Has anyone done a Vow Renewal (with your kids included)?

[turnerx6]

Hello everyone.
My husband and I have wanted to do a vow renewal at the wedding pavilion for as long as I can remember. We have been through so much over the past 10 1/2 years...including the loss of our precious baby girl to a very rare genetic disorder many years ago. After everything we have gone through we are ready to put everything on hold so that we can save money and finally plan for a vow renewal.

To give a little more background...we also have 4 other little girls who really want to be included in our vow renewal. To be completely honest I wish we had family to help with the girls in Disney...however, long story short, that is absolutely not going to be an option. So it will simply be the 6 of us for this special occasion.

I would love some tips/advice about accomplishing this with our daughters.
I get a little stressed at the thought of getting everything in order. Everything from dresses, to 4 of us getting our hair done, tips on keeping them relatively quiet during the ceremony, what to do after the ceremony and so on....

We are hoping to do this next November and at that time our girls will be 10, 7, 6 and 2 1/2....

Please help!! I'm so overwhelmed (and because of that) I have put this off for SOOO many years now that my husband is about to go crazy.

 

[sambycat]

welcome! you certainly will be far from the first to have a wedding/vow renewal including little ones!

this book - if you don’t have it - is the resource for all the options and possibilities.

once you get in mind your budget and they type of ceremony you want to have (weddings and vow renewals are treated the same, it’s the price point and options that differ), you will have more of a clear idea of what your timeline might look like. if it is trill just the 6 of you i imagine that would be different options for entertaining young kids at a vow renewal vs. a larger party overall? there are all kinds of services available for hire to do hair and make up at your hotel room. many options for you, just depends on your budget and your ideas!

 

[turnerx6]

Thank you so much for your reply!

My hubby and I have been dreaming of a Disney vow renewal for years and years...yet something always seems to keep us from going through with it. Whether it be adding another baby to the family lovestruc ), or when we have moved, etc. etc.

So on one hand I am nervous to get my hopes up and yet, on the other hand I really want to press forward and follow through with it!

I am 100% certain it will just be the 6 of us, as we will not be telling family. I also know that we have our heart set on the wedding pavilion, despite the cost.

If anyone can recommend any trip reports of past vow renewals that might be helpful in our situation please feel free to guide me in that direction...thinking that might help ease some of our fears...

 

[sambycat]

well, i can tell you this - even for “small” gatherings (our wedding was about 35 people, including us) - the wedding pavilion is so pretty and warm. most ceremonies aren’t super long anyway, so you can easily tailor music and the program to involve all of you and keep little ones occupied. I’m guessing offhand an escape package is the starting tier to get you into the wedding pavilion. I would think either disney photography or additional photography too might be able to in a way maybe provide a little distraction for antsy little ones if needed while you are renewing your vows - that didn’t come out exactly right but i’m thinking of things for them to do!

 

[elphie101]

sambycat has already covered the most important of tips - purchasing Carrie's Passporter book as a jumping off point of everything you would ever need to know about having a wedding/vow renewal at Disney - but I just wanted to say firstly that you have my sympathies for what your family has had to deal with (I could never imagine) and secondly that I hope you share your planning process for us all! I hope to do a VR in 15-20 years or so once whatever family we eventually have is complete, so I'm definitely interested in hearing how you go about things!

 

[turnerx6]

Thank you so much for your kind words. It has been 7 years since our baby girl passed away. It has been such a long, hard journey...to say the least. We find comfort in knowing that we will be with her again someday..but we truly miss her ever single moment. We hope a vow renewal can be a special memory for us and our girls, and also a beautiful tribute to our baby girl.

 

[lcataldimay]

We did a vow renewal this past March. We brought our seven month old with us. We hired a sitter from Kids Nite Out to keep an eye on him during our ceremony and while we took pictures. I highly recommend them.

 

[KerriL]

We did a vow renewal in April 2005 and also hired a sitter from Kids Nite Out. Money well spent!

 

[Britbabe]

Hi, we had a Memories Wedding in August of this year, our children were 12, 9 and 5 so a little older than yours. We didn't have a sitter as our eldest boy is Autistic and can get very anxious with strangers, so whilst we had the photo's taken the kids played around on the beach. Our service lasted about 15 minutes and the kids stayed at the side of us, but just chatted away quietly to each other. We didn't worry about them we just went with the flow and had a beautiful service. Most of our photo's included the kids so this kept them occupied. Later that night we went out for a family meal at Citrico's, we had a lovely meal and we finished our day off with a wishes cruise which the kids loved so much. We are from the UK and I bought all our wedding clothes, shoes etc over, I had a full wedding gown too. We had the most amazing day, happy planning

 

[midnightlouise]

We're planning the same thing for 2016! It's our 20th and like you, we've been through the wringer. And I just want to say I'm so sorry for your loss.

We also figured after all of this time and craziness we should do the Disney wedding we always wanted! Our kids are older (they'll be 16 and 12) so no problems with little ones, but I'll be so interested to read about your plans because we definitely want the guys involved.