Anyone Charge For Their Welcome Party/Rehearsal Dinner?

[rose8889]

We are having about 100 people at our wedding from USA and Canada. As of right now our per person price for the wedding day is $ 270.00 (trying to get this reduced by cutting a few things but that is worse case scenario)

We are getting married on a Friday and have had multiple people ask if we are doing anything on Thursday night that they could join us for.

We were thinking of having an optional welcome party at the Grand Floridian Marina. (it will be from 8:30 to 11:30 so we get to watch the fireworks) It is going to cost $ 70 a person. We just cant cover another $70.00 in that per person price.

We could have just our wedding party and close family but really want to offer it to everyone.

We were thinking charging $ 40.00 per person and having a cash bar if people want to come they come if not they don’t have to.

Anybody done anything like that or any opinions?

i wanted to do something similar for my welcome party. Are you combining a dinner on the Marina with the Wishes fire works? I was interested in doing that. From your post, i can see it is going to be $70.00pp. Would you mind telling me what's included? is it buffest style? do you have to add in seating?

i hope everything works out. I think you should just make it a wedding party/family event. And maybe do an informal "meet and greet" in a hotel bar/lobby/lounge and let people pass through informally.

 

[DisneyLeah]

I had a welcome "cocktail" style party the night before my wedding, and it was $28 pp. We had started to run out of room in our budget as well, so we just choose a smaller menu that we knew people would like, and offered just a soda options instead of offering alcohol to keep costs down. The food was really good, and my guests really enjoyed it. I'm normally not in favour of cash bars, but if you are offering alcohol at another event, I don't really see the problem with having a cash one at a welcome party.

If you are interested, I can post my menu on here!

Hi all - I know this was a hot button post for some folks, but I'm also still interested in alternatives for welcome parties. Amongst the discussion, there were some cool, new ideas posted, so I decided to reply here.

Boardwalk_bride - can I take you up on your offer to post your menu and tell us about your welcome party?

thanks!
Leah

 

[sambycat]

we are staying off property. we are hving quick rehearsal that the bridal party will attend. then we will order pizzas or something to the condo and have sodas for anyone that is interested in coming by at lunch time.

people can do whatever they like of course, and obviously this board is a true wealth of ideas, but it makes me laugh when people ask those uncomfortable etiquette questions then are upset when folks respond with do what you like, but, socially, that is kinda rude. i hope noone is feeling flamed, and again, you can do whatever you want and every one may indeed be ok with that in your family! good luck, but i stand firmly with the pay for them and do what you can afford. period.

 

[sambycat]

actually i am not saying YOU are upset, just some of us respondents!!

 

[LuluLovesDisney]

As others have said charging your guests isn't a good move and many of your guests could be surprised or hurt by this choice. I had my rehearsal/Welcome Party (I invited everyone) at the Rainforest Cafe in DTD. They did a great job and they had very reasonable prices, much cheaper than other options through Disney. Maybe check them out?

 

[alwaysdisney]

My parents are staying in the grand villa suite at the Boardwalk resort so I think we are planning on doing a casual "come if you desire" welcome party. I am going to try and find a local place where I can spend a few $100 on finger foods and beverages. Its not in our budget to plan an extra event. Without the in laws helping out, we definitely cant find a way to afford this on our own!
If you are looking for a great place to meet and hang out, the Boardwalk has the Dueling Pianos bar and the Atlantic Dance Hall as well! Both are fun relaxing environments with bars!
Good luck!

.

We are also staying at the grand villa at Boardwalk and we're having only 25 people so we decided to have disney boardwalk cater a welcome wedding party inside the villa and it's costing us $1000.00. We were thinkging of having a DP at Epcot but by the time we added the extra's we decided for $300.00 more, we can actually have a dinner & desert inside our villa, & we could possibly watch the firworks from Epcot on the balcony.

 

[alwaysdisney]

I think I need to explain, we looked at Escape Weddings and getting married at the WP for $5700.00. I seen alot of video's of brides getting married at Disney and the ceremonies lasted no longer then 30 minutes.
This is are 2nd marriage and while it would have been nice to get the Escape Wedding, the items that came with it, the 4 hour limo, the 2 tier wedding cake, the Disney photographer for 2 hours & 2 annual park passes, we just could not use the rest of these items. We already have annual passes, we're not that much into desserts, did not need the limo, we could not justify for us, spending $5700.00 on 30 minutes. We thought 'what is important to us' and the answer was simple 'family and friends'. Now, don't get me wrong, we're going to spend the money but on what? Humm, we decided in Dec last year, that we would get married off of property and do the followng: Upgrade to a grand villa, treat everyone to a Welcome Grand Gathering inside our villa, (it was easier for us to have Disney's Boardwalk to cater this in), the day of our wedding get married at a friend of the family's estate house, (it's very big), then go back to the grand villa, change & treat everyone to the 1900 Fair Park for the all you can eat buffet. The next day everyone can enjoy their resorts, go in the pools or to the parks and then that night, have eveyone meet at our villa and we are treating everyone to the Hoop Dee Do Musical Review & to close out our 3 days, we also brought everyone's ticket to the Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. This works for us... plus our wedding is just our family and some friends and that's it. So you see, let's treat our 'guests' as 'guests' because they are spending the money for airfare and resorts and taking time out of their busy lifes to be part of your special day and not to pay for a 'wedding event', like we would for a business conference.