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bluebayou
09-17-2002, 11:35 AM
I don't know if any of you guys were at Disneyland on Sunday night but I was and noticed they had closed off the castle for an event. They roped everything off at about 6 or so for the rest of the night and put chairs, flowers, etc.. Turned out there was a wedding that took place that night. I even saw the guests arriving at the park. Anyway - my boyfriend and I were wondering "who got married?" So if you know - please tell us.. Also I didn't think that they allowed weddings in the park so if it is possible - how does one go about getting permission for something like that? Thanks!

Lani
09-17-2002, 11:39 AM
Originally posted by bluebayou
Also I didn't think that they allowed weddings in the park so if it is possible - how does one go about getting permission for something like that? Thanks! Of course you can get married in the park... for enough money. I think in-park weddings cost $8000 and up. You don't have to be famous to get married there, just rich.

justagrrl
09-17-2002, 11:59 AM
Read all about how you can get married at Dland.

Sounds like something wonderful. I would love to ride in Cinderella's coach!

http://disneyland.disney.go.com/disneylandresort/ResortInfo/FairyTaleWeddings/index

cstephens
09-17-2002, 01:23 PM
A few people posted on alt.disney.disneyland that they had talked to CMs about the wedding, and while some of the stories seemed pretty wild ($25 million?), the most accepted story is that it was just a regular couple (if your definition of "regular" includes people who would spend that kind of money on a wedding) who spent between $300,000 and $400,000 to have the wedding there.

justagrrl
09-17-2002, 02:15 PM
Gee, it must be nice to be able to drop that sort of money on a wedding. I'd love to have a house at half the price.

TecTalker2K
09-17-2002, 02:18 PM
I plan on getting married in Disneyland... but it is going to be a Gurilla wedding. Who can afford top d the real thing?

innerSpaceman
09-17-2002, 02:30 PM
Yeah, I was thinking of having a child sacrifice in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle just after park closing. How much do you think they will charge me to close off the Castle DURING park hours, set up a stone altar on the compass, with big blood collection urns near the walkways to Carnation Gardens and Snow White's Wishing Well, respectively, with seating for a hundred of my devil worshipping friends? I'm willing to pay more than they would charge for a wedding, but it's the privatization of the park's major icon during operating hours that I am most interested in.

Now that Sleeping Beauty Castle is for sale, during the time that regular guests have already PAID to "use" it, I figure it's only gonna be a few thousand more for a child sacrifice than for a wedding. After all, what's the difference as long as there's extra money to be made?

ice_queen
09-17-2002, 02:42 PM
Originally posted by innerSpaceman

Yeah, I was thinking of having a child sacrifice in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle just after park closing. How much do you think they will charge me to close off the Castle DURING park hours, set up a stone altar on the compass, with big blood collection urns near the walkways to Carnation Gardens and Snow White's Wishing Well, respectively, with seating for a hundred of my devil worshipping friends?

*ouch* .... innerSpaceman

yikes, lol........ I don't think your vision will make it into any of the DL brochures anytime soon.... but how can I get on the guest list???

RStar
09-17-2002, 02:44 PM
A little sarcastic, are we?

Is Disneyland selling out?

I thought it was a money making venture all along. And private parties and weddings have been going on for years. If I had the money I would love to be able to do the same for my daughter. But I'm struggling just to buy her a car. (she has to pay the ticket for doing 110 mph on the 22:eek: !)

I know what you are saying, though. To close off part of the park to tens of thousands of people because one person forks out some dough is agrivating. But that's the way it has always been as long as human kind has had money. That's why people like money. And it's why I'll never be able to eat at Club 33. The kitchen is the closest I'll ever get. I'm on the wrong side of the tracks:( .

Morrigoon
09-17-2002, 02:52 PM
innerspaceman: ROTFLMAOPIMP!

PhilMP
09-17-2002, 03:00 PM
As far as I could tell, the bride and groom were a couple of early-20s trust-fund babies who decided to spend half a million dollars having a wedding in front of the castle, with the reception at Small Wold Mall.

Unfortunately, I wasn't there...the Special Events shifts were all late night to early morning and I had an exam. That and they only give low-seniority CMs the Special Events shifts, even though every higher-seniority CM wants them. :confused:

Phil

Lani
09-17-2002, 03:27 PM
Originally posted by justagrrl
I'd love to have a house at half the price. So would I, but that is simply impossible in the SF Bay Area (where the cost of that wedding MIGHT buy a single-family unit in the poorer neighborhoods).

Grandbreaker
09-17-2002, 03:34 PM
they the bride and groom were up at 6am fully dress at the GCH waiting to go take some pics at disneyland at 6 30 am yes they did stay at GCH and spent about 250 000 i was there work in security

innerSpaceman
09-17-2002, 03:46 PM
Originally posted by Grandbreaker
i was there work in security
Grandbreaker: Were the aforementioned bride and groom the reason for Sunday's security-enforced guest-only elevator access that is usually reserved for V.I.P.s? Or was there another illustrious guest of the hotel on Sunday that caused the (I must say totally ineffective) security "lock-down"?

Grandbreaker
09-17-2002, 04:18 PM
why do you ask if there was a lock down

Techie7
09-17-2002, 04:30 PM
I picked up a couple of brocures from the resort on my last trip to check on pricing for the heck of it. This is from the current price list for Fairy Tale Weddings
Wedding events inside DisneylandŽ park are held after hours and have limited availability. These are considered premium events and are priced differently than other wedding events. Minimum expenditure for DisneylandŽ park events start at $33,000. Please contact your Disney Wedding Consultant for further information on these very special options.

From what I heard this event on Sunday had all the stops pulled out. I had noticed the extra lighting set up (Similar to Grad Night) on Saturday. It seems that quite a few extra park hours went into setting up this event. Anyone want to guess what the price is for a disney character?

One Character $550.00
Two Characters $850.00
Three Characters $1,150.00
("Character appearances based on one 30 minute set within a one hour time frame. Additional appearances can be added for an additional charge.")

The price breaks for other venues, entertainment, and "Special Enhancements" (IE, Dove Release / Cinderella's Crystal Coach) are interesting as well. I will say that I am sure it was an event to remember!

cstephens
09-17-2002, 05:04 PM
If one could afford to drop the $400,000 or whatever it cost for that, how many of you would actually, seriously do it? Just curious.

I for one would not. As much as I like Disney, and even though we had some Disney touches in our wedding, I didn't want it too Disneyfied. And, if I'd had that kind of money to blow, I'd probably have spent it on paying for airfare for those who wanted to come but couldn't afford it, hotel rooms for the night for any and all of the guests, paying for babysitting as necessary, getting some really nifty souvenirs for the guests (I really liked what we gave out but there were other ideas I saw that were cool, but $5 per item per person was way beyond my budget) or something else that would have directly helped the wedding guests. This is one of those situations where I would have seriously shied away from the extravagance. Spending is one thing, but this is a bit more than that...

AVP
09-17-2002, 05:10 PM
This is something that I am planning to cover in a future column, but here are some added notes about this wedding.

The bride and groom were also engaged at the park.

My contacts tell me the contract was just over $500,000 for the photo shoot, ceremony, cocktail reception, dinner reception, musician, etc, etc, etc. This did not include the hotel fees for their rooms, etc.

The major bridal media, (Modern Bride, etc, etc, etc) were brought in from New York to cover the event, and spent a weekend at the resort.

My biggest problem with this event was NOT that they had a wedding inside the park. I don't even care that it happened during park hours. I don't mind the JTB weddings that happen next to the Castle all the time. I love the wedding package that includes a ceremony on the roof of the Jungle Cruise queue. I don't mind seing Brides and Grooms walking around the park - I was married at the Disneyland Hotel, and we came into Disneyland after the ceremony for our formal portraits.

What I minded was walking up to the Castle with a friend's 5-year-old daughter, and having to explain to her that we couldn't walk through the Castle because someone had paid more than she had to use it all night.

The wedding events I described above may be "visible" to other guests, and I know some people consider them to be "bad show", but they don't close entire areas for normal wedding events. They are either after-hours, or they are in side areas of the park - not the CASTLE for crying out loud!

Even when there are Private Parties, like the ones in Hollywood at DCA, there is a sign posted at the front entrance saying that the area or land will be closing early. There wasn't anything like that done for this wedding.

When my friend took her very upset daughter to Guest Relations, they said, "well, it was on the website - didn't you check before you came?" Well, actually, it said Sleeping Beauty Castle was closed for rehab. It's said that since September 11th, 2001. It did not say that the Castle area would be completely closed for the last 4 hours of park operations.

Frankly, I'm surprised that it took so long for a wedding to happen like this. And I don't think they are bad ideas - how can a business really be accused of selling out. But what they did was put a price on the "Magic". Now there's a precident - for half a million dollars, you too can keep a little girl from her trip through the Castle.

AVP

Morrigoon
09-17-2002, 05:13 PM
You know, considering that the characters get paid in the neighborhood of $7/hr.......:eek:

ChipmunkStar
09-17-2002, 05:21 PM
Just an FYI: The characters are paid more than $7 an hour. But it's all going through: The characters themselves, costuming, and cleaning. Now, with all these in mind, it still certainly does not constitute $1,100 for three characters for one hlaf hour. That's just balogne.

Morrigoon
09-17-2002, 05:25 PM
chipmunk: sorry bout that, when I was there, pay for non-face characters was below $7 (the princesses make much more), maybe it's gone up since then.

Not Afraid
09-17-2002, 05:34 PM
I wish I had seen the set-up on Sunday. I DID get a call of alert from a good MP friend and a verbal description of all of the happenings :D Plus, Techie7 was right there with the financial analysis (why is that brochure in your CAR?)

I'm sure it was magical for everyone who attended. A wedding like this would be an amazing thing to witness. It is unfortunate that so much of the set-up had to be done during park hours therefore closing off the castle. That really is not fair to other guests who, collectively, probably paid more than 500k for their DL experience.

Would I do it if I had the cash? Probably not. But, if I did, I'd add my own private "Believe" showing and pray for a perfect Mickey.

marron-cream
09-17-2002, 06:02 PM
I was closing in the area that night, so we all got to shamelessly stand around and watch it. Supposedly they are long time Club 33 members (I assume it's the parents who are the long time members) and it cost around 200k. It was a beautiful wedding, but all I can think is if I had that much money to blow on a wedding, I'd go to Europe and rent a real castle. To each his own, I guess.

Lani
09-17-2002, 06:05 PM
Originally posted by cstephens
If one could afford to drop the $400,000 or whatever it cost for that, how many of you would actually, seriously do it? Just curious.Somehow I highly doubt it. For that kind of money I would probably send all my invited guests on a Disney Cruise and have the wedding on board the ship or something, assuming I want to do a Disney Cruise wedding. In all honestly, I would probably pick Bora Bora or something (but hey, we went with a chapel in Reno instead!).

justagrrl
09-17-2002, 06:13 PM
Originally posted by cstephens
If one could afford to drop the $400,000 or whatever it cost for that, how many of you would actually, seriously do it? Just curious.

I for one would not. As much as I like Disney, and even though we had some Disney touches in our wedding, I didn't want it too Disneyfied. And, if I'd had that kind of money to blow, I'd probably have spent it on paying for airfare for those who wanted to come but couldn't afford it, hotel rooms for the night for any and all of the guests, paying for babysitting as necessary, getting some really nifty souvenirs for the guests

If you had that kind of money, those things are probably already taken care of already too.

And I would love to be able to spend money extravegantly like that. Are you kidding! To not have to ask the price - just consider it yours. Where do I sign up?