Starting to plan for a Disney Wedding.

[allanahx]

We have just started to plan for our Disney wedding and we are super excited but also super overwhelmed and confused.

We have decided on the Pavilion and that we want to do it in 2018.

But there are so many questions I need answers to.

If we have a disney wedding can we still have things organised by outside companies, ie. Photography, DJ, any decorations that we may want, flowers?

What is the best time of year and the time of day to get married?

In Wishes it says there is discount available to guests for the wedding in terms of room rates and ticket prices, but how much roughly is taken off the room total? ie. 5%?

[oh_darling]

Originally Posted by allanahx

We have just started to plan for our Disney wedding and we are super excited but also super overwhelmed and confused.

We have decided on the Pavilion and that we want to do it in 2018.

But there are so many questions I need answers to.

If we have a disney wedding can we still have things organised by outside companies, ie. Photography, DJ, any decorations that we may want, flowers?

What is the best time of year and the time of day to get married?

In Wishes it says there is discount available to guests for the wedding in terms of room rates and ticket prices, but how much roughly is taken off the room total? ie. 5%?

See more...

Hi sweetie! How exciting that you're starting to plan your wedding! I can only answer a few of your Q's as I'm a newbie myself but I'm sure one of the more experienced brides will be along in a bit to help!

Yes - you can have outside vendors do certain parts of your wedding. However, you need to meet a minimum amount in order to actually have your wedding, and only by using Disney vendors can you meet your minimum! We are having outside photography, so if we chose Disney photography it would be included in our minimum, but we're having to pick other things to meet our minimum i.e floral, extra entertainment instead. I hope that makes sense! Been a long day!

It is a lot cheaper to get married Mon, Tues or Weds. The minimum you have to meet for these days is $5000 (Wishes wedding) whereas on a Fri, Sat or Sun it's $10000! In terms of time of year, I guess it depends when you like to visit and crowd levels/weather! We're going for October due to there being a school holiday that time (DF's job is based around school times) and we love October generally for F&W and Halloween So it's up to you!

Hope that helps a bit x

[allanahx]

We was thinking November. We don't really have a preference but we didn't want it to be August because we have just been then and found the head exhausting at times. But the only draw back to November is one of the water parks will be closed and we love the Disney ones. Also in November there are four birthdays in the family (two very small children who we are also hoping to be our bridesmaids) so we was thinking of doing something extra special for them while we are there.

Are characters included in the minimum and the coach? of so, we most likely won't have any trouble meeting our minimum

[Guest]

Originally Posted by allanahx

We have just started to plan for our Disney wedding and we are super excited but also super overwhelmed and confused.

We have decided on the Pavilion and that we want to do it in 2018.

But there are so many questions I need answers to.

If we have a disney wedding can we still have things organised by outside companies, ie. Photography, DJ, any decorations that we may want, flowers?

What is the best time of year and the time of day to get married?

In Wishes it says there is discount available to guests for the wedding in terms of room rates and ticket prices, but how much roughly is taken off the room total? ie. 5%?

See more...

Yay congratulations!

Wedding pavilion is where to be

The only thing I'd ask you to do is be wary, Disney change their minds, A LOT! There are four years between now and when you are planning on marrying so it's so hard to say if the rules will be the same today as they are in four years time. They only recently changed the pricing structure so the structure should be the same but the pricing can and probably will change. When we first started planning in 2011, and throughout 2012 if you had an in park event you could not use an outside photographer, but they changed that rule in late 2012. So be prepared for a rollercoaster!

Early morning ceremonies are cheaper, they get more expensive as the day goes on as it changes the meal disney expects to serve. The only lunch menu you can get is 12pm ceremony if I remember correctly. We are getting married at 2.30pm as it fits in with our timeline - straight from there to Living seas for our pre reception and reception inthe same space, straight from reception to dessert party.

We are getting married in October, it's hard to say waht the best time is as everyone's needs and lives are different

The discount on room and tickets wasn't as good as the package deals we get here in the UK so we didn't use it. It's a different percentage on room rates depending on the level of resort - 10% for value, 20%ish for mods and 30%ish on deluxe. But remember this is off rack rate - the specials and discounts they run are usually much better than the wedding discount.

Ticket discount isn't even worth considering in my opinion... it's $20 off a park hopper ticket, regardless of how many days...

Hopefully we can help with any questions you have in the meantime xx

[allanahx]

oh thanks TabZ! I have so many I don't even know where to begin...

We understand that pricing will change, we wanted a rough estimate so that we could add a couple of grand on top to ensure we had enough due to inflation. We just want a rough estimate on how much to save as we will have three years to put down a deposit.

Does anyone know if its expensive to go in Novemeber? We have two nieces and a sister and brother in law who have their birthday's in November so we thought it would also be nice to be away from that and everyone can get early xmas presents.

Are there any recommended photographers?

Is it worth getting the Grand Yacht for the wedding. We was thinking if our reception was the 3:30 slot, we could be having reception at 5 and it finish at 10 (appropriate for kids) and we would be boarding the Yacht at about 8:30 maybe? for the fireworks and some time to ourselves but then comes the question of do we leave the photographer or do we take them with us?


Also as all our 10 nieces and nephews will be in our wedding party, we thought about doing an afternoon ceremony so that we could go to Chef Mickey's in the morning as a treat for all the kids, before using one of the conference rooms to get them all changed, which I have been told is possible and includes a food and drink fee so we could all have lunch also, and it would also give us a large space to use to get changed as 6 nieces, a bride, 1 maid of honour, one mother of the bride, and a sister and a couple of sister in laws to get ready in a room, PLUS the hairstylists and makeup would be a bit awkward... But our only issue is timing, would this be possible, we need something for the kids to do for a couple of hours between Chef Mickey and the wedding, we wondered if they could make use of the pool? We are unsure of the regulations, and if we were using California Grill as our reception, or the downstairs areas and the firework viewing platform? (We are unsure as we haven't looked in to whats available yet) We were thinking about just having there as a base of operations for the wedding, i.e.. renting the Grand, using rooms to have showers and then making their way to the conference room for getting ready.

[Guest]

The disney weddings and honeymoons website does decent estimates now - based on your guest count and approximate venues.

What do you mean by expensive to go in November, are you thinking flights, accommodation, which part exactly? You can use disney's website and virgin holidays to give you an approximate price for dummy dates perhaps based on next years prices to give you a ballpark.

There are many recommended photographers A lot of the girls here use Randy Chapman, I'm personally using Regina Hyman who is just an absolute doll, we used her for engagement photos last year and can't wait to see her next month - we had our planning call with her last night!

The grand one can only take 18 passengers so it depends on how many guests you have, but it sounds like you have more than that if you are looking at a wishes wedding, so just something to bear in mind.

Your plans sound great but going by the time line I've been given for my wedding you might be packing a lot into a small space... our day looks like this:

8am - hair and makeup arrive for the girls
11.30am - video arrives
12pm - photo arrives
12.30pm - boys picked up to be taken to grand floridian
1pm - girls picked up to be taken to grand floridian
12.45pm-1.15pm boys photos at GF
1.15-2pm girls photos at GF
2.30pm ceremony
3.30pm pre reception starts
7.45pm reception ends - transport to dessert party
8pm-9.30pm dessert party

You can use the viewing platform if you have your reception in the Cali Grill, but technically you can only use the pool if you are staying at the hotel

I think thats all your questions from that one!

[allanahx]

I was thinking of ringing Disney to find out if I could get any information and things on what is customisable and what isn't but I'm afraid they will tell me it is miles too soon. But we are trying to work out our savings :/ We were thinking of getting a Fairfx card 2 years before the wedding and transferring funds to that to pay for things, such as the initial deposit for the wedding etc. As we think it may negate the extra charges. We also have a cash passport which we could use for spending money. We would use our debit cards/credit to garuntee payment, but use the cash passport for the final bills, especially if we stay in a disney resort.

[Chilly80]

Yes there is no point ringing Disney you won't get any info off them.

[loves_disney]

i would buy the pass porters guide to disney weddings.

just google 'passporters disney weddings' and it should come up. you can buy the e-book as a PDF and any time it gets updated then you can download a new one. it is the bible for disney weddings, and gives you more info than disney will give you!

you have to be 16 months away from your wedding date to talk to disney about anything, and even then they don't give too much away. i learnt all about pricing from the passporter and from other disney brides.

i would recommend going through disney for mainly everything but photography and videography. we are using david and vicki arndt and they are fantastic and very well priced as well!

disney like to charge ridiculous fees for bringing in outside musicians and DJs, and in many of their reception venues you cannot use an outside vendor for floral and decor so you are as well using disney for these things. it will also make it less expensive overall as you have to meet certain minimums with disney anyway.

i would use prices for 2015 as a guide, but disney will change their prices. For example in 2011 the minimum spend on food and drink per person was $125 for a dinner reception, it is now $175 for dinner.

a lot can happen in 4 years!

[Chilly80]

You'll find lots of useful info on Carrie's website, including how to buy her book:

disneytravelbabble/disney-weddings/