Newbie intimate bride in training!

[ExCPKate]

I've been reading these boards for awhile, and wanted to introduce myself. I was on the College Program Spring 2005 where I met my boyfriend. We're now in the process of getting engaged, and planning a 2007 intimate wedding. I'm so excited, and can't imagine a better place to get married then where we met.

For the intimate brides, what are the advantages to a smaller wedding? Do you still get a room/ticket discount like the custom brides? What extra things did you plan for your guests to make it more special? I will probably have lots more questions, and I appreciate everyone's help!

 

[JonetteA]

Welcome Kate! We can't wait to hear all about your plans!

 

[LuvOrtiz2004]

Hey Kate. Welcome. I am in the same boat as you right now. Everyone on these boards has been so nice and willing to share info.

 

[JandJ]

Welcome and Congratulations on planning your wedding!!

Well, DH and I chose the Intimate Wedding because I wanted a Disney wedding and we both wanted a small wedding. The Intimate limit has increased I believe to 18 guests, when we did it, it was 8 guests and so that's what we had. It was great because if a family member who we didn't particularly want there in the first place complained we could just blame Disney and say it was limited to 8 guests We couldn't narrow down our friends so we let Disney do it for us

Then, my mom passed unexpectedly 4 months before the wedding. I was honestly relieved that we had planned a small wedding, I couldn't have gotten through a big wedding without her and we canceled our at-home reception as well. That had a guest list of 132 and growing before we canceled.

So, I have to tell you the Intimate was PERFECT! It was just our immediate families and my best friend (who introduced DH and me and is like a sister to me). It was personal, elegant, I didn't have to entertain anyone, I could just enjoy the time with my new hubby. I know lots of people prefer to have many friends and family members all around on their wedding day, but for us, having it be so small was exactly what we wanted.

We had a rehearsal dinner with just us, DH's parents, my father, and my niece (my MOH). We didn't do a dinner or a dessert party after the wedding, but we hosted brunch the day after and everyone loved that! We also went to MK with whichever guests wanted to tag along and then to PI with friends the night after the wedding.

One of the best parts of the event for me was after the ceremony, cake, and all of the pictures, we said good-bye to everyone and headed up to our room. We had a private dinner in our room and it was completely romantic

Best Wishes and I know you will get a lot of great advice on these boards!!

 

[Mommy Poppins]

Do you still get a room/ticket discount like the custom brides?

Sorry to say, there is no room or ticket discount for intimate brides. The intimate package no longer includes room or tickets of any kind, so all of that is booked separately from your wedding. You must make your reservations first for a 4 night stay at any of the Disney resorts. Then call DFTW with your reservation # and they will assign a EM to you. You can usually start talking to Disney about a year in advance.

Congrats on your engagement and upcoming wedding!

 

[JandJ]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that, no room discounts for Intimate brides or their guests. I didn't know about park tickets because DH and I have APs.

Does anyone know, just out of curiosity, do they no longer offer multiple park/day ticket discounts for Intimate guests? Friends of ours came in from GA the day after our wedding and they got a ticket package through our Disney wedding website that was a big savings over buying park tickets for the 4 of them at the gate. I know my sister, who just went to MK for the day, did not get any type of discount on her one day ticket.

 

[ExCPKate]

How big of a ticket discount is offered to custom brides anyway?

JandJ, I love your idea for the private dinner, it sounds so romantic! We were thinking about renting the Breathless at the end of the night to watch illuminations, just the two of us.

 

[hmp2z]

We loved our intimate wedding, because it was an easy way for us to limit the wedding to our nearest/dearest and blame Disney

As far as extras that we did, we had our rehearsal dinner at 'Ohana, and that was great. The entertainer there was wonderful, and had us stand up, gave us Hawaiian wedding leis, and had us dance in front of the restaurant. We had to give each other a "honi honi" (kiss) every time people clicked their glasses, and one kid was going nuts with the clicking - it was pretty funny. Our guests really enjoyed that, especially since the dinner was family style. It was a very casual way to break the ice between my family & his family.

On the day of the wedding, my DH went to Chef Mickey's that morning with my 2 brothers, who were his best men. They'd all stayed at the Contemporary together the night before. My 2 SIL's and I stayed at the GF honeymoon room, and we just grabbed breakfast in the concierge lounge then had our hair done by Disney cosmetology.

Our ceremony was at noon, so we had our cake cutting in the foyer of Citricos, then went to afternoon tea in the Garden View Lounge around 2/2:15.

We took a break after that, which was LOVELY, because it gave me & DH a time to see each other & unwind a bit after the high excitement of the morning.

We had our reception in the private room of V&A's at 6:00, and we then went on a Grand One fireworks cruise after dinner. Our guests loved the fireworks cruise, and it was a fantastic way to finish the day. We got to do a lot of things with our guests that we couldn't have done if we'd brought 200 people down to WDW. We were able to really do it up and spend the money to make everyone's trip as special & magical as possible.

As far as discounts, our guests got discounted park tickets but not discounted rooms. We got a gift bag from our wedding coordinator.

Cheers!
Heather W