Hello Moncrief3.
We didn't use a wedding planner. We did everything ourselves. It was very time consuming but thank god for my wife! She made a lot of the arrangements from invitations to hotels etc. I dealt mostly with the House of Blues.
For the wedding itself we used sensational ceremonies and they made a lot of the arrangements with the House of Blues to get the archway in back, chairs, photographer, licenses etc They were awesome! They made everyone go extremely smoothly!
https://www.sensationalceremonies.com/locations-weddings/central-florida/
Glynn ended up bringing in an assistant for the wedding as we had over 30 guests (couples and children mostly). The numbers add up fast with the plus ones!
We picked the house of of blues not just because it was an excellent place but being in Disney Spring (downtown disney at the time) it gave our guests a central place to meet everyone if they were in a disney hotel or not. And the parking there is great or you can drink and take the buses back to the hotels.
For the House of Blues we contacted them directly for wedding dinners and drinks etc. They were excellent as well. Unfortunately they don`t do a lot of evening wedding so you may have to be flexible with the date or you can do an afternoon wedding. The house of blues set up a tab for guests, created a unique dinner menu and provided us with a VIP rooms in the concert area to get changed. They don`t usually let people in there for weddings but it was empty that night.
They have event packages that you can look into depending on the size of your party from a buffet room, food, drinks etc but we went with the basics. Dinner, open bar, and a good time!
Their drink packages were expensive but we brought wrist bands from home. They were something they wouldnt have in Florida something unique and we ran a tab. In the long run it was a lot cheaper and the guests could drink what ever they wanted. The drink packages were in stages IE beer wines, beers and some alcohols to premium alcohols. We were a little bit lost with packages because of the children attending and some of my friends can really drink too! If you can negotiate something with the drink it will save you some money depending on the size of your party.
The house of blues ended up putting us in the side room just off the restaurant which was great too. It separated us from the main dining area and gave us a more private feel. We were only alotted 2 hours for dinners speeches, etc but we were allowed to drink on the patio still after settles the taps with all your guests.
I don`t know if the house of blues books the archway directly with guests or if you need a third party to do it from you. If you skip the wedding planners or 3rd party wedding coordinators you may want to ask the House of Blues.
The house of blues and Glynn made everything excellent on our day.
I would say thou that you have to be okay with people watching you because anywhere in Disney there are a lot of people so you have to okay with strangers stopping to watch the ceremonies for a few minutes. Although House of blues is at the end of the Disney Springs so it wasn't too bad on our night.