2013 Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings Bridal Showcase Recap

OK, who wants to see 380+ photos of Saturday’s 2013 Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings Bridal Showcase?

This time around, there were fewer components than at 2011’s showcase—no dresses to try on, no fashion show, no panel of experts, no luncheon with David Tutera—but the main event was bigger and more focused. They also improved the “talk to a planner” option, moving from brief meet-and-greets with the promise of an email to blocks of one-on-one time for asking questions and getting real answers.

It was nice that they had a cast member stationed outside the storybook entrance to take photos of guests with their own cameras.

The 2013 showcase was held at the Contemporary resort instead of the Grand Floridian. The extra space and the addition of a dedicated room for appointments with planners was great. The bland main ballroom would have benefited from more draping and uplighting, though, which would have doubled as a showcase of the types of decor available.

My favorite part is always the display cakes—and minicakes! The folks on the DIS Boards’ Cake Chatter thread are always looking for cake inspiration, and this year’s might be the best yet.

FAVORITE!

Cinderella’s Glass Coach was on hand for photos…

As was… Headless Cinderella?!!

There was a check-in table for appointments with wedding planners, and then a separate room set up for the meetings.

It was a nice example of some of the types of furniture you can bring in for an event, including (inexplicably but awesomely) FIRE!

Registration for the event included a bag full of brochures, plus bride and groom pens.

Alfred Angelo had a table, more sample gowns, and a drawing for a gift bag.

The Walt Disney World Florist had four table mockups scattered around the room. These ended up acting as overflow seating for David Tutera’s appearance.

The new, Disney-owned Senses Spa at the Grand Floridian had a table with photos and a signup sheet for more information.

Sephora was there doing mini makeovers and manicures using products from Disney’s new Jasmine collection of cosmetics.

This first photo was taken at the end of the event, so you’ll have to just imagine the HORDES of people lined up for my favorite area of the room, the cake tables.

Pastry chefs from the Grand Floridian and the Contemporary were on hand to pass out cake samples and do live demos. At first I thought the huge line was for the the cake samples, but when I got to the front, it turned out to be for free sugar flowers that the chefs were decorating and handing out.

It turns out Chef Richard here created our amazing first anniversary cake, which was inspired by our wedding cake but came with a completely original fondant topper he dreamed up.

FAVORITE!

At the next table, a pastry chef was hand-painting some of the various white chocolate Disney characters you can get on or around a cake.

They had small samples of various cake and filling combinations, almost all of them sullied by fruit, so I can’t tell you how they tasted.

Oreo Mint Shots

Deconstructed Chocolate-covered Strawberries

Hazelnut Cake with Cappuccino Mousse, Banana Chip Cake with Salted Caramel Mousse & Coconut Cake with Tropical Mousse

Plus Red Velvet Cake with Goat Cheese Mousse

Something That I Don’t Know What It Was

They couldn’t keep these white- and dark-chocolate strawberry pops in stock!

Down at the Contemporary pastry team’s table, we finally got to meet Chef Brian in person. Not only did he create our wedding cake, he did Nate & Jensey’s adorable Christmas anniversary cake and the gorgeous 5th anniversary cake we had delivered to our room the night before!

The cake he’s best known for on the DIS is an elaborate Haunted Mansion-themed anniversary cake that people have been asking him to re-create for years now. At the showcase, he and his team debuted a new Haunted Mansion wedding cake design that was a hit with my Twitter pals!

They’d also assembled mockups of all but one of the Escape Collection wedding cakes you can choose from, including the one I like to call “Everything But the Kitchen Sink”…

On the opposite side of the room were booths for sampling food, plus a table full of appetizers.

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My favorite was the Coffee & Porcini Dusted Pork Tenderloin with Dark Rum Demi over Creamy Herb Polenta, because you couldn’t actually taste the coffee or the rum!

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The scallops in spoons looked like they’d be fantastic but turned out to be kinda rubbery and bland. But they sure looked cool in a sorta steampunk/Dalek way…

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There was also a Poached Pear & Smoked Gouda Salad that tasted like one of Hot Dog On A Stick’s fried cheese sticks.

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Last was the vegetarian option, which they called Pan-Seared Bean “Cake,” Swiss Chard with Spicy Charred Tomato Sauce (the scare quotes were so that Lurkyloo wouldn’t gobble them all up thinking they were real cake). Patrick, who will eat and enjoy just about anything, said this was pretty dreadful, so I stayed away.

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There were also two signature cocktails, one real and one mock, called “Something Blue” and “Something Almost Blue.”

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Next to that was a table for Disney’s Vero Beach Resort, which also hosts weddings and seems to function independently of Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings.

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They were handing out cute little bags of graham cracker sand with chocolate turtles and slightly creepy fondant turtle eggs (I dunno why I had no qualms about biting off a turtle’s head, yet eating the poor thing’s eggs just sketched me out!).

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Disney Event Photography had dozens of sample albums and photobooks on display, plus portraits.

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I was surprised that Bruno White, the vendor that does Disney’s videography, didn’t have big screens showing their videos at their booth, just a laptop.

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Oh yes, and this DVD case.

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Disney had a setup where you could have a portrait taken by Disney Event photographer.

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Not sure what the connection was for Disney Golf… things for the groom to do with his buddies before the big day? At any rate, their booth gave Patrick a chance to ham it up with the freaky Mickey golf cart—that thing’s scarier than the clown at BoardWalk Inn’s Luna Park pool!

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Aiyeeeeeeeeeeeee!
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When we later had trouble finding seats for David Tutera’s presentation, I wanted to watch from the golf cart, but Patrick wouldn’t let me…

Whatta view, whatta VIEW!
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Kingdom Magic Travel got to be the only one of the dozens of Disney-focused travel agencies that had a booth at the showcase.

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There was also a booth for Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings’ other stationer, the one that’s not Impressions. I think she probably got really tired of people coming up and asking her where Shelly from Impressions was…

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I don’t even remember the music at the last bridal showcase, but I thought it was a great idea to have a DJ spinning party tunes this time. It made the event feel much more energetic (although it also gave Patrick an opportunity to bust out a very bad approximation of Gangnam Style).

DJ Charles Miles

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And then we spotted this girl’s AMAZING Snow White shoes!

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Somehow, Patrick managed to find us two seats for the David Tutera show at the last minute. All of the empty ones you see here were being saved.

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The mother-of-the-bride character from the last bridal showcase turned up as the warmup act for Tutera. She was up to her usual tricks—namely, embarrassing grooms-to-be.

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And then… David Tutera happened! He may actually have been lowered in from the ceiling on a trapeze, or perhaps he spontaneously materialized onstage. I don’t know because all I could see was this:

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Ah! There he is!
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Tutera spent 15 or 20 minutes catching us up on everything he’s been doing and then turned things over to the audience for Q&A. It was interesting to hear the kinds of questions brides and grooms had. Lots of family stuff, and a few situations so similar that answering them was like Magic 8-Ball.

“Signs point to yes.”
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“Mmmmm…. reply hazy. Try again.”
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Just like on reality TV, there was one question that had Tutera looking deep into a weepy bride’s eyes and dramatically offering support, plus a confrontation with and public shaming of some poor mom who wasn’t familiar with the practice of daytime wedding ceremonies. Oh, and plenty of hugs for everyone!

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I was particularly interested in his answer to a question about brides and grooms seeing each other before the ceremony for a private “first look” to facilitate photography. According to Tutera, 80% of grooms aren’t even looking when the bride starts down the aisle, so nothing is missed by doing a first look—and something is gained!

At the end, he helped the mother-in-law draw the name of the contest winner, who scored a 5-night Walt Disney World honeymoon.

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Tutera was whisked offstage before the Hug Brigade could corner him, and most of the audience took that as their cue to leave. The last hour of the event was much mellower and a great time for snapping people-free pics. I got to meet several members of the DIS brides Facebook group, and it was fun to hear their wedding plans and impressions of the event.

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Some of the brides who hadn’t been to Disney’s 2011 showcase felt this one didn’t have enough to do, while those of us who’d been before thought this one was an improvement over the first one. It will be interesting to see what the next showcase is like!

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14 Responses
  • Shelley
    February 17, 2013

    Carrie!! Amazing coverage!!!! I’m blown away by your pictures! And your “where’s Shelley” comment made me laugh–I was there before the show. I did the place cards and menus and signs for three of the showcase tables and unveiled our brand new exclusive only for WDW brides invitation in the goody bags, but the booths were for the Disney business units and large corporate partners like Alfred Angelo and Sephora. The stationer that was on site is a division of the manufacturer of the invitations inspired by the Disney princesses. We carry those ones too, but we are just a dealer. We don’t manufacture them. (I just mess with them and add to them with glitter ink and character art on the envelopes and stuff. Lol!) Hope that makes sense– promise I wasn’t a no-show! But thanks again for your awesome pictures and commentary!!

    • Carrie
      February 17, 2013

      A-ha! Thanks for clearing that up, Shelley! Glad to hear you got to participate. 🙂

  • Hope
    February 16, 2013

    Thanks for the recap. I liked it a lot and felt like I was there. The level of artistry in the baking department over there is amazing! I’m in awe. It’s also cool that you got to see the people that have created cakes for you guys over the years. I love running into people from our wedding-day past and thanking them all over again (even though they most likely don’t remember who we are or what they did for us. lol)

    Are you going to the one at Disneyland in a few weeks or did you give up on them altogether?

    • Carrie
      February 16, 2013

      Oooh! When is it? I’ll go to that one too, if I can – last time they had free cake samples!

      • Hope
        February 16, 2013

        It’s Sunday March 17th at the DL Hotel Grand Ballroom. I haven’t been able to find free tickets online like in year’s past so I’m not sure if we’ll get to go or if we’ll just lurk from afar. Hopefully they’ll follow in WDW’s example and build upon what they offered last year. I think it’s a great chance for them to showcase what Disneyland has to offer.

        • Carrie
          February 17, 2013

          Thanks for the info! I liked how last year Disneyland had two rooms set up for receptions during the bridal show, and actually I was surprised that DFTW in Florida didn’t do that for their showcase this year. Hopefully Disneyland will do that again this time.

  • Claire (Chilly)
    February 15, 2013

    I wasn’t very good at guessing which cake was your fav.

    • Carrie
      February 15, 2013

      LOL! Well, I liked a lot of them, really. The sand-bucket one and the blue one with cherry blossoms were my other favorites!

  • Elizabeth
    February 15, 2013

    Great photos!

    Is that “grey stuff” in that Oreo concoction?

    And boooo Patrick for not wanting to watch from the golf cart! lol

    • Carrie
      February 15, 2013

      Good eye! It was similar, but not as fake-tasting as the Grey Stuff at BOG.

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