The planning of the wedding
This part was... Frustrating, I think the word might be. And stressful. If we were to have had guests at the wedding, I probably would've freaked out. Future Disney-brides, a word of warning: For the moment, Disney's Fairy Tale Weddings are horribly understaffed.
This shows in their sometimes overwhelmingly slow reply times to emails, and the proximity to your wedding date to which you will actually start the planning proces. BUT: In the end, just trust them! It's Disney, and even though the way to the wedding can seem strenuous and complicated and sometimes very slow, they will get the job done! I promise!
We waited a couple of months, 12 weeks I think, for our LOA. Once it came, we had a few alterations. Disney aren't always the best at communication. For instance: Our sales consultant had forgotten to inform us that our requested venue of UK Lochside for our celebration was not available, and he had given us Bonsai Terrace instead. This was fine, because Bonsai Terrace has an amazing view of the fireworks, but it would have been nice to know!
We took a long time deciding what we wanted to do on the evening of our wedding. The ceremony was over by 10 in the morning, and we knew we wanted to go to Magic Kingdom following that, but the evening was wide open for a while.
- I contemplated the private dinner on the balcony at Grand Floridian - didn't work - wouldn't count towards our minimum.
- Then we thought about the Grand One yacht for dinner and fireworks at Magic Kingdom - same problem.
- A brunch following the reception at Luau Pointe or inside Trader Sam's - F&B minimum was way too high for just 2 people.
And so it went on...
I scoured the pages of Carries book until I stumbled upon UK Lochside and Bonsai Terrace, both of which didn't have completely outrageous minimums. After some convincing, my fiancé was on board. And there we were!
So when we signed the LOA, and waited for Disney to sign their part, our shoulders finally sank for a while, and we felt we could relax. Now we had everything on paper, and the whole proces was started!
Alas...
Literally the day after we received the fully signed LOA, Disney announced the plans for the new DVC tower at Polynesian. Now, our original venue was to be Luau Pointe. This was not because it was one of the cheapest options (not just, anyway). We both love Poly, it was the first deluxe resort we stayed at, and it is so beautiful. We also liked that Luau Pointe was a little more private and remote than most ceremony locations in that price category. And, lastly, I am a huge Beatles fan (I even walked down the aisle to "Here, there and everywhere!") and John Lennon stayed at Polynesian when he signed the document that officially dissolved the band. So I feel a sort of connection to it. And Moana is one of my favourite movies!
When I first heard the news of the new tower, I thought "How exciting!". Then I looked at a map of the proposed building, and then I thought "Wait a minute...". It was obvious that Luau Pointe was to be demolished to make room for the tower - so when was construction supposed to start?
Because it's Disney, no one knew for sure for a while, and the right hand often didn't know what the left hand was doing. I follow DisBrides and various other DisWedding-related sides on Facebook, and tried my best not to panic. I also didn't want to contact our sales consultant as he probably couldn't help and had enough to do as it was, and we hadn't been assigned a planner yet. But after something like 3 weeks where we heard a big fat NOTHING from Disney, I sent our sales consultant an email, politely asking what we were to do, or if we should just wait for them to contact us. I was scared all the other locations would be booked by the time they contacted us and what was to happen.
I know they are understaffed, but not letting people who have just paid you thousands of dollars in deposit know anything for several weeks when it turns out their ceremony location is being demolished is simply not okay.
And bless the sales consultants heart - he forwarded the email to the planning team, and a couple of days later we had a Skype meeting with a planner. (Whom I wished would have turned out to be our actual planner, because I really liked her!)
She gave us a few different options, like the marina at Grand Floridian, and told us that we would be given a credit of 1000 dollars if we decided to move to Seabreeze Point. This was not an option for us - it was important for us to have pictures of the castle in the background.
She then offered us Wedding Pavillon, which we didn't think was for us. And maybe it would have felt a bit empty with no guests!
But then I asked "Does this mean Picture Point is also an option?" and it was! She seemed surprised that we preferred that over the pavillon - maybe she knew, unlike us at the time, how extremely hot it is outside in Orlando in September...
But Picture Point was ours, at the same price we would have given for Luau Pointe. Huge savings right there!
Then we felt back on track. I've always adored Picture Point. It's so beautiful with the arch and the view of the castle in the background, and it was remote and secluded like we wanted.
A couple of months later, around June, we were contacted by floral requesting a meeting to discuss floral. I thought this was a little weird, since we had not yet had a meeting with our planner, but figured it didn't matter. At first, we were looking into doing some floral decor on the arch, or maybe a runway of greenery along the aisle, besides my bouquet and a boutonniere for Jan. But when the price came back, we slashed it all right then and there. Picture Point is beautiful the way it is, and we decided the money was better spent on the celebration at Bonsai Terrace at night.
Then more time went by, and we still hadn't heard about the planning session from our planner. In the various Facebook groups I could see that they were now starting on the October weddings, and I got a little antsy. I had told myself I would not pester Disney with constant questions, but we were two months out and it seemed like they had forgotten us! Our planner took weeks to reply, and I spoke to a bride, whose wedding was October 14, who had just had her planning session... Maybe we were in the back of the line because it was a small wedding without guests and therefore needed less planning, I don't know, but my fiancé ended up calling DFTW to hear what was up.
The lady he spoke with was very nice and apologetic, and I don't know if this was a coincidence or not, but mere minutes later our planner wrote to schedule an appointment.
At this time, I was really frustrated with Disney. I know it wasn't anyones fault, but we had to contact Disney ourselves to find out where we were supposed to get married after not hearing from them for weeks. We had to contact them to schedule a planning session when we less than two months out, because we didn't hear from them. We constantly had to make sure every document was right and had the right information, and Disney usually took weeks responding (response time did get better as we got closer to the date). I felt that for the amount of money we were paying, we were not getting a lot of value. I felt like nothing but another number in the books to them, and I wasn't exciting about planning at all. I know they are understaffed and running as fast as they can, and I'm not blaming anyone. The people we worked with were all wonderful. I just think it's so sad and bad for the employees and the brand.
Food
Anyway. We wanted a full meal at our celebration, and we chose something from the menus sent to us from our planner. The response was that you could only do buffet at Bonsai Terrace. Which seemed weird, since it was just the two of us. We then requested the chef cook up a buffet menu consisting of classic American junkfood, but made gourmet. Like, fancy comfort foods. And the chef came back with... spaghetti with meatballs.
Like I mentioned earlier, communication with Disney wasn't always great. What our planner failed to mention was that it apparently was possible to not do a buffet after all, so after not hearing anything for a week we just got spaghetti with meatballs.
After a lot of going back and forth, we ended up with cheeseburger spring rolls for appetizer, braised beef with a redwine reduction and seasonal vegetables for our main course and assorted cheesecakes to share for dessert, and a bottle of white wine. Besides that we would have a wedding cake. I started out having grand dreams of the cake. An elaborate Up-theme with little chocolate Mickeys with our names on them and a white chocolate sign saying "You and me, we're in a club now". When we were quoted 310 dollars for that design on a 6-inch, I immediately just asked the chef to do anything remotely Up-themed for 125 dollars. And no chocolate Mickeys. This was a blow to me, but I was to be surprised! We chose yellow cake with white chocolate mousse with fresh raspberries. I was shocked when we were told we could only choose one filing and one cake, because the thing is huge with like 4 or 5 layers! For our anniversary I'm so doing the same cake with a different layer to try out more kinds!
Music
Music is very important to me and my husband. I've been known to travel far across the world to be able to see the artists I love, so of course we put a lot of effort into the music at the ceremony. I walked down the aisle to "Here, there and everywhere" by The Beatles. After we were pronounced husband and wife, "You've got the love" by Florence and The Machine were to play from a certain point in the song. Immediately following the ceremony we wanted to do our first dance, and we chose an acoustic version of "Married Life" from Up on guitar.
I also considered walking down the aisle to "Into my arms" by Nick Cave, "Maybe I'm amazed" by Wings and " Here comes the Sun" by George Harrison.
Photography/videography
We immediately decided to go with DFAP, and just hoped we wouldn't regret it, hearing some of the stories as of recently, and seeing pictures where you'd expect better. It made sense for us because we needed to fill out our minimums, but I totally understand why others choose different routes. We booked DFAP for two hours, starting at the ceremony, and had Amy for our first choice, whom we were lucky enough to get. We loved her!
Because we wouldn't have friends and family with us, and because none of them really understand what a Disney wedding is, we decided to also get videography for the ceremony. This I do not regret at all! We haven't received the video yet, but the ceremony goes by so quickly! I almost didn't feel like I lived it, so I can't wait to relive it on video. We found Randy Chapman through DisBrides, and chose him because of his low price. We were contacted by a NY-based photog/videographer, who offered to do both photography and videography for free, because he wanted to get in to the Disney wedding business. But we decided to go with the ones who were already Disney pros.
We booked Randy for an hour, starting at the ceremony, and this was actually why we chose to follow the ceremony by a first dance. He had to have something to film, besides the pretty view!
Makeup
I booked Stacie Otto to do my hair and makeup back in January. I'd heard so many good things about her, and honestly, she was one of the best things about the entire day! I absolutely love her!
She literally helped me so much, even way before the wedding. We had a planning call, and this was around the time where planning with Disney was just no fun and I wasn't even excited about the wedding because of all the hassle. Well, I spoke to Stacie, and she made me all excited again, and it felt like she was my new best friend! She totally got what I was going for and we had so much fun on the day of!
She also offered for me to have packages sent directly to her for her to bring to the hotel to me. This was SO sweet of her, because we don't even have
Amazon in my country, and ordering anything online from the States automatically adds at least 30-40% to the price when you go to get the package. So I ordered my bouquet on Etsy a little more than a week before the wedding, and had it sent to Stacie.
Stacie, thank you so much for everything!
Last minute changes
A few weeks before we were to travel to Orlando, we decided to add three days to the trip, meaning we wouldn't leave until September 13th. Originally, we had accepted that this trip was all about the wedding and pretty much in and out in less than a week, but the closer we got to it, the more we started thinking adding a few days would be a good idea, and I'm glad we did!
Marriage license
Oh, the tale of the marriage license...
This probably caused me the most stress of all. Most of you probably know that if you apply for the license via mail, the proces won't be started until 60 days before your date. And since it has to be sent by physical mail, it would take a loooong time for it to be sent back and forth between Orlando and Holstebro, Denmark.
So we started the application so that everything was ready to send at the 60 day mark. We booked an appointment with a Danish notary, and off we went one day on our lunch break.
Well.
It turns out Danish notaries don't have the same amount of authorities as American ones do. A Danish notary is UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES allowed to sign any sort of document. They are only allowed to sign an allounge, stating that the couple has signed this in the presence of a notary. And the marriage license clearly states that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES must any notes or anything be attached to the marriage license, as it is a one page document.
Great. Awesome.
I wrote the clerk county office pleading for help. Nothing to do. I contacted Danish lawyers, thinking they might be able to do it. They're not allowed. I called the local clerk county, who could not help. I called the US embassy in Denmark - who said they could help. We were to send them the application, and they would have someone sign it. But because of Covid, the wait time was about 4 months.
So after A LOT of going back and forth, we ended up deciding to get married legally in Denmark at the courthouse upon our return after the Disney Wedding. So the wedding we feel is correct is September 7 - the date of our Disney wedding. But legally we weren't married until September 17. Oh well, who's counting!
Phew. I think that was all the planning, wasn't it? If you've read this far, you deserve a big ol' Dole Whip!
Would also be fun to read 10 years down the road!
- We stayed an extra 5 days after and finally relaxed 
