O'FALLON, MO. • Pictures of Cinderella and Ariel hang over the fireplace mantel at Bill and Karen Blanke's house.

"When you wish upon a star" — Jiminy Cricket's advice — is painted above a bay window in the living room.

Shelves and curio cabinets are neatly lined with Disney plates, figurines and movies. The master bathroom has a Winnie the Pooh wallpaper border.

"It started out in our bedroom, and it just kind of spread throughout the house," said Bill Blanke, 45.

Given the decor, it might not be surprising that the couple's daughter, Jamie Chandler, is sometimes mistaken for Ariel from "The Little Mermaid," and had a Disney-themed wedding in the fall. She and her husband, Christopher Chandler, went on a belated honeymoon recently at Disney World in Orlando.

Chandler, 25, pulls back the right side of her scarlet dyed hair with a starfish-shaped comb. She said children often stop her at shopping malls or approach her at work at Jo-Ann fabrics in St. Peters.

"One little girl walked up one day, and told me, 'I love your movie,' " she said.

Chandler said she doesn't think of the way she dresses as an Ariel costume, but she doesn't mind the association with the Disney character either.

The theater student at Lindenwood University even auditioned as Ariel for Disney World but didn't get the part.

"Ariel can't be taller than 5-foot-2, and I am 5-foot-7," she said. "I have green eyes, Ariel has blue eyes."

Chandler and her family don't see their Disney-centered life as unusual; they said they simply want to remain young at heart.

"I always say you have to grow up eventually, but you don't have to grow up too much," Bill Blanke said.

Blanke first got the Disney bug when he was a teenager. He and Karen were high school sweethearts, and he was invited to go with her family to Disney World.

"I immediately developed a problem where it needed to be fed every year," he said.

As Jamie and her younger sister, Jessica, were growing up, the Blankes arranged their work schedules so that one of them would be home with the girls. Bill Blanke said some of his favorite memories are of sitting on the couch, a daughter on each arm, watching a Disney movie. When the girls got old enough for the rides at Disney World, they started taking their family vacations there, and it became an annual event. They even bought a timeshare condo on the grounds of the Disney resort.

Karen Blanke, 47, said she is responsible for most of the collectibles in the house, some bought on eBay and others at Disney stores. Her personal favorite is Winnie the Pooh, and she has a tattoo of the bear on her right ankle, and one of his donkey friend, Eeyore, on her left.

Chandler said each of the Disney princesses was her favorite at one time or another, but something about Ariel resonated with her.

"I think Ariel was the first one who was like I like this guy, and I'm going to go get him," she said.

She met her own prince at a renaissance festival in Wentzville where they both volunteered. Christopher Chandler, 26, proposed to her several years later in front of Cinderella's castle at Disney World with a ring placed inside a glass slipper.

Both said they knew that Disney would be a part of their wedding. Chandler first considered modeling her dress after Cinderella's, but she wanted to keep her red hair color, a shade that took her hairdresser a year to fine tune.

Then she found the perfect dress, a mermaid-style gown — fitted to mid-thigh before it flared out. At her wedding, her dad dressed as King Triton and marched her down the aisle to an instrumental version of "Part of Your World," from the "The Little Mermaid."

Her eight bridesmaids dressed as Disney's leading ladies — Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine, Belle, Alice in Wonderland, Giselle and Meg.

The groom's suit was fit for a prince, and his groomsmen wore special hats that depicted one of the fairy tale villains. (They chose villains because there's more bad guys than good guys.)

The mother of the bride wore a teal dress that had a ruffle cascading down to resemble waves.

"I wasn't an official character because there weren't any Disney mothers we could think of other than evil stepmothers or ugly old godmothers," Karen Blanke said.

The bride and groom were married in a gazebo decorated with seashells; the minister wore Mickey Mouse ears.

At the reception, the 200 guests were encouraged to change into costumes, and many did. They sat at tables with centerpieces depicting one of 18 Disney movies.

Last week, Chandler had a major role in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," the student production at Lindenwood. She's hired an agent because she'd like to be a movie actor, but short of that, she's considering opening a business where she could appear as Ariel or another princess at children's birthday parties.

"I feel like there's a decent market for it," she said. "Besides, it's something I like to do."