Disney Bride Erica is planning a Disneyland wedding at Rose Court Garden and Sleeping Beauty Pavilion for June 2018.
Planning your own fairy tale wedding should be one of the most exciting times in your lives, besides your wedding day. However, nothing is perfect and planning a wedding can also be one of the most stressful times. Wedding planning is an experience where you get to do all of the fun stuff like jot down all of your visions and ideas, and work out how you can get them to come to life. An experience like this ideally should come hand-in-hand with the love and support from your closest friends and family – I mean this is your WEDDING DAY, who wouldn’t be excited for your special day!? Unfortunately for us, we did experience road bumps along the way that not only taught us some hard life lessons but brought us closer together during our wedding planning journey.
How to Cope With the Not-So Magical Moments of Wedding Planning
After Diogo and I got engaged on June 11, 2016 we set a wedding date of mid-June 2018. We set our date for two years ahead to not only give ourselves time to plan our dream wedding, but also to give our guests time to prepare and save up for their travels and arrangements. In the beginning we were showered with both love and excitement from our friends and family and we took off with our wedding planning with ease. By December 2016, we were signing our contract with Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings and celebrating at Disneyland with our family and friends. We also had another important thing on our agenda for that Disney trip, and that was our flower girl proposal.
Since we were having a fairy tale wedding at the most magical place on Earth, we figured why not make this moment as special and as magical as we possibly can? We made a flower girl proposal box, which featured a card stating “We can’t say I Do, without a pretty princess like you… Will you be our flower girl?” along with a tiara, and a mini horse and carriage favor with gems and candy inside. Our plan was to have one of the princesses give the box to our special little princess to make the moment unforgettable for her – and it worked! We ended up being able to make the proposal happen with Princess Ariel (who is one of our favorites), and she even placed the tiara on our flower girl’s head and showed her how to hold out her dress like a princess. It was truly one of the most magical moments I know she (and we) will never forget.
Fast forward to a few months when Diogo and I started experiencing our first wedding road bumps. We found ourselves facing lots of unwanted drama with family members and friends. At first this was extremely frustrating as no one should be bringing anything but happiness and love into your lives at a time like this. Nonetheless, going through those moments really showed us who was truly there for us, who really loved us, and who really wanted to be a part of our special day. We also learned to appreciate those who never left our side and who brought us up in our down moments even more. Family or not, friends or not, no one should purposely cause you any stress during a special time in your life.
Our biggest disappointment in our whole wedding planning journey involved our flower girl. Nine months after our flower girl proposal, her dad all of a sudden decided he did not agree with another guest who would be attending our wedding. He threatened us, saying if we did not remove that person from our guest list then he would not be attending our wedding and would not allow his daughter to be our flower girl. Might I point out he knew this guest would be attending our wedding during the time of our flower girl proposal and was perfectly fine with it back then. Not only did he choose to not attend our wedding, he also the made the choice that none of his other family members would be attending our wedding either, including our flower girl. Losing our flower girl was all that mattered to us at this point, because we knew how much it meant to her and how hurt she would be, knowing that she could no longer be a part of our wedding day.
Through all of the ups and downs I have experienced during these almost two years of planning, I still think about the situation with our flower girl and it hurts so much that she will be missing out on a special moment like this, but I have also found peace. I found peace in knowing that happiness, love, and support are all we will allow from now on – not only during our special day but in our everyday lives. Yes, we may have lost our relationship with some family members – but is it really a loss when all that was experienced was negativity and stress?
Chances are, there are tons of times where weddings happen and there are guests who do not like each other. All that should matter in cases like this are the two people getting married and the love that you have for them. If you have some that still cannot handle this for just a couple of hours for the sake of your special day, then they were correct in saying they shouldn’t be there at all. Those who truly want to be a part of your special day will make it happen no matter what.
We are incredibly grateful and blessed for all of our friends and family that stood by our side throughout this journey, and we know will continue on with us in life. Always remember that planning a wedding can be a huge eye opener for you in many ways. We have definitely learned to take the good with the bad, and to turn the bad into something good. Enjoy every moment and surround yourselves with those who truly bring love and positivity into your lives. Last but not least, have the BEST wedding day of your lives because you deserve it!
