So the plan was to get married in Key West Florida on October 10th 2009. My flight was on October 8th so we were going to drive straight down to Key West when i land, get married, spend a day there and drive back to Clarksville so we could get all the Military stuff sorted and find our first place to live together. I wasn't going to be moving in yet as i need a Visa to live in America but we wanted to start getting things sorted. After lots of talking we decided that driving all the way down to Key West from TN for such a short time was not going to be fun. Jon suggested i look online for other places in Florida where we could marry. Thats when i came across Tropical Beach Weddings in Navarre. OMG i fell in love..They had the perfect wedding package. Beach front ceremony, Officiant, Unity Heart of Glass, Blessing Stones, Photographer and 50 Pictures from the wedding. I emailed them and got everything sorted. Even orderd rose petals in a heart shape in the sand. It was all set. October 10th 2009 at SUNSET! The first dress i tried on in Germany was MY dress. It was perfect, not to much just perfect for a beach wedding.
On October 8th i got into Nashville at 10:00pm thanks to delays. We left straight for Navarre so we could meet Lou and Ben who were already waiting for us. It was a 7hr drive and we wanted to get there as early as possible because we still had so much to do.
-Book into the condo
-Get Marriage License
-Needed my nails doing-Had to meet up with the hair dresser to talk about what was going to be done
-Needed to order flowers
-Find a place we were going to go after the wedding
It was just so much that needed doing as i couldn't do any of it online and we were getting married the next day! All i can say it was sure a holiday and wedding to remember! The whole drive down there went pretty smooth until we were 45mins out of Navarre. We were driving off the Freeway when Jon noticed his power steering went out. He kept saying something was wrong. We got to a stop light and there it happend...The Truck was breaking down on us. It was beeping, lights were flashing and then it went off. We managed to roll onto the Waffle house parking lot opposite the stop light. It was like 4:30am. What a great start! There was fluid leaking out of the truck and the Tow truck didnt arrive until nearlly an hour later.
The Tow truck pulled us to the nearest Po-Boys and then we had to wait for 2 hours until they opened. Me and Jon just lay in the bed of the truck staring at the sky =) We were both just laughing at what was happening. It was just our luck. At 8:00am Po-Boys opened and there were some other people lined up outside including some ex Navy dude who we got talking to. As soon as the door opened some Dumba$$ thought it was ok to just go in front of us. I mean it wasn't like we had only been waiting for 2 hours!!! After getting the truck in at about 10:00am the waiting game began. All those things we had to do and the time was just ticking away. The Navy dude was so nice. He offered to take us to the court house to get the marriage license and even took us to his house and gave me a new tooth brush so i could brush my teeth as i had now been traveling for over 24hrs and felt so gross lol. We invited him to Subway for taking us around and then he drove us back to Po-Boys. We were hoping the truck was going to be fixed when we got back. I will never forget when the guy came out and told us it wasn't fixed yet and it was going to cost 540$ to fix. I wanted to cry so bad...The day before our wedding the truck is broke and the wedding money we got of my parents was going into that stupid thing. The Navy dude offered to give us the money and we could send him a check later. WOW, super nice of him but we didn't want to do that. After waiting around for hours the truck was finally fixed. We got to the Condo place at 3:00pm. We booked in and met up with our friends. I totally forgot i had a consultation appt at 1:00pm with the hairdressers so i called them and told them what had happened. We then got a call from the Wedding planner...Sh!t, we didnt even know where we were getting married or where we were meeting or anything haha. The Wedding planner told us where we could meet her so she could show us different parts of the beach where we could get married. We quickly chose a place and then Jon drove me and Lou down to the hairdressers and went back to the condo. It all went pretty quick so we went next door to get our nails done. While i was getting my nails done i remembered..FLOWERS!! oh my god i dont know how i could forget i was just so shattered and stressed. They were open till 5:00pm so we had 20mins left after we were done to run there and get some ordered. We didnt even know exactly where it was and then it started pouring with rain. From one second to another..it was crazy. We were soaked through but i didnt even care anymore lol. You couldnt even see the bridge right across the road.
Jon picked me and Lou up once we were done. We just decided that we were going to go to the restaurant next to the Condo place after the wedding because i was really not up for going round places that night. We went out for food with Lou and Ben and then went up to their condo to have some drinks and ended up going swimming in the pool.
I can honestly say when i got to bed that night i was out like a light. I didnt even have time to think about the fact i was getting married the next day. On our wedding day i got up in the morning while Jon was still in bed and went to Lou's condo. We got a Taxi to the hair dressers and then went to Mcdonalds haha classy! After picking the flowers up we went back to the condo to get ready.
Because we were to busy taking pics and messing about me and Lou were running pretty late. I didnt even have my dress on and Jon knocked on the door to figure out what was going on. Him and Ben were going to drive down there in Jons truck and me and Lou were getting a taxi down there 10mins later. We were getting married at 5:30pm and Jon and Ben left just after 5 and mine and Lou's taxi was there at 5:15pm. We were in such a rush. We got downstairs to the taxi and then we both realised we didnt even have any money to pay the taxi driver haha. Lou ran to my condo and forgot the number to get in as she got up there. She came back down and it was like 5:25pm. The taxi driver said we could call him and pay him the next day. We got to the beach a couple mins late. I could only imagine how Jon felt lol. Jon and Ben were over the stair bridge thingy further up the beach and the wedding planer asked Lou to go first and then it was my turn to go over. Ahh i was dancing and singing my fave penguine song because i was so nervous. The wedding planner said Jon had drank a can of beer in one before he went down the beach because he was nervous lol. That is so Jon. After i got over the bridge the sight was beautiful, Jon stood in the rose petal heart in the sand with Lou and Ben. When it came time for the rings Lou realised she had left them in her bag at the bridge. Me and Jon totally messed up our vows and when we did the blessing stones Lou managed to throw the stone UP in the air instead of into the water. You could totally see where me and Jon had been standing because we literally dug holes in the sand where our feet were because we were nervous. It was such a good laugh. Im so glad all these little things happened because they made our wedding day so much more memorable.
There are soooo many pictures from the wedding i couldn't even put them all on here. After we got done taking the pics we had to hurry up and get back to the condo as Jon was busting for a pee. We then went to the retaurant for some food. There were 2 other wedding celebrations going on there. I had chips and chicken mmm very classy wedding food haha. Oh and i didnt mention, Lou made mine and Jons wedding cake! So sweet of her =) I would have been lost without Lou and Ben and im so glad they could make it.
The plan was to go back to the condo after the wedding for some drinks as i was only 19. It didnt last very long...I was so exhausted from the past days that i ended up falling asleep
Poor Jon haha, there was no such thing as a wedding night for my Hubby. I felt so bad but he understood and i totally made up for it the next day ;-)
Unfortunately for us Ben and Lou were leaving the day after the wedding to go to Disney World. Jon took them to the airport so i took the time to decorate the condo a little. I was going to do it before the wedding for when we got back at night but i didnt have the time. I only took 1 pic of the decs for some reason but there were heart balloons and other decs all around the condo.
The heart shape glass is the Unity heart of glass that me and Jon put sand in together at the wedding while the officiant spoke some words. We were told to fill it half way and then on our anniversary in a few years time to come back to where we got married and fill it up.
After Jon came back we decided to go to the beach and relax in the sun on our last day in Florida before heading back to Clarksville to go house hunting. The weather was lovely and the water was so amazingly clear.
Jon managed to lose his wedding ring!!! It wasn't even 24hrs after we had got married. It must have slipped off his finger when we were at the beach.
The next day we drove back to Clarksville. We had to get me registered on base and sort out BAH now that we were married. We spent 3 days looking for a place but it was turning into a nightmare because so many places didnt accept dogs. We eventually found an ok Townhouse in Oak Grove. The houses are so different to Germany and England. Our townhouse looked like a lego house to me lol.
On my last night in America we stayed at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nasville. I had seen pics online and really wanted to stay there. Staying in Nashville meant we would be closer to the airport too so we didn't have to get up really early to leave.
