Disney Wedding?

[Disney Lynn]

I also posted this on the Mousellaneous Forum (didn't know where to post!).
Does anyone have experience or advice about getting married at WDW? Our DD wants a destination wedding in May or June 2011; WDW is one of the many destinations being considered, Our family loves Disney (many, many trips to the World), but this is all new to the groom and his family. Thanks!

[DizneyRox]

You will need to setup some time to talk with the WDW Wedding People...

It can get pricey, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. We dropped like 35K with 40 people, this doesn't include the rooms you need to guarantee. The number of rooms was based on the number of guests, at the time I think it was under 40 guests, 25 room nights, over 40 was 50 room nights. A room night is one room occupied by one of your guests for one night. A one week stay (Sun-Sun) would be 7 room nights. Two guests staying in the same room is still one room night.

[BrerGnat]

If you can keep it small, it's very doable. DH and I got married at WDW in June 2001. We had a total of 38 people attend (this included us and our families). Our total cost was $10,500. We didn't go all out and do a lot of the "extras" like character appearances, the horse drawn carriage ride, etc. Our cost included the following:

1. Wedding ceremony at the Pavilion (included rehearsal)
2. Photography and wedding album
3. DJ for the reception
4. Cake
5. Full dinner (plated dinner) reception at the Beach Club
6. Champagne (6 bottles)
7. One night complementary at the WL resort for me and DH (the wedding night was credited off our room charge at the end of the week)
8. All the planning/prep, etc.
9. Officiant for the ceremony
10. Flowers
11. Dove release after the wedding ceremony (don't know if they do this anymore)
12. Limo transport for the wedding party during the wedding day (resort to pavilion to reception back to resort)
13. Cocktail Hour reception before the actual reception
14. Wine at dinner

We didn't have a bar, which is a HUGE cost. We opted to just provide champagne and wine at the reception dinner. We paid for a set number of bottles of each and that was it. It was enough for each guest to have two glasses of wine and one of champagne (although, we ended up going over the six bottle of champagne limit, and they didn't charge us for it).

We had enough guests to book the required number of room nights, so we didn't have to worry about that expense. We put out guests up at the Port Orleans Riverside and All Star Movies resorts (they could choose which accommodations they wanted).

I would not do it any other way. It was SO easy. So much was done over email and my mom and I went for a 2 day planning session about 4 months before the actual wedding.

We kept it small and simple. We had to spend a minimum of $10K; that was the requirement at that time. If we had done a similar wedding here in California, it would have easily cost twice that much.

You can easily go way overboard with these weddings, but if you keep it modest and only do the stuff you'd do if you were having the wedding that WASN'T Disney, you can keep it very reasonable.

DH and I don't say we had a "Disney Wedding", we just say we had a wedding at Disney World. There is a big difference.

[Strmchsr]

If you need an inexpensive pastor to officiate the ceremony I'll volunteer. All I require is the trip down.

[Joannelet]

I see you are from NJ. We are from NJ too My brother in law just got married there in July.
If you have any specific quesitons just send me a pm or ask away. I will ask my sister in law any questions you have.
It is pretty pricey that is for sure. They charge for EVERYTHING...even pens if they are needed at the reception.....
I went over the first bill when they were planning it with them. We were trying to cut costs....It was a little out of hand in the beginning...but it turned out to be a nice wedding with minimal stuff.
It is very organized though. You have a wedding planner assigned to you the entire time. I believe you have to make one or two trips down there just for the planning. Everything else is done via email or phone.

[Disney Lynn]

Whew! Thanks you all for the advice- and your experiences. DD needs to decide what she means by a "small" wedding. Doing a wedding at WDW (love the wording, BrerGnat!) would be fine for a truly small group- if she can keep it to under 50 invited guests. But I can easily see this thing snowballing out of control. She definitely doesn't want a wedding in NJ (not romantic enough), but may opt for flying to a Caribbean island (which would end up being just as expensive as WDW in all probability). Her immediate group of friends & family will fly any where for the wedding, but many of the extended famiy members (plus neighbors and co-workers) wouldn't be able to afford flying somewhere exotic but might drive to WDW (making the wedding their family's vacation).

Thanks again, Lynn

[Cinderella7299]

It can get pricey, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I couldn't agree more!

I guess you could say that we had a Disney wedding. We didn't go all out but we did opt for many of the extras. My husband proposed in the Magic Kingdom with a glass slipper, so naturally our wedding was a Cinderella theme. We did opt for the Coach, Major Domo, and a few other theme related additions.

We had about 60 guests. Our ceremony was at the Wedding Pavilion and our reception was at the Grand Floridian back in 1999. We're not drinkers, so we did not have a bar either. We're also a pretty laid back bunch, and since it was a small wedding, just about everyone knew each other. We decided to go for a buffet as several of our guests had expressed concern in being "tied down" for a plated meal.

Although pricey, it was the best day ever! We originally priced a few other locations and determined that Disney was definitely the bang for our buck! It can definitely snowball, though. We started by pricing out everything we could possibly want. Once we saw the numbers, it was much easier to pick and choose the more important items and to prioritize. And it is sooo romantic and enchanting and magical and everything you can imagine a wedding at Disney being.

We had no trouble meeting our room nights quota, this being with most of our guests within a 90 minute drive to Disney. Most of our out of town guests used our wedding as part of a family vacation. We really enjoyed that because for about 3 days after our wedding, we spent time meeting our friends and family in the parks, catching up and visiting.

Congrats to your family!!

Ginnylynne

[sleepingbooty]

I would recommend looking at the Passporter E-book on Disney weddings. It is full of so much information. There are so many different places on property where you can actually have your ceremony and reception that are not presented to you as choices when you initially talk to their wedding consultants. Good luck with the planning - how fun!