Today we called Disney Weddings (407-828-3400) for the first time. Even though it was really far out in advance (we are aiming for April 8, 2014 for our wedding date), we had a bunch of questions about a wedding in Disney World that we weren't finding convenient answers to. We had also heard that, even though the wedding can't be booked until 8 months out, we had heard you can get a "soft" reservation for your wedding date.
Being on the West Coast and timeshifted 3 hours behind Orlando, by the time I got up in the morning, went for my morning workout, and then had coffee (and waited on Girl Scout Fiancée to wake up), it was well after the hour at which the phone lines opened. I started out by calling GSF's phone, and then doing a three-way call to dial out to the Disney Weddings line, because I wanted her to be able to hear everything that is said and be able to interject her own questions, rather than playing the telephone game (tee hee) to relay questions and answers back and forth.
Because I'm a psychotic overplanner and we're living just about as far away as you can get from Orlando and still be in the continental United States (making it less convenient to plan a wedding so far away), I had compiled a lengthy list of questions to pepper the poor, unsuspecting phone representative with. As I was coming up with the list, I began to suspect that fewer questions were asked during the Spanish Inquisition than I was putting on paper, but given my crippling need to know everything I went ahead anyways.
As it turns out, the phone representative we spoke to (whose name has sadly been lost to the echoes of history, or at least some government phone monitoring database somewhere) was so good at anticipating our questions that we had no need of many of them. Despite the rumors to the contrary, we were not offered any chance to put a "soft" reservation on the date at all, and were firmly (but politely!) informed that we had to wait until the 8-month window began.
We did learn a few valuable things from the phone call, which I will share here:
- Yes, the 18-guest limit on an Escape wedding is a hard cap. There's no ability to add "just one" person to that. Understandable, but possibly a little frustrating as suddenly some of GSF's extended family has expressed interest in coming to the wedding. I'm going to let her handle the family diplomacy.
- No, you don't book your hotel through the Disney Fairytale Weddings system. Or, at least, you don't have to, and given that we're going to be doing a honeymoon afterward (thus resulting in a lengthy on-property stay) we were advised to consider booking our hotel as soon as rates were posted for April 2014.
- The wedding planner is going to handle all of the details of the wedding...which means there's no sense in worrying about a lot of details until we have a wedding planner. This is a little like telling a duck not to swim or a psychotic over-planner to chill out, so of course I'm going to be antsy for the next 5 months until we actually book the wedding.
- Just about anything else can be substituted, modified, or added to...for a fee. Musicians, photographers, decor, etc.
If there was one message I walked away from the phone call with, it was this: Relax. Our phone rep was super polite and answered all of our questions, but there's no sense fussing about it until much closer to that time. Still, I would encourage anyone thinking of doing a Fairytale Wedding to give them a call and ask your questions. At worst, they will give you some peace of mind that there is someone there to help you, even when you live so far away that you have to take a space shuttle to get to Orlando.
