Where to start?? Looking to renew vows

[jbhaupt]

Hi,

Looking to renew my vows in a couple of yrs for our 20th...Where do I start to plan this Disney event?? Looking for loads of suggestions and recommendations...

Thanks,
Bonnie

 

[JonetteA]

Bonnie,

There are 3 main options depending on where you want to be and what you want to spend.

1) Intimate - Up to 20 guests (Standard package)
2) Custom - Just what it says, you get to pick and choose everything. Right now it is a 10k min on M-th, 15k on Fri and Sun, and 20k on Sat.
3) Cruise - On Castaway Cay you can renew your vows - Standard type package, limited number of guests.

Some of the people on here will know more about the cruise option than I do!

Hope that this helps. Also visit disneyweddings.com and this make help you figure out which way is best. Disney typically books about a year or so in advance, I think it is 18 months for Park weddings/vrs.

Let us know if you have any other questions, we would be glad to answer them for you!

Jonette

 

[hiwaygal]

Congratulations on your upcoming 20th Bonnie!

I would suggest the first thing to do is bookmark the www.disneyweddings.com website...and keep checking on it for changes and updates.

Disney's policy (as of right now) is that they really won't schedule anything until 1 year from the date you want your vow renewal/wedding. And while that may not seem like enough time, Disney runs their Fairy Tale Wedding department like a well-oiled machine...they can do nearly anything in that time frame.

You can sometimes (especially for a custom vow renewal/wedding) get a "pencilled in" date as many as 18 months before your date, but that is getting to be an exception for Disney.

Anyway, look at Disney's website and get an idea of if you are going to be an intimate (20 guests, including bride and groom) or custom (more than 20 guests). You can create a wishbook there and get a ROUGH idea of prices...but understand that Disney has been changing prices and packages pretty regularly for the past two years or so. So, chances are "everything" will change again over the next few years.

Do you have a budget yet for your vow renewal?

 

[Blythep]

Congrats on your 20th. We are actually planning the same for our 20th, next year. I will be calling May 1 to get it booked. We are planning the renewal on the Cruise (already booked) and then spending a few days in the parks after we return. We opted for the cruise renewal because it is cheaper for us and it will only be the two of us. I am looking forward to the planning. We are going to wear tropical attire and not get all "spiffied" up. We did that the first time, and don't want to do that this time.

 

[Tinkerbellz]

It looks as though there will be several of us celebrating 20 years with the Mouse! DH and I will have our 20th VR in Spring 2008. I've been visiting the website already to set up my wishbook and all that. Lots of info to be had from everyone on the DIS. I've gotten lots of help here and I'm still 2 yrs out!

Ours will be an intimate (although I'd love the custom) We'll probably only have about 18 guests including us. Neither of our parents will make the trip (not because we haven't asked) They go just about everywhere except to WDW...I don't get it!

Congrats on the 20th!

 

[BCVOwner2002]

We celebrated our 20th anniversary in 2005 and I vowed that we will renew our vows at Disney for our 25th. I know that's four years away but I really want to do this. If I had given it more thought we could've done our 20th since we were at WDW 20 days before our anniversary. Best of luck to everyone planning and event and Happy Anniversary! Annmarie

 

[Janet2k]

Congratulations to everyone who is or will be planning a Fairy Tale Weddings vow renewal.

Over the years, my husband and I have celebrated a few of our wedding anniversaries during our Disney vacations. Normally, we did so during dinner with family and/or friends in any number of restaurants: Victoria & Albert's, the Polynesian's Luau, the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue, and so on. However, for our 19th wedding anniversary, we celebrated with a private dinner party on the ballroom set of the "Haunted Mansion" movie. I wrote about that event in a trip report: click here (I think I began describing the actual event around page 9). If my photo links are broken (Yahoo is always doing that to me, arg!), here is the link to my photo album: click here. Note: The movie set is no longer in Walt Disney World. I only brought it up to show you that anything is possible if you think outside the box. Set your imagination free.

For our 20th wedding anniversary, my husband and I decided to have an official Fairy Tale Weddings vow renewal. I wrote about the planning of that vow renewal in great detail: click here. I also began writing about that vow renewal vacation: click here. I apologize that neither of those trip reports is finished yet. Life has a habit of getting in the way of my trip reports, but I do hope to finish them one day (I need to do that for my children's sake).

I should probably mention what sort of vow renewal we had. There were 22 people in our party -- it was a small and intimate crowd. On the night before our vow renewal, my husband & I held a Welcome Party at the Grand Floridian, my family's favorite resort. It was the perfect place and the perfect way to get our guests together for the first time during our vacation. The Grand Floridian's Convention Services folks did a beautiful job with our event.

The next night was our actual vow renewal. My husband and I had a short but sweet vow renewal ceremony (that was exactly what we wanted). Our ceremony took place inside the Wedding Pavilion at 8 PM.

Following our ceremony was a dinner party that was held inside the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park. Our night began with a handprint ceremony in front of the Great Movie Ride. Our party then moved inside the attraction for drinks in the Gangster Area. This was followed by dinner in the Western Area. Once dinner was done, everyone moved into the Land of Oz Area for dessert. After dessert, everyone moved outdoors for a dance party beneath the Sorcerer's Hat icon. We danced until 2 AM when our surprise "Kiss Goodnight" custom fireworks display went off. Disney's Pyrotechnics folks had choreographed the fireworks to match a song that my husband and I had chosen. It was the most magical way to end the most incredible night of our lives.

My husband and I aren't sure what we're going to do for our 25th anniversary, but last year I did speak to a few people in Disneyland (none of them work in the Fairy Tale Weddings Department, though). Disneyland has some very fun & unique events that may be planned. If my husband and I choose to go through with a 25th wedding anniversary celebration, it just might be held in Disneyland.

Disney can make your wildest dreams come true. If you can dream it, they can do it. Have fun planning!