Meryll83's SBP/Citrico's/Morocco TR - And they lived happily ever after...

[Chilly]

Love that last one!

 

[disneybarbie]

Fabulous photos so far!! You both just look sooo happy!!

Lol I know what you mean about the gaps on the Boardwalk.. I've lost a heel several times when walking around there !

It is really different in USA/WDW with brides & weddings isn't it... last summer I did an illuminations cruise with newlywed friends from the DIS (MrsDisneyB2B!), our captain put a 'Congratulations' banner on our boat; then loads of people on the bridges/Boardwalk would shout out to them... we commented that just wouldn't happen if we were in England!

Emma x

 

[weedee]

Wow everything looks amazing so far!!! Can I ask where you got your StD tickets from? Or did you DIY them yourselves? They look awesome! Oh and where did you find that sand ceremony kit? It's really neat! I've never seen the vessels with the handles...I LOVE!

 

[MsEsty]

Absolutely gorgeous! Your pictures show just how pretty the SBP point can be!

 

[meryll83]

Wow everything looks amazing so far!!! Can I ask where you got your StD tickets from? Or did you DIY them yourselves? They look awesome! Oh and where did you find that sand ceremony kit? It's really neat! I've never seen the vessels with the handles...I LOVE!

I found the boarding pass template online, then Mickified it, changed the fonts and colours. If you want to PM me your email addy I'll send you the template I amended if you like?

The sand ceremony came from forevermemories.com - they were really helpful and shipped it to our resort as they don't mail to the UK. They also worked with me to open up their Paypal payment acceptance for a limited time, as they normally only accept payments from US Paypal accounts.

Absolutely gorgeous! Your pictures show just how pretty the SBP point can be!

I was worried we should have had some more floral or swagging, but on the day it looked beautiful with just the basic scattered petals.

 

[meryll83]

Fabulous photos so far!! You both just look sooo happy!!

Lol I know what you mean about the gaps on the Boardwalk.. I've lost a heel several times when walking around there !

It is really different in USA/WDW with brides & weddings isn't it... last summer I did an illuminations cruise with newlywed friends from the DIS (MrsDisneyB2B!), our captain put a 'Congratulations' banner on our boat; then loads of people on the bridges/Boardwalk would shout out to them... we commented that just wouldn't happen if we were in England!

Emma x

We had such a good time!

You're brave Emma, wearing heels at WDW! Mind you I'm a trainers girl whenever possible, you'll rarely catch me in heels any day - my wedding shoes were my dancing silvers as I knew I could rely on them!

 

[meryll83]

Here are a few live action shots of the ceremony that Steve took, so you can all now pretend you were there!

My mum did a reading for us, she told us afterward that she was worried about the speedboat she could hear in the background when she was talking, but we never even noticed it at the time!

Time to exchange rings - and not drop them down the boards at the Boardwalk! I was so worried about this!!! Apparently Adam was thinking of dropping a quarter on the floor and making out he'd dropped a ring - I am SO glad he decided against this!!

Here are the parents, looking like they're concerned we might actually go through with this!!

Randal Miller provided a really personable and individual feeling ceremony, which was great considering how many of these things he must do in a year! I really enjoyed listening to him, he had such a friendly and calming voice.

Before we knew it, the end of the ceremony was there, and we were pronounced man and wife!
Randal Miller told us it was time to kiss, and to make it a good one for the cameras!

Our recessional was All You Need is Love by The Beatles, played by our violinist.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention the music from earlier (doh!), the girls walked down the aisle to True Love's Kiss from Enchanted and my Dad and I walked down to Reflection from Mulan.

We then did a staged exit with rose petals for the girls and bubbles for the boys. Obviously bubbles were deemed to be more manly!

I think I forgot to show you my bubbles earlier - here I am showing them off in style, and another with the cork from our Fizz Bocks!
Big thanks to Vanessa for these bubbles, I couldn't get hold of them in the UK, but as Vanessa had spares from her wedding, she kindly arranged to mail these over to me

 

[meryll83]

We had a little shuffle around for our official first dance, Your Song, whilst Julie and Adam signed our marriage certificate. Here you will see the aftermath of the missing funnel incident:

My mum made the girls have this photo to show of the back off the chairs

We then thanked Randal Miller as we bade him farewell - he asked us for a shot together for his website, but last time I looked, we didn't appear to have made the final cut!:

It was then time for the cake cutting, and my dad was first prompted to make a speech. Bless him, I had told him there wouldn’t be any speeches needed on the day and we’d save them for our at home reception, so he was really thrown in the deep end here, but did a great job!

I like how alike my Dad and I look on this picture!

A few obligatory shots with the cake and then....

 

[meryll83]

...Cake time!! And no, there was no smooshing into the face allowed!

Ah, how elegent!

I had been sooooooooo looking forward to this cake ever since we chose the flavours. The bottom layer was almond sponge with amaretto filling, and the top layer chocolate sponge with peanut butter filling.
Oh my! Best. Cake. Ever.
Surprisingly, we both preferred the almond layer, when we thought for sure the top layer would be our favourite, but it was all oh so good!
Over the next couple of days we had to keep inviting the gang round to our room to collect more helpings of cake, as we were storing it over a sink full of ice and wanted to make sure it got eaten pretty quickly!

Oh dear, hope he's not regretting the marriage already!

During our short break for cake and champage, we opened some cards and gifts from family who unfortunately couldn’t make it to Florida. I was pleased my parents had thought to bring these, as it was nice to have a moment to think about those we would have liked to have been with us today.
Adam and Anna also presented us with a gift, which turned out to be the musical Mickey and Minnie from that morning!!

 

[meryll83]

Soon it was back to business, and the photo taking recommenced.

Steve kindly took our boxed up cake to our room for us whilst we were being papped again, and got this snap of my dad on his way:

I didn't realise at the time, but it was mentioned later that it was a bit disappointing a second round of cake wasn't offered (maybe that's just our lot being greedy!) but I just thought it was worth noting that maybe you need to ask for this if you want your guests to have the option!!

I apologise for the lack of description coming up, but we have such a lot of photos from around this time, that I'll just let them do the talking....

I'm not very good at the sultry and serious thing!

Luckily, neither is Simon!

My teeth look very "British" in those photos! I had a retainer when I was younger but lost it before I was meant to stop wearing it, so don't have the super straight teeth I should have had!!

Time for a few formal shots:

Yes, here we are being formal!

 

[meryll83]

The first limousine trip to the Grand Floridian was due before we knew it, and Kathleen suggested the bridal party stay for some more photos whilst the rest of the gang took the first trip.
Time for some fun shots!
Adam didn't have his sunglasses with him, so he had borrowed his Mum's for the purposes of these photos - I don't think they look too feminine, but I had to cause him some embarassment and tell that little tale!

Getting honked by a Friendship boat!

Kathleen approached us on our trip around the Boardwalk to ask if we knew where my parents and Simon's dad had got to - apparently they had vanished!
This is common for my mum to go for a wander, but probably not so much for the gents, but as we didn’t know where, there wasn't much we could do about it, so we continued along our merry way, even dancing part of it! I take it things got sorted somehow, as they were at the Grand Floridian once we arrived!

This one made it to the Beaute Speciale website

 

[meryll83]

We had some real fun taking over the Boardwalk!

I wish I'd thought at the time to have some pictures taken by the booth itself, as it would have been cool to have some photos from that perspective too!

The limo had returned for us, so it was time to head for THE deluxe resort and to the Chef's Domaine at Citrico's - we were Grand Floridian bound!

 

[gemmybear83]

Fantastic update Meryll! I love your photos - Randy did such a good job! Great tip on the second round of cake I will remember that!

 

[lpizzuro123]

Wow - I just can't believe how wonderful everything looks.

Loving your report so far - I think it is great that you did the Drinks Around the World with the Passport - great idea - and I love that your DH contributed to this. You looked like you all had so much fun.

Your dress is just beautiful and you looked great. I love the girls dresses - I remember when you had posted them when you got them and I just love them. Did you get them online. I would love to find out.

Our colors were red also and I love how the red just pops out of everything. Your crinnie came out great - I did mine in pink and loved it.

Can't wait to read and see more.

Linda

 

[Lorelei528]

Meryll-
Your pictures are AWESOME!!!

Kind of makes me want to get married all over again just to work with Randy!

You an Si both have great smiles and you can tell just from looking how happy you both were that day and also what fun you guys must be in real life!

You really truly were a beautiful bride!

 

[meryll83]

Fantastic update Meryll! I love your photos - Randy did such a good job! Great tip on the second round of cake I will remember that!

We seriously did get like a gazillion photos and loved pretty much all of them!! I don't always like myself in photos, and I tend to be a bit of a blinker, but I warned Randy about this, and after a blinktastic first 10 minutes or so, we were sorted!

There's always room for more cake, you'd think Disney would know that!

Wow - I just can't believe how wonderful everything looks.

Loving your report so far - I think it is great that you did the Drinks Around the World with the Passport - great idea - and I love that your DH contributed to this. You looked like you all had so much fun.

Your dress is just beautiful and you looked great. I love the girls dresses - I remember when you had posted them when you got them and I just love them. Did you get them online. I would love to find out.

Our colors were red also and I love how the red just pops out of everything. Your crinnie came out great - I did mine in pink and loved it.

Can't wait to read and see more.

Linda

Linda, I found the girls dresses in a shop at home, but ordered them online from Magic Moments Collections, as they were the same price in dollars as they were in pounds, and back then the dollar rate was around 1.8 as well

Meryll-
Your pictures are AWESOME!!!

Kind of makes me want to get married all over again just to work with Randy!

You an Si both have great smiles and you can tell just from looking how happy you both were that day and also what fun you guys must be in real life!

You really truly were a beautiful bride!

Lori, you make me blush!

Randy was a lot of fun to work with, we need an excuse to work with him again. Hmmm, Vow Renewal perhaps?....

 

[meryll83]

We had fun raiding the limo for bottled water, and Adam even found a can of Pepsi, although it was a little disappointing there was no champagne in there! As we got out of the limo at the Grand Floridian, the driver thankfully noticed Simon’s phone had slipped out of his pocked, and saved another phone incident from occurring! It later transpired however, that Adam and Anna’s camera got lost somewhere throughout the day, and despite trying various channels, we still don’t know to this day what happened to it!

Randy was waiting to greet us and got snapping away again, with friends and family following suit.

We went for some beach photos whilst everyone else hung out in the lobby at the Grand. I didn’t think about it at the time, but I should have directed them to the Mizner’s Lounge for something to do. I'm sure I'd planned to do this, but obviously forgot! Mind you, it’s a pretty impressive lobby, so I don’t think they were hard done by! It was quite nice to have some quiet time, just me and Simon (and Randy!) and we enjoyed strolling along the beach, although the sand did later irritate my feet and made my shoes rub – Julie had the joy of rubbing sand off my feet later!

 

[wilma-bride]

Wow hun, you look absolutely gorgeous. I really, really wish we had been able to make it over to the Boardwalk that day - would have loved to have seen it 'in the flesh'. Can't even remember where we were (MK I think). Still gutted we didn't get to meet you on the cruise - but you were honeymooning so I'll forgive you

Can't wait to see more

 

[meryll83]

I was excited to be able to get these shots, as we'd ummed and ahhed a bit when we first started planning our wedding as to whether or not we should get married at the Wedding Pavilion. I knew what beautiful beach photos could be taken at the Grand Floridian, but that if another bride was using this location, we wouldn't want to get in their way. Still, I'd told Randy we'd like to get these shots if we could, and luck was on our side...

Randy bade us farewell after our beach shots, saying he’d have the photos ready before we left and would call us to arrange when we could meet up. We then headed back indoors to meet everyone else in the lobby, as it was almost time for our reception dinner...

 

[meryll83]

Wow hun, you look absolutely gorgeous. I really, really wish we had been able to make it over to the Boardwalk that day - would have loved to have seen it 'in the flesh'. Can't even remember where we were (MK I think). Still gutted we didn't get to meet you on the cruise - but you were honeymooning so I'll forgive you

Can't wait to see more

I know, we decided against the cruise DISmeet in the end as this was the part of the holiday that was just for us, but we really should have just popped in to say hey!

Looks like we'll just miss you this year as well...