Disney Fairytale Wedding Experience

Have you always dreamed about being a Disney Prince or Princess for the day?  Well, Disney makes that possible through Disney's Fairytale Weddings where you can plan a wedding or vow renewal with that little extra magic that only Disney can provide.  

After getting engaged in Epcot, we always knew a Disney Fairytale Wedding was for us.  We started narrowing down options of where and when shortly after getting engaged, and reached out to Disney a little over a year before our preferred date, as they only start booking 12 months in advance.  As locations are very popular, we had to let them know our top three choices of locations or dates and times.  The date was important to us, so we had backup locations instead of backup dates.  There were three other couples that wanted our date and location, so we were entered into a lottery, and as luck would have it, we won our first choice! 

View our guests had for Epcot's fireworks

I spent the next six months or so booking external vendors and coming up with a vision for the wedding, then the Disney Fairytale Wedding team connected with us a few months out to finalize all the details for the day as well as timing of the event.  It was also when we finalized floral, the DJ, transportation and a park photoshoot, essentially the vendors we had to book through them.

Disney's Wedding Pavilion from the Seven Seas Lagoon

Our wedding was in December, so we leaned into the holiday atmosphere at the park with dark red tones throughout, but also had subtle hints of Tangled, which is our Disney couple. See if you can spot the nods to Tangled throughout the photos! 

There are so many extras you can add to your Disney Fairytale Wedding such as Cinderella's carriage, characters at the reception, or even a private ride on your favorite attraction.  We didn't do any of those, as we thought the locations we had chosen, including the prime spot for viewing Epcot's fireworks, along with Disney at the holidays, were special enough.  

After what felt like an eternity of planning, the day was finally here! We booked a villa at Bay Lake Tower with a theme park view for our getting ready room and in no time Cooking with Character was bringing by the breakfast and lunch I had ordered and shortly after Stacie Otto and team arrived to do hair and makeup.  It was a whirlwind from there but everything turned out just wonderful.  

 

Once everyone was ready, we headed over to the Grand Floridian for our first look.  Our photographer found the perfect private spot with a castle view for us to have this special moment.  From there, we did portraits in a few spots and went into family and wedding party photos outside.

 

We headed over to Disney's Wedding Pavilion for the ceremony.  We did minimal floral as the location is stunning on its own, but it was still magical walking in with my dad and seeing it all transformed to our vision.  Our ceremony was short and sweet, but still had me tearing up a bit, just like we had wanted.  

Afterwards our guests boarded a charter bus for Epcot where they were given VIP treatment at a backstage entrance, and we stayed behind to get some "just married" photos with the empty Wedding Pavilion and even caught some of the Magic Kingdom fireworks in the background outside.    

We hopped in our limo to Epcot for our cocktail hour, which we held at Italy Isola for honestly perfect fireworks views.  We had time to get some snacks and a beverage, which our coordinator brought over to us and mingle before the fireworks show.  Our cocktail hour menu was park inspired favorites from the Magic Kingdom and Food and Wine Festival.  For the fireworks, we went over to the bridge to watch them while our guests continued to enjoy the food and beverages and their great view as well. This was truly magical to just be just the two of us (you know, minus our photographer and videographer telling us how to pose and move) watching the fireworks away from the crowds of the parks.

Bao Buns, Moroccan Meat Skewers and Cheeseburger Spring Rolls

Finally it was time for the reception.  Since we were using park attraction space, we did have a rather late schedule going.  We once again kept décor pretty minimal here, the American Adventure Rotunda is beautiful on its own and already had a Christmas tree up and wreaths for the season.   Disney was able to move our floral from the ceremony to the reception for centerpieces, and we used our personal floral from the bridesmaids for the cake table. 

Our menu had a hint of Disney favorites once again, as we served the Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup with Pretzel Bread from Le Cellier as our first course.  The short ribs and vegan ravioli were huge hits for main courses, and we were able to have three different cake flavors - I couldn't pick a favorite! 

Short Ribs with Potato Pave and Roasted Vegetables

Almond Amaretto Cake, Lavender Lemon Blueberry Cake, and Chocolate Raspberry Cake

We had our first dance and parent dances before dinner and toasts throughout the meal.  Our DJ was incredible and kept the energy up all night!  It was so special to be in the parks after hours for our own private event. Although, if you choose these venues you do have to use the America Pavilion bathrooms, there aren't private ones.  They were plenty clean for us though! We danced the night away before collecting our personal items and boarding the charter bus back to our resort with our guests.  It was a very long day, but I loved every second of it! I did pull off one last surprise for my husband and our guests at the end, a confetti cannon for our last song.

Two days later, we woke up at 3am for our park photoshoot in the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, which are only done for Disney Fairytale Wedding couples and only before the park opens.  Since it was winter, the sun hadn't risen yet for our entire Magic Kingdom portion, and it remained hazy while we were in Epcot, but we still got some amazing shots.  We headed to brunch at Topolino's Terrace after to extend our wedding celebration and refuel with some amazing food, and then headed to Epcot with our friends to finish off the long weekend of wedding events!

We really had the most amazing experience, and while Disney isn't known for it's value prices, we felt like we made some solid choices on where to save and where to splurge for a memorable event.  

Of course, your Kingdom Konsultant Travel Agent can help you and your guests book their stays for the wedding and help everyone get the most out of their trips!  I was able to work with Disney to offer a discount at three different resorts which my guests appreciated and we were able to take advantage of as well.

I did oodles of research before our big day to pick out the perfect vendors for our wedding weekend.  Anyone listed I would absolutely recommend, and I've actually used Stacie Otto Hair and Makeup and Cooking With Character Catering both again since our event, they were that wonderful!

Getting Ready: Bay Lake Tower

Breakfast/Lunch Catering: Cooking with Character

Hair and Makeup: Stacie Otto

Photographer: Bella Allure Imagery

Videography: Trinity Wedding Cinema

Personal Floral: Leaf and Blossom

Décor Floral: Disney Floral

First Look: Grand Floridian

Officiant: Kevin Knox

Ceremony: Disney's Wedding Pavilion

Cocktail Hour: Italy Isola 

Reception: American Adventure Rotunda 

DJ: JW Jaeger

Cake: Disney Weddings

Menswear: Men's Warehouse

Bridal Party Attire: Azazie

Flower Girl Dresses: David's Bridal

Gifts & Other Details: Ear for Each Other & Etsy

Park Photoshoot: Disney Fine Art Photography - Dawn

You can read more about other events during our wedding weekend at the blog posts below.

Rehearsal Brunch: Homecomin'

Welcome Event: Splitsville

Maci Schau

Maci is an avid foodie and loves trying out new restaurants and seasonal food offerings in the parks.  You can email Maci at maci@kingdomkonsultant.com.