For most brides, finding the dress is a process. There are TV shows dedicated to finding wedding dresses. People visit multiple stores, trying on tons of different gowns, getting opinions from their friends and families, trying to find the “one”.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to do any of that.
Some of you may recall, we started planning our Disney Fairy Tale Wedding when the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself: trading my photography services for my dream wedding dress.
Back in January 2013, I moved to Orlando to join the Disney College Program. When I started at the Magic Kingdom, I was in a group of about seven people from the first wave of CPs training in Adventureland/Liberty Square. In that group, we had one Pirate, three ATT (Aladdin/Tiki/Treehouse), one Maid, and two Skippers. I was one of the Skippers, the other was a girl named Sammi. So, when I had my day one at the World Famous Jungle Cruise, so did she. She was there for my first live boat (that’s what we call a boat with guests on it), and I had her, and a bunch of other Skippers come ride my boat during the last weeks of our program.
Fun fact: her trainer would train Jay two years later.
Fast forward a few months later, and I was one of the first people to know her and Matt were becoming an item, because I had to go rescue her keys, after he took them with him on stage.
Chelsea, what does this have to do with your wedding dress?
I’m getting there.
Sammi is not only a World Famous Jungle Cruise Skipper, but she is a world famous cosplayer named Kaye Cosplay. I learned she did cosplay in a team building exercise for CPs, and I quickly learned how amazing she was after we became Facebook friends.
We eventually both left the Jungle, but stayed Facebook friends, and occasionally ran into each other at MegaCon.
Then in 2018, I got a Facebook message asking if I would consider being the photographer for their wedding. Now, I don’t consider myself a photographer in the slightest. I actually almost failed the only photography class I’ve ever taken, but that had more to do with the teacher not liking me, than my actual skills. However, I still think of myself as someone who takes photos with a nice camera, rather than a photographer.
That being said, there was no way I was going to say no. I would do the absolute best I could, and I started practicing more in the parks.
Jay and I met up with Matt and Sammi at Disney Springs around Christmas to sit and talk about the plan for the wedding, and to kind of get a grasp for what they wanted.
“So, what would your fee be?” Sammi asked.
I had thought long and hard about this.
“I’ll take it in trade?”
I don’t even know where I stumbled on the Disney Alfred Angelo Wedding Dresses, but for as long as I can remember, I have wanted the Belle dress for my wedding. I thought I’d never be able to afford it, and Alfred Angelo went out of business years ago. This was my chance!
I showed Sammi the picture, and I also gave her a couple of options for cosplays she could do instead because I knew what I was asking was a tall order. Even though wedding dresses are not something she makes, like me, she didn’t want to say no. After all, we’re both Disney people and we like making dreams come true. So, wedding dress it was, and Jay and I were on the path to planning a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding. We just had to get engaged first.
It was actually a funny moment when I was talking to Sammi’s grandmother on her wedding day.
“Sammi said she’s making your wedding dress, but you’re not wearing a ring!”
“It’s a long story.”
Jay and I knew we were getting married long before he put a ring on my finger. I was the one who insisted we buy a house first.
Sammi and Matt’s wedding was in February, and Jay and I got engaged near the end of March. I reached out to her soon after, just so we could start putting things in motion around our busy schedules.
In July, my friend Alexis went shopping for her wedding dress for her wedding in January. While she was out, she ran across the Belle Alfred Angelo gown at a consignment store, and gave me the heads up. I figured I might as well go try it on to make sure it looked as good on me as it did in my head. Turns out they also had the Cinderella Alfred Angelo gown as well, so I tried on both.
Let me tell you, going to a wedding dress shop and trying things on by yourself is a strange experience. The sales lady had to help me try the things on, and I definitely felt like she thought I was wasting her time, but oh well. She even helped me take the pictures!
I don’t actually remember the name of this place, but they had a really large selection. The problem though is that because it’s a consignment shop, the Alfred Angelos were only available in one size. Thankfully, it was a size that fit me to try on. They were even on sale! For $699.
Nope!
I also didn’t love the Belle gown the way I thought I would. The drop waist didn’t fit the way I expected.
So, a few weeks later when Sammi came to my house to start designing the dress, I showed her the pictures and asked if we could combine them by taking the top of the Cinderella dress, and putting it with the skirt of the Belle dress.
She sketched it out then and there on her iPad Pro in front of me, in like twenty minutes. Holy crap.
I will also add that I don’t really know what I would do with an iPad Pro, but I want one someday.
We also talked about adding a Hidden Mickey to the dress. She asked if I needed a veil and I said no, and she went over a few more minor details. We decided to go with spaghetti straps to avoid the dress slipping as it would, if it was strapless. Then I took her upstairs to meet my cat Brightheart, since she doesn’t have one yet.
MATT GET YOUR WIFE A CAT!
I sent her the first payment for materials, and she planned on hitting up the fashion district in LA on a Disneyland trip to look for dress materials. Unfortunately, she didn’t find what she needed, so we wound up meeting at JOANNE in Winter Garden in October to take measurements and go shopping. Well, I say unfortunately, because getting your wedding dress materials from the fashion district sounds cool, but going shopping with her was probably more fun.
I also handed over my pair of Wonder Woman boots, and a bra to her, so they’d always be at her house when I went over there to try the dress on. I could just see myself forgetting them, when we needed them the most.
We scheduled the first fitting for January 9th, the same day as the hair and make-up trial. I figured this way we could get a good look at the whole picture, and Lacey could learn how to bustle the dress in advance.
I was trying to pose for pictures of the dress, and I didn’t know what to do with my hands. Sammi mentioned she wished she had a flower for me to hold, and I said, “We should have just brought Duffy in.”
“Oh, we have him in the car too!” Lacey said.
“You want a Duffy? I have a Duffy!” Sammi said, and then got out her Skipper Duffy. Now I knew what to do with my hands!
I did wind up driving over there once in November or December so Sammi could check something, and again about a week before the fitting, so she could look at the length of something. This happened to be while her mom was visiting, so that was nice, because her mom is AWESOME. We bonded during her wedding because we were usually about ten paces ahead of everybody else. Somewhere along the line I ended up sending her another payment for more materials, but the end result was a one of a kind, completely original, combination of my favorite two dresses, complete with a hidden Mickey, and it STILL came in at less than half the cost of buying the dress at the consignment store!
We even found a use for some of the leftovers! Something we bought for the overskirt, we decided wasn’t fluffy enough, and I asked if I could have it for my pirate outfit. Sammi said sure, and even sewed them together into a ribbon skirt for me.
Sammi set a deadline to have the dress finished a month in advance, which was super smart, because we both had things come up. When I did go to pick up the finished dress, we wound up having to move the zipper slightly, to let it out a little, and I realized the terrible flaw in our planning. Completely my fault, but we had taken my measurements in October, right after Nana passed away. I wasn’t eating much at the time, and I didn’t think about that when Sammi took the measurements. While I didn’t necessarily “gain” weight, I did go back to my usual size.
The good news is Sammi literally just moved the zipper half an inch, and I could breathe again. We probably could have lost the straps, and it still would have stayed up perfectly. She also adjusted the straps a bit more, because strap lengths are hard to get right. She said she even has trouble with them herself sometimes, and it makes sense for all the times in my life I’ve struggled to get a new bra to be 1) comfortable and 2) the same lengths on both sides.
As a last-minute request, I got her to add a Kaye Cosplay tag to the dress, just so there would never be any question who made this masterpiece. I picked up a garment bag off Amazon, and I went to pick up my dress on February 27th, barely a week before all the crazy started.
It was absolutely perfect.
Kaye Cosplay is an insanely talented cosplayer. Everybody knows that. However, I was the one person in the world lucky enough to get a Kaye Cosplay Original Wedding Dress, and her act of generosity in taking my trade, set me on the path to getting the best wedding dress I could have ever hoped for. I can only hope she’s as happy with her wedding photos as I am with this dress.
Out of pocket expenses so far:
Cruise Fare: $4,944.06
Invitations and Postage: $89
Disney Fine Art Photography: $2875.50
Fairytale Hair and Makeup Deposit: $100
Hair and Makeup Trial: $180
Hoop-Dee-Doo: $444
Park n’ Cruise for 6 Vehicles: $256.94
Wedding Party Outfits: $125.43
Wedding Dress Materials: $300
Wedding Dress Garment Bag: $15.99
Total: $9,229.92
