I had the idea for this article really late in the game, but since I have absolutely no idea when I’ll be able to publish the last four wedding articles, I figured I’d go ahead and close out the year with this one. I touched on the music for the wedding a little bit in Transportation to Port Canaveral and The Final Details, but I didn’t talk about why we picked the music we picked, and I thought it would be fun to talk about.
In typical Chelsea fashion, there was one area of the wedding where I really bit off more than I could chew. For someone who is not a musical person, I am pretty good at writing parodies. One of my greatest accomplishments in life is the Avengers Tik Tok parody which currently has over two million hits on YouTube. Not bad for an effects class final project, right?
In 2017, I went to see Legally Blonde the Musical for Caitlin’s birthday. (The same Caitlin from the Welcome Party.) I knew nothing about it, but “Omigod You Guys” quickly became one of my favorite songs. To my surprise, Jay actually liked it too, because I came home and he was listening to it on his own one day.
I had fully intended to use some of the lyrics from “Omigod You Guys” when we announced our engagement on Facebook, but of course when the day came, I was too excited and I forgot.
Instead, I reworked the lyrics into a parody to be the intro to our wedding video, starring Jay and four of our wedding guests. I put together a team of my friends who can sing to record it in August last year: Zym, Christina, Caroline from the Defining Disney Podcast, Lillie, and Michael. It was actually the largest recording group I’ve ever done, and it was super stressful doing it in my house, instead of the studio.
We were supposed to film it in January and February before the wedding, but scheduling conflicts and my stress levels got in the way. We decided to postpone and film it in April after the wedding.
Obviously, that didn’t end up happening. Since I now have no idea when it will be safe to let my friends back into my house to film, I’ve just decided to release the song as it is on YouTube. We’ve also had a falling out with two of the people this was written for, and frankly I doubt I’ll ever be letting them into my house again. If anyone is interested in reading the script for the video, I’ve still got it.
So, this was the last song on our “Drive to the Port” CD, and the only one I wasn’t able to include on Spotifyoriginally. Since I made the playlist, some of the other songs have vanished.
“Come Sail Away”: Well, I think this would be an obvious choice for any cruise wedding, but I have two specific reasons for picking it. This song is party of the Adventureland loop played during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and I have some wonderful memories of being outside Pirates late at night singing this song with my friends. It’s also featured in the show Community. It’s mentioned briefly in season one and then makes an amazing callback in season five. I actually wish I could have used the Community cover of the song in the wedding video, but I wasn’t able to find it anywhere without the dialog over it.
“High Adventure”: Jay and I saw the Aladdin Broadway production when it was in Orlando back in February. (Oh, that feels like forever ago now!) This song stuck out with us for its humor and charm, plus we consider ourselves very adventurous people.
“Try Everything”: My brother and I are Lilo and Stitch, my mom and I are Kanga and Roo. Early in our relationship, Jay asked, “Well, who are we?” I thought long and hard about it, but I couldn’t think of Disney characters that fit us. “I don’t think we exist yet.” Well, we were about halfway through Zootopia when it came out in theaters, when Jay leaned over and said, “I think I found us.”
“Let’s Misbehave”: This song is included in the Jungle Cruise queue music. I also consider it a very sideways reference to the line “I aim to misbehave.” from Firefly.
“Zero”: This song is just fantastic and Wreck It-Ralph 2 was a great movie. Plus, I couldn’t include the best Wreck It-Ralph song because I was saving it for the ceremony.
“Riding Free”: Spirit Riding Free is on at least once a week in our house. Jay loves it almost as much as I do, and he both sings and whistles along to the theme song. I can’t whistle so I just sing, badly and off key. My favorite memory of this silly show is we were both in the office on our computers, and I had it playing on a laptop on my desk because we didn’t have a TV in there at the time. Spirit is in a fight with another horse, and the other horse goes for a cheap spot and tries to hurt Spirit’s human.
“TEAR HIM UP SPIRIT! TEAR HIM UP!”
“Jay?”
“This is a children’s cartoon, isn’t it?”
“Glad You Came”: This is one of our favorite songs to drive and sing along to.
“Drunken Sailor”: A lot of pirate music gets played at our house, and this is my favorite pirate song. Jay and I had lamented that there was no way it would be played at Pirate Night so we included it on the CD. Turns out, we were only half right about that.
“Skipper Dan”: We’re both Skippers, we met at the Jungle Cruise, and there were ten Skippers coming to our wedding. How could we not include it?
“Lookin’ Up”: I have always loved the Barenaked Ladies; they’re the only people who talk faster than I do. This is my favorite song by them and it’s great for driving.
“I Wanna Be Like You”: Jay’s favorite Disney movie is the Jungle Book and his favorite character is Baloo. We’ve both done swing dancing at one point or another in our lives, so including Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s swing cover seemed like a great choice.
“Hit Me With Your Best Shot”: Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout is our favorite thing on the West Coast. The very first time we rode it, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” was the song we got. It is our favorite song and show combination. I also love it at Awesome Mix Live.
“The Presidents”: When we were in high school, my brother and I were involved in something we called “The CD War”. We were basically trying to make the weirdest mixed CD possible. This song was my introduction to the Animaniacs and it’s what won my brother the war. I also sing it every time I’m in the Hall of Presidents.
“Not Done Yet”: Superchick was one of my favorite bands growing up and this is my favorite song of theirs. Its weirdly hard to find.
“I’m Gonna Be”: If you told me Jay wrote this song, I wouldn’t be surprised. This was also included as a Doctor Who reference.
“The Goonies R Good Enough”: I’ve actually only seen this movie once, but Jay loves this song. There was also something about how just being together is good enough, but he put it more poetically than that.
“Secret Tunnel”: The best Avatar: the Last Airbender reference we could make.
“One Song”: It’s no secret we love SeaWorld. I actually really love the music they use in their shows and frequently sing along. (Again, badly and usually off key.) This is not from my favorite show, but it is my favorite song.
“Angel in Blue Jeans”: Train is another one of my favorite bands, and one of the first things Jay and I ever did together was going to see Train play in Tampa. This was one of two songs Jay knew the words to before the concert, and he said the lyrics reminded him of me.
Then the very last song was the “Omigod You Guys” parody.
Our playlist for the wedding was MUCH shorter. We were asked to pick a song for seating, the processional, the recessional, the cake cutting, and the first dance. We were allowed to include additional songs, but since we only had an hour for all of the festivities, I kept it brief.
When You Wish Upon a Star was used for the seating, played by the pianist. Well, all Disney movies start with this, why shouldn’t our wedding?
For the processional, I literally pulled music from a YouTube cover of “When Can I See You Again?”Not only is it one of my favorite Disney songs, it’s the core of the Paint the Night parade, which is my favorite parade Disney has ever done. I thought long and hard and considered a couple of other songs for the processional, but nothing felt more right than this.
I also used a YouTube cover for the recessional: “Happily Ever After”, the music from the Magic Kingdom’s fireworks show. It is my favorite fireworks show Disney has ever done. The very first time we watched it, both Jay and I were sobbing.
We didn’t get to choose a song to make our entrance back into the room, which I’m still slightly miffed about. I just overlaid “Happily Ever After” in the wedding video to fix it.
For the cake cutting, we had the pianist play Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah. For better or for worse, Splash Mountain is one of our favorite rides and it’s one of our favorite classic Disney songs. If I’d had the money for a custom aisle runner, it would have said, “My oh My, What a Wonderful Day”.
The first dance was actually two songs in one that I mixed together myself: “Beauty and the Beast” and “Shut Up and Dance With Me”. “Shut Up and Dance With Me” has always been our song. I realize it’s not overly romantic, but it’s very fitting for us.
We brought three other songs with us on the old iPhone 6 we used. Back to my brother and I being Lilo and Stitch, we attempted the hula routine from the movie “He Mele No Lilo” in place of a father/daughter dance. Robby did great, I needed more practice. (I just ran out of time.)
We had two songs just to play and dance to. “Die Young”is our absolute favorite song to drive and sing to in the car, and it’s great to dance to. “Burning Love”was the final track and it was included for three reasons.
1) It is one of the songs played on Mission Breakout in Disney’s California Adventure.
2) When Nana passed away in October 2019, we inherited a record player and a collection of Elvis records. There were other artists in there too, but it was mostly Elvis. This felt like a fitting tribute.
3) It’s the closing song to Lilo and Stitch, and felt like a great way to close out the wedding.
No, this article isn’t going to be helpful to anyone who’s trying to plan a Disney Cruise Line wedding in the future, but it was fun to write. This will be the last entry in the wedding series until something I’m waiting on happens, and then I’ll publish the last five articles. I honestly don’t know when that will be.
Every day I’m more grateful the timing on our wedding worked out the way it did. I don’t know how we got so lucky, but I am so very thankful. I hope reading all of this was as much fun as living through it. Writing about it was sometimes a struggle, but I enjoyed getting to share this experience with all of you.
We still don’t know when cruises will resume and weddings are still going to be a different experience for the foreseeable future, but this was the greatest weekend of my entire life. I don’t know how anything could possibly top it. If you want a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding, I firmly believe Disney Cruise Line is the way to go.
