The Disney Wedding Blog: Wedding Spotlight: Carrie + Patrick

Ceremony Location: Epcot Morocco
Reception Location: The Attic
Photography: Root Photography

Today's Disney Bride spotlight is on Disney Bride Carrie!

Ok, for the record - I know that this is a mammoth post. It's gargantuan. HUGE. I get it. But you really can't blame me. It's completely Carrie and Patrick's fault because they're the ones that had the drop-dead-gorgeous-made-me-a-trip-report-groupie-can't-handle-the-awesomeness wedding. I actually thought long and hard about whether I should spotlight just the ceremony, just the reception, or just the dessert party. And you know what? I couldn't pick. Then I thought about having Carrie be the Disney Bride for the month of November, because I could fill four Saturdays with the awesomeness. But, instead, you're spoiled and you get all the luciousness at once. Besides, if I had broken it up people would have just been asking for more. It's that good.

One of the best things about this spotlight: it totally shows off Nathan and Jensey as the rock stars they are. Carrie's engagement pics were the ones that talked me into hiring the Roots and their wedding just solidified that decision. Love it!

So, without further ado, here are the highlights from Carrie and Patrick's celebration:

"I don’t know if I can explain this, but in the weeks leading up to the wedding I had occasionally had the thought that I didn’t want the wedding day to actually come, because what if it didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped and planned? Despite all the work we’d done and all the excitement I’d built up, I would have flashes where I wanted the wedding to remain something to imagine and anticipate. Is that weird? When the alarm went off at 4:00, I snapped wide awake and had another twinge of that feeling. I knew that I would have to control my perfectionist streak and, for once, just go with the flow, or else I might ruin the day for myself. I also really wanted to be emotionally present throughout the day – I didn’t want to later feel that everything had gone by in a big blur and I had missed my own party. So I lay there for a few minutes and thought about the true meaning of the day: expressing love for DF and for all our guests. I knew that if everything I did reflected that love, I couldn’t screw anything up.

I had about half an hour before Patricia was scheduled to come do my makeup, and I enjoyed the peace of being alone as I started to get ready. Even after Patricia got there, it was very mellow because it was just the two of us – another reason I chose not to have a gaggle of bridesmaids. I started to get a little antsy when I saw that it was 6:30 and my hair was still in rollers. Patricia sensed this and picked up the pace, while doing everything she could to reassure me. When she took the finger waves down, I loved the way my hair looked just like that, but it was prolly really fake-y. She brushed through the curls and then began twisting and pinning up sections of my hair. I have a LOT of hair, so this seemed to take forever, and I was getting more and more freaked out.

When Nathan & Jensey knocked on the door, I had my Bridezilla moment for the day. I said some swears... (Patricia didn’t bat an eye). I was still in my robe, so I cracked the door and frantically told Nathan he had to wait outside but that Jensey could come in. I got into my dress by myself (hooray for zippers!!!) and Patricia gently set the fragile fascinator in my hair. When I got in the elevator with Nathan & Jensey I felt overwhelmingly glad to have them there. I’d only met them a few times, but it felt like having two friends to send me off on my big adventure (or, as Nathan joked, two “paid friends”!).

It was really important to me that DF and I have a “first look” where the photographers and videographers captured us seeing each other for the first time. That way we could have the best of both worlds: We could take all our photos together before the ceremony and still capture that special first-look moment.

DF and I had a little more than an hour to take pictures together in Morocco and Japan. The BM and Mo’H would be coming on the party bus with our guests and the pastor because I wanted time alone with DF where we would feel comfortable enough to be ourselves in photos – which looks something like this:

We spent half our time in Morocco and half in Japan. When we got to Japan, I was disappointed to see that the waterfall – the feature that made me pick Japan for our pictures – was behind maintenance walls. It felt like we took a lot of pictures in front of the Mitsukoshi department store – not exactly my idea of a Kodak Photo Spot… But of course, Nathan & Jensey knew exactly what they were doing, and the pictures turned out fabulously!

Just about the time Nathan and Jensey got tired of watching me & DF smooch, the guests arrived and our WP radioed her assistant (who’d been shadowing us) to keep us hidden. I think it was Nathan who ran back to get shots of the ceremony set up. The assistant brought us water and my purse so I could touch up my lip gloss. One of the sound techs came to put DF’s microphone on him, and he asked me a few things about the way our ceremony music should be played. I was so grateful for that – I’d heard about problems with the ceremony songs being played wrong (or not at all) so it made me feel so much better to be able to tell him exactly what I wanted. (And it all ran perfectly!)

The Ceremony

DF’s parents walked in to the main title music from The Wind & the Lion, which was my mom’s favorite movie. It takes place in Morocco and has a lush, sweeping score by Jerry Goldsmith. As we waited for our entrance, my dad recognized the music from The Wind & the Lion playing, and I told him about the locket on my necklace with my mom's pictures. It was a very touching moment, but I don’t think we were sad. It was just nice to acknowledge her presence at the wedding.

The ceremony was perfect. DF and I had taken the standard marriage ceremony that his pastor gave us and customized it so that it reflected our practice and beliefs (I am more churchy than DF, so I was delighted that he wanted to work on this together). Because the pastor has known DF’s family for many years and because we had met with him to work on the service, his homily was personal, warm, and funny. He later told us that we were one of the most “present” couples he’d married. We were both listening intently to his advice and the passages he read so we wouldn't miss this special moment.

We were pronounced husband and wife with our original names (and it didn’t sound funny at all!), and then we stood around for a while waiting for everyone to figure out the petal toss. I knew I should have laminated a cheat sheet for that too…. Finally, halfway into “Two Hornpipes,” we walked back down the aisle.

After our staged exit, we milled around with our guests for a few minutes, and then somebody explained to them that we were all going to take pictures together. Since we only had 34 guests, we thought it would be nice to get a picture with each of them, in addition to pictures with family. Finally, after shooting every possible combo of family member and friend, we were directed to walk to the Morocco boat dock for our Friendship Boat ride to the BoardWalk – it was one of my favorite parts of the day. Because we had already taken pictures together, DH and I were going to the reception with our guests. That meant we wouldn’t really have any time alone immediately following the ceremony. So the time we had together at the back of the Friendship Boat was a wonderful chance to connect and share our excitement about the ceremony and the reception to come.

The Reception

For the pre-reception (it can’t really be called a cocktail hour ‘cuz we didn’t serve any booze) we had them serve the fruit platter and pastries included in our brunch buffet. It would have been way too much food to have all at once, and it saved money!

Using an iPod for our music worked really well. I created five playlists, one for each section of the reception - pre-reception, first dance song, brunch, parents’ dances, rest o’ the reception – so that we wouldn’t have to search around for the first dance songs in the middle of the reception. We asked DH’s extremely overqualified cousin (he’s a sound engineer for Disney Feature Animation) to cue up each of our playlists at the appropriate time, and it all ran like clockwork.

After our first dance, the BM gave an hilarious toast that was done entirely as a Jungle Cruise skipper spiel. He delivered it with his hand over his mouth to make it sound authentic – it brought down the house!

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Patrick and Carrie's wedding reception, presented by Dole. I'm Sean, and I'll be your best man for the afternoon. Before we get started with the wedding toast, I want to remind you to store your loose articles under your seat. Once they are safely stowed, pull down on your lap bar. Do me a favor and tug on the yellow tag to make sure the lap bar is secure. During the duration of the speech, please remain seated, and keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times — and please watch your children. Off we go — Driver, all clear.

Good afternoon, and let’s gets started on our magical wedding adventure. I just want to tell you a little about the couple we are here to celebrate. On the driver’s left is our groom, Patrick. Little known fact, Patrick is twin. When he is fully grown, he can be up to 25 feet tall and weigh up to 5,000 pounds. To the driver’s right is Carrie. Little known fact, she is not a twin. When she is fully grown, she can be up to 25 feet tall and weight up 5,000 pounds.

Patrick and Carrie met at his cousin Gabriel's birthday party. In fact, hold on a minute—I think I see Gabriel now. Don't worry folks, you’re perfectly safe as long as he's not blowing bubbles and wiggling ears. Oh no! [bang, bang]

We hope you enjoyed your visit with us today. If you did, my name is Sean Johnson, if not, my name is Patrick Johnson. Now before we disembark, gather all your belongings, take small children by the hand, raise your glass, and join me in singing the traditional toast..."

After brunch we had our parents’ dances. I let my dad pick the song we danced to, since he’s as into music as I am and he did have to dance to it after all. We had tried practicing once, at Christmas, but I was still a bit nervous because he was a champion cha-cha dancer in high school and I only know swing. Fortunately he has a strong lead, so I think we did OK.

I’m so glad we danced before DH and his mom, because they would have been a tough act to follow. Neither really dances (well, DH can swing!), so they put on the Muppets’ “Movin’ Right Along” and improvised. They brought down the house!

After the dances we asked everyone to put on their mouse ears, and we got a shot of all our guests.

I was ready to cut the cake after that. Somebody told us where to stand and whose hand was supposed to go where – who knew it was such a production? Then we had to wait for them to cut the real pieces and put the ice cream on. I don’t know if it was the addition of ice cream or the flavors we chose (red velvet with cream cheese and chocolate with peanut butter cup mousse), but the cake disappeared fast!

As we walked back over to the Beach Club, we felt like celebrities – everyone was smiling and waving (or at least gawking), and two little girls ran up together and said “Congratulations!” simultaneously. It felt like the end of a movie, but it wasn’t the end….

The Dessert Party

DH and I arrived so early that we had about 20 minutes to kill before the bus brought our guests. We decided to take a walk back to Morocco for old time’s sake, and lemme tell you, I felt like SUCH a rebel wandering around Epcot in my dress unescorted! When we got back to UK Lower, er Lochside, our guests still hadn’t arrived, so we just enjoyed our moment together in this beautiful place... and loaded up a plate full of desserts to eat before we had to start posing for pictures! I’d heard too many horror stories of brides not getting to enjoy the food at their own parties, so I was sure to scarf down one of everything – and two and-a-half Chocolate Peanut Butter Marshmallow Squares!

When the first guests started arriving, DH and I positioned ourselves under a lamp on the pathway and greeted everyone as they walked in. We had 30 minutes before IllumiNations to mingle with our guests, which felt like a nice amount of time.

I was really pleased to get to speak in depth with my two friends who’d originally said they weren’t into theme parks. As it turned out, they spent a really nice day in Epcot and went to Celebration twice! They were just beaming – it was so nice...

Nathan & Jensey arrived about the same time as the guests and began taking practice shots so they knew the best way to capture the low-light setting. They also took a couple of fun ones where they’d shoot us and then wiggle the camera around to make a light effect.

After the fireworks, we sat around chatting with our guests until the guide fetched them to get back on the bus. I never felt rushed or like the evening was too short. And even though I didn’t get quite as many fireworks pictures as I’d hoped for, I would do it all again in an instant just for the experience. It felt so special being in that secluded area by the lake.

Before she left, my MIL brought us all the leftover desserts she’d bagged. She had even asked the server if he had more behind the table and he said, “Sure – take ’em. That way I don’t have to throw them out!” That was justification enough for me.... My MIL wanted to send all the loot back with us, but we insisted that she take some home too.