4 Days in Disney World for a Disney Wedding
Back in October, Caity (if you’re new here… she’s the angel gem behind Cait Kramer Photography) and I went to Walt Disney World to capture a Disney wedding and have a bit of fun! We spent two days at the parks (a full day at Magic Kingdom and about 7 hours at Epcot), visited Disney Springs, popped over to The Polynesian and then documented an incredible Disney wedding for Kelsey and Blaine! I was such a lucky gal to tag along as the second shooter for such a fun wedding.
This was, I think, my 15th trip to Disney World. My great-grandparents were Florida snow birds when I was little so my grandparents would often take me down to visit them and we’d add on a trip to Disney! As I got older I was able to go as a performer with my high school’s concert choir (for the Epcot Candlelight Processional during the holidays) and then Kyle and I visited for a whopping 10 days a few years ago. I love Disney… and if you’ve watched my Instagram story lately, I talked about why. We enjoy visiting Disney because it’s a very quick, fun escape that is guaranteed to be good. We’ve never had a bad trip, everything about the experience is top-knotch and it’s an instant mood-lifter to be there.
I am working on a Disney vacation tips blog post but in the meantime, I wanted to share a big dump of my cell phone photos from when Caity and I spent time in Disney World!
This girl is a trooper… we shot a wedding on Friday in Frederick, Maryland and then drove that night to Baltimore. On Saturday morning, we flew from BWI to Orlando while sharing the editing and culling duties!
Once we got to our resort, Pop Century, we knew a beer was an IMMEDIATE must-have! That evening we went to Disney Springs and also relaxed to recover from Friday’s wedding.
I started off Sunday morning with Mickey waffles and dressing up a bit to do headshots in Epcot!
Funny story: As we were walking through Epcot right at opening, we were hustling back towards the World Showcase and a very excited older man started elbowing his wife and saying “OH! SISTERS! OH! SISTERS!” and out of the corner of my eye I saw him pointing at me. I turned and half smiled… obviously very confused. He said it again, “Sisters???!!” and I think I must have looked INCREDIBLY CONFUSED because I thought… I mean, Caity and I are dressed alike but not MATCHING also, we look NOTHING alike. And then he said, “Oh, are you not sisters? I thought you were missionaries.”
NUNS. HE THOUGHT WE WERE NUNS.
HOW?! WHAT?! I will never wear a midi dress with sneakers again.
In other news, we were able to ride Frozen Ever After and didn’t wait too terribly long! We updated our headshots around the World Showcase and I treated myself to my favorite Epcot treat - the berry macaron in France!
But of course, this was a working trip! So we took a mid-day break to do some pre-wedding portraits for Kelsey and Blaine at Disney’s Boardwalk Resort, Disney’s Yacht Club Resort and Disney’s Beach Club Resort.
Then we headed back to Epcot to explore Future World. Of course, plant-mom Caity loved The Land and we had such a good meal at the quick service restaurant there.
On Monday night we were back at Epcot for the wedding reception and honestly I wish I had taken more photos of what it was like to be in the park after closing. I had seen the behind-the-scenes cast member areas and entrances when I was in high school but we got to enter that way again for the reception. I popped outside several times during the later part of their reception just to take in Epcot after hours. It was so beautiful, calm and special.
Tuesday morning, after just 4-5 hours of sleep, we were up and taking on Magic Kingdom! We didn’t have tickets to Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween party but experiencing the park prior to Halloween even during the day was so fun!
My two most favorite rides are the Haunted Mansion and It’s A Small World so riding those made me a very happy mouse. And then I woofed down a raspberry dole whip in Adventureland and off we went to ride more rides!
It rained and we kept walking, exploring and riding anyway! Mid-afternoon we took a monorail ride over to the Polynesian (the resort we always stayed at when I was a kid) for drinks and to take in the smells. Have you ever noticed how each resort smells different!? It’s magical.
I talked Caity into riding Splash Mountain even though she was legitimately terrified. If you haven’t seen it, pop over to my Instagram Story Highlights (click on the Disney one) to watch her reaction! HILARIOUS.
For dinner, I made a reservation at Boma, located at Animal Kingdom Lodge because Caity is grain, gluten and dairy free and I wanted her to be able to experience the glorious foods of Disney without it being a challenge like it normally is. We got there early and loved walking around the resort to see the animals.
At dinner, the chef personally walked Caity through the entire buffet helping her determine what she could and couldn’t eat. It was the first time on our trip that she had a full plate of food and I was so relieved! Of course, dessert time came around and I had 500 zebra cups while she ate grapes… but hey… she ate!
On our last morning, we didn’t have to catch our Magical Express bus until after breakfast time so we meandered through Pop Century a bit and explored all of the really cool installations they have. It’s funny because you’d think that at Disney, people would wake up super early but we found that even our mid-morning rise allowed us to explore the resort while it was quiet. I’m guessing all of the early risers went to rope drop at parks and had been long gone from their resort.
^^ Caity’s bags on the left. Mine on the right. Our packing amounts match our height differences.
This was one of the most fun-but-exhausting trips I’ve taken in a while. I felt so lucky to be tagging along with Caity and to be able to call ourselves Walt Disney World Wedding Photographers if not just for a brief time! I hope you enjoyed scrolling through this iPhone photo dump of our 4 days at Disney World!