IT IS OFFICIALLY WEDDING DAY
JULY 1, 2012
The day in which Greg and I would encircle ourselves in the bonds of love and friendship
Forever!
INTRODUCTION TO WEDDING DAY POSTS:
I will be splitting the wedding day up so as to not make the posts too long. If you are looking for a certain part of our day it will be easier to find this way. Here is my plan.
Part 1: Getting Ready
Part 2: First Look
Part 3: Ceremony
Part 4: Post Ceremony at the Swan
Part 5: Downtown Disney Pictures
Part 6: Reception
Part 7: Dessert Party
Part 8: The Aftermath
Part 9: Wedding Thoughts Glad I Did/Didn't, Wish I Did, Wish I hadn't
Part 10: Vendor Reviews
Now on the DIS I will be limited on the number of pictures I can post so if need be I may add some additional posts so that I can include more pictures.
Okay Moving on to Part 1:
Waking up after our long night at the Magic Kingdom was way hard but I am so glad that we did it. My Mom, Grandmother and I got up and were out the door to a cab by 5:15am. We needed to get over to the Swan so that we could get situated in the room. We were expecting Beaute Speciale at 6am and I wanted to make sure we had allotted enough time. Man am I glad that I did this! The Swan was not prepared for us AT ALL! When we showed up with suitcases a wedding dress and all our gear and told them we were there to use the Sandpiper room as set up by Just Marry they looked at me like I was crazy. I think we stood at the front desk for about 20 minutes while they scurried around and made phone calls. The lady told me there were two sets of keys for the room, one with my name on it and Lindsay Cullen and another set with some other girl's name on it. I calmly suggested that perhaps the other set was for another bride that would be getting married that very same day which is why I only had the room until 1pm. She again looked at me like I might be nuts and that my logic did not make sense. I also explained to her that Lindsay Cullen is their catering director and at one point I had worked with her but that we opted not to do a ballroom reception. She said she would have to TRY to get a hold of Lindsay to find out what the issue was. In my head I said "REALLY it is 5:30 in the morning do you really think she is going to answer your call?" Now I knew this was not my planner's fault this was entirely the swan being stupid but I called Diana anyway and of course she did not answer are you kidding me it is way too early I knew she wouldn't. So eventually with no answer from Lindsay and me saying "look hair and makeup will be here shortly I need to be situated in the room for MY WEDDING, you can give me the keys or I will find the email from my wedding planner that states when I have this room and if you do not let me in the room to get ready and my wedding gets screwed up Starwood Hotels can reimburse me for all the money I paid for this wedding!" She finally gave me the keys and let me go up to the room. Dear GOD talk about a way to start a morning.
Once we were in the room I made sure to take some shots of the room for fellow Swan brides because that was one thing I had been looking for prior to the wedding.
As you can see from this picture Laine, Alexi and Jackie are already in the room and they were setting up on a table I found in the closet
Here is the closet to the right and the toilet and another sink to the left
The bathroom
the room from over by the closet
taken from near the front door looking through the bar area
The space was really rather big with two balconies and a bathroom with the bar/ kitchenette thing. It had plenty of space in it and I actually really liked it. It was not really decorated or anything but it was very clean so no complaints there. For Beaute we actually were able to cover their table they were working on with a sheet because mom and I had stolen a sheet from Old Key West to wrap around my dress in the garment bag to help prevent it from wrinkling.
So now it was time to get ready! We had several people that were getting hair and makeup done but in reality compared to some weddings it was not that many. Greg's mom went first so she could leave and go back to the Boardwalk to get dressed. While she was getting worked on for hair my mom was talking with the girls about make up. It was at this point that I realized that Laine was there for me and for me only the other girls would take care of everyone else. Laine and I held back from working on me right away. I had to orchestrate getting food up into the room for everyone. We ended up ordering room service a la carte my mom called and told them what we wanted and about 45 minutes later it arrived. We had fruit, yogurt, breakfast pastries, coffee and juice.
While all of this is going on my Grandma is furiously trying to put together my charm bracelet. We had gotten everything last minute so we needed to assemble it ourselves. Eventually I was in such a trance I did not see what they were doing but the bracelet did turn out great.
My mom started getting her hair and makeup done and man it seemed like time was just flying by but in reality it wasn't at all. Beaute just works so very fast! Laine eventually started working on me but while she was working on me my Grandma was starting her hair and it was at this point everything came to a grinding halt! My grandma when she gets VERY VERY stressed has a history of some sort of medical condition that we still don't know what it is. She gets shaky all over and sometimes gets semi paralyzed. It is almost as if she is having a tiny tiny seizure but still to this day we have no idea what causes it. The last time it had happened was at her mother's funeral back in 2002. Well luck would have it that this would happen on wedding day. I asked Laine if we could stop so that my mom and I could take care of my grandma. We asked people to leave that we felt were making the situation worse my grandma does not like people seeing her in that state. We moved her to the bathroom and I started making phone calls to grandpa and greg. We did our best to calm her and Alexi from Beaute called the hotel for pillows and blankets. We even alerted we may need EMS. This of course probably made it worse because Grandma did not want to ruin the wedding. Greg and the boys including my grandpa were getting ready at Old Key West Greg told me to take care of Grandma and the wedding would just have to wait. Mom decided to give Grandma a wintergreen life saver to suck on to stop the chattering of her jaw and low and behold that little life saving mint saved the day. It completely calmed everything. Faith arrived shortly after that and I asked her if she would go to the swan shop and see if she could find some mints. She was able to find some and bought them and brought them up. By this time Grandma was MUCH MUCH better and was back getting her hair done....a sigh of relief came from me and Grandpa came to the room to check everything out and make sure things were good he must have relayed the message to everyone else because Greg never called to check on things so he must have just known they were ok.
A couple of other little things happened I had forgotten the iPod that the ceremony music was on luckily I had realized it early and Greg made sure to bring it over. Also I forgot the marriage license. It was a good thing Rev. Teresa Knox was there when I realized that because she calmed me down and said we had time for like 10 days after the wedding to get it to her.
Many of you at this point are probably like HOLY CRAP! WHAT AN INSANE MORNING. I can honestly say it was insane but I did not feel that stressed I just somehow knew that it would all work out.
Hair and makeup continued on while my pandora was playing in the background. The bridesmaids finally were all there and everyone had gotten hair and makeup done except me. We were still working on me. It was about that time that Randy and Stan showed up this means it was around 9am now. They started shooting and I really was not aware of them that much because honestly I was in a daze. Faith was controlling my phone, pandora, my iPad and any social media that needed tending too so I really had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that we were running late. I needed to be in my dress for first look pictures by 9:30am and we were still working on makeup. It was because of this that I finally started getting stressed out. Randy kept telling me to breathe and relax and for me to take my time because I had to look perfect. So I tried doing that and Laine was great with helping me. Randy told me that we would make it all work and they he would take care of everything so I knew that I had to let go of the control I had on the wedding and just leave it up to everyone else. This was very hard to do.
Once I let go of the fact that my timeline was getting screwed up I felt a lot better. I think a lot of people came in and out of the room but I did not notice it. Again the bridal trance had me all screwed up. The only 2 people I truly remember were Laine who helped me smile, laugh and breathe and my mom who also was my rock that day.
The flowers also arrived and I remember finally seeing my bouquet and my jaw just dropped when I saw the girl's flowers I just could not believe how simply amazing everything had turned out. I was stunned. After the flowers got situated and I was in my dress and jewelry was on it was time for pictures!!!
And now it is time for pictures of the getting ready process!
Working on my bracelet
My Princess Leia buns hoodie by Her Universe that I used as my bridal hoodie
See all the people in the room that I never noticed
I have to cut here because of picture limits another post coming right up to finish.
Teresa
hi teresa i'm finally finished reading ur pj all the way from start until now, everythins turned out great!
) Can't wait to see more pics and updates from your wedding 
