Disney Weddings.......?

[JRock0114]

Hey guys,
My "Wife to be" and I are in the early stages of planning our wedding. We are both huge Disney World fans and vacation there at least once or twice a year. We are very interested in having a small wedding on Disney property. We don't want the Cheesy style where Donald Duck is my best man or anything like that, but just a small classic style with very little "Mouse".

We would really like for both our close family members to attend (we are looking at around 20 people). We were very excited about planning this until we started to search out everything that you "must" do online. We were very turned off by the fact that our guests to the wedding could not choose to stay at an off-sight hotel if they were going to be at the wedding. This, to me, is a crock. That would be a lot to ask of my family members to do. Not only would I like for you to travel from TN to Orlando but you also have to stay in a Disney hotel.

Can anyone give me any pros and cons of having a Disney wedding. We both want very low stress but we don't want it to be just like a "Wedding in a Box", with no personality to it.

Please let me know any feed back that you may have.

Thanks guys.

[McLiberal8]

Although I wanted to, I didn;t get married at DIsney.
I did, however, do a lot of research.
I know that Disney does everything they can to make your wedding as personal as possible. You can have very little 'mouse', with no Disney touch or little ones (like mickey silouettes on the cake), or you can have the whole to-do with the Cinderella carraige and all that (not my cup of tea, either!). You choose what is served at the reception, where you want the wedding/reception, the band type, everything. You choose colors, flowers, all that. You get your own Disney wedding cooridinator when you start to plan.
I think the reason Disney wants your guests to stay on property is not only so they can make sure the experince your guests have is a special one personalized BY Disney, but because there is a minimum price you must spend for your wedding, and these things like guest rooms, etc. go towards that price.
I recommend you get the free wedding plan DVD. It should answer a lot of questions. Here's the link

https://disneyweddings.go.com/site/s...ntimateWedding

[DizneyRox]

Your guests CAN abosolutely stay offsite, there is not rule that THEY must stay onsite.

The rule is that YOU must guarantee a certain number of room nights will be occupied by guests of your wedding. When we got married there, I think with our wedding size, we only needed to guarantee 50 room nights. With 40 people we EASILY hit that number. Although if we didn't WE knew that we would need to pay for X number of rooms at an All-Star and we were prepared to do that.

It's not the end of the world, in the grand scheme of things it would have been a drop in the bucket. You're probably looking at close to $10 pp for the cake, or $90 pp for the food, close to $5k for vidoegraphy, etc. Paying for a couple nights at the All-Stars for empty rooms is nothing.

I'd be careful with the "cheesy"... We did what Disney would probably call the typical wedding. Wedding Pavillion, Major Domo, Cinderella's Carriage, Reception at the Grand Floridian, Mickey and Minnie Showed up, etc. I think the part most people remember was when Mickey and Minnie showed up all dressed up and danced with everyone, took pictures, helped us cut the cake, etc.

Having a Disney wedding is probably the least strees you'll have planning a wedding. It's nice not having to sweat the details. You can pick out everything and then just be assured that it's going to be taken care of. IMHO it's worth the cost, we wouldn't change a thing. Actually we're looking forward to renewing our vows and will probably go through the whole process again.

[cmthct]

We too did the Ultimate Disney wedding, and it was awesome. It has been 8 years and to this day everyone remembers our wedding. I wouldn't have done it anyother way.
To stay on site would make it easier for everyone, Disney will transport your guests to the ceremony and to the reception.
IT IS THE BEST!!!