They create their own costumes, they move their families to be near the parks, they spend thousands a year, and they’re just like you. A weekend’s journey into the heart of a massive fandom.
John Gara/BuzzFeed
The magical Snow Queen recently gave up gluten. Dairy and caffeine too. Her new diet has helped big time with migraines, which had been plaguing her for years.
The Frozen monarch is eating veggie sticks and nacho chips in the main hall of the Anaheim Convention Center at the D23 Expo. D23 is the gigantic celebration of all things Disney that is thrown by the company every other August, and just about every one of the 45,000 superfans in the building is wearing at least one piece of character apparel, if not a full-blown costume.
Princesses roam free, and they are joined by more obscure characters and mashups, like a Doctor Who–Mickey Mouse combination that is gloriously geeky.
It's an oddball parade. You'll spy a lady dressed up as Buzz Lightyear pushing a stroller, a mash-up of the Marvel character Deadpool and the Sorcerer Mickey from Fantasia fighting with lightsabers, and probably the first and only sexed up Scrooge McDuck that the world will ever see.
The Snow Queen — Cassie, age 26 — is wearing a curly blonde wig and an intricate, shimmery blue dress she made herself, with icicles that dangle from the bodice. The SoCal native has been an annual passholder at Disneyland for the last decade, and she bubbles up with anecdotes from family trips to the park.
Disney's potent combination of fantasy wish fulfillment and customer service add up to one of Cassie's favorite memories. In a classic bit, during the Sword in the Stone show, an actor playing Merlin picks a big burly guy to pull Excalibur from the rock. Of course the big guy doesn't have the "strength" to do so, and a lucky kid is then picked from the audience for the final flourish.
One year, Cassie's dad was that unfortunate foil. "After the ceremony, my sister and I went up to Merlin for autographs," she says, telling the 15-year-old story like she just met the wizard yesterday. "He looked at my sister and then my dad and said, 'Don't worry, sir, it sometimes skips a generation!'"
A year later, Cassie's sister was chosen to remove the legendary blade from the stone and take the throne.
"Merlin looked at my dad and said, 'See? I told you it could skip a generation,'" she says, building up to the magical climax. "The next year after the ceremony I went up to Merlin and said something along the lines of, 'Oh… I've always wanted to pull the sword out of the stone, it's been my dream.' And Merlin promptly let me know that there was another show at three. By four, I was Queen of Disneyland. I just love that they work so hard to make dreams come true."
Now, she's working hard to make her own Disney-inspired dream come true. With the talent and time now dedicated (the Snow Queen gown alone took 23 hours) she's started selling custom dresses and outfits to other fans. She's got a website called Glimmerwood.com and an Etsy page that showcase some of her creations, many of them princess gowns and others "princess-inspired."
Being self-employed in the Disney business has its own kind of benefit; Cassie and her friends joke that the park is health insurance too: "Bad Day? Go to Disneyland!"
Cassie and friends
Disney
