OUR WEDDING IN DISNEY
Our wedding was on a Thursday, right before Labor Day weekend on September 1, 2005! I was leaving, with my mom, brother, and sister-in-law, on the Monday before, August 29, 2005. My dhs family left the Friday before (August 26th). My dh and my dad were coming down on Tuesday (August 30th) late. The rest of our 99 guests were going to be coming anytime from the Saturday before to the day of the wedding!
Two weeks before the wedding, our marriage license finally came from A Wedding For You. As some of you know, my father, a city court judge in New York, was planning on doing our ceremony. We had quasi-cleared that with Orange and Osceola counties. To my great surprise, the marriage license arrived from Miami-Dade County. I was totally freaking out for the evening from when I got the mail until the next morning. I spent the evening scouring the Miami-Dade County website to see what sort of response I might get. For those who have actually read the statute regarding who may actually perform a marriage in the state of Florida, you will know that the statute is slightly ambiguous as to whether a Judge performing the ceremony must be a Florida State Judge.
The next morning I was able to get a hold of the Clerk of the Courts in Miami-Dade County. He informed me that the only individuals able to perform marriages were spiritual ministers and Florida state notary of publics. I asked, what about a judge? The response: A florida state judge? No problem. I held my breath and asked, What about a New York State Judge? The clerk responded, You have that Judge call me and it will be no problem! I was ecstaticI conferenced in my father (without warning) and had the clerk immediately talk to him. The clerk and my father then, to my chagrin, made arrangements for my father to fly to Miami on Wednesday (the day before the wedding and the only day my father would be able to) to be deputized to conduct my wedding in the state of Florida. It definitely created a bit of chaos, but at the same time it completely relaxed me. We finally had a very definitive answer that my father could perform our ceremony without a hitch (no pun intended) in the state of Florida!
My next hurdle was figuring out how to get all of the wedding STUFF to Florida. I had a ton of STUFF to bring including, my dress, my place cards (which were scalloped seashells and there were approximately 50),
13 party lite sand castle tea light centerpieces,
the guest book, ring bearer pillow, pen, toasting glasses (awesome glasses from Tiffany & Co. that a good friend surprised me with a week before we left),
the groomsmen and bridesmaids gifts, my tiara, and the largest baggagethe destination gift bags and contents. DHs parents were driving down in an RV and with his brothers family in a large van. My aunt and uncle were also driving a large van. My original plan was to give the breakable stuff (centerpieces, guest book/pen, ring bearer pillow, toasting glasses, place cards to dhs parents, and for me to take the rest, including my dress as a carry on. I finally gave in to common sense and asked dhs parents to take my dress. My plan had been to pack all the destination gift bags at Disney and then deliver to the hotels on Tuesday. About a week out I decided to pack them at home and then I decided to only deliver the bags to those guests that would not be at the rehearsal dinner. The rest I was going to give out at the rehearsal dinner. My MIL had decided to include aunts and uncles in the rehearsal dinner, so this made my delivery duties a little simpler. I packed up all the rehearsal dinner bags, boxed them, and delivered them to my aunt and uncle to bring in the van and bring with them to the rehearsal dinner.
This left me with about 20 bags that all fit into one suitcase. Each bag was slightly different. I had spent the year before the wedding keeping my eye on disneydeals.com for really good deals of bag stuffer items. I also went and bought tissue packs, antibacterial minis, soaps from bath and body works, sunscreen, lip balm from Panama Jack (highly recommend their online site), and playing cards. My Mary Kay lady donated about 30 hand lotions for the bags. I sell Pampered Chef so I was able to get yummy coffee samples that I included in every room bag that I knew had a coffee machine. I was never really sure how many bags I would need, so I figured if I had a good spread I could just split it all up. I also included an individualized itinerary in each bag, individualized as to which hotel they were staying. The last thing that each bag got was the door hanger that some of you saw in my picturesit had their names on it and made it easy for everyone to find each other.
We had invited children to come with their parents to the weddingfor each of the little girls we included a separate special purse bag with their goodies.
Our very good friends (the ones mentioned above that bought us the Tiffany toasting glasses) were getting married in Canada the Saturday before us and then graciously spending their honeymoon in Disney for our wedding. One of my dhs groomsmen who lives out of town also was attending a different wedding in Canada (just over the border from where we live) that weekend. Dhs friend and girlfriend flew up on that Friday and stayed with us until Sunday. We went to our separate events on Saturday. Our friends wedding was SO nice and really made us excited for our event!
I was slightly stressed knowing that I still had to pack and get to the airport by 6 am on Monday! Dhs friends flew out Sunday evening and I began to pack. By midnight I was 90% done and I called my mom to make sure that she and my brother had gotten their boarding passes. She asked me to get all of the passeswhen I went online to get the passes the website told me that they could not be issued because the flight was either full or cancelled. You can imagine my surprise and displeasure!!! I immediately panicked and called the airline. Apparently, everyone floods the website right at midnight to get their boarding passes and that was the only problem. I waited a few minutes, tried again, and successfully obtained our boarding passesthe trip was about to start!!!! I left my final disboard message as a single woman and packed up my computer for the trip. Somewhere close to 2 am, I set the alarm for 5 am and crawled into bed.
We are back and back to real life...I plan on posting a trip log...it might take me a while as I will need to do it in pieces. Work is crazy after being gone for two weeks! The wedding was incredible and I just think that Disney FTW is actually a value rather than expensive--now that I've been through it!!!! There were a few things that weren't just right--but I have to tell you that I wasn't going to fret over it 
im so happy to hear you were able to have the officiant situation solved & got to have your dad perform the ceremony im sure that was very special, cant wait to hear more details!
Can't wait to read more!!!
