4/29/11 Royal Wedding Sleepover, Grand Floridian Wedding Pavilion – William and Kate Viewing Event!

Hi everyone!

Walt Disney World's Grand Floridian Resort hosted a "Royal Sleepover", which I signed up for on Twitter just minutes after it was announced. What a wonderful time!  The event was free to guests (I keep getting asked that!), and included English and American continental breakfast items, as well as a great viewing of the Royal Wedding. The event was even punctuated by a lovely fireworks display.

I didn't sign up for the Royal Sleepover only to cover it for the website. 30 years ago (as a high school student), I woke up early to watch Princess Diana as she married Prince Charles.  It was a gorgeous wedding, and back then there was no internet, I don't even think we had a VCR yet. There was no way to see the wedding at whim. While that is different now, I still wanted to repeat the experience of seeing it firsthand. Seeing it with hundreds of other guests at Disney was a huge bonus! Guests were invited to dress up in their wedding best, or in bridal gowns – or pajamas.

One of the things I enjoyed most compared with 1981 is that I am familiar with London now.  I've made three trips there in the last 6 years, and I've had the opportunity to tour some public areas of Buckingham Palace as well (it's not usually open to the public, but there is a window of opportunity each year).  It was really fun to see the celebration in areas of London I've been to.

We woke up at 2:50am this morning, and arrived to the Magic Kingdom parking area before 4:00am:

 

 

We were brought to the Grand Floridian Wedding Pavilion by bus:

 

 

I'd thought that the first 250 guests who signed up were able to see the event inside the Wedding Pavilion (as opposed to the beach). It turned out, that it was the first 250 who arrived. We were among that – nearly everyone was.  The Wedding Pavilion is one of the few public areas of Walt Disney World I've not been in, so that was a treat for me.

 

 

There was an introduction inside the Wedding Pavilion, and we were told they were also going to be filming short segments for Good Morning, America.

 

 

Major Domo, who we saw later at Epcot (keep reading!):

 

 

 

John from Disney gets some young children to look his way (and there were quite a few kids):

 

 

 

Looking up at the ceiling:

 

 

 

"Franck" is being led away from the front of the room:

 

 

 

I headed outside to take some photos, including of the food and carriage. There will be better photos later in the article, when daylight sets in. We also have a video that shows highlights of the event!

 

 

Beautiful dresses from Disney's Fairy Tale Weddings and Alfred Angelo included creations inspired by Rapunzel and Cinderella.

 

 

 

There was a wedding display set up, and it was barely evident that the items were for sale.  I would like to have seen some Royal wedding merchandise brought over from the United Kingdom pavilion, including the reasonably priced William and Kate paper dolls.