Small Budget

[GF Girl]

Need a little help.
I will be on a small budget for my wedding.
Has anyone had their ceremony at the Wedding Pavillion and then just had an intimate dinner party for 25-50 people? I was thinking something in Citrico's or outside at the GF.
If anyone had done this, can you let me know. I was wondering about how much something like that would cost.
It's been my dream to have my wedding at the GF ever since I saw it for the first time.

 

[melmel]

Disney's Intimate wedding package is for up to 20 people anything over that and you have to make the custom minimums of 10,000 for a weekday wedding, they go up from there. The intimate add-on where you book at least 4 nights on-site room yourself ahead of time is around 2,300 and includes photographer, limo, officiant, violinist and champange and cake reception.
Most intimate brides then go and have dinner with their guests which the cost would vary depending on the resturant.

Hope this helps.

Melissa

 

[GF Girl]

That does help. I was thinking it would be a ridiculous amount of money.
I was hoping to get away with 10,000 for the entire event. Maybe we can keep the total amount of people to a bare minimum. Don't really anticipate everyone heading down to WDW for us. Probably only our closest family and friends. So maybe just maybe, we can do this.

If anyone else has done something similar to this, would be so helpful to get your input.

 

[MEME]

This site is very informative and if you sign up for the wish book, you can get an estimate of what your Disney Fairytale Wedding would cost.

melmel was correct with the pricing. I'm doing a Deluxe Intimate Wedding package for 6 nights @ $3,800+.

However, since you are interested in the Wedding Pavilion, you could upgrade to a Premium Intimate Wedding package which includes your ceremony at the wedding pavilion and your cake & champagne reception at Disney's Grand Floridan Resort and Spa. All packages include:

• standard 4 night accomodations
• Magic Your Way Hooper tickets for the length of your stay
• On-site wedding coordinator
• Officiant
• Fresh flower bouquet and boutonniere for Groom
• Wedding reception with two-tier cake, Disney cake topper and champagne
• Organist and/or violinist (depending up venue site and package)
• 4 hour limo charter for you and your guests
• Disney Wedding website
• 2 hour photography session, including a folio of 12 pictures to keep
• a wedding keepsake
• and a Unique Wedding Certificate signed by MM & MM

The intimates now allows you to bring up to 20 guests for free previously it was $100.00 per person up to 13. Anyway, my suggestion would be to do the premium package, which starts at about $4,300.00. Since you were expecting to spend more, I would extend my stay to 6 or more nights and make group reservations for a nice dinner. I heard on these boards that some of the finer restaurants will even customize a dinner menu for you and guests. You can also have your wedding cake delivered to any restaurant, to be served after dinner.

Visit the Disney Fairytale Weddings site to get more info! Congratulations and good luck!

 

[melmel]

Another thing to remember is that destination weddings tend to have a low turn out, UNLESS they're Disney weddings. You mention your getting married at Disney and suddenly EVERYONE wants to go. So betting most wont go may not be the best idea, you may want to take an informal poll to get a true idea. You don't need to be all set to go and then find out you've got an extra 20-30 people planning to show up.

Melissa

 

[Moonbeams]

Beware of the turnout! Translated to mean, DO NOT INVITE those who you don't really want to invite, but that you think will never actually come. They'll find a way!

While it is true that most destination weddings typically have lower turnouts, the minute they hear Disney, it's almost as bad as if you'd won the lottery or something and they start calling up wanting to borrow money! LOL!

Just personally, I remember having been called selfish, ungrateful and several other things that I'll not repeat by people I had to say no to. After setting a maximum of 70 people for the wedding so that we could go more on the events and less on the head count costs while still staying inside of our set budget, I suddenly had to start turning away about as many people (if not more) than I invited to my first DFTW as soon as word got out about it being at Disney. Heck, I heard from distant cousins and the like that I'd not seen in over 20 years!

Just be prepared for some tough decisions and hurt feelings when push comes to shove and you make your cuts, but remember, this is YOUR wedding, not theirs. Beware of the distant relatives that never cared before suddenly showing up when they suddenly think they can get a discount on a WDW trip by coming to YOUR wedding. It is actually pretty sad!

Best of luck in pairing your list!

Berry

 

[marn913]

Our total Disney FTW bill came to about $11,000. This is a description of what we got: We had about 35 people at our wedding. The wedding was at the WP with minimal floral, but we splurged for the Rolls Royce. We also provided motor coach transportation to the wedding and to the reception. We had a full reception at the Living Seas that included fruit plates during cocktail hour, a nice plated meal, premium open bar for the entire event (billed on consumption), wedding cake and a caricture artist for 4 hours. The total above includes everything except the officiant, dress steaming and photography. We had Randy Chapman do photography. Altoghter we spent around $15,000 for everything, and we definitely could have cut back to make it cheaper - but for $10,000 you can have a spectacular custom wedding!

Marne