Poppy Montgomery announced Friday on LIVE! with Kelly and Michael that she and Shawn Sanford were recently married in a Disneyland ceremony – their children joining them and with Minnie and Mickey Mouse presiding.
The Australian-born Montgomery, 41, and Sanford, a Microsoft executive, have been together since 2011 and wed on the Chinese New Year, Feb. 19, she shared.
Her mom, Montgomery told hosts Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan, was not amused at her choice of a wedding locale, even as the Unforgettable actress praised it for the margarita she enjoyed after the surprise nuptials were finished.
“My mother was horrified. She was like, ‘How do you turn Disneyland into Vegas? You don’t run away to Disneyland and get married!'”
The children, she added, were more dazzled by the theme park’s tiny character rodents than the big moment, Montgomery said.
“They’re very small. Like, really small. And I thought there were children in there, or little people, I didn’t know,” she said of the park’s famed mice. “And my children were so in awe of Mickey and Minnie that they didn’t really pay any attention to the wedding. And then my stepdaughter said, ‘Why is Minnie dressed better than you?’ Because I wore jeans and Minnie was in a sort-of bridal gown.”
There will likely be more Disney trips in the growing family’s future. The couple’s daughter, Violet Grace, was born last April.
The star is also mom to 6-year-old Jackson Phillip, her son from a previous relationship.
Montgomery, who formerly starred as Samantha Spade on Without a Trace, has blogged for PEOPLE about her most recent pregnancy and her life as a working actress, producer and committed mother.