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We only had a limited amount of time in the Magic Kingdom, so the traditional order of events at a wedding didn’t quite work for us. In order to enjoy the majority of our time at the Magic Kingdom we decided to meet earlier in the day at the Grand Floridian and take formal photos. |
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A little about us and the story of “We don’t offer that any longer”: From Fred’s prospective |
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Our “Gniddew” |
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Afterwards, we had a dessert party in the courtyard. |
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In addition, our ceremony couldn’t start until two hours after the park closed, so instead of having our guests eat a full dinner around midnight, we opted for a pre-ceremony reception. After searching all available venues we finally decided on Tusker House at the Animal Kingdom. |
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The ceremony was held on the stage in front of the castle. |
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At approximately 10pm our guests entered the Magic Kingdom’s main entrance and made their way down main street. |
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Ordinary Folks I think that many people might wonder what type of people get married at the Magic Kingdom. Many have assumed we are some glamorous couple with wads of money. We really are not. We are an “ordinary” couple. Sarah and I have been together for several years. She is an attorney and works for a federal judge. I am the I.T. geek for a nonprofit company. (This should tell you something about the fact we do not have wads of money to burn; Uncle Sam and nonprofit companies are not known high salaries.) We have 3 dogs and 3 cats. We live in an ordinary house in an ordinary subdivision, and we both drive pretty ordinary cars. My point is that we are a down to earth, professional couple on the underside of 30.
How we met Sarah and I met the first day of high school. We went to a very small school. Our first day of high school was actually the first day that the school existed. It was a Magnet school that was just formed that year. Because Sarah was from a neighboring county, I had never met her before. Our 9th grade class was assembled in a portion of the library as all of the students came in for the first day. Since I lived nearby, I was there very early. As I was setting with some friends, sizing up the academic competition, she walked in. When I first saw her I knew . . . (You may want me to say it was love at first sight. . . It wasn’t.) . . . she was trouble.
There was no love lost between us as we started high school. If anything, we were competitors. When we were in 10th grade, I was the editor of the year book. When we were in 11th grade, she was the editor of the year book. Our 9th grade class had a mock trial where Sarah was the hard nosed prosecutor that made Nancy Grace look like a poodle. Your’s truly was the defendant who was wrongfully accused of computer hacking. (All I will say is that she enjoyed that.) It wasn’t until the summer after high school graduation and before college that I mustered up the courage to ask Sarah out. In short, our relationship was a brief summer romance. We were on again, off again during the first couple of years of college. We eventually found our way back to each other and have been together for several years.
How I proposed I knew that neither one of us needed to deal with wedding planning while she was in law school, so my proposal was a little delayed. The day she was scheduled to receive her Bar Admission results, I surprised her when she came home from work. I told her that I had packed her clothes for a long weekend as well as I could, but she had 30 minutes before we had to leave for the airport. We flew to Washington where I had a town car waiting to take us to the Hay Adams. At about 11 o’clock at night, entered the hotel lobby and were greeted by name. We were then escorted to our room where our dinner was plated by candle light in front of our balcony overlooking the White House. That night, in a rambling, round-about way that is truly me, I asked Sarah if she would be my bride. Fortunately, she said yes.
Then the next step was a given. Sarah has known for years that she was going to get married at Walt Disney World. She has known since as long as I can remember she want to be married at the Magic Kingdom.
How we managed to get Disney to let us have a Magic Kingdom Wedding I have often said that we accomplished the impossible by pulling off our Magic Kingdom Wedding. Most believe that I say that because of the amount of planning and detail that they assume must have gone into a Magic Kingdom wedding. That is only half the reason.
When we initially contacted FTW we immediately stated our interest in a Magic Kingdom wedding. I am sure this is something that most sales managers have heard many times and have come to dismiss as the unrealistic fantasies of many couples. At the time we did not know that it had been about two years since there had been any wedding related event at the Magic Kingdom and that was only a reception.
The initial response we received from FTW was that the Magic Kingdom was no longer allowing weddings. I believe that FTW expected our pursuit to end there; however, with the two of us nothing could be that simple. We pushed the issue and FTW said they would submit a request to the Magic Kingdom including the minimum expenditure we would agree to. A week or so later, we finally received the response that we could have a Magic Kingdom wedding if we bought out the park for $500,000.00. I think that I laughed and Sarah at least considered crying. I took this response as a sort of a “that will get them to shut up,” response. I wrote letters to Lee Cockrell the Executive Vice President of Walt Disney World Operations at the time and Phil Holmes, the Vice President in charge of Magic Kingdom Operations. A week or so after sending the letters I proceeded to make a pest out of myself and managed to get on Phil Homes’ schedule for a 15 minute phone call.
I spoke to him about the fact that Disney had used the concept of Magic Kingdom weddings as part of their marketing campaign. I explained that a wedding in the Magic Kingdom was the pinnacle of a Fairy Tale Wedding and to say that it was not realistically possible (I don’t consider half a million dollars realistic.) was basically the same as Disney lying to every little girl that has grown up wanting and dreaming of this fairytale. After indicating that he and Lee Cockrell had discussed the matter, we discussed what we were willing to pay for a private event after the park closed. Needless to say, we reached an agreement that made the wedding possible for the two of us and allowed Disney to make a fair profit.
Working out the contract I wish I could say that we then went back to FTW with our approval in hand and everything simply fell into place. We spent 4 months hashing out a contract for the wedding. We had detailed contingency plans as to what happened if it rained and where we would have various events. We had to work out an agreement on what would happen if renovation was not finished and all sorts of other things that took months for us to propose language, Disney to pass it around to each interested department, Disney to give us another revised version of the language, and then us to go back through the process a few more time. Believe me, I have strongly condensed this section because no one really this part was more like making sausage than a fairy tale. *Update: We have received many requests to know how much our wedding cost. Our wedding was extremely custom and was a result of many months of negotiation. Point in fact, per Disney’s published information, Disney does not offer after hour weddings such as ours. Please know that anything is possible if you put your mind to it and never accept “no” without understanding why. With that said, our wedding was not cheap, but was less than many wedding that are held at 4 and 5 star hotels. Because our guest count was limited (74) due to technical reasons, we were better able to control our costs.
Our nearly full time job: Planning Needless to say, all of the many details were worked through and we were off to the races. We worked our way through a couple of wedding planners we were assigned to Michelle Wenzler Dorr. Michelle was up to the challenge of working on an event this uncharted and complicated. Between our weekly conference calls with Sarah, myself, and the wedding planner; conferences with cast members all across the wide range of the Disney organization; and a couple of visits, we managed to plan what I think was the most amazing, magical wedding I could have ever dreamed of.
I am sure Sarah will give you all of the knitty-gritty on everything else so I will turn the rest of the page over to her. ~Fred
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Fred’s Notes: For those of you who do not speak “Disney,” here is a break down of what some of the terms used in this site mean:
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WDW: Walt Disney World MK: Magic Kingdom GF: Grand Floridian WP: Wedding Pavilion |
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CM: Cast Member CRT: Cinderella’s Royal Table (restaurant) AK: Animal Kingdom WL: Wilderness Lodge |