Please Help! What is the lowest price for us to get married in WDW & How should we???

[Disneyfun1]

Please help us!!!

My fiance and I have been together now over 1 3/4 years. We are planning to get married in sept 05. We are both divorced, having lasted 17 years in my first marriage, and her about 11 years. We met each other while going through our divorces and worked together to get through them. When sept 05 comes around, we will have been together about 2 1/2 years and want to get married. I have visited WDW yearly since 1999, only missing 2003 due to the divorce. I took my fiance to WDW this past sept 2004 and we decided to get married there if we can, as that has always been my dream to do so. Now we need help to afford it.

What is the lowest price we can get married there for?? It would be an itimate wedding, as the only people coming would be my 2 children and only 1 of hers, along with my parents, for a total of about 5 guests plus the 2 of us.

We know that going to WDW is not cheap as it is with kids, let alone to try and do a wedding on a budget. I am currently a premium annual passholder, with my pass expiring on sept 11, 2005. We actually have a left over unused 10 day pass as well from last trip that we can use for her. Instead of buying a package with the room and tix, i figure i can get the rooms cheaper from AP codes or specials on the board here. Then we need kids tix, airfare-about 200 each($1000) total for us 5, food, spending money and money for the wedding, not including the dress she needs which we did find for about 300 we need to buy.

What is the best and lowest cost we can do this for??? We were planning on using our tax refunds, but think we may be short now unless we are forgetting something. Is there something we can do to get help? What is the actual lowest price we can do this for?

thanks for any help or advise.

Art & Lisa

 

[DVCBum]

I suggest you call Disney Wedding and Honeymoons. They will do whatever you want for whatever you can spend. We had our wedding at the wedding chapel in October of 1998. It was supposed to be outside but the heat was so bad, that morning we changed it to be inside the chapel. After the ceremony, which was beautiful, intimate and inspiring, we had a champagne and cake reception on a balcony on the GF looking out over the lake. Afterward we had dinner in a private room at the California Grill. We had about 25 people.

We didn't want to have a big reception as it too was the second marriage for both of us. Instead, we made a weekend out of it. The night before we had dinner at the Flying Fish and the day after the wedding we took everyone to breakfast at Cape May and then went to Blizzard Beach. Everyone had left WDW by Sunday night and then we started our honeymoon.

We were amazed at how Disney was willing to accomodate almost any budget for the ceremony. We expected them to only get excited about big affairs with a couple of hundred of guests, but they really are there to do whatever you want. They made the experience very pleasant. And we only planned our wedding about six weeks before the wedding.

In terms of accommodations and food, if you are a DVC member, its easy. Get a two bedroom at OKW or a 3 bedroom grand villa and cook most of your meals "at home." If you are not a member, try to rent points from a member or you can reserve the rooms for cash. When you are paying cash, they seem very expensive, but the money you can save on food may compensate.

Disney photography is also very reasonable as long as you don't want to have you photo taken in front of Cindy's castle with no one else in the picture.

The best thing about a Disney wedding is that it is care free. I didn't worry about anything and everything was perfect. Even if it wasn't, I wouldn't have cared.

Best of luck and happy planning!

 

[PryncessChrysty]

Congratulations on your wedding!

The intimate package is $3500 and includes the following:

4 night stay at a moderate resort
2 ultimate park hopper passes
wedding location of your choice (WP costs more)
wedding cake
Mickey & Minnie cake topper
Limo for 4 hours
violinist
bridal bouquet
groom's boutonniere
Officiant
2 hours of Disney photography (you only receive 12 prints, any more or proofs is extra $)
Disney's FTW certificate
1 bottle of champagne
10 people are able to attend (includes bride & groom) - can have up to a total of 15, but costs $100 per person over the number of 10.
You will also be provided with an event manager to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Since you have a PAP, you could probably get a good rate on a room yourself and you wouldn't need the UPH, so you could also do that they call a wedding add-on. The cost for that is $2350 and includes everything above except the 4 night stay and UPH's. In order to do this, you'd have to make a reservation at any of the Disney hotels for a min. of 4 nights (you can even book your stay at one of the value resorts), pay the deposit, then call Disney's FTW with your confirmation number to be able to book your wedding. This is the absolute lowest price that you can pay for a wedding at WDW (seems like a really good deal to me!)

You should check out the Disney Weddings website. They've just recently revamped their site and is really helpful now.

Best of luck planning!

 

[grover]

Your other option is to get married at the Swan/Dolphin..they do amazing weddings for a fraction of the cost of what disney weddings would charge you and yep--you have all the magic
www.justmarry.com has all the info on swan weddings You could do a small intimate for under 2000.00
Vanessa

 

[Firefly Girl]

If you book your rooms seperately the cost for an Intimate add-on at WDW is much cheaper. It's a great option for those with APs and who are able to get those great rates, the only requirement is that you stay on property for 4 nights.