Lorana
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2001
- Messages
- 3,307
DAY 3: MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 2001
- Marriage License, Randy Chapman, and 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.
- Marriage License, Randy Chapman, and 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.