Stacey Meacham is awesome--she was my sales manager also and I liked her very much! Once you have the date confirmed she will walk you through the next steps--they will send you the contracts and the save the date information for your approval and signature. You send it back with your addresses for the STD's to go to and your $1000 (or whatever the deposit is now) check. Good Luck!
I have never heard of anyone signing them in person, but I suppose it would be possible if you made all your venue decisions before hand so the contract could be prepared for you ahead of time. But I'm not sure what signing the contract in person would get you, as you'll still have to wait a few weeks to get assigned your WP.
The reason why i am asking is because we will be down in WDW for the marathon weekend anyways, which is around the same time that we would be signing the contract. I just figured i would ask incase it was possible. Thank you!
If you want to do it in person to move the process along quicker, I don't think it would make a difference. I know they wait until one of their weekly meetings, talk about who needs to be assigned a new event coordinator, and mention a little bit about the bride/groom's style/taste or whatever... assign you a coordinator and get back to you like within 3 weeks (mine was like exactly on the 3 week mark).
I got a voice mail from my future event coordinator's assistant telling me who my coordinator would be, her name and phone number, but that she was out of town at the time.. so it was about another week when I emailed her. In the meantime her assistant sent the planning "kit" (A series of word documents and lists and a planning worksheet). Once I filled that out, I sent it to my coordinator, and we set up a time that we could talk over the phone (today )
And since that's where I am right now, that's all I know