Disney’s Fairy Tale Wedding | Cinderella’s carriage stained glass window inside Disney’s Wedding Pavilion
Welcome my new monthly series!
Six months from today, engaged couple Sarah and Dylan will say their I Do’s at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. I met Sarah and her mom, Tracy, through Instagram and we met in person at Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings Showcase this year. I was so completely honored when Sarah said she’d like to invite me to her Disney wedding! Of course I said yes! And we’ve been talking about the details ever since. It was really special to spend time with Sarah and Tracy at the Disney wedding showcase, hearing all about the bride-to-be’s wishes for her special day. I hope you’ll join us on the fourth of the month right here on this post every month until Sarah and Dylan’s big day as we talk all things Disney weddings in this Q and A series!
Inside Disney’s Wedding Pavilion at Walt Disney World
6 Month Disney Wedding Countdown Q + A | 9/4/19
Q: Sarah, having a Disney’s Fairy Tale Wedding has been a lifelong dream for you, right? How did that start?
A: YES! Having a Disney’s Fairy Tale Wedding has been a dream ever since I can remember. I vaguely remember years ago when I was a little girl seeing the Wedding Pavilion along with Cinderella’s carriage and thinking….that’s it! I’m getting married there. I was instantly obsessed. Every year my parents would take me to Disney, I would snap a picture of the Wedding Pavilion from the monorail. I remember going online every year and ordering one of the free planning brochures just to look at. The only thing I was missing was my Prince Charming. When I met Dylan and he told me he loved me for the first time, my first response was “what?!”. My second response a couple months later was “You know, if you ever plan on proposing the only place I will consider getting married at is Disney. Just so we’re both on the same page!”
Q: How far out did you start planning?
A: I feel like we wanted to start planning as soon as we were engaged in October of 2017. However, the planning process with Disney is a little difficult unless you’re about 16 months out. At that point, you can only put in your “preferred” date and ceremony/reception location. The real planning can’t start until you’re exactly 12 months out. Which at the end of the day, it works out. The wedding we initially envisioned is completely different than the wedding we are planning now.
Q: Is there something related to your wedding you catch yourself daydreaming about repeatedly?
A: I daydream A LOT about those Wedding Pavilion doors opening and Dylan seeing me for the first time. I catch myself daydreaming about our Magic Kingdom portrait session a lot as well. It’s so hard to choose because everything about this day is a dream come true! I feel like I’m constantly daydreaming!
Q: Which wedding package did you pick?
A: We initially chose the Escape package but ended up choosing the Wishes package. We were definitely taken aback by how many guests were actually interested in traveling for our big day!
Q: Tell us your ceremony and reception venues!
A: Our ceremony will take place at Disney’s Wedding Pavilion. Our reception will take place at Disney’s Whitehall Room and Patio at Disney’s Grand Floridian.
Q: How many guests did you invite?
We invited about 80 guests.
Q: Tip for a future Disney Bride?
A: Patience is key early on in the process!
Never be scared to search Instagram for fellow Disney brides and ask questions. There are plenty of ladies, including myself, who are more than happy to share what we’ve been through so far.
Feel out your guests early. This will give you a vibe as to who is interested and who isn’t.
Pick 3 ceremony locations and 3 reception locations. If you have a specific date you want, you want to make sure you are flexible with your venues.
Use Pinterest to start gathering ideas. Especially for your photographers/park shoots. Your photographers will want to see what styles/shots are your favorite. This will ensure you get your favorite shots on your big day.
5 Month Disney Wedding Countdown Q + A | 10/4/19
4 Month Disney Wedding Countdown Q + A | 11/4/19
A: Ahhh!! I can’t believe we are so close. I feel like it’s creeping up so quick and my mind is starting to scramble a little bit. We still have a TON to plan. However, we are in Disney on November 5th to plan our wedding with Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings. We’re so excited to meet our planner! During this time we will go over every single aspect and vision for our wedding. I’ve compiled a binder of all of our wishes and dreams for our wedding to help create a visual for our day. We will also be tasting cake flavors and menu items that’s day. We’re just so excited!Q: Disney is a company that thrives because of its excellent service. Are you impressed with the service you’ve received in the planning process?A: I’m blown away with the team that Disney has through this planning process. When we first started planning, the first person we dealt with was Michelle Gilhooly. She was AMAZING! She is considered a senior wedding consultant. She helped us with the basics for the big day. For example, dates, times, venues, etc. She made sure all of those things were secure for us. Michelle met onsite with my mom and I right before the wedding showcase to walk us through the basics of our wedding as well as a site visit to our venues of choice. She also introduced us to our wedding dream team which consists of Carol Mikles and her assistant Ashley Zirfas. They have been great so far and super responsive. We can’t wait to meet them at our planning session. Here is a photo of Michelle and myself during the dessert party after the wedding showcase! She made sure to find my mom and I to make sure we were having a fun, fulfilling day.
Q: Tell us about the the bouquet and centerpiece design process! We chatted about this a little and I’m so interested.
A: So for my bouquets and centerpieces I’ve basically been studying Pinterest and deciding on what I love. I compiled all of these things onto a vision board basically and printed them to combine what we can during our planning session. I’m in love with peonies, blush, ivory, and green tones so those will definitely be included. I’m excited to see in person what Disney has to offer in regards to floral and centerpieces. For some reason, Dylan and I really love the look of lanterns for centerpieces so we want to incorporate that in some way with some light floral. We want to try to keep a super low budget on centerpieces and floral specifically. We love Disney but we didn’t want to go too Disney with the centerpieces. We have a special Disney gift for everyone at the reception!
Q: Anything else you want to update us with?
A: This week I started assembling our wedding invites! We ordered them through the amazing Themes Come True. They are great to work with and the sky is the limit with them. We ended up choosing an exclusive design that you can only use if you are getting married at Walt Disney World. I mean, how could you resist?! The only thing I slightly regrets is not paying a little extra to have them assemble the invites. It’s definitely keeping me busy! At this point in planning I’m focusing on purchasing the little things we need for our big day like stamps for the invites, gifts for the parents, groomsman gifts, ceremony programs, etc. How cute are these custom stamps?!
3 Month Disney Wedding Countdown Q + A | 12/4/19
A: Tell us about your trip and planning session!
Our planning session was a dream come true. It started at 9am, where we met our wedding planner Carol at Francks. From there we kind of just jumped right into it! We went over timelines, details, who needed to be where and when.
Sarah and Dylan outside Franck’s before their planning session
Gorgeous view from the planning room.
We went into cake tasting almost positive that we would choose the churro cake with churro filling. We were wrong! We ended up with something completely different. Our favorites were the yellow cake with cookies and cream. As well as the lemon cake with raspberry mousse. Everything was delicious which made for a tough decision! The details of everything Disney Weddings was just amazing.
Whitehall Room and Patio at the Grand Floridian 
Tomato, mozzarella, basil, with balsamic at Disney wedding tasting
Salmon with a risotto. The risotto was to die for!
Gruyere Potato pave, braised beef, and a chicken stuffed with prosciutto and fontina cheese.
Q: Can you share some helpful information for brides at this point in the Disney’s Fairy Tale Wedding planning process?
My biggest words of advice: enjoy every single moment. At this point, everything is flying by so fast I feel like my brain can’t even comprehend it. Go to your planning session with a ‘sky is the limit’ mentality. This will ensure you get everything you can even imagine priced out. You can always cut it once you receive your BEO. We received our BEO minus floral about a week after our planning session. However, our floral we didn’t receive until a month after our session. So patience is definitely key when it comes to receiving this! Once you receive it, do not be afraid to make changes, ask questions, or remove things. You want to make sure is perfect and error free! We received our floral BEO today and they made us the cutest dream board of everything we discussed.
2 Month Disney Wedding Countdown Q + A | 1/4/19
At this point in time, we have also adjusted the count on our room block. We released some rooms from our block due to most of our wedding guests already booking. We finally decided on groom’s man’s gifts so those are out of the way! We are super excited about those. Disney Fairy Tale Weddings also sent us the sweetest gift and card to keep the excitement going for our big day. I would share a photo of this but I don’t want to ruin the surprise for other fellow/future Disney brides!Q: What is left to plan?
I feel like everything is speeding up so fast now after waiting so long! The stress is starting to get real.
This month I go for my first dress fitting (EEEEK!). We will also finalize all seating, floral, etc. We are working on finding a guest book which has been a struggle. We also will be focusing on our ceremony with our officiant. We have a ton of verbiage to go over to decide how the ceremony itself should go. Rev. Kevin Knox has been wonderful to work with! Lastly, we are working on a couple final touches. Wedding programs, day of itinerary, etc. This month will be a whirlwind!
Q: Anything else we should know?
At this point in the game, Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings has been amazing. My planner, assistant, and room block specialist have been so responsive. They’ve been there to help me with every little thing. They have literally been responding within hours of me reaching out. I’m so thankful for that. This day is almost here after almost 4 years in the making…I can’t believe it!
Less Than One Month Disney Wedding Countdown Q + A | 2/14/19
Q: You’re less than a month away! What do you still need to do at this point in the Disney Fairy Tale Wedding process?
At this point I’m trying not to go crazy! In all seriousness I’m basically just prepping on making sure everything is in like for our big day. I sent a wedding schedule to our wedding party just so everyone knows their timelines/when and where they should be. We also finalized all of our ceremony details with our wedding officiant. The only thing I have to do is write my vows!
Q: I feel like you’ll be packing more than you normally do? How are you planning to transport special wedding necessities?
So packing is a huge process for this trip. I have a total of 4 different packing lists. One for me, one for Dylan, one for the ceremony, and one for the rehearsal. Any items that Disney needs to set up for you for the ceremony/rehearsal have to be packed in different bags. We’re planning on packing these things in rolling suitcases small enough to use as carry-ons. Each of those has to have a packing list stating what’s included and who will be responsible for gathering those items post wedding. We will drop these off to our planner once we arrive in Florida for our wedding. My dress is also coming with me on the plane. Either on our laps, overhead bins, or in a closet. Either way, it’s not leaving my sight!
Q: What else do we need to know?
I found it most important to stay on top of asking about our rehearsal time slot. You do not find out this information until 30 days prior which can be stressful. Same goes for your park-shoot if you are doing a portrait session before/after your wedding.
Q: Any final tips for potential Disney brides?
Take it all in. Enjoy every single final day leading up to this moment. It’s FLYING by and I feel like my head is spinning but I’m so excited. Don’t be scared to give your bridal party a schedule for the rehearsal day and wedding day. It’s super useful when it comes to making sure everyone is on the same page. ASK QUESTIONS! If you feel unsure about something or something is unclear about your upcoming day, ask away. Disney wedding planners are so helpful and respond very quickly.
Read about my first time experiencing someone’s Disney’s Wedding and about my wedding.
Love this post & the idea of a Q & A for the next 6 months!! So magical in every way!!