We have more good news this week coming from Walt Disney World. Disney Fairy Tale Weddings resume this week. The first Disney Fairy Tale Wedding since the shutdown due to Covid-19 was held yesterday, October 1, 2020. Congratulations to the happy couple!
Happy News!
This is great news for all the Disney brides and grooms that have been holding their breath, waiting to hear if their scheduled weddings would be cancelled. Over the last few months, hundreds of scheduled weddings were postponed, cancelled or rescheduled. Many left in the lurch couples elected to get married at home or at their local courthouse, giving up their dreams of a Disney Fairy Tale wedding altogether.
Others postponed their big day, hoping to reschedule it for sometime next year. Still others did both–electing to get legally married at home, and planning to reschedule their Disney event for later this year or next year.
For all those couples, and for the newly engaged couples anxiously hoping to get started with their Disney Fairy Tale Wedding dreams, yesterday was an important milestone.
Disney Fairy Tale Weddings have been growing in popularity over the last few years, and returning to “business as usual” is good news for all Disney Brides and Grooms, past, present and future.
Disney Fairy Tale Weddings Department Hit by Layoffs
We have learned that the Disney Fairy Tale Weddings department has been impacted by the layoffs announced by Disney earlier this week. (Please check out this week’s news for more information.) It is our understanding that a number of planners and assistant planners have been given notice.
What does this mean for future Disney Fairy Tale Wedding couples? Most likely, it means one of three things
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- Disney is planning to schedule fewer weddings per day and/or week in the coming months. Each planner will still manage the same number of weddings in the future as they have managed in the past.
- Disney is experiencing lower demand for Disney Fairy Tale Weddings due to concerns about Covid-19, and has determined that the department is currently overstaffed. Each planner will still manage the same number of weddings in the future as they have managed in the past.
- Disney has made these cuts based primarily on budget cuts and financial concerns. They are still expecting to manage the same number of weddings as before; but with fewer team members. Each planner will manage MORE weddings in the future than they have managed in the past.
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I suspect both 2 and 3 are true. I also expect that we will be seeing price increases across the board for Disney Fairy Tale Wedding events over the next few months. Disney Fairy Tale Weddings has already increased pricing and changed minimums several times over the six years since our Disney Fairy Tale Wedding–I suspect that trend will continue.
The Bottom Line
While it’s not particularly romantic to think about, Disney is a business and a publicly traded one at that. With at least $4 billion in losses so far this calendar year, I think it is safe to assume that Disney will do everything in their power to improve their bottom line across the entire business. Weddings are a bit of a captive market. If you are a Disney fan, and you’ve been dreaming of getting married at Disney, you will do whatever you can to make that happen. The overall wedding industrial complex and wedding industry as a whole are already so expensive. It makes sense that Disney capitalizes on this aspect of their business.
As a Disney bride, the price increases and increased minimums make me sad. I’m not sure we would be able to have our wedding at Disney with the new structure. Our wedding day was AMAZING, and I loved absolutely everything about it. Our guests still talk about how much fun they had that weekend. The whole experience was magical, and I want that for every bride or groom that wants a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding.
Planning Your Disney Fairy Tale Wedding
If you are a prospective Disney bride or groom, congratulations. Hopefully your wedding will be as wonderful and magical as ours was (or even more so!)
Here are a few suggestions to help minimize the madness:
The Disney Fairy Tale Wedding planners are very busy. They are managing dozens of weddings across the year. This situation may worsen after the layoffs. It’s not that your wedding is not important. It’s just not as constantly front of mind and URGENT with your planner as it will be with your during your planning process.
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- Manage your expectations. A DFTW planner is not a traditional wedding planner like you would have if you hired a local wedding planner to manage your wedding. You will not have 47,000 meetings or phone calls with this person, and they will not be there to review and chime in on every decision about every detail of your wedding.
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- The more you know, the better off you will be. Do your research. I’m a big fan of Carrie Hayward’s Fairytale Weddings Guide. It’s often referred to as the bible for Disney brides, and this is absolutely true! She updates it very frequently (a necessity as Disney pricing and rules change with almost alarming frequency!).
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Social Media Can Help
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- Join a Disney brides/grooms group on Facebook. There are several. They are a great resource for questions, emotional support and advice. They can also sometimes get a little drama filled, but if you ignore that, you will find TONS of great information, inspirational pictures and other brides and grooms that have been through the process.
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Destination Weddings
Planning a Disney wedding (or most other destination weddings) is very different from planning a regular/at home wedding. There is not as much to do. Once you make the big decisions (where, when, how much), the bulk of your planning–at least with Disney, is done.
If your type of wedding calls for it, you will have an onsite planning meeting with your planner. This is a real highlight of the planning process, and I recommend it highly if its feasible for you to do an onsite planning meeting. This will be a relatively short meeting in the grand scheme of things.
You will get to taste cake and filling samples so you can choose your cake flavors. You will meet with floral to discuss what you want, and you may visit some locations if you haven’t decided on your venue yet. We also did a menu tasting, which enabled us to taste some of the dishes we were considering including in our menu.
We did our planning meeting about six months prior to our wedding. Once that was over, most decisions were made. Other than getting our paperwork with pricing, which went back and forth a few times, that was kind of it from our planner’s perspective until the day of our rehearsal.
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Photo David and Vicki Arndt Photography If you are someone who wants simple planning or easier planning, a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding is perfect for you. It can be a super easy process with very few decisions and voila! Your day is planned.
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It’s All About the Projects
If you are someone who wants a lot more involvement, and wants to do a lot more “wedding stuff” through the process, understand that you will do that outside of the Disney process. For example, I got really invested in all our paper products. Our invitations were a work of art that I truly loved. I ended up making our table cards, various signs for the wedding and reception, our menus, etc. inspired by our invitations.
We did welcome bags for our guests–that took a lot of planning and fulfillment energy. Sometimes as a bride (or groom), you need “projects” related to the wedding to feel like you are doing something. There are lots of things you can do–just know that Disney won’t really be that involved.
Disney wedding planners have a checklist, and they follow it. Your wedding will be lovely, and in all likelihood, everything will go exactly as planned. Disney has done thousands of these–several per day, for many, many years. They are very, very good at what they do. Not much is left to chance.
Keep a Healthy Perspective
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- While your wedding is the most special day ever for you and even for your guests, it’s important to remember that for your planner and the team, there are hundreds of other couples in the same process at the same time. You will have 100% of their focus on your day, and during your event. Just recognize that the rest of the time, they will be doing a lot of juggling.
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If you manage your expectations, it won’t make you crazy, and you’ll enjoy the process a lot more!
Magic Memories
I’m so happy to see Disney Fairy Tale Weddings resume at Walt Disney World this week. I love seeing all the new pictures pop up every day, and I have missed them!
In looking for pictures to include in this post, I had so much fun going through our wedding pictures. Truly, we had the best day and Disney did a BEAUTIFUL job with our event.
If you are planning a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding and would like advice from a fellow Disney Bride (or her groom), please reach out. Brooke@disneycastledreaming.com.
I also have lots of experience coordinating group travel for weddings, reunions and other celebrations and can help your guests, too!
Happy Dreaming,
Brooke
