Any Swan/Dolphin Brides-lots of questions for you

[pgh01]

We are considering doing a Swan/Dolphin wedding rather than going through Disney. If you were married there, I would love to hear what your experience was like. Was it easy to communicate with the people at the hotel? Did everything go smoothly? Did you use an outside wedding planner or just work with the coordinator the hotel provides? Were the floral decorations, music, etc. provided for the ceremony high quality? If you had a reception afterwards, where did you go? In retrospect, would you get married there again? What did you like best/least about getting married there?

As you can see, I'd love to hear pretty much anything you'd like to share about getting married at the Swan/Dolphin. Thanks in advance!

 

[bride_again]

I'm eavesdropping! I just got an information package for a wedding at Swan and Dolphin. I think we're going to go for it. It definitely fits our needs better than a disney wedding. We are having an illuminations party after the ceremony. I'd also like to know how everything went for other folks.

 

[uktigger]

hi
just jumping in on your thread to see what the swan/dolphin wedding would be like
i am looking at a disney wedding at the polynesian but it is going to work out quite expensive and i feel the next best thing would be the swan

hope you don't mind eve

 

[MicheleC]

I'm also listening in...trying to plan a vow renewal for November and we are looking at the Swan for a less expensive alternative. Any other celebrating ideas would be welcome also! Thanks!

 

[grover]

Hi there
Sorry I would have replied sooner but I only pop in here every now and then!
I was married at the Swan on Oct 11-2004
You will have a coordinator from the Swan for your reception (if you choose to have it there-you are not obligated to) and you will have a coordinator from www.justmarry.com for the wedding. They are so great to work with, you tell them what you want and they work with it. There are no minimums or things like that! My wedding/reception was so affordable!! You can also use your own vendors for floral ect and they don't charge you extra for that.They will also work with you right away even if you are planning a small wedding-this was great-so exciting to dive right into all the little details!!
Everything was high quality-no complaints, my wedding cake was awesome-so delicious and they gave me a extra tier as a surprise! They also gave me chair coverings (pink for us-white for the guests) as another surprise. The whole wedding went so smoothly-they had it all under control!
I used Randy Chapman for my photos..here is link to some of them-hope it works
http://www.imagestation.com/album/index.html?id=2135041688
I am toooo lazy to retype all my details so I am going to cut and paste from other threads I posted on okay! if you have any questions at all you can email or pm me-or post here!


Just back...Wedding at the Swan!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi!
We are back from our wedding,vacation,familymoon!
We were gone from Oct 8-21, wedding was on the 11th!
Wedding was held at The Swan-everything was great!

We had a FABULOUS TIME!

There were 16 of us total down there-most of us stayed at disneys POP CENTURY resort-it was fun fun fun.

The wedding was sooo wonderful! We had a change in plans as it rained all day on our wedding day--so no outside wedding at the cresent terrace--but it didn't even bother us-we were just so happy/excited! Nothing could put a "damper" on our day-lol! Actually it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it was so hot the whole time we were there--we would have just melted outside in our wedding outfits-as we were supposed to have the reception outside as well. It was in the 30's (celsius) the whole time we were there!

So the Swan resort had us have the ceremony indoors--it was perfect-the officiant -Rev Tim was excellent--we made it through our vows-I tried REAL hard to pay attention to what he was actually saying-to let it all sink it! But man it goes by so fast! DH and I were just having a wonderful experience!

Ohh I had my hair/make up done before the ceremony by Disney Cosmo--that was great-loved it! My maid of honor had my wedding dress all ready-her Mom had sewed it for me--she even sewed a hidden mickey on it-sweet!

Okay back to the ceremony-we didn't know exactly how it would it go--so we did our vows,the he did a apache indian prayer! And he also did a small part to include our son! How great is that hey! My brother video taped it so I still have to watch it.

Then we did photo's..our photographer was EXCELLENT! We used Randy Chapman. He was so easy to work with-great personality-came highly recommended. He actually had our pics developed for us before we left on thursday but we didn't have time to connect with him so he is shipping them. I just thought that was so great that he went ahead and got them all ready for us in like one week! To bad we could not coordinate our times to pick them up. By the time the ceremony was over it had stopped raining so we went outside to do some pics-with the dolphin/swan resorts in the background, the boardwalk,on the bridge,in the palm trees,on the little beach! We even "borrowed" someones limo to do a couple of pics! I think he said we would get about 200 pics. (ummm not to mention the 300plus I took of the whole vacation and the shots friends/family got for me!)

Our cocktail hour and reception was awesome-everyone was so impressed with the food! I was totally suprised by my cake--it was supposed to be 1 tier only..they made me 3! And it was decorated with little icing mickey mouse icons-it was so cute! They also gave me creme/pink chair covers and bows as a extra-those were my colors! The ball room looked great,lots of candles.
The bevvies were flowing and everyone was having a good time, the dj was great-had everyone dancing! We used Doc Cori of ABCDJ's..he was awesome and a steal $$$ of a deal.

Afterwards we decided to just buy beer and go back to resort and party by the pool--we had 3 people under 21 and didn't want to leave them behind as our plan was to hit the bars at Pleasure Island. So we bought a trolley--YES A TROLLEY full of beer!! Ha ha ha--lets just say we were all feeling great-lol! The security guards even came to visit us--not becuase we were to loud or anything-just to say hi! It was so hot out--we had to change out of our formal wear--then we partied and swam! It was a great ending to our day--totally fun and relaxed-just like we wanted it!

We did theme parks nearly every day-saw all of disney parks between 2 and 4 times each! We did Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party-that was a hoot. Ohh we had bought our Minnie Mouse and Mickey Mouse Bride/Groom ears so we wore those around the parks-teee hee heee!
We ate at lots of yummy places--had lots of yummy drinks We did one character dinner at the Crystal Palace-love that place! They suprised us with a MAGICAL MOMENT! All the characters did a parade and song for us and they gave us a decorated cupcake and a cute certificate signed by Pooh,eeyore,piglet,tigger wishing us a happy honeymoon!! How cute it that!
We spent 3 days at Islands of Adventure/Universal Studios--that was awesome to ride all the big coasters with my family! We drove to kennedy space centre as well-that was pretty neat.
So it was a wonderful perfect wedding and vacation!
Okay...I'm all typed out here---lol--
Vanessa (grover in Winnipeg)

and

Quote:
Originally posted by jessiangel
Congratulations Grover! You sound so excited I'm so glad to hear all went well. It makes me even more excited to have my VR at the Swan in June. Please, please, please post pics as soon as you can. Did you use Randy Chapman through Just Marry or did you get him on your own? Glad to have you back.


I booked him thru justmarry..it was better cost wise to do it this way! He really was so great to work with! Very easy to get along with, gave him a list of pics I wanted for sure, we also went all over the resort getting pics! He went above and beyond by getting my pics done for us before we left-which is to bad as it turns out we could not cooridnate a time between us to pick em up!
Vanessa


Grover in Winnipeg

 

[grover]

Ohh and I almost forgot I used DJ Doc Cori for our music-he was wonderful-and boy ohhh boy were his prices good-he had us all dancing and we were such a small group-I was afraid no one would be into to dancing-I was sooo wrong!
I also brought some of my own decor (centre pieces/candles/flower petals)..the swan staff were more than happy to put everything out to my specifications and didn't charge to do so!
I loved my wedding..uktigger..you mentioned the Swan was the next best thing to a disney wedding--believe me-it is not a second rate wedding by any means-they go above and beyond in terms of service-they get back to you on everything right away,the location is wonderful-you are right in the midst of disney, the only thing is you don't have FTW to work with, you use just marry instead. There are some things you can't do (magic kingdom photos/wedding location) but I for me personally that was never a want/need so I didn't miss out on that!
Okay...I think that is it!
G in W

 

[pgh01]

Grover, thank you so much for posting! I had just about given up getting any answers, but yours was worth waiting for. You answered so many of my questions in your post (like whether you can use outside vendors, whether you can use Randy Chapman for photography, etc.). And I feel much more confident knowing that someone else had such a positive experience with both the Swan and Just Marry! I'm sure I may have more questions for you later on, but for now, I really appreciate all the information!

 

[leight]

I was married at the Swan April 2004 and I couldn't have asked for more. There were a couple of hiccups along the way but Just Marry took care of it all.

The ceremony was wonderful- I basically spoke w/ Rev Tim several times about what I wanted and he helped me in creating a ceremony that was perfect-I chose most of the readings, we added a ring ceremony to include our daughters in a family blessing, everyone was in tears- my husband cried the whole way through -he hadn't seen the ceremony that I had scripted.

We didn't have a formal type reception- just wanted a little luncheon to share with the guests(most of whom had invited themselves and made me switch from an intimate FTW to the Swan!) It was at Palio's and the food was really wonderful.

Randy Chapman took our pictures and he was wonderful. I hate being photographed and was probably the worst bride he'd every dealt w/ but he was so nice the whole way through.

Good luck and you won't be disappointed at the Swan. We had rented a gorgeous house for those of us who traveled to FL (there were 7 bedrooms and a wonderful pool/spa) but dh & I stayed at the Swan the nite of the wedding. We had a lovely suite w/ a wonderful view of the lake. There were chocolate covered strawberries and champagne for us and we really loved being able to walk hand in hand along the boardwalk and by the beach...the location couldn't be beat that nite.