Now we had some time to kill before meeting the Wedding Planner for the Legal Ceremony. We wound up going to check out his parents’ room with the porthole, since we had an inside room, and somehow we picked up Tess and Morgan along the way. We took some pictures in the atrium area, and then the Wedding Coordinator, Jaime, was out promptly at 3:00 pm, with the notary. After emailing with Faith for almost a year, it was a little strange to be handed over to someone else. Jaime was not quite what I expected, but he was still great. He was very brisk and to the point, and eager to get things done, kinda like me.
I handed the notary/officiant our marriage license, stamped and ready to be sealed in its envelope.
“Oh, you even put stamps on it!”
“Yeah, it said to!”
The week of the cruise I had gotten final instructions from Faith, that said to bring the license ready to go with an envelope, complete with postage. I guess most people don’t follow the instructions? I even put extra postage to be safe!
We were told we could only bring two witnesses for the legal ceremony, and we chose our Moms, so we left Morgan, Tess, and Jay’s Dad at Guest Services. The six of us headed up to the Outlook, which is the special events venue on Deck 14, where the wedding would be held the next day. We didn’t admit this to Jaime or our Moms, but we had already snuck in there for a minute during Zym’s tour of the ship. It’s a SMALL space, but very quiet and super private. Where it is on the ship, guests can’t even walk by it on accident.
Things happened very VERY fast once we were in the Outlook. I don’t know what I expected, but as soon as we walked in, they were ready to begin the legal ceremony.
If you don’t know this about Disney Cruise Line weddings, you actually can’t legally get married at sea, so they marry you legally before the ship leaves port, and then you have your real wedding during the cruise. I made the joke, “I love him so much I married him twice!” Jay did not find this nearly as funny as I did.
However, the flip to this, is that unlike the day of the wedding, when you spend hours getting ready and thinking about it, the legal ceremony happens really fast. Even though I knew it was coming, it was kind of like, “Oh wait, this is happening now?”
When it came time to repeat the notary/officiant who was performing the legal ceremony, I kept changing all the Jasons to Jays. Jay’s legal name is Jason, but he doesn’t use it, and I’ve never once called him Jason in my life. I certainly wasn’t going to start now.
Our moms signed the license as the witnesses, and off the Notary/Officiant went. Then we sat down with Jaime to go over things. We talked about the cake and needing the allergy friendly alternative for Morgan, since she’s allergic to peanut butter. We talked about the musical selections, and who was doing the toasts. I realized I had forgotten a couple things in the room, so he said to just leave it on the bed in our room, and he would come collect it later.
Faith had told me I could do place cards for Palo, so I went ahead and made place cards for dinner all three nights. Jaime said we couldn’t do that, and I eventually got him to take the Palo ones. He wouldn’t take the others.
Then I pulled out a script, and a floor plan for seating.
I am nothing, if not thorough.
I’m not sure Jaime knew quite how to take this, and I’m fairly certain no other bride has done this, but he rolled with the punches quite well. At most weddings, the readings happen after the Bride enters. For us, two of our friends would be speaking before I came in. I wasn’t worried about where people were sitting, I was worried about the stuffed animals not ending up where they were supposed to, and I was concerned about camera placement. At least Jaime knew there were Bears, because Faith had passed that along, so he wasn’t totally blindsided. Well, there’s only two bears, but it’s easier to says Bears than “Two Bears, Bunny, Two Cats, Turtle, Puppy, Lion, and Mouse”.
I don’t know why but I assumed after we were done talking about everything, Jaime would leave instead of escorting us back to Guest Services. Well, he wanted to wait to escort us, so he had to sit there as I presented Jay with one last little surprise: adoption papers for Nip.
Nip is the Baby Mickey I’ve had since I was a baby. He’s gone on quite a few adventures with us over the years. Jay’s original idea for proposing was to go see Mickey and pull out adoption papers for Nip and talk about making things official, but then he was worried Mickey and the Cast Members would think we were adopting a real child, and things might get out of hand. So, he went with Plan B, which resulted in our amazing castle photos.
It only seemed fitting he finally get to adopt Nip, now that we were legally married.
My Mom thought it was very sweet, because obviously she has also known Nip a long time. I’m not sure what his Mom or Jaime thought, but they sat through it and smiled all the same.
I realize this was pretty short, but the next part is really long, and the end of legal ceremony seemed like a good stopping point. So, come back next week for my favorite title in this series, Day Three-Part Three: Come Sail Away. If you would like your own stuffed animal adoption form, you can find one in the Library! (It is a slightly different version than the one we used.)
