General Planning Questions

Hi Disbrides!!
Me and my fiancé are currently in our pre planning session stage. We have our date, venues, room block and I have my wedding website up and running!! We have scheduled our planning session but I have some questions for other dis brides out there about some of the pre planning session steps.
1)Officiant: I am catholic and I know we can't have a traditional catholic wedding because of the local diocese but I am currently looking over the disney officiants list and I didn't know if past brides could give any recommendations on an officiant.
2) Invitations: I know as disney is technically a destination wedding so it is typical to send out invitations earlier than a normal local wedding but i wasn't sure when would be the right time to really start worrying about sending out invitations ( we have not picked ours yet)
3) Entertainment: For us entertainment is a big deal I love to dance and its really important to us that our guests are dancing the night away I didn't know if anyone had any info on how we pick a DJ or band do our planners just schedule us one or is there a place where we can see the entertainment in advanced or if anyone has any recommendations on who they had on their big day

thanks for the help!!
hope everyone is having a great day

Welcome!

Rundisneybride said:

2) Invitations: I know as disney is technically a destination wedding so it is typical to send out invitations earlier than a normal local wedding but i wasn't sure when would be the right time to really start worrying about sending out invitations ( we have not picked ours yet)

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What a lot of us do is send out Save the Dates as soon as the room block is set up so guests can start planning. Then we send out the invitations 2 or 3 months before the day. Since you need a headcount at 30 days for your final payment, you might want to make your RSVP date a week or two before and then work backwards to add a month or so.

Rundisneybride said:

3) Entertainment: For us entertainment is a big deal I love to dance and its really important to us that our guests are dancing the night away I didn't know if anyone had any info on how we pick a DJ or band do our planners just schedule us one or is there a place where we can see the entertainment in advanced or if anyone has any recommendations on who they had on their big day

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You can request a specific DJ. Disney has a list, and each individual DJ usually has a website with more info. I've interviewed a few on the Disney Wedding Podcast: http://disneyweddingpodcast.com/?s=DJ

Thank you so much! I love the podcasts they're my favorite I'll have to check out that one!! We sent out our save the dates the moment we could! Lol

Rundisneybride said:

Hi Disbrides!!
Me and my fiancé are currently in our pre planning session stage. We have our date, venues, room block and I have my wedding website up and running!! We have scheduled our planning session but I have some questions for other dis brides out there about some of the pre planning session steps.
1)Officiant: I am catholic and I know we can't have a traditional catholic wedding because of the local diocese but I am currently looking over the disney officiants list and I didn't know if past brides could give any recommendations on an officiant.
2) Invitations: I know as disney is technically a destination wedding so it is typical to send out invitations earlier than a normal local wedding but i wasn't sure when would be the right time to really start worrying about sending out invitations ( we have not picked ours yet)
3) Entertainment: For us entertainment is a big deal I love to dance and its really important to us that our guests are dancing the night away I didn't know if anyone had any info on how we pick a DJ or band do our planners just schedule us one or is there a place where we can see the entertainment in advanced or if anyone has any recommendations on who they had on their big day

thanks for the help!!
hope everyone is having a great day

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Welcome! Happy planning!!! It seems like a lot up front but it was such a fun process I hope you enjoy it as well!

1) I am also Catholic, and after researching we decided to use Rev Tim Herring. He was really great, and he provided us with a copy of a book for doing a ceremony with Catholic elements outside of a mass. We were able to choose traditional readings and a gospel reading and traditional vows so it felt close to what I would have done at home. He also let us mix in some other readings. We met him before our planning session and had a very nice rapport with him very quickly. I cant recommend him enough.
2) invitations - we sent ours out slightly earlier than an at home wedding but not my too much. We sent save the dates out 11 months before the wedding, and our invites went out in early August with a RSVP date in mid september so that we had firm numbers prior to our final payment date of Oct 2. It also gave me 2 weeks to chase anyone we didn't hear from by the RSVP date.
3) we used a DJ secured through disney, but we discussed our preferences and ideas and the style of dancing we wanted and she was able to recommend someone and secure him for us. It was perfect our guests were split pretty evenly between people our age (late 20s) and my parents age (50s/60s) and he found a playlist that kept us all moving all night.