Choosing the Day of the Week - Need Advice

[DisneyLeah]

Hi all,

I'd like to ask for your advice, experience and recommendations for choosing the day of the week to hold a DFTW! Please help!

In order to manage the costs of our Disney wedding, we are considering choosing a non-Saturday date. My question to you is, if you were traveling to a destination wedding would you prefer a Friday or Sunday wedding? Or even a weekday?

With a Friday wedding, we would try to do some kind of welcome activity (dinner if we can afford it) on Wednesday or Thursday. Then, guests have the weekend to stay in Orlando or head back home if they want.

With a Sunday wedding, we'd probably have the welcome activity on Friday night. They'd have Sat to go to parks or whatever and then the wedding on Sunday. They wouldnt be able to fly out until the next morning.​

Of course the welcome party is not required and people can come and go anytime they want, but I wondered what would work "better" for people that are taking time of work, as well as allow some time to explore the parks for those who are interested, etc.

I'd love to get your thoughts on you did (or are planning to do) and how it worked out for your guests.

A few of my guests have already indicated that they plan to make a vacation out of it and stay for several days. Others are entertaining the Disney idea, but really have never been to the parks and don't know what to expect and some may not be really that interested in doing the "Disney" thing. (I know, what's wrong with them!? )

I know we can't possibly please everyone, but just looking for some thoughts from you.

I appreciate anything you can share!
thanks!
Leah

 

[TinkerBelle_325]

My friend Jaclyn is getting married on a Monday (Oct 3rd 2011).

I know my plan for the wedding is to fly down on the Thurs or Fri.

She will be having a rehearsal and welcome dinner on the Sunday. I think she also wants a Bridal Tea on the Sat. So I want to arrive at least 1 day before the tea.

However, I might be the expection as my family typically vacations at WDW during that time of year and I intend to make a full vacation out of it.

FRI - Arrive
SAT - Bridal Tea
SUN - Rehearsal/Welcome Dinner
MON - Wedding
TUES - MON - Vacation (as Monday Oct 10th is a holiday here in Canada - Thanksgiving, I will only miss 6 days of work).

 

[figmentfan814]

Meg's friend did almost exactly the same schedule that we had for our guests.

Our wedding was on a Monday. Some of our guests made a vacation out of it, but others who were just coming from the wedding only had to take 1 day off since some even flew home the evening of the wedding.

Saturday - Bridal Tea, Spring training baseball game for the guys, and a welcome hay ride party in the evening for everyone
Sunday- Rehearsal and rehearsal luncheon
Monday - wedding

Since we had a morning wedding at Epcot guests who needed to leave just headed out before our DP that evening. Other guests headed out Tuesday or some stayed all week. I found the ones who had to leave were glad that we didn't have too many workdays with things planned, so they could minimize their time off.

 

[MainStMandy]

We chose a weekday. Most guests are coming down for the week anyway. We chose Wednesday. Our guests are arriving Anytime between the Saturday and Monday before. Our rehearsal is Tuesday. It worked out well for us and those that chose to fly down on Monday got cheaper airfare then the weekend.

 

[lurkyloo]

We had a Monday wedding too. My big thing was minimizing airfares because many of our guests came from California. People were able to fly in on Saturday and out Tuesday, which are two of the cheapest days to fly.

 

[girli565]

I chose a Monday because I wanted to get married as early in the summer as I could and 6/14/10 is the first monday after school gets out, I'm a teacher. I wanted to have the summer to get our house together before school started again so Monday June 14 it is!

I can't really give you a great answer to your dilemma because I live a 4-hour drive away from Disney and so do almost all of my guests. They are all driving up the Saturday before to go to the last Star Wars weekend.

 

[bellebride116]

A lot of guests originally said they planned on making vacations out of their trip. However, as it got closer fewer and fewer people seemed to be interested in doing so because of work, financial, or other reasons. We had always planned on doing a Saturday evening wedding so it didn't matter to us. However, if we did not have a Saturday wedding I'm pretty confident we wouldn't have gotten the number of guests we did.

As it turned out we ended up only having the large number of guests that we did BECAUSE we had a weekend wedding. I say about 90% of our guests arrived on Friday and left on Sunday and just made a weekend out of it.

 

[DisneyLeah]

Thanks everyone for your replies so far!

Originally, we were thinking of doing a Monday too. Then, as our expected guest count grew, we thought we were growing into the Fri/Sun minimum. Now that some folks have shared BEOs and more info, I'll have to do a little calculating and see if I could/should still do a Monday.

If any other brides would like to share their day and reasons, I'll still all ears!!

 

[DznyGal]

We decided on a Friday wedding to allow guests to take a mini vacation.
Most are arriving on Thursday afternoon, spending the evening with us,
then Wedding on Friday,
spending some time with us on Saturday,
On there own Sunday and
flying home on Monday morning.
The kids only have to take three days off of school so that helped out since is is in April and after spring break.
Since we are having an Escape Wedding, the day of the week didn't really matter as far as cost, so this is what we decided works best for everyone in our group.

 

[Rebclay]

We decided on a Monday and it just happened to be labor day weekend as well. We were hoping most people would come in for the weekend and then they have the option of leaving after the reception. We also planned a morning ceremony and lunch reception for this reason (and the F&B minimums). I haven't had my DFTW yet but all of my family and friends plan on staying at least a few days either before or after. HTH

 

[TinkLoverSam]

I'm (also) having a Monday wedding my family are arriving the Thursday before as my Mom wants to be on hand if we need her for anything and leaving the Friday after (they're making it a vaca). DF's parents are coming on the Saturday before and probably leaving on the Wednesday (they are not really making it a real vacation).

 

[Beep]

We got married on a Wednesday as our guests (and us) were from the UK. We all arrived on the Saturday and our guests stayed for at least 7 days or 14. We were really lucky and had 24 nights in total!

It gave us chance to sort out our marriage license, suits etc so worked really well for us.

 

[wdwbride2005]

We did a Sunday wedding. We didn't have a problem with people attending-only some who were in the military and needed to be back by Monday.

 

[pezaddict231]

Our wedding is on a Tuesday. We wanted a lower minimum so that we had more flexibility on how we spent our wedding budget. We had originally thought about a Monday but that would have been DF's brother's anniversary so we moved it to Tuesday.

I also prefer to arrive on a Saturday for things, so we wanted to be able to arrive on Sat and have a few days before the wedding. Even if our guests do not want to stay for an extended amount of time they will only have to take a few days off. We've only had one person complain about it, most people are staying for the week or close to it.

 

[weedee]

I think I'm the only Thursday wedding!

We are having a Thursday wedding and a Wednesday Welcome Dinner so our guests can come on Tuesday or Wednesday and stay through the weekend, leaving on Sunday. My DF's family is actually going the week before our wedding for vacation and staying through the weekend.

TUES/WED: Guests arrive
WED: Welcome Dinner
THURS: Wedding!
FRI-SAT: Play in the Parks and/or head home

It works for our guests pretty well. The fact our wedding is in the summer helps too. I would say if a majority of your guests are staying for a vacation anyway, what day you do it might not really matter. But it was important for us to give our guests the weekend in FL so they could try and spend that time for vacation.

 

[Swmhc]

We had a Wednesday morning wedding. We only had a few guests and they were making a weeklong vacation out of it anyway, so they didn't care what day it was on. That allowed us to fly in, confirm our vendors, allow time for the tuxes to be fitted dress to be steamed and enjoy a couple of days before the wedding. Our guests left by the end of the week and we stayed a second week to cap of the honeymoon.