Finally!
So I've finally got shoes for the wedding and we picked a honeymoon destination. Part of me is happy that decisions were made in that area, but I wasn't exactly happy because neither choice was what I had exactly envisioned and not without problems.
Michael suggested a couple of weeks ago that he thought a good idea for the honeymoon was actually to go to two different places. He still wanted to go to Universal but he also wanted to go to this place called Butterfly World. He's wanted to go there for awhile, but it's pretty far from us. It's four hours from where we live and six hours from where we're getting married.
I hadn't really wanted to do any kind of a road trip on the honeymoon, but I figured it was doable and there's a nice kind of symmetry because we got engaged at a butterfly house. We only have five days for the honeymoon, so we decided we'll do two and a half days at Universal, then we'll start traveling up to Butterfly World. We'll probably stay at a hotel at night and then complete the trip to Butterfly World. We'll do that for one day, then start traveling back home, stop at a hotel for the night. We'll travel on our last day. Before we head home we'll stop at a beach somewhere, then go back home.
Initially, Mike wanted to go to Disney because he's never been, but there just so happened to be stupid block out dates exactly starting the day of our wedding and all through when we'd be honeymooning. So even though there were special deals going on for Florida residents, we'd have to pay non-resident prices for the Magic Kingdom, which is quite a difference. It's the only park that's blacked out, but we've already been to Epcot and we're not interested in the other two parks.
So we decided on Universal because even though Michael's been there before, it was so long ago, and there are so many rides he'd never been on. At first, I didn't notice that they had any blackout dates, but when we decided to go there officially for the honeymoon we discovered they also have the same blackout dates. Mike really wants to get express passes because he doesn't want to spend most of the honeymoon waiting on lines. We tried to do a cheaper package of tickets to the park and express passes but of course, it's blacked out the first day of our honeymoon. It's not blacked out the day of our wedding or the days after, but just the day we need most. It's probably a good idea that we're only spending part-time there because a ticket for three days plus two days of express passes is 900 dollars.
Still trying to figure out the purpose of the blackout dates. I figure this time it's because of Spring Break, but I don't know why. Like is it because they're expecting a huge turnout from everyone, and figure Floridians will be willing to pay the regular prices during this time period? Or are they expecting a lot of out of towners and thinking a lot of in state people won't come? Like if I didn't need to come during these dates, I'd go for a cheaper time. Like I'm just trying to figure out how busy it's going to be during that time. I downloaded an app that gives you Universal wait times and have been checking it out this weekend. The longest wait time I saw was 70 minutes for the Despicable Me ride. And for one of the Harry Potter rides the longest wait time was 65 minutes. If the wait times are like that, I'm wondering if we only need a pass for one day and that way we can save money for food and stuff. But I don't want to forego the pass and it turns out it's extra busy when we're there and the wait times are multiple hours.
We also decided to stay at a hotel on-site because there are benefits to staying at an on-site hotel. They have a cheap-ish (at least compared to the others) hotel that less than 200 a night, while the rest are freakin' 400 a night. Of course the more expensive hotels come with free express passes. Thankfully, my mother paid for most of the hotel and we made a reservation tonight.
I'm really starting to wish that we had picked a different date for the wedding. At first we were supposed to get married in August of last year. But we were having problems and didn't really have the money then, so we postponed. I didn't want to wait too much longer to get married and I wanted to pick a date that was somewhat significant. I could have picked a date in late May because that's the anniversary of when we got engaged. But I/we decided March 28 because that's two days after my dad's birthday.
Jean wanted us to go for a different time because she kept mentioning Spring Break. Michael and I looked up spring break times online, but it was hard because so many schools have different spring break dates. Spring Break seemed to range from March to mid-April. So we decided to roll the dice and that was probably not a great idea. Of course, initially I hadn't really planned on going to Disney or Universal for the honeymoon. I never wanted to stay in Florida for the honeymoon. Even my mom, when we told her our plan, was surprised we were sticking so close to home.
Another problem with picking March 28 for the wedding, is it kind of limited our options for honeymoon spots. We had come up with some nice ideas like New York or Niagara or possibly the Poconos, but to my surprise Mike said he didn't really want to go anywhere cold on the honeymoon. He said he's been spoiled by living in Florida and hated the cold when we went to Maryland a few months ago. I figured March is spring, so it wouldn't be as cold in New York or Canada, but apparently he said in Maryland that's when it's the coldest.
Anyway, on to the shoes. Mom was supposed to come and see us on Monday, but she had things to deliver to my aunt's house for the rehearsal dinner and wanted us to meet us there. I figured while we were up there I could buy some hair and look for some shoes. When we were leaving my aunt's I asked her where we could find a mall to shop. My mom asked why and when I told her she offered to come along. I said yes. I almost immediately regretted that because I remembered that she was the one who was insistent I wear some kind of heel. She was kind of driving me crazy all day because whenever I picked up flats she kept shooting me down.
We weren't really having much more luck in Orlando then at home. It was discouraging and I was losing patience with the whole thing. I wasn't trying to be too picky, since I know people mostly won't even be able to see my shoes, but I didn't want to pick just anything.
Mom wanted to go to Macy's, so we found one nearby. There was a much better variety there than the Macy's up here, but most shoes still weren't working. I asked one of the salesmen at the store and he said most of the shoes were medium. I was pretty much ready to call it a day at that point. But there was one sales guy my mom was talking to and he kept looking around and bringing back shoes. Though with each shoe, I kept thinking "Come on dude, it's not going to work." But he brought back one more pair. I tried it on and it fit okay. I didn't love the look of it - the color is more being than white and the insole is gold, which doesn't match with all the silver I'll be wearing - but it didn't look too bad. It had a slight wedge, which my mom was happy about. It was a little tight on my toe, but it was more workable than any we'd found. Mom was actually good about it and not pressuring me. Mike suggested I put something to cover my toe and then maybe it wouldn't hurt so much. So I gave in and allowed mom to buy them for me. Though I still want to find flats to wear during the reception.
As much as I appreciated the sales guy who kept trying, and I did thank him, my real hero was Mike. I think most guys in that situation would have been bored and just sat around waiting for us to be done, and Mike did sit around sometimes, but he mostly kept looking around. Right around the time the sales guy showed me the wedge shoe we decided to buy, Mike came to us with this shoe that was wide enough, plus with the design of the shoe, you can adjust how tight the front is. And it's kind of looks cut up, so Mike thinks we can cut off the small part that lays over my toe and it wouldn't mess up the look of the shoe. It felt better than the wedge shoe. Unfortunately, it only came in black so not for the wedding, but we bought it too and I'll probably wear it at the rehearsal dinner and during the honeymoon. I was just so happy he was thinking of me and trying to find the best fit for me.
Stacey
Michael suggested a couple of weeks ago that he thought a good idea for the honeymoon was actually to go to two different places. He still wanted to go to Universal but he also wanted to go to this place called Butterfly World. He's wanted to go there for awhile, but it's pretty far from us. It's four hours from where we live and six hours from where we're getting married.
I hadn't really wanted to do any kind of a road trip on the honeymoon, but I figured it was doable and there's a nice kind of symmetry because we got engaged at a butterfly house. We only have five days for the honeymoon, so we decided we'll do two and a half days at Universal, then we'll start traveling up to Butterfly World. We'll probably stay at a hotel at night and then complete the trip to Butterfly World. We'll do that for one day, then start traveling back home, stop at a hotel for the night. We'll travel on our last day. Before we head home we'll stop at a beach somewhere, then go back home.
Initially, Mike wanted to go to Disney because he's never been, but there just so happened to be stupid block out dates exactly starting the day of our wedding and all through when we'd be honeymooning. So even though there were special deals going on for Florida residents, we'd have to pay non-resident prices for the Magic Kingdom, which is quite a difference. It's the only park that's blacked out, but we've already been to Epcot and we're not interested in the other two parks.
So we decided on Universal because even though Michael's been there before, it was so long ago, and there are so many rides he'd never been on. At first, I didn't notice that they had any blackout dates, but when we decided to go there officially for the honeymoon we discovered they also have the same blackout dates. Mike really wants to get express passes because he doesn't want to spend most of the honeymoon waiting on lines. We tried to do a cheaper package of tickets to the park and express passes but of course, it's blacked out the first day of our honeymoon. It's not blacked out the day of our wedding or the days after, but just the day we need most. It's probably a good idea that we're only spending part-time there because a ticket for three days plus two days of express passes is 900 dollars.
Still trying to figure out the purpose of the blackout dates. I figure this time it's because of Spring Break, but I don't know why. Like is it because they're expecting a huge turnout from everyone, and figure Floridians will be willing to pay the regular prices during this time period? Or are they expecting a lot of out of towners and thinking a lot of in state people won't come? Like if I didn't need to come during these dates, I'd go for a cheaper time. Like I'm just trying to figure out how busy it's going to be during that time. I downloaded an app that gives you Universal wait times and have been checking it out this weekend. The longest wait time I saw was 70 minutes for the Despicable Me ride. And for one of the Harry Potter rides the longest wait time was 65 minutes. If the wait times are like that, I'm wondering if we only need a pass for one day and that way we can save money for food and stuff. But I don't want to forego the pass and it turns out it's extra busy when we're there and the wait times are multiple hours.
We also decided to stay at a hotel on-site because there are benefits to staying at an on-site hotel. They have a cheap-ish (at least compared to the others) hotel that less than 200 a night, while the rest are freakin' 400 a night. Of course the more expensive hotels come with free express passes. Thankfully, my mother paid for most of the hotel and we made a reservation tonight.
I'm really starting to wish that we had picked a different date for the wedding. At first we were supposed to get married in August of last year. But we were having problems and didn't really have the money then, so we postponed. I didn't want to wait too much longer to get married and I wanted to pick a date that was somewhat significant. I could have picked a date in late May because that's the anniversary of when we got engaged. But I/we decided March 28 because that's two days after my dad's birthday.
Jean wanted us to go for a different time because she kept mentioning Spring Break. Michael and I looked up spring break times online, but it was hard because so many schools have different spring break dates. Spring Break seemed to range from March to mid-April. So we decided to roll the dice and that was probably not a great idea. Of course, initially I hadn't really planned on going to Disney or Universal for the honeymoon. I never wanted to stay in Florida for the honeymoon. Even my mom, when we told her our plan, was surprised we were sticking so close to home.
Another problem with picking March 28 for the wedding, is it kind of limited our options for honeymoon spots. We had come up with some nice ideas like New York or Niagara or possibly the Poconos, but to my surprise Mike said he didn't really want to go anywhere cold on the honeymoon. He said he's been spoiled by living in Florida and hated the cold when we went to Maryland a few months ago. I figured March is spring, so it wouldn't be as cold in New York or Canada, but apparently he said in Maryland that's when it's the coldest.
Anyway, on to the shoes. Mom was supposed to come and see us on Monday, but she had things to deliver to my aunt's house for the rehearsal dinner and wanted us to meet us there. I figured while we were up there I could buy some hair and look for some shoes. When we were leaving my aunt's I asked her where we could find a mall to shop. My mom asked why and when I told her she offered to come along. I said yes. I almost immediately regretted that because I remembered that she was the one who was insistent I wear some kind of heel. She was kind of driving me crazy all day because whenever I picked up flats she kept shooting me down.
We weren't really having much more luck in Orlando then at home. It was discouraging and I was losing patience with the whole thing. I wasn't trying to be too picky, since I know people mostly won't even be able to see my shoes, but I didn't want to pick just anything.
Mom wanted to go to Macy's, so we found one nearby. There was a much better variety there than the Macy's up here, but most shoes still weren't working. I asked one of the salesmen at the store and he said most of the shoes were medium. I was pretty much ready to call it a day at that point. But there was one sales guy my mom was talking to and he kept looking around and bringing back shoes. Though with each shoe, I kept thinking "Come on dude, it's not going to work." But he brought back one more pair. I tried it on and it fit okay. I didn't love the look of it - the color is more being than white and the insole is gold, which doesn't match with all the silver I'll be wearing - but it didn't look too bad. It had a slight wedge, which my mom was happy about. It was a little tight on my toe, but it was more workable than any we'd found. Mom was actually good about it and not pressuring me. Mike suggested I put something to cover my toe and then maybe it wouldn't hurt so much. So I gave in and allowed mom to buy them for me. Though I still want to find flats to wear during the reception.
As much as I appreciated the sales guy who kept trying, and I did thank him, my real hero was Mike. I think most guys in that situation would have been bored and just sat around waiting for us to be done, and Mike did sit around sometimes, but he mostly kept looking around. Right around the time the sales guy showed me the wedge shoe we decided to buy, Mike came to us with this shoe that was wide enough, plus with the design of the shoe, you can adjust how tight the front is. And it's kind of looks cut up, so Mike thinks we can cut off the small part that lays over my toe and it wouldn't mess up the look of the shoe. It felt better than the wedge shoe. Unfortunately, it only came in black so not for the wedding, but we bought it too and I'll probably wear it at the rehearsal dinner and during the honeymoon. I was just so happy he was thinking of me and trying to find the best fit for me.
Stacey