The Rules, according to Walt, part 1

There are lots of rules to this whole Disney wedding thing. I'm going to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start!)

I'm not actually allowed to start planning our wedding yet.  Disney Fairy Tale Weddings (DFTW is so much easier to type) is all hard core about their planning rules and how things work.  It's truly all weird and odd and strange to me that they won't actually let couples start planning (or take any money from them) until a certain number of months before the wedding.


For us, the magic number is exactly sixteen months in advance of our planned wedding date because we are planning what they call a "Wishes Collection" wedding.  It's their customizable, full out, traditional wedding.  Their other wedding collections have a much shorter lead time.

There are three other types of Walt Disney World Weddings:
1. The Memories Collection- a cheap, quick and dirty elopement/vow renewal package only available this year for the 20th anniversary of DFTW and it costs $1991, isn't that cute??? You can only book a Memories package 6 months to 24-hours in advance.

2.  The Escape Collection is a more fluffy elopement style package with a max of 20 guests. You cannot book an Escape wedding until 8 months before your intended wedding date.

3.  The last option is Disney's pull-out-all-the-stops package is called the Couture Collection.  These are four different designer, magazine weddings all put together by the Master of Matrimony himself, Mr. David Tutera. (You don't actually get David, these are packages he put together.) Expect that it costs a fortune.  You have the same lead time as a Wishes wedding because it basically is a Wishes wedding with a lot of fancy schmancy decor added.

(You can also get married at Disneyland in California, at Disney's new Aulani resort in Hawaii, on a Disney Cruise or on their private island in the Caribbean (Castaway Cay).  All non-options for us.) 

Here's where I call out a Disney Weddings celebrity.  If it weren't for Carrie Hayward, most couples interested in DFTW would be fumbling in the dark.  Carrie literally wrote the book on Disney Weddings.  She also does a weekly podcast called Inside Disney Weddings, that is free on iTunes.  Carrie is a former Disney bride who put all the info together in the way I wish the DFTW website had it. It was so difficult sort through the myriad of rules from the website.  Carrie's book explains it all in a way that it actually makes a little sense.  The booking times are just the tip of the iceberg and it only gets harder the more deeply you dive into Walt's Rules.