Location, Location, Location!

Indoor?  Outdoor?  Indoor?  Outdoor?  It's going to be November in Florida.  It could still be fairly warm weather but it could also be insanely cold weather.  It's so hard to choose!  It's too tough to decide?  Luckily, we still have plenty of time.

Despite being up in the air, there are some frontrunners in the Great Wedding Venue Race.  I think we're pretty set on the Wedding Pavilion for the ceremony, but where, oh where, shall we dance the afternoon away?  I have some ideas about what I want the reception room/space to be like.

It needs to coordinate in "feel" for our theme, which I'm calling "Retro 50s Ice Cream Shoppe Party."  So any old convention center room is just not going to work.  I want some natural light and if possible, a view of the outdoors (if we're not actually outdoors!)

The first possible room is the Wonders Lounge, a large room in the old, closed, Wonders of Life building. It's used for the Epcot Food and Wine Festival, but not for much else since the rides inside it closed.  The room itself is beautiful with a touch of whimsy and it's very architecturally interesting.


Isn't that a cute space? I love the cartoon window frames and the colors are so very Mickey Mouse.  I think the cake would look great in that round area in the back.

Here's another view of the room.  Clearly, it can hold a lot of people.  Probably more than are going to attend our wedding but I think there's an upside to that.

Kids. There will be lots of kids.

I really want to dance with mine and with Prince Charming's and have a big, old, silly party but I'm not kidding myself that the DJ will be able to keep them on the dance floor.  I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that there will be a significant amount of running around and being goofy.  (Goofy? Gawrsh!)  Even if there isn't running around, it would be nice to have the space to set up a kids' corner with a TV and a DVD player and some stuff for them to do.

One more just because I like it.

The downside that I've considered is that this is a seldom-used building right now.  How depressing is it to walk through to this room?  What will we see outside these windows?

Another place that is in consideration is a ballroom at the Contemporary.  The benefit to that location is that it's a monorail hotel.  So if we were married at the Pavilion, it's a quick walk to the monorail stop at the Grand Floridian, and then once around the track to the Contemporary.  We could avoid paying for additional transportation for us or for our guests.  How fun would it be to get on the monorail in wedding clothes.

The particular ballroom I like opens onto a small courtyard so we'd get a little outdoors with our indoors. I asked someone at DFTW about this particular room and this particular photo and she had some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is that this photo includes $10K's worth of decor.  That's probably outside the realm of our budget.  I love the black Chiavari chairs and the pink linens and, hello, look at that cake!  Still, from what the coordinator told me, this room has good bones.

The good news is that the Contemporary doesn't do a lot of weddings.  When they do get the chance to do one, the staff gets excited and they go above and beyond.  I guess weddings are a lot more fun for the staff than a boring old business meeting!

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Finally, there's the Living Seas Salon, also in Epcot.  It's in the Living Seas Pavilion, home of Finding Nemo: The Ride, Turtle Talk with Crush, The Coral Reef Restaurant and an aquarium that holds almost SIX MILLION gallons of water! 

The Living Seas Salon is a private room inaccessible to park guests, with one wall of windows into the aquarium. Even without the millions of fishes, its a pretty spectacular room. It has warm wood, bright colors and a glass piano.  It's quirky and charming.

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There are, of course, downsides to this room too.  It's a long narrow room.  It's kind of dark.  It may not be quite as much of a match with our theme as the Wonders Lounge and I think we'd have to use these small tables. 

We'll have a chance to visit these places, and others, before we have to make a decision. 

It's such a tough, tough decision.  It does make me feel better that no matter which site we pick, it will be Disney magical and that in the end, Prince Charming and I, and our posse of kids, will be a legal family, tied together by love.  That's the most important part.