Wednesday, June 11th Aaron and I woke up at 7 am. We had a nervous pit in our stomach, and we needed to call Sandals.

The day before, I'd been browsing Sandals's website, checking to make sure we had all of our documentation on us. In order to get married, you have to reside on the island for a certain number of days and you must have your passport and birth certificate. If you've ever been married before and divorced or widowed, you also need documentation on all of that.

While I was double checking I had everything, I noticed a form over on the right side of the screen. Under "commonly used documents," it was labeled "wedding form." I got to thinking in that split second that I had never filled out a wedding form. I'd talked to the wedding hotline a couple times to make sure I had all the correct documentation and the correct room to get the free wedding, and they'd never brought up this form either. Or, at least, not to my recollection. Once I opened it up and started reading, I started to panic.

On the form it mentioned needing a wedding reservation number, and that you had to send your documentation in 60 days before your arrival date.

Oh, crap.

I did not have a wedding reservation number, and I had not sent in any documentation 60 days ahead of time. Panic set in. I called Sandals and was told that the wedding department was closed, but that I could probably still get married as long as they weren't full for all of their available times. The man informed me that I had to call back the next day at 7:30 to talk to the wedding department.

Thus, why Aaron and I were up at 7 am on the day our flight left.

I sat on the couch, wringing my hands and mumbling things under my breath. Sure, Aaron waited until the last second to get a tux. Sure, he waited until the last second to get his wedding ring. Yeah, we weren't sure if he was able to pull off getting either. But here it was, the day we were going to leave. He had his wedding ring, and the tux was getting dropped off before noon. More importantly - look at how I'd screwed up. We might not even get married!

7:30 arrived and I called Sandals. I was told that the wedding department was still closed, and to try back at 8. I nervously sat around for another thirty minutes, waiting for the wedding department to open. Right at 8, I called. I was told that there was no way they would be able to get us in for a wedding. The 60-day deadline was a firm deadline, and they could not get our wedding together in such a time.

So then, my mind racing while I was sobbing on the phone, I asked if there was any way I could get married on the island. The woman sounded very doubtful, "I don't think so." My heart sunk. Then, she said, "But I'll give you the tourism board number. Maybe they can help." After I called the tourism board, and got a list of wedding companies on the island, I started dialing.

We got ahold of two wedding companies. The first said they'd send us some e-mails with information. The second was extremely snotty and told us there was no way they could perform any wedding for less than $1,000, that would be bare bones, and that they would not arrange for us to just have a JOP wedding, because that "just wasn't done on St. Lucia." I hung up feeling pretty dejected, but was waiting for that e-mail to see what we could get.

At 8:30, I had gotten in touch with Fenella at Awesome Caribbean Weddings. She soothed me, told me to stop crying, and that she could help. She sent us e-mails with the wedding location (Pigeon Island), and cost, plus all of the extras like cake and hairstyles and upgrades for bouquets. By now, Aaron and I were frantic thinking about how it'd look if we came back to Iowa and weren't married. We'd been talking about this for a year. We were upset with Sandals because they had never brought it up in our correspondance, it wasn't clear on the brochures and the website, and they had been extremely unhelpful on the phone.

We looked at each other and at the bottom line on the e-mail Fenella sent us. Free wedding via Sandals (not happening) vs. $1500 through Awesome Caribbean Weddings (that we didn't have).

Gulp.

Gulp.

Labels: marriage, traveling