Princess Tea Party meet-up and more!

Friday afternoon of Princess Half Marathon weekend, I had a very exciting event planned! Erin of For the Love of Disney Running had organized a Princess Tea at the Grand Floridian. Nearly 30 Princesses and one Prince, Dennis Marsico, of runDisneyTV invaded the Garden View Tea Room.  Here is our Host and Hostess for the Princess Tea. Dennis looked particularly dapper with sash and bow tie.  Erin rocked her trademark Minnie ears, and gotta love their runDisney New Balance!

We had a special souvenir menu and Erin had even prepared cute name tags and party favors: truffle chocolates and Princess pens! It was such a fun girly time, catching up with old friends and making new ones! Our Prince, Dennis visited all of the tables, chatted, and posed for photos.

Here is the menu. 

We had three types of tea, and there were three courses! The delicious treats just kept on coming.

Course 1: an assortment of sandwiches.  The watercress was my favorite.

Course 2: Scones, creme fraiche, and jam

Course 3: Desserts

I was very excited to finally get to have tea at this location. Before my wedding, I was really hoping to have a Bachelorette tea party for just the girls, both family and friends. Sadly, it did not come together. Note: Disney brides looking for a fun girly afternoon with your bridesmaids, sisters, mothers, grannies, future in-laws, etc – this is a great option.

Erin told me later that several husbands thanked her profusely for planning this tea event. I was puzzled at first, but DG explained that he was relieved that now I would finally stop asking HIM to have tea with me. Ah... now it makes sense. :)

Immediately after, the Run Disney So I Can Eat Disney meetup was happening, in the GF lobby. Here I am with the group's fearless leader, Linda.

DG and I hung around and chatted with some members of the group and picked up a fantastic swag bag! I swear I don't know how Linda does it. She finds several sponsors to send her free stuff and we get the best goodies. The bag this time was a large zippered cooler sack with the RDSICED logo. Awesome, huh?

DG and I had said we would go to one more meet-up that night, Pacebook Running Club (PbRC) at the Polynesian Resort beach for cocktails and Wishes fireworks viewing. A quick monorail ride and moments later, DG and I were cuddled up on lounge chairs enjoying the view of the lagoon, with the castle off in the distance. The movie screening that night was Tangled, and we watched that until the fireworks began.

A perfect, romantic end to a fun day with my handsome DisneyGroom.

The next day, we knew we needed to be well rested for Sunday morning, so Saturday was a lazy day. Slept in and did some outlet shopping. The local Disney outlets had several runDisney items from the WDW Marathon and Wine & Dine weekends. Items were marked down 60-75% off expo prices, so we picked up a few shirts.

There were a few more meet-ups scheduled, but we didn't make it to those. We called it an early night and were in bed by 8pm, with alarm set for 2:45am! Am glad I got plenty of sleep this week, because I was so excited I kept waking up all night.

How does one find these great runDisney-loving fan groups and meet-ups?  These groups actually found me on twitter and invited me to join their Facebook groups.  At our first runDisney event, last year's Wine and Dine weekend, we went to a few meetups, and again at Marathon weekend, and now Princess, we have really enjoyed seeing our runner friends again and again, in addition to meeting new friends.

You can find them though.  I've compiled a list here: http://disneyrunnersnetwork.wordpress.com/fb-pages/  Join a few, dive into some of the conversations, and you will make some great new online friends.  And you will also find out about many awesome events and meet-ups for other Disney-loving runners like you.  Hope to see you at a future meet-up!

Next Up: Race Day at last! Close Encounters of the Sweeper Kind