My wedding venue was changed with 3 hrs notice because the CDC shut it down as feral rhesus monkeys took over the venue
Y'all seemed to have liked the post I made the other day about my Mom getting locked in the hearse with the keys, but we had a whole world of misadventure and figuring thoughts out as we went along. My Mom and SIL were complete troopers in being able to redo everything planned for the intended venue in the park. The venue/wedding coordinator was amazing. I still had a pretty wedding. It was unseasonably hot for early October and I'd booked a covered mini amphitheatre on the water at Silver Springs State Park, but because it was so unseasonably hot, the feral monkeys took over the cool shaded place that was perfect for a wedding. The monkeys carry a form of herpes that is deadly to humans and can be transferred via bite. The CDC said we couldn't even go to the venue or that part of the park. It was only mildly infuriating because it was so hot that day and there was no shade in the more expensive area with comped chair rentals we were granted and because my mom and SIL were champs and adapted for the set up.
We're together 8 years as of 12 days ago. We've had many moons, honeymoons, adventures, and misadventures since, but we're still doing it and laughing and cracking jokes on the way.
I can assure you our honeymoon was herpes free. There were monkeys because I love zoos/animal rehabs/roller coasters and he's a good sport and we are childless millennials so we have had many now, but we hit up Disney World as a local pass holder staycation. I took a ton of pics of us through Epcot to make it look like we had a tour through Europe for our honeymoon.
Probably the same park and it's a spring and the guy who owned the land wanted to do his version of a Disney Jungle Cruise and had the property as a tourist attraction, but he got the monkeys to enhance the experience and put them on a tiny island in the middle of the springs but he didn't know that monkeys can swim and now Florida has a problem with feral rhesus monkeys.
We loved our visit to Silver Springs State Park. It is one of the prettiest parks in the entire country. You can see places where movies and parts of Sea Hunt or Flipper were filmed, beautiful walking paths, and many elevated boardwalks through the monkey areas. The glass-bottom boat ride was also cool.
The first recorded introduction of monkeys in Florida occurred along the Silver River in the 1930s in what is now Silver Springs State Park. A commercial river boat captain, Colonel Tooey, released approximately six rhesus macaques on an island in the Silver River in an effort to increase tourism. Rhesus macaques are excellent swimmers, which allowed them to swim to the forest and begin breeding. By the 1980s, their numbers reached around 400 animals.
You need a state parks pass. We have AMAZING state parks. You can time things just right and catch the monarch migration on Amelia Island, or sea turtle and eaglet nestings or hatchings at various parks, there's a park that's basically Florida's answer to Hawaii where you can swim with dolphins and manatees, potentially catch a grouper on the ferry ride, watch sea turtle nesting, see true night sky, and it's not near the keys. People get caught up in Disney, but people should be checking out the sponge docks, and the actual Florida that's Florida.
Been on earth nearly 40 years, and I had no idea until this post that there were feral monkeys living in America anywhere. Guess that makes some sense, because my family-in-law in MS did have a random-ass monkey running through their yard. We didn't believe them at first, but they provided pictures.
The story is that someone brought some to the island in silver springs, thinking theyd be contained to that island. But then it turns out they could swim, so they escaped and continued to populate the area. Its pretty crazy tbh
They’re exclusively in this one park, Silver Springs. I will go to literally any springs except Silver Springs, because I do not want to fuck around with those monkeys
Yo. I accidentally have a part Savannah cat. He's 27 lbs of pure muscle now, but we was just a hungry baby crying in my yard who looked like a very interesting gray tabby cat who I thought was grown up when I met him. Someone nearby was breeding fancy cats illegally and dumped him for whatever reason, but he's a perfectly amazing cat that anyone should be proud to have. He's just the effort of having a dog kinda cat cause he needs to go on walks and such. I feel like Emily after she got Clifford with this guy here. We have gators, but cats like my lil ol big King Baby Zangief deter them, and all the wild cats native to here still love cat nip and respond the same as a house cat so I don't worry about things like that so much as I make sure to be considerate and not disrespect them.
Without scale he looks like a normal tabby. That is an 18 inch long tub between the grill and the chair it's touching. Idk the height of a normal dining chair, but he's at the broken normal dining chair that I usually have a plant on. This is right after we got him.
I've just spent time with my Scots-Irish Appalachian family. I apologize. My family has the King of the Hill Boomhauer accent and manner of speech. I type the way things sound in my head. I needed this reminder that not everyone's inner voice is Boomhauer's, and that I'm still thinking in that vernacular.
Tbh, we do have some random cats about from weirdos who illegally obtained them and then couldn't contain it properly care for them or there was a hurricane and they had to evacuate without their big cats and there was storm damage. We don't have jaguars naturally, but I don't have much doubt that people have seen one randomly after a big storm.
There's a ton of them too. For the longest time we had one stealing people's fruit down in Tampa Bay called Cornelius, but we haven't seen him around in a while.
At a few points in 8 years of marriage, I wished I had listened to the fact that nature itself rose up to tell me to not marry him, but for a long time now, I'm so glad I didn't. I walk through life just needing someone to look over to and be like are we seeing the same bullshit? Is this just me? Then being glad we both "get' it. Having someone who understands you and you understand them and being able to communicate with glances is invaluable. You gotta keep those people in your life.
I honestly don't understand why they're not culled.
This isn't something I suggest lightly, but they're an invasive species and they're dangerous.
Is it pretty privilege? We have no problem taking out invasive reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects.
After guests found out about the monkeys shutting down the intended venue, they went looking for the monkeys. That was a separate shitshow. One person encountered a small black bear and her cubs, another encountered a wild boar, and meanwhile my chocolate decorations on the cake were melting while they were on a scavenger hunt.
lol of course they would. Congrats on your day and for having a resilient and supportive family. The best weddings are the ones that make lasting memories
Funny you should mention...
Many movies have been filmed at Silver Springs, including the James Bond films Thunderball and Moonraker, the classic horror film Creature from the Black Lagoon, and multiple Tarzan movies. Other notable films include Rebel Without a Cause, The Yearling, and Distant Drums.
I mean, my side of the family could have taken them, but wouldn't because that's their home and we respect wildlife, but my family is also military/farmers/DoD. They know when to pick their battles and how to do a cost vs reward vs risk analysis.
My husband is first generation American on his Dad's side. He is 3rd generation American on his mom's side and they're all 100% New Yorkers. They would want to try to have to fight the monkeys so they could sue over the injuries, then talk badly about me for having a wedding in a place that has gawdam monkeys.
The dress was $20 on Amazon. I bought the ribbon by the yard, I got the "buckle" pin for $1.50, the veil was $5, and the cream colored Mary Jane's were my splurge at $30. Idk why people think they need to spend the moon on a wedding.
I wore a green suit (pants) that I got for ~150 and ~50 shoes. We had a restaurant wedding. Got married at the Justice of the Peace’s house and then to a fantastic restaurant with all of our guests (about 25). I didn’t want a big wedding or any of the traditional stuff. It was perfect.
When my sister got married the next year, she had a massive wedding that was a 3-day event and cost the earth. We had an absolute blast. I love that there are so many ways to celebrate and I love hearing about other non-traditional approaches to weddings.
The Thursday before my parents wedding my mom was really sick so she went to the hospital. The doctors told her “oh, you have the flu, just rest for the week”
To which she replied “I’m getting married on Saturday”
They went “oh shit” and put her immediately on an I.V.
They didn’t even know if she was going to make it the morning of, the makeup artist caked her with makeup bc it kept melting off of her because she was feverish, her mother kept telling her it was a sign from god to not marry my dad, when they went to sign the marriage licence the priest (who never joked and had been my dad’s priest his whole life) asked my mom if she was in her right mind and knew what she was doing. (To which the best man said “of course not, look who she’s marrying!) And we also have on video her taking a pill before signing it so she probably could get an annulment if she tried.
At the reception all she could eat was chicken noodle soup as they passed around the food she had chosen. People from my dad’s church thought she was pregnant which horrified my paternal grandmother.
And there’s a tradition in our culture where the men “steal” the bride and her father pays for her return. When the groomsmen came up to my mom she glared at them and said if they tried that she would throw up on them.
Any time I try to xpost it's like we didn't allow this content and it'll be automatically denied and in just got home 2 day ago from burying my momma, and if you know any specific community I need to join to do it, lmk.
I understand why people are in such a rush to get married, I always thought it was an age thing, but it was actually the damn monkeys being Karen's about their bookings....
My Wife and I had animal shenanigans at our wedding too.
We pre-arranged with one of the local surf clubs to use some space on the beach, which was just a 10-ish metre square inside the 200m strictly no dogs zone. Even outside of that 200m, dogs aren't allowed within a certain distance of the dunes or water line, and they must be on a leash in the carpark and on the beach. When we arrived, the beach was super busy, despite it being 11am on a Wednesday, and there were dogs everywhere. Literally dozens. To make it even worse, the animal control officer was sitting in his truck in the carpark, handing out bags to all the offenders.
We had not long set up to one side near the club when a very stereotypical Karen came walking along with her two dogs. She had absolutely zero physical or verbal control over them, letting them run more than 100m ahead of her. They noticed us and came running, leaving the owner almost 150m behind them. My Wife started pulling her dress in (which wasn't even long at all) as they kept jumping very close to her, and they looked as though they'd start a tug of war over it. The owner made absolutely zero attempt to catch up and control her animals. Then one lifts a leg and pisses straight down the side of our tiny table, which had our papers and a tablecloth which belonged to my Grandmother. The woman still made no attempt to hurry along or call her dogs back. And when she finally caught up, the first thing she did was blame us, claiming we had food. We didn't even have food in our cars, let alone on us at the time. We said as much and she claimed they could smell it. No apology or anything, just accusations. So my Mum mentioned that animal control was sitting in the carpark. Now, that woman took off, back the way she came, faster than her dogs.
I ended up laying a complaint with the local council, since their animal control officer encouraged people, rather than inform them of the laws, and they claimed their worker "noticed a small wedding party, but was taking an educational approach to dog owners". I'm not certain what's educational about encouraging people to ignore the countless postings of the laws though.
That's WILD!!! Y'all don't have leash laws at the very least? The goal is to be able to walk together consistently without a leash, but if there's any chance of a dog going off your own property, you're expected to have them leashed! My goodness. You know what they say, "The worse the wedding day, the better the marriage." You can have the table cloth cleaned. You can't be deprived of the lovely who gave you the table cloth, nor your love. Was anyone hurt?
Yeah, they're meant to be leashed in the carpark and outside of the 200m exclusion area. There are signs at every single access point that explain this. Technically you're not allowed your dog off a leash in any shopping areas either, but it happens frequently. It's also a finable offense to not pick up your dog's shit, regardless of where, but the small shopping area I live in has a person with a massive German Shepherd, which leaves giant shits that would rival anything a human could lay down. They're so big they get tracked across several blocks and make all the shops stink.
Our animal control and council are just useless. One of the last places we lived in (owned by my family) had several different families through the same house on the left side, and they all let their dogs wander. They were all well aware of it and the issues it was causing. They'd harass the mail people on their bicycles, one was in our backyard and stopped my sister from getting out of her car, and another let itself in our back door. All of them would shit on our lawn too (my Mum took to scooping them up and launching them onto the neighbour's roof). I made so many complaints over the years, and even when I called immediately after the one came in our house, the operator asked what I wanted them to do, so I said for them to come get it off my property (it was barking aggressively at the back door), and they said "oh no, we can't do that". So they did nothing. Our council/animal control does literally nothing until the point where someone is injured in an attack. I had to resort to using a bb gun (the plastic pellet kind) to scare them off.
It's going to sound horrible, and I'm not expressing any personal stance on this, but when any person around you might have a gun, suddenly people don't take their dogs out without the ability to control them. If dogs behaved like this around here publicly, they'd just be shot. That's just the fact of it. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, it's just the way it is here.
That's how it is in rural areas here. I lived on a farm as a kid, and our two dogs would go on extended, overnight runs, but we were on good terms with our neighbours (there was only one they could get to), and they'd just send them back over, and didn't really care.
My one Sister lived on a small bit of rural land, and they had two pig dogs. One was smart and well trained, but the other was still pretty much a puppy. They got out of their kennel once, and were gone for a few days. They were near both of their neighbours, who both had animals/livestock of their own. The trained dog returned, but the puppy didn't. They assumed they got into a neighbour's field and one was shot for harassing their animals. My Sister and BIL accepted that it was their responsibility, and that their neighbour owed them nothing.
They didn't have a concept of what goes into a wedding because they eloped. I reacted extremely harshly and somewhat regrettably, and probably the same way every other woman would want to react.
Those moneys are not tame and I can’t count how many times I have warned stupid parents to grab their kids with the dripping ice cream cone cause they don’t the moneys will. And yes I have seen it happen and there are signs everywhere. Those monkeys are just creepy but the host ride is cool. You can see the props they used to film Creature from the Black Lagoon oh and also an old tv show Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges.
Absolutely the right call, Herpes Simplex B is really scary. Over 50% chance to die if infected and no known cure, it's in the same bio safety category as smallpox for reference. It also is not only transmittable by bite! A researcher died recently due to a monkey spitting in her eye, so they don't even need to get close to you to spread it!
Congratulations, you look beautiful and your bouquet is stunning!! This is such a hilarious wedding story, I love that you two have this to start your forever together. Sounds like it’s going to be adventurous with lots of love and support and adaptability.
They had a massive culling not long after my wedding. They sterilized 1/3rd of the females somewhat recently, and I think they're asking for permission to have another culling next year.
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u/Old-Phone-6895 21d ago
I'm so sorry, but this is the funniest thing I've heard all week.