Just in case any of you are as lost as I was, I pulled together ten things I didn't know about Disney Wedding Food and Beverage when I was doing my planning:
(1) You are not stuck with the exact sample menus that Disney sends out. Those are more like suggestions. If you make special requests, they can mix and match across menus. They can also make foods based on recipes that you provide (such as family secret salads) and on occasion, I know that they make foods found in certain places at Walt Disney World (such as the cheese soup from Canada). Of course, you would need to talk to your coordinator about what the limits may be for your reception location and time, as well as what the price would be for those special requests.
(2) If you have special needs guests (diabetic, glucose intolerant, Kosher, vegan, low-salt, etc.), they can make special meals for them, so you don't have to add something to your overall plated dinner or buffet with the idea that you need to make sure they have something to eat.
(3) If you're having a hard time meeting your food and beverage minimum, remember that your cocktail hour and your dessert party count towards your overall minimum, but not towards the minimum that goes with your reception location.
(4) The age limit for lower priced children's meals is 9. If your guests are 9 or older, they're expected to eat whatever the adults are eating. However, guests that are younger than 21 don't get charged on your liquor tab. You just need to pay for their soft drinks, if you're providing them.
(5) If you decide to do plated service, you don't have to have your guests choose ahead of time. For a higher price, guests can choose their entree at the reception, which is nice since tracking down all of those dining requests is a pain when people forget to send in their RSVPs. If you are giving guests the choice ahead of time, you're supposed to have them in 30 days before your wedding, although you can make changes up until 3 days before.
(6) You can have action stations, whether it's a plated or buffet dinner, and there are lots of options to choose from. Kyle really wanted to have a mashed potato bar at the wedding, but since it wasn't on the sample menu that we received, I thought it wasn't a possibility. I found out later that they do them all the time and they're apparently wonderful. Whoops!
(7) The pre-reception menus are also just a suggestion. You can make special requests for your cocktail hour, but you need to talk to your coordinator to make sure that Disney can make it happen for you. I don't even remember what our cocktail hour food was, so apparently it wasn't that special. Of course, off the top of my head, I can't think of what a memorable menu would have been...sushi, maybe? Teeny, tiny cheeseburgers? (I'm sure the coordinators have better ideas than those, so I'd ask them if I were you.)
(8) There's also a family dining option, where big platters of food are brought to the tables and the guests pass them around and share them. I kind of love that idea, since it's comfortable and would have encouraged guests to grab seconds. As it was, people wanted seconds but nobody knew if they were allowed to have them, so we ended up with tons of leftover food and I'm sure it was thrown out.
(9) They check IDs at the bar during wedding receptions. I guess this isn't a surprise, but there were a couple of guests who were unprepared because it didn't occur to them. Most were women who brought nothing to the wedding because they didn't want to take a purse and someone else had their hotel keys. Nobody was upset about it and I didn't hear about it until later, but I wish I had thought about it ahead of time so I could have reminded people, since it was a little inconvenient.
(10) You can do a continental breakfast for your wedding party on the day of your wedding and it will count towards your overall minimum. I'm not sure that we would have done this, since our wedding party was huge, but it would have been an incredible way to start the day together and I think we all would have been a bit more relaxed.
Hopefully that helped some of you out as you make your decisions! I don't have any complete list of all the food options you can order, but you can see some of the menus at this site.
P.S. I got a ton of this information from reading Carrie's wonderful book, so thanks, Carrie!
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4 comments:
The number one thing to remember when planning your Disney wedding is to ask about options! They are there for just about everything, all you need to do is ask and be ready to pay for what you want. I was told as long as it was legal and we would be willing to pay Disney could do it for us!!!! lol
Also, you can use rehearsal menus as your wedding day menus, and save lots of $$$.
For my wedding, I told my planner ahead of time the youngest person would be 24, so none of us were asked for ID. I told everyone to bring it just incase, since you never know.
Carly, I too have been a little lost with the Disney Food and Beverage, and your tips are helpful. I agree it's nice to customize your menu, however, it makes for a much more expensive reception. My fiance and I picked real basic food (kid food basically) that suited our tastes. When we got the estimate for that menu it was almost $15 more per person!! I decided to choose a set menu because it allowed for more variety and saved tons of money. At least we got to meet with the Epcot chefs and taste all our food once before we changed everything!So to summarize, i think you did the right thing by using a set menu especially if you are on any sort of budget! :)
I'll echo the ID requirement. We were reminded 3 times at our recent meal tasting that they will card everyone that looks under 40. They warned us because they had to refuse alcohol to past brides and bridesmaids who didn't carry their ID's and since we're paying so much for the full open bar, they wanted to make sure that we got our money's worth.
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