History of DFTW??

[aristocatz]

I was just at the market, wearing a WDW hoodie. The cashier and I got into a conversation about WDW & he said he got married at the Polynesian resort almost 35 years ago.

I was wondering if anyone knows when WDW started doing weddings & what the options were back then?

Carrie/Lurkyloo: Maybe you know??

 

[justlook3]

I know the Wedding Pavilion opened in 1995 and I know of brides who got married in the early 90s. There was one couple from 94 or 95 who did some rounds on the various blogs with their story. According to a post on the Disney Blog, DFTW came into existence in 1991. But that doesn't mean that they didn't do weddings before that, they just might not have had a department.

 

[aristocatz]

I know the Wedding Pavilion opened in 1995 and I know of brides who got married in the early 90s. There was one couple from 94 or 95 who did some rounds on the various blogs with their story. According to a post on the Disney Blog, DFTW came into existence in 1991. But that doesn't mean that they didn't do weddings before that, they just might not have had a department.

I remember reading about DFTW before they were considered Wishes" & "Escape" packages-venues were Poly, some balcony at the WL, the WP, can't remember where else. I can't recall what year that was-early 2000's maybe?

I am so curious to know more about the original wedding packages they offered-I"ll bet they were super inexpensive!! I asked the cashier more about it, but of course he didn't remember, except that they were married on the Poly beach I wonder if, back then, you were allowed to just bring your own officiant & get married on property?

ETA: Carrie: Please put on your detective hat & make a podcast about this!!

 

[lurkyloo]

Hee hee! Yes, DFTW didn't open until 1991. I'd wager that prior to that time people would just work with whatever resort they were staying at to arrange a wedding.

 

[justlook3]

Back when I was planning my vow renewal, I meant another vow renewal bride who'd also married at WDW in 1995. We've since lost touch, but I remember that she had her wedding outside somewhere at the GF (I think the convention center wasn't there yet?). And that she had a lot more flexibility with using outside vendors, I remember she said she used one for her cake.
I found this blog which was an interview with a mid 90s bride who actually kept all of her planning materials! (I can't even find the stuff I saved from my own wedding and certainly none of my 2005 stuff, I think it either got misplaced in our cross country move or is somewhere unexpected). Here's the link: http://inspiredbydis.com/2013/08/vintage-fairy-tale-what-a-disney-wedding-looked-like-and-cost-in-1995/
The wedding discussed was an "intimate" package which included up to 13 guests, though they didn't have any guests.
The woman I knew had a much bigger wedding so there was that option.

 

[PaulnJulia]

I was just at the market, wearing a WDW hoodie. The cashier and I got into a conversation about WDW & he said he got married at the Polynesian resort almost 35 years ago.

I was wondering if anyone knows when WDW started doing weddings & what the options were back then?

Carrie/Lurkyloo: Maybe you know??

We recently met with someone from DFTW that was one of the original 4 people she said that did this starting in 1990. It was primarily through the GF and Contemporary. They did over 200 weddings the first year, primarily at the resorts. After the first year or two, some of the brass noticed and started plans to structure the group into a department, originally under the GF.

We will try to get more background info next time we speak with her.

 

[ahutton]

I was a bride in 1996; just celebrated 18 years of happiness. The GF convention center was there, those were among the reception locations we looked at in our 1995 tour of venues. The GF was smaller then - it has grown by quite a bit toward the WP - new pool, spa and buildings. We had a small wedding with 30 of us total. Venue choices were the WP, WP outdoor arch, Wilderness Lodge patio, Yacht Club gazebo, and Sea Breeze point. At least those are the ones I remember and we looked at. Also looked at the convention rooms at Yacht/Beach, Boardwalk and Grand Floridian!

 

[Handbag Lady]

I hope this is of interest to some.

I was a Disney Bride in 2000 at Disneyland. This was with DFTW but it was well before things were terribly structured. You had choices, boy did you have choices! For $100k, you could have the wedding during off hours at the Castle...all of the way down to my $5k wedding at the Rose Garden.

This price included everything: our harpist, the venue, the decorations, flowers (I LOVED MY FLOWERS), reception for 50 people, food, sound system, table decorations, an open bar, parking for all guests at the DLH, and favors. The three things not covered: photography, our rings, and my dress/his tux. That's it.

The words minimum expenditure existed, but it was new. They had a hard time describing that to my dad, who just wanted to know the final amount and what it included.

We literally ran out of things to spend our $5000 on, so we plussed the table decorations and had Mickey Topiary made. We let our guests take these home. We had pre-food available (a fancy fruit display with sticks and things, it was crazy and some warm appetizers) for our guests while we took our photographs. And then we fed them lunch.

They had a book you could look over and pick out things you wanted. I thought I was being REALLY clever in asking if we could do mouse ear hats for favors AND table settings...that wasn't in the book yet. I'm claiming I invented that.

 

[LadyD]

I hope this is of interest to some. I was a Disney Bride in 2000 at Disneyland. This was with DFTW but it was well before things were terribly structured. You had choices, boy did you have choices! For $100k, you could have the wedding during off hours at the Castle...all of the way down to my $5k wedding at the Rose Garden. This price included everything: our harpist, the venue, the decorations, flowers (I LOVED MY FLOWERS), reception for 50 people, food, sound system, table decorations, an open bar, parking for all guests at the DLH, and favors. The three things not covered: photography, our rings, and my dress/his tux. That's it. The words minimum expenditure existed, but it was new. They had a hard time describing that to my dad, who just wanted to know the final amount and what it included. We literally ran out of things to spend our $5000 on, so we plussed the table decorations and had Mickey Topiary made. We let our guests take these home. We had pre-food available (a fancy fruit display with sticks and things, it was crazy and some warm appetizers) for our guests while we took our photographs. And then we fed them lunch. They had a book you could look over and pick out things you wanted. I thought I was being REALLY clever in asking if we could do mouse ear hats for favors AND table settings...that wasn't in the book yet. I'm claiming I invented that.

We just had our Disneyland wedding and holy cow it is crazy seeing a glimpse of what the prices have done in just 14 years. The escape package today the same cost as what you paid for! Wow! Very interesting to hear.

 

[Handbag Lady]

We just had our Disneyland wedding and holy cow it is crazy seeing a glimpse of what the prices have done in just 14 years. The escape package today the same cost as what you paid for! Wow! Very interesting to hear.

Did they say yes to everything you requested? I remember that SO clearly. I'm not sure if that was because I was the only bride that day or because they were building the Grand and there was a LOT they couldn't do for me. I couldn't have the Coach. I coudn't have very awesome pictures (The Grand and DTD were still being built, so there were white walls up EVERY SINGLE PLACE we wanted to be.

 

[LadyD]

The few things they could not say outright yes to us, they immediately offered a completely acceptable alternative. For example, for our cocktail hour we wanted mini monte cristo sandwiches, but they didn't have capacity to produce those on that scale, so they suggested potato fritters with gruyere cheese (which were AWESOME!!!).

 

[jlovesee]

We were married at the Wedding Pavilion in January 2002, right after 9/11, the parks were completely dead, and flights/hotels were dirt cheap... I remember my husband flew down for the food tasting and it was $49 round trip on TWA, and $29 for the Courtyard by Marriott. I've looked occasionally at pricing for WDW Weddings and prices have skyrocketed! I think the minimum was $10,000 with no qualifications on day of the week at the time, we paid $13,000 and that included hair and make-up, I remember reading Disney stopped providing those services not long afterwards, we also used an outside photographer, Jeff Hawkins (I don't know if he is even around anymore),we chose him since he used 100% digital photography and was the only one that we researched that did, professional digital photography was in its infancy at that time, and SLR's were horribly expensive. Expensive but good decision in hindsight.

My husband actually photographed a couple of our friend's wedding at Sunset Pointe at the Polynesian, I think in 94/95? There was no wedding pavilion at the time and no actual walkway to Sunset Point, I saw the photos awhile ago I should see if I can find them again, this was before I had met my husband, but played a big part of us deciding to do a Disney wedding ourselves. It would be interesting to see someone do a history of WDW Weddings just to see how much has changed...

Jennifer

 

[justlook3]

Disney still did hair and makeup in 2005 because that's who I used. I'm thinking they stopped shortly there after though. In 2005, the min for a weekday Wishes wedding was raised to 10,000 from 7,500 (which I think was the lowest it ever was), we'd signed our contract, so we were grandfathered in at 7,500. I also knew of a bride in the late 1990s who had a wedding with a reception actually in the Magic Kingdom. She'd had to fight pretty much tooth and nail even then for it and I think she probably was the last ever. I remember her pics because I used her cake design for my vow renewal as she had a fleur de lis theme like I used.