For those that don’t know, when planning your Disney Wedding, be aware that Disney currently does not allowed outside photographers to shoot in the parks. What this meant for us was, we ultimately had 3 different photographers. We had booked @rootphotography to shoot our ceremony and reception, and would’ve loved for them to shoot our Dessert Party at Epcot. Now, since they’re not Disney photographers, we weren’t allowed to do this. So Disney provided us with a list of photographers that we could choose from to shoot our Dessert Party. We had also opted for the Magic Kingdom bridal shoot and had chosen Epcot as our other bridal shoot location. There’s a couple other things that this meant. It meant that we were also going to have another photographer for our Epcot shoot, and possibly another photographer for our Magic Kingdom shoot (which, if you’re still keeping count, could work out to 4 different photographers). Who you end up with, is completely in the hands of scheduling, and whilst they’re all extremely competent and great at what they do, photography is an art form, and sometimes you prefer one photographers style over anothers. All in all it didnt really matter to us, we knew we were in good hands.
What we DID find a little frustrating at first, was the fact that we werent going to be able to do our Magic Kingdom bridal shoot during our wedding trip. We werent aware of this when we booked our wedding for the end of November. And as luck would have it, our wedding was taking place around the same time as the Christmas Day parade taping AND the New Fantasyland opening, PLUS it was Christmas. What did this mean for us? It meant that the Magic Kingdom shoot was blocked out for that period. Now, you have to do this shoot either before or after park opening, so that there’s nobody in the park (same goes for the Epcot shoot, or any park shoot for that matter). And since we weren’t going to be able to do our MK shoot over the wedding trip, we had to fly back in February for it. I say ‘had to’ as though it was upsetting for us. I mean jeez, twist my arm, HAVE to go back to Disney? heheh no problem.
We’re pretty easy going about things, so none of this is a hinderance for us. I guess if I had to pick ONE thing that was disappointing about it, I’d say that we didnt get the Christmas decorations for the Magic Kingdom shoot. Part of the reason we’d chosen the date for the wedding was because we wanted all of the Christmas decorations up, I mean it’s beautiful. And, flying back in February meant, no more Christmas. So, when we finally put all of our pictures together, it’ll be Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, no Christmas.. heheh. Again, it’s a small thing, and we’re not overly fussed about it. But it’s definitely something any future bride and grooms should be aware of when planning. oh, and the other good thing? we got to wear our wedding clothes 3 times! How many other people can say that?
We were super amped about both the bridal shoots. Coming into the parks before hours, before ANY OTHER guests are there is a truly magical experience. Since Magic Kingdom was most recent, I’ll talk about that shoot. We had to get up at ridiculous o’clock in the morning for Sandra’s hair and makeup, and then drive to Francks to meet the photographers for 6 am. We jumped in their van and drove back stage, eventually coming out near Liberty Square. You’d be surprised how many people are actually there that early in the morning. I know we KNOW how busy that place is at night, when it’s closed, but until we actually saw it in person, we didnt really think about it. Oh cool points for Sandra, she got to turn the castle lights on. It was pretty special I have to say.
Oh, and when you do this shoot, make sure you eat first, because the smells coming off of Main Street at 6am are amazing, and my stomach just made a heck of a lot of noise.
Obviously we had to pick which areas we wanted to shoot in, and also obviously, in front of Cinderella’s castle was the key place. But we also chose Be Our Guest and Haunted Mansion. When you have the time to stand around with nobody else there, just observing, you notice heaps more detail.
So what’d we learn from this? Make sure we get all the details about the wedding photography before we book our wedding. Not that we’ll be doing a wedding again, but who knows, maybe for one of our anniversaries, we’ll head back for more photos.
As long as you have fun, everything will be ok. And we had a BLAST so, everything turned out GREAT! thanks again @disneyweddings for an incredible experience.