Complete details on this venue, including pricing and capacity, may be found in Carrie Hayward’s Fairytale Weddings Guide.
Whitehall Room & Patio – Grand Floridian
Complete details on this venue, including pricing and capacity, may be found in Carrie Hayward’s Fairytale Weddings Guide.
Looking for info on using the patio only for a bridal brunch or regular shower. Need cost and food spending requirements.
Hi Shannon! The prices depend on whether you are already planning a Disney’s Fairy Tale Wedding or you want to plan via Disney Meetings & Events. You can find them in Chapter 3 of my Fairytale Weddings Guide and some info about planning via DFTW vs. Disney Meetings & Events in this post.
How many people does the White Hall Room and patio hold for a wedding reception??
Forty to 60, depending on whether you have a dance floor.
Is there a place for the bride to get ready if the ceremony is at grand Floridian or do you have to get ready at a hotel.
You would need to either get ready in your hotel room or pay a $500 food and beverage minimum to reserve a ballroom in the GF convention center for getting ready. If you have a large group and were planning to feed them anyway, this is a good option. Otherwise, it may be cheaper to get an additional/larger hotel room, depending on where you’re staying.
Planning on a Disney wedding in the next 2-3 years and Im trying to figure out top 3 locations for ceremony and top 3 for reception on a budget and I was curious if you can have your ceremony on the white hall patio with cocktail hr, then continue into the whitehall for the reception? Any ideas on expected cost for that as a ceremony fee being that its not listed from what I can see. Im starting to save up now for the next 2-3 years and want to prepare for costs before the planning actually begins.
Hi Lyndsey! Ceremony Venue Fees and Event Minimums for Whitehall are on page 55 of Fairytale Weddings Guide! If you own an older version of the eBook, you can download the new one for FREE by following these steps. Disney will probably suggest that you have your cocktail hour elsewhere because they would need to be setting up for it during your ceremony on the patio, which could be disruptive. So you could do the ceremony on the patio, cocktail hour in another nearby ballroom, and then your reception in the Whitehall Room. Or you could follow the patio ceremony with a cocktail hour in the room and then your reception in another ballroom. OR you could follow my favorite plan, which is to eliminate the cocktail hour altogether by doing a first look. Then you’d save money on food and beverages, and you’d probably be able to go directly from the ceremony on the patio to the reception in the room.
Thank you so much, this is definitely at the top of my list for our small 20 person wedding. I’m planning on getting the ebook soon.
Hi Carrie, I have your guide and just want to make sure I am clear. There is no venue fee for this site, but is there a food and beverage minimum? I am wanting a champagne and cake reception with the basic dances, so i just want somewhere bright and happy that is shaded for my family as we will be getting married in the summer. It is between this and Sago Cay Point for my favorites.
Yes, they have been quoting a $3,500 food and beverage minimum to use Whitehall lately. But check with them to see if it’s less for a walkaround reception like the cake & Champagne event than for a full meal.
Hi Carrie,
First of all, your guide book is amazing and exactly what I needed pre-planning to see if a Disney wedding would even fall within our budget. Question…does the Whitehall room include the patio area or are they considered separate venues with different fees? Also, is it possible to get from the Grand Floridian to Epcot for a dessert party and what is the best method for doing so? (I am out of state and not familiar with the park.) Thank you!
Hi Laura! Yes, when you rent the Whitehall Room, you get the patio too at no extra charge. One of the things you can pay Disney for is private guest transportation (see Chapter 7 for pricing) that will take them from the Grand Floridian Convention Center to EPCOT’s backstage area closest to your dessert party venue. The price varies by size and duration. If you have fewer than 35 guests, I recommend using multiple one-way vans instead of a 55-person motor coach. It will save you a significant amount, and you’ll be able to send the vans directly to separate resorts after the party (so guests don’t have to sit on a bus for an hour as it makes the rounds to all your room-blocked resorts).
Can you use whitehall patio as a rain backup for luau pointe ceremony? Would be 20 people total.
Hi! Because it is an in-demand venue for events, you would need to meet Whitehall’s food and beverage minimums in order to hold it as a rain backup. Free rain backups are whatever ballroom is not in use, and for Luau Pointe they are usually at the Contemporary. You could try requesting the Sorcerer’s Apprentice Ballroom at the Contemporary, which has an adjacent courtyard.
Thank you so much for your book. It’s amazing! It says that the room can fit 40-60 people. Is that including the porch? If we wanted to put tables outside as well how many people could we fit. Thank you!
Hi! You can fit up to 70 people at rounds of 10 if you include the covered porch outside: https://www.disneymeetingsandevents.com/disneyworld/grand-floridian/meeting-facilities/
Can you use the patio area only for a small brunch reception (25 guests or less) or would you have to hold this inside?
You get both the areas and can use them however you want. For example, the couple featured on this page with the LEGO superhero cake had everyone seated outside and only used the inside for dancing and the cake-cutting.
Hello, would it be possible to pipe & drape this room?
Yes!
How much roughly do you imagine it would cost to pipe and drape this whole room from Disney? We have this space for our plated dinner reception but I am really stuck with how to make it beautiful!
Hi Laura! Disney charges something like $1,500 or $2,000 per wall for draping now, and Whitehall is octagonal, so that’s a lotta walls! If you really don’t like the way the space looks, you might want to consider another venue that requires less decor. What is your group size?
Hey! Would it be feasible to have a pre-reception/cocktail hour in either the indoor area or the patio and then have the reception in the other spot? The brunch options we were looking at include a cocktail hour and we figured we might as well use it since we wanted to have some of our ceremony decor moved to use as reception centerpieces anyhow.
Hi! OK, first, you do not have to use any menu as it is written (unless you’re at CA Grill), so if you decide you *don’t* want a cocktail hour, you can cut those items. Generally, Disney will not let you use the same space for cocktail hour and reception because they are still setting up for the reception during the cocktail hour. At Whitehall, there’s only one place for the food to be set up (in the hall), so they’d have to swap it from cocktail hour items to reception items in view of your guests, which they don’t like doing.
Can you see the fireworks from the patio?
The highest ones, yes!
Hi Carrie,
With the use of a Disney Dj, are there any music requirements or limitation at the Patio and Whitehall?
Disney DJs have certain artists Disney prohibits them from playing at any venue—your DJ or planner can let you know what the current ones are. Also, if the DJ were on the patio at Whitehall, they wouldn’t be able to play after 10pm.
Hi Carrie, does Disney do tenting for outdoor reception spaces like the Whitehall Patio?
I have never seen it done at any DFTW venue in 16 years of following Disney weddings! However, Whitehall has a substantial amount of space under the covered patio, and I *have* seen receptions there where everything was moved under the covering due to weather. Plus, there’s the inside area, so it’s really a great option if you’re worried about weather!
Hello,
I saw your most recent post for your Podcast and saw the round white dance floor. Would you happen to know which vendor provides that? I asked Disney and they didn’t know and I already reached out to Longwood events rentals.
That bride used MPE Event Group in Miami (they have a $15,000 minimum).
Would you know of any vendors that provide round dance floors for that room?
It looks like Letz Dance On It does round dance floors, as well as Orlando Dance Floor Rental. I’ve never interviewed anyone who used these companies, though—I just Googled them!
Would you happen know the what size that round floor was? Thanks!
I don’t have that info, but Jayde is actually a wedding planner and is working with a few US couples right now. So you might want to contact her directly via her Instagram @jandjeventplanning — she says she’d be happy to help!
Are characters allowed in the Whitehall room?
Yes, characters are allowed at any ballroom, including the Whitehall Room, and on the Whitehall Room’s patio!
Hi Carrie,
Couple questions on using the Whitehall room / patio location for reception
1. Is the firework music piped in to this location? If not, do you know the cost, and if it isn’t is there another location you’d suggest for a reception?
2. For music – I have the fairytale wedding guide of yours and I know I read prior Disney requires you to pay to play music from a phone and cannot use a Bluetooth speaker expect for in ballrooms – so does as far as what you know can you use a Bluetooth speaker here for a first dance, mom/son dad/daughter dance at this location if we didn’t plan on having a DJ? And if we can do you know if we can do that out on the patio? Or only indoors.
3. With this location – if we were to do tables outside can we do our own center pieces? I know on the guide ballrooms is yes, but given this is outdoors which is no does the patio part fall under outdoors or ballrooms?
4. How do tables, table cloths, chairs, linens, and plates and cutlery work? From my understanding in reading the guide is that basic options are included? Is that correct? Do you normally suggest upgrading these options?
Hi Shannon!
1. If you have a DJ, they will play the firework music. Otherwise, it is not piped in and the cost will be the same as having an audio hookup. You could use the Grand Floridian Marina for your reception—it has the music piped in for free!
2. Yes, you can use a bluetooth speaker indoors for first dances. Technically you are not allowed to play it outdoors (and if you want a dance floor, that will be inside anyway!).
3. The patio is considered an outdoor venue, so you are not allowed to DIY centerpieces out there. Sometimes people get away with doing elaborate DIY table numbers (which *are* allowed) as centerpieces, but your mileage may vary…
4. Yes, all of those things are included. If you are trying to keep costs down, I recommend sticking with the ones provided. If decor and the way it looks in photos is important to you, I recommend upgrading. You can use an outside vendor if you have the tables set up indoors. Otherwise, you can get a lot of bang for your buck with Disney’s floral and decor vendor by using overlays on top of the free tablecloths instead of changing the tablecloths and doing centerpieces made with mostly greenery and/or non-floral items like candles, lanterns or stacks of props (books, globes, bell jar with Beast’s rose in it, etc.)
If you have lots of detailed questions like these, it might be easier for us to chat over the phone! You can book 30- or 60-minute consultations here.