Pixie Dust Required: Disney Wedding Wednesday STARRING ARIC & BIANCA ALBONE

Today's wedding of the week is all about the very precious Aric & Bianca Albone. I met Bianca online through a Facebook group for Disney Brides and the first thing that stood out was their immense love and devotion for each other and her daughter! You can see it in their pictures and the way Bianca talks about Aric. I specifically wanted to feature their wedding this week because not only was it a very loving ceremony at Disney, it was a Halloween wedding! I thought that was very appropriate since Halloween is just 3 days away! I hope you enjoy this glimpse into their love for each other.

HOW DID YOU TWO MEET?

I met my husband online on OKcupid and match.com in 2010. Both matched us very highly. Our first date was supposed to be a dinner out but I had a 4 mile night running race that my friends had bailed on, due to temps nearing 100 degrees. The morning of, I had run 8-10 miles and intended to run this race, shower and go to dinner with my husband. Although he’d never run a race he volunteered to run with me in the blazing heat. Afterwards we went out for dinner, and talked half the night.

I love the joy and life in this picture

TELL ME ABOUT THE PROPOSAL?

My husband took me and my daughter on a morning hike in July 2012 in a park in western NY called Swallow Hollow on Iroquois protected lands. We went off the path into a grove of trees where he told me to sit down and close my eyes. At this point he put a silver box in my hands, cast from a rhinosaurus beetle, and got down on one knee. He proceeded to tell me how much our relationship meant to me and asked me to be his wife. Then he asked my daughter’s permission who was sitting with me.

Do you see the hidden mickey in the cuff-link and her nails?

WHAT MADE YOU GO WITH A DISNEY HALLOWEEN WEDDING?

When we originally started planning our wedding we really wanted something different that represented us. We both loved October and we really wanted to incorporate that as part of our big day. We loved Halloween and went through a point where we considered doing a mascaraed ball at a castle on the east coast. What stamped this idea out was the cost and worries about being fair to our guests travel wise, plus worrying our guests would not go with the heavy theming of a mascaraed ball.

During our wedding planning we also had huge dietary restraints when viewing vendors due to my celiac that also affected a percentage of our guests. I became very frustrated with the many vendors not giving me overly straight answers of how we would handle the wedding menu and the cake. Cake was extremely important to me because after a decade gluten free I’d spent many events seeing beautiful cakes unable to taste them. I really wanted that experience for our day and when caterers were hesitant to talk to us until a deposit was placed, and venues offered only one cake flavor with no option for me to bring an outside vendor in I became very frustrated and upset. Disney had always had really great service toward guests with food allergies, and the fact that we knew what we would get upfront due to that experience in the on property restaurants made me feel safe in the decision to sign a contract. I knew I could have a safe gluten free menu that my guests wouldn’t feel lacked anything, my cake would be spectacular, and no one would know the difference.

Disney was always a venue on the table for us but we worried about costs and who would travel. In the end we felt it was the fairest travel wise because everyone had to travel, be it a 2 hour car drive or 5 hour flight to the wedding. Disney’s central location in Orlando also offered some of the cheapest travel rates for our guests, and our room blocks really helped to push that further. Plus Disney offered us something no other venue did; time with our family and friends. We knew this may be the only time our two families met. Disney gave us a place for several days with them together, we felt great getting to share a piece of the magic of our favorite place with our guests. We actually had park days with our family after the wedding so we got to extend the celebration with them. Disney also offered us for the price we paid a wedding that went above and beyond what we would have gotten anywhere else. We were able to give our guests an experience they will never forget. I was able to have a wedding where I didn’t have to stress about if things were set up, and if my food was safe. Everything that day went perfect thanks to a small Disney army of special events staff that made it possible. This allowed us to really live in the moment and soak up beautiful memories on our day.

Back to our theme we knew we wanted something different that represented us. Halloween is one of our favorite celebrations we are a little kooky and off beat. We felt Disney was a great place for this since they do over the top classy celebrations. Halloween and other theme weddings can become cheeky very quickly, and I knew this so I wanted to avoid that for our guests. I wanted a very upscale adult Halloween that had a spooky yet beautiful vibe. I knew with the help of the Disney wedding team we could accomplish just that.

How cool is this cake??

WHAT VENUE DID YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?

We chose Sea Breeze point for the ceremony. I always knew I wanted an outdoors wedding because I feel closest to nature and God. I feel outside is the church He created, and my husband feels the same. I always knew I didn’t want to be held in by a building for our wedding if the weather held. The thing that drew me about Sea Breeze point is that the gazebo is large enough to fit up to 80 people. It also has a very Victorian feel to it. I felt Victorian really works well with Halloween since ghosts and monster stories were prevalent in that time period. I also felt the aesthetics of the gazebo would work well with our theme allowing our decorations to be minimum but to stand out.

For our reception we had France Lower. We really wanted Italy due to family heritage but it wasn’t available due to food and wine. We went with France due to it having the size to accommodate our guests and great views of illuminations for after our cake cutting. We knew we wanted a simple dinner party without a DJ, and felt that Epcot our favorite park provided a lot for our guests to see. We wanted them to see the magic of one of our favorite parks rather than the inside of a ball room. Instead of dancing we provided a selfie station, a caricature artist, and a trivia card all of which were huge hits. We felt the lack of DJ really allowed our guests to mingle and soak up the environment as well. I also really liked the idea of fireworks culminating dinner rather than having a dessert party. This also allowed us to do a bowling party at Splitsville in Down Town Disney for our welcome party, a tradition when his family comes home for the holidays. This less formal event allowed everyone to get to know each other and have a lot of fun, plus introduce our theme fully with trick or treat welcome bags.

WHAT WAS YOUR WEDDING DATE?

10/30/2014

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PART ABOUT THE WEDDING?

My favorite part was being able to fully enjoy the day. Once everything was dropped off etc we were really able to enjoy this magical moment we had worked so hard with Disney to create. I didn’t have to worry about the food, where my photographer was, how the decorations would be set up, the timing, my guests getting there on time etc. Having that freedom really allowed us to fully celebrate not just give a celebration to our guests.

WHERE DID YOU COME UP WITH ALL THE DETAILS OF YOUR WEDDING?

A lot of the details came from discussion between my husband and myself, the evil of Pinterest, and offbeat brides. When creating the details we really wanted this celebration to be personal to us. We made every effort to honor our families, our heritage, show our personalities, and honor small artisans that we love. We felt these were really integral parts of who we were as a couple and that should show in our celebration.

The first choice we had to really make to get the ball rolling was a color pallet. We chose purple for me, and green for my husband our respective favorite colors. We added the orange, black and ivory to accent and bring out the festiveness of the holiday.

Since we were creating a family, having my daughter in the middle, we really wanted to first and foremost honor our families. We did this in a number of ways. We honored his family by renting a Model A coupe for transportation. His grandfather had rebuilt one and there had been numerous photos of my husband and his family with this car throughout the years. We honored those past and unable to travel with photos and a moment of silence. We honored our heritage and love of old culture with a hand-fasting. My bouquet included brooches from my grandmother. We chose to give Halloween candy apples as the favors since candy apples are a favorite treat in our house. Most importantly we did family vows with my daughter, my mother read the poem during the hand fasting, and my mother in law said the opening prayer. We really felt we were able to tie our families in this way.

The overall aesthetic feel of the decor came mostly from our personal preferences and inspired by media from Pinterest and offbeat bride. I knew that I wanted our celebration to tie back to Disney even with them being Halloween, so we included both haunted mansion and Nightmare Before Christmas in subtle ways plus hidden Mickeys along the way. The invites and save the dates had haunted mansion wall paper for the background that would later appear in our custom buttons, programs, and schedules for our guests. We took from that and used purple damask table clothes that ended up matching the magnificent surprise cake we had the bakers make had HM paper on the bottom, and NBC elements up top with glowing mini jack o’lanterns and fog from bellow! The table had damask table cloth, our bouquets, and some NBC memorabilia from our home. The chairs and napkins we went with black so they’d fade into the background of the decadent décor and bring it together at the same time. I knew I wanted jack o’lanterns to light my way down the aisle and light our celebration since they are such a big part of fall and a family tradition for us is carving them. To soften this we used petals, painted pumpkins, and white pumpkins that allowed for a more romantic feel. For centerpieces we chose to do floral in white pumpkins and tea lights in mini orange pumpkins. These really stood out with the table clothes but provided an overall elegant Halloween feel. When it came to hand held floral I knew from the start I wanted brooch bouquets. I loved bling and I felt it would really offset the rich damask table clothes we had giving that little extra oomph. I as previously stated had a very sentimental reasoning for going this route I wanted to include my grandmother in my special day and symbols of our relationship. I did this by adding some of her brooches, and adding butterflies and dragonflies for representation of where my husband and I got engaged.

Attire was used to tie the picture together the gentlemen wore black pin stripe suits with green vests and the ladies wore black lace overlay dresses (best woman had green satin underneath, the bridesmaids had purple satin). My dress also had a layer of hidden purple tulle under the layers of satin and lace. My daughter wore a dress of satin in ivory and purple with a black lace overlay center.

To add to the visual we had Halloween music played by a string quartet. We chose to go with a quartet due to our musical backgrounds, my husband and I both play multiple instruments and sing. Our set list included Fire and Ice from Game of Thrones for the ladies, Led Zepplin’s Kashmir for the Gents, In the Hall of the Mountain King by Gynt for our mothers, This is Halloween from NBC for my entrance, Ice Dance from Edward Scissor Hands for the hand-fasting, and we exited to the overature from Phantom of the Opera.

DID YOU HAND MAKE ANYTHING?

I am not a crafty person but I love crafty things. We as a couple believe in supporting small vendors and though we did not make anything we certainly had a long list of amazing small vendors that took part in making our day everything we envisioned and more. I can’t say enough good things about those vendors. Blue Petyl brought my brooch bouquets and boutineres to life. I love that our amazing friend who owns Strike Deakins made our beautiful custom hand fasting cloth. Our card box and my clutch were made by Grichels, a small leather company. My boots were made by Son of Sandlar, a multi-generational shoe cobbler. Our papery (invites, save the dates, programs, custom celebration buttons, trivia cards, etc) were done by Impressions. Our rings were done by Krikawa, and RE Piland. Photography by a personal friend and longtime photographer Jimmy Saddler. Our toasting flutes were also done by a small artesian who hand cuts glass, Wind Willows studios. We felt it was really important to give credit to all these wonderful people and made sure to list them in the thank you section of our programs.

TALK ABOUT HOW YOU INCLUDED YOUR DAUGHTER IN THE CEREMONY.

Family in general was a really important part of our day. My daughter was the most important of all. It was really important to me that she felt included since we were creating a family not just a married unit of two. My daughter walked me down the aisle and gave me away. She was then called up for family vows and given a necklace by my husband. She road in and out with us in the Model A as well.

DOES YOUR HUSBAND LOVE DISNEY AS MUCH AS YOU DO?

Yes my husband also really loves Disney. When I first started dating him I found out he had most of the Disney Movies on DVD, painted Disney Stills, and he had many Disney Christmas ornaments. We are an all-around Disney family.

WHAT ARE WAYS YOU INCORPORATE DISNEY INTO YOUR EVERY DAY LIFE AS A FAMILY?

Our home features a lot of Disney memorabilia and art. We watch Once Upon a Time, and do family movie nights which are often Disney. Once a year we do a Disney trip as a family as well. We also have a lot of Disney clothes and merchandise.

ANY FUTURE DISNEY PLANS IN THE WORKS?

I personally run a lot of Disney races. We may be taking our first Disney Cruise next year, and we will have some time at the WDW resort as well. Ultimately it’s my hope we can move to Florida.

ANY WORDS OF ADVICE FOR FUTURE DISNEY BRIDES?

Trust the process your planner knows what they’re doing. If you don’t like something speak up they’ll make it better. Be true to your vision for your day, it makes it more special not just for you but your guests. Most of all just enjoy. Finally do a park shoot, even if you can’t afford it when you get married it’s an experience to remember we chose to wait and do ours for our anniversary and it was a great way to relive the magic celebrating all over again.