Pre-Trip
I work nights as an RN and my last night was the 4th, getting off the morning of the 5th. The next 2 days were crazy busy. We had decided a week before that we really needed to paint the kitchen and living room right before the wedding (stupid, I know). So, the house was a disaster. A bunch of family was coming into town and we were trying to organize who would pick-up who and who would take what car ect. It was a little concerning that up to the day before, I was getting calls from the shore-side coordinator with last minute changes and questions that I had already spoken to her multiple times about. I friend of our had made custom magnets for the stateroom doors with the schedule of events including times and location on the ship. The day before we left, I got a call saying that my welcome reception had been moved from Skyline to Evolution. I explained that I had already had Skyline printed on custom magnets. Eventually, I was told that they would send a card to each stateroom notifying guests of the change. This did not seem like a good start, but my family and fiance encouraged me to let it go and not stress. At least the bars were right next to each other so I figured that people wouldn't get too lost.
Then, the most stressful thing happened. My fiance's brother's wife (my future sister-in-law) is an AMAZING professional photographer and she had planned to take our photos as a wedding present. The day before we left, my fiance's brother had a medical emergency and there was no question that she had to stay behind with him, especially as there would be no one else there to take care of him, as they would all be at the wedding. Needless to say, I had a bit of a meltdown. We were both stressed because we were worried about Matt's brother and how our wedding would turn out. I have heard some not so great things about the Disney photographers and I was so scared that they would be horrible. I called the port side coordinator and they were helpful in reserving a last minute Disney photographer. Again, I had to tell myself that there was nothing I could do about it and that it would all be fine. We packed late into the night and due to nerves, I only slept about 3 hours...
November 7th, Legal Ceremony Day
So after my on and off sleep the night before, I got up around 8am. I finished packing and double and triple checked all of the extra wedding items that we had to bring. Our bride/groom Mickey ears, marriage license, wedding rings, dress and accessories, magnets for stateroom doors, gifts for my mom and fiance's mom, gift for our officiant, our wedding confirmation document, wedding CD, and the list of guests with room numbers. My fiance, as usual, had not started packing and hadn't finished his vows. Que nervous bride lecture. My future sister-in-law drove us to the port at around 11:15 and we arrived at noon. She dropped us off in front and we checked 2 bags.
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I carried on my dress and purse while my fiance took the camera bag. We arrived at the same time as my fiance's parents and walked in with them. Check-in was pretty uneventful although it was strange that the people who got into the regular line made it through check-in before us when we were in the concierge line. We did get a card at check-in asking us to meet our wedding coordinators (yes coordinators, two!) at guest services at 3pm. This made me a little nervous because I was already scared that we wouldn't have enough time to go over everything and have the legal ceremony and now this would be cut even shorter by meeting at guest services. But, since there was nothing I could do, I just went with it. We boarded the beautiful Disney Dream and were announced as the "Boucher Family"! I immediately went to guest services to drop off my dress. Everyone was so nice. When the cast member behind the desk saw me come up with my desk she didn't ask any questions and put her arms out to take it for me. We also used this time to confirm that the list of stateroom numbers were correct. By then it was about 1:15. We met some of our guests in the atrium and chatted for a few minutes. Then we headed to deck 9 where we waited about 10 minutes for the staterooms to open. Our stateroom was 9162 which is a category 8B. On our 2 previous cruises we had a verandah, but since we knew we would be super busy, we went for a less expensive room with the large porthole. The room was beautiful as usual and we had a bunch of other surprises. On the bed, there was a silver castaway beach bag for being returning cruisers We also had a drawstring Disney Wedding bag with 2 huge beach towels, a plate of chocolate covered strawberries, and a big fruit bowl.
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We were so excited but had to head back out right away to deliver our magnets. It was so fun to walk around with our wedding ears on because almost everyone smiled and congratulated us. We took it deck by deck and amazingly, we didn't run into any of our guests. However, when we were walking down one of the hallways, we passed 2 crew members, and then heard "Matthew and Kathryn?". It turns out that they were our wedding coordinators. Meg and Maryke introduced themselves. They were both from South Africa. We were so lucky to have 2 coordinates because Meg was about to go on vacation and she was orienting Maryke, who was just starting. They were on their way to personally deliver invitations for our welcome reception to our guests. We confirmed that we were to meet them at 3pm in front of guest services and then were on our way again. Once we finished our deliveries, we had planned to get some lunch, but by that time it was 2:30 and I wanted to freshen up a bit before the legal ceremony. We ended up heading back to the room and snacking on some fruit. We also took this time to snap a few pictures of our room and special gifts. We got to guest services around 2:50 and met my mom, her boyfriend, and my fiances parents. Meg and Maryke (I think I'll call them M&M from now on) arrived with the notary and escorted us up to Outlook. My fiances brother, his girlfriend, and daughter (our flower girl) were waiting there for us. We stood in one of the little alcoves for the ceremony. It was very short and simple but literally, as soon as she started, I was tearing up. My lip was trembling and I barely kept it together. I kept thinking, "if I'm this bad during the small ceremony, how am I going to make it through tomorrow when I'm reading my vows!?" Before I knew it we were married!
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Us and our flower girl (isn't she precious!?)
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My mom and my fiance's..oops husband's mom signed the marriage certificate. Everyone left and we sat down with M&M to go over everything. I was really impressed with how detailed and organized they were. They went though everything that would be happening in the next few days. They had already made sure that the wedding favors we had shipped had made it to Evolution, where the welcome reception would be. I asked them to take them out of the boxes and put them on a table so that we could give them out. They assured me that this would not be a problem. I also asked for a table where we could display the decorative board we had brought for everyone to sign like a guest book. We also discussed the photography. Originally, when I had planned on bringing an outside photographer, we were going to do a first look before the ceremony. I was concerned that we would not have enough time after the reception to take family/group pictures and pictures of just the 2 of us and not be rushed. They were not sure that this could happen, but said they would look into it. They let me know about an hour later that this would be fine and scheduled an extra hour of photography before the ceremony. We also went over all of the additional floral we had requested. My bouquet (rose and orchid), the groom's boutonniere, a wrist corsage for my mom and mother of the groom, and orchid leis for the groom, officiant, and brothers. There was now one additional leis since one of Matt's brothers couldn't make it and we assigned it to go to Matt's friend. The whole meeting took up much less time than I thought. The one problem we found was that my salon appointment time was wrong and since my mom had signed up at the same time as me, they were both wrong. After the meeting, M&M personally escorted us to the salon. We moved my hair appointment and my mom's pedicure to noon. We were told that there was one more hair appointment slot for that time and so we immediately snagged it for Matt's mom. We said goodbye to M&M and headed to the muster drill.
After the muster drill, we had about an hour before the welcome reception and ran into a group of our friends. A good trick to get to the sail-away party while avoiding the crazy crowds after the drill is to go down one deck and then take an elevator up to the pool deck. The pool deck was pretty busy so a bunch of people from our party headed up to Currents to watch as we left port. Matt and I went over to Evolution about 15 minutes early and everything was already set up. Our favors consisted of a beach bag, beach towel, little sunscreen bottles, and nautical bracelets for the ladies. We gave M&M the guest board and sharpies and they set it up on a table. All of the appetizers that we had chosen were displayed, buffet style, at one end of the room. Soon everyone stated arriving. All of the appetizers were delicious and there was plenty for everyone. We made sure to spread the word that drinks were free for one hour and I would say that our party used the time wisely! Matt and I made sure to make rounds and talk to everyone. M&M stayed the entire time to ensure everything went well and no one who was not in our party came in. They also spoke to everyone and asked for them to sign the guest board and took care of my request to turn the music up a little. After the hour was over they helped us organize everyone for a group picture and then Matt and I made sure to get a picture with them! I had my flower girl and the daughter of one of our guests help me had out our favors. I told M&M that I knew you could take something to guests services and that they would have all of the characters sign it. I was delighted that M&M said, not to worry at all. They took the board, had it signed, and got it back the next day to display at our ceremony! Before I knew it, the welcome reception was over. I did not get many pictures from the reception because I was so busy enjoying it but, here are a few.
Here is our guest board. This is actually from the ceremony (after the characters had signed it) because I didn't get a picture earlier
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Serious Group
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Silly Group
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Us with Meg and Maryke
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I had an appointment for 7 pm at the salon to meet my stylist and talk about how I wanted my hair. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the stylists name, but she was very good. She seemed very knowledgeable and said that the example pictures I brought her were completely doable. She instructed me to wash and dry my hair but to only condition the ends and not the roots. After that, Matt and I met our officiant in our room to quickly go over the schedule for next day including the ceremony. We also gave him his gift which was an engraved pocket watch. Soon, it was time for our 8:15 dinner. As you can tell by now, we hardly had any down-time during the cruise. It was so much fun, but extremely exhausting. Our first restaurant was Enchanted Garden. When we walked in one of the waiters shouted "Bride and Groom in the house!" and all of the waiters cheered and clapped. One waiter led us to our table. Prior to leaving, the shore-side coordinator had emailed us about table assignments. We were given two 8 tops and four 4 tops and emailed her back with the assignments. In each restaurant, the tables were always pretty close together and we could easily get to each table to talk to our guests. All of our servers were OK, but not fantastic. The food each night was very good and I did not hear many complaints. During dinner the wedding photographer that we had been assigned came over to meet us Her name was Allyssa. She was very sweet and I explained how I wanted to do a first look and then take pictures around the ship. We planned for her to meet Matt at 4:30 in front of guest services and then once she got him set up, she would call me. I was impressed that she seemed pretty organized and I could tell that she had done some weddings on the ship before.
The rest of dinner was pretty emotional. My dad passed away about 10 years ago and so at dinner my mom made a toast about how proud she was and how she knew that my dad would be too. Between the emotion and the wine, she broke down and started sobbing right in the middle of dinner. I got up and hugged her but this made me pretty emotional for the rest of dinner. I had planned on going to "Match Your Mate", but by the time dinner was over, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Matt decided to meet some of his friends for cigars at Meridian and wanted me to come, but I needed sleep! It was so nice to go back to my beautiful room take a nice hot shower (without conditioner) and climb into bed. Matt came back right before I fell asleep and we dozed off while watching Brave.
