Help! I have a groom who hates wedding receptions!

[gummybear091]

My fiance and I still have some time before we have to decide on our venues and the flow of our event.

I've noticed over time that my finance HATES going to wedding receptions. He's always in a hurry to leave and never seems to want to stay and mingle. Currently we are expecting to have around 30 guests(possibly more) from my side and maybe 15(could be a tad more or could be less) from his. Probably a total around 45-65 guests tops.

He is saying he wants to cut the reception down to 3 hours with cocktail hour! I'm thinking this is totallyyy not enough time and if we are spending all this money, why would we want to cut it so short! He thinks with the wedding being smaller people will get bored and want to leave, as he often does. He also thinks with this being Disney, everyone would rather spend time at the parks anyways.

I'm thinking what can I do to ensure this is fun or him and get him to see we can have tons of fun for the entire event? If I think of something good enough I think I could get him to change his mind.

We are trying to stay at the set Disney min spending requirements. We are thinking either a Lunch or Dinner reception on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

I'd appreciate any ideas you guys have!

 

[lurkyloo]

OK, first, let me say that I find most traditional wedding receptions super-boring too! I spend the cocktail hour wishing it was time to eat already and the reception wishing it was time for cake already.

But this is Disney, so you can do whatever you want!

We actually did cut our reception to 3 hours and found it the perfect amount of time for a casual brunch with no DJ. We also could have cut the cocktail hour because we did a (super-romantic and totally unforgettable) "first look" that allowed us to take all our couples' photos together before the ceremony.

If you do cut down the reception, you could schedule other wedding-day or wedding-weekend activities so you feel like your guests get their money's worth. For example, we had a dessert party in the UK Pavilion at Epcot in the evening of our wedding day—I think many of our guests felt it was worth the trip to Orlando just for that!

If you decide to stick with a longer reception, Disney has plenty of entertainment options to amuse your guests: musicians, the Dapper Dans, caricature and silhouette artists, actors who emcee and lead your guests in games—pretty much anything you can dream up, they can do. If your reception is inside the park already, you can do a ride mix-in where you group gets escorted onto, say, Soarin' or Test Track.

Also, I would remind him that people really do love to just talk and catch up at weddings—they don't have to be constantly entertained. Many of your relatives may not have seen each other in ages, or they may be making new friendships with members of the other side of the family.

As for keeping costs low, a Monday is just the same as a Friday in terms of taking off work, but it's a way cheaper day to get married. (And Tuesday's a lot cheaper to fly than Thursday!) Also, brunch is pretty close to lunch but will save you $25/person on the food and beverage minimum.

 

[Erzengel]

We had ours at the Atlantic Dance Hall, it was a 3 hour reception with a 1 hour cocktail hour. Because of pictures we missed most of the cocktail hour. We could only stay there until 7:30 PM because ADH turns into a dance club at 9. But it was fortuitous since we had a dessert party after the reception so it worked out in the end.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

I had even a smaller wedding @ WDW, about 20 people. My husband isn't much into weddings/receptions and tries to avoids them at all cost. However, he is a huge Disney fan. He wasn't much into the planning but when it came to the food and alcohol, he wanted his say in a big way. One of the biggest complaints he had about receptions was the food. He wanted the things he enjoyed eating (buffet) and drinking. During the planning, the chef came back and wrote "too much" on his list of food items for the buffet. But my husband didn't care, he wanted what he wanted. After that, he got into the planning a little more.

 

[gummybear091]

Thanks for all the tips everyone! I'm thinking if we can figure out a way to shorten the reception and then have a dessert party. That may work. How much are dessert parties in Epcot typically? We are thinking of oct of 2015. I know there's no dessert parties during food and wine on the weekend. Does this include Sunday nights?

 

[lilofigment1]

You are not allowed to have a dessert party on Friday or Saturday night. Sundays are totally fine. We asked for a Saturday night originally, but moved to a Thursday for our dessert party. Good luck!

 

[lurkyloo]

Figure on at least $2,000. It depends on whether your guests will have park admission (you can pay a $12.95/person if they don't) and whether you want to pay to transport them backstage. Plus, of course, the venue fee for your location and its food and beverage minimum. If you have the Wishes guidelines DFTW sends out or the PassPorter, those prices are all listed in them.

The one thing to remember is that dessert parties no longer count toward the DFTW minimums. The only way you could have a fireworks party that counts is if you did your reception at one of the DP locations, but then that jacks up the food and beverage minimums for the location.

 

[elphie101]

Like the PP said, only Fridays and Saturdays during Food & Wine are totally blocked out. We're having our DP on Sunday, October 12