Welcome parties?

[LuluLovesDisney]

Did anyone on here have a 'welcome party' for all their guests? Any suggestions for a relatively cheap way to host something for a really large group?

 

[lurkyloo]

Ours was free! We held a meet 'n' greet in one of the common areas at the Beach Club from 4pm-6pm so that people would already have had lunch and could make plans for dinner later. About half of the people planned a dinner together after at Jiko afterward, and the rest walked over to Cape May.

The room is called The Parlour, and the cool thing is that it has a door so it feels like a private room, but you don't have to rent it. We probably could have ordered food from Room Service or picked up something at the store to serve if we'd wanted to.

 

[rpmdfw]

We're doing something similar to that.

We booked one of the three-bedroom grand villas at the Boardwalk. We're hosting a "Hospitality Suite" for all of our out-of-town guests (and a select few in town guests, as well). We're using our DVC points to rent the villa, (along with our own room and those for my family). The three bedroom villa has a large living room/parlor/dining room area, in addition to three bedrooms and a balcony that runs the entire length of the suite looking out onto the Boardwalk. Should be plenty of room.

We're going to bring our own beverages, snacks, etc, and we'll set up one of the bedrooms with Disney movies playing on DVD so that the kids won't be terribly bored, and parents will still be close by. We've got five kids coming for the weekend and didn't want to exclude them from any of the activities, but were afraid that grown-ups sitting around being social wouldn't be enough to entertain them.

 

[DWPromise]

We are having a party at Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney. Two hours, food and drink, 35 people, $1,200.

 

[beachprincess23]

Wow what great ideas everyone has! I didn't even think about hosting something in a public place where it would be free--or even in a villa where you can bring your own food/drink!

We are actually going to combine our rehearsal dinner as a welcome dinner. We know the rehearsal dinner is supposed to be something special for the bridal party, but we are going to give them really nice gifts and invite everyone to our dinner.

We feel since EVERYONE is traveling from so far away we'd like to provide them with at least one other meal aside from the actual wedding. Our venue has been really great with it so we may actually do an after wedding breakfast as well.

 

[SarahInMN]

We are actually going to combine our rehearsal dinner as a welcome dinner. We know the rehearsal dinner is supposed to be something special for the bridal party, but we are going to give them really nice gifts and invite everyone to our dinner.

We're doing this as well: we're having our welcome dinner at the California grill (in one of the private rooms - I can never remember which room) and it will be timed so that people can watch the fireworks either before or after dessert.

 

[dawrobin]

DF and I are paying for our wedding. We have a lot of out of towners and wanted to do a welcome dinner so all the families could meet before the wedding. ut we couldn't afford it, especially since our "reception" is dinner at Victoria and Albert's in the private room. Thatw as more important to us.

Dad decided he wanted to host it so we booked at Citricos. We booked the 70$ prix fixe menu and there will be 20 of us.

This was totally unexpected and I am so excited to be able to do this now.

 

[beachprincess23]

DF and I are paying for our wedding. We have a lot of out of towners and wanted to do a welcome dinner so all the families could meet before the wedding. ut we couldn't afford it, especially since our "reception" is dinner at Victoria and Albert's in the private room. Thatw as more important to us.

Dad decided he wanted to host it so we booked at Citricos. We booked the 70$ prix fixe menu and there will be 20 of us.

This was totally unexpected and I am so excited to be able to do this now.

Oh that's so exciting, you must be beyond thrilled!!!!! How nice of your dad. And Victoria & Alberts...how amazing!

 

[IndyBride]

We are also doing a meet and greet in the hotel lobby bar that we are giong to be staying in.

 

[WithDisneySpirit]

My whole family and some of our friends all stayed at OKW via my DVC points (saved for a long time ) and we had our welcome party at the main pool at OKW. We let Good's to Go feed our party of 32 or so with entree, beverage and dessert of their choice. We placed a credit card and a list of names with them to know who to serve. It cost around $330 and it was a big hit and many swam too. We made it very casual...it was great fun!

We tipped the staff well too - they did great!

 

[mickeyfan32]

We had a rehearsal dinner with our wedding party and family at Shipwreck Beach at the Yacht & Beach Club (we had about 35 people). We did a bbq type setting and it was amazing. Then we walked over to Epcot and met the rest of our guests for an Illuminations Dessert Party (about 60 people). It was a fantastic start to the wedding weekend and everyone enjoyed it and appreciated seeing everyone before the wedding.

 

[ecoon]

Lulu, I think you already have my info but I will say it here again in case anyone else is interested.

We invited all our guests to our rehearsal dinner, which was a BBQ at Fort Wilderness (a special place for me an my family) on the beach. We had strip steak, chicken, tons of sides, and warm apple cobbler with ice cream for dessert. I twas about $40/pp? Not positive about the price...my FIL booked it. Everyone loved it!

There are pics of it in my TR if anyone is interested!!

 

[Lynn5700]

Lulu when we were planning our Wishes wedding we were going to do somethimg like Carrie did for the welcome party...then we decided to just have the rehearsal dinner and welcome dinner together.

There is so much you can do

 

[DecemberBride]

We've booked a suite at the Beach Club, so we're having a "Champagne Welcome" the night before the wedding... and because I love any excuse to drink champagne. We're bringing champagne my dad has saved since my birth year... so it's very sweet and sentimental as well...

After that, the "younger" crowd is going to O'Hana's and the "older" crowd (i.e. parents and parents friends) are going to the Yachtsman Steakhouse or Spoodles

 

[DaPookie]

Ours is free too. We're having everyone meet at the Fort Wilderness Campground for the campfire sing-a-long and movie. It's a family friendly spot, and is something most people miss at Disney! Who can resist a Disney singalong!? Oh, and we're bringing fixings for S'mores for everyone.

 

[alissa2008]

We're doing what Lynn did - a welcome/rehearsal dinner combo at Chef Mickeys... we're hoping it gets everyone in the spirit!

 

[LuluLovesDisney]

Wow, there are a lot of great ideas!!

Thanks for sharing (some of you, *again* lol!) It really helps.

It's hard to decide bc I don't know how many people yet. I am expecting 75-100 at the wedding. My mom doesn't want everyone invited to the rehearsal,she'd rather a separate (cheaper) welcome party- so that's what I'm kind of thinking about.

I am thinking of 1900 PF/Luau/Chef Mickey's for the rehearsal (which will prob be 32 adults, 5 kids) but I couldn't make a res. at a place like that for say 70! lol.

Lurkyloo, did you have to ask to use that room, is it a DVC only type of thing or could anyone use it? Do you know if other resorts have options like that?

A lot of this depends on the amount of people. If I only get 50 or 60 people, that's different than if I somehow get 100! (I'm worried about that prospect lol!)

 

[lurkyloo]

Lurkyloo, did you have to ask to use that room, is it a DVC only type of thing or could anyone use it? Do you know if other resorts have options like that?

No, we didn't book the room or ask anyone - we just all met there. If anyone else had been in there or had shown up wanting to hang out, we would have kept to our side of the room, but nobody even poked their head in the whole time.

Most of the DVC resorts have common areas, but of the ones I've seen in person, Beach Club is the only one with this sort of enclosed room, rather than an open area. But if you wanted to meet in the common are at Wilderness Lodge Villas, say, you could make that work too. Check out the photos of the DVC resorts on Allears (http://allears.net/acc/dvc.htm) and see if any of the common areas look promising.

Also sometimes people meet around their resort's pool - they just try to be respectful of other guests with respect to noise levels....