Disney Wedding Estimates?

[flamestarrdust]

Is there a thread about this yet? I'm just wondering what the average is that people are paying for their weddings. I have looked on the WDW website and am only getting the wishbook info which isn't very clear. Also, how far in advance should you book? I am thinking of booking for late summer of next year but was wondering if I needed more advance than that. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[hiwaygal]

Cost estimates for Disney weddings vary depending on the type of wedding you are having.

Escape (intimate) weddings are the least expensive at about $4000-$5000 but they are also the most "restrictive" in guest count and what is included (extras add up quickly).

Wishes (custom) weddings are more expensive (there is a $10,000 minimum for most days, some special dates are usually more) but allow you a lot more flexibility in your planning.

The Couture weddings are the most expensive and to be honest, I don't know much about them since they are relatively new to the choices. I know there is at least one (maybe more) brides here planning Couture weddings and they can probably help you more.

For the most part, you can contact Disney about a year out especially if you are looking at a busy time of year or a very specific date/time/location. For my intimate wedding though, I contacted Disney about 5 months in advance.

Since you are considering about this time next year, I would go ahead and contact Disney and get started on the planning. It will help assure that you get the date/time/location you want.

Good luck and keep us posted!

ETA: here's another thread that might also help http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1400194

 

[TinkerFairy]

I just today got our BEO, and I stayed (barely) under 5k with an Escape, with added floral.
Added being corsages for our mothers and boutonnieres for our fathers.

Honestly, I was trying to keep it to a minimum, and I did a pretty good job. Had to save some money for the huge reception back here

 

[caryndisneydiva]

I just today got our BEO, and I stayed (barely) under 5k with an Escape, with added floral.
Added being corsages for our mothers and boutonnieres for our fathers.

Honestly, I was trying to keep it to a minimum, and I did a pretty good job. Had to save some money for the huge reception back here

ok. i'm panicking.i'm a drama queeen. i know...you JUST got your BEO??? i'm almost 4 months out...how long did it take you 2 get your BEO?

 

[flamestarrdust]

I just today got our BEO, and I stayed (barely) under 5k with an Escape, with added floral.
Added being corsages for our mothers and boutonnieres for our fathers.

Honestly, I was trying to keep it to a minimum, and I did a pretty good job. Had to save some money for the huge reception back here

If you don't mind me asking, what did your BEO include exactly? I'm trying to figure out how to keep mine that low. I did want to do the reception at WDW but I'm thinking the idea of doing a big one at home could be a better idea since several people will be unable to attend the ceremony.

 

[TinkerFairy]

caryndisneydiva- Our wedding is October 24, so in my mind, we're cut real close on getting the BEO back in time. I know it's been busy down there, wedding season and all, and we have no problem paying on time, just seems like they don't give you much time. Not sure if this is the norm, or they're just swamped.
Edited to add: We booked at the 8 month mark exactly. I talked to Rosie about 2-3 weeks ago. Ever since I've been anxiously awaiting the BEO.


flamestarrdust- We have the basic Escape package, the only additions we made to it are:
The Magick Kingdom Photos
The extra flowers
2 bottles of sparkling cider for the cake/champaign reception.

The thing with us was, we only wanted our close family to share the ceremony with us. Both my family and his family get along as though we always knew each other, and everyone was geeked that we could travel to Disney as a group. DF and I both wanted a real small ceremony, and I've had my heart set on Disney since I was 5, so there was no other option.

Our reception here (200 people), is costing us a lot more than the Disney part, but it's worth it to us. We went to 3 weddings over the summer, and after seeing how few people attended the ceremony and how many actually came to the reception, we don't regret our choice at all. Not to mention everyone we've talked to thinks we had the best idea, and told us if they could go back and do it again, they'd do it like we have.

Personally, with all the options Disney offers, it can be hard to stay at a bare minimum for your wedding. Rosie assured me that the Wedding Pavillion is beautiful regardless of if I did floral arragements or not. (which I didn't)
Though I'd really like to have Stitch, the carriage, a dessert party, Ect.

The atmosphere, pictures, and memories will by far be the best for us, and that is what counts.

 

[Lizby]

Not to sound like a dummy or anything, but what is a BEO?

 

[4luvofthemouse]

We had our planning session Aug.21 and we recieved our BEO a week after that. We just got our floral budget 2 days ago.
As far as the cost , when we started looking at everything Disney has to offer we decided that we would set our budget higher than what our min. was, that way we wouldn't end up with any surprises.
Our wedding is on a Sat. so we have a high min, 20K. Just to give you an idea, we are having 25 people, Fantasmic Dessert party, 3 characters, caricature artist, major domo, carriage, limo, bus, all the place cards,favors and we are having a huge buffet and all the other bells and whistles we could get.
Your BEO doesn't have your floral budget in it so keeping that in mind while you are doing your other planning helps keeping things low.
The cost of the floral is a little pricey but I am asking for special items that they don't really do on a regular basis.
They really don't tell you the prices of alot of things , but all you have to do is ask and then they will tell.
Our final budget for everything is just a little over 24K, but because we had set our budget higher we didn't have to cut anything out.
As far as booking, for an escape it used to be a couple of weeks ahead and for the wishes it was around a month before. I don't know if they have changed it or not. Our planner told us that they planned a wedding in 2wks last year.
I would just call them and see what they say.

 

[flamestarrdust]

I want to stick with min $5K and I really do want to have a Disney wedding. Add a little girl's natural dreams of a wedding with Disney added on and that equals nothing but the perfect wedding, at least in my eyes.

Tinkerfairy, if you don't mind could you please PM me your BEO? I really do want this as it is my dream come true to be married at WDW.

 

[JaxTeach]

ok. i'm panicking.i'm a drama queeen. i know...you JUST got your BEO??? i'm almost 4 months out...how long did it take you 2 get your BEO?

I was stressing about our BEO as well. We are a little under 3 months out right now. We received our BEO on August 31. I had no problem asking our WP when we would receive this several times since we are splitting our payment 3 ways and can't make money appear with a magic wand. It does seems to take forever to receive! We just received our floral budget this week, 2 weeks after our BEO.

ETA: We are having an Escape wedding, but lots of extras. Custom weddings could be different.

 

[lurkyloo]

Not to sound like a dummy or anything, but what is a BEO?

BEO stands for Banquet Event Order. It is a line-by-line breakdown of every facet of the wedding - names, times, numbers, colors, order of events, etc. It comes with a separate estimated budget outlining the cost of everything in the BEO.

Hope this helps!