Trip report - "Dreams do come true" (video complete - pg 45)

[Mary626]

Wait...Mary...your Father in Law is Maurice Minnifield? That is so cool!

By the way, absolutely beautiful idea for having a brunch. Is that what most dis weddings are? This was a great great great idea! Beauti-ous!

Yep, he was Maruice. It was kind of embarrasing, the morning of the wedding my sister Lisa was talking to him trying to get John Corbett's (the guy who played the DJ) phone number. She has no shame!

I'm not sure what kind of meal most brides have, I think it varies greatly. I actually didnt know there was a brunch menu available until I read about it on the DIS boards!!

 

[Mary626]

Jim and I got up to go to the dance floor and Jim leads me down the wrong set of stairs, to the stairs by the entrance to ariel’s and behind the aquarium, thinking there was an entrance there… It wasn’t really an entrance, Jim could squeeze through if he had wanted but in my wedding dress I couldn’t, so we went back up the stairs and over to the other set of stairs that led to the dance floor. Very graceful start again! I thought it was funny and was like “good job, jim!”

The guests arranged themselves in a circle around the dance floor while some people stayed on the top tier looking down. The DJ started playing the song I had requested “You’re my best friend” by Queen, and Jim and I started to dance…

At home a week before the wedding we had been trying to learn how to dance with one of those “learn how to dance for your wedding at home DVD’s”, we had been practicing a few different dances like the fox-trot and a few others, but nothing seemed to fit the beat of the song, and we felt ridiculous the entire time we were practicing, so we both just forgot about it and said we’d figure it out when we got there. I am not a dancer – it is just something I am not at all good at!! We were having Mickey & Minnie at our reception,, so we decided to arrange it so that they would cut in about a minute into the song sparing us any prolonged embarrassment on the dance floor.

I was actually surprised though by how at ease I was when dancing with jim – I was just having a good time with him and smiling at him and kind of singing along to the song – I was just in a really good mood and didn’t care that I wasn’t a good dancer, staring into Jim’s eyes just put me at ease and I wasn’t embarrassed or anything. Maybe I should have been, who knows, but I wasn’t. When I watched a little bit of our video, I was indeed a horrible, horrible dancer.. but at the time I didn’t care!

This is taking forever…

I was thinking it was taking a long time for Mickey & Minnie to show up. For some reason in my head, I thought they would stop playing our song and interrupt it with the mickey mouse song when the mice came in, so I was listening for a change of music, I don’t know why I thought that since I hadn’t arranged it that way. After a while I thought “they must have got it wrong and are waiting until the end of the song before they come in, oh well” and kind of half-forgot about them..

Right as I forgot about them, I hear this audible gasp from the audience – seriously it was a gasp! I was confused and looked around to see what was wrong, did somebody fall or something? But then everyone started to clap and cheer and take out their digital cameras.. it was Mickey & Minnie!!

 

[Mary626]

What had felt like an eternity turned out to be 50 seconds from the start of our song to the time Mickey & Minnie came out on the dance floor (according to the time stamps on our pictures). Wow, it had seemed a lot longer then 50 seconds!

The best thing about that moment I remember was our audience’s reaction. Only a few people had known about them coming, I wanted it to be a surprise for as many people as I could (I think my mom, Jim’s mom, my sisters knew, and maybe Jo, I can’t remember). EVERYONE had their digital cameras out at this point and was taking photos of the mice, they really seemed to love it! Totally worth the money just for their reaction!


We see Mickey & Minnie

Minnie goes to jim and hugs him and mickey hugs me, then Minnie hugs me and mickey shakes jim’s hand. Then mickey goes back to me and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do next – so I hugged him again, but then realize I’m suppose to dance with him – oh yeah! Oops. Oh well.

Okay, having the characters there makes for great photo opportunities, but I don’t think there is anything stranger or more ackward then dancing with a guy (or girl) in a mouse suit for three minutes. You know they can’t talk, so you don’t know what to say, you can’t really make eye contact, and it just feels really really strange!!!! I couldn’t’ wait for the song to end at that point. I really wanted to go back to dancing with Jim actually. In reality we only danced for them for about two minutes, but at the time it felt like ten!

I was surprised at how short Mickey & Minnie were. I kept wondering what the person in the suit was thinking about everything when I danced with him. I talked to Jim about it later and he said he was doing the same thing when he was dancing with Minnie. I remember Mickey spinning me as we danced. The whole thing felt so strange lol. But I do love the pictures! Minnie mimed to Jim to kiss her on the nose, so jim does.. then Mickey looks over and shakes his fist at Jim and everyone laughed.. it was cute!

 

[Mary626]

Our song finally ends..

Our song mercifully ended and the DJ started to play a medley of “mouse music”. He started with “Oh Mickey you’re so fine” and went onto “Disney’s mambo #5” and mickey mouse march,, etc… and the mice started to dance with the children in the group…

It was really cute to watch them with the kids. They tried to get all of the children included in the dancing. Minnie went and got 3 year old Mia and Mickey picked out 11 year old Krysta and 9 year old William. One of the children (5 year old Sammy) was terrified and no amount of prodding by his mother would make him go out there with the two mice.

Minnie & Mickey start dancing with the kids

 

[Mary626]

They ended the song with bringing Jim and me back out to dance by them again. This time Jim decided to do a weird little hobo jig that he sometimes does (very hard to describe lol), which prompted mickey to pretend to laugh. The DJ played more “Mice music” like “Disney’s Mambo #5” and the mickey mouse club march.

Jim looks CRAZY in this picture

Oh mickey you’re so fine you’re so fine you blow my mind, hey mickey!

Jim starts boogeying down, and Minnie cheers

 

[Mary626]

After that, the DJ said he was going to play my favorite song – said I really really loved this song – I was so confused and was racking my brain trying to remember if I had requested a song to be played – it turned out to be the Hokie-Pokie

So we all did the hokie-pokie. When the DJ contacted us a month prior to the wedding he had an online worksheet that me and Jim filled out about what kind of songs to play and what kind of personality we wanted the DJ to be – low-key, normal, or whacky. We chose normal, as in, the DJ could just be himself. There was a part about what kind of songs we thought the audience would dance to. I knew not a lot of people in our audience were really into dancing so I just chose the options for “fun party dances” – like the hokie pokie and the chicken dance. I didn’t know he’d play it while Mickey and Minnie were out, and being there on the dance floor having to do the hokie-pokie with Mickey & Minnie felt REALLY silly.

Mickey putting his “left foot in” as Jim’s dad slowly and casually meanders to the exit lol

Me putting my right arm in and really wanting the song to be over

At least Jim and Chris were getting into it

and we shake it all about … is the song over yet??

I have no idea what Jim is doing in this picture!!

But he looks like he’s having a good time!

And this picture of jim and chris is the highlight of the day!

 

[Mary626]

After that, the DJ announced that it was now “Mouse’s Choice” – where Mickey and Minnie would choose their dance partner… If there is such a thing as a slow mad-rush for the exit, that is what happened. Almost ALL of the adults on the floor left as quickly as they possibly could without running.. just like “ho hum.. I think I’ll go get a sip of water at the table..” .. it was funny.. I was like “Where did everyone go??” It appeared that none of the adults wanted to dance with Mickey & Minnie! Well at least some of the children helped them out

Mia dances with Minnie

Mickey dances with Ariel

This picture is priceless!

Stevie came over and was telling me how funny it was to watch the look on my face as the DJ announced that the hokie-pokie was indeed my favorite song ever.

I can’t remember the rest of the songs we danced to, but at least some of our audience was back on the floor dancing. I remember dancing to “I can’t help falling in love with you”. I was dancing with Jim, who kept kind of not paying attention to the dancing, and kept looking away or just stopped moving lol. He was like “I don’t know how to dance”, I was like “neither do I, but I’m still doing it”, so we keep up pretending to dance for a little while just because we thought that’s what we were supposed to be dancing even though neither of us felt comfortable on the dance floor at all. We kind of talked to a few of our guests as we moved around the dance floor. I really don’t know who I got a chance to talk with at the reception and who I might have missed. I hope nobody thought I was rude if I didn’t come up to them – I just kind of kept getting pushed in different directions and it was such a blur I wasn’t really focused. I noticed that Jim’s dad was dancing with Minnie – that was too cute!

Me and Jim pretending to dance

Minnie dancing with Jim’s dad!

Mickey dancing with Jim’s aunt

My sisters dancing with each other

At one point during the dancing, the strap that held my bustle up that was around my wrist broke and so I couldn’t dance anymore without tripping. I was actually kind of thankful, so took the opportunity to step off the dance floor for a while to try to fix it. I went back to the head-table to get a drink of water. The day was kind of reaching a lull – all the exciting things that were going to happen had already taken place and as I stopped to take a break I started to feel the effects of having had only 2 hours of sleep the night before. My advice to anyone and everyone – Try to get a good night sleep before the wedding!!! I felt like a Zombie Bride most of the day, not sure how much of the “being in a daze” feeling was due to the excitement and how much was due to being tired – but I think I would have been able to “enjoy the moment” a lot more had I had enough sleep.

I saw Randy and asked him a few questions about when to expect the pictures back, etc. I think I told him I felt ready to crash and he seemed surprised. I guess most brides don’t feel the exhaustion until after the wedding. I started to kind of look forward to the reception coming to an end. I was kind of mad for feeling that way about it, I had planned for the day for so long, and it was going by so quickly, and there I was looking at my watch.. , but like I said, all the exciting things had happened and I was running out of adrenaline.

My sister Lisa came by and I mentioned that my bustle strap had broken so I couldn’t dance, and she was like “why don’t you just tie it in a knot around your wrist?” Oh yeah. That does make a lot of sense!! How stupid of me. So she ties it around my wrist and it works fine, and I head back to the dance floor with Jim.

 

[Mary626]

Jim and me starting to wane a bit

I finally convince Jim to take his jacket off!

At one point, and I’m really not sure when, because Mickey & Minnie weren’t there in the pictures, but we were back on the dance floor and the DJ played the Chicken Dance.It was another one of those moments where it seemed like everyone had cleared the dance floor when he announced it. But a few of us stayed on, me, jim, matt, jenny, lisa, chris, some of the kids, and a few other guests. I remember not wanting to flap my arms around because I was being self-conscious about my arms lol. So I did a really reserved rendition of the chicken dance. I wasn’t really into it and I didn’t remember anyone else being into it either, but when I was some of the video from it it actually looked like everyone was having a great time. Especially Jim’s brother, Chris!!!! He was REALLY in to it! He later told me that he had been looking forward to the chicken dance the entire time, and had gone on the internet before the wedding to actually RESEARCH how to dance the chicken dance!! Apparently he had never done the chicken dance before and really wanted to! He had been sitting down when the DJ announced the chicken dance and he RAN to the dance floor trying to get a few people to come with him. How funny! So on the video, Chris is strutting around the whole dance floor while doing the chicken dance. It cracks me up watching it.. I also noticed that Jim’s nephew William was smiling broadly and having a great time with the chicken dance too. So even though I remembered it being kind of ackward at the time, in retrospect it was kind of fun!

When arranging the tentative schedule for the reception I was trying to keep dancing to a minimum and leave it for the end – so I was confused about why we were dancing for so long – or did it just feel that way because I’m such an ackward dancer? I was trying to time it so that we would be done by 1 pm, and then we would do the cake cutting and bouquet toss quickly after that. And then after that it would just be socializing and if anyone wanted to dance the dance floor would be open. I did that for two reasons, both related to me trying to keep costs down to a minimum. The first was the fact that I was only paying the videographer until 1o’clock, so I was getting worried I might not get some important stuff on video, or I might have to pay for an extra hour. Second reason, I wasn’t paying for drinks for the last hour of the reception (not even water or soda – it was all on a cash basis from 2-3, I’m glad I did it, it worked out perfectly), but I wanted guests to be able to drink with their cake.

At one point Stan took me over to the side of the room to where he had set up his laptop and told me to put on a set of headphones and then pressed play. It was our Wedding ceremony from earlier in the morning!! His wife had been working hard on editing it and making a five minute summary of the morning.. it included establishing shots of the Italy pavilion and our altar and unity candle arrangement.. then it showed me walking down the steps and my dad giving me away, and then Jim and me exchanging our vows and rings.. and ending in the kiss in front of our altar. It was beautiful!! He said he had it on a loop and the guests were coming by and watching it while we danced. How amazing! I couldn’t believe how quickly they had put it together and yet it was still so well done!! That was just really really cool! I gave him and his wife mad props for doing that. Stan said he’d try to burn us a copy and deliver it to our hotel in the next couple of days. Awesome we would have something to take home with us and to play at our at-home-reception!!

Jenny watching the edited ceremony footage that Stan did for us and put out on his laptop

Around 12:55 they took us over to the second part of Ariel’s – a part with no tables or anything, and we took pictures there with Mickey & Minnie. We did a few different combinations and did some of the classic poses with the mice… Jim on one knee kissing Minnie’s hand.. Me kissing Mickey’s nose, etc. It was cute. Minnie tried “miming” a few things to me that I took to mean she liked my dress and thought I looked pretty. Funny how you can kind of pick up on how they communicate.

 

[Mary626]

Chris took these pictures, I’m sure the professional ones will look much nicer

The character escort/wrangler person was really nice and asked if we wanted pictures with anyone else before Mickey & Minnie “had to go back to the magic kingdom”..
I went and found josh and janiece and asked if they wanted pics with gracie, janiece seemed really happy about that idea, even though gracie was sleeping in stroller she said she’d still like the picture.

So Janiece brings over the stroller where Gracie is soundly sleeping and Mickey and Minnie crouch down so they were at the same level, and were looking into the stroller for the pictures. 10 month old Gracie was sound asleep and me and jim were like “if she wakes up and sees two giant mice staring at her while she’s sleeping she is going to be traumatized for life!” We kept watching and were like “please don’t wake up please don’t wake up”, while Randy continued his photos. All of a sudden we see her start to stir and her eyes start to blink open. Everyone was like “oh no”. It was like a train-wreck we all just kept watching wondering what her reaction was going to be.

It was honestly one of the funniest things I’ve seen. Her eyes got wider and wider and then wider. She just stares at Mickey with her eyes and mouth as wide open as could be. She then looks around at everyone and is like “what the heck is going on!!!”. She looked like she wanted to cry but was too confused too cry. She looks around for her mommy, sees her, gets out of her stroller and goes straight for Janiece. She didn’t cry though, we were all relieved! It was really cute though, I just hope she doesn’t grow up with a fear of mice or Mickey Mouse or something!

Mickey & Minnie staring at the sleeping Gracie

uhoh she’s starting to wake up…

Imagine being 10 months old, being sound asleep, and waking up to something like this…

We can trace Gracie's future irrational fear of mice and rodents back to this specific second

Get me the heck out of here!

Gracie recovered fine and was out on the dance floor a few minutes later

During our photos with Mickey & Minnie our friend Stevie came by to say goodbye, she had to head straight to the airport from the reception and her flight was pretty early. I felt bad making Mickey & Minnie wait for a minute while we said goodbye, but what can ya do.
Then at about 12:51, Mickey & Minnie waved goodbye to everyone as they walked out of Ariel’s and headed back to the Magic Kingdom. Somewhere along the lines they signed the guestbook, not sure when!

Mickey & Minnie wave goodbye

We didn’t see this until later in the day when we were reading through our guestbook

Coming up; the cake, the bouquet toss, the monster mash, and more

 

[heatherlynn444]

oh my gosh too funny! i read the part about little Gracie and mickey and minnie to my fiance and we were DYING laughing, that is too cute, you are right, she just may be traumatized now! I would die if I had to do the chicken dance! you handled it better than I would have! love it!

 

[mindystar]

Again Mary, thank you so much for letting us all enjoy your wedding day with you! You look so beautiful in that gown and I love your head piece. It would be so cool invite Mickey and Minnie to your wedding The centerpieces are gorgeous--did you bring them with you or did your florist do them? Glad you had fun, sorry you were so tired
Thanks!!!

 

[Mary626]

Again Mary, thank you so much for letting us all enjoy your wedding day with you! You look so beautiful in that gown and I love your head piece. It would be so cool invite Mickey and Minnie to your wedding The centerpieces are gorgeous--did you bring them with you or did your florist do them? Glad you had fun, sorry you were so tired
Thanks!!!

Thank you! It wasn't too bad, I think it was just all the excitement from the day... it's okay as long as you keep going, but once you sit down for a second you start to feel it, ya know? But it was fine

The florist did the centerpieces - they were VERY reasonably priced and were just perfect for my wedding, since I didn't want to spend money on a huge floral centerpiece and nobody really cared what we had on our table anyway. I wasn't having an "under the sea" theme, but since our reception was at ARIEL's, I thought they tied in nicely

 

[Octoberbeauty]

What?? You guys don't like the chicken dance?? Quack, quack, waddle, waddle.... We love the chicken dance at our house.

 

[Mary626]

What?? You guys don't like the chicken dance?? Quack, quack, waddle, waddle.... We love the chicken dance at our house.

I like the chicken dance, I just felt weird flapping my arm around in my wedding dress and seeing about 2/3rds of our guests leave the dance floor when the song came on was a little disheartening too



On to the cake cutting!

Stan came by and asked if he wanted us to stay a little while longer (he had mentioned beforehand he would ask us if he wanted him to stay, ,and would charge us later for the extra hours). I asked if he could just stay until the cake cutting or bouquet toss that we were going to do right then, and he was nice enough to do so.

I started to get pulled in different directions so the guests could take our pictures – and I felt really bad, but I needed to do the cake cutting and bouquet toss before the videographer left. I hope I wasn’t unintentionally impolite to anyone as I tried to accomplish this goal.

I told the DJ and Randy that we were going to the cake cutting, and one of the waiters hands me a cake-cutter, I asked if it was okay if we used the ones we brought which were right there, which I guess he didn’t see lol. He was like “oh yeah, sorry”. I think the DJ played the song I requested – but can’t remember for sure – which was “Head over Feet” by Alanis Morissette.

I noticed that Jim’s 5 year old nephew, Sammy, was laying on the floor “playing dead”. I had noticed he was doing that a lot the past half hour and asked someone if he was okay, and they were like “yeah he just likes to do that for attention”. It was funny but very strange! So when we went up to the table, there was Sammy playing dead on the floor in front of the cake table. His mom came and got him so the photographer didn’t have to step over him LOL.

Sammy laying in front of the cake table for ten minutes with a piece of blue seaglass on his chest

The waiter “talked us through” how to cut the cake – which is good because I probably looked very confused about the whole thing! We cut a small slice and I further cut it into two really small pieces so we wouldn’t make a mess or have a huge mouth full of cake in our mouths that made us look like chipmunks or something. And then we cleanly feed each other a small piece of cake. I had made jim pinky-swear long before our wedding that he would NOT shove it onto my face – I had paid good money for a cosmetologist and didn’t want my make-up smeared in my pics. So I was very thankful that he kept his promise to me and didn’t get any anywhere except my mouth. The little bit of cake that I tasted was pretty good!

Me looking quite confused about the whole thing

Me thinking “don’t even think about it”

me like cake, cake good

 

[Mary626]

Why do the numbers 82 33 keep getting bleeped out? It keeps messing with some of my pictures darnit! How strange..... anyway..



Right after that the DJ announces that the available girls could head to the dance floor for a chance to catch the bouquet. Someone handed me the toss-bouquet (a smaller and lighter version of the bouquet that I wouldn’t mind parting with). Someone was telling me, maybe it was the DJ – I really can’t remember, to be careful throwing it, and that he’s seen bouquets end up in the chandeliers before. Anyway, I toss the bouquet… My sister’s friend Lynn had it in her hands for a second but it slips out, and the bouquet is on the floor. Nobody moves for a second, not really sure if I’m supposed to toss it again or what.. finally and mercifully 9 year old Crysta picks it up and everyone cheers. She looked really cute when she picked it up – very happy! I was glad she got it .

The girls assemble for the bouquet toss

The DJ explains what to do

a dark picture of me throwing the bouquet

Lynn catches it and then drops it.. whoops.. what do we do?

Krysta picks up the bouquet, yay!

 

[Mary626]

I kept getting called in different directions, so I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to Stan before he left. Jim told me Stan came up to him and thanked him and said goodbye. (I didn’t find that out until just now lol)

It was about 1:10 at that point

We both sat back down at the head table and were served a piece of red velvet and cream cheese filling cake. I knew the top layer was the yellow cake, with Bavarian cream cheese and strawberries so I was glad to have the chance to taste the red velvet. It was pretty good, but wasn’t WOW’ed by it like I thought I would be. Maybe I was too full from the buffet.

Our red velvet and cream cheese cake.. Some people LOVED the flavor, I thought it was good but nothing special.

The head waiter came by and asked if we wanted to try the other flavor. Yeah! So he brings two slices over for me and Jim. I looked at Jim’s slice and thought to myself “oh they must have forgotten to add the fresh strawberries”, but then notice a tiny tiny sliver in my piece. I laughed and me and Jim were like “wow they really skimped on the strawberries”. I finished my slice of yellow with Bavarian cream and the tiny little piece of strawberry, and Jenny comes over and said how delicious the strawberry flavored cake was. I said “I can’t believe how few strawberries were in it”. She says “what are you talking about there were a bunch in mine and in everyone else’s! In fact there’s a whole plate full of more slices filled with strawberries”. I showed her the picture I took of mine and she laughs at the measly little strawberry that they had given me. She went off and got me a plate with another slice – this one indeed had a ton of strawberries in it. How funny!! Of all the pieces with strawberry, and not to be like “I’m the bride” about it, but I was the bride! And they gave me the wimpiest slice of cake ever, and Jim’s didn’t even have any lol!I thought it was so funny. The cake tasted much better with actual strawberries in it!

Jim’s slice of yellow cake and Bavarian cream.. with fresh strawberries???

My slice… ooh okay… I sort of see a strawberry…

The slice that everyone else received!

 

[Mary626]

I don’t remember when exactly, but I was back out on the dance floor with Jim and the DJ announced that Jim had specially requested this song to dance to at our wedding and he starts playing “the monster mash”.. yep, the monster mash! I look at jim and was like “you are crazy”. Jim and I had always jokingly talked about dancing to this song at our wedding for the past 4 years, it’s a really complicated and long story as to why, but we always joked about it being our first dance. And there we were dancing to the monster mash at our wedding. What a strange day. First we do the hokie-pokie with two giant mice, then the chicken dance.. and now a slow dance to the monster mash. It was very strange, the day just kept getting weirder!! Luckly most people were eating their cake at this point so we didn’t have a crowd around us as we danced to the monster mash or I would have been really embarrassed probably.. But we finished up slowly dancing to the monster mash just like it was a slow love song.

Jim and I walked around the reception some more. We noticed people were taking turns walking around carrying Sammy upside down and tickling him. Very strange kid lol.

I was getting tired again and decided to take a break and sit down at my family’s table. I hadn’t really had a chance to talk to them since the reception began. Jim was at his family’s table talking to them. I don’t remember what we were talking about. Things were really starting to die down.

Around 1:45, I had gotten up for something and my mom came by and hugged me. She started to talk but then started to cry and told me how proud she was of me and how beautiful I looked. I hadn’t cried all day but there’s something about seeing your mother cry that will always get you going, so of course I started to cry too and thanked her for everything and then we both started laughing and just kind of tried to stop crying and we were like “so umm.. yeah how about that stuff!” I thought it was a really sweet moment between me and my mom.

The reception was supposed to go on till 3 but all the guests and everyone looked really tired and ready to head out a little before 2. I thought I would start socializing and saying goodbye to people – but lisa pulls me on dance floor to do “material girl” – I really didn’t want to, I really didn’t want to dance anymore, but she was really excited about it so I did it,. Thankfully lynn and jenny and my mom went out there too, so it was kind of fun. Lisa was really strutting her stuff lol. A little into the song, jim came by and said a few people were leaving and they wanted to say goodbye. But I had told lisa I would dance with her to the song so I told Jim I would say goodbye after we were done. If I was being rude I didn’t care, I told Lisa I would dance to the song with her and I was going to.

Lisa strutting her stuff

I think Randy left around this point – I’m not sure. Jim said he came up to him and thanked him and said goodbye. I’m glad Jim was around to cover for me while I was doing other things. Actually Jim was great about socializing and spreading himself out and covering the things that needed to be done while I was busy with something else. I was very surprised at how much Jim helped out with everything!

The song finished and I started to say goodbye to everyone. I was a little disappointed that everyone was leaving so soon, but I understood everyone was really tired and had been up really early for our wedding. I kind of expected it, but at the same time, it felt kind of abrupt and even though I was exhausted, I wasn’t ready to have the day be over yet..

When I went back to the table, Jim’s mother had re-arranged the stones on our table to leave us a message

 

[Mary626]

I said goodbye to Jim’s uncle james and aunt james I think, his half brother’s family, and a few other people that were still around... I thanked them all for coming and all that stuff. The DJ came by and asked if we wanted to dance to our last song now since people were leaving. I’d had enough dancing I thought, so I told him just to play the song but we wouldn’t dance to it. It was a song by Blink182 called “first date”. One of the first “dates” I went on with Jim was to a holiday concert with a bunch of bands, one of them being Blink182. They had played this song and me and Jim had been singing the chorus to each other, the part where they say “forever.. and ever.. let’s make this night last forever..”. We thought it would be the perfect song to end the night.

But since everyone was leaving, it kind of got completely ignored. I tried to sing a few of the lines of the chorus to Jim but then Donna, Bob, and Erica came up to say goodbye to us. Ah well lol. I’m still glad we played it at one point during the wedding day though. It was just kind of cool to hear the song that we had heard on one of our first dates on the day we were getting married. It was just weird how Jim and I had always kind of known we’d marry each other, even when we were just friends. We didn’t talk about it at the time, but later in our relationship we found out we had both felt the same way. We just kind of knew.

Anyway, I don’t think I got to say goodbye to everyone but oh well, not my fault if they were leaving early. I’m sure they didn’t think badly of me about it or anything, but of course I still feel guilty about it. I remember saying goodbye to Autumn and Sarah – Sarah had complimented our choice of music for the day. I don’t remember saying goodbye to Jeff, Alex, Aris,.

I’m looking at the wrong camera, or everyone else is looking at the wrong camera (everyone’s lost but me)

Clare & David came to say goodbye. I told them how cool it was of them to come all the way from England. I had family members in Michigan who didn’t want to come to the wedding because it was “all the way down in florida” so for them to come all the way from England was really cool. Clare said it was the least she could do for all the times Jim had helped her out and she almost started to cry, it was really sweet.

Everyone's lost but me, again

Pretty much everyone was gone, I don’t remember when Jim’s family left, I don’t remember if I said goodbye to them or if we just said we would see them later. I know Chris had left a little early with Josh and Janiece to head to Typhoon Lagoon together.

The DJ asked if I wanted him to stay any longer, and I told him no we would be leaving soon and he could go. He thanked me for the tip that Corey had handed to him earlier and left.

My family and Jo and her Jim were the only ones still at Ariel’s, everyone else had left at that point. It was about 2:15 pm or so. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for the foresight not to pay for the last hour of drinks – that would have been a complete waste. We had the room until 3 so we took our time gathering our stuff. Jenny & Kevin were collecting all of our things that we were taking back to our room, like the guestbook, anniversary tier of cake, cake topper, etc.

We made sure we had everything and slowly walked out of Ariel’s. We thanked the wait staff on the way out. I looked at our big flower arrangements that were next to our tables and was like “four hundred dollars and they’re just going to get thrown away – how sad”. At least we’ll have our pictures. At 2:30 pm we were out the door. I looked back at the room one last time and couldn’t believe the day was over. I was already getting a little depressed about it. I tried not to think about it.

 

[Mary626]

I felt kind of silly walking past stormalong bay and Beaches n’ cream with my wedding dress on. But since I was walking with Jenny, Kevin, Jo, and the two Jim’s, I’m sure it was obvious we had just been in a wedding.

I couldn’t believe how quickly the day flew by! At the same time, it seemed like it had been a year ago that I was walking through the Yacht Club Lobby on my way to get married. It was too much to think about just then so I thought I would ask my brother-in-law Kevin to take a few more pictures of us in the lobby of the Yacht Club. He took a few but they turned out a little blurry.

I wish the train of my dress had been arranged in this one

Jo & Jim were going to head back to their hotel. We said our goodbyes and promised to see each other at least once more before they drove back to Georgia on Wednesday morning.

We went back to our room and before entering, I turned over our door hanger sign to the side that said “Just Married”

MORE LATER - Mary makes with the crying again and tries to deal with post-wedding-syndrome, more favorite lisa quotes, the nelson twins and china..

 

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

Mary: thank you so much for sharing this with us. I keep logging back on to see if you have added more, and I am never disappointed!

Your wedding was just beautiful, and your descriptions...I feel like I know your family, like I know you and Jim. Much congratulations, best wishes for a lifetime of love, and chicken dances!

You are a beautiful bride. Absolutely gorgeous.

Thanks so much for sharing...and I will keep reading!