Wedding Part 1

So.... I've been thinking about how to go about blogging our wedding and it seemed it just wouldn't be complete if we left out the time before and after, so these wedding posts are going to have to come in parts! We spent 16 days with our family and friends in Florida and all of them were so much fun :) I'd love to blog about everything that happened but it would just take forever (I think I took over a thousand photos myself without those taken by our guests!) so this will necessarily be an edited version of events. At times we felt like we were being papped because every time we stopped somewhere all the cameras came out! lol! So you can see the size of the task in hand ;)

We left Gatwick Airport at lunchtime on the 30th August, all very tired from staying up late packing, getting up early to finish packing and then spending 4 hours on the shuttle to the airport. I even forgot our Disney tickets and we had to turn around a mile down the road from the house to go back to get them!

Of course when we got to the airport, we were all kinda tired but managed a brief pre-flight drink to buoy us up :)
(K, can you spot the armadillo??)

We had a good flight (anyone else actually quite enjoy investigating the little boxes that make up airline food? No? Just me then :)) and then picked up our hire car and drove to the villa we were staying in - this was a great surprise! It was bigger than the places we've stayed in Florida before and absolutely gorgeous - I loved the beds! The biggest, most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. (Yes I did run in and throw myself on the bed when we got there!)

The next morning our first job of the day was to head straight to the courthouse. We needed to apply for a marriage licence and although the rules seemed less strict for non-residents of Florida we were still a little apprehensive that there might be a few problems we hadn't anticipated. Look at the size of this building! Intimidating or what??

Well after we marched in armed with passports, driving licences and birth certificates and had prepared ourselves to read something about divorce and custody of children (which I'd found on the internet for Florida residents), actually they only wanted our passports. And for an extra thirty bucks we could have booked the courthouse to get married that day. No witnesses needed even. Wow.

So off we skipped to Disney's Hollywood Studios! We sampled some of my favourite favourite things there (Indiana Jones, Star Tours, The Great Movie Ride, Aerosmith, Fantasmic) and it was an absolute pleasure to share these with people in our party who had never seen them before.

Unfortunately I hadn't charged my camera and it ran out halfway through the day! But it did mean that I could really enjoy the show of Fantasmic, and the reactions of my Nan and my maid of honour, who had never seen anything like it before and were absolutely blown away. Magic. :)

The following day we visited the Magic Kingdom, which is always a favourite for all of us. We caught the boat across the lake,

took in the views of the castle,

and then the weather came to say hello in true Florida style, forcing emergency poncho purchases! To be honest it was so wet I'm not sure they made much difference in the end!  I wish we had poncho pics but it was just too wet to get the cameras out - I ended up walking barefoot through the park there was so much water because my flip-flops kept shooting off my feet and aquaplaning across the surface water!

So we left the park late afternoon and went back to the villa to change; we then headed out to Olive Garden which we love love love! Gotta get those breadsticks ;)

For now, I'll leave you digesting (I know it took us a long time to do that after this meal!) and Wedding Part 2 will be with you soon...