Optional Epcot Time on Wedding Day

[amalone1013]

We're thinking of doing a morning ceremony with brunch and a dessert party.

During the hours off, we'd like to go to Epcot and invite guests along. There would be a break between wedding events and the Epcot time.

DF and I are debating. He wants to buy everyone a one day ticket at $97 each (around 20 people total). Would it be bad form to have this be an optional event and those that wish to come purchase their own tickets (or add a day on to tickets they already plan on purchasing)? I don't want people to feel like they have to go if they'd rather take a break, since this would be a longer day than your typical evening wedding back home. We'd all be meeting up for the dessert party that night (we wouldn't go straight from park time to the dessert party, there would be another break).

Also it'd be less for the add-on than one-day tickets... I wish there was an easy way to just offer that.

 

[lurkyloo]

I would definitely make this optional. After getting up early for the wedding, some people may want a longer break. Only a handful of our (young, energetic) guests went into the park between our brunch and our dessert party. Heck, I wasn't even up for it after my 4:30am wakeup call! It was nice to get out of my dress and take a nap between the reception and the dessert party.

 

[elphie101]

I don't know if it's still being offered, but there have been after 2pm and after 4pm Epcot tickets available from the hotels with convention centers......definitely look into whether or not this is still a thing though as I can't say for certain.

We had a break from 3:30-7:30 and only a few people went to the parks - most hung out in our parents rooms, the pool or went to Disney Springs. Myself and DH we took a nap, opened a bottle of champagne and read our cards/watched our ceremony livestream. You know you best but I would second Carrie and just remember that if you're having a 9:00am or 10:00am ceremony you're getting up anywhere from 4:00am-6:00am depending on your day of timeline and hair/makeup plans. I applaud the school of thought that you only have so many hours with your guests and you want to spend your time with them, but don't forget to prioritize yourself if you'll be exhausted, it is your wedding day after all!

 

[WDWLover75]

My day was VERY similar! We had our Escape ceremony at 10 am followed by brunch then met our guests later that night for dessert party at Epcot. While my husband and I did eventually go to Epcot to ride rides, relax, and have dinner before the dessert party, we did not go right away. When we did go, it was just us and I am glad it was. A majority of our guests stayed for extra days at Disney to make a little vacation, most got park tickets, some did not. Some who got park tickets did not use one on our wedding day, since they would have a short park day, and instead went to Disney Springs or their resort pool, etc.

How we handled the schedule.....we got married Friday morning but arrived on Monday and stayed until Sunday. During those days, we had three kinds of 'events,:
1. Events we hosted (paid for)- welcome dinner, ceremony/brunch, dessert party, and farewell breakfast the day after the wedding (plus a bridal tea for some the day before the wedding). The schedule of events listed out these hosted events separately.
2. Special activities/time for just my husband and I - dinner at Flying Fish Monday, breakfast and visit to the romantic Polynesian Tuesday morning, a carriage ride at Fort Wilderness Wednesday, and lastly, time after the wedding for just us. The schedule did not mention these, there were just time gaps.
3. Events/activities which people could join us but pay on their own: Christmas party Tuesday night, Animal Kingdom Wednesday morning/afternoon, dinner at Raglan Road Wednesday, Boardwalk Tour followed by Breakfast Thursday, and Epcot with dinner at Biergarten Saturday. I put all of this into a schedule with estimated costs and notes for each item (ex Biergarten - buffet dinner, cost $x,xx, park admission required). I made everyone rsvp for the meals so I could make reservations.

One thing I will say about touring with a big group....it was a nightmare because we did not have proper planning ahead of time. We had fastpasses, others had different fastpasses, some people had none....we ended up wasting a lot of time trying to align everyone's fastpasses and beg a few cast members when one person couldn't get a popular fastpass. Why did this happen? Some people were not planning to tour with us, some people didn't buy their tickets ahead of time. So, my advice to you would be to make it clear that you two will be using fastpasses and if people want to ride with you, they need to buy their tickets early, create their accounts and link to you so that you can make reservations for them.....otherwise, they will have to wait while you ride. We also had many cases where not everyone wanted to ride the same stuff we did ex, no Soarin for fear of heights.

Some of our guests said we had the perfect amount of activities vs free time ratio, another said they wanted more free time.....so, take that with a grain of salt.

Bottomline, we did not buy park tickets for anyone but bought them several meals/experiences and gave them a super nice welcome bag including a $15 gift card each, enough food for one breakfast, snacks, booze, shirts, etc. no one felt slighted (yeah, some would have told me). My least favorite time of the entire trip was with everyone touring together at Epcot (for reasons explained above), no way in hell I would want that on my wedding day!

Congratulations, I hope your day is magical and you figure out a plan that makes everyone happy

 

[lpizzuro123]

We had a morning ceremony in Epcot, a brunch reception at Atlantic Dance Hall - that ended at 3:00, and then an Illuminations Dessert Party back in Epcot. During the break most of our guests returned to their resort (we had a bus to take everyone back to their resort after the reception). In speaking with everyone, most got changed, rested, used the pool and had a quick bite to eat. My DH and I spent an extra hour or so after the reception with our photographer taking some more pictures around the Boardwalk. We then went back to our room (also at the Boardwalk) and rested since we had been up at 5:00am to start hair and makeup. I think everyone enjoyed the break and it was wonderful to meet up with everyone later that evening in Epcot for our Dessert Party. I don't think anyone went into the parks prior to the Dessert Party. This was over 7 years ago so I do not know how it works now, but we purchased wristband (I think $15.00 each) for our guests to get back into Epcot through our wedding planner. These were given to everyone at our reception and then our guests met our guide outside Epcot at 7:00 or 7:30 and were escorted to our DP location.

 

[amalone1013]

Thanks everyone! I convinced DF that this would definitely need to be optional and he saw the light
Plus it will definitely depend on a timeline to see if it's even logical to do that. I think we're just going to give people gift cards for some amount for coming down.

@WDWLover75 thanks for the FP advice too! I hadn't thought about the headache a large group could create. We've never been to WDW.