Our PB&J Adventure Book

Happy 9

September 27, 2019: happy 9 year anniversary to my peter “butter” half

Once upon a times and happily ever afters. It's not your average fairytale, it's our story and on a day like today, it's worth another stroll down memory lane...

September 27, 2007

Today we celebrate our 9 year wedding anniversary. Our tale actually began 3 years before our "I do's" on this exact same day. September 27, 2007 aka the first day we met. We were just two kids back then who randomly met in a hallway at UC Davis. This "cute guy" caught my eye across the way and we ended up chatting. I found out the cute guy was PB and he had just returned from a recent research trip in Japan from his new engineering gig at UC Davis. To this day, I still remember everything about those first moments, the color shirt he was wearing, his glasses, his smile... I could feel a little *twinkle* between us. But just when I thought there was a connection, PB abruptly stopped our conversation and said “sorry, I’m tired with jet lag, I’ve got to sleep.. nice to meet you” and proceeded to give me a hi-5 and left. Lol. Thanks PB.

Will you be my forever jelly?

Obviously, things ended up working out after our first awkward meeting. We happened to bump into each other several other times around campus. After the initial shyness, we found our to each other and so was the beginning of our path to happily ever after.

Almost two years later we were at Disneyland celebrating my birthday. I had a feeling something was up when PB was acting super awkward (more than usual) all day at the parks. After a birthday dinner at the Blue Bayou, where he literally spent most of the dinner fidgeting and acting strange, we stepped out to try and catch the fireworks which I didn't want to miss. He exclaimed "I need to go to the bathroom!" and hurried off leaving me alone in New Orleans Square. Then I got a dropped call from PB and thought "Why the heck is he calling me from the bathroom?". After the initial dropped called, there was another. Then I stared to worry, maybe tummy issues? Did he fall in? What was going on??? The a buzz on my phone with a text with the instruction: "Go to the Court of Angels". If you don't happen to know your Disney geography, the Court of Angels is now presently the lobby of Club 33. But back in 2009, the court was open to the public and was such a hidden gem in the parks. It was serene, there was a hidden staircase, a fountain and just a little escape from the hustle and bustle of the parks.

Little did I know this was to be where PB would propose! Once I got to the Court of Angels I didn't see PB, but instead a random couple who then told me to look in the fountain. I walked over and saw that PB had set up a frog prince plus on a lit up lily pad. There was a note written as a fairytale with the Frog PB searching all over Disneyland for his "true love". As cheesy as this sounds, it's actually a continuation of handwritten fairytale stories PB would write to me back in our dating days. For a split second I thought "Oh gosh! He's going to make me go on a scavenger hunt to find him?" but then I heard him call my name from the top of the staircase. We met halfway and he got down on one knee, took our a ring box that he fashioned to look like a little PB&J sandwich and asked me to be his "jelly" forever....

September 27, 2010

When it came time to planning a wedding, the only place that seemed like the best fit to being our happily ever after would be our happy place: Disneyland. In a way, I think our families would have been disappointed if we didn't have a Disney wedding, lol! Back in 2009 there wasn't a ton of information out there about Disney Weddings, especially at the Disneyland Resort so we held our breath and just hoped for the best in planning our happiest PB&J wedding on earth.

As Disney destiny would have it, everything aligned perfectly for our dream venue. We wanted to do something out of the box and unique for our guests. There was one venue at Disney California Adventure Park, the Animation Building. It's a place that always left us in awe, but we had no idea if it'd even be possible to request the venue for a wedding. In some early research I had found an old marketing photo of an event in there, but no actual real weddings. We crossed our fingers and toes during our first meeting with Disney Weddings and were surprised to hear that they could make our dream wedding venue happen! We were told that we ended up being one of the first couples to use the Animation room as a wedding venue!

Since our wedding was "in park" we had to request dates for our event since anything that happens within Disneyland or DCA needs approval. There were a lot of restrictions like the wedding having to be held on off peak season, on a weekday and after the park closes. We were just thankful to have the opportunity to get married at Disneyland in our dream venue, so we sent over a random assortment of dates. Then a Disney miracle. Our wedding planner called us a few days after our first meeting and mentioned "We have one date approved and ready to go, it's September 27, will that work for you?"

So it was set. Exactly three years to the day we first met, we'd be exchanging our vows and officially beginning our happily ever after as mr&mrs!

The happiest PB&J wedding on Earth!

On September 27, 2010 we were married at the happiest place on earth. I should call it the "hottest day" on earth because the day of our wedding was a record breaking heat for Anaheim that year. I think it was close to 107 degrees! Literally still 90+ degrees at 7pm when I walked down the aisle. It definitely made the day a whole lot more memorable.

Since we had to wait for DCA park to close, our ceremony was held over at the Grand Californian Hotel's Brisa Courtyard. We loved how the surrounding trees and the brickwork made it feel like an enchanted forest. It was our perfect little oasis for our ceremony.

After officially becoming man and wife, our entire party was escorted into DCA for our reception, but first: a surprise! We wanted to make sure our guests had the best day ever at our wedding. As a thank you to all of our loved ones, we arranged for a private ride on Soarin'.

This had to be one of my favorite wedding memories. Watching the excitement on our guests faces, seeing my grandma a few rows down from us smiling away on the ride and of course, getting to ride in my wedding gown. Soarin' will never be the same or as good as it was that special night.

Quite possibly one of the best memories etched in my heart is when we got to see our reception space for the first time. A huge "Congratulations Jennifer and Peter" scrolled across the marquee outside and when we walked in, just past the 'Once upon a time" mural.... a vision better than anything I could have ever dreamed of. Let me tell you, Disney Weddings will make every single one of your dreams come true. Our night was everything and more because of the amazing dream team over at Disney Weddings in Anaheim.

Sandwiches, ice sculptures and beyond our wildest dreams

Disney Weddings helped us turn our little PB&J sandwich wedding theme and turn it into our wildest dreams and more. Does anyone remember the Disney Vinylamtions? Well PB's *one* wedding request was to have a giant ice sculpture of one of the figurines and his wedding dream came true! The entire night was like one magical dream. It was literally the happiest day of our lives!

Bringing the fairy tale to life 

When we thought our magical time was over, a few months later we received a call from Disney Weddings that would bring even more wedding memories our way. To celebrate Disney Weddings 20th anniversary they were launching a campaign called “bringing the fairy tale to life”. For each of their wedding destinations (Walt Disney World, the Disney Cruise line, Aulani and Disneyland) they were selecting one couple per resort to share their personal wedding story and be featured in a national ad campaign with them. As luck would have it... guess who was chosen to represent Disneyland?! Just a few months after our own happily ever after we returned to live out a new Disney dream! On Valentine’s Day weekend in 2011 we were back at Disneyland to shoot the campaign. We spent the weekend filming our story and in the grand finale, a photo shoot around the park. t was surreal and one of my top Disney moments I’ve ever had. A true princess day! Our Ad campaign ran in various magazines that year and in their marketing materials for years to come after. Most recently one of our campaign photos was featured on a banner at the Disney Weddings area of D23 expo!

Happy 5

Year 5. My oh my, on our five year anniversary we had yet another dose of magic, this time one I had no clue about until the night of magic. 

PB and I have an annual anniversary tradition of re-wearing our wedding outfits. After previous years of taking our photos in the living room, I joked during year four that I wanted to do something “nicer” for our upcoming 5th anniversary. In true PB fashion, the one where you don't think he's listening but he really is, took that idea and ran with it. What resulted was the most epic surprise 5 year anniversary that went beyond my anything I could ever imagine. I've chronicled the epic night HERE so you can check it all out in that post.

Let’s just say it involved flying down my closest loved ones at the time, a VIP World of Color viewing, a Cinderella transformation at midnight, and Disneyland all to ourselves with a little visit with two famous mice in front of a certain castle. READ MORE HERE.

9 years down, a lifetime to go

Phew! If you've made it this far, thank you for reading! I just couldn't help take this stroll down memory lane. Plus there were just so many parts of our story from the past 9 years that I couldn't leave out.

So what have I learned in these past 9 ears of marriage? I can definitely say that this has been one heck of an adventure. We’ve had the highest of highs in this time together with spectacular times at Disney, our travels, our fun. But we’ve also had to face some of the hardest bumps in our journey. We've faced the everyday stresses of balancing between PB's crazy work life, endured medical scares, and our tragic losses. Through it all no matter what we've encountered in the past 9 years, both the good and the bad... no matter what gets thrown our way that each day always ends with the same amount of love as those two kids saying "I do" to each other on this day 9 years ago. This life of mine, all the magic and joy is because I have my Peter "butter" half by my side. 

Thank you for being my greatest adventure, PB. Happy 9! Eye heart Ewe. 💜