Where to get pricing on a Disney wedding

[blessedby3]

My dd21 has one goal in life...to get married at Disney. We are wanting to check into things....costs, etc. and Im not sure where to start. Our budget is tight, so Im not even sure if it is really doable. Just thought I would check out a few things if anyone can point me in the right direction or share their experience. Thanks

 

[holden]

I haven't planned a Disney wedding, but my cousin did. It was her second marriage, so they kept it simple. The ceremony was at either the Swan or Dolphin (can't remember which). I'm sure it's cheaper to have it there than than any of the higher end Disney hotels. The reception was at Fulton's Crab House in Downtown Disney. They provided shuttle buses to trasport the guests to the reception. It was a beautiful wedding. The staff at Fulton's even kept the little kids busy by giving them a huge roll of paper (the kind they put on tables in some restaurants) and crayons. The DJ was great too - he included some Disney songs in the dance mix.

I know she booked it through Disney's wedding planning department. I'm sure if you give them a budget, they will tell you what they can do within that range. I bet they accomodate almost any budget. You could even do a morning wedding with a brunch reception instead of dinner. That would save some $.

I also heard today that Costco is getting in on the wedding business. They showed some dresses on Good Morning America today and they were beautiful! That might be worth checking out too!

Good luck!

 

[Thumperr]

On http://disneyweddings.disney.go.com/weddings you can find basic prizes.
I don't think it's doable on a tight budget to be honest.

 

[Crystal824]

They are fairly expensive. I looked into a Disney wedding very briefly when we were planning our wedding. There is a webpage with information on Disney wedding.

http://disneyweddings.disney.go.com

 

[cseca]

You can go to the disneyweddings site or you can lurk on the Disney wedding/honeymoon board here as well.
There are piles of options but unfortunately they are pretty strict on rules on vendors and such.

http://www.disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55

There are also unofficial sites that previous disney wedding brides maintained to give you some ideas on what they picked.
http://disneyfairytales.com/about/
http://disneytravelbabble.com/category/disney-weddings/ (this particular one is run by Lurkyloo, one of the expert in disney weddings/events on disboards, including how to order cakes from disney... She's also the author of passporter disney weddings book. She's great!)

 

[mrsklamc]

I think I remember pricing starting at 3k although somewhere I read that you could bring in an officiant and get married anywhere you want! No guarantees your party won't get crashed that way I guess.

 

[lastminutemom]

That is not true -- in fact nothing could be further from the truth. If you do this and are caught, you will be escorted off Disney property.

 

[mrsklamc]

That is not true -- in fact nothing could be further from the truth. If you do this and are caught, you will be escorted off Disney property.

Oh! I read that somewhere...I'm glad you were here to correct that inaccurate info!

 

[cjnix29]

We got married there, albeit 11 years ago. But there are huge weddings, and then small weddings. Honestly, when we did it, we had 10 guests plus us. Had it at the wedding chapel, then had a cake and champagne reception at the Grand Floridian. Back then, we could bring in our own photographer, and we had to find the officiant. I found a photographer online, and Disney gave us a list of ministers that performed ceremonies there. We picked one. The rest was taken care of. I had to fill out some forms about flower color, music, and cake flavor. It was fantastic, and I am so glad we did it that way. They were great! It was simply magical, and I hope your daughter is able to do it. We went back for our 10 year anniversary, and they let us walk around the wedding pavilion, and we took pictures with our son. It was great.

 

[pam95]

DH and I got married at Sunset Pointe at the Polynesian in 1999. This was obviously a number of years ago, so I am sure that the pricing has changed. We did the intimate wedding package. It was $2000 to add the package onto our 7 day land/sea honeymoon package. Keep in mind that this was in 1999, so I am sure the pricing has changed since then. With the intimate package, I believe that we were allowed up to 5 guests. We chose not to have any guests, so I'm not positive on that number. The price included the bridal bouquet, the cake, and a musician (we went with the violinist - can't remember what our other options were). We were able to specify songs for the violinist to play, flowers for the bouquet, etc. Disney provided champagne for the toast. We paid a little extra to have Mickey and Minnie attend our wedding. They wore wedding outfits. Disney sent us a list of recommended photographers and officiants. The photographer that we chose had a camera with a special lens and was able to get the castle in the background of some of our pictures. We had to pay the photographer and officiant separately. They weren't included in the package. I also remember having someone come to our hotel room to do my hair, nails and make-up before our wedding. That was also extra. Disney also provided us with the name/address of a local tuxedo place for DH to rent his tux. Some of the details are a little fuzzy since it was so long ago, but I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have, see if I still have some of our paperwork somewhere with more details, etc.

 

[KT27]

We did it in 2006! 35 guests. I highly recommend picking an off day like Monday and a morning wedding (you will save a bunch) - then we had a brunch reception at Ariel's. We took a break then later on had a dessert party at Illuminations. A PERFECT DAY!

 

[B714210]

My DD was married on the Wedding Pavilion Beach in Oct. '09. Yep, it was expensive, and yep, it was worth it. Start spending time in the disboards wedding section. Lurkyloo has a tremendous amount of great info, as well as others. They have many links on costs, as well as ideas to save $. Best wishes to you!

 

[hulagirl87]

DH and I got married at the Yacht Club gazebo in 2007! It was just the 2 of us (best day! ) and then we honeymooned there and did the cruise as well. I know that the wedding itself was $2950. It was I believe the Intimate package, before they changed all the names over. I think it's the Escape wedding now. And then there were all the additional costs. Someone to come do my hair (I did my own makeup), the cost for the marriage license by mail, the cost to have someone come to the room to steam my wedding dress, the cost to have someone come to pick up my dress after the wedding to clean it, preserve it and send it back to my house (since we were going on the cruise I didn't want to have to lug it on the ship ), the cost of the officiant (Reverend Miller!! the best!) the cost of the outside photographer... it definitely went up in price, I'll say that.

Here is a link to the Disney wedding prices

http://disneyweddings.disney.go.com/weddings/florida/pricing/detail

Hope it helps!

It was amazing to have gotten married down there. My mom paid for it for us and I will forever be grateful to her for that. She is the best Best to your DD

 

[weezyree]

Our DD is wanting to get married and suggested Disney. I had visited the website a few months back when prompting my husband to a wedding vow renewal. IT IS expensive. We opted to wait until a special milestone anniversary and do something small and intimate. Just the two of us.

As for my daughter, unless she put off nuptials for 3 years or more, it's not in our budget and it's not feasable for them to only invite 20 people or so to the wedding.

Plus, the out-of-town guests won't even go to Disney to vacation, what would make us think they would come for the wedding. It would break her heart if that were to happen. I suggested we send out 'would you attend the wedding if it were at Disney' letters just to see the response!!!!

The budget is the biggest issue. For some of the extended family who have lost jobs and such, they won't vacation there or could even afford a budget room plus food and then who would go and not do the parks??

I would love nothing more, but I wouldn't see it working for us!!

 

[pezaddict231]

I would check out the Wedding and Honeymoon Forum. There is a lot of information there and brides will even post their budgets. You can get a good idea of what things cost. The cheapest Disney package would be the Escape, you are limited in the number or guests you can have. For Wishes weddings you just have to meet certain minimums (based on day/time) but many brides have stayed very close to that minimum. Disney is very good about trying to stay within your budget and suggesting things to do to save money. Carrie (lurkyloo) has also written a book on Disney weddings that gives all the information you could possibly want. You can download the ebook from passporter or now you can get it in print too.

We got married at Disney this past August, and it was really amazing. It was not small budget, but we got a lot for our money, much more than we would have gotten at home. DH was concerned about people not coming, but we had 66 guests, and everyone that was important to us was there. Many of these people would not have planned a Disney trip on their own, but we are still hearing about how much fun everyone had, not only at the wedding but at Disney.

Good luck in your planning!

 

[RangerPooh]

The word "budget" means something different to everyone. For some it's $2k, for others it's $15k; so it would be helpful to know what your budget is in order to get the correct answer. When we got married at DLR in 2003 the minimum expenditure was $5k for a weekday midday wedding. That was affordable to us, but nothing was included in the price. It was the meal costs, floral, locations fees that went towards meeting the minimum expenditure. Then there was the outside expense of the photographer. At WDW there are two kinds of packages for weddings. The Escape (which is designed to be an intimate affair with a limited number of guests), and the Wishes where you customize your wedding and have many options available to you.

Within the Escape weddings the basic package is ~$4500 and includes the ceremony, cake cutting, champagne/cider toast, 3 hours of limo, bridal bouquet and bout, basic photo package through Disney, and a few other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. You have to provide your own officiant which adds to the expense. Depending on the location the number of guests can be 8 or 18. You can also add a reception for a few thousand more, as well as upgrade the ceremony location to Norway inside EPCOT. Temporarily here is the Memories Collection which is priced at $1991. It is bare bones in terms of location, 4 people max, a bridal bouquet is provides, 3 hours limo, and a couple of pictures. You provide the officiant.

The Wishes weddings start at either $10 or $12k (I have read different things) depending on the day of the week and start time. Prices increase based on the location, number of guests, amenities, day of the week and time, etc.

I could be off on the costs but Disney Weddings website does have the information on minimum expenditure, and the Disboards Weddings section is a great resource to find out what weddings are costing others. Some brides ave posted their budgets to allow others to see how you can do it while remaining close to the minimums.

HTH.

 

[leight]

I was married 7 yrs ago at the Swan. We went thru Just Marry- they still handle their weddings, I believe. Originally we wanted an intimate add-on wedding when we were vacationing at WDW with the kids, our best friends and their kids. But family members started inviting themselves and suddenly we were over the maximum of 13 people and didn't want to pay for a full wedding. So we opted for the Swan wedding. We were married on a Monday in the late morning and had a nice luncheon at the italian restaurant. It was a second wedding for us both so we weren't concerned about a large formal event. We found our own officiant and photographer thru recommendations on the dis wedding boards. It was perfect for us and the total cost of the wedding itself was less than 2k-we had 28 people total.

We rented a large 8 bedroom, 8 bath pool home 5 minutes from WDW and many of the family stayed there with us(9 adults and 5 kids). It was a great option for us since our parents didn't want to go to the parks, but had the availability of relaxing at their own pool and inviting local friends to lunch or dinner. Although we didn't have a real honeymoon as we were surounded by family for the whole week - we loved it. The whole trip including airfare, wedding, car rental, food, 7 day park hoppers for the 4 of us was about $5500. It was more than we originally planned to spend but its a memory that my girls will always have and I think it was well worth it.

 

[PrincessSuzanne]

There is currently a Memories package that is $1991, but I believe it is very limited on alot of things. Check out the Wedding section on this board for all the options.

Suzanne

 

[blessedby3]

Wow, thanks for all the replies on this thread! I am going to check out the links and the Wedding board....I didnt even know there was one! As far as budget, we havent worked one up yet...just trying to find out what the minimum cost of things would be as we can figure prices will only go up We are getting ready to put dd through her final year of private college next fall and have 3 other kiddos behind her, so Im not sure if this will be possible or not...just wanted to check into the options Thanks for all the direction on this I will come back after checking everything out!

 

[Disney845]

I would love nothing more, but I wouldn't see it working for us!!

It looks like from your sig that you are a military family. SOG has weddings (they have a very pretty, large gazebo where an outdoor ceremony can take place). This is a very economical way to have a wedding "near" Disney. It does not go through the DFTW dept though, you need to contact SOG directly.

The ceremony was at either the Swan or Dolphin... The reception was at Fulton's Crab House in Downtown Disney.... I know she booked it through Disney's wedding planning department.

No offense meant, but this is incorrect. Swan and Dolphin weddings are not booked through DFTW dept, nor would be private events that take place at Fultons. Despite being on Disney property both the hotels and that restaurant in DTD are owned by outside companies. The events would "technically" be booked directly through the sites themselves (in the case of the S&D most people are referred to Just Marry!, although some have booked without using them), and in the case of Fulton's the restaurant works directly with the individual booking private space (or if you hired an outside planner they could coordinate this for you). Again, not trying to be argumentative, just want to make sure people know who to contact for info!