to disney wedding or not to disney wedding

[Bri]

ok here is my problem. my fiancee and i are looking to get married in september 2010. we have looked at some places in our area and so far are not thrilled with anything. there are some perfectly nice places but nothing that makes either of us really excited. so today i looked into a disney wedding and i built a wish book where everything you choose gets added up as you go along so you can see your cost. we based it on 100 people, which is way less people then we would have if we had it here and probably more people than could actually make it to disney. the cost for 100 people would be about the same cost as if we were to have it here for 160 people. but at the same time, everyone we're inviting is getting invited for a reason and it wouldn't be the same without them. i'm torn, do i have it here at a perfectly nice place and have most of our guest list attend. or do we have it in disney, which we love and is a huge part of who we are as a couple, and have less than 1/2 our guest list attend and maybe even some of our bridal party not be able to attend. we are going to go to disney on our honeymoon, no matter where the ceremony/reception is. i'm looking for all kinds of views, but especially from people who've had disney weddings where most of the guest list couldn't attend. how did that make you feel?

[kdbianchini]

I think you should have the wedding that you and your husband want. This is something that you will cherish forever. Don't just settle.

[DizneyRox]

You need to invite everyone to the wedding and hope that only the 100 or so respond. You'll open up a whole can of worms if you don't.

My vote is for the Disney Wedding though. Trust me you'll be glad you did. I don't regret a thing, we had 40 people show for ours and it was fantastic!

[Bethanymouse]

Congrats on beginning wedding planning! It is such a fun and wonderful experience. I hope that I can help you answer some questions and give some advice! We are having a disney world wedding in July of 2009. A few of our family members asked us many questions when we decided to have a disney wedding and we asked ourselves many questions similar to those that you are asking.

We knew a disney wedding was perfect for us. First it would allow us to have a more intimate wedding in the most magical location on earth. What better place to celebrate your love for each other and your families? Secondly, disney world has been such a big part of our lives, we couldnt think of a better place to have it.

We had a long engagement, December 2006 he proposed. We knew immediately that we wanted a disney wedding, then the planning began.

We are inviting the same amount of guests to our wedding in disney world that we would here in New Jersey. Our numbers are at about 150 and we are expecting about 80 to attend. Disney works well with brides and has been so supportive of us on our journey.

I think you should do what your heart tells you to do, but I can say that for me, there is nothing more magical then exchanging vows with a backdrop of Cinderella's castle. Best of luck to you and feel free to PM me with any questions if needed!

[brewcrew26]

We decided not to have a Disney wedding. I really wanted to have a Disney wedding but wanted it to be intimate, as well, and knew that everyone on our list - mostly DH's family - was going to attend. We also knew that we were paying for the entire wedding on our own. Of course, I could have easily extended the guest list to include all of our friends and long-lost family, but we didn't. We only had 36 people attend plus maybe 10 extra very close friends just at the reception.

Everyone in our bridal party knew that we wanted to do something Disney, but we knew off the bat that our wedding party couldn't afford the travel expenses on top of paying for everything else that entails being a member of the bridal party. So, we had a Disney-themed wedding at a Milwaukee boutique hotel in the middle of a blizzard (go figure, my luck...). I found a caterer in town that made the perfect cake, a floral designer in Chicago that included rhinestone Mickeys on my bouquet, and we even had Disney-themed music during the reception, centerpieces that looked like the posters under Main Street, and more.

It was absolutely fabulous! I don't feel like we "settled" at all. We just made the decision that when we're older (I just graduated from grad school in '07 and DH graduated from undergrad in '05) that we're going to have a Disney vow renewal to bring everyone back together - probably for our five year. It's hard when you're younger to budget for something like this, especially if you're like us and paying for it all your own. We didn't want to have our parents worry about paying for anything. By December, our entire February 2008 wedding will be paid off including our April 2008 WDW honeymoon.

It's a great feeling knowing that we're going into our 2nd year of marriage debt free (minus a few school loans). But, it would probably be a completely different story if our families were in a place to help pay for the weddings. We might have considered it more. But looking back I am SOOOO happy with what we did.

The one piece of advice that I took away from this whole process came from my FIL - just do what makes the two of you happy. You can't let others make decisions for you, this is something that reflects the love that each of you brings to the relationship.

I wish you the best of luck in your planning and congratulations!!

(Sorry, I can be long-winded about wedding stuff still... )

[passholderryan]

My wife and I just had a Disney"ish" wedding in April. However, we did things a little different. We decided on having ours at the Swan and Dolphin. We looked into having it at Disney's weddding pavillion but decided not to have it there for a couple of reasons. The reason we chose the Swan and Dolphin was we really liked the outdoor ceremony and price. We were able to have and lunchtime ceremony and reception for 100 people. Our ceremony location (if your familiar with the area) was located as you walk from the Swan towards the Boardwalk, as you approached the hill/bridge, look to your right and they have a real nice spot there. We had the ceremony, open bar cocktail hour with food, followed by a 3 or 4 hour reception, music, food, again open bar, photographers taxes, tips, flowers, chair covers, party favors, officient and some many other things to list for around $15,000.
Why a afternoon vs. nightime wedding. We wanted our guests to be able to party all day, then go to one of the parks for the night/fireworks. We then all headed to PI (the ones that were able to stay awake).
We really chose the Swan/Dolphin for the atmosphere. Their facilities are spectacular. Our wedding planner and Catering manager from the Swan/Dolphin was excellent. Their are some good wedding planners in the Orlando area that can help out alot. The one we used is Just Marry! If you need info on photographers/ videographers/ music/ flowers/ and so on, just PM me and I'll get you a list. We still have every little bit of paperwork, brochures and receipts from a couple of months ago.
The Disney wedding pavillion looked nice, but the we just couldn't do the price.
Whatever you decide, it will be fantastic.