Nervous about Disney wedding

[Peanut]

Hi! As of right now, I am EXTREMELY nervous about my wedding. I do not like my sales manager much. She seems to forget everything I tell her and is NOT prompt at returning phone calls or emails. She drops the ball a lot and she never seems to want to give me any info without me prying it out of her. She was NOT helpful when it came time to choose a reception site. I do most of the work on my own. Thank goodness I'm quite familiar with WDW, or else I'd be seriously lost. She also never told me about food tasting or much of any other options, if there are any. When I asked her about options, she tells me to look at the pamphlet that was sent out with the wedding video! FYI, she is not a very common SM to have, apparently. On yourfairytale.com NO ONE has had her for a SM. Now, I have an event manager, again NO ONE listed on the site has had him either!! I'm soooooo nervous that my wedding will be a disaster like my planning has been so far! Has anyone ever requested a new coordinator before? I mean, what if I don't like my event manager either?!!! Please help calm my nerves and reassure that it will be ok. I'm SERIOUSLY FREAKING OUT!!!

 

[grover]

Hi there, I think that if you are very uncomfortable you should express that and request a new sm and em, this is YOUR wedding and there is no reason why it should be stressing you-it should a wonderful experience to remember-even the planning part!! Do you belong to disneymooners yahoo group? I have read there of brides needing to switch. Here is the linkhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/disneymooners
HTH
Grover in Winnipeg

 

[liquidsky88]

I know your pain. I also had a horrible sales manager. It took him days to get in touch with me. Everytime I would ask him a question, he would tell me to go look in the packet he sent me. I made a complaint about him. After that, he was very responsive. You should do the same. If you're spending all that money and paying for this sales manager, they better be responsive. Good luck!

 

[Peanut]

Thanks you guys. I wish that I was the only one with problems. I haven't met my event manager yet. He was just assigned to me. I will be at WDW next week to do some planning and I will meet him then. I hope I like him. I'm going to give him a chance before I give him the boot though. Who do you contact to get a new person to work with? Is there a complaint department?

 

[LisaLovesDisney]

Hi All,
I am planning an IW in December and I to have a wedding coordinator that does not help me at all. I have talked with her once and she basically answered me with "yes" and "no" answers and offered absolutely no suggestions. I have thought about asking for a new wedding coordinator that would take a more actice approach to my planning. I say go for it. With the amount of money that we are spending we should be happy with the experience of planning. FYI::: I am working with a WONDERFUL custom wedding coordinator to plan my dessert party and if she did intimate weddings I would grab her in a second but she only does custom and dessert parties. Her name is Erin Marie Fortier and her e-mail is: erin.marie.fortier@disney.com SHE IS THE BEST!!!
Best of luck!

 

[hmp2z]

Hi! LisaLovesDisney, who is your coordinator? We had Kirsten Wallace as our first one, and didn't like her at all. When we were moved to Lynn McKitrick, we were so happy. She is AWESOME - so nice and sweet and creative. If you can request to change to her, I highly recommend her
Cheers!
Heather W

 

[loriace1]

We just got home from WDW tonight from my sons wedding, Lynn was also their wedding coordinator and she seemed wonderful.

 

[LisaLovesDisney]

Hi Heather,
YES!!! WE HAVE KIRSTEN! She seems to really not care what is going on with our wedding. I have talked to her once and it was not a good experience. Now we are getting married in 5 months and I am really not happy with her. I am going to take your advice and ask to be switched! Maybe I will request Lynn. Thank you so much for the tip. I was hesitant to switch but with the amount of money that we are dishing out for our "Fairy Tale " wedding, I am going for it. Thanks again!

 

[ahutton]

I would recommend Lynn too. She was actually a sales coordinator and took us on our tour a year before our 1996 wedding. To me that says she cares, does a good job, and will have participated in many different types of events and will have a lot of great suggestions and experience to draw from.

 

[LisaLovesDisney]

Hi all,
I just finshed talking with Disney and requested a change in my wedding coordinator and I requested Lynn. It would be my luck that Lynn is on vacation the week of my wedding. So, Bill, the event manager went ahead and made someone by the name of Jose our new IW coordinator. Has anyone heard of Jose? And to make matters even more confusing, Erin, our Illuminations Dessert Party coordinator, is no longer working for Disney and we now have a new event manager for that too. His name is Adam. Anyone ever work with Adam?? Thanks for all of the advice. Hopefully my new coordinators are good ones and the rest of the planning will go smoother!!!

 

[hmp2z]

Hi! I am thinking that Jose must be new to the FTW department, b/c I have never heard of anyone on the DM list even having him. You might want to join that group, if you haven't already, and see if anyone has him for an EM. I hope everything works out for you! That stinks that Lynn is on vacation then! But you are well-rid of Kirsten. She is very sweet, but just was not helpful at all. For everything we said, she would tell us, "If you want to do that you have to have a custom." Not true! We ended up having the wedding of our dreams; we just went around her, and finally got Lynn.
Good luck!
Cheers!
Heather

 

[marn913]

We just got back from our wedding/honeymoon. Jose was our new EM he was assigned to us after John Beran left Disney. Over the phone he can be difficult to talk to (very short and always sounds busy). However, at our rehearsal as well as at the wedding he was wonderful! It can be frustrating to talk to the Disney planners over the phone (if you get them at all) because it always sounds like they are in a hurry (which they are!) But trust me, they know how long things take and make a point to focus on you when your turn comes. I didn't hear from our coordinator after we signed our contract until about three weeks before the wedding. His assistant double checked that everything was right, sent us the bill to review and all we had to do was show up! The rehearsal, wedding and reception were absolutely beautiful! I could not have imagined that it could have been so perfect. Try not to get frustrated - once your wedding day comes, you will see that they really do listen -- they are just hard to get ahold of because your EM and his assistants spend the whole day with a couple at their wedding, not in the office answering calls. I found that email usually works best, and they don't always send you a confirmation response back, but all of the changes we requested along the way (even when our original EM quit) were all accounted for! Good luck!

Marne
06-16-03
WP/Living Seas

 

[LisaLovesDisney]

Hi Marne,
Congrats and your recent wedding! Thank you so much for the advice. Everyone I talk to that gets married at WDW says it was PERFECT. I know ours will be to. Thanks!

 

[Peanut]

Hey everyone! I got back fom WDW a few days ago. I met with my event manager, Justin Reagan. I like him very much! I was soo nervous, as I stated in the beginning of this thread. I think he will make me very happy. He said that he has worked for Disney for 10 years doing conventions, but he does weddings too now because the 2 departments merged. He seems to be very knowledgeable and helpful!

 

[drchiro2b]

Hi everyone! My fiancee and I are planning on our wedding at DisneyWorld next fall (2004) and I must admit that I too am a little nervous about who will be "assigned" to us as our coordinator. Most of our correspondance will be over the phone so if I am not comfortable with our conversations I am going to be frantic! So, from what I have read so far, Lynne is the best and definitely don't get Kristen!

Any other suggestions as to who I should try to avoid or who is pretty good in addition to Lynne (Justin)?

We met with Joe just to talk about the possibility of having a Disney wedding when we were there in April! He was AWESOME but not who we will be working with once we begin planning!

We are planning a wedding for approximately 100 guests, with our ceremony at the Wedding Pavilion and our reception at the Dance Hall on the Boardwalk. We are stumped about where to have our rehearsal dinner... Any suggestions?

Any who. If anyone else has ANY suggestions on how to have a beautiful wedding but by not spending a fortune (especially hard to do for a destination wedding) I am all ears! Thanks!
This is a great forum and I am so glad my sister found it and told me about it! : )

Also, Heather, is that B&W photo on your postings of your wedding?! If so, it is gorgeous! Who was your photographer?

 

[LisaLovesDisney]

Congrats on booking your fall 2004 wedding! The planning is so much fun. Heather used Randy Chapman from www.chapmanphotography.com I am also using Randy for my IW. I hear he is the best. I also jear that Gary Fox is really good for photography. As far as videography. I am using Stan from STVS Videography. Good Luck with the planning and HAVE FUN!

 

[wdwpluto]

drchiro2b ~ sounds like you're having a custom wedding, our EM was Michelle Shumate and she was FABULOUS! I would recommend her 100%. We had another EM, Stacey something, who left the weddings dept and I was glad to see her go because Michelle went above and beyond for us!

LisaLovesDisney ~ We used Gary Fox and our photos turned out amazing! He's very easy going to work with and got all the shots we wanted. We got our proofs super fast too - we were married 11/7 and I know we had our proofs before Thanksgiving! A definite thumbs up! My mom was apprehensive about spending the $$ on him, but in the end she said it was well worth every penny!

 

[AndreaRH]

Originally posted by drchiro2b
Hi everyone! My fiancee and I are planning on our wedding at DisneyWorld next fall (2004) and I must admit that I too am a little nervous about who will be "assigned" to us as our coordinator. Most of our correspondance will be over the phone so if I am not comfortable with our conversations I am going to be frantic! So, from what I have read so far, Lynne is the best and definitely don't get Kristen!

Any other suggestions as to who I should try to avoid or who is pretty good in addition to Lynne (Justin)?

We are planning a wedding for approximately 100 guests, with our ceremony at the Wedding Pavilion and our reception at the Dance Hall on the Boardwalk.

Hi,

Since you're planning a Custom wedding, you will not be assigned to Kristen or Lynn since they only handle Intimate weddings. There are a bunch of really terrific Custom event managers so everything should work out just fine. If you want to hear feedback about the various EMs from current brides, join the Disneymooners list at Yahoo Groups. Lots of discussions about these matters take place every day. Good luck!

 

[drchiro2b]

How do I get to Disneymooners yahoo group?

Thanks for the info! Has anybody had any GREAT or TERRIBLE custom wedding coordinators?

 

[PyroT]

My wife and I were married on 11/22/02, and it was absolutly great. The only complaint that we had was with our E.M. Her name was Lisa, but our wedding party refered to her as the "Sarge". Our Sales manager was Bill Barchick, my wife and I were very please with him. We too were worried about how our day would go, but it seemed to go off without a hitch, except for some minor problems. We had our ceremony at the WP, and then the reception at the Grand Fla. All in all, we were extremely happy with the way that everything turned out. I wish everyone luck that is in the planning stages of their wedding, it might seem difficult now, but in the end it will all pay off.