. We wanted a nice sit down place where we could get a drink and chill for a bit, but a. everywhere was pretty busy and b. most of them seemed to be very much more grab and go affairs. At one point we walked right down to the opposite end of the concorde from where our gate was because we’d seen a sign for an NBA themed bar that looked really cool. Unfortunately, when we finally arrived at the other end, it was tiny! Like the most clever photography I’ve ever seen that made it look like a massive TGIs or something! Also there was a game on and it was very loud. We then walked all the way back (we walked like 8,000 steps this day!) and eventually found a really nice looking bar that wasn’t too busy and had space for us. I’ve never been so happy to sit down! I know we were sat down for like 8 hours before but we’d done a lot of walking in the meantime! I think it was called Brew House? We got a cute table, Benj got a beer (Sweet Water 420) and I got my first Angry Orchard of the holiday Yum! We were peckish but not starving so we decided to get an appetizer each. The slimmers choice…hahahh naatttttttt!

Benj chose the fried artichoke hearts

And I got crab and artichoke dip.

Both were delish and not too bad priced for airport food, about $11/12 each and they were meant to be sharing starters so plenty big enough. It was really relaxing sitting and chilling, watching the planes out the window and enjoying our food. We were also able to get on the WiFi and catch up with all our friends whereabouts, some had arrived in WDW which was super exciting! We spent a happy hour or so here just chilling. Then it was finally time to head to departures!

We already knew where it was after our extensive search for food earlier so that was good. I was feeling really nervous about the sinus thing again which was stressful There was also major faff with all the VA tickets - basically the overhead tannoy kept saying something about coming up to queue if you were in different zones and we were panicking a bit because our ticket mentioned nothing about zones. We went to speak to the lady along with all the other Brits and there was an issue with the tickets we’d been issued and we couldn’t get on. It was a pain and looked like it was gonna be a massive ballache but to be fair they sorted it very quickly and we were on the flight about 10 minutes later. Bit embarrassing for all the people who kicked off like idiots…there were a few sheepish looking people in that queue!

Our second plane was lovely, very small but nice! I believe it was 3 and 3, and we had the two window seats. We also had seatback entertainment which was exciting! I was nervous in case my stupid sinuses hurt again so I pretty much sat really quietly and just took deep breaths and focused on staying calm. I know right, I know how to have fun. While I was being all quiet and stuff, Ben cracked into a Family Guy! Man knows how to get his money’s worth with these IFEs. I didn’t have any pain going up which I was over the moon about...but the same thing happened on the descent and once again the pain made me cry so much I just closed my eyes and tried to focus on where we were going and what we were doing. Honestly guys, please take sinus medication if you’re flying and have even the slightest hint of a cold! DON’T GO THROUGH WHAT I DID!

Eventually, we touched down in Orlando. YAY! We were mega tired by this point but a lovely American lady telling me I had beautiful eyes while she was getting her bag out the overhead locker cheered me up immensely! Especially cause I had my glasses on and had cried all my make-up off haha! So 100% not lookin beautiful. I think i was more tired cause of the crying to be honest, ladies you know when you cry and your make-up goes in your eyes and you just feel exhausted from the emotion and effort of it all? That!

So, off we got and we were straight into the awesome big atrium which is when I think you really feel like you’re in Orlando We hopped on the monorail to get our luggage, had a bit of a wait for my suitcase which was tense, but then we had all 4 bags and the dress box YAY! Then there was no queue for immigration wooooooo so we were done and dusted super fast! We made our way out towards the ME which was mega exciting because we’ve never got it from the airport before, only to! Ballers! We then had a mega surreal moment (the first of many this holiday haha!) - as we were striding through the airport past the car hire places towards the glorious Disney bit, we heard someone shout “Ben! Libby!” only it wasn’t so much a shout as a kind of raised voice, please turn round cause I don’t want to shout again - it could only be Ben’s lovely mum Chris! And her husband Martin! We stopped in our tracks, they were queueing for the Alamo booth! How funny. We knew they’d be arriving to MCO that evening but the chances of seeing them after taking completely different routes! Incredible. We had a quick chat but we were all dying of tiredness (mainly me) so we said we’d see them tomorrow in the MK (!) and said our goodbyes. Before we went over to the ME we nipped over to one of the seating areas to see Ben’s stepbrothers (Liam and Max) and Charlotte (Liam, older stepbrother’s GF) and surprise them! Well they certainly were surprised haha! Bless them they all looked so tired, Charlotte looked straight at me walking towards her then looked away, and then did a genuine comedy double take ha! So cute. We had another quick chat and hug sesh and then said our goodbyes. Unfortunately they had an absolute mare after we saw them, there were no cars big enough for all of them (they needed like an 8 seater) and they were at the airport for aaaagggeeesss before Liam suggested they Uber to the villa and try again in the morning. Well, that was a game-changer! Martin was so impressed with Uber that they sacked the hire car plan off and just Ubered everywhere for the rest of the week! A happy ending after a very stressful start

After all that excitement it was time for us to hop on ye olde ME. We queued up and I didn’t even have to get my email reservation out we were already confirmed and through, which was very handy as I didn’t have any internet to retrieve it! We waited about 20 minutes for the bus which we definitely could have done without but hey.

#transportationgoals

Cutie travel companion

When we were finally allowed on the bus we got mega excited for the video! There was a quiz on beforehand which I nearly lost my...let’s say, ‘stuff’ over, because one of the Qs was about FRANCKS which is the Disney’s Fairytale Wedding planning studio!

I must have been so excited in fact, that after talking about how awesome it was going to be to watch the welcome video on the ME for approximately 18 months beforehand, i promptly fell asleep once on the actual bus. I was so so tired! It was okay though, Benj did too. We woke up once we were pulling up at OKW all bleary eyed and delirious (and in my case fairly dry-eyed as I was wearing my lenses...) and staggered off the bus with cases and dress boxes flung at us from all angles. Old Key West looked incredible in the dark, all twinkly and sparkly. Our tiredness had vanished as it so often seems to when you arrive at a Disney hotel after a long flight, and we headed into the empty Hospitality House I say headed, it was more staggered because we had so much luggage. We made quite a scene haha! Which actually turned out to be a good thing! All the CMS who were working went ‘Ooooohhhh!’ when we arrived and some clapped ≈and shouted ‘Congratulations!’ which was incredibly exciting and made me want to burst with happiness. One small lady beckoned us over and she was working alongside a really really old guy which made me very happy. Well they were so cute, they wanted to know aallllll about the wedding and our plans so we happily chattered away while they checked us in! I’d requested a room request via TouringPlans and we got pretty much exactly what I wanted! Super close to the main buildings and restaurant etc which was awesome! The lady gave us our (first of many!) I’m Celebrating badges, and then she bought us out a card signed by Minnie and Mickey! WIN! The old guy was telling us about how him and his wife have been married for 40 years and he was giving us marriage advice and stuff. They were all so excited for us, it was amazing We basically chatted for ages with all the CMs behind the desks before we realised it was ridiculously late now and we had to be up at the crack the next day!

So we bid them farewell and armed with our map of the resort, took the short walk over to our room. Which was beautiful! Really big and spacious and just such a lovely vibe. I’ve got room photos later on don’t worry, but for this night it was very much a case of get in and get in bed hah! EXCEPT, we needed breakfast food. I get reallIy hangry if I don’t eat, espesh in the mornings, and with such an early start we wanted to just eat in the room to save time. My darling fiance (now husband, spoiler alert) offered to run to the shop (well not run obviously, he’s not mental) and grab some bits while I got ready for bed (it’s a big job). So he nipped out and I de-make-up’d, PJ’d up and pretty much fell into bed. Which was so so so comfy. I put Stacey on and just basked in the glory of being at WALT DISNEY WORLD! When Benj got back he had a lightening fast shower and then got into bed too YAY! I set an alarm for 6am and we both were fast asleep by 10.30pm, with 3 whole weeks of adventure ahead of us

 

[alohamom]

Such a great update Libby! My daughter has sinus issues when flying so she takes Advil Cold n Sinus every time she flies. The doctor ok'd it as she doesnt fly too often, maybe once or twice a year. She experiences the same thing you did so you have my total sympathies, it is a horrible experience.

 

[apainterxx44]

So excited to hear that you're back on the dis! All your pictures are great and you seriously are SO pretty. I am so sorry to hear about your sinuses that has only happened to me one time and I put my head down and basically just hysterically cried I will never forget it! I was terrified to fly almost every time after that.

 

[Lauren1027]

Ugh, I had the SAME thing with my sinuses happen on our honeymoon as well...its AWFUL, so you have my sympathies. On top of that, my ears also stayed blocked for like 3 days. I'm glad the rest of your arrival day was pretty drama free. Can't wait to read more!

 

[happy2012]

Congrats Ben & Libby!!!

 

[Libby_Darling]

Day 1 - 16th October 2016

Magic Kingdom with family and friends, lunch at BOG, dinner at Olivias!

Our first full day in Florida! I woke up naturally at 4am because of the super loud fan haha which wasn’t ideal, but I managed to fall back to sleep luckily and woke properly with my alarm at 6am It was 8am opening at MK (not EMH, just early cause of MNSSHP) (what an abbreviation party that was!) We got ready pretty quickly but were still a bit late leaving the room, probably due to my make-up taking forevs oops!
And the fact that we paused to take some selfies…

We got to the bus stop and had a really annoying experience, the only bad experience we had with busses the whole trip! Which was good, but obviously it was a bummer because we really needed to be on time this day! We’d arranged to meet my parents and my brother (Jon), his girlfriend (Pash) and our two little nieces (grace and Alice <3) outside Magic Kingdom at 7.45 ish to watch the opening ceremony together. Well that plan was totes scuppered thanks to the busses! In theory it should have been just about okay but the screen that said one was a minute away when we got there, changed to 12 minutes away. Right. At that moment I realised I’d a. forgotten to take my pill and b. forgotten to put on my beautiful wedding badge that we’d had designed and made especially for the trip. Maybe if I’d only forgotten one we wouldn’t have gone back haha, but we figured we had enough time to nip back and grab them, so we did. When we got back, 6 minutes later, the bus then disappeared from the screen entirely and came back as arriving at 7.50. Grrrr! We soon learned that times on the bus screen are not accurate, and chances are it’s closer or further than you think depending on what the screen says. So there wasn’t much we could do, I whatsapped my Mum when I was able to get a bit of WiFi and said we’d Whatsapp them when we got into the park as they’d be going in. The bus eventually came at about 7.52, but then the mega annoying thing was we cruised around OKW for a full 25 minutes before even getting out onto the open road! I was livid! Ben calmed me down and said if we walked a teeny bit further to the other bus stop (sorry I can’t remember of the name of it! We were building 23 though!) we could get on last and go straight out of the resort. This actually worked out really well as we could walk there when we were leaving, and get off at our bus stop first when we got back. Just a little tip for anyone staying at OKW!
So, we eventually got to the MK at about 8.30. Very frustrating but it was all good cause we were there We headed in through bag check, scanned our Mickey Heads, and then ahhhhhhhh. We were in our favourite place on earth I obviously started crying when I saw the castle and even though we felt quite rushed and under pressure to meet people, Benj suggested we pause and watch the trolley show which was a great idea It makes me so happy! So happy in fact, that I cried again Bless.

Excited face

We took a quick snap for our friends Whatsapp group

After watching the show I checked my phone and had a Whatsapp from my Mum - a photo with the words ‘guess where we are’ hah! Cute! I had no idea but Benj was straightaway like ‘Mine Train!’ so we headed to Fantasyland.

He’s a clever boy - we’ve never even been on it haha! We waited outside as we assumed they were on the ride, but I turned round to take a photo of the castle and they were walking towards me haha! It was honestly so surreal to see my parents in Magic Kingdom, I loved it haha! We hugged and caught up, then we all walked round to near Pirates where my brother, his GF and the two princesses were waiting. We again hugged and caught up – it was so surreal but also amazing to see everyone! Our first FP wasn’t til 10ish and we’d planned it that way to get on as many rides early on as we could. So, when it’s your first day in WDW, what ride should you do first? Peter Pan of course! YAY! The twins were asleep so Jon and Pash sadly stayed outside, but me Benji and my parents headed into the 20 minute queue. And who should we run into! ? Absolutely mental moment, last in the queue was our best man Jason and our friends Joe, Lucy and Tom! Literally what are the chances. We all freaked out and again had a massive hugging sesh haah and chatted all the way through the queue which was lovely! The ride was obviously amaze and I just loved looking behind us and seeing Jason and Tom flying through the London sky in a boat I also loved pointing out all the cool queue bits to my Mum and seeing her reaction

After Peter Pan we split up with the guys because they had other FP booked, and we had earmarked this time for family. We headed back to find Jon and Pash and then all went for our first FP on Pirates. Apart from Alice having a mini freak out (she’s a bit high maintenance, bless her) this was awesome, and it was particularly special as it’s my Dad’s fave from back in the day so I loved going on it with him

Both twins were slightly traumatized after this as it perhaps wasn’t the best first ride for them haha, so we decided to pause for a bit and get a snack.
Benj got a dole whip

Being a life-long sweet snack hater I managed to track down one of the only savoury snack options in the park at that time, a Mickey pretzel with cheese mmmm! My Mum and Dad decided it was too close to lunch to have a snack so went without…very strange behavior that I’d like to add I do not condone. Jon and Pash had already split a pretzel with the twins earlier.

We were near Aladdin and the queue was short so we set up camp outside as a group, and me and Benj went on with my parents
Pre-ride pic

We were waving to Gracey as we zoomed through the air and she was waving back, it was ridiculously cute.
And then Jon and Pash went on with the twins, and they loved it!
We passed the time doing what we do best…

Next up was our Splash FP! My Dad doesn’t do Splash ever since he went on in the 1990s and genuinely thought it was the end. We’ve got a hilarious photo of the experience so it’s not all bad, but yeah he won’t do it again. Or really any big ride. He was very much the bag holder back in the day! So it was me, Benj, my brother and my Mum.
Splash is one of my absolute faves and it felt amazing to go on it with my family again, and just that moment when you’re peeking over the entire park in the sunshine LOVE! Unfortunately, we were in the front two rows and my Mum and brother got beyond soaked. Luckily I covered my face so my make up was okay, but my hair didn’t fare so well.

It was all good though and we were all cracking up as we came off We met back up with my Dad and headed off for our 12.20 ADR at Be Our Guest. I was really escited for this as we’d eaten there at Christmas and it was just so special, and also such a barg! Jon and Pash had the QSDP and my parents had the DDP, and me and Benj were able to get AP discount so it was win win. Jon and Pash asked me to ask the check in lady if there were baby changing facilities inside as they needed to change the girls. I also asked if we could take the buggy in and it was yes to both Qs which was good!
We headed in and placed our orders separately before going inside together. I wanted to eat in the ballroom for the wow factor and luckily there was lots of room so we grabbed a nice big table at the far end as you come in. As we all sat down, J and P headed off to change the girls and myself, Benj and my parents chatted about our morning so far.
And then, insane cuteness happened! Jon and Pash returned with one Princess Aurora and one Princess Alice! (not technically a princess I know but for the sake of this story! ) So back story – Grace’s middle name is Aurora (I know right! ) and obviously Alice is Alice. The girls are 1 year old, and could their parents find them princess dresses for these two characters? Could they hell! Apparently they are just quite niche. But they had managed to track them down, bought the dresses, and dressed the girls specially for our special family lunch. How sweet! Honestly the girls looked so cute I couldn’t even handle it. I think they got Grace’s Sleeping Beauty dress specially made, and ordered the Alice dress from America! Sh’amazing!
Spoiler alert, but later on in their trip Jon and Pash dressed the girls up again and headed to MK, where they got these quite frankly perfect photos…

Once the excitement had calmed down we were bought our food. There was a mix up with the desserts so we were bought another 4! We had like 20 cream puffs on the table, it was mental.
I got the Croque Monsieur - Grilled Sandwich of Carved Ham and Gruyere Cheese and Bechamel with Pommes Frites. Also available on Millet Bread - $13.99

Benj got the Quinoa Salad - Quinoa Salad with Green Beans, Potatoes, Olives, Roasted Bell Peppers, Golden Beets and Tomatoes - $12.99

And the puddings were Chocolate Cream Puff - Chocolate Cream Puff filled with Chocolate Mousse topped with Whipped Cream.- $4.99

The food was really good as always, and my croque was a great choice! After we’d finished eating I took Jon and Pash for a little tour of BOG just to show them the west wing etc and the snow in the windows. So so clever. On the way out we had a little photoshoot with the girls all dressed up, and then they changed back into their normal clothes because it was hot, and no one wants to wear a ball gown when it’s hot.

Ooh I forgot to say, during lunch Benj left us to and meet his family who were also in MK. We arranged to meet up later, which actually turned out to be pretty soon because we bumped into them at IASM! So we all went on together! And I got this hilarious photo

While we were finishing lunch and having a mini princess photo shoot, Benj had met up with his Dad and Step-Mum, gave them a quick tour of Main Street (It was their first ever visit to a Disney park and they’re all about the details so we knew they’d love that) and took them on Country Bears. This wasn’t his original plan but it was busy and the CB queue was non-existent haha. They loved it though! After IASM it was time for our final FP of the day for Haunted Mansion. Jon and Pash decided it might be too scary for the twins after Pirates-gate, so we baby swapped and they waited while me, my parents, Benj and his Dad and Step Mum went on. As always, our favourite ride in MK was perfect When we got out, we looked after the babies while Jon and Pash went on HM together. They came out and declared it to be a good shout as they thought the girls would have been terrified haha!
Time was getting on now, so we decided to stop and get some family castle pics as this was really important to me There’s a lot! #sorrynotsorry

I love these so much!
Poor Alice was asleep and totes missed out!

Then Jon and Pash felt really bad that Grace was the favourite twin haha so they took these!

After our little photoshoot we said bye to Jon and Pash and the girls, and my parents, as they were heading back for some nice relaxed pool time (separately). We said we’d see them the following day in Epcot, yay! It was like 3pm by now and me and Benj had also had our fill – we’d planned on saying in the MK a bit longer but we had plenty of time to do so later on, and we were both pretty knackered so we thought it was for the best. Weirdly though, as we were walking onto Main Street we saw Joe et al so we grabbed some pretty incredible photopass pics with them! Heheh, yay!

I mean. How amazing.
We said bye (so many goodbyes! ) and headed out down Main St USA. We then remembered we had errands to fun! We popped into Town Hall to buy our TiW card Yay! Exciting purchase! And then popped into the ears shop near Tony’s so Benj could buy his groom ears! Even bigger YAY! Then it was time to get the bus back to Old Key West!

 

[Libby_Darling]

We got back to the room and chilled a bit before starting to get ready for dinner. As we were doing so, opur Whatsapp group was going mad with Victoria and Ian having an absolute mare at the airport. Basically their hire car was way more than they had thought and the company was trying to massively overcharge them grrrr. They were already running super late as they’d been trying to sort it, and they eventually decided to just hop on the ME and get to the Grand Floridian, and just sort it out in the morning. We were all really worried about them and were asking if we could help or anything, but once they’d decided to sort it in the AM they were feeling happier. So, we then realised that this would mean the dress plan for that evening wasn’t gonna happen. They were going to swing by in their car and pick up the dress, so that they’d have it for Wednesday and it would be out of the box and hopefully crinkle free – I’d booked steaming but it was like $150 so reaallllyyyy wanted to cancel it if we could! So we were a bit stumped. I wanted to get it out of the box and we could have had it in the cupboard, but then we’d have to get it across to the GF on Tuesday without Benj seeing it and it was just a bit of a mare. Plus we wanted to hang it near the shower to get some steam onto it to help de crease, and obvs Benj couldn’t see it. Luckily, I texted my Mum and she said her and Dad were up for a little jaunt, so they offered to get the boat over from SSR and come and get it! This was perfect because then Ian/Ben/Jason could pick it up and take it to the GF on Tuesday along with my Mum’s overnight bag for the night before the wedding/wedding outfit. Perfect! I felt bad cause we were going for dinner haha but she said they honestly were happy to Cute!

So, new plan, all sorted! Luckily our room was mega near Olivia’s/the bit with all the shops and reception at OKW so we were able to head over for dinner minus the dress, and we’d just pop back and get it later. We were a bit early for our ADR slash we planned it that way, so we went to get a cocktail each first We just got 2 from the Gurgling Suitcase, and it was surreal cause we’d looked at it soooo many times on YouTube over the past year!

I took some beautiful photos and an awesome video of the light up ice cube for IG haha! Fave! We enjoyed our drinks outside by the water and it was honestly beautiful. Ohhhhhhh what I’d give to be back there right now. Then it was dinner time! We were excited for this dinner, it was strategically planned due to location as we knew we’d be tired, and we were haha! We checked in and had a lovely CM get really excited for us as we were wearing our badges, and I think it was noted on our rezzie that we were getting married. People literally freaked out when they asked when we were getting married and we told them it was like in 2 days, and then freaked out even more when we said it was at the Wedding Pavilion haha! It was so so lovely

We milled around in the gift shop a bit with our buzzer before being called to our table. In the gift shop I found myself in doll form hahaha! Topical outfit choice.

When we got to our table we were really touched because they’d put some gorgeous wedding balloons there! So cute!

We sat down and ordered drinks - these look like soft drinks which I find incredibly hard to believe but photos don’t lie!

General ambiance

I knew we’d get bought some awesome bread and we weren’t super starving so we decided to just get mains (brave or what! )

The bread was so good! Pineapple and coconut mmmm. They were warm, and we slathered that whipped butter on. Slathered.

I wasn’t feeling like too much so I went for the scallops, asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, and cheesy polenta.

Seven Mile Sea Scallops - with Creamy Polenta, Seasonal Vegetables, Prosciutto Crisp, and Roasted Tomato Sauce - $26.00

This was amazing! It was the perfect portion size for me too and I ate it all!

Benj got the veggie burger, no description online but I’m guessing it was similar to the normal meat one but with a veggie patty!

Olivia's Classic Burger - topped with Applewood-smoked Bacon, Cheddar, Lettuce, Tomato, and Onion served with choice of French Fries, Marinated Coleslaw, or Homemade Potato Chips - $15.99

Table portraits

We were too full for pudding, as per usual haha!

During dinner we were texting my Mum and she said they were just getting on the boat as we finished up dinner, so we nipped back to the room to get the dress box, and arrived back just as their boat was pulling in. Perfect! They were a little frazzled because the boat had gone all over the shop pretty much, so their jaunt took a lot longer than they thought eeek! It was all good though, they were happy to have come and pleased that the dress would be safely in their room, ready to be picked up. We had a quick chat and then they got back on the same boat haha! We waved goodbye to them and then headed back to our room ourselves. I think it was about 10 but we were so so tired, standard first night exhaustion! We watched TV a bit but both fell asleep before 10.30 aahhhhhh bliss! The alarm was set for 7 the next morning, Stags and Hens around Epcot and the first time we’d see all our wedding guests yay!

Wedding countdown...3 sleeps...

 

[Libby_Darling]

Day 2 - 17th October 2016

Morning in Epcot followed by Stags vs Hens, Drinking Round The World!

We had a lovely little lie-in today which was much needed after our full on day yesterday, and the fact that this day was also full on haha. It was Stags and Hens day, YAY! We had all talked about this day for sooooooo long and we were so so excited that it was finally here. So we woke up about 8, got ready, and I enjoyed a bagel with peanut butter and a coffee in bed. Delish!

Loooove the kitchen facilities at DVC resorts, and the OKW kitchen was particularly cute. We had also received a gift the previous night! We think from the lovely CM’s who checked us in! It was so cute

We had a little note from the OKW manager too wishing us well and thanking us for choosing to spend our special occasion at OKW Thanks for having us!

We headed out to Epcot about 9.30 but before we got on the bus, we headed to the Concierge desk at Hospitality House. We had our rehearsal dinner at ‘Ohana the next evening and I wanted to ask them to help us request a long table. We had 28 guests and I thought it would be nice if we all sat together but I knew it wasn’t guaranteed. We’d tried to call them multiple times from the UK but we never got through, so thought it would be easier to do it here. So we headed to the desk and spoke first of all to an absolutely lovely CM who made a massive fuss of us haha. I should add that I was wearing my vest that said ‘I can’t keep calm I’m getting married at Disney’ and my Minnie bride ears. Low key bridal. Benj didn’t have his Mickey groom ears on at this point but he did have a very cute Olaf t shirt on! Anyway, so the guy was the CM who asks what you need and tries to help, and we had a lovely chat with him about the wedding and our plans for the day He then directed us to a lovely lady who called ‘Ohana for us, but they didn’t answer. Standard! She left a message for us and said that was all she could do, so we thanked her and said that was great. If it wasn’t to be, it wasn’t to be, it would just be a bonus As we left out the doors the nice CM spotted us again and told his colleagues about us, and then he asked our name and room number, disappeared for a sec, and came back out saying he’d put free FP+ on our account! Wooooo! What a babe!

We then walked to the bus stop and it was lovely cause we got soooooo many congratulations, honestly, people were freaking out about my top haha! So nice and so many well wishes

I asked Benj for a photo at the bus stop

We arrived in Epcot about 10.30, and posed for some pics by the golf ball obvvvssss!

<3

We then headed straight to the festival centre to pick up 28 passports! We had a little wander first and explored some of this year’s merch. They had some mega cute stuff but we didn’t buy anything, something I now bitterly regret lol. We did get the free AP glasses later on in the trip though so it’s not all bad. Anyway! So we asked nicely if we could take 28 passports and it was no problem at all Passports safely tucked in Benj’s backpack, we headed over to the land to wait for all the gang.

En route I asked Benj for another photo of me in my top and ears as I had a funny feeling we might not take many later on in the day…

Firstly, I thought you’d enjoy the blooper reel ha! It was really windy and my veil was sticking to my lipgloss Nightmare.

There we go!

Then a kind passer-by offered to take a photo of the 2 of us. What a babe!

We were planning to meet my parents and Ben’s Dad, StepMum and brother outside the Land Pavilion as we had arranged a Soarin’ FP all together. Thing was, we’d forgotten that our friends had also made a FP for the same time slot so we met them outside too haha! We hung around inside the Land Pav for a bit while we Whatsapped the parental group as they were a bit late bless them, but we were all together with plenty of time left on our FP. So in we headed to the ride, as a group of 13 haha! Excessive guest count!

The queue was super fun with everyone laughing and joking and in high spirits. Ohhhh, I have so many happy memories of this morning

Hang Glider for 13 please! (is that what you’re on!?) We were mega excited to see the new Soarin’, it’s my favourite ride in Epcot and really up there with my fave Disney rides ever! We filled up one, and Ben’s Dad and Stepmum went in a twosie on the one in front. It was amazing looking down the ride and seeing all our friends and fam!

Spoiler alert – we loved the ride! I missed the familiarity of the original Soarin’ but the new movie was so smooth and well done, I was entranced! We all clapped when it finished! My Dad hated it haha, which I was pretty gutted about but he seemingly just really dislikes the majority of rides bless him.

After Soarin’ we said goodbye to Joe, Lucy, Sean, Kat, Tom and Jason, and said we’d see them at 2pm for the launch of the hen/stag festivities. We had planned a bit of family time now, with FP+ for Living with the Land altogether. We had a 20 minute wait in between so we chilled outside Soarin on a bench for a while. We had planned to all go for lunch together but I think our parents made a plan to go off somewhere together and try to get on Test Track or something, so they said they’d just meet at 2pm. So we had a little unexpected lunch together which was nice! We had planned Sunshine Seasons as we figured it’d be easier, so we spent the time in between FP wisely by looking at menus on the app. We weren’t feeling SS and I really fancied a burger haha so we decided to go to Electric Umbrella. A silly choice really given all the amazing food options in WS but we didn’t want to go into WS at that point, and plus I really wanted a Disney burger. Once our FP time arrived we all went on LWTL together. This is always a cute ride and we really enjoy it, and our parents seemed really interested in it all too which was lovely

Rides done, we bid farewell to the rents and headed off to grab some lunch before the big booze fest that would be the afternoon. We got to EU and it was quite busy as it was like peak lunch time, so I went to order and Benj went to grab a table outside. I was served by a mega cute old lady who went mad over my t shirt and was so so sweet, she gave us a free cupcake and a cookie as congratulations! Lunch = One up’ped. I was so grateful, love a dessert with lunch but obvs without DDP, ain’t nobody gonna be buying one!

Lunch was really really good and it totes hit the spot. This QS place has a boat load of veggie options!

I got the 1/3 lb Angus Bacon Cheeseburger - with choice of Grapes or French Fries - $12.29

I got fries cause I’m not a maniac.

Benj got the Veggie Naan Wich - Broccoli Slaw, Edamame, and Tofu Wasabi Dressing with choice of Grapes or French Fries - $10.49

How exciting! What an exotic choice!

He really enjoyed it! This was the rest of our tray avec free stuff

After our lovely little lunch it was getting on for 1.30, and we needed to top up our gift cards with $100 each which we were aiming to stick to that day. Unforch, we found out that you can’t top up a F&W giftcard with a Magicband, and we didn’t have our FairFX card cause we’d just been using our Magicbands for everything. So that plan was pretty scuppered. It didn’t matter though, it was just a bit tense as obviously the potential for spending $1k each on alcoholic slushies that day was not beyond the realm of possibility.

So after Giftcard Gate, we headed to the planned meeting spot, and as we walked towards the WS we saw Ian sat on a bench filming! Exciting! We had a big hug and catch up sesh and I was like, where’s Vic! ? Well, she’d had an absolute mare! After their nightmare evening re: cars, their morning hadn’t been much of an improvement! The details are all in her vlog (Disney in Detail on YouTube!) and basically once they’d sorted the car and finally got to the park, she realized she’d forgotten all the downright amazing SASHES she’d bought us girlies for our hen afternoon! Bless! So sweet that she’d done that! So yes, she had to power walk all the way to the monorail, monorail to the GF, back to the room, and come back. So she’d be with us later but it was all good, I just felt so bad for her cause it was such a faff!

So, minus Victoria we headed over to our planned meeting spot. If you read my wedding planning journal/pre-trippie (I mean if you didn’t why not!?) you’ll have seen the adorbs newsletters we made for wedding guests that informed them of our plans. We said we’d meet at 2pm at the International Gateway, and specifically outside the Festival Emporium. We’d given everyone the number on the F&W map too so we were hoping everyone would find us okay. So me, Benj and Ian stood there and realized it was mega hot haha so we tried to duck into a bit of shade but obviously we didn’t want people not to see us! Luckily everyone started arriving then and we became a much bigger crowd, no chance of missing us! This was a very special moment as it was the first time we were seeing all our wedding guests together. Simply amazing. We greeted everyone as they arrived and handed out passports. Everyone was there by 2pm and in high spirits! With that, it was time to bid goodbye to the boys – the girls needed a drink hahah! I hugged and kissed Benj and said I’d see him at 5pm for the Tiffany show (Spoiler alert – the Eat to the Beat concert got changed last min from Styxx (? ) to TIFFANY which we were all so happy about hah! I mean I only knew one song obvs but it was better than the zero songs I knew for Styxx! )

Before we go on I will introduce you to all the girls, and this photo is a wonderful way to do it! (I’ll explain the story behind the photo when we get to it! )

So we have, from left to right:

Ben’s Mum Chris
My friend Lucy (GF of Joe)
My friend Kat (GF of Sean)
Ben’s StepMum Caroline
Victoria Maid of Honour
Louise (Friend from school, oldest friend! <3)
Me!
Jackie (Ben’s Godmother)
Charlotte (Gf of Liam, Ben’s step-brother)
Pash (my brother’s GF, mother of Grace and Alice)
My Mummy!
And Lottie joined us later on who you know from on here!

So, we had drawn slightly the short straw (IMO) because Benj wanted to start in Canada and go that way round because he wanted to watch QuickStep in the UK. This had been decided ages ago and I didn’t really mind, I’ve just never gone round that way before and it felt weird haha! So, we were off to Mexico first which I think you’ll all agree was a fantastic result! So we headed off that way all chatting and excited, it was lovely because they all knew each other from the hen do We got into Mexico and it looked really busy up at the main building so we thought we’d go to one of the booths. The first one had quite a limited selection, so we pushed on as I thought there was a margarita stand a bit further down. Well, there wasn’t. Haha! I think they like just removed it before we arrived! So that was annoying. It was ridiculously hot and there is zero shade in Mexico, and with so many people in our group it was quite stressful trying to decide what to do and communicate the plan to everyone! We decided to head into the building for a bit of cool air and see what the queue for La cava Del Tequila was like, so we went up the steps and it was rammed! Queueing out the door eeeekk! We staggered back down the steps and went back to the original F&W booth, having made a unanimous decision that we just needed SOME alcohol and the pineapple margarita they did there would have to do, even though it wasn’t like freshly made or anything and they only had the one flavour!

So we got in the queue, and then the first issue was that my sister-in-law Pash had forgotten her passport and they wouldn’t serve her! Ohhhhhh dear. It was weird though because she’d been served earlier in the day in France, but Mexico were absolute sticklers So we were going to just order something on her behalf going onwards and we thought it’d be okay, but then the 2nd snag hit! They’d run out of pineapple margarita! I was really really annoyed at this point because I’d already ordered and paid for a pineapple margarita, and then got round the corner and the girl told me they’d run out! Why did you let me pay for one then!? I was pretty angry to be fair because I just needed a drink and I was starting to think the afternoon wasn’t going to go well at all! It seems silly now but it was really hot hahahha! So after my mini freak out, I called to the other girls in the queue and they said they’d get sangria instead (even though none of us like it haha) and I said I would too. THEN the girl in the booth, possibly sensing my impending breakdown, said that the pineapple marg mix was en route and if we waited a few minutes we could have them! Ahhhh, okay! Yes, that would work! So we hung out awkwardly next to the queue while the rest of the guys ordered, and then thankfully, a little guy rocked up wheeling a vat of marg! Angel sent from above! We all whooped and cheered, waited patiently for our little cups of margarita, and then stood and cheers’d. Ahhhhh. The marg was actually really good and I immediately felt calmer, as one does when the soothing burn of alcohol hits one’s throat.

As we were all enjoying our margs, Victoria arrived! YAy! Bless her, she was all hot and bothered and repeatedly apologising for being late which was very silly because I was so so so over the moon that she was there, and had gone to so much trouble to get sashes! In these sorts of stressful situations I always find a swift drink can do wonders, so after saying hi to everyone the rest of the gang went to get some coldness in the pyramid thingy, and I took her to get another drink. And as I’d already finished my first drink, I got another….

...and this, ladies and gentlemen, is pretty much the exact moment that my memories of the day stop becoming crystal clear, and start becoming very, very hazy. 2 margaritas in quick succession will do that to you. Plus, of course, the many, many other drinks I had over the course of the day. I had the most fantastic time though so please don’t worry, but this part of the trippie isn’t going to be very detailed because I honestly can’t remember!

 

[Libby_Darling]

I’ll take you through some of the highlights that I do remember though (slash have photos to remind me). So, after Victoria and myself got drinks, we headed back into the pyramid to meet up with the rest of the ladies, and it was here that we had these lovely photos taken by a PP lady I was feeling much more chilled now, and so ready for the afternoon’s fun!

What lovely photos

So after Mexico we headed to (*consults map*) Norway! Now I don’t have any photos or memories of here but I’m guessing we a. drank and b. got more drinks. Next was China and I do know a bit of what happened here as Victoria’s video very helpfully documented it! We got a lot of Kung Foo Punches here I’m going to link her video below so please watch for a much more in depth overview of the day! So so amazing that she did this as it means we can relive it all yay!

Germany was next (although obviously I imagine we stopped at various booths along the way - I should note that I didn’t eat a single morsel that afternoon or evening, which explains why I felt the way I did the next morning! Gutted to have missed out on vital F&W snacking opportunities! ) I do remember stuff from Germany! We watched the band play for a while that consists of the pretty blonde lady and the two guys, and it’s all very catchy and sing-a-longy so we did that for a while!

I think we also took this

Next up was Italy and we had to stall a bit here as we were actually early for our meet up with the boys! We’d planned to meet up for the 5.30pm show and it was only like 4.30, so we chilled in Italy a while We took this photo

And we grabbed a nice table and got a round of what I think were mimosas mmmm you can see them in Vic’s video! It was also here (I think…) that the lovely Lottie met us! In fact Victoria managed to catch our emotional reunion haha which is awesome! It was so so good to see her I introduced her to the rest of the gals and she was straight in there getting drinks and chatting which was fab cause she didn’t know anyone bless her! And Rich had gone to meet up with the boys and he only knew Ben! And not even that well haha! They went to so much effort to meet with us and it was so lovely So we hung out in Italy a fair bit enjoying our drinks, some of the girls got slices of pizza and for reasons unknown to me at this time, I did not.

But apparently I got prosecco!

Then it was time to meet the boys! We headed over to America and met up with all the boys who were already there. This was so much fun <3 everyone was super merry and it was lovely to see Benj and hear all about what they’d been up to We all got hard orange soda from a little booth, and we hung around in a big group chatting and drinking and it was amazing.

This is a little taste of what the boys had been up to

I know there were some big group photos taken from this time but I don’t seem to have them I’ll try and track one down and add it in! It was actually really funny cause I was getting some wine with Lottie from a booth in the America pav, and when we strolled back everyone yelled at us because they hadn’t realised we weren’t in the photo lol! Only the flippin bride haha! So we schooched in front and had a nice photo

I do have this lovely one

And a nice one of me and Charlotte <3

And then at some point, Tiffany came on yay! And then at the end, she played I think We’re Alone Now, yay! We flippin loved it. Our group went a bit Brits Abroad at this point, with lots of singing and shouting and boogie-ing around.

For a little insight into the general vibe of the day, here’s a short clip of me dancing with my Dad

Dem moves tho

Haha!

After Tiffany and probably an hour or so in America, we said our goodbyes to the boys and arranged to meet up again to watch Illuminations. I have no idea where or when, I just went with the flow haha!

I think this is in France?

I do have photographic evidence that we spent a large proportion of the evening hangin out in Morocco, as shown by these cute ones:

AND THEN possibly the highlight of the day came when we were in Morocco and my friend Lucy was like ‘LET’S MEET ALADDIN AND JASMINE’ so obviously we all trooped over to their meeting spot and got in the queue. And then, by some stroke of luck, the CM’s manning the queue closed the line just behind us, so we were the last people to meet them! They closed the doors behind us too and we just had this amazing, full on character meet with them. They were absolutely amazing and we had such a giggle Love these photos!

The rest of the evening followed in a similar vein, as you’ll see in Vic’s video at one point I picked up a litter picker (?) and wandered around grabbing things for a bit, and then we eventually met up with the boys in Mexico to watch the fireworks together Sorry I don’t have any photos, as I was focusing on watching them After Illuminations we sort of lost everyone as we’d all spread out a bit to watch so that was a bummer, but it wasn’t the end of the world. We said bye to the few people we did see and then somehow it was just me and Benj! So it was an anti-climatic end to the day haha! It was all good though, we were tired and absolutely starving (neither of us ate a single thing haha oops) and we just wanted to get back to the resort and get some foooooood.

So we hopped on a bus back to OKW and got back just after 11. As I said, we were both super hungry so we tried to figure out what we could eat. We didn’t think it was that late, but FYI, OKW pretty much shuts down after 11! The quick service place was closed, Ben called the pizza delivery line and it said it would be a 75 minute wait (!) and we were so hungry and so tired! In the end we strolled to the shop and just grabbed a microwave lasagna and a mac n cheese hahaha! Benj got into bed and I microwaved our meals, I did his first and he ate it and fell asleep bless him! I finished heating mine up, hopped into bed and read some trippies on the Dibb while I ‘enjoyed’ my lasagna. It wasn’t great, but then at least our late night snacks only cost us like 3 dollars. It’s funny because the rest of the trip I swear we had loads of food in our rooms, but we were never hungry enough to eat any of it! Anyway. I set the alarm for earlier than I would have liked, and fell into a very very very enjoyable and much-needed slumber

So that was our stags and hens day! It was honestly one of the funnest, most enjoyable days of my life. I can’t believe it was 2 months ago today! I hope you enjoyed reading about it!

Here is Victoria’s hilarious vlog of the day which I highly recommend you watch!

Disney in Detail

Coming up in the next installment...it’s wedding rehearsal time!

 

[Libby_Darling]

Day 3 - Tuesday 18th October - Wedding Rehearsal Day!

We were up early today ready for a busy day of wedding prep followed by an evening of fun! Our long-awaited rehearsal dinner with all our wedding guests

I ate a cheese bagel in bed before getting ready

Vic and Ian were picking us up bless them, they were so amazingly helpful this day! They had a car(not just any car, a Mustang! ) and were shipping us and all our bits and bobs around various nail salons, grocery stores and resorts today as we didn’t have one. They were running a bit late which was fine by me as I was too haha, so I took some photos of our room as we were moving out that morning in preparation for checking into the….

*drumroll*

GRAND FLORIDIAN! As I think we all know, an absolute dream come true for us, and again something that was made possible once again by our wonderful best friends

So here are some pics of our (first) OKW room!

Such a beautiful, spacious room - we loved it so much!

I then took a quick selfie as you do in 2016

And then we gathered up all our suitcases and made the slow journey down the steps to wait in the car park for Vic and Ian, who pulled up shortly after. It was a bit tense trying to fit all our suitcases in the teeny car haha but we managed it in the end Me and Benj sat in the back and then it was quite funny cause the guys had the roof down obvs, but it was mega stressful for me cause there was soooooo much wind in the back once we were on the highway and my hair was going everywhere! And we couldn’t pull over anywhere! I was crouched down in the back holding my hair in a bun next to my face so it wouldn’t go anywhere haha! Eventually Ian was able to pull over and put the roof up, phew! My poor hair! Luckily I was washing it that night so it was all good in the hood.

In no time at all we were at our destination, Image Nails, and said goodbye to the boys. They had a busy morning of going to Publix to get breakfast food for the morning of the wedding, and also to pick up my wedding dress and Mum’s wedding outfit from SSR and take it to Vic and Ian’s room at the GF.

So Image Nails. This was a nail salon a few brides on the FB groups/forums I was in had recommended and I’d called up and booked us an appointment the week before. We were running a bit late though and that didn’t seem to go down well even though we were really apologetic and it was empty, so we were told to sit and wait in the reception bit which was fine. We chatted while we waited and discussed what we were going to have done. I had planned to have false nails done, while Vic was gonna get a pedicure as she already had her nails done before she flew. I then decided to stop being a cheapskate and treat myself to a pedicure too as it was the day before my wedding day So we eventually got called over and we both went and sat in these big super comfy leather chairs which was so nice! We put our feet in a warm tub of water and just relaxed, and then a lady came over and TURNED THE CHAIRS ON. Oh my goodness. It was life-changing. They were massage chairs! They pummeled, tickled and massaged our backs and ohhhhh it was just so so good. I honestly would have been happy paying for just the usage of the chair! But then two lovely ladies came over and started doing all sorts of things to our feet which was very exciting but also slightly painful at times haha!

We got to choose the colours we wanted so wearing our paper flipflops, we padded over to the massive shelf unit of nail varnish to pick - we were in heaven! We both went for a super bright hot pink The pedicures were really lovely and so enjoyable, I was chuffed to bits. Vic had upgraded hers to a deluxe so she got hot wraps etc and I was called over to the nail bar once my toes were dry. This is where the day went momentarily downhill…

The lady was very nice, bit of a language barrier again but I showed her photos on my phone of what I would like and all seemed to be going well. I basically wanted french nails but ombre style, so less rigid than normal french nails and with a lovely fade between the pink and white. These are the photos I showed:

I sat happily watching, and then after a while I started to get a bit nervous as they weren’t looking like my photos but I figured she was going to fade the colours after. Obviously I’m not a nail technician so I wasn’t sure, but eventually I said something about the fade and showed my picture again. Hmmmm. It was like the light was on, but no-one was home. I could tell she’d messed up and done the wrong thing, and she look in a panicked way towards the manager (who’d been a bit shirty with us when we arrived late, awkward) and they had a heated discussion while I sat there getting angrier. These were my wedding nails, so quite important! I wasn’t at all happy with what she’d done, I didn’t want the french tips look I wanted the fade/ombre effect, and surely with all those photos she’d have grasped it? Victoria came over at this point and I told her what had happened and she went into awesome maid of honour mode, asking the lady what she was going to do and what could be done to make them look more like what I’d asked for. To be honest the lady was mega unhelpful and just sort of stared blankly at us. I said to the manager how long would it take to have them done again and she said some things we couldn’t understand, but we really didn’t have time to sit through that all again as we had such a busy day. Hmmmm. Quite the predicament. Me and Vic then decided that maybe by adding a pale pink over the nail it would make the line less harsh and more faded. Again the nail technician just stared at us so Vic walked over to the shelf, grabbed a pale pink colour and handed it to the woman haha! She put it on a nail and it wasn’t a huge improvement but we felt it did make the nails look more like what I wanted. We didn’t really have a choice! So she painted them all and I thanked her begrudgingly and made my way over to the till to pay. And then, the cheeky manager tried to charge us so much! She tried to charge me more for the initial nails than it was supposed to be, and then she added an extra $20 for painting the pink! We were like hahahhaha I don’t think so! I said that was your mistake, I won’t be paying any more than what it cost! In the end I got money taken off the manicure I think but it was still like $70 for the manicure and pedicure. Oof. We said bye sternly and got the hell outta there - unfortunately I wouldn’t recommend this salon. I was feeling really stressed as my nails were quite important to me for photos etc on the big day and the way they’d handled the situation was awful. It got worse though guys as I’ll go over in a bit!

So after the nail fiasco, we had been whatsapping the boys and they’d got stuck in loads of traffic and were basically running pretty late. Not ideal, but not a lot we could do really. We decided to go and get some lunch from 5 Guys across the road because we were both starving and hadn’t eaten yet, and after Nail-Gate we felt fried food would be the best option. I was actually mega excited because I wasn’t expecting to get to visit a Five Guys this trip so it was an added bonus hehe! We both got milkshakes, burgers and fries, and sat outside in the lovely sunshine to enjoy our food and regroup.

The food was delicious! Naughty bride eating this the day before the wedding haha! While we ate we were Whatsapping the boys and it became clear that they wouldn’t be able to come and pick us up for a while so we decided to Uber back as we really needed to check into the GF and start getting ready for the wedding rehearsal. We were both feeling quite stressed at this point as the day was going mega fast and we still had so much to do! Eekkk! It was at this point that I noticed Victoria’s pedicure was like, way better than mine. She’d only done one coat on mine and it was almost see through because of it! I was like nope, not having this. Victoria grabbed us an Uber and while we waited I marched back into the nail salon and asked to have another coat put on my toenails. The manager looked highly annoyed which I found highly rude, she stalked across the floor and sat me down in a chair, painted my nails and then said “You can go now.” hahah! Jeez. I walked outside and hopped into the Uber, and me and Vic promised ourselves we wouldn’t give that bad experience another thought And then, it was Grand Floridian time!

We pulled up outside the main building so walked over to the DVC building as they have a separate check in desk there. And oh my goodness, it really was a dream come true. We checked in and mine and Ben’s room wasn’t ready which we expected, but we headed on up to Victoria and Ian’s room to chill (us girls would be sleeping in mine and Ben’s room the night before the wedding, and Ben, Ian and his Best Man were sleeping in Vic and Ians. Confusing huh! Hahah) Once we got up to Vic and Ian’s room I got a call from Benj saying he had arrived and where were we, so we told him the room number and he came up. I was slightly alarmed as Ian and Jason weren’t with him - and my suitcase was in the Mustang with my outfit for the evening and all my make up! Eek! We called Ian and said could he get a wiggle on and come to the GF haha - I think he was dropping Jason off or something and everything was just taking way longer than they’d anticipated! Thankfully, I checked my email on the off chance the room would be ready and it was! Even better, it was the room right across the hallway! I then got really excited because we had really hoped for a view of the WP and while it wasn’t a proper view, if you peeked out over the balcony to the left you could see it! Eeeee! That was so exciting!

We were chuffed because Vic had requested nearby rooms (but not next door) to make things easier on the morning of the wedding, and this was even better because there was no chance we’d see each other on the balconies

I was trying not to have a meltdown over the suitcase but it was like 2.45 and we needed to leave about 3.30 to get over to the wedding rehearsal which was at 4, and I wanted to wear false eyelashes and do my hair all nice which takes time, plus me and Benj needed to sort out all the stuff between the 2 rooms, and organise all our wedding gifts. Eek. We did the wedding gifts first as we had them all, and I calmed down a bit seeing how adorable all our gifts looked in their little bags

Cute! #throwback pic

Luckily, Ian then arrived with the suitcase so I nipped into their room and thanked him. The getting ready could commence! I got ready in record time and we were ready to go just about on time which was good. Our friend Joe came up to the room and us 3, Vic, Ian and Jason all walked over to the Convention Center together. We had with us all our gifts for the rehearsal dinner, and our suitcase and bag for Lisa with all our wedding bits in.

When we got to the CC, look what we found!

And then this!

We were all freaking out hahaha - I couldn’t believe this was actually happening! We were getting married TOMORROW! We found our room and almost everyone was already there! Yay! I love our awesome wedding party! The only people missing were Ben’s Dad and stepmum bless them, they called us and the DIsney bus they were on crashed! Eekkk! So scary! They were fine but just waiting for another bus.

We went round and said hi to everyone, and then Lisa arrived at 4pm. We hugged her and it was so lovely to see her! I felt instantly quite calm We went through our two cases of stuff and she seemed very impressed with how organised it all was! It was all labelled and we had like 6 different CDs all with our ceremony music on just in case something happened to one haha! So that was really great and it felt amazing to offload that stuff to Lisa and know that she would look after it and sort it all out on the wedding day.

After that, it was rehearsal time! This was very complex and in-depth and I really enjoyed it! But it made it all feel SO real and me and Ben both said we started to feel really nervous at this point eek! Ben’s Dad Tim and his family arrived at this point We went through the whole ceremony from start to finish - we didn’t have our officiant Rev Tim there as we’d met with him during our Christmas planning trip and he said it wasn’t necessary so we just had Lisa go through the steps we needed to do. It was so complex though! Lots of special moves me, Ben and my Dad had to do, lots of specific steps etc! There was a lot to remember and I was really worried I wouldn’t the next day but then I kinda thought I was the bride so people would cover for me and it didn’t really matter haha! I don’t have any photos but Ian videod a lot for Vic’s blog which I’ll link at the end, so here are some screencaps!

One of the things i loved was I felt this is when it all started to become clear to our families why we’d chosen Disney, and I think it sort of started to sink in how incredible the following day would been. Obviously we’d had the day at MK and then the stags and hens at Epcot, but this was an actual wedding-related event and it was just so slick. Lisa was incredible, she is so so knowledgeable about ceremonies and it really shines through in everything she does. Anyway. I just remember looking around and everyone was hanging on her every word and just totally captivated - they all took it really seriously too, bless them! I think they all wanted to make sure they didn’t do anything wrong during the ceremony.

After we’d finished rehearsing Lisa went through some top tips and guidance for our guests ahead of the next day, and then we said goodbye to her. The next time we’d see her would be at the Pav! ARGGHHH! We then regrouped with our families and me and my parents said bye to everyone else for a bit - we were walking to our dinner reservation at ‘Ohana at 6pm via the Wedding Pavilion, and Ben was taking everyone else plus our wedding gifts via the monorail I’d asked Mum and Dad if they wanted to do this a few weeks before. I thought it might be a nice quiet moment before all the craziness of the night started, and they hadn’t seen the Pav up until this point. Plus it’s a lovely walk from the Convention Centre to the Poly

We said bye to everyone and I led them down to the water. It was such a beautiful evening and I was so so so happy and excited We walked past Francks and then there it was, in all it’s glory. They both absolutely loved it and took loads of photos, obviously they’d seen lots but seeing it in person is a whole different ball game! We took a few photos by the water too but we didn’t go too close as it looked like a wedding was gearing up. This was truly a special moment and I’m so glad we took the time to do it.

And then, onwards to the Poly! My parents again were pretty wowed by this gorgeous resort, although I could tell they weren’t as enamoured with it as they were the GF, espesh when I told them it’s the same price haha! We popped to the loos when we arrived and as me and my Dad were waiting for my Mum, we were looking in the display cabinets at all the old posters and stuff. This mega cute old man started chatting to us and told us about a lady who had worked there since opening and still worked there! I was loving this unexpected source of Disney history information!

Once we were all set, we headed upstairs to the 2nd level and bumped into all the guys coming off the monorail! Perfect timing haha! We greeted everyone and then went over to the bar as we were early for our reservation and I knew we wouldn’t check in until everyone was there. There was about 20 of us by this point and as we got to the bar and started to order drinks, gradually everyone else met us until all 28 of us (plus two princesses!) were there. Most people ordered a Lapu Lapu because we’d talked them up a lot haha and our guests were mega excited for them! I mean they’re pricey, but you can’t beat the novelty of drinking out of a pineapple. Just incredible!

Over the next 20 mins or so our group kinda took over the bar area! The vibe was so good though and everyone was just super chilled and loving life, including us

It was such a nice atmosphere. We did our best to go round and say hi to everyone as they arrived, and then we sat chilling with some of our friends as we enjoyed our drinks.

Ben told me that there had been some shenanigans on the monorail while I’d been with my parents! Basically the monorail driver had seen all our group’s badges as they got on, and then he’d hunted Ben down once the monorail was moving hha! He congratulated him and asked him what they were up to, and then he recorded a really funny greeting for me via Vic’s camera, which can be seen on the vlog I will link to! Benj also said that his step-dad Martin absolutely lost his shizz when the monorail pulled into the Contemporary which I thought was mega cute
At 5.55 everyone was with us apart from like 2 people I think who were nearly with us, so me and Benj went to check in and tell a teeny white lie that all our party was there. We had a pleasant CM who gave us a buzzer and said our server would be with us shortly. I was so nervous about whether or not we’d get the long table! I wanted it sooooo bad! We went back to the bar and finished up our drinks with everyone else, and then at 6.15 our buzzer went off! We kind of shouted to the group that it was game on, and we all made our way into the restaurant where our server greeted us, and led us to…

THE LONG TABLE! Woooooo! I was so happy! Me and benj sat in the middle opposite each other <3 and our friends and families grab chairs around us. They had 2 high chairs ready for the twins which was awesome, and after an initial panic that there wasn’t enough chairs, we realized everyone needed to scooch up one. After this, my Dad was able to actually sit next to my Mum haha and everyone looked a lot calmer and happier. Phew!

 

[Libby_Darling]

We got bought the amazing coconut bread first of all and I requested butter haha, gotta be done! Our awesome server team then started going round the table taking drink orders. I ordered another fun sounding cocktail

We were all chatting and loving life and our drinks were bought round

Backscratcherrrrrrr!

Bride/maid of honour selfie!

And then the starters came out! Yay! I’m sure you’ve all seen the amazing ‘Ohana food before but it needs to be shared again! I remembered to take food photos haha!

Bread and salad

All the good stuff! The potstickers are my fave and I ate sooooo many!

We had so much sauce hah! We were like keeeeepppp it coming!

The meat arrives!

My plate!

We had 4 vegetarian guests with us and they were really well catered for too which was so good to see They got this awesome tofu noodle veggie surprise!

I think they got the hummus and crackers too but I don’t have a photo!

It was honestly quite moving to look around the table and see all our friends and family laughing and joking together over this delicious food – we’d all bonded so much after the previous day’s shenanigans! The food seemed to be going down amazingly well too which I was so pleased to see.

As we were nearly finished eating, the gorgeous Hawaiian singing lady was doing her thang in the restaurant, and she came over to me and Benj hehe! She chatted to us for a little bit and then she said some really nice words about love and marriage, and then the whole restaurant clapped It was honesty amazing.

Once we’d finished eating and the dishes were cleared away, I motioned to Benj that it was time to give out our gifts. We were so excited to give these out as we’d given a lot of thought to putting together presents that represented how thankful and grateful we were to all those involved in the wedding, and that would be something they loved. We’d discussed how we were going to introduce them and I said I’d stand up and say a few words - I quite wanted to as I wouldn’t be on the actual wedding day and I wanted to thank everyone.

So I stood up in my chair and started saying how thankful we were to everyone and then I started crying as I always do hahaha, so I couldn’t really get the words out but hopefully everyone got the gist. We then started handing out our gifts Here are some photos of reactions that my friend Kat took bless her after I asked her to capture the moment!

Our friend Joe opening his personalised hipflask (he was doing a reading during the ceremony)

Best Man Jason

Mother of the Groom’s bracelet!

Various!

Love this!

Hug with MoG!

Love these of my Mum - she was reading the little note we made explaining that we’d booked her and my Dad onto the Keys to the Kingdom tour she totes cried which made me cry

Father of the Groom hugs!

Cute.

Parental selfie!

After this emotional rollercoaster things got even more awesome with the lovely hawaiian lady who came back to our table and got us up to dance to a traditional Hawaiian wedding song! Which was so so so cute! I was on cloud 9

After this we were all crazy full but we managed to force down some of the bananas foster bread pudding which was, as always, life-changing. Mmm. So good! It was about 8pm by this point so we’d been in there a good two hours! We asked for the cheque and Disney were so so good about splitting it as we were all paying in different ways - some had cash and some had DDP. Ben’s step-dad paid for our dinner using their credits which was really lovely of them So we just had to pay for our (expensive!) drinks

And with that, the rehearsal dinner was over! And I was hit by the sudden realisation that I was getitng married tomorrow! EEEkkkkk! Me, Mum and Victoria wanted to get back to the room as I needed to wash and dry my hair ready for the morning, and we didn’t want to be up super late. So we said our goodbyes to everyone and said we’d see them at the WEDDING PAVILION (OH EM GEE) and then me and Benj stole a few minutes away from everyone else to say goodbye. I felt really sad about saying bye to him haha as I hate being away from him and all of a sudden the night felt like a really long time, but I knew it would be fine We were both saying how we just couldn’t believe this was really happening, after all this time. We both said we were starting to a feel a bit nervous now that there was nothing in between now and the wedding. We had one final kiss, and then I said a final goodbye to everyone and me, Mum and Victoria headed out of ‘Ohana and over to the monorail.

Our guests were all making their own ways back to their hotels/villas - Benj, Ian and Jason were planning to go and get a drink somewhere but not have an late night. Benj said they hung around for a bit and then our guests started to drift off, so they invited the remainders to come and have a drink with them at Trader Sams. So they had a nightcap with about 8 others, Ben had a Zombie Head. After that, they said goodbye to the other guys and the 3 of them got the monorail back to the GF, where they drank Mango-ritas and watched Wishes from their balcony (dream night! )

Back to us! So me, Mum and Vic monorail’ed over to the GF and I was so excited to be able to point out all the different areas of this beautiful resort. We paused for a photo in the gorgeous lobby:

And then walked over to the DVC building and up to our room. It was about 9pm now and I was conscious of time so I hopped in the shower and washed my hair, then blowdryed it completely so it would be nice in the morning Vic and Mum got ready for bed too, and then we put the sofa bed up that Mum would be sleeping on.

And then Victoria, angel, king amongst men, most amazing Maid of Honour ever, whipped out Father of the Bride! I had said I wanted to totally copy her and watch it the night before my wedding as we had done the night before hers, and in all her awesomeness, she bought it on region 2 DVD so that we could watch it in our hotel room! Cause I hadn’t even thought of that haha! So we put it on and watched it and chatted and it was all really calm and relaxed, exactly how I had pictured it.

I don’t even think we cracked open our bubbles as it was late and we wanted to be refreshed and ready for the next morning And not hungover, ha! We only made it about half an hour into the movie before we were all falling asleep! So about 11 we turned off the DVD and set alarms for 6.30 the next morning eeeeekkk! I was so so excited I could barely contain myself! But i was also sleepy and so sleep came immediately and I drifted off to the land of nod for the last time as a Miss, ready for the biggest day of my life in the morning….

 

[Libby_Darling]

Day 4 - Wednesday 19th October 2016

The Wedding Day (Part 1)

At 6.40am on Wednesday 19th October 2016, I was woken by the sound of my alarm playing softly in the darkness of our beautiful room. The day was finally here - the day we’d been planning for 2 years, thinking about for 3 years, and dreaming of for 12...it was wedding day time!

I actually felt really calm and excited, I wasn’t nervous at all. I did start to get real bad butterflies a bit later on though, but at this early stage I was just eager to get going! Hair and make-up was coming at 8.30 so we had a couple of hours to chill and get organised. The 3 of us lay awake chatting in the dark for a bit before we started getting up and using the bathroom etc. Victoria then sat up in bed and opened her birthday prezzies as it was her birthday if you remember! We said Happy Birthday and hugged etc and that was really nice My Mum made us all a coffee in the cute little machine, and we sat drinking it as the sun rose outside. I then started to think properly about getting ready as I had an important task to accomplish before Beaute Speciale came – my brows! I like to pencil in my own brows and me and Victoria (who was doing my face makeup, I was doing my eye makeup. I love that we separated the 2 - that’s make-up fans for you! ) decided I should do them first and get them right, and she’d work around them. Sometimes my brows can go wrong so it was definitely best that I wasn’t rushing to do them at the end. Trust me, bad things happen when I have to rush doing my eyebrows. So I nipped into the bathroom to shower and then do my brows where the best light was, and while I was in there my Mum and Victoria tidied our room up and only kept out the essential stuff we needed to get ready.

My brows actually went really well which was like a miracle from the eyebrow gods, and after double checking with Vic that they were even and the same on both sides, I was feeling pretty chuffed. Eyebrows – tick!

At 8.35, there was a knock at the door and Cindy from Beaute Speciale was there. She was so so lovely, and super apologetic because she was 5 mins late but we honestly hadn’t even noticed. I was a bit surprised as I’d had Bianca for my trial and was told it’d likely be the same, but I actually didn’t love my trial so I wasn’t too fussed. We decided to have Victoria get her hair and make-up done first, so she sat in the chair and Cindy got all her gadgets and gizmos out on the table. I sat and chilled on the bed and remember thinking I was so relaxed and that we had loads of time! Hahah, ohhhh if only I’d known. Me and my Mum sorted some breakfast as I was famished – she went across to the boys room to grab our half of the brekkie supplies.

I even took a photo! How’s that for a focused bride mind haha!

We had ham and cheese croissants warmed up in the microwave, and fruit on the side. So delish! I actually had 2 croissants cause I’m badass. I then started writing Ben’s card which we were exchanging before the wedding, but I had to stop as Vic’s hair was finished and it was my turn. Victoria’s hair looked amazing, super big and volumised (photos coming up!) We loved it!

I showed Cindy photos of my trial and what I wanted, and then she set to work curling it all. I basically asked for big, half up half down, with a swoopy fringe. And obviously it was clear in my trial what I’d had as I had lots of photos. My Mum put Father of the Bride on then, and Victoria started putting Mum’s hair up and doing her make-up. Time was getting on by this point but I didn’t really realise how long my hair was taking. Cindy then showed me my hair in the mirror and I wasn’t happy with it It wasn’t big enough so I asked for more volume, I think she’d realized she was a bit behind so I felt this was a bit of a big ask – but I wasn’t loving it at all! So she backcombed it a bit more and then I guided her how to clip my side kind of swoopy bit into place – basically with my headband on it wouldn’t go the way I’d had it at the trial as I didn’t have my headband then, so that was a bit tense. I then realized it was 10.45 and we were supposed to be ready for 11.30! Like not ready to go, but all done and dusted with hair and make-up, ready for photog/videog to come at 12.15 and 12.30. Wowzer, did that morning fly by or what! It felt like 2mins ago it was 9am and I was relaxing on the bed without a care in the world! That time definitely wasn’t going to happen and I felt a bit annoyed because I had really wanted that chilled half hour just to regroup and relax before it all went crazy, and I def wasn’t going to have that. Darn it

I wasn’t overly happy with my hair still but I felt super rushed and Victoria still had to get her make-up done, so I called it quits and went into the bathroom with my eye-makeup stuff to get that all sorted. You know when you just know time is getting on and even though you’re not 100% happy you feel quite pressured to just be okay with it? Once I had my eye-makeup on and I’d applied my false lashes I was feeling calmer as that was another big job, and just like with the brows if the false lashes go wrong it can have many, many repercussions! Having to take off all my eye-makeup and start again worst case scenario as when you remove the lash it makes the real lashes all spidery...urgh, just a mare! Luckily they went well and I didn’t have to reapply or anything.

We then put my veil on! (these photos are from after Ashley Jane arrived but I don’t have any normal ones so gonna tease you with some profesh ones!)

It was 11.15 by this point and I was really trying to remain calm but I just felt things weren’t going as well as they should have been. Victoria could tell I was silently freaking out so she asked Cindy to hold off on her make-up for a sec, she would do mine, and then Cindy would finish off hers at the end. This definitely seemed like the best plan so that I could be all ready for the media teams to arrive. So Victoria got to work on my face after I’d moisturized, and my Mum made the wise move of cracking open a bottle of pink fizz and handing me a glass. This had an instantaneous calming effect haha.

Victoria finished my face, we added a boatload of highlighter and then enough make-up setting spray to set my face possibly until the end of time. I was done!

I got out of the way whilst Cindy finished off Victoria’s make-up, and went to stare in the mirror for a bit to just double check everything looked okay. I was feeling really anxious about my hair as I didn’t think it looked very good and I wanted to curl a few more bits myself with my straighteners. In the end I decided it couldn’t really do any harm, so I cracked out the old GHD’s and curled a few bits the way I like them. I sound like super high maintenance reading this back haha, I hope you all understand that I just wanted to look perfect! As someone who’s never had anyone else do their hair and make-up, it was just a struggle for me to accept how I looked as I felt I looked really different. Mum and Victoria both said my hair was perfect though and I knew they’d tell me, so I tried to push my worries to one side and go with the pros haha!

Me staring at le mirror, applying lipgloss

At just before 12 there was a knock on the door – Ashley Jane and her assistant photographer, 20 minutes early! How amazing! I was so so happy to see Ashley and I honestly felt instantly calmer. I apologised for the stressful atmosphere haha, I felt like I’d annoyed Cindy by asking for her to change my hair and giving off the vibe that I wasn’t happy with it, plus the wedding playlist I’d put on earlier had finished so we were just in silence ha! I honestly didn’t even care though because I was so focused on getting everything organised and making sure my hair and make-up remained flawless. Ashley set up, Rachel headed over to the boys room, and Cindy finished off Vic’s make up. I remember having a whispered conversation with Ashley about my hair and whether or not it was okay. She said it looked perfect and to stop worrying. Haha! Victoria looked gorgeous! I had some more fizz, and then there was another knock at the door. David and Kristina from Trinity. Yay! They came in with all their kit, introduced themselves to everyone and then set up. They started filming straight away, and I was really worried that I was gonna look angry and stressed in all the video (I don’t though, don’t worry!)

Our background viewing:

Beautiful decor

In the midst of all this I perched on the desk and wrote Ben’s card. It was totes emosh and I was trying so hard not to cry before the day had even started haha!

Once I’d finished, Mum popped the card over to the boy’s room, and grabbed my card from Benj Honestly, having those opposite rooms was a godsend! Mum and Vic were able to nip between the 2 rooms all morning and it just made everything so simple.

While all this was going on, Ashley Jane was wandering around taking detail photos, and this is where the professional photos really start! Yay!

My handkerchief from DFTW

Gorgeous wedding day perfume, La Vie Est Belle

My shoes!

This was Ben’s Great-Grandmother’s broach and it meant a great deal to me that I was able to wear it pinned to my dress for the ceremony

The whole gang!

Me putting the finishing touches on!

 

[Libby_Darling]

I believe it was around this time that there was a knock at the door, and my floral was delivered! Yay! It was just mine and Victoria’s bouquets, my Mum’s boutonniere was waiting for her in the GF lobby, along with my Dad’s and all the other boys. The lady who bought the flowers was THE BIGGEST BABE! I loved her! She came bounding in with the two massive boxes, congratulated me and hugged me, and opened the boxes to show us the floral. Oh my goodness, they were so so beautiful. LOVE! The amazing Heather Sparby at Disney Floral had just absolutely nailed what I’d wanted and I was so happy! And then, the lovely floral lady saw my dress hanging up and started tearing up and saying how beautiful it was! Well of course, then I started tearing up! And so did my Mum! Hahahah it was so cute us all stood there hugging in front of my dress in the corridor of the room Such a cute memory! Then the lady had to go so I thanked her and we waved goodbye, and that was that! A whirlwind of emotion haha! I had to go and check my eye-makeup as I wasn’t expecting to start crying quite so early!

And then, all of a sudden it was time to get into my dress. Eeeekkkkk!

HOW BEAUTIFUL!?

Time to get in! This was all staged, video and photog capturing every second so there are a lot of photos haha! I love them all I was having a bit of a moment where I couldn’t believe this was happening, I was actually PUTTING MY WEDDING DRESS ON!

So. Many. Photos.

I love this B&W one!

Done!

Then it was time for my Mum to put my garter on haha!

We then took a quick photo of me with my cute shoes, this was a photo I’d specially requested! Love!

 

[Libby_Darling]

Guys!! I'm SO SORRY I completely abandoned my thread and forgot to share my trip report and wedding day recaps! I'm going to post all the ones I have as I'm still writing it but I really hope you enjoy! These boards helped me so much when I was planning so apologies for the severe delay but I hope if anyone does read these, you enjoy them Lib x

 

[Alexsandra]

Guys!! I'm SO SORRY I completely abandoned my thread and forgot to share my trip report and wedding day recaps! I'm going to post all the ones I have as I'm still writing it but I really hope you enjoy! These boards helped me so much when I was planning so apologies for the severe delay but I hope if anyone does read these, you enjoy them Lib x

Congrats! Thanks for sharing your special day with us

 

[toomuchtv]

Guys!! I'm SO SORRY I completely abandoned my thread and forgot to share my trip report and wedding day recaps! I'm going to post all the ones I have as I'm still writing it but I really hope you enjoy! These boards helped me so much when I was planning so apologies for the severe delay but I hope if anyone does read these, you enjoy them Lib x

I just recently had finally caught up and was so bummed that it stopped before the actual trip, so I'm so happy you are continuing it! Can't wait for more!

 

[princess aleya]

I can’t tell you enough how much I LOVE your reports! I’m so happy that you decided to write about your big day. What great family and friends you have. The stag/ hen party in Epcot looked like so much fun!! Rehearsal dinner at Ohana looked amazing . Love your wedding dress and all the fabulous pictures. Looking forward to reading more. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Libby_Darling]

Congrats! Thanks for sharing your special day with us

Ahh no problem! Thank you for the congrats! x

I just recently had finally caught up and was so bummed that it stopped before the actual trip, so I'm so happy you are continuing it! Can't wait for more!

I knoowwww I'm so sorry! Life totes got in the way but I'm determined to share all!! xxxx

I can’t tell you enough how much I LOVE your reports! I’m so happy that you decided to write about your big day. What great family and friends you have. The stag/ hen party in Epcot looked like so much fun!! Rehearsal dinner at Ohana looked amazing . Love your wedding dress and all the fabulous pictures. Looking forward to reading more. Thanks for sharing!

Aww thank you so much!! So glad you're enjoying it and thank you for all the lovely comments! We really are so lucky to have such amazing friends and family More coming uP! x

 

[Libby_Darling]

Then it was time for Victoria to put my shoes on! I felt like such a princess with everyone doing everything for me ha but they insisted!

Final touches! Putting my earrings on!

My Mummy put my bracelet on

We also pinned Ben’s Grandmother’s broach into my dress - I was really nervous about having this on me cause it’s like insanely old, and let’s just say I don’t exactly have a track record of not losing stuff...however, I really wanted it, Ben wanted me to wear it, so we decided to go for it. We pinned it on inside my dress and it felt pretty sturdy so we hoped for the best!

Now that I was all ready, I nipped over to the mirror to check my dress and see if everything was okay, and I also put my lipgloss on. A lot of planning had gone into my lip covering for the day - in the end I went with a matte liquid lipstick underneath that stays on forEVER but does get quite dry, so I added a lipgloss over the top which worked perfectly I had to reapply a million times during the day and evening but I didn’t mind, and honestly it looked flawless all day as did all the rest of my make-up, thanks to some excellent products and incredible work from Victoria!

Lipgloss on and feeling good, I spritzed my perfume ALL OVER

Like seriously all over. I put so much on and the spraying just seemed to go on forever and everyone was laughing ha, but I didn’t want to be able to not smell it! No danger of that! It’s an absolutely beautiful perfume by the way and I wore it all through my honeymoon too, so now when I wear it for special occasions it just transports me back to those happy memories

At this point, David asked me if we could do my first look with my Dad in the lobby of the DVC building rather than the GF lobby because it would be so much quieter and easier to get good shots, and I said that was fine. My Dad had been picked up from SSR at 12 by a towncar along with Ben’s Dad, step-mum and brother, and was already in the GF lobby with Ben et al watching them have photos. We were just going to meet him there, so actually this worked out better as it meant he just needed to stroll over to the DVC building and it could kind of kill a bit of time. So my Mum Whatsapped him and thankfully he got the message haha, he very rarely does so that was super good!

Next up we had to film/photograph me reading Ben’s card! I sat on the sofa here and this was really cute, I totally started crying (for the first time in about 10 thousand separate occasions that day! )

Adorbs! After this little moment we went and had a little photoshoot on the balcony of our room!

Then we came back inside and I had another mini photoshoot of just me! I really love these ones

My GORGEOUS flowers!

Hidden M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Love these two!

And then...that was it! It was around 1pm and we needed to be moving! My Dad was waiting for us in the lobby of the DVC, so at this point our photog and videog teams packed up and headed downstairs, telling us to follow in about 10 minutes. Eeekk! So then it was just me, Mum and Victoria in the room, and all of a sudden it was very quiet. Now that my hair panic had subsided, I was starting to feel quite nervous. Not nervous really, just full of anticipation and excitement and not really knowing how to feel about how absolutely huge this day was going to be!

At this point in the story, we’re going to take a slight break from me (I know, devastating) and pop on over to the other side of the hallway and into the boy’s room to see what they were up to! So I’m gonna interview Benj as he sits here next to me playing PS4, and we’ll hopefully be able to get a good picture of the day! Here we go…

The boys woke up quite early, Ben thinks about 8am, and they all hung around in their PJs for a while. They had breakfast on the balcony, had a beer on the balcony (i didn’t know this until he just told me! ) and watched the world waking up. They talked about the day and what was gonna happen and how they were all feeling. After that they all took it in turns to shower, and then started ironing their shirts etc. My Mum popped in and they plated up our breakfast for her to take. At some point Jason and Ian strolled to the shop at the GF to grab some gin and rum to put in their hipflasks, and Benj stayed in the room and practiced his speech (cute!) They got back, loaded up their hipflasks, and then started getting ready. Then Rachel the photographer arrived! First of all, she photographed all our details, including the cufflinks I bought Benj <3

Our gorgeous HP ring box

 

[Libby_Darling]

Ben was already fully dressed as he was ‘freaking out’ hahahah, so Rachel made him take off his jacket and tie and shoes so she could photograph him.

She had bought with her my card for Benj, and a pair of socks I’d bought him that had only arrived as we were leaving the flat haha so I had just stuffed them in my bag to travel, and then remembered on the wedding morning!