Custom VS Escape & some toher ?'s

[dakcp2001]

HI there! I am just getting started, and I am totally overwhelmed with questions and details!!! Heeeellppp!

I am really torn! We would rather have an escape wedding, but the guest list is 25 people. If people bring their children we will be closer to 30. I know normally people do not all say yes to a destination wedding, but it is immediate family (DF has a lot of siblings)

How possible is it to stay at the 10K mark with a custom? What is NOT included in the 10K so I can plan a budget? Im guessing dress, airfare, honeymoon, but what am I leaving out? ANy tips on keeping it low? Does that include our stay at a Disney resort?

How much was your total cost of the escape once all was said and done? What additional expenses did you ahve on top of the escape package?

If I do get a lot of "no " responses, is it possible to change form a custom to escape mid planning?

How far in advance do I need to book a date?

How did your families react when you annouced you were having a destination wedding?

WIll your guests be covering all of their own hotels & park tickets etc?







I am feeling VERY overwhelmed with the details, please help!

 

[JaxTeach]

We had an Escape wedding. We invited close to 30 people. At one point we had 26 attending (including us). We asked for 6 people to possibly not attend the ceremony (signficant others of our friends, 1 baby, and 1 almost teenage boy). One of my friends (5 people in her family) couldn't come because her children had a play that evening-- which totally saved us. One of DH's cousins and his wife (with the baby) sat out and we were under our maximum count. The guest count, per my planner, is for the ceremony only. All other events can have more guests. DFTW will help plan the other events, but they do not help the Escape brides on the wedding day as they do Custom brides (i.e. my friends had to set up our reception room, my brother sort of coordinated moving people from place to place).

We had an Escape and paid as much as a Custom (we actually paid Disney $9460.55 of which about $1200 was refunded), but we had every element we wanted. We had Randy Chapman, STVS do our video, Whimsical Wey provide our floral-- if we had gone the Custom route, we would have used Disney so those things would count towards our minimum. We had our MK Bridal Portraits (which I have heard do not count towards your minimum anyway). We had our dinner at the Contemporary and our dessert paty @ the UK Upper Terrace. We had no Disney minimums to meet (except for the CG). I would not have had my wedding any other way.

Here is a rough estimate of what we paid (keep in mind the Escape base price has since increased):
Escape package: $2950
Groom's Cake : $266
CG Sonoma Room Dinner (21 guests; $2000 minimum for after 5pm): $3000 (this included 3.5 hours of beverages for 21 people, 4 bottles of wine, 21 appetizers, 2 children's meals, 19 adult meals, 21 custom desserts)
Wedding Cake upgrade: $190
Dessert Party (19 people; includes food, venue rental, transportation): $1395
MK/Epcot Bridal Photo Shoot: $1300
Disney Floral (for DP, Mickey purse, cake serving set, low-res CD): $300

You also must stay @ a Disney resort for 4 nights-- you can split your stay, which I thought was nice. We were originally going to spend 2 nights @ the Boardwalk and 2 nights @ POP, but my FIL said he'd pay for all 4 nights @ BWI.

I hope that helps a bit. DH and I toyed around with switching from Escape to Custom, but we would have had to add a bunch of extras we didn't want/need. We never officially asked our planner, so I don't have a firm answer on whether you can switch or not.

As I did not have Custom, I'm not a lot of help, but I know several DIS brides have gone the Custom route and stayed close to $10k. Remember, that is $10k before taxes (and gratuities, I believe). Disney charges a 20% service charge and 6.5% tax on many wedding items. Custom brides have a room block to fill-- I think 25 nights is the minimum. The bride & groom do get a comp room for their wedding night (I think-- a Custom bride will come along to correct this!). You will have to pay for your officiant, marriage license, transportation to FL, wedding attire, honeymoon, rings, accomodations in Orlando, hair & makeup, stationery (invitatations, programs, thank you cards)-- those are all non-DFTW charges to think about.

To answer a couple of your other questions, some places you can book at 12 months out-- others can only be officially booked @ 9 months, but they will "pencil you in" earlier.

My parents knew I would never have a "traditional" wedding, so they had no problems. DH's family knows he is a Disney fanatic, so there were no problems there. Our families all know that we spend most of our free time @ Disney so we were lucky to have no complaining.

Our guests paid for their own transportation, accomodations, and park tickets. We paid for our Welcome Dinner and all events from 2:30pm-10:00pm on our wedding day.

 

[dakcp2001]

Your info is super helpful! TY!!!

 

[irisbud]

HI there! I am just getting started, and I am totally overwhelmed with questions and details!!! Heeeellppp!

I am really torn! We would rather have an escape wedding, but the guest list is 25 people. If people bring their children we will be closer to 30. I know normally people do not all say yes to a destination wedding, but it is immediate family (DF has a lot of siblings)

How possible is it to stay at the 10K mark with a custom? What is NOT included in the 10K so I can plan a budget? Im guessing dress, airfare, honeymoon, but what am I leaving out? ANy tips on keeping it low? Does that include our stay at a Disney resort?

How much was your total cost of the escape once all was said and done? What additional expenses did you ahve on top of the escape package?

If I do get a lot of "no " responses, is it possible to change form a custom to escape mid planning?

How far in advance do I need to book a date?

How did your families react when you annouced you were having a destination wedding?

WIll your guests be covering all of their own hotels & park tickets etc?







I am feeling VERY overwhelmed with the details, please help!

Hi dacp

Right now, I am having some of the same issues as you, with guest list, though I am doing an Escape Wedding no matter what. The costs of the Wishes wedding simply is not worth it to me to add a few extra guests. They are lovely, but it would be a strain.

At first, we thought we would be way under. BF is not very close to his family, so we figured just a couple of them. He called his Mom and asked her to get an idea of which siblings would be interested in going. Ooops, all of them!

Now we have BF mom, BF bro 1 and wife, BF bro 2 wife and child, BF bro 3 wife and child, BF sis, husband and child, My mom, dad and sis, my best friend, three mutual friends who are very important to us, sis's boy friend, and my best firend's mother, who is also important to me, My BF's two best friends who are supposed to be best men, and their wives. (This makes the guest list 25).

I agonized over this. Should we go higher? If we're going to go higher, then it will go way high, as with the EW we can say "sorry, Disney said only 18 guests, we will have a reception at home you can join us for". With the Wishes wedding, there are some we could or should invite, but every guest makes the cost go up, and up, and up, and it's already pushing.

So, I am slashing the list. Sorry, no children under 16. Bye two of BF's brothers kids that we never see. (23 to go!). Bye sister's BF I have met once (22 left!). This leaves four, but I am reasonably sure all who said they are going will not actually be when the time comes. If they are, four more can do as the slashed guests are and join us for lunch following the ceremony. I know this seems harsh, but we see BF's side of the familly once a year. They have already been told that some wives, etc. may not be able to attend if all come.

My big thing was hating to pay for a wishes wedding and then ending up with 18 guests or less anyway (I have a feeling this would happen).

I am planning on doing a little extra floral and customizing our cake. I don't know how much these things will cost yet.

I don't know if you can change weddings mid planning.

I have already booked the date of SBP, though they can't so a letter of agreement until 2009 prices are realesed (Doreen thought around May). SBP and YC Gazebo can be booked at 12 months. The WP can be booked at eight months.

My family didn't care about us going to WDW and neither did BFs family. My mom was a bit skeptical, but was fine with it once I explained our reasons.

Our guests will have to pay their own travel and ticket costs.

HTH

Good luck whatever you decide

 

[lurkyloo]

We had a custom wedding for only about $60 over the $10K minimum, and it was totally worth it for me just to have the extra flexibility and service provided with a custom wedding. Some of the things we knew we wanted - dessert party, brunch reception - would have made an Escape wedding cost nearly as much, and it would have been a hassle to do all the legwork ourselves. There are several other brides who have been able to keep to the minimums too.

We kept costs down by having brunch instead of dinner, skipping the DJ and dancing, cutting out centerpieces and almost all other floral (just bouquet, boutonniere and cheap-o altar arrangements). Meeting the 25-night minimum for the room block was not a problem because our honeymoon stay counted toward it. Also, I have heard they can be flexible on that number if there are extenuating circumstances (like you and all your guests live in Orlando or whatever).

Oh, and yes, you can always switch to the other kind of wedding in the middle of planning!

Hope this helps!

 

[DisBride2007]

I'll try to help you with some of your questions. First of all, congratulations! I, like Carrie, had a Custom wedding at Epcot, and it was our goal to stay as close to the $10k minimum as possible (I don't think we came as close as she did, but that would be impossible!) We also deliberated between a Custom and Intimate wedding, but eventually decided to do the custom for a few reasons - first of all because if we did the intimate, we would have only been able to invite immediate family (and that would have left out a lot of people), and second because the locations for the Intimate weddings really left something to be desired for us. We really only felt it was worth it to have the wedding at Disney if we could have it in the parks. So Custom it was. We invited around 50 people, and ultimately had 31 guests.

With the budget, you could easily stay at $10k. You won't be able to include something like Cinderella's coach, but you can certainly include plenty of things that will make your wedding special. Floral is the place where it really adds up quickly, but you can find less expensive centerpieces and save money on decor at the ceremony cite. Having a morning ceremony and a lunchtime reception will keep costs down, as food & beverage minimums go up after 2:00 pm. In fact, we found that by having a reception that ended around 3 pm, most of our guests ended up traveling home that same day, and didn't need to pay for another hotel night! The one thing that most people would recommend NOT including toward your minimum is photography, if for no other reason than that a private photographer will give you the rights to your photos.

As far as the reaction goes we didn't really hear anything negative. Most of our guests would have had to travel anyway, so they might as well make a vacation out of it and go somewhere nice in the middle of the winter! However, there were a number of people who did not come because they would have had to travel. If we had had a wedding in our hometown, we would have had a lot more than 31 guests. But for the most part the reaction was pretty positive. As far as paying for guests, most of the brides on this board (myself included) did not pay for anyone's accommodations, unless it was someone who was very special who couldn't afford it, or if it was someone like an officiant who was traveling for that reason. I don't think any of the guests really expect it - would you put them up in a hotel if you had a wedding in your hometown? If you include a Value resort in your room block, it's very reasonable to stay on property. Some people may have an idea that a Disney vacation is more expensive than it has to be.

HTH and good luck with your decisions!

 

[B2B-2008]

Hi,

I had this debate over which wedding to choose as we only have 12 people going to Florida including us. Because of the reasons stated by lurkyloo and DisBride2007 we are now in the middle of planning our wishes wedding. And I'm really hoping to stay as close as possible to the 10k min.