confused about disney weddings...

[FutureAshleyDukes]

My fiance and I have been engaged for about five months, and I have been weighing all of my wedding options. My fiance is in pharmacy school, and I am completing my masters so we're both very busy and planning a wedding seemed as though it was going to be very difficult on top of our busy schedules. I was honestly looking at us running to Vegas until I found out about Disney weddings and it seemed like the perfect option.

I do have a few concerns since visiting this website that is making me wonder if this is going to be the right option for us. I was hoping someone could help answer my concerns.

Room blocks? How exactly do these work? Will these be added to my bill?

Photography? From a few of the threads I've been reading I'm worried about investing thousands of dollars into off-centered pictures. Pictures from my wedding are a huge concern to both my fiance and I.

Thanks so much for any help you can offer.

 

[LUVTGR]

I had an imtimate wedding so I don't have the answer to the room block ?, but as far as photos go look into Randy Chapman his pics are wonderful and he'll do anything you want. All of my pictures are in the pic post and fantastic sam also had Randy for her pic and they are in the pic post too. Good luck w/ your planning.

 

[megan926]

I also had an intimate ceremony, so I did not have room blocks. About photography, as LONG as you go outside Disney (like LUVTGR who used Randy Chapman...who I have only heard wonderful things about) you should be fine. I used Disney and had MANY off centered pictures, so I suggest not using them. Overall, Disney does a nice wedding...I only had 10 people there and wouldn't have done it any other way! Good luck! Megan

 

[hmgolden]

If you have a custom wedding Disney will require you to guarantee a certain number off room nights as part of your contract. The number of nights is determined by your guest list. We had 100 guests, so our room block required us to guarantee 75 nights. Every night that someone stays in a Disney hotel counts towards your room block. We honeymooned in Disney, so from just DH and I, we had 13 room nights. The room block is actually pretty easy to fill, even with our shrinking guest list, we exceeded the room night minimum by 25 nights. The only time the room block is added to your bill is if you don't meet the minimum. In that case, they will charge you for the remaining rooms (say you needed 75 nights, and only booked 70, they would charge you for 5) at the cheapest resort (typically a value resort, depending on what you book) rate for the remaing rooms.

If guests elect to stay on Disney property at a resort other then the ones you booked, those nights would also count towards your room block, you just need to give the confirmation numbers to your event manager. However the Swan and Dolphin and Shades of Green do not count towards the room blocks.

As for photography, I also highly reccomend Randy Chapman. We didn't use disney because they wouldn't meet our photographer until the day of the wedding, and that made me nervous. Randy was wonderful to work with, and a real trooper, even when it poured during our dessert party. We also did a MK photo shoot a few mornings after the wedding, which you have to use Disney photographers for, and we were less then impressed with them. Also, we got a lot more for our money from Randy then we would have gotten from Disney.

 

[FutureAshleyDukes]

Thank you so much! You all have been such a great help.

 

[ahutton]

I just wanted to add - this is a very easy, and fuss free way to have a wedding. You tell them what you want, they give you a price and you decide yes or no. We had a couple places where we were concerned about price and they gave us outstanding ideas of what to cut that would be (and was) invisible to our guests. I just communicated my budget up front and we went from there.