An Unofficial Universal Orlando Resort Wedding

A traditional wedding can be quite expensive, and from what I’ve heard, stressful. This continues to be true if you’re planning an official theme park wedding! You have to consider a private space, staff, chair set up, dance floor set up, music or entertainment, sound equipment, catering, dessert, and even more. But what if I told you… getting married could be easy?

I got married a couple months ago, and wanted to do something low-stress. It made sense for us to tie the knot in our favorite place, so we looked into blogs and videos documenting the experiences of others who were married at Universal Orlando. We’re also a little shy, and found the pomp and circumstance of a traditional wedding to be pretty anxiety-inducing. Fortunately, we came across the idea for a sorta-secret “ambush” or “guerilla-style” ceremony in the parks.

This basically means you take the smallest group possible (just the couple and officiant, and maybe a witness or a few immediate family members) to a location out of the way of crowds and breeze through a quick ceremony. This is just what we did!

We had our ceremony right outside of Universal Studios Florida, on a landing above the ferry stop. Most folks have no reason to go over to this spot, so it was empty and we got through our 15-minute ceremony uninterrupted. Our family stood near us and we walked back to CityWalk afterwards for dinner and dessert. This made it easy, because no one had to buy a park ticket and we were nice and out of the way.

If you choose to attempt this type of wedding, keep the following things in mind. Stay out of the way of crowds or views. Be prepared to be asked to move if you have a larger group or a team member determines that you’re blocking traffic or otherwise in the way. Be quick and efficient- you might start impacting others’ experiences if you’re standing in one spot for too too long. Lastly, be sure to be well-aware of the legal stuff (like requirements for marriage and steps that need to be taken in advance of the ceremony).

It was a lovely, lovely time and went super smoothly. This type of activity probably isn’t necessarily encouraged by Universal, but as long as you’re respectful of the rules and of others (and maybe have a back-up plan) it can be a great experience.