Journal - August 20, 2001 - (The Wedding

Day 3: August 20, 2001
Marriage License, Randy Chapman, Running Around

Alarm clocks are definitely an invention that never should have been created. I swear I had only just fallen asleep, when the alarm went off at 6:30am. We had PS reservations at 1900 Park Faire at the Grand Floridian at 7:30am, and were catching the National Car Shuttle at 9:00am to get our rental car so we could get our marriage license. Slowly, oh so slowly, we crawled out of bed and shuffled our way to the shower. Exhaustion doesn't begin to cover how I was feeling!

The shower did help, and I felt a little more refreshed once I had finished. And coming out to see John standing on the balcony staring at the Wedding Pavilion certainly lifted my spirits. I walked over and gave him a hug, and we just basked in the "oneness" of being together for a while.

I then went and sent our ceremony revisions to Rev. Jack Day (after John read them and gave his a-okay). While I was doing that, John rearranged the flower towels to say "Thank You."

At this point, we realized we were going to be late for breakfast. John felt we shouldn't rush, and was concerned that by the time we got seated, we'd have to wolf down our food in order to make the shuttle on time. So we decided, albeit a little reluctantly on my part, to skip the character breakfast. We headed down to Captain Cook's for a quick breakfast again; at least this way, we were making good use of our resort mugs!

One thing I don't think I will ever get used to in Florida is just how cold the AC can get. Isn't the point of being in the Sunshine State to escape the cold? The restaurant was FREEZING. I had several cups of tea just in an effort to warm myself up. Even John was cold! (We joke about how I am "cold-blooded." I don't like temperature extremes, but prefer the nice range of 60s to 70s. So naturally I am often cold and he is not...but Captain Cook's was cold even to him this morning). Of course, our personal theory is that Floridians like these temperature extremes; that way when you walk back into the heat, it actually feels relieving for a while. And once the heat gets to you, you can walk back into the AC, which feels refreshingly cold. And when that gets too cold, just go back outside. LOL.

After breakfast, we went outside the lobby to await the National Car Shuttle. It was about ten minutes late, but that was okay with us. Our driver was very friendly, and give us a little mini-tour on our way to the Car and Care Center. When we got there, the line was fairly long, and it took us about a half hour before we got our car.

But once we got to the counter, it was clear sailing. I had made my reservations a month earlier on National's Website. I am an Emerald Aisle member, as well as a Disney Club member. We found we got a cheaper rate "of about $10" by returning the car to the Dolphin resort, rather than back at the Car & Care Center. Since we were planning on the Cape May Buffet at the Beach Club for Dinner, it worked out perfectly!

We got our key, and headed out to the parking lot. I forget the exact car we got, but it was a nice little red car. We climbed in, cranked up the AC, and headed towards Orlando.

There is something about going on vacation that makes you hope, pray, and wish that the part of the country you are in is not like your home, and that traffic in the morning as you head towards a city would be non-existent. But it wasn't nearly as bad as it was in Boston, that's for sure! John actually was driving in the lane that exits for Universal Studios, and when I pointed this out to him, he switched lanes and we were good to go.

Naturally, as I am sure you can all guess, this day wouldn't actually be clear sailing for us-- something just HAD to go wrong. And it started with the directions we had received.

Disney Fairy Tale Weddings had sent us a list of the Marriage License Requirements in Florida, as well as local Court Houses and directions to them. We were going to the Orange County Courthouse, but the exit the directions told us to take didn't exist! Yikes!

Thankfully, National gave us a road map when we got the car, and we quickly figured out how to get where we needed to go. But it did put us 20 minutes out of our way.

We finally get to the Court House, find parking, and head up to. My oh my, this is a gorgeous Court House! Beautiful granite and marble, it was an obviously new building and seemed far too beautiful to be a court house. We passed through the security check, and made our way upstairs to the office where we could get our marriage license.

When we walked into the room, my heart sunk at the number of people already there. So much for a quick stop! But we soon learned that many of these people were here to actually get married, and that the line for the license itself was much shorter.

We filled out the form and handed it back to the woman behind the desk. She told us to take a seat, and they would call us when the license was typed up and ready. We sat back down in the waiting area, and settled in for the wait. We passed the time by listening to the people around us, and talking to the soon-to-be-newlyweds.

After about an hour, when we had watched all the people there get married including people who arrived after us, John finally went back up to the counter to find out how much longer we had to wait. He was prompted to do this by little ole me, who was beginning to freak at the time. We were supposed to meet Randy Chapman, our photographer, in 10 minutes!!

A new woman is behind the counter, typing up licenses, and when John asks about ours, she looks through her stack and says she doesn't have it. John handles this much more calmly than I, and explains to her that we had been here for some time. She gets up to look. And lo and behold, finds the finished license sitting on the other woman's desk (who has since left). It had probably been sitting there for a good twenty minutes at least!

John calls me up at this point, and I join him at the counter. She looks at the license, and then tells us to wait a moment and disappears from view. I have my eyes glued to my watch, as time is ticking by and I know we are becoming later and later for our meeting with Randy.

Minutes pass. Finally, after another twenty minutes, John looks at me and sees my bridal stress ready to burst, and goes in search of the woman. She is now at another counter, talking to another customer. When John walks into her view, she looks up at him and then slaps her forehead. "I'm so sorry!" she says, "I completely forgot."

At this point, I was ready to scream when I heard that. John, in an effort to diffuse my stress, just gives me a wry smile and says, "Well, at least it will make a good story for all of your Disneymooners, right?" I start laughing and can't help but to agree. I can just imagine telling this to the disneymooners, and getting their reaction to the whole situation.

Finally the woman returns after another few minutes with our completed license and also with a "Newlywed Bag." It is a plastic bag filled with little gifts and things for people getting married. We thank her, take the bag and without even opening it, dash off in a rush to get to our car and get to our meeting with Randy Chapman. It is now after 1:30pm, and we were suppose to meet him at 1:00pm.

John and I dash out of the building, race across the street, and hop into the car. I take a quick look at the directions to make sure we are going the right way, and then we take off. Since John is driving, I tear open then newlywed bag to see what is inside: deodorant, coffee, napkins, laundry detergent, etc. All sorts of little things for a new home (and handy for a vacation, too), and obviously provided by "corporate sponsors" looking to get their brand name known to the newlyweds. ;)

Randy's studio isn't more than 5 to 10 minutes from the Court House, and we quickly come to it. There is a ton of construction going on in front of his studio and the buildings around him, so we actually pass by it the first time (as there is a construction car in front of the studio). We turn around and park in the lot behind the buildings, and then walk around front to his Studio. Only to see a sign that says to enter in the back because of the construction. LOL!

So we dash around back, and knock on the door. John yells a quick "Hello?" inside (it's really noisy because of the work, and so we weren't sure he heard us). We hear a hello in response, and then get to meet Randy for the first time as he rounds the corner and welcomes us in.

Randy is one of those wonderful, likeable persons whom you immediately feel like you are old friends with. I chose him as our photographer based on many recommendations from past Disney brides, on the fact that his prices were a steal compared to many Orlando photographers (and especially compared to Disney!), and because after my first phone call with him, I just KNEW he would be the perfect fit for us. And meeting him, I knew I wasn't wrong.

One of the Disneymooners described him as a "California Surfer." And though that wouldn't have been my first descriptive phrase, I could definitely see how it applied; blond and tanned, and with a smile, quick laugh, and easy carefree manner, I can see how he could be mistaken as a "California Surfer."

Randy is one of the sweetest guys, and John and I both instantly liked him from the start. Anyone looking for any photographic needs while in Orlando, I highly recommend looking up Randy!

We apologized for being late, and told him our little story with the Orange County courthouse. He told us that he had just gotten off the phone with Patrick Lyons, our videographer, and that Patrick wanted us to know that everything was all set. Yay!!

We sat down, and Randy gave us about a half dozen albums to look through, to look at different poses, styles, and shots to decide what we wanted, and to also see what the different albums were like so we could make our decision. We spent a lot of time in debate over the album. John wanted a more "us" color "either green or burgundy" and I wanted a more wedding color (white). Finally, as we talked about it, John realized that we already had many green and burgundy albums at home (our Ireland photos are in green albums, and our South Pacific photos are in burgundy ones), so we settled on the white. We wanted silver edging, but the white albums only come in gold. So we went with the gold.

As we were looking over photos, Randy also told me that he had spoken to Richele recently (she was ordering reprints) and that she had told him to say hi to me for her, and had told him to take good care of us. LOL. Randy commented on how amazed he was at how the internet brought people together. I told him that both Richele and I are Disneymooners, and that we had actually met (we live relatively near each other) and she had shown me her wedding proofs so that I could see some of his work first-hand. He was very grateful for that.

I then told him that he had a huge fan club among the Disneymooners and that many past brides constantly rave about his work. He actually blushed at that! Randy is just so sweet!

We chose our album, and discussed some shots, and then finally chose the type of thank you card we wanted so that it would be ready for when our pictures came in. And then we just talked and got to know each other. It was a lot of fun. He talked to us about photography, and it was really interesting to learn how some things are done.

Finally, John noticed how much time had passed, and poked me in the side to tell me we had to go. But I was enjoying our conversation, and John practically had to drag me outside to get me to go. LOL. We said our goodbyes, knowing we would meet again in a few short days; and that it would be our wedding day. YAY!

Once we got outside, it was time to start rushing around again. The plan had been to go to the Belz Outlet Mall to stop at the Disney stores there. We wanted to see if we could find some inexpensive Disney souveneirs to give to our guests. Specifically, we were hoping to find water bottle straps.

We head over to Belz, and make a quick stop at a restaurant there to get some food (we were starving). And then we start searching for the Disney store, discovering as we did that the Belz Outlet is several buildings and HUGE and there was no easy way to tell where it was! Finally we find the Character Premiere store (which is one of the Disney stores) and look through it. They had a lot of nice stuff, but most of it was clothing, and none was along the lines of what we were looking for, or met the guidelines of what we could afford.

By this point, we are realizing we don't have the time to stay. Franck's at the Wedding Pavilion closes at 5pm, and it's now about 4pm. We had shipped a lot of our wedding stuff down directly to Carol at Disney Fairy Tale Weddings, and they had stored our boxes at Franck's. Since most of our guest's stuff was shipped down, we needed to get to Franck's to get it. And we only had the car for a day.

So we decide to forego looking for anything else, and we head back to Disney World.

John wants to leave the car at the Polynesian Resort, and I needed to get back to the room. For the life of me, I cannot recall WHY. Did I need to grab something first? Did I need to check our messages? Did I need to make a phone call? I want to say I needed to check for a message, or I need to make a phone call before 5pm. I don't remember the reason. I just remember John letting me out near our building, and me running to the room while he got a parking permit for the car. He then met me at the room, after I had taken care of whatever it was I needed to do, and we headed over to Franck's.

Our housekeeping left us a new "towel design" today--this time a heart with flowers scattered throughout, and our Wedding Bears cuddled up in the middle (my mom's friend had given us the Beanie Baby Bride & Groom bears for our wedding, and so we brought them with us).

The woman who was there (I forget her name, sadly) was really nice, and helped us out. She opened the back storeroom for us so we could get to our boxes. This is when we discovered the next kink in our plans: UPS hadn't delivered our last two boxes that we shipped today. Which meant we couldn't put together our guest gift bags and deliver then today. Ahhhh!! We only had the car till tomorrow morning; we had to return it by 10am. We called Carol, our wedding coordinator, and she worked her magic from there. She found out that the packages were in Orlando, just not delivered. She said she would pick them up tomorrow morning and bring them to Franck's for us before her appointment, and we could get them when Francks opened at 9am. Even though Franck's is By Appointment Only during the week, someone is still there from 9am to 5pm.

The wheels in my brain began churning, and we worked out our plan. We had a lot of the guest gift things here--missing only the clip-on battery-operated fans, candy, sunblock chapstick, and band-aids-- and so could put most of it together tonight, grab the stuff that arrived in the morning and throw them into the bags while we delivered them. Yeah, I thought to myself, we can still do this. After all, neither one of us relished the idea of delivering the gift bags via Disney Bus Transportation.

We went through our boxes then, to see what had arrived and to make sure none of it was broken. We also started putting things in piles: Ceremony, Pre-Reception, and Reception. As we went through everything, I realized that my cameras were not here yet. I had purchased disposable cameras for the wedding day for guests to use, and made a mental note to ask Carol if they had arrived, and to check the order to see if they were shipped.

It was like Christmas to go through our wedding stuff! Even though I felt a bit in a rush. I didn't want to keep the woman at Franck's beyond her shift; we still delighted in seeing some of the stuff. Some of the boxes we didn't open yet, as I knew no guest stuff was in them, even though I really desired to open them. I had ordered many stuff through the internet, and had then shipped directly down to Disney, and so hadn't actually seen some of it first-hand yet--only through pictures online.

Our t-shirts and tote bags were just wonderful!!! We ordered custom-designed t-shirts through ArtApart (http://www.artapart.com), and custom-designed tote bags through South Horizon (http://www.southhorizon.com). South Horizon does offer t-shirt printing as well, but ArtApart had better prices. I had spent a good month searching for good screen printing merchants, and had settled on these two. I created the design for the t-shirts and tote bags (it was the same design on each). It had an image of Cinderella's Castle in the clouds in the upper left-hand corner with this phrase (in Edwardian script) next to it: Once in while Right in the middle of an ordinary life, Love gives us a fairy tale

In the center of the design, it then said (in Walt Disney Script): John & Michelle's Disney Fairy Tale Wedding With the first line a few sizes larger than the second.

Finally, at the bottom, it had the Wedding Mickey & Minnie design on the lower right-hand corner of it, with this phrase (in Walt Disney script) to the left of it: Walt Disney World August 24, 2001 Happily Ever After, From This Moment On

For the black-and-white JPG of the design, go here: http://www.ourfairytale.com/images_pages/wedstuffimages.html

The t-shirts were white with the design done in hunter green, and the tote-bags were natural with hunter green handles and the design done in hunter green. (Our wedding colors were shades of white and shades of green--hence the color choices). They were so beautifully done, and I was so proud of having gotten them. John thought the bags especially were the best idea.

John put the bags in the box with the t-shirts, and I grabbed a smaller box with some other things in it, and then we left to go back to the Polynesian Resort.

When we got back, I called my Dad. He was leaving for Florida tomorrow afternoon, and there were several things I had forgotten down in MA--the jewelry for my bridesmaids (gifts;hand-made by our friend Hillary), our Mickey & Minnie cake topper, my mother's gift, the gift for Carol, my hosiery, our Disney Dollars. Boy, did I feel foolish for having forgotten these!! We talked for a little bit, and my Dad called me when he got to our house to make sure he got everything.

We both realized we were hungry. Our plan had originally been to eat at the Cape May Buffet at the Beach Club resort when we returned the car to the Dolphin resort. But since we were keeping the car, that plan was out. And we had so much to do, we didn't want to go that far away. John wanted to eat somewhere on the monorail, and so we decided to eat at the California Grill at the Contemporary Resort, since we hadn't been able to Saturday night. I called Disney Dining, hoping to get a 9pm seating (for the fireworks), but they only had 8pm available. Ah, well! We were hungry, so we took it anyway.

I then opened the laptop, and attempted to send our CD insert files to Kinko's so I could get them delivered by tomorrow. Naturally, I ran into a host of problems. I needed to get it in by 7pm so I could get them delivered by tomorrow. AOL disconnected me several times while I was in the process, and the 7pm deadline came and went. I was so stressed over this, that after 7pm came and went, I just shut down the computer and resolved to come back to it later.

By this point, it was nearing 8pm, so we quickly changed into some nice clothes, and then hopped the monorail over to the Contemporary Resort. Naturally, we were running a few minutes late. Every time we had taken the monorail so far, John had asked if we could sit up front, and inevitably someone was already sitting there. But this time we got to go up front!

Riding the monorail is so much fun, but it really is a nice treat to ride at night. It's very romantic to zip around the world, blanketed in night's darkness with all the buildings aglow with lights.

We arrived at the Contemporary and took the elevator up to the fifteenth floor. We checked in for our seating, and then went to the bar to wait. We spent most of the time with our noses plastered to the windows, gazing at Cinderella's Castle as it changed colors in the Goodnight Kiss. I hadn't really thought before about staying at the Contemporary--for some reason it never appealed to me --but as we stood there looking at the Castle, I just knew we had to stay there some day with a view of the Magic Kingdom just like this one.

Eventually we were seated. We did receive a window seat, but it looked out towards the direction of Epcot rather than the Magic Kingdom. John actually sat at the seat at the window, and told me that it opened up into the inside of the Contemporary so you could see down to the stores below. I didn't really need to look at the menu, even though I had never eaten at the California Grill before. I had heard so many reports of the Tamarind Beef, that I knew I was going to have it. I just had to try it for myself. John finally settled on the chicken dish, we placed our order, and a little while later our food was brought to us.

To say that the Tamarind Beef is "to die for" is completely an understatement. I don't think I have EVER had beef so good before in my life. John usually mocks the term "to die for" (especially as it seems to be a favorite phrase of the disneymooners), but I gave him a few bites of the Tamarind Beef, and even he had to concede that it was "to die for." He also said it ruined his dinner for him--though the chicken was really good, it couldn't compare. J

As we were eating dinner, Illuminations began at EPCOT, and we could see the fireworks from here. It was beautiful!

We dallied for a while eating our meal, but realized that 10pm was still a long ways off, and we still had so much to do. So finally we bade adeau to the restaurant, and made our way back to our room at the Polynesian resort (with a brief stop at the gift shop to buy postcards).

We then started putting together what we could of the guest gift bags. Each bag also got a green folder, with 3 pages in the left flap. The first page was printed on this nice paper that made it look like a fancy scroll, and this was our welcome letter to everyone arriving at Disney. The second page had "CELEBRATE!" in metallic silver running down the left side with fancy designs all around it, and was an itinerary of the group events being planned. The third page was also on the scroll paper, and was a "How to Reach the Bride & Groom" page, with the different resorts we were staying at, the phone numbers, and the dates we were there. That way people could get in touch with us. If you were part of the wedding party, you also received a page on fancy white paper that gave an itinerary of the important wedding-related events, such as the Tux Fitting and the Rehearsal. In the other flap, we placed 2 stamped postcards, one of which was addressed to us for guests to send home to us.

We also placed 2 "Letters to the Future." We got a Wedding Time Capsule, and among many other things to help you put together the time capsule, it came with Letters to the Future for friends and family to fill out and seal in special envelopes, so you could place them in the time capsule. We called the time capsule company, and got about 30 extra Letters sent to us so we could have all our wedding guests fill out one for us to place in our time capsule.

John stamped all the postcards and wrote our address on half of them, while I put together all the pages and the folders.

Once that was done, we started putting together the bags themselves. John divvied up the t-shirts according to size, and then I told him which size belonged in which bag. Two squirt guns (a fun way to cool off!) and a fanny pack (all ordered through Oriental Trading Co.) were also placed into the bags, along with the folders. On the tags on each bag, I wrote the names of the people staying in the room, as well as their Confirmation Numbers.

It was very late by the time we finished this. John crawled into bed, while I went back to my laptop to deal with sending the files to Kinko's. That was a project that took me many hours! I ended up needed to download the Kinko&'s program again and reinstall it, and then I fought with Kinko's site to get the files uploaded. For whatever reason, it just would not upload the second file. Finally, as the clock began ticking past 1am and knowing that I had to get up in the morning, I gave up, crawled into bed next to my sweetheart, and went to sleep.

NEXT: Gift Bags, The Bruise, Mickey's Backyard BBQ, How I Hate Kinko's

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