My daughter met her husband while both were doing the college program at Disney. She grew up going to Disney....he grew up in Holland! Because they both met there, and his family had to travel from Holland, Disney seemed the perfect place to have the wedding. They were engaged on Christmas eve, 2009, and were married last August 5 at the Swan. Two weeks after the wedding she started her senior year of college, her sister started her junior year, and her brother started his freshman year; to say that money was an issue would be an understatement. We originally tried to limit the guest list to 23 in order to do a Disney Escape wedding, but that would have basically been only immediate family members and a bridesmaid! We had 7 months to plan and pay for the wedding. He and his parents traveled to Orlando from Holland in February, and the 6 of us spent a long weekend looking at venues and meeting with planners. We started with Disney, realized there was no way we could limit the guests for the Escape wedding, or afford the 12k for the Wishes wedding, so we looked at other options. The wedding and honeymoon board has a lot of information, but not a lot on Downtown Disney hotels. I found out all of them offer wedding packages, and most are flexible with vendors. The Buena Vista palace had the best ceremony location(a small gazebo) and ballroom, the Doubletree and Hilton uses Disney floral(if you want to pay for Disney touches), and the Hotel Royal Plaza had a nice reception area but not ceremony location. We found information on the wedding board about the Swan and Dolphin, and information on having the ceremony and reception at Fulton's. Fulton's did not appeal to my daughter at all, but she liked the Swan and Buena Vista Palace. Getting our first-choice reception space was a problem at both hotels, so we changed the date by a day and compromised on our first-choice ceremony location at the Swan. Everything worked out fine in the end. We booked the ceremony package through a wedding planner approved by the Swan(I think there are only two), and ordered what we wanted instead of going with a package that included things we would not use. We booked the basic package for @$2000, and had 50 guests at the Crescent Terrace. We added an arch and a different officiant for an extra fee, and upgraded the cake. I made the programs(fans) and the ribbon wands(not sure of the cost). For the reception, you are required to use Swan catering, even for the cake, but someone else posted on the wedding board that they were allowed to order the cake from another vendor. We were told we had to use the Swan for the cake, and it was not very good. The food was good, but it was as expensive as Disney. Dealing with the catering department was a big pain, as there is only ONE person that is over that department. I did not get a final total for the reception until the day of the wedding. We had an open bar, and I would not advise doing that, as that was a large portion of our cost. The Swan allowed us to bring our own centerpieces and book our own DJ. We booked DJ Miles, and he was the BEST! We booked our own photographers(the Arndts), and they were AWESOME! We definitely saved money by having the ceremony at the Swan, and had twice as many guests as Disney allows. I hope this helps a little!
