A Brits Guide to a WDW Wedding

[Blackeyed]

Howdy folks. It's been a while since I last posted anything on the site so I thought I'd give you all an update.

The wedding with Pepper on Dec 1st went perfectly.
We had a fantastic time and everything came together OK on the day.

I made up a Brits Guide to WDW weddings for another site and thought I'd post it on here too.


hope you enjoy it.. It's only a bit of fun! :blush:

(names have been changed to reflect this site)

www.mega-quiz.com/WDWwedding.doc

[Bec]

Cant get the link to work Blackeyed.

[Blackeyed]

Cant get the link to work Blackeyed.


Hi Bec...
Do you have Word so that you can read the document?
I've just checked the link and it's working fine..

Try typing it into the address bar instead. :shrug:

[Keith]

The file's corrupt from what I can see :shrug:

[Blackeyed]

Ok..
Think I've fixed it..
Please try again.. Flamin' technology!

[Keith]

works fine now :thumbs:

[Keith]

Ive only read the last page (to make sure I could read it) and already I agree with your conclusion... great but wouldn't recommend it unreservedly... they just make it so difficult for people not from the US.

The mk photo shoot you had was a disgrace, I hope you get that fixed.

[triciacarole]

As expected walking around is somewhat drawing attention. Children point to the funny dressed man as they tug at their parents clothes to get their attention.
Would you believe that one woman even made the following comment.
“Nice Skirt”. It was a highly original thing to say. It must have taken her all her imagination to come up with it and her parents must be proud.
I give her one of those “You’re a prat” looks, give a fake laugh back and say
“thank you”.


:laughat: sorry :blush:

Music changes to When You Wish Upon a Star as Rachael walks down the aisle to meet me.
Jaw dropping beauty stands by my side and the ceremony begins.


:tears: Sounds so lovely

As for the photos stick to your guns this is a disgrace :hissy:

[Bec]

I really enjoyed reading your review. I am so sorry you had so many down sides to your experience especially your MK shoot, which should have been a wonderful experience for you and your new wife. Although I must admit the quality of our MK photos are nowhere near to the quality of the total imagery ones (Virgin photographer) - I hope you were pleased with those. Could we see your photos?....pretty please.... :-)

Im particularly sorry if I led you to the wrong state of mind about the service you should recieve...but I was truly speaking from my heartfelt experience.

Please give my best wishes to Pepper

I wish you many happy, healthy years together.

[Blackeyed]

Could we see your photos?....pretty please.... :-)



well Bec.. You'll be sorry you asked!!!! :rotfl:

I've put together *ahem* a couple of pictures to show...

http://www.mega-quiz.com/weddingpics.php

:whistle:

[PaulaK]

Wonderful photos! I love Pepper's bouquet and dress. You both look very happy :congrats:

[triciacarole]

The photos are lovely :)

[joanne]

Wow, you all look fantastic! :more: Off to read the report now, so don't know the problem with the MK photos, but looking at the ones you posted they look great :)
Thanks for sharing!

[joanne]

Read it now :thumbs:

Have to say I didn't notice when I looked at your MK photos, but they're yours and you notice the difference and the money you paid, you want it right! I recall something similar happening to someone else and they stuck to their guns and complained right to the top. They ended up (after a fight) with Disney agreeing to pay for them to stay at WDW for a few nights again and reshoot the photos. Obviously a bit more difficult for someone from the UK (flight costs, etc), but I'd stick with it and keep fighting. Write a letter to the Manager at DPS and copy it to Disney FTW Manager. Send them by international signed for and threaten legal action if they don't resolve to your liking. Good luck! :luck:

[Johnie]

I can't read the report here as I don't have Word on this computer but the photos are beautiful!

[Pepper]

Hi All

Just to let you know we only posted some of the MK photoshoot pics, we are embarrassed to show the Disney Doctored ones.

Pepper

[lisaw]

Wow the photos are beautiful - congratulations to the both of you :)

[bawden2]

Pepper you look stunning :D . Thanks for sharing. Do not let that complaint end until you are happy with the outcome.

[Rosie0610]

Didn't read the report yet but Looked at the pics! Beautiful! Loved everything! And I see you got married by Jimmy Johnson! We got married by him in Oct 05! He really cracked me up and put me at ease when it started raining and had to get married inside. I liked him a lot.
Happy happy days for both of you!!

[Bec]

You both look gorgeous in your pics guys.

[OKWTink]

The photos that you've shared here are quite lovely! What sort of knot is that in your purple tie? I've not seen one like that before.

Your wife is so pretty! The tiara and necklace she is wearing are so airy and delicate. For all the many problems you had, it looks as though it was truly a lovely time.

Do continue to pursue restitution on the photos that you find so poor though. That's way too much money (and far to important an occasion) for you to not be perfectly satisfied. :yes:

[Kate2005]

Your photos are just beautiful - and you both looked wonderful!
Wouldnt like to have to chose which ones to frame out of them though - it would take me forever to decide!

[Blackeyed]

The photos that you've shared here are quite lovely! What sort of knot is that in your purple tie? I've not seen one like that before.

Your wife is so pretty!


The knot is a standard Windsor Knot. It's the type of tie that makes the difference. I think it's called a Ruche tie.

And I have to agree.. My wife is pretty! :wink:

[Debbie2]

Thanks for sharing your photos - they are lovely.

It must be so romantic to get married at WDW at anytime of the year, but it must be extra special at Christmastime when all the deccies are up :)

[jennacool]

OH MY GOD>>>I cannot believe they told you to fix your own photos... I never heard anything so disgusting in my life...that is awful.. I cannot believe it.. I wish I could have spoken to you before your wedding.. I told you about animal kingdom lodge.. but had no idea about all your trouble.. I figured you and pepper had it all under control after that.. That is soo awful.. I am sorry about your bad time.. I would totally complain..You probably paid as much as I did for my photos.. but living here in the states it was easier to get on them on a daily basis.. I too had to do my MK photo shoot a week after our ceremony.. what a pain it was.. it rained all week and we were not sure if it would get done. but they assured us if it did not happen on the morning we were supposed to have it done they would do it the next morning...we had an incredibly extended photo shoot. which they do not do.. we were the test factor for them and they decided it was far too much time to run around.. we got some great pics but it was hot and muggy and wet and I was soaked to say the least.. I looked like a limp noodle when we were done..hideous.. but my pics were great.. who did your pics at the MK???? they are so stupid there.. only our photographer was honest to us.. he got me extra photos.. and when I complained that I had not recieved my proofs that appeared in my folio they told me they don't double photos.. I told them that they will for me... and you know what???? they did!!! LOL.. you must MUST MUST make complaint to them about everything.. I did and they let me eat at Narcoosees gratis and I had my choice of anything I wanted.. AND********they made me a beautiful dessert sugar free... swan cream puffs swimming in sugar free chocolate sauce and whipped cream..yummmm... and they refunded me money when the waiter and waitress charged my dad for alcoholic beverages at my reception that I strictly forbade.. they also fired the waiter and waitress because they tried to get me to pay for slicing my wedding cake...big no no at a disney wedding venue...bigggggg no no... so off they were sent......silly rabbits.. did they think I looked that gullible...fools.. then they also gave me my room an extra night gratis and an extra day in the park since they messed things up for us... so you have to holler a bit but they will definately repay you somehow since they do not want to lose you as disney lovers... get Pepper to do the talking.. women seem to get much farther...don't know why.. but they do...twice I have been able to get them to fix things... my hubby was of no use in the matter... Once again I am soooo sorry.. but the pics you have are gorgeous and as long as there was no bad instances at the wedding you have fond memories of that.... and that is most important.. no matter what your ceremony was gorgeous.. and what people say to you that is ignorant is simply that... Ignorant.. don't ever pay attention to fools who don't know any better....You both looked gorgeous and happy and that is all that mattered... Much luck and love always... congrats to you both.. Jenn

[Blackeyed]

Walt Disney World becomes a totally different place when decorated in season garlands, baubles and bling. Truly "magical"

Seeing the huge trees in the hotel lobbies puts you in awe.
Happy to say it was a very romantic time of year to tie the knot.

[Sungal]

Absolutely lovely photo's...you all look gorgeous.

I read your write up and thank you for the honesty...I know people who have had soooo much hassle on their wedding day and I think it's kinda giving us second thoughts at doing it the Disney way...I suppose it's a hassle that you don't really need on your big day! And I get vexxed quite easily!!!

PS: where did you get your cuff links and tie pin...I want some for me!!!

Tash
xx

[uscwest]

I finally got to look at this on my home computer. Absolutely beautiful pictures, thanks for sharing them with us. And congratulations to you and your lovely bride.

[Blackeyed]

PS: where did you get your cuff links and tie pin...I want some for me!!!



The Cufflinks were bought some time ago from the Disney Store I think..
The tie pin was a bespoke piece made especially for me as a wedding present from my lovely bride. :D

[stevelamb121]

ok...before I go into my story which has some similaritys I think you and pepper need to complain to Virgin also...my wife did and we got £500 back from them, as we said we were disgusted with the service and it totally ruined out big day!! anyway...

My (now) wife and I got married on the 30th November 2005, we had our Wedding at the pavillion (which I have to disagree with you and say is a lovely venue) and then a champagne reception at the grand floridian.

First and formost I have to say the customer service received from Thomas cook (the tour operator) and Virgin was absolute rubbish. we like you filled in all the forms which they said they never received and we had to fill in again. I was emailing our so called co-ordinator who couldn't answer my questions so I ended up emailing/speaking to disney direct.

We also booked a Magic Kingdom photo session which we were told could not be confirmed until nearer the time...well nearer the time we were told we could not have the day we had requested as they were shooting the ABC Walt Disney Parade. The only day available was the day before the wedding meaning I would see my wife in her dress before we were married.

Well this to me just wasn't on, so I ended up calling Disney Photographic services direct, and after speaking to the most helpful person ever, she slotted us into the 15th of December, which was our last day there. Though this didleave us in a bit of a rush to get back adn to the airport.

Thankfully I knew that the Disney photography was only 12 photo's, however we did end up getting alot more on the cd. so I deceided to Book Randy Chapman after a lot of researching on the net...I have to say he is the most professional and accomodating person I have ever met, He even delivered my wifes bouquet to her hotel in the morning, as my wife had arranged flowers herslf with a local store.

Luckily for me I had a lot of family out there and I was able to stay in my sisters villa with them the night before the wedding. Little did we know the problems this would cause....Now being a brit I found my way to the villa, which was at bahama bay, not too far from the west end of the 192 in kissimmee...but the limo driver could not find it for love nor money....This ended up with my brother in law jumping in the car drving round looking for a confused limo driver, then coming back and picking me up with about 40 mins to go.

At the same time my wife was back in our room at the Caribbean beach resort. Now she had not met her wedding co-ordinator, and they never bothered calling her until the morning of the wedding, to explain what was going to happan. Not only that but the limo company had also rang to say they would not drive upto the room to pick her up, and they would only goto the reception area. This ended up with my mother being shuved into a taxi and told to take her to the reception, which he ended up taking her to the wedding pavillion. Now i should explain my mother is 75 years old and never been to the US or disney before....she handed him a $50 note, to which he said thanks and gave her no change. Not knowing she thought this was acceptable, of course I knew the fare should have been a LOT less than that, so I rang the taxi company, but never received a callback from them. This also meant my wife, her parents and the bridesmaids also had to get a taxi to the reception. we were not impressed with the limo service!!!

We had the Rev. Jack Day as our officiant and he was brilliant, the wedding itself went off without a hitch and we became Mr & Mrs Lamb.

Now afterwards, we all had our photo's taken by the marvellous Randy Chapman, and then our family was taken to the Grand Floridian whilst we had more photo's taken, and some really artisitc ones too, (my fav being a reflection of the two of us in the limo window).

Now the Wedding Co-Ordinator we had on the day seemed to try and rush things a bit, especially when we got to the Champagne Reception at the GF. We later found out this was because she had to pick her kids up and did not want to be late.

I still think in my mind I have blocked out a lot of it, and to me it was an excellent day. The Magic Kingdom Photo Shoot was perfect, but I do have to admit the quality of Randy's Images were a lot better than the disney photography.

Sorry for the long post guys, but thought some people maybe interested :)

[OKWTink]

Very interested. :yes: I have to say, I'm totally dismayed with all that went awry with your special day. Thank heaven you have each other, eh? :hug:

[Keith]

I really do think Disney weddings, the actual department, is awful. Sure, there are a few TRULY great people in there, I know that for sure, but there are some absolute stinkers who could not care less.

I think the more expensive and fancy the wedding, the more enthusiastic they ALL Get because it's something new for their cv. In fact I was told as much by the "first line" people... you know the way you speak to a team BEFORE you get to speak to the wedding co-ordinator, well that lady got very stressed and said something along the lines of "oh it's too simple for us to bother much about, it isnt going to get any of us upto the next stage of being a co-ordinator so you'll have to just accept what we've done"

The thing is, they make it seem as though you'll have a person who will go ALL out to take all the stress away and do everything on your behalf which just isn't true for many people.

It's very very lucky that the weddings are always so great in SPITE of the planners because the location is so out there wonderful! If it weren't the case, I suspect they'd have people REALLY REALLY annoyed with them

[OKWTink]

I know our Joanne and Jonathan's wedding was incredibly perfect, but it's seems as though that isn't the case with all weddings. It really shouldn't be based on amount spent. If a wedding is offered at a certain dollar amount then those weddings should be honoured just as much as the more expensive weddings.

A man here at work is getting married in Vegas. I've mentioned him a time or two.

He is having a very nice, very lovely wedding inclusive of chapel, all flowers, all photographs and full service reception (for I think 30) for less than $3000.00. It includes the honeymoon suite at the MGM Grand too.

Their wedding coordinator is incredible. They are being treated as if they are spending $30,000. Seriously.

Disney will price itself out of the market. My co-worker lives here (obviously) and just roared at the cost of a Disney wedding compared to the cost (and content) of the Vegas one.

People will go elsewhere. :yes:

[Blackeyed]

Well folks...
After me telling the photography place again what we wanted ( in fact I had to do a little demo to one of the photos) we got the pictures back today.

I picked one picture at random, ringded about 5 or 6 fowl ups and promptly sent it back.
We really just want our money back now as we're sick to death of these jokers thinking that they can pass rubbish on to us.

A simple job to anyone who knows how to use a paint package is turning into a farce.. slap dash - colouring over the lines just to fob us off..
sections missed out etc.
WE WILL NOT GO AWAY UNITL WE ARE SATISFIED.
I've now stopped being civil on my emails to them as they are taking the proverbial.

Rant over - I'm going to stand in a dark room now and count to fifty six thousand, two hundred and twenty nine (give or take).

[Keith]

We really just want our money back now as we're sick to death of these jokers thinking that they can pass rubbish on to us.


yep agreed.

Get your money back *AND* if you don't already, EVERYTHING they have on dvd... full digital negatives of everything. Then take it to a local photographer who'll use photoshop to do the job properly. (if you can't find one, I can ask on the professional wedding photographers forum for you and will find a few experts who will be willing to help. The work those people do with photoshop is incredible)

[OKWTink]

Ach. Blackeyed. :( Don't give up! Keep after them until every cent of your money is returned. :yes:

[Pepper]

Ahhh those photo shoot photos, can someone remind me why we bothered to get up at 4am in the morning for those :confused:

To make it worse, we wanted to show the Photoshoot pictures at our reception back home in the middle of December, it is now the middle of March and still no decent photos.

Ah well you live and learn, I don't think I would recommend a Disney Wedding to anyone soon, unless you want to find out everything yourself, and to be honest we actually found out more information from the forum than we got from either Virgin or Disney.

On a good point the day was fab, our 3rd Disney Co-ordinator was really nice, even though she gave us heart failure a couple of days before by leaving a message on the rooms voice mail about the wedding being cancelled. When we got hold of her the following day we found out that our first Disney Co-ordinator had not updated the file with our dinner reservation, so she thought this had been cancelled. The ceremoney was lovely, the view was fantastic, the cake was yummy. We did book additional photography which were far, far better than Disney Photographic, but we did get all of the Disney Photos on a CD (which the Virgin US co-ordinator said that wouldn't happen we would only get the 12 that went into the album). The weather was good.

[Blackeyed]

As Ron Stoppable would say...
"Boo yah!"

Disney Photographics have agreed to refund our money. :thumbs:

I guess my less than diplomatic last email did the trick.

Thanks for all of your support.
You're all a great bunch.

:wink:

[joanne]

Lots of luck Blackeyed and Pepper :luck:

In defence of Disney Weddings, I'd strongly recommend people to book direct with them rather than going through a middleman such as Virgin or Thomas Cook. That way you're dealing directly with them and it's much easier to contact them and clear up any problems beforehand. You can even swap to another coordinator if you have problems. I spent so much time online researching Disney wedding forums, and the only real complaints I saw for intimate weddings were people who booked through Virgin or other tour operators. I don't recall many, if any at all from people who booked with Disney direct.

Of course, that's nothing to do with the MK photo shoot, that's just bad on Disney Photographic Services, and you should keep fighting until you're satisfied. If you keep on at them I'm sure you'll get a result. I know of someone else who had similar problems and fought until they got a reshoot (with free WDW stay thrown in).

Agreed on Randy Chapman - he's excellent and we're soooo pleased with our wedding pics by him :clap:

[Katie C]

Being a brit having just booked my wedding at Disney I must admit reading that did make me fell slightly scared if I'd done the right thing! :eek: Am glad you got your pics sorted in the end, it all sounds terrible for that Glad the wedding itself was good though! Am hoping similar mishaps don't happen to the other half any myself, but I've booked direct through Disney so hopefully it'll be OK! (Wanders off worrying...)

[JuniorMickey]

Katie, if it helps, I attended Joanne & Kiltie's wedding and it was the most beautiful wedding I've been to ever. Everything was perfect.

[joanne]

Katie, don't worry one bit! I can't fault Disney on anything from our wedding, it was the most perfect day ever and they went above and beyond in our expectations :)

[Bec]

Katie dont worry honey, we had a Disney wedding in March 05 and it was PERFECT!

Enjoy every minute!

[BigCol]

Katie - good luck with the wedding :D :thumbs: