california grill? Help!Wedding on a budget!

[sbggirl]

Has anyone looked into having a brunch reception at the California Grill? My fiance and I really want to have our wedding at Disney and though we could afford to spend more, we are trying to stay on an extremely tight budget. One of the sales directors there suggested a ceremony at the wedding pavilion and a brunch at the California Grill. Anyone have any comments? Maybe some other money-saving ideas? Is it even possible to have a fairly large wedding (80 people) on a budget?

 

[Merandab4]

One of the best ways to stay on a budget with that many people is to have an early morning wedding, and then have a brunch like you are suggesting. Generally the breakfast/brunch items are less expensive per person.

Another option that would help you save some $ would be to have a later ceremony, and then have a dessert party at Epcot as your reception. This way you are not serving a meal, but you still have a reception with foods and wine. (it actually doesn't have to be just desserts). This would be good for like a 7pm ceremony because then people should have already ate dinner and would not be upset if they do not receive a meal at the reception.


Also, if you want to save money check in to some other locations. The outdoor locations are less expensive then the wedding pavilion. (but isn't the wp so nice?)

HTH

 

[Lisa1976]

We had the California Grill for our reception dinner as we only had an intimate wedding. There was only 6 of us but the bill was very expensive. Im not sure how much cheaper brunch would be but I do think CG is expensive.

 

[married@wdw]

We decided to do an early morning at Epcot's Italy Pavilion for our wedding, mainly because there was no fee to use an Epcot site and the countries don't open until 11 a.m so we didn't have to get up too early. The Wedding Pavilion fee just seemed like a lot for a place to have the ceremony, and while the WP is beautiful, I still can't believe we were married IN a park! It's been six years, so I don't know if things are priced differenlty now.

There are lots of places at Boardwalk and Yacht & Beach for receptions -- Atlantic Dance was our pick, but there's also Ariel's, the Boardwalk Convention Center, maybe Flying Fish.

Another option might be outdoors at GF somewhere followed by brunch at Narcoossee's.

I do love CG though -- it would be such a nice place for a reception, with that beautiful view of the castle!!!

 

[Kristi1357]

We had our wedding on the beach at the GF at 11am, rather than paying all that money for the WP. Much cheaper to rent some chairs for our guests than rent the WP! We had our luncheon reception immediately following at the California Grill. I know the Napa & Sonoma rooms only hold about 30 guests. I am assuming they are going to allow you to use the main restaurant for 80 people.

During the day, the view of MK was fabulous! It was nice to have the catwalk all to ourselves that afternoon. I'd definately choose the GC again. The staff was awesome!

Also, we saved alot of $$$ by monorailing it over to the CR from the GF after the ceremony too. The Monorail is DH's favorite thing, so it was very appropriate. They let us ride up front of course and we have some really great pictures of us and the monorail. Great way to save money on a limo, IMO. Our guests did have a bus to drive them around that day though.

If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me!
Kristi

 

[sbggirl]

We had our wedding on the beach at the GF at 11am, rather than paying all that money for the WP. Much cheaper to rent some chairs for our guests than rent the WP! We had our luncheon reception immediately following at the California Grill. I know the Napa & Sonoma rooms only hold about 30 guests. I am assuming they are going to allow you to use the main restaurant for 80 people.

During the day, the view of MK was fabulous! It was nice to have the catwalk all to ourselves that afternoon. I'd definately choose the GC again. The staff was awesome!

Also, we saved alot of $$$ by monorailing it over to the CR from the GF after the ceremony too. The Monorail is DH's favorite thing, so it was very appropriate. They let us ride up front of course and we have some really great pictures of us and the monorail. Great way to save money on a limo, IMO. Our guests did have a bus to drive them around that day though.

If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me!
Kristi

Thanks for the info! How did you feel about the costs at the CG. Did you find they were fairly reasonable (given that it is Disney, I guess we can take that for what it is worth). Couple of other questions:
1. Did you have any ceremony music out on the beach?
2. Did you have a DJ at the reception or bag that idea since it was a daytime reception

Curious about your thoughts, thank you so much for the response!

 

[angey77]

We had our intimate wedding at Seabreeze Point and used the limo included to bring our guests to CG. One money-saver is to have the cake delivered to the restaurant for dessert, that saves you about $10 per person right there. Another option is the Disney Dining Experience card. We used ours and it takes 20% off the bill, including alcohol, for 13 of us. The card is only suppposed to be good for seven guests, but with manager approval, you can use it for your entire party.

 

[MiniMe]

Another idea would be to have it on an "off" day like Jan. 1. That helps cut down some of the costs if keeping it fairly big is important.

 

[turtle51]

what is a disney dining card? is this some type of discount card?

 

[angey77]

It is a discount card you can buy that is good for a year of getting 20% off many sit-down restaurants and lounges. It is $75 for general membership and $50 for annual passholders. More info can be found at http://allearsnet.com/din/dde.htm.
Believe me, it is well worth the money. I have used it for four trips in one year and at CG alone for our wedding, we saved almost $150.

 

[twojo21]

angey77, i thought you can only buy the dde/disney dining experience card if you had an annual pass or were a florida resident, thats what disney told us. has this changed?

 

[angey77]

angey77, i thought you can only buy the dde/disney dining experience card if you had an annual pass or were a florida resident, thats what disney told us. has this changed?

Now that you mention it, it does have a price on that site I listed for general public, but it does seem to say right above it that its for AP holders and FL residents. I'm not 100% on if it is open to more than that, as I used to have FL residency and I am an AP holder.