Our Wishes Fairytale Wedding may 2016 Wedding Pavilion/ Atlantic Dance hall Reception Overview

Rundisneybride

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jan 22, 2015
Hi everyone I have posted on the forums before asking general questions and opinions before but I finally decided to maybe journal our planning process hoping to get some fresh ideas or opinions from past and future disbrides! I Don't know really how to do this but here we go
Ok so back to the beginning I met my fiancé in high school where we were friends and he was my senior prom date. We started dating in college and have been together ever since. Disney is a huge part of my life I have been going on family vacations to disney world since I was a year old, I have a sister with special needs who is my whole world and we have never been anywhere where she has enjoyed more than disney. They provide such a special time for her there and we have never met a cast member that hasn't been accommodating with her. Disney is a special place for me and my fiancé as well he loves disney just as much as me (thank goodness!!) and it is where we got engaged Feb 2014 at the magic kingdom. So for us there was no where else we could possibly think of getting married.
 

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image.jpeg We started our process with scheduling a site visit 16 months out from our desired date in January luckily I was in disney for marathon weekend so it worked out easy for us. We looked at possible ceremony and reception locations. Even though I have been going to disney for 25 years I had never been inside the wedding pavilion so we started there, then looked at the croquet lawn at the boardwalk hotel and the wedding gazebo at the yacht club. (We at this point, after speaking with family and friends, decided our guest list will be around 100 people which is why we chose those ceremony locations to look at) Then we looked at the Atlantic Dance Hall for the reception and I was in love! We knew thats where we wanted our reception and we loved all three ceremony locations but we were partial to the Wedding pavilion indoor ceremony especially in the heat of May me being in a gown and my fiancé in a suit.
We had a lovely meeting with our consultant where we talked about our style and what was important to us and penciled in our date time and location preferences and had to do the hardest part of our planning process ... wait until 12 months out when we would officially get our date !
 
In the few months between January and May I may have gotten a little antsy I wanted to plan! I started with the decisions I could make without Knowing our date or officially what venue yet. I found my dress completely on a whim I went to a bridal boutique that was having a trunk show for The designer I love but didn't think I could afford full retail. I Tried on 3 dresses and found it on the third try I didn't want to take it off I loved it so much and it was nothing like I thought I wanted! Which is classic me.
From there I decided on my color scheme For my bridesmaids and groomsmen. Blush for the girls and grey for the guys. Everyone in my bridal party has a completely different body type so I didn't want anyone to feel uncomfortable in a particular style of dress and they're scattered across the country so I decided on J crew bridesmaid dresses and have the girls choose their own style and I choose the color plus I needed a company that would have an option for my sister in a wheelchair that would be in the same fabric and color and jcrew had that
 


Hi! I'm a newby too. I'm getting married at Sea Breeze in March, so I know how excited you must be. :). I love the WP, but are only having about 20 guest so thought SBP was a much better fit for us. Looking forward to hearing all the wonderful planning details.
 
Hi! I'm a newby too. I'm getting married at Sea Breeze in March, so I know how excited you must be. :). I love the WP, but are only having about 20 guest so thought SBP was a much better fit for us. Looking forward to hearing all the wonderful planning details.
Hi! I love sea breeze point so much! That was my dream location but once we got our guesstimate guest count from our families a few more than we expected said they were fully on board lol
 


Finally May came and I received a fantastic email letting me know We got our venues and date! Our ceremony will be held at 230pm at the Wedding Pavilion and the Atlantic Dance Hall for our reception following. I was so excited we immediately took engagement photos and sent out our save the dateslynch-177.jpg
We took our photos at our home towns boardwalk which has a vintage feel to go along with our reception venue plus i love the Boardwalk Inn its my favorite hotel in disney !!
Once we got our date and venues we had to work on our room block. Disney emailed me a list of the disney hotel rates for our room block and a spreadsheet I needed to fill out about which hotels to block off for which nights of our wedding weekend. Both of our families are from the north east and most will be flying in for our wedding. I spoke with most of our family at our engagement party to find out where everyone felt comfortable staying. From there I chose Disneys Boardwalk Inn, Disney Yacht club, Carribean Beach, and Disneys All Star Movies. I gave our guests the price lists for each hotel with the instruction to email me which hotel they were thinking of staying at and how many nights they were thinking of staying. ( If you guarantee 25 nights at a disney hotel you get a night free for yourself which we are using for our wedding night.) Gathering 100+ guests room block preferences was a process :/ and at the end of collecting them all I had a conversation with disney about the amount of rooms because our number was very high. We ended up reducing our room count by a good deal so just in case there were any changes with our guests plans I wouldn't have to pay a penalty and 60 days out from the wedding we can reduce our room count by 25 nights without a penalty if need be. We could always increase our number of rooms if we needed to we just would risk availability of the hotels. After that huge weight was lifted off my shoulders once we submitted the information and we waited for our letter of agreement to send in our deposit.
 
Welcome! I'm really enjoying reading about your planning! It's just under 2 weeks until we find out if we get our date...I can't handle the suspense!! Can't wait to be in your position! :) x
 
June came quickly and we had an engagement party ( even though we had been engaged for over a year lol) It was hard picking a date and venue were both from big extended families and with our wedding around the corner so we wanted it to be economical and my fiancé lived out of state for work so he would need to fly in. We decided on having the party at my future in laws house they have a beautiful back yard and while I was on pintrest I saw the cutest chalk board menu with delicious BBQ dishes and I brought it up to our families an idea of having a BBQ engagement party and everyone was on board! From that one Pin the whole idea of the party unfolded pretty quickly. ( side note I am extremely blessed that I have a great relationship with my future in laws and so do my parents so we all worked together to have a great party) We tried to make a classy BBQ burlap, lace and such. Michaels crafts became my home away from home as I made all of the decor along withe the help of my sister when she got home from college. I also got an idea off pintrest (i love this site lol Im not really creative to come up with my own ideas but I can recreate what I see pretty well lol) to make our own photo booth with my polaroid and disney props I made, how I wanted the tables, dessert ideas ect,. We are very lucky one of our close friends is a bartender so we had some great signature drinks as well, and We had bride and groom corn hole. And the final touch was having an ice-cream truck stop by the party as part of the dessert. I wish I took more pictures of the day but we ended up hosting more than 100 people and this was the first time both of our extended families were meeting so we both felt like we were running around in circles! IMG_5830.JPG
 
It has been over a year since I have posted on here, I'm not great at journaling sorry, so instead of posting about my planning process Ill post about our wedding which was the best day of my life thanks in huge part to disney and our amazing planner Maxine who answered my every silly question, responded to every email and call and helped make my long time fantasy a reality.
Our Ceremony was at the Wedding Pavilion at 2:30pm on a Saturday and our Reception was at 3:30pm at the Atlantic Dance Hall
We had our wedding over a holiday weekend in May so both of our families traveling from the North East had an extra day to travel or hang at the parks.
Our Final guest count ended up being 123 which was a little more than expected but we readjusted our budget (Maxine to the rescue) and rolled with it lol

My fiancé (now husband) and I left for Disney the Wed night before our wedding to meet up with our families who had arrived that morning. My dad drove down to FL from NJ with my dress (so I didn't need to worry about it getting dirty on a plane) my grandparents (who refuse to fly) and all of our welcome bags and everything that was to go in them (they were not stuffed it would have been too much to travel with stuffed). We all gathered that night to stuff sort and label all 75 bags which me and my fiancé were going to distribute among our 4 room block hotels the following morning as about half of our guests were arriving on that thurs and the other half that friday. I made Times Guide ala the park ones with our list of activities for the weekend along with times they needed to be there and how to travel to get to them. Our bags were lunch box coolers and filled with snacks water hangover kits along with toiletries typically forgotten. (we got the snacks from costco, a lot of the travel size things from bed bath with coupons or at the dollar store ) buttons provided by disney lol The next morning we dropped off our bags to the front desks of the hotels with the names of our guests labeled and their check in dates.gift bag.jpg


We went back and forth about the etiquette of destination weddings in respect to rehearsal dinner or welcome party in the end we did a slight combination of both. The Wedding Pavilion was not available to rehearse at for the time I wanted the night before our wedding so we settled on a ballroom at the Grand Floridian and the Dinner at the Marina Patio and Terrace. The rehearsal space at the Grand Floridian ended up being perfect so we didn't have to walk too far for the dinner following the actual rehearsal.
Our officiant was Rev Tim Herring he was great and had everyone in stitches during the rehearsal which helped calm us down.
The dinner / welcome party worked like this, we had all the wedding party, their significant others and our immediate families at the rehearsal then we all walked over to the Marina Patio and Terrace where dinner was set up, then we asked another wedding guests to join us about an hour later for drinks at the bar we had along with watching the wishes fireworks. The food was the adventures of herbie buffet and we did a premium wine and liquor bar and the Wishes Audio Package so we could hear the music for fireworks. The food was fantastic and really fun and had something for everyone ( mini meatball subs, flatbreads, salad, buffalo chicken egg rolls, honey baked ham, ect) The only oopsie was that the scheduled time for fireworks changed maybe because of the holiday weekend i don't know really so only really our wedding party got to watch the fireworks with us and some of the other guests came in the middle of the show. But it was a small thing and everyone just wanted to see each other and wish us luck so it worked out.IMG_4463.JPG
 
For hair and makeup I chose a local salon from wintergarden FL my maid of honor recommended them and they were amazing !!! We used my villa at the boardwalk as bridesmaids central where we all got ready the day of. She traveled to disney and came with 2 assistants, i had a bridal party of 8 plus me my mother and my mother in law all getting hair and makeup for a 2:30pm wedding with pictures at noon we started at 7:30 am and we finished with time to spare and touch ups. Thats with all girls getting updos an full face of makeup done. I was so beyond impressed plus every girl loved their hair and makeup some even tried to leave it in for the next day! It stayed that well!! I worked with the salon owner on 3 options for the bridesmaids and they all chose the exact same one so it worked out even better!!
I had ordered ahead of time breakfast to be delivered to our room for everyone from the boardwalk bakery a mix of muffins, breakfast sandwiches, croissants, yogurt parfaits, and fruit salad and we brought our own OJ and coffee and champagne!!! it was very much appreciated by everyone. As gifts I gave each on of my bridesmaids a tote bag with their monogram with the earrings they were going to wear to the wedding( jcrew factory sale plus additional discounts so they were gorgeous and didn't break the bank) and pajamas to wear to get ready in, and flip flops from old navy. I made each of them wooden hangers with their names and the wedding date on it ( bed bath and beyond wooden hangers with a coupon and wrote on them with sharpie and hot glued a ribbon)IMG_4468.JPG bridesmaid tote.jpgbridesmaid hangers.jpg
 
The boys got ready at the yacht club where my fiance and his family were staying and started pictures before us, they determined all our makeup would melt off if we took all of our photos outside so we changed it up and took most of our photos inside the boardwalk hotel lobby.
We chose disney fine art photography I shopped around for other photographers on price but for what I wanted and everything included disneys fine art photography worked best for us. We also with our package got a portrait session which I always wanted at the magic kingdom. You could choose to do a portrait any time within a year of your wedding and for me the morning after our wedding would be the only time it would work because I was not going to be in disney again with my wedding dress. It meant waking up at 5am the morning after our wedding but the pictures were totally worth it . We had our first look on a staircase at the boardwalk which was really special. We then took most of our bridal party photos and family photos before the ceremony started.
 
Transportation :
Now transportation was a little complicated for me since we chose to have the Cinderellas Carriage. Not complicated that I was disappointed just many moving parts involved.
I provided transportation to all our guests to our ceremony and from the ceremony back to our reception for those who stayed in our room block on disney property and since that was 123 people we had to charter 2 busses. One went from all star, to caribbean beach, to the yacht club then to the Wedding pavilion and the other picked up all of our guests at the boardwalk inn to the wedding pavilion. I provided in our welcome bags a list of bus pick up times and where the guests should be for pick up ( i told them a time that was 10 mins early just to make sure no one missed the bus ) Then for our bridal party and my groom ,since we were all together at the boardwalk to take photos, got picked up in a mini motor coach ( they all had a great time on the motor coach) One of my sisters is in a wheelchair so we also had a wheelchair accessible van that transported my mom my sister our grandparents. Then me and my dad took a one way town car to the lobby of the grand floridian where we got picked up in the Cinderellas coach. This was a really special time before the wedding for me and my dad where we sang songs and had a nice heart to heart. The coach was so much fun our driver and footmen were really entertaining and provided us with facts about the ponies and the carriage. The only issue was it was a very sunny day and hot in May which we were very lucky no rain, but we were roasting in the coach which is clear so the sun just beat down on us. The driver tried to keep is in the shade but me in a gown and my dad in a suit we sweat significantly lol but thank goodness for makeup touch ups and water in the bridal suite. Then after the ceremony me and my hubby had our staged exit with the coach which took us all around the grand floridian ( i felt like a real princess all the guests cam out to see us / I remember the first time I saw a disney bride in the coach and I knew i always wanted to get married here) then took photos around the pavilion and with the carriage before leaving for our pre reception back at the Atlantic Dance hall on the boardwalk.carriage ride.JPG
 
Ceremony :
We had our ceremony at Disneys Wedding Pavilion at 2:30pm it was such a beautiful day and the sun was shining so it made the Pavilion even more beautiful than it already is. The Pavilion itself is gorgeous so we didn't add much to it decoration or floral wise. We did have floral arrangements lining the aisle but we used them also on our tables at our reception and we had a white runnerceremony deorations.jpg
For programs I wanted fans in the shape of mickey heads ( I saw them at the expo) and I thought I could DIY them but they were not coming out the way I wanted so I went through disney florals ,but to save on the cost I got them unassembled. Me and my hubby spent a weekend gluing the mickey heads to the sticks and we added silver ribbon to go along with our color scheme.
wedding programs.jpg


For music we used the organist that comes in the package with the wedding pavilion for the seating with the guests they played classic disney love songs and when you wish upon a star, tale as old as time for the seating of the families, The Groom and groomsmen walked in to the Imperial March from Star wars (my hubby is a huge star wars fan and everyone of our guests were howling with laughter) my bridesmaids walked down to a dream is a wish your heart makes, and me and my dad walked down to part of your world ( I'm a huge little mermaid fan )

We had a surprise for our guests we had the Major Domo !! We kept it a surprise to everyone at the wedding. Only our parents and my youngest sister knew and we told the Rev because the major domo was part of our ring ceremony. We chose to keep the Best men in the dark because we thought it would be hilarious and it was!!!! My husband had 2 best men so we told each of them that the other had the ring and the Rev was in on it so he made it even funny on the day of. He asked the boys for the rings and they both looked at each other then started pointing fingers ( I thought one of the best mans mother was going to faint because she thought he ruined our wedding lol) Then the music started playing and the doors opened to reveal the major domo with the rings and again our whole wedding was hysterically laughing major domo.jpg


After the ceremony we had a staged exit and instead of bubbles or rose pedals we decided on terrible towels! ( my family is huge pittsburgh steelers fans) We had Wedding Towels made up that had our names and the date and location of the wedding and gave them to everyone at the wedding.terrible towel exit.jpg
 
Pre Reception:
our guests were transported back to the boardwalk inn after the ceremony by the busses we chartered and our wedding party and families were transported back by the mini motorcoach and wheel chair accessible van, while me and the hubby took photos with the carriage then we got into our town car and went to the boardwalk to make the end of our pre reception. While we were taking photos our guests arrived to the Atlantic Dance Hall. I DIY our seating chart and escort cards. I wanted the seating chart to be a map of the magic kingdom with the names of every table which would be a different ride at disney world and each escort card would be a paper fast pass. I originally asked disney to make them for me but then we received the quote and it was waaayyy more than I wanted to spend. So I decided to make them all myself. I found most of the pictures of fast passes just by google and I'm sure there is an easier way to make 123 fast passes but I made them on word and had them printed out at a UPS store on glossy card stock and I had my map printed out in a poster size. Then I bought a poster frame at target to frame it. escort cards.jpgseating map.jpg
I also made our guest book on shutter fly it was a picture book with all of our engagement photos. So after they got their cards and signed our book everyone was directed upstairs to the 2nd floor where we had our pre reception. We had our bar from 3:30 ( when pre reception started) to 8:30 and we had 4 hors d'oeuvres mini cuban sandwiches, bacon wrapped beef and bleu cheese meatballs (these were heavenly), mushroom tarts and apple and brie quesadillas. I wish I could say I ate all of them but we were ambushed by guests when we arrived wanting to take pictures and talk to us and we were starving lol Maxine to the rescue she made us plates for us to try and eat in between talking to guests.
 

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