Ron and Casey DeSantis got married at the Walt Disney World Resort in 2009.
The Florida governor doesn’t appear to have mentioned this publicly.
DeSantis’s feud with Disney over a schools bill critics call “Don’t Say Gay” has become politics legend.Â
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Over the course of his campaign for reelection in Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis frequently boasts about his retaliation against Disney for opposing his Parental Rights in Education Act.Â
But DeSantis hasn’t mentioned that, long before Disney became what he derides as a “woke corporation,” its sprawling theme park near Orlando was the venue where he once said his “I Do’s.”Â
Dressed in his white, decorated Naval uniform, DeSantis exchanged wedding vows with Casey DeSantis, whose maiden name was Black, at the Grand Floridian’s wedding pavilion, a chapel with arched windows overlooking Cinderella’s Castle and the Seven Seas Lagoon.
After the vows, weddings guests took buses to Epcot for the reception, two guests told Insider.
DeSantis, who is viewed as a lock for reelection on November 8, has been the subject of high-profilefeature stories as he ascends the ranks of the Republican Party, becoming a favorite for the 2024 presidential nomination just behind former President Donald Trump.
But details of the DeSantis Disney wedding, known to an estimated 150 guests in attendance at the September 26, 2009, nuptials, hasn’t previously been reported. Three people confirmed the location to Insider, which learned of the DeSantis wedding location while reporting a story about Casey DeSantis.Â
The choice of venue surprised one of Casey DeSantis’s former friends and colleagues, who spoke on condition of anonymity, because Casey DeSantis was “not really a Disney person” but said the future Florida first lady “wanted something all-inclusive and put together.”
Philip Rogers, a Catholic priest from Ohio, officiated the wedding, a copy of the marriage license shows. It rained at the tail end of the cocktail hour, according to two wedding guests. The DeSantis campaign did not respond to questions for this story. Â
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The couple’s marriage license shows they got married on September 26, 2009 — a date that contradictsnumerousreports and a DeSantis Wikipedia page that incorrectly states the couple got married in 2010. It’s unclear how this mistake has become widespread; Casey DeSantis observed the couple’s 10-year wedding anniversary on Twitter in 2019.
Walt Disney World did not respond to a Thursday evening email seeking comment.Â
The marriage license lists the location of the wedding as Lake Buena Vista, Florida, which is the mailing address for Disney World and is a city in Orange County.Â
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The location of the governor’s wedding doesn’t appear to be widely known, even among some of his former aides.
Michael Binder, director of the Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida, told Insider that the news was “strange” and “super funny” but added that DeSantis “is very tight-lipped about his personal life.”Â
“It’s not like he’s got a mistress or he killed somebody, but I heard something today that surprised me,” Binder said.Â
He predicted the information wouldn’t make a difference for DeSantis’s reelection prospects given his favorability.Â
“I don’t think John Kennedy could have won this election,” he said.
Disney employee Nicholas Maldonado holds a sign while protesting outside of Walt Disney World on March 22, 2022 in Orlando, Florida.
Octavio Jones/Getty Images
DeSantis revoked Disney’s special carve-out
The Disney wedding venue is the latest news to emerge from the DeSantis-Disney saga.Â
The dispute began when the Florida legislature was considering the Parental Rights in Education Act earlier this year. The legislation bans instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, and says such instruction in higher grades must be “age appropriate or developmentally appropriate.”Â
Critics — who’ve branded the bill “Don’t Say Gay” — have said they worry about chilling the speech of LGBTQ teachers and about students being bullied or outed to families who don’t accept them. Studies show that LGBTQ youth face higher rates of suicide compared to their cisgender or straight peers.Â
As the legislature was considering the bill, CEO Bob Chapek told shareholders he called DeSantis expressing “disappointment and concern,” but Disney employees staged a walkout saying the company’s response wasn’t forceful enough.Â
After DeSantis signed the bill into law in March, Disney said it would work toward its repeal. In response, DeSantis asked the legislature to send him a bill stripping Disney of its self-governing status starting in June 2023.
Disney was free to take a position on the bill but “they are not free to force all of us to subsidize their activism, and that’s what they were doing,” DeSantis said during a June interview with conservative commentator Dave Rubin.Â
The actions solidified DeSantis as a governor unafraid to confront critics, including large corporations. Disney is Florida’s largest private employer through its Walt Disney World theme park and resort, and the company has championed gay rights since the 1990s. Â
On the campaign trail, DeSantis regularly recounts his battle with Disney. “We do not subcontract our leadership to woke corporations in California,” DeSantis said during an October 26 campaign stop in Walton County, Florida.Â
Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis waves as his wife Casey applauds, following a televised debate against Democratic opponent Charlie Crist, at Sunrise Theatre in Fort Pierce, Florida, Monday, October 24, 2022.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo
The DeSantises have been married for 13 years
Ron and Casey DeSantis met at a driving range at the University of North Florida. In a 2018 interview on First Coast News, Casey DeSantis shared that she was practicing her swing and looked over her shoulder to see whether she could grab an extra bucket of golf balls. DeSantis was behind her and thought she was looking at him.Â
As Insider describes in its feature about Florida’s first lady, Casey DeSantis is a masterful image maker and a powerful confidante to her husband.Â
Last year, Casey DeSantis stepped back from first lady duties while she received treatment for breast cancer. In October, months after being declared cancer-free, she starred in an emotional campaign ad praising her husband for caring for her and their three children while she was in chemotherapy.Â
DeSantis’s disputes with schools go beyond Disney. He has sparred with education boards over reopenings, mask mandates, and curriculum, often saying schools should be focused on “education not indoctrination” and that parents should have a say in what their children learn. Ahead of Florida’s August 23 primary, he endorsed 30 school board candidates who supported his education agenda, and 25 prevailed in their races.Â
“We just want to do what’s right,” DeSantis said during the October 26 campaign rally. “At the end of the day, we are going to stand on principle and we are not afraid of anybody no matter how powerful they might be.”Â
