Animal Kingdom Bridal Portrait Shoot - Disney Castle Dreaming Travel

Happy Anniversary Animal Kingdom!!!

In honor of the twentieth anniversary of Animal Kingdom, I thought I’d post some of our favorite pictures from the Bridal Portrait Photo Shoot we did at Animal Kingdom the morning after our wedding day.

What is a Bridal Portrait Photo Shoot? I’m so glad you asked! When you get married at Disney, one of the options available to you is to take bridal photos in the parks, very early in the morning before the parks open. These vary in price, with the Magic Kingdom being the most expensive one, and the other three parks being substantially less. There are some hoops you have to jump through, and the park management can cancel your shoot at the last minute if something is going on at that park. It can also be cancelled if extra early extra magic hours are added, or if it rains. And there are peak weeks where no shoots can be scheduled at all—there’s usually a block from Thanksgiving to Christmas at Magic Kingdom. Disney also limits how many Brides can be in any park at any one time, so usually they only will schedule a couple Bridal Portrait shoots in any one park each day. And of course, because it’s a unique and very limited opportunity, it can be pretty pricey. We originally budgeted to do Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom, but when we couldn’t schedule the Magic Kingdom shoot, we added Hollywood Studios instead. Doing those two and not doing the Magic Kingdom one was much more budget friendly, so we were able to put the money back in the budget and upgrade a couple of other wedding day events instead. It was the right decision for us, I suspect, but my heart still yearns for that once-in-a-lifetime castle picture in my wedding dress. {sigh}.

We do have THIS picture with the castle from the pre-ceremony pictures we took at the hotel before the wedding–it’s just not IN the park or close up with the castle. (What can I say…I’m a Cinderella girl, I love the castle…). This picture was taken on the 4th floor patio at the Contemporary Resort.

The rules keep changing; at the time we planned our wedding, you could NOT book a Park photo shoot unless you were having a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding, and you could not book a Magic Kingdom bridal portrait shoot until 1 month before your wedding unless you were using Disney Fine Arts Photography for your wedding. We were NOT using Disney Fine Arts Photography, so unfortunately, we were not able to book a Magic Kingdom photo shoot. By the time our window opened, there were no slots left for the week of our wedding. It about broke my heart, I must be honest. I still regret not getting those castle pictures! (I know I know. I have a very unhealthy attachment to that castle. But anyways!) Our photographers were David and Vicki Arndt, and they were BEYOND wonderful, so it was the right decision for us…but I still am mad that rule was in place when we were planning. That rule is NOT in place anymore, though, so future brides will not have to jump through that particular hoop. But I digress. What else is new?

The good news is that we WERE able to book an Animal Kingdom Bridal Portrait shoot, which meant that at 6:30 a.m. the morning after our wedding (yes…if you do the math that means I got up at 3:30 a.m. three days in a row for hair and makeup, etc. because we had 1) wedding day 2) Animal Kingdom and 3) Hollywood Studios), we got picked up at our hotel by our Disney Fine Arts Photographer for the morning, Pedro, and his assistant (I apologize, I don’t remember that person’s name!). Here’s a quick pic in the room before we headed downstairs:

Pedro drove us backstage through the darkness to Animal Kingdom. Honestly, for me, the backstage stuff was a BIG highlight of the morning. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures back there though–we really weren’t supposed to take any pictures at all, but we did sneak a couple, you’ll see them below. Once we arrived backstage, we parked and then we were led into an ALMOST deserted Animal Kingdom to take pictures for about an hour. The park was so quiet and empty…it seems silly to say, but it really did feel magical. (Plus, I was still riding an adrenaline high from our wonderful wedding day, so it seemed a bit like an out-of-body experience!) It was so much fun! And the scenery in AK is stunning…these are honestly some of my favorite wedding related pictures.

We were in Animal Kingdom as the sun was rising, so the early shots are in darkness, and it got lighter as we moved around the park. We took pictures in six locations, with a couple of quick stops between locations to take 1-2 pictures. It actually went very quickly–these photographers have this down to a science, I think. I wish we could have slowed down the clock and had more time to look around and really appreciate how special it was…It was over in a heartbeat, it seemed.

Here’s a few pics we took with our Iphones when Pedro was taking solo pictures:

There was more activity in the park as our time wound down, as cast members entered and starting setting up to start the day. We felt so special–all the cast members we saw congratulated us, and we felt a little bit like rock stars for that brief time…It was a BLAST. Before we knew it, it was time to head backstage and head back to our hotel. We got back to our hotel around 8:30, and had plenty of time to change and go meet family at Chef Mickey’s for our post-wedding Character breakfast.

Yes, my husband is missing from our Chef Mickey’s picture…he had to run back to the room for some reason I can’t remember now….but he made it for breakfast, I promise!