With my train slung over my left arm and my right arm through my new husbands left arm, we walked slowing towards the bridge connecting the wedding pavilion to the Francks area.
We had been instructed to stop at the arch and kiss. Everyone was cheering and blowing bubbles as we came up.
Then we walked through the bubbles and into our chariot (or limo). I had been warned that bubbles could ruin the material on my dress and I looked down in a momentary panic to make sure there was no bubble juice on my satin trim.
(this is too bad because this otherwise would have been a great "looking into the future" pic)
We got in the limousine and the window was down so that we could wave goodbye to everyone as we drove away. We sat back and relaxed as everyone was instructed back into the wedding pavilion for family photos or onto the bus. I had asked that all family stay behind so that we could get family photos for both sides. EVERYone had difficulty with these instructions. My dh ended up saying anyone who has blood that is related to mine should be here. It didnt work. We ended up with all the present family members from both sides of my family and only one side of dhs family.
We did the pictures of dhs family
and then the extended family members joined the people sitting on the bus, along with our videographer and headed over to the pre-reception. We then did the rest of my familys pictures,
(notice who's taking the pics?)
parent pictures,
bridal party pictures, and any other group pictures. By then the bus had returned and took everyone but dh and I to the pre-reception.
Dh and I were then able to do pictures under the arch in the back (thankfully it was mostly all dry by then),
out on the dock with the Polynesian behind us,
and then I needed a break. It was SO hot and humid, I just felt like I was melting. I was pure wetness under the ribbing of my dress. Randy checked with our escort and was told that we were well ahead of schedule and that we could take our time.
I really wanted beach pictures but was afraid of how they would come out with us completely overheating. Someone got us a glass of water and dh and I crashed on the pews for about 5 minutes.
I wish that I had waited longer, but I was anxious to get to our party and my delicious pasta. Although, I think truly without taking that dress off, I wasnt going to cool off at all. So after five minutes we headed out to the beach. I was nervous because I wasnt sure if my train was right, but Randy said it was fine (never trust a boy with that responsibility) and it was so oppressively hot that I almost didnt care. You can tell from the pictures that we were just plain too hot.
This is one of my fave pics though.
The coolest thing, in my estimation, happened as we walked out to do our beach shots. It was just dh and I and the photographer. The monorail was coming along and dh said, theres the monorail. (I have a habit of constantly pointing out the monorail sightings and Epcot ball sightings). I was a little pre-occupied with the humidity to comment back, when suddenly I heard the monorail HONK at us! It was so cool. I looked at dh and exclaimed, did we just get honked at by the monorail??? He laughed and said Yep! I then proceeded to randomly exclaim for the next hour (and throughout our honeymoon)
We got honked at by the monorail!!! I imagined some little girl in that monorail going, look moma princess!
I was so happy to get into the super air-conditioned limo.
Just as we were getting into the limo, our escort asked us what we wanted ready for us to drink when we arrived at the Green Room of the Atlantic Dance Hall. My husband ordered a beer, I had no idea what we even had available to us and opted for a corona. With that, we waved goodbye to the wedding pavilion and sat back to relax during the 10 minute ride.
As we had the limo, we were able to drive right up to the Atlantic Dance Hall entrance. Tracy greeted us as we exited the limo. He advised us of how we would first go into the Green Room and meet with the dj, then we would hang out in the stairwell to create the grand entrance. Tracy was surprised that my train had not been bustled yet. I had no idea when we were supposed to have bustled it. I also had not had anyone with me at my final fitting, so really I was the only one who had a clue as to how to bustle it. Tracy said he would get MOH to come to the Green Room after he got us settled.
We entered the Atlantic Dance Hall and it just looked so cool. We could hear our guests having fun on the second level at our pre-reception.
The banquet captain was coming up to greet us when I suddenly realized that there were no place settings on any of the tables. I had specifically requested that the tables be set with full place settings and water glasses. I had even had to pick out a napkin fold. I was very disappointed. Tracy asked me what was wrong and I explained that the tables were supposed to have been set with full place settings. I had been uncomfortable with the buffet and had felt more comfortable with it knowing I would have full place settings. Tracy addressed this with the captain and he indicated that they COULD do it quickly but that the hustle and bustle would be very noticeable to everyone upstairs. I had been nervous about the banquet team since day one and this made me a little unsettled as to the rest of the custom requests that I had made. This was the beginning of bad things from this team. I finally acquiesced that the tables looked fine and I would rather not have my guests see the mistake being corrected. One of my mottos, in planning the wedding and cutting things that didnt fit into the budget, had been, no one ever knows what options you had, just what you actually did. SOOO, I finally told Tracy it was fine and that it should just be left as is. It was clear that he was uncomfortable in not having something as we had asked for it, but it was too late at this point. I shook it off and just hoped that everything else would go all right. Tracy escorted us to the Green Room and our beers were waiting for us. Both of us took some big gulps, partially because we were parched and partially to relax a bit.
Soon, we had three visitors: my MOH, my df, and the dj. My MOH managed to get my bustle up with only a little difficulty. My dad came down to tell us that the bartender had recommended that we switch to a full bar rather than beer/wine package, with liquor drinks on consumption. The bartender had told my father that at the rate people were drinking non-beer/wine drinks, we were going to owe a lot of money. This seemed incredulous to us as we had paid for 72 liquor drinks (one per guest, knowing that almost 2/3 of our guests were beer/wine drinkers). However, moh cleared it up. Apparently our bartender, Mike, had been pushing Mikes special punch for our guests.
(here's me tasting Mike's "special Punch" YEch!)
This was disappointing since I had wanted a feature drink, but didnt think it would fit in the budget, and I certainly wouldnt have called it Mikes Special Punch. But whatever, we told my dad to go ahead and up the bar to a full open bar. This meant now that everyone was going to have to drink at least 6 drinks for us to break even, so we asked moh to pass the word to drink lots. Finally, the dj double checked how to say all the names (which he still butchered my family name anyway, but we are used to that). He also asked about our wedding song and double-checked the format of how we wanted the evening to go.
With that, Tracy appeared and said they were ready to bring us up the back stairs. I was SO hungry. We sat in the back stairway and waited while all of our guests ignored the djs instructions to head down to the main hall and find their tables. I couldnt believe no one was heading downstairs and I almost didnt care anymore about the grand entrance. Thankfully, Tracy made me a plate of cheese and crackers and snuck it down to me in the stairway so that I could have some food.